Ten new phenylpropanoid glucosides, tadehaginosides A-J (1-10), and the known compound tadehaginoside (11) were obtained from Tadehagi triquetrum. These phenylpropanoid glucosides were structurally characterized through extensive physical and chemical analyses. Compounds 1 and 2 represent the first set of dimeric derivatives of tadehaginoside with an unusual bicyclo[2.2.2]octene skeleton, whereas compounds 3 and 4 contain a unique cyclobutane basic core in their carbon scaffolds. The effects of these compounds on glucose uptake in C2C12 myotubes were evaluated. Compounds 3-11, particularly 4, significantly increased the basal and insulin-elicited glucose uptake. The results from molecular docking, luciferase analyses, and ELISA indicated that the increased glucose uptake may be due to increases in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) activity and glucose transporter-4 (GLUT-4) expression. These results indicate that the isolated phenylpropanoid glucosides, particularly compound 4, have the potential to be developed into antidiabetic compounds.

Studies on urban climatic mapping and local climate zones are urgently needed due to rapid urbanisation in China, to identify and predict serious air pollution problems and occurrence of urban heat islands, for sustainable urban planning. The study of wind environment, especially measurements of wind data on the urban scale, is important to the climate mapping and investigation of air pollution and heat island events. In this paper, we introduce a measurement method for the urban-scale wind environment, which combines measurements conducted at the stationary reference station with those at portable/mobile stations. Data collected from portable/mobile stations were normalised with respect to wind data measured at the stationary reference station. Three criteria for the selection of the stationary reference station were compared according to the land-use and distance to the portable/mobile stations. The background meteorological station was selected as the stationary reference station for data normalisation and was found to be the most appropriate. The normalisation method for wind data was used to analyse the measured wind data at portable/mobile stations. Clear differences were observed between measured and normalised average wind speeds. The normalised wind was used in the urban wind environment mapping. The objective of the mapping is to assess the ventilation potential of the urban canopy layer, to help the urban climate mapping and to inform future sustainable urban planning.

No abstract

Socioeconomic drought is one of the most frequent natural disasters in the world and is closely related to human life. The main cause of socioeconomic drought is the contradiction between water supply and demand; hence, as local reservoirs play a major role in improving water supply and coping with extreme climate, it is reasonable to estimate socioeconomic drought based on reservoir operations. The multivariate standardized reliability and resilience index (MSRRI) is utilized to evaluate socioeconomic drought, considering the characteristics of reservoir management and storage water resources. Therefore, with the MSRRI, this study takes the Heihe River Basin in northwestern China, which is controlled by two reservoirs dominating the upstream and downstream regions, as a case study to reveal the evolution characteristics of socioeconomic drought in the basin and the external impacts of climate variability. The results showed that (1) the drought intensity in the up-midstream region is stronger than that in the downstream region; in view of the hysteresis in the downstream region, the occurrence of drought in the up-midstream region could be regarded as an early warning to implement preventive measures in the downstream region; (2) an increasing trend in socioeconomic drought throughout the basin exists on both monthly and annual scales, which indicates that the increasing possibility of drought should be effectively addressed; (3) cross wavelet analysis indicated that the large-scale climate indices contribute to the variations in the socioeconomic droughts throughout the basin, indicating that climate variability may provide a reference for managers to deal with socioeconomic drought in the HRB.

We address solutions to current challenges in crowdsensing and provide a replicable framework for future groundwater monitoring studies.