The world\'s largest rivers are home to diverse, endemic, and threatened fish species. However, their sheer sizes make large-scale biomonitoring challenging. While environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding has become an established monitoring approach in smaller freshwater ecosystems, its suitability for large rivers may be challenged by the sheer extent of their cross sections (>1 km wide and tens of meters deep). Here, we sampled fish eDNA from multiple vertical layers and horizontal locations from two cross sections of the lower reach of the Yangtze River in China. Over half of the ASVs (amplicon sequence variants) were detected in only a single combination of the vertical layers and horizontal locations, with ∼7% across all combinations. We estimated the need to sample >100 L of water across the cross-sectional profiles to achieve ASV richness saturation, which translates to ∼60 L of water at the species level. No consistent pattern emerged for prioritizing certain depth and horizontal samples, yet we underline the importance of sampling and integrating different layers and locations simultaneously. Our study highlights the significance of spatially stratified sampling and sampling volumes when using eDNA approaches. Specifically, we developed and tested a scalable and broadly applicable strategy that advances the monitoring and conservation of large rivers.

To improve the wear resistance and fatigue life of Cu alloys, surface modification by combining the magnetron sputtering of Ti film followed by vacuum thermal diffusion is always applied, where the structure and composition of the fabricated film play a determinant role on the mechanical properties. In the present work, the evolution of the layered structure and the element distribution of the formed multi-phases coating on C17200 Cu alloy are investigated by mathematical calculation based on Fick\'s law, and the experimental verification by the thermal diffusion of the gradient Cu-Ti film was undertaken under different temperatures and durations. The results show that the layered structure of the fabricated coating is dependent on the Cu-Ti atom concentration, the increasing time and the temperature, where a single or stratified layer is formed due to the generated Cu-Ti intermetallics for the inter-diffusion between the Cu and Ti atoms. The atom distribution by the proposed simulation method based on Fick\'s law corresponds to the experimental results, which can be applied to designing the structure of the modification layer.

The clinching process is widely used in joining lightweight sheet metal. We proposed a novel rotated clinching process (RCP), which is characterized by a flat bottom die structure and twin rotating punches. The aim of this study was to evaluate the strength of RCP joints. Al1060 sheets with thicknesses of 1.5 mm and 2 mm were used as the experimental materials. Overlap and T-lap RCP joints with three die depths and five bottom thicknesses were fabricated, and shear and peel tests were performed on the joints. The joint strengths were evaluated based on the mechanical load, cross-sectional profile dimensions, and failure mode. The results showed that the mechanical load is a direct, reliable, and quantitative evaluation criterion, while the cross-sectional profile and failure mode are indirect and qualitative. These criteria confirmed that the strength of thick sheet joints is higher than that of thin sheet joints, the shear strength is superior to the peel strength, and the strengths of the joints are high with failure mainly occurring due to tearing or shear failure. Finally, the key parameters for determining the strength of a joint include the bottom thickness/sheet thickness ratio (Rt), and the die depth (h).

In this study, we explore the deformation of a polymer extrudate upon the deposition on a build platform, to determine the bonding widths between stacked strands in fused-filament fabrication. The considered polymer melt has an extremely high viscosity, which dominates in its deformation. Mainly considering the viscous effect, we derive analytical expressions of the flat width, compressed depth, bonding width and cross-sectional profile of the filament in four special cases, which have different combinations of extrusion speed, print speed and nozzle height. We further validate the derived relations, using our experimental results on acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), as well as existing experimental and numerical results on ABS and polylactic acid (PLA). Compared with existing theoretical and numerical results, our derived analytic relations are simple, which need less calculations. They can be used to quickly predict the geometries of the deposited strands, including the bonding widths.