Stressors including regional climate change, economic development effects upon land use and an increasing demand for food production have resulted in significant impacts on the dryland ecosystems in the East Asia (DEA) region. Ecosystem services, such as its provisional services in providing forage for grazing as well as its functional services in regulating water and carbon fluxes, have been significantly altered over the past three decades. Conversely, changes in the landscape, particularly land cover types, have also been blamed for intensified climatic events such as dust storms and severe and frequent droughts within the region. The interactive nature of climate, ecosystems and society is complex and not fully understood, making it difficult, if not impossible, to develop effective adaptation strategies for the region. A special synthesis workshop on 'Dryland Ecosystems in East Asia: State, Changes, Knowledge Gaps, and Future' was held from 18-20 July 2011 in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China, with the aim of identifying knowledge gaps, quantifying impacts and developing a future research agenda for the region. The specific objectives of this workshop were to answer some key socio-environmental questions, including the following. (1) What do we know about the drylands in DEA? (2) What are the knowledge gaps? (3) What are the solutions to these issues? This paper provides a synthesis of the workshop consensus and findings on the state of knowledge and challenges in addressing these science issues for the DEA region.

Botanical pesticides are one of the sources of third-generation pesticides, which have received much attention at home and abroad in recent years due to their degradable and pollution-free advantages in nature. This article explored a concise approach toward synthesizing a series of novel L-pyroglutamic acid analogues from L-hydroxyproline. Furthermore, bioassay studies of these sulfonyl ester derivatives against Pyricularia oryzae, Fusarium graminearum, Alternaria brassicae, Valsa mali, and Alternaria alternariae showed moderate antifungal activity. For instance, C08a and C08l provide potential lead agents for controlling Fusarium graminearum because of their inhibitory activity.

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The InGaAs/InAlAs/InP high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures with lattice-matched and pseudomorphic channels are grown by gas source molecular beam epitaxy. Effects of Si 𝛿-doping condition and growth interruption on the electrical properties are investigated by changing the Si-cell temperature, doping time and growth process. It is found that the optimal Si 𝛿-doping concentration (𝑁 d ) is about 5.0 × 10 12 cm −2 and the use of growth interruption has a dramatic effect on the improvement of electrical properties. The material structure and crystal interface are analyzed by secondary ion mass spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. An InGaAs/InAlAs/InP HEMT device with a gate length of 100 nm is fabricated. The device presents good pinch-off characteristics and the kink-effect of the device is trifling. In addition, the device exhibits 𝑓T = 249 GHz and 𝑓max > 400 GHz.