Afforestation is an important way to effectively reduce carbon emissions from human activities and increase carbon sinks in forest ecosystems. It also plays an important role in climate change mitigation. Currently, few studies have examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of future afforestation areas, which are crucial for assessing future carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems. In order to obtain the dynamic distribution of potential afforestation land over time under future climate change scenarios in China, we utilized the random forest method in this study to calculate weights for the selected influencing factors on potential afforestation land, such as natural vegetation attributes and environmental factors. The “weight hierarchy approach” was used to calculate the afforestation quality index of different regions in different 5-year intervals from 2021 to 2060 and extract high-quality potential afforestation lands in each period. By dynamically analyzing the distribution and quality of potential afforestation land from 2021 to 2060, we can identify optimal afforestation sites for each period and formulate a progressive afforestation plan. This approach allows for a more accurate application of the FCS model to evaluate the dynamic changes in the carbon sequestration capacity of newly afforested land from 2021 to 2060. The results indicate that the average potential afforestation land area will reach 75 Mha from 2021 to 2060. In the northern region, afforestation areas are mainly distributed on both sides of the “Hu Line”, while in the southern region, they are primarily distributed in the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau and some coastal provinces. By 2060, the potential calculated cumulative carbon storage of newly afforested lands was 11.68 Pg C, with a peak carbon sequestration rate during 2056–2060 of 0.166 Pg C per year. Incorporating information on the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation succession, climate production potential, and vegetation resilience while quantifying the weights of each influencing factor can enhance the accuracy of predictions for potential afforestation lands. The conclusions of this study can provide a reference for the formulation of future afforestation plans and the assessment of their carbon sequestration capacity.

Data augmentation, as a common technique in deep learning training, is primarily used to mitigate overfitting problems, especially with small-scale datasets. However, it is difficult for us to evaluate whether the augmented dataset truly benefits the performance of the model. If the training model is relied upon in each case to validate the quality of the data augmentation and the dataset, it will take a lot of time and resources. This article proposes a simple and practical approach to evaluate the quality of data augmentation for image classification tasks, enriching the theoretical research on data augmentation quality evaluation. Based on the information entropy, multiple dimensional metrics for data quality augmentation are established, including diversity, class balance, and task relevance. Additionally, a comprehensive data augmentation quality fusion metric is proposed. Experimental results on the CIFAR-10 and CUB-200 datasets show that our method maintains optimal performance in a variety of scenarios. The cosine similarity between the score of our method and the precision of model is up to 99.9%. A rigorous evaluation of data augmentation quality is necessary to guide the improvement of DL model performance. The quality standards and evaluation defined in this article can be utilized by researchers to train high-performance DL models in situations where data are limited.

Under the strict carbon emission quota policy in China, the urban carbon price directly affects the operation of enterprises, as well as forest carbon sequestration. As a result, accurately forecasting carbon prices has been a popular research topic in forest science. Similar to stock prices, urban carbon prices are difficult to forecast using simple models with only historical prices. Fortunately, urban remote sensing images containing rich human economic activity information reflect the changing trend of carbon prices. However, properly integrating remote sensing data into carbon price forecasting has not yet been investigated. In this study, by introducing the powerful transformer paradigm, we propose a novel carbon price forecasting method, called MFTSformer, to uncover information from urban remote sensing and historical price data through the encoder–decoder framework. Moreover, a self-attention mechanism is used to capture the intrinsic characteristics of long-term price data. We conduct comparison experiments with four baselines, ablation experiments, and case studies in Guangzhou. The results show that MFTSformer reduces errors by up to 52.24%. Moreover, it outperforms the baselines in long-term accurate carbon price prediction (averaging 15.3%) with fewer training resources (it converges rapidly within 20 epochs). These findings suggest that the effective MFTSformer can offer new insights regarding AI to urban forest research.

This study introduces an innovative UAV cruise data collection path planning approach using the manta ray foraging optimization (MRFO) algorithm to enhance efficiency and energy utilization in forest ecosystem monitoring. Traditionally reliant on costly manual patrols, this method leverages UAVs and ground-based sensors for data collection. The approach begins with a self-organized clustering algorithm for sensors, minimizing communication between UAVs and sensors. It then refines the UAV’s energy consumption equation by integrating propulsion energy needs, actual terrain data, and wind effects. Compared to other heuristic algorithms, the MRFO algorithm demonstrates superior performance in path planning, particularly for complex engineering optimization problems, displaying heightened adaptability and efficiency. Comparative experimental results on real terrain data and MATLAB r2018b simulation show that the error between the corrected energy calculation equation and the actual value is controlled within 5%, and the accuracy is improved by 10% over the original equation. Meanwhile, the ability of the MRFO algorithm to quickly construct approximate high-quality solutions with shortest path lengths in a limited number of iterations validates its potential in practical applications. The α-hop clustering algorithm used in this paper has a huge advantage in space and time complexity compared with existing clustering algorithms, and the accuracy of data extraction is relatively improved by 7.57% and 6.95%. Real forest digital elevation model (DEM) terrain data was introduced in this study, and the method improves the energy utilization of UAV data collection and also provides a comprehensive and detailed solution to the existing challenges faced in the field of forest data collection. Future research could consider combining the MRFO algorithm with other evolutionary classes of algorithms to take advantage of the algorithm’s fast convergence and high-precision properties to further enhance the application prospects in different scenarios.

Urban green spaces are an important part of the urban ecosystem and hold significant ecological value. To effectively protect these green spaces, urban managers urgently need to identify them and monitor their changes. Common urban vegetation positioning methods use deep learning segmentation models to process street view data in urban areas, but this is usually inefficient and inaccurate. The main reason is that they are not applicable to the variable climate of urban scenarios, especially performing poorly in adverse weather conditions such as heavy fog that are common in cities. Additionally, these algorithms also have performance limitations such as inaccurate boundary area positioning. To address these challenges, we propose the UGSAM method that utilizes the high-performance multimodal large language model, the Segment Anything Model (i.e., SAM). In the UGSAM, a dual-branch defogging network WRPM is incorporated, which consists of the dense fog network FFA-Net, the light fog network LS-UNet, and the feature fusion network FIM, achieving precise identification of vegetation areas in adverse urban weather conditions. Moreover, we have designed a micro-correction network SCP-Net suitable for specific urban scenarios to further improve the accuracy of urban vegetation positioning. The UGSAM was compared with three classic deep learning algorithms and the SAM. Experimental results show that under adverse weather conditions, the UGSAM performs best in OA (0.8615), mIoU (0.8490), recall (0.9345), and precision (0.9027), surpassing the baseline model FCN (OA improvement 28.19%) and PointNet++ (OA improvement 30.02%). Compared with the SAM, the UGSAM improves the segmentation accuracy by 16.29% under adverse weather conditions and by 1.03% under good weather conditions. This method is expected to play a key role in the analysis of urban green spaces under adverse weather conditions and provide innovative insights for urban development.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) remains a therapeutic challenge due to its chronic relapsing nature and limited long-term remission strategies. Here, we propose a therapy using stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHEDs). We evaluated SHEDs in murine colitis models (DSS/TNBS) and human IBD tissues. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and organoid cocultures were used to characterise SHED differentiation and therapeutic mechanisms. SHEDs migrate to inflamed intestines, differentiate into TGM2⁺TFPI2⁺ quiescent fibroblast-like synovial cells (QFLSs) via a β-catenin-independent Wnt/JNK pathway, and significantly ameliorate colitis in preclinical models. Mechanistically, QFLSs exhibit dual therapeutic actions: (1) IL-6 secretion promoted Paneth cell proliferation to restore crypt homoeostasis; and (2) LIF-driven expansion of immunosuppressive Treg cells reshaped the inflammatory microenvironment. Crucially, we validated the presence of QFLSs in human IBD tissues, where their abundance correlated with reduced disease severity and improved prognosis. Our study identified SHED-derived QFLSs as multifunctional mediators that concurrently addressed epithelial damage and immune dysregulation in IBD. This cell-based strategy overcame spatial limitations of traditional therapies by leveraging endogenous repair pathways, offering a translatable blueprint for chronic inflammatory diseases. Supported by Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7242034, 7242092, L232077), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81870393, 81970500, 82473154, 81970500, and 82203559), and Jiangsu Province Basic Research Special Fund (BK20240117).