The spatiotemporal change and trend of annual potential evapotranspiration (PET) over the Loess Plateau of Chinafrom 2011 to 2100 areassessed in this work. PET iscalculated using the Hargreaves modelwith monthly mean, maximum, and minimum temperaturesand a 1kmspatial resolution, which are generated using the Delta downscaling methodand general circulation models(GCMs)with four representative concentration pathway(RCP)scenarios.ThePET trend is detected via Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope estimatortests.The following results are drawn: (1) the Delta downscaling method shows a favorable performance in detecting GCM monthly temperaturesbased on the mean absolute error and regression analysis between downscaled data and independent surface observations.Among the 28 GCMs, the NorESM1-M and GISS-E2-R modelsshow the best performancein reproducing the monthly mean/maximum and minimum temperaturesover the Loess Plateau, respectively; (2)the average annual PET over this region will increase by 12.7% to 23.9% from 1961-1990 to the end of this century(2071-2100).However, these incrementsshow strong spatial variations; (3)the annual PET during the 2011-2100 period at each grid of the region demonstrates a significantly increasing trend under each RCP scenario, while RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5have average magnitudes of trend of10.4 mm/10yr,17.7mm/10yr,21 mm/10yr,and 29.7 mm/10yr, respectively;(4) the annual PET with significanttrendsduring the other three periods (2011-2040, 2041-2070, and 2071-2100)present various spatial distributionsin their magnitudes of trendunder the aforementioned RCP scenarios. RCP2.6 showed a significant decreaseduring 2041-2070 and 2071-2100, although such trends are only observed at 0.3% and 1.2% of the Loess Plateau, respectively; and (5)the spatial results providesomeinformation, such as locations and area ratios, which are valuablein assessingfuture PET changes and trends.These spatiotemporal results represent the PET changesand trends in detail and provide insights for developing flexible adaptation and mitigation strategies to 3 combat the effects of global warmingin this region.

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Sheep is an important livestock in the world providing meat, milk and wool for human beings. With increasing human population, the worldwide needs of production of sheep have elevated. To meet the needs, the assistant reproductive technology including ovine in vitro embryo production (ovine IVP) is urgently required to enhance the effective production of sheep in the world. To learn the status of ovine IVP, we collected some publications related to ovine IVP through PubMed and analyzed the progress in ovine IVP made in the last five years (2012–2017). We made comparisons of these data and found that the recent advances in ovine IVP has been made slowly comparable to that of ovine IVP two decades ago. Therefore, we suggested two strategies or approaches to tackle the main problems in ovine IVP and expect that the efficiency of ovine IVP could be improved significantly when the approaches would be implemented.

A Morris water maze (MWM) experiment forces experimental animals to swim and learn to find a platform hidden in the water. It is widely used in scientific research to assess the learning and memory of animals. Due to the extensive use of the MWM test, visual experimental protocols are essential for researchers. This manuscript uses the latest studies to introduce the protocol of the MWM test. Alzheimer' Disease (AD) is characterized by a progressive loss of memory and cognitive function. An alternative and complementary treatment used for AD is Manual Acupuncture (MA). To assess the learning and memory ability of AD model mice, the MWM test was conducted. The visible platform trial, hidden platform trial, probe trial, and reversal trial of MWM were used to evaluate spatial learning and memory ability. In the visible platform trial, the swimming speed and escape latency of mice in different groups was not significantly different. In the hidden platform and reversal trials, the AD group showed a long escape latency. The escape latency decreased significantly after the MA treatment. Low platform crossover number and the proportion of time in the SW quadrant in the probe trial increased after the MA treatment (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01). The results of the MWM tests suggest that MA can effectively improve the spatial learning and memory abilities of AD model mice. Rigorous experimental operations provided assurance of the reliability of the results. Video Link The video component of this article can be found at https://www.jove.com/video/60055/ 1. Preparation 1. Purchase 30 male SAMP8 mice and 10 male SAMR1 mice (age: 8 months). 2. House the mice individually in individual ventilation cages at a temperature of 24 ±2 °C and a 12 h dark/light cycle.