Optimization of key land surface albedo parameter reduces wet bias of climate modeling for the Tibetan Plateau

Science China Press

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Fig. 1. (a)The optimized “soil color” map for the Tibetan Plateau, (b) Comparison of the interannual variations of the surface albedo for remote sensing product, WRF-CTL, and WRF-OPT simulations over the Tibetan Plateau. WRF-CTL represents the control simulation with the default soil color in the WRF model, WRF-OPT is the simulation with the optimized soil color parameter

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Credit: ©Science China Press

As the world’s highest plateau, the Tibetan Plateau receives intensified summer solar radiation due to its high altitude and low air density. This creates low-pressure systems and cyclonic circulation in the lower atmosphere, driving monsoon water vapor into the plateau’s interior from its eastern and southern boundaries. Accurate representation of land surface heat source is crucial for reliable climate predictions.

Surface albedo, a key factor in land surface energy balance, is typically parameterized in climate models using a “soil color” parameter, where darker soils (higher values) correspond to lower albedo, and vice versa. However, uncalibrated global “soil color” parameter in the climate models have led to underestimated summer surface albedo on the Tibetan Plateau, contributing to overestimated precipitation.

Researchers from the National Institute of Natural Hazards (Ministry of Emergency Management of China), Southwest University, Tsinghua University, and Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (Chinese Academy of Sciences), introduced an optimized “soil color” map into the Weather Research and Forecasting model, enhancing land surface albedo and temperature simulations in the plateau over a 10-year period from 2011 to 2020. This weakened land-atmosphere interactions, reducing sensible heat and evapotranspiration. Such adjustments increased lower tropospheric geopotential height, suppressing moisture flux convergence, and limiting water vapor flow into the plateau. Consequently, the wet bias in precipitation estimates dropped from 52% to 36% as compared to the IMERG precipitation product, with improved accuracy over 66% of rain gauge stations. The study further revealed that the reduction in moisture flux convergence contributes about 77% to the summer precipitation decrease.

The study demonstrates that underestimating surface albedo partially contributes to the wet bias in precipitation simulation and highlights the potential of optimizing land surface parameters using cost-effective satellite remote sensing to improve climate modeling.

 

See the article:

Ma X, Zhao L, Sun J, Chen J, Wang Y, Zhou J, Liu J, Lu H, Yang K. 2025. Optimization of key land surface albedo parameter reduces wet bias of climate modeling for the Tibetan Plateau. Science China Earth Sciences, 68(8): 2653-2662, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-025-1635-0

 

Fig. 2. Spatial distribution of the differences in (a) sensible and (b) latent heat fluxes between two experiments (WRF-OPT minus WRF-CTL; W m-2) over 10 summer seasons from 2011 to 2020. Dots denote areas where the difference are statistically significant (t-test with a 90% confidence interval); Spatial distribution of the difference in (c) geopotential height (gpm) at 500-hPa (shaded) and wind (m s-1; vectors), and (d) vertical integral of water vapor flux (kg m-1 s-1)

 

Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of the difference in (a) precipitation and (b) moisture flux convergence between two experiments (WRF-OPT minus WRF-CTL; mm d-1) over 10 summer seasons from 2011 to 2020. Dots denote areas where the difference are statistically significant (t-test with a 90% confidence interval). (c) Comparison of the interannual variations of the summer precipitation for the IMERG precipitation product, WRF-CTL, and WRF-OPT simulations over the Tibetan Plateau hinterland (30°N–35°N, 90°E–95°E).

Credit

©Science China Press

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Journal

Science China Earth Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s11430-025-1635-0 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

 

Samsung, Midea, Huawei, Canon and Panasonic among the highest-ranking companies on IFI’s Global 250 patent ranking; Japan notches highest number of companies

45 U.S. companies on list including IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm and RTX; Chinese companies dominate the Top 10 and claim the highest number of active inventions globally

Digital Science

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Chinese companies hold the strongest foothold in global innovation, commanding seven of the Top 10 positions in the 2025 IFI Global 250 ranking. Forty-five U.S. companies have made the list.

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Credit: Digital Science / IFI CLAIMS Patent Services.

Chinese companies held the strongest foothold in global innovation, commanding seven of the Top 10 positions in the 2025 IFI Global 250, published today.

State Grid Corp of China controls the highest number of active families around the globe, with Chinese Academy of Sciences and Samsung coming in second and third, respectively. Two Japanese companies appear high on the list: Canon and Panasonic.

Although not one earned a Top 10 spot, 45 U.S. companies made the list placing America third behind Japan and China. U.S. firms on the list include IBM, at 20, with more than 38,000 active patent families, followed by Microsoft (32), Qualcomm (34) and RTX (37). Japanese companies hold 75 spots on the list, or 30%. China is close behind at 29% or 72 companies, which comprises the most inventions held by a single country.

“Quantifying active patent families at the highest level of ownership gives investors a better sense of the overall patent portfolio and the company’s current technological standing,” says Lily Iacurci, Head of Marketing at IFI. “The number of active patent families sheds more light on ‘intangible assets’ than the company balance sheet currently provides.”

These are some of the conclusions from the latest analysis by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, the world’s most trusted patent data provider. This analysis can be found in IFI’s Global 250 patent ranking. An overview of the Global Trends and Insights also appears on IFI’s website.

The 2025 Global 250 is a measurement of total active patent families owned by a company as of July. “Family” signifies a single invention; it is a term used to represent a set of related patent documents held around the world to protect one advancement. To compile this data, IFI looks collectively at 106 patent jurisdictions globally.

IFI’s Global 250 captures a snapshot of patents at a particular point in time to showcase the collection of active inventions in a corporate portfolio. IFI includes only active patents (patents that have not yet expired) and utilizes its proprietary Names Service and Ultimate Owner methodology of mapping patent-holding organizations to corporate owners and parent companies. As a result, the Global 250 consolidates patents from all subsidiaries of an organization into a single parent entry.

Patent activity provides valuable insight into companies’ R&D activity for researchers, analysts, and investors. Often the true value of a company lies with its intellectual properties, so examining patent assets is a key tool in gauging the intangible assets of publicly traded companies. It speaks to productivity, technological efficiency, and IP strategy, and frequently reveals technology trends and the competitive landscape within various industries.
 

About IFI CLAIMS Patent Services

IFI CLAIMS Patent Services uses a proprietary data architecture to produce the industry’s most accurate global patent database. The CLAIMS Direct platform allows for the easy integration of applications, other data sets, and analysis software. IFI CLAIMS is part of Digital Science, a digital research technology company based in London. For more information, visit www.ificlaims.com and follow IFI on LinkedIn.

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands—Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, metaphacts, OntoChem, Overleaf, ReadCube, Symplectic, and Writefull—we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow Digital Science on Bluesky, on X, or on LinkedIn.

 

Global inequality in adolescent mental health research persists despite progress

University of Turku

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A new systematic review of 172 studies including data from over 12 million adolescents across 166 countries reveals that while cross-national adolescent mental health research including low- and middle-income countries has expanded significantly, large gaps remain in global representation.

The systematic review, conducted by an international research team led by the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku, Finland, found that inclusion of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in cross-national research has increased dramatically over the past 30 years, especially since 2020. However, 52 countries were not included in any of the 172 studies reviewed.

Most research relies heavily on cross-sectional, school-based surveys with self-reported questionnaires. The most commonly used international surveys were the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study (19.8%), the Global School-based Student Health Survey (12.2%), and the Programme for International Student Assessment (8.1%).

The review reveals that while bullying and internalising problems, such as anxiety and depression, are commonly studied, externalising behaviours like aggression are often overlooked. While the prevalences of most mental health and psychosocial issues were comparable or mixed between LMICs and high-income countries, traditional bullying was reported more frequently in LMICs in the majority of reviewed studies.

Western standards pose methodological challenges for global mental health research

The lead authors, Doctoral Researcher Xiao Zhang and Postdoctoral Researcher Yuko Mori, highlight a major methodological challenge revealed by the review.

“Many of the commonly used tools were originally developed based on Western mental health constructs. This raises concerns about their validity and relevance when applied across culturally diverse settings”, they explain.

Professor Andre Sourander, Director of the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry, agrees that our understanding about adolescent mental health still relies heavily on research findings from Western or high-income countries.

“Global trends, such as increased inequalities, migration, and climate change, emerging threats, such as war and pandemics, and enormously increased use of digital devices may have detrimental effects on adolescent well-being worldwide. Cross-cultural research on adolescent mental health including diverse societies, minorities and risk groups is highly relevant and warranted, especially since 90 percent of the global adolescent population resides in low and middle-income countries”, Professor Sourander emphasises. 

The researchers stress the importance of creating and validating their own culturally grounded instruments in LMICs, which could also enrich mental health research in high income countries by offering more inclusive and globally applicable assessment frameworks. Future studies, they argue, should employ validated tools, use multiple informant sources, and draw on representative samples that include minority populations, such as adolescents from immigrant backgrounds, those with disabilities, and indigenous groups.

This systematic review was funded by the INVEST Flagship programme of the Research Council of Finland and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.

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Journal

BMJ Global Health

DOI

10.1136/bmjgh-2025-019267 

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Cross-national research on adolescent mental health: a systematic review comparing research in low, middle and high-income countries

The future of ‘personalized’ cancer treatment: Antitumor mRNA-based vaccines

NOT IN TRUMP RFK ANTI MNRA VAX AMERIKA

Researchers investigate the potential of mRNA vaccines against gastric cancer metastasis

Kindai University

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Neoantigen (tumor-specific antigen) mRNA-based vaccines induce progenitor‑exhausted T cells that support anti‑PD‑1 therapy, leading to enhanced antitumor efficacy against gastric cancer, which has metastasized to the peritoneum (i.e., the lining of the abdominal cavity).

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Credit: Professor Kazuhiro Kakimi from Kindai University, Japan

Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality worldwide, and peritoneal metastasis, wherein the cancer spreads to the peritoneum or the lining of the abdominal cavity, represents the most common form of recurrence after gastric cancer surgery. This form of metastasis is particularly associated with poor survival outcomes, as current first-line treatment options, including anti-PD-1 therapy combined with chemotherapy, have proven ineffective against peritoneal dissemination.

Immunotherapy presents an attractive option for tackling this challenging condition—more specifically, vaccines that target tumor-specific antigens called neoantigens (neoAgs) are being explored as an option to generate durable antitumor responses in patients, with fewer off-target effects. Now, in a study published online in the journal Gastric Cancer on  July 31, 2025, a team of researchers led by Professor Kazuhiro Kakimi, Department of Immunology, Kindai University, Faculty of Medicine, Japan, including Dr. Koji Nagaoka, from the same university; Dr. Hidetaka Akita, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences,  Tohoku University; Dr. Keiji Itaka, Center for Infectious Disease Education and Research, Osaka University; and Dr. Tatsuhiko Kodama, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, developed a neoAg mRNA (messenger RNA)-based vaccine that shows potent antitumor efficacy against gastric cancer cells, especially in combination with the standard anti-PD-1 therapy.

This vaccine consists of mRNA encapsulated within lipid nanoparticles (LNPs)—this mRNA is synthesized by in vitro transcription and comprises three linked minigenes, which code for three neoAgs that they previously identified from the mouse gastric cancer cell line YTN16. Once the vaccine was synthesized, they proceeded to test it, both alone and in combination with anti-PD-1 therapy, in various mouse models. The results were very promising—firstly, the vaccine induced a higher frequency of neoAg-specific cytotoxic T cells in mice than a similar neoAg-dendritic cell-based vaccine. On testing in a therapeutic setting, mRNA-based vaccination led to tumor regression and eradication in all treated mice, and this effect was enhanced in combination with anti-PD-1 therapy.

How can we explain the increased antitumor efficacy of this combined treatment? The key lies in how tumor-reactive T cells undergo differentiation within the tumor environment—Prof. Kakimi elaborates that they “progress from a progenitor exhausted state (Texprog), through an intermediate exhausted state (Texint) with strong effector function, and ultimately into a terminally exhausted state (Texterm).” While treatment with only anti-PD-1 therapy led to an increase in effector (Texint) cells, there was no corresponding increase in the production of the progenitor (Texprog) cells required to sustain these effector cells. In contrast, by combining anti-PD-1 therapy with the vaccine that expands Texprog cells, both populations were increased, resulting in a sustained antitumor effect.

Most promisingly, the vaccine shows impressive antitumor efficacy against peritoneal metastasis, which has historically been very challenging to treat. The vaccine on its own showed a protective effect in mice that were inoculated intraperitoneally with YTN16 cells. In combination with anti-PD-1 therapy, it was shown to reduce tumor growth even in mice with already established peritoneal metastases.

These results are especially exciting in the context of the push towards next-generation, ‘personalized’ cancer treatment. As Prof. Kakimi explains, “NeoAgs, derived from individual genetic alterations in each cancer patient, serve as unique immunological targets on tumor cells and represent the key to personalized immunotherapy.”

However, there are some challenges that remain. Prof. Kakimi states that “Although we observed that these vaccines had remarkable therapeutic efficacy, the greatest challenge lies in identifying the true neoAgs that are recognized and attacked by T cells in vivo.” Researchers worldwide, including Prof. Kakimi, are currently striving to improve the process of predicting and identifying these neoantigens. Nevertheless, multiple pharmaceutical companies are betting on the therapeutic potential of these vaccines—for instance, Moderna and BioNTech are conducting clinical trials that utilize various neoAg-based mRNA vaccines in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

This study demonstrates the immense therapeutic potential presented by personalized cancer vaccines that use mRNA technology, paving the way for the next generation of genome-informed cancer immunotherapy!

 

***
 

Reference/
DOI: 10.1007/s10120-025-01640-8

 

About Kindai University
Kindai University was established in 1949 after the merger of Osaka Technical College (founded in 1925) and Osaka Science and Engineering University (founded in 1943). Over the past several decades, the university has transformed into a comprehensive educational organization with an ever-growing reputation. Kindai University has over 2,200 full-time faculty members, 6 campuses, and 18 research centers. As an academic institution offering a broad range of programs from across disciplines, Kindai University strives to impart practical education while nurturing intellectual and emotional capabilities. The university’s academic programs are fully accredited by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as well as by the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation.

Website: https://www.kindai.ac.jp/english/

 

About Professor Kazuhiro Kakimi from Kindai University
Kazuhiro Kakimi is a Professor in the Department of Immunology at the Kindai University Faculty of Medicine. His research interests lie in understanding the dynamics of the immune response in vivo at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels in order to develop more effective immunotherapy against cancer. He graduated from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in 1995 and now has over 30 years of experience in this field. He currently holds 25 patents (including patents for neoantigen prediction) and has published 280 papers, which have accumulated over 7,500 citations.

 

Funding information
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 23K08188, 24K02393, 23H00319, 21K18320 and 23K27453 and Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under Grant Number JP223fa627002.

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Journal

Gastric Cancer

DOI

10.1007/s10120-025-01640-8 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Neoantigen mRNA vaccines induce progenitor‑exhausted T cells that support anti‑PD‑1 therapy in gastric cancer with peritoneal metastasis

Article Publication Date

31-Jul-2025

COI Statement

HT and HA are inventors of a patent on the LNP chemicals. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

 

“Skin in a syringe” a step towards a new way to heal burns

Linköping University

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Researchers in fields such as regenerative medicine and materials science have collaborated to develop a gel containing living cells that can be 3D-printed into a transplant.

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Credit: Magnus Johansson/Linköping University

Researchers have created what could be called “skin in a syringe”. The gel containing live cells can be 3D printed into a skin transplant, as shown in a study conducted on mice. This technology may lead to new ways to treat burns and severe wounds. The study was led from the Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology and Linköping University in Sweden, and has been published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

As long as we have a healthy skin, we do not give it much thought. However, if we get major wounds or other injuries, it becomes clear that the skin is the body’s protection from the outside world. Helping the body restore the skin barrier after a serious burn can therefore be a matter of life and death.

Large burns are often treated by transplanting a thin layer of the top part of the skin, the epidermis. This is basically composed of a single cell type. Transplanting only this part of the skin leads to severe scarring.

Under the epidermis there is a thicker and more advanced layer of skin called the dermis. It has blood vessels, nerves, hair follicles and other structures necessary for skin function and elasticity. However, transplanting also the dermis is rarely an option, as the procedure leaves a wound as large as the wound to be healed.

The trick is to create new skin that does not become scar tissue but a functioning dermis.

“The dermis is so complicated that we can’t grow it in a lab. We don’t even know what all its components are. That’s why we, and many others, think that we could possibly transplant the building blocks and then let the body make the dermis itself,” says Johan Junker, researcher at the Swedish Center for Disaster Medicine and Traumatology and docent in plastic surgery at Linköping University, who led the study published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

The most common cell type in the dermis, the connective tissue cell or fibroblast, is easy to remove from the body and grow in a lab. The connective tissue cell also has the advantage of being able to develop into more specialised cell types depending on what is needed. The researchers behind the study provide a scaffold by having the cells grow on tiny, porous beads of gelatine, a substance similar to skin collagen. But a liquid containing these beads poured on a wound will not stay there.

The researchers’ solution to the problem is mixing the gelatine beads with a gel consisting of another body-specific substance, hyaluronic acid. When the beads and gel are mixed, they are connected using what is known as click chemistry. The result is a gel that, somewhat simplified, can be called skin in a syringe.

“The gel has a special feature that means that it becomes liquid when exposed to light pressure. You can use a syringe to apply it to a wound, for example, and once applied it becomes gel-like again. This also makes it possible to 3D print the gel with the cells in it,” says Daniel Aili, professor of molecular physics at Linköping University, who led the study together with Johan Junker.

In the current study, the researchers 3D-printed small pucks that were placed under the skin of mice. The results point to the potential of this technology to be used to grow the patient’s own cells from a minimal skin biopsy, which are then 3D-printed into a graft and applied to the wound.

“We see that the cells survive and it’s clear that they produce different substances that are needed to create new dermis. In addition, blood vessels are formed in the grafts, which is important for the tissue to survive in the body. We find this material very promising,” says Johan Junker.

Blood vessels are key to a variety of applications for engineered tissue-like materials. Scientists can grow cells in three-dimensional materials that can be used to build organoids, i.e. mini versions of organs. But there is a bottleneck as concerns these tissue models; they lack blood vessels to transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells. This means that there is a limit to how large the structures can get before the cells at the centre die from oxygen and nutrient deficiency.

The LiU researchers may be one step closer to solving the problem of blood vessel supply. In another article, also published in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the researchers describe a method for making threads from materials consisting of 98 per cent water, known as hydrogels.

“The hydrogel threads become quite elastic, so we can tie knots on them. We also show that they can be formed into mini-tubes, which we can pump fluid through or have blood vessel cells grow in,” says Daniel Aili.

The mini-tubes, or the perfusable channels as the researchers also call them, open up new possibilities for the development of blood vessels for e.g. organoids.

Lars Kölby, professor of plastic surgery at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, also participated in the project. The research has received funding from, among others, the Erling-Persson Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC), the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

 

Articles:

Biphasic granular bioinks for biofabrication of high cell density constructs for dermal regeneration, Rozalin Shamasha, Sneha Kollenchery Ramanathan, Kristin Oskarsdotter, Fatemeh Rasti Boroojeni, Aleksandra Zielińska, Sajjad Naeimipour, Philip Lifwergren, Nina Reustle, Lauren Roberts, Annika Starkenberg, Gunnar Kratz, Peter Apelgren, Karin Säljö, Jonathan Rakar, Lars Kölby, Daniel Aili and Johan Junker, (2025), Advanced Healthcare Materials, published 12 June 2025, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202501430 (Open Access)

Printing and rerouting of elastic and protease responsive shape memory hydrogel filaments, Philip Lifwergren, Viktoria Schoen, Sajjad Naeimipour, Lalit Khare, Anna Wunder, Hanna Blom, Jose G. Martinez, Pierfrancesco Pagella, Anders Fridberger, Johan Junker and Daniel Aili, (2025), Advanced Healthcare Materials, published 20 June 2025, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202502262 (Open Access)

Gelatin sphere on which cells from the dermis grow. The image is taken using scanning electron microscopy.

Credit

Rozalin Shamasha et al, https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202501430

The researchers 3D-printed small pucks of the gel with cells in it.

  

The threads made from hydrogel can be formed into mini-tubes, opening up new possibilities for the development of blood vessels for lab-grown “mini-organs”, or organoids.

Credit

Magnus Johansson/Linköping University

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Journal

Advanced Healthcare Materials

DOI

10.1002/adhm.202501430 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

Biphasic granular bioinks for biofabrication of high cell density constructs for dermal regeneration