Rapid urbanization leads to degradations upon water quality via eutrophication and pollution, but there are a lack of studies on patterns of water quality change to urbanization by level or process. China has achieved the most rapid urbanization in the world within the past three decades, and its urban development is diverse at level. Nine towns and cities at various development levels along the historic Grand Canal (approximately 1500 years old) were selected to reveal direct linkages between surface water quality and extent of urbanization. Surface water quality in the urban sections of the Grand Canal was impaired by both eutrophic nitrogen and phosphorus and metals. Although metals mostly remained at concentrations permissible to the Chinese National Environmental Standard for Surface Water Quality (GB3838-2002), the concentrations of metals in most urban canal water might impose an unacceptable effect on aquatic communities according to the Criterion Continuous Concentration from the National Recommended Water Quality Criteria for Priority Toxic Pollutants (US EPA 2006). The loadings of metals in the urban canal were found relating to local industrial activities. The level of urbanization, in this study, was significantly related to water quality parameters in a descending order of electrical conductivity > nutrients > metals. This study suggests that significant mitigation strategies are required for the Grand Canal of China for a sustainable urbanization goal.

Microstructures of potassium hexatitanate (K2Ti6O13) whiskers prepared by calcination of KF and TiO2 mixture were studied through high-resolution electron microscopy. The rod axis of a K2Ti6O13 whisker is along the [010] direction. These whiskers normally have a lamellar structure in their longitudinal direction, and adjacent lamellae usually have the same crystallographic orientation. Each lamella might be further divided into several fine layers with a width on the nanometer scale in the same crystallographic orientation. The whisker can be split in the longitudinal direction along either the boundary between two lamellae or the weak binding crystal plane, such as (100) and (201) planes. The mechanisms for the formation of lamella and layer structures and for the splitting of whiskers are discussed.

By means of two different parametrizations of quark energy loss and the nuclear parton distributions determined only with lepton-nuclear deep inelastic scattering experimental data, a leading order phenomenological analysis is performed on the nuclear Drell-Yan differential cross section ratios for E772 experimental data. Uncertainty due to the quark energy loss effect is quantified in determining the nuclear sea quark distribution by using nuclear Drell-Yan data. It is found that the quark energy loss effect on nuclear Drell-Yan cross section ratios becomes greater with the increase of quark momentum fraction in the target nuclei. The uncertainty from the quark energy loss becomes bigger as the nucleus A becomes heavier. The Drell-Yan data on proton incident middle and heavy nuclei versus deuterium would result in an overestimate for nuclear modification in the sea quark distribution with neglecting the quark energy loss.