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ABSTRACT Streptococcus suis type 2 (SS2) is a zoonotic pathogen capable of eliciting meningitis, presenting significant challenges to both the swine industry and public health. Suilysin (Sly), one of SS2 most potent virulence determinants, releases a surfeit of inflammatory agents following red blood cell lysis. Notably, while current research on Sly role in SS2-induced meningitis predominantly centers on its interaction with the blood-brain barrier (BBB), the repercussions of Sly hemolytic products on BBB function have largely been sidestepped. In this vein, our study delves into the ramifications of Sly-induced hemolysis on BBB integrity. We discern that Sly hemolytic derivatives exacerbate the permeability of Sly-induced in vitro BBB models. Within these Sly hemolytic products, Interleukin-33 (IL-33) disrupts the expression and distribution of Claudin-5 in brain microvascular endothelial cells, facilitating the release of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and Interleukin-8 (IL-8), thereby amplifying BBB permeability. Preliminary mechanistic insights suggest that IL-33-driven expression of IL-6 and IL-8 is orchestrated by the p38-mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling, whereas matrix metalloproteinase 9 mediates IL-33-induced suppression of Claudin-5. To validate these in vitro findings, an SS2-infected mouse model was established, and upon intravenous administration of growth stimulation expressed gene 2 (ST2) antibodies, in vivo results further underscored the pivotal role of the IL-33/ST2 axis during SS2 cerebral invasion. In summation, this study pioneerly illuminates the involvement of Sly hemolytic products in SS2-mediated BBB compromise and spotlights the instrumental role and primary mechanism of IL-33 therein. These insights enrich our comprehension of SS2 meningitis pathogenesis, laying pivotal groundwork for therapeutic advancements against SS2-induced meningitis.IMPORTANCEThe treatment of meningitis caused by Streptococcus suis type 2 (SS2) has always been a clinical challenge. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms by which SS2 breaches the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is crucial for the development of meningitis therapeutics. Suilysin (Sly) is one of the most important virulence factors of SS2, which can quickly lyse red blood cells and release large amounts of damage-associated molecular patterns, such as hemoglobin, IL-33, cyclophilin A, and so on. However, the impact of these hemolytic products on the function of BBB is unknown and ignored. This study is the first to investigate the effect of Sly hemolytic products on BBB function. The data are crucial for the study of the pathogenesis of SS2 meningitis and can provide an important reference for the development of meningitis therapeutics.

Air formation is a common style of air combat, which demonstrates a high degree of flexibility and strategic value in complex battlefield environments. The activity state of air formation is the result of the intertwining of time domain and air domain, which requires accurate execution of tactical processes in the time axis and skillful deployment of forces in three-dimensional space. Therefore, air formation target combat intention recognition is a complex and challenging task that requires an in-depth understanding of the dynamically changing behavioral patterns of the formation. To address this problem, this paper proposes the STIRNet (Spatio-Temporal Network for Intention Recognition) model, which abstracts the air formation as a spatial graph structure composed of vehicle nodes and combines its temporal data evolving over time. The model autonomously adjusts its attention to different moments and spatial locations through the spatio-temporal attention mechanism, focusing on the important spatio-temporal features that are crucial for recognizing the combat intention of the air formation; and simultaneously captures and integrates the feature information of the air formation in both the temporal and spatial dimensions through the spatio-temporal convolutional operation, which effectively solves the deficiencies of the traditional methods in dealing with the complex spatio-temporal dependency relationships. The experimental results show that the model proposed in this paper effectively improves the accuracy of the combat intention recognition of air formation targets, which is of great value for command decision-making and air battlefield situation assessment.

Abstract Deep neural networks significantly enhance the accuracy of the stereo‐based disparity estimation. Some current methods suffer from inefficient use of the global context information, which will lead to the loss of structural details in ill‐posed areas. To this end, a novel stereo network GAMNet is designed, composed of three core components (GDA, MPF, DCA) for estimating the depth prediction in challenging real‐world environments. First, a lightweight attention module is presented, integrating the global semantic cues for every feature position across the channel and spatial dimensions. Next, the MPF module is constructed to fuse the diverse semantic and contextual information from different levels of the feature pyramid. Finally, cost volume is aggregated with a stacked encoder‐decoder composed of the DCA module and 3D convolutions, filtering the transmission of matching clues and capturing the rich global contexts. Substantial experiments conducted on KITTI 2012, KITTI 2015, SceneFlow, and Middlebury‐v3 datasets manifest that GAMNet surpasses preceding methods with contour‐preserving disparity predictions. In addition, the first 3D scene reconstruction linear evaluation strategy on spatial grasping points for the end‐to‐end stereo networks in an unsupervised mode is proposed, and it is deployed on the designed robot vision‐guided system. In application experiments, the method can produce densely high‐precision 3D reconstructions to implement the grasping task in complex real‐world scenes, and achieve excellent robust performance with competitive inference efficiency.

Objective To construct a machine learning model based on radiomics features by combing conventional B-mode transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS)in order to improve prostate cancer (PCa) detection in the peripheral zone, and to explore its clinical application value. Methods A retrospective study of 109 cases (45 benign, 64 malignant lesions) with targeted biopsy-confirmed pathology who underwent B-mode and CEUS examinations was performed. Time-intensity curves were obtained using Sonoliver software forall lesions in regions of interest. The following parameters were collected: the maximum intensity (IMAX), the rise time (RT), the time to peak (TTP), and the mean transit time (MTT). Clinical risk factors, including age, serum total prostate-specific antigen (tPSA), free PSA(fPSA), f/t PSA, prostate volume and prostate-specific antigen density (PSAD), were collected. Feature selection and model construction were carried out by feature correlation analysis and multivariable Logistic regression analysis, respectively. Results Finally, 32 features were screened out by the radiomics models. Three radiomics models (B model, CEUS model and B-CEUS combined model) were established by logistic regression, and radiomics scores were obtained at the same time. The risk factors like age, PSAD, and RT were significant independent predictors (P＜0.05). The diagnostic accuracy of B model, CEUS model, B-CEUS combined model, risk factor model and risk factor-radiomics combined model were 0.75, 0.71, 0.73, 0.70 and 0.84, respectively, and the area under the curves(AUC) were 0.79, 0.75, 0.84, 0.79 and 0.91, respectively. The risk factor-radiomics combined model had a significant significance in the validation cohort (P＜0.05). Conclusions The machine learning model combined with conventional B-mode TRUS, CEUS, and relevant clinical factors can better predict the benign and malignant prostate peripheral lesions, which may significantly support clinical decision-making.

Soil temperature regime (STR) is important for soil classification and land use. Generally, STR is delineated by estimating the mean annual soil temperature at a depth of 50 cm (MAST50) according to the Chinese Soil Taxonomy (CST). However, delineating the STR of China remains a challenge due to the difficulties in accurately estimating MAST50. The objectives of this study were to explore environmental factors that influence the spatial variation of MAST50 and generate an STR map for China. Soil temperature measurements at 40 and 80 cm depth were collected from 386 National Meteorological Stations in China during 1971–2000. The MAST50 was calculated as the average mean annual soil temperature (MAST) from 1971–2000 between 40 and 80 cm depths. In addition, 2 048 mean annual air temperature (MAAT) measurements from 1971 to 2000 were collected from the National Meteorological Stations across China. A zonal pedotransfer function (PTF) was developed based on the ensemble linear regression kriging model to predict the MAST50 in three topographic steps of China. The results showed that MAAT was the most important variable related to the variation of MAST50. The zonal PTF was evaluated with a 10% validation dataset with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.66°C and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.78°C, which were smaller than the unified model with MAE of 0.83°C and RMSE of 0.96°C, respectively. This study demonstrated that the zonal PTF helped improve the accuracy of the predicted MAST50 map. Based on the prediction results, an STR map across China was generated to provide a consistent scientific base for the improvement and application of CST and land use support.

Soils at the Chang’E-5 landing site on the Moon were weakly influenced by secondary surface processes, according to analyses of light noble gas characteristics which are relatively less fractionated than those in other lunar soils

Tunable semiconductor lasers have many important applications such as wavelength division multiplexing, light detection and ranging, and gas detection. The increased interest in silicon photonics has led to the rapid development of miniaturized on-chip tunable semiconductor lasers. However, silicon has poor light-emitting properties. Therefore, realizing high-performance tunable semiconductor lasers requires the integration of light sources with silicon. In this study, we review silicon-based light source integration methods and the development of silicon-based integrated tunable semiconductor lasers. Considering that narrow-linewidth performance greatly expands the applications of tunable semiconductor lasers, methods for reducing the linewidth of tunable lasers are summarized. Finally, the development trends and prospects for silicon-based integrated light sources and silicon-based integrated tunable lasers are analyzed and discussed.

Isocitrate Dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) is commonly mutated in lower-grade diffuse gliomas. The IDH1R132H mutation is an important diagnostic tool for tumor diagnosis and prognosis; however, its role in glioma development, and its impact on response to therapy, is not fully understood. We developed a murine model of proneural IDH1R132H-mutated glioma that shows elevated production of 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) and increased trimethylation of lysine residue K27 on histone H3 (H3K27me3) compared to IDH1 wild-type tumors. We found that using Tazemetostat to inhibit the methyltransferase for H3K27, Enhancer of Zeste 2 (EZH2), reduced H3K27me3 levels and increased acetylation on H3K27. We also found that, although the histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) Panobinostat was less cytotoxic in IDH1R132H-mutated cells (either isolated from murine glioma or oligodendrocyte progenitor cells infected in vitro with a retrovirus expressing IDH1R132H) compared to IDH1-wild-type cells, combination treatment with Tazemetostat is synergistic in both mutant and wild-type models. These findings indicate a novel therapeutic strategy for IDH1-mutated gliomas that targets the specific epigenetic alteration in these tumors.

Preterm infants face a significant risk of brain injury in the perinatal period, as well as potential long-term neurodevelopmental disabilities. However, preterm children with brain injury lack specific clinical manifestations in the early days. Therefore, timely and accurate diagnosis of brain injury is of vital importance. This study was to explore the diagnostic efficiency of myelin basic protein (MBP) and 8-oxo-deoxyguanosine (8-oxo-dG) serum levels in brain injury of premature infants. A total of 75 preterm infants with gestational age between 28 and 32 weeks and birth weight higher than 1,000 g were prospectively included. MBP serum levels were significantly higher in premature infants with white matter injury (WMI). 8-oxo-dG serum levels were significantly increased in both WMI and periventricular–intraventricular hemorrhages (PIVH). MBP and 8-oxo-dG were significantly correlated. The area under the curve was 0.811 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.667–0.955; p = 0.002] in MBP and 0.729 (95% CI 0.562–0.897; p = 0.020) in 8-oxo-dG. Therefore, the results showed that high MBP levels indicated a possibility of WMI in the premature brain during the early postnatal period, while high 8-oxo-dG levels were closely related to both WMI and PIVH, thus suggesting that MBP and 8-oxo-dG could be used as potential neuro-markers of preterm brain injury.

PurposeThis study investigated gender differences in behavioral inhibitory control among college students under acute stress state by using event-related potential technique.MethodsAcute stress was evoked in 41 college students (22 males and 19 females) using the Trier Social Stress paradigm, and the neutral state was matched using out-of-speech reading, with subjects completing a two-choice Oddball task in each of the two states. In combination with the ERP technique, the area under the stress curve, reaction time, number of errors, and the difference waves between the two stimulus conditions in the frontal-central region N2 wave amplitude and the parietal-central region P3 wave amplitude were compared between the two groups of subjects in the stressful and neutral state.ResultsThe results revealed that the area under the stress curve was larger under the stress condition compared to the neutral condition, and the area under the stress curve was larger in females than in males. Behavioral results showed no statistically significant differences in reaction time and number of errors between the two genders in the acute stress condition. The ERP results showed that the wave amplitudes of N2 and P3 decreased significantly in both genders in the acute stress state. The decrease in N2 amplitude was greater in females during the transition from neutral to stressful condition, while the difference in P3 amplitude was not statistically significant in both genders.ConclusionThe findings suggest that evoked acute stress can promote behavioral inhibitory control in both genders and that females are more sensitive to acute stress state.

Blue light with a wavelength of 400–470 nm is the composition of the visible light. However, in recent years, blue light contributed the most significance to light pollution due to the artificial light at night. Previously, we have demonstrated that the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri, an important pest in citrus production, has significant positive phototaxis with a light-emitting diode light of 400 nm. In this study, ACP with positive phototactic behavior to 400 nm light (PH) and non-phototactic behavior to 400 nm light (NP) were collected, individually. Transcriptome dynamics of head tissues of PH and NP groups were captured by using RNA-sequencing technology, respectively. Forty-three to 46 million clean reads with high-quality values were obtained, and 1773 differential expressed genes (DEGs) were detected. Compared with the NP group, there were 841 up-regulated DEGs and 932 down-regulated DEGs in the PH group. Eight pathways were significantly enriched in the PH group in the KEGG database, while 43 up-regulated pathways and 25 down-regulated pathways were significantly enriched in the PH group in the GO database. The DGE approach was reliable validated by real time quantitative PCR. Results indicated that the blue light acted as an abiotic stress causing physiological and biochemical responses such as oxidative stress, protein denaturation, inflammation and tumor development in ACPs. Additionally, the light was absorbed by photoreceptors of ACPs, and converted into electrical signal to regulate neuromodulation. This study provides basic information for understanding the molecular mechanisms of ACP in response to blue light and provides a reference for further studies to elucidate phototactic behavior.

The online detection of liquid flow rate in gas-liquid two-phase flow has become an important factor in ensuring the safe operation of gas wells. In this paper, the real-time measurement of liquid holdup in gas-liquid two-phase flow is carried out by analyzing the characteristics of vibration signals excited by gas-liquid two-phase flow impacting on the pipe wall. Firstly, an acceleration sensing detection and processing system is constructed to obtain the vibration signals excited by gas-liquid two-phase flow impacting on the pipe wall. Then, the pure airflow vibration signals at different flow velocities and the gas-liquid two-phase flow excitation vibration signals at different liquid flow rates are tested, respectively, and the time-frequency characteristics analysis based on STFT is implemented. The practice shows the following: firstly, the frequency band of 6.5−15 Hz is identified as the characteristic frequency band of liquid flow rate in gas-liquid two-phase flow. Secondly, the liquid holdup is positively correlated with the vibration energy in its characteristic frequency band. Thirdly, a mathematical model of the relationship between liquid flow rate and vibration energy is constructed. Finally, the measurement error of liquid holdup is within 10%. This research method has laid a good foundation for the subsequent detection of characteristic parameters of each phase in gas-solid-liquid complex multiphase flow fluids, and it has certain application and promotion value.

Plant diseases threaten global food security by reducing crop yield; thus, diagnosing plant diseases is critical to agricultural production. Artificial intelligence technologies gradually replace traditional plant disease diagnosis methods due to their time-consuming, costly, inefficient, and subjective disadvantages. As a mainstream AI method, deep learning has substantially improved plant disease detection and diagnosis for precision agriculture. In the meantime, most of the existing plant disease diagnosis methods usually adopt a pre-trained deep learning model to support diagnosing diseased leaves. However, the commonly used pre-trained models are from the computer vision dataset, not the botany dataset, which barely provides the pre-trained models sufficient domain knowledge about plant disease. Furthermore, this pre-trained way makes the final diagnosis model more difficult to distinguish between different plant diseases and lowers the diagnostic precision. To address this issue, we propose a series of commonly used pre-trained models based on plant disease images to promote the performance of disease diagnosis. In addition, we have experimented with the plant disease pre-trained model on plant disease diagnosis tasks such as plant disease identification, plant disease detection, plant disease segmentation, and other subtasks. The extended experiments prove that the plant disease pre-trained model can achieve higher accuracy than the existing pre-trained model with less training time, thereby supporting the better diagnosis of plant diseases. In addition, our pre-trained models will be open-sourced at https://pd.samlab.cn/ and Zenodo platform https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7856293.

Abstract Both intra-pore hydrate morphology and inter-pore hydrate distribution influence the physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments, yet there has been no pore-scale observations of hydrate habit under pressure in preserved pressure core samples so far. We present for the first time a pore-scale micro-CT study of natural hydrate-bearing cores that were acquired from Green Canyon Block 955 in UT-GOM2-1 Expedition and preserved within hydrate pressure–temperature stability conditions throughout sub-sampling and imaging processes. Measured hydrate saturation in the sub-samples, taken from units expected to have in-situ saturation of 80% or more, ranges from 3 ± 1% to 56 ± 11% as interpreted from micro-CT images. Pore-scale observations of gas hydrate in the sub-samples suggest that hydrate in silty sediments at the Gulf of Mexico is pore-invasive rather than particle displacive, and hydrate particles in these natural water-saturated samples are pore-filling with no evidence of grain-coating. Hydrate can form a connected 3D network and provide mechanical support for the sediments even without cementation. The technical breakthrough to directly visualize particle-level hydrate pore habits in natural sediments reported here sheds light on future investigations of pressure- and temperature-sensitive processes including hydrate-bearing sediments, dissolved gases, and other biochemical processes in the deep-sea environment.

Natural gas hydrate is critical for its tremendous potential to impact the energy supply field, accelerate global warming if methane reaches the atmosphere, and affect the safety of deep-sea oil and gas production [...]

Polypropylene (PP)/sepiolite nanocomposites were prepared using the melt blending technique. The effects of nano-sepiolite content on the mechanical property, thermal property, crystallinity, morphology and rheological property of PP/sepiolite nanocomposites were investigated. The organic modified sepiolites (OSep) were dispersed evenly in PP matrix after surface treatment. The addition of OSep improved the storage modulus and thermal stability, showing a strong interaction between OSep and PP matrix. With the increase of OSep content, the fluidity of PP/OSep composites first increased due to the lubrication of surface modifiers and then decreased due to the interaction between OSep and PP. The size of the toughening agent elastomer first increased and then decreased, and the impact notched strength of PP/Osep composites first decreased and then increased. The loading of OSep also reduced the crystallinity and shrinkage rate of PP. PP/OSep nanocomposites have potential applications in high-performance automotive lightweight materials.

ObjectivesUpper gastrointestinal (G.I.) cancer screening has been conducted in China for decades. However, the economic burden for treatment “intensively” occurred in advance due to screening in resource-limited communities remain unclear.MethodsWe compared the treatment costs for upper G.I. cancers from the screening and control arms of a population-based randomized trial in a high-risk area for esophageal cancer (EC) in China based on claims data from the health insurance system in the local area which included whole population coverage.ResultsThe average out-of-pocket cost per treatment of EC in the screening arm was lower than that in the control arm ($5,972 vs. $7,557). This difference was a consequence of down-staging from screening which resulted in lower cost therapy for earlier stage cancers. Moreover, this result is similar for cardial and non-cardial gastric cancer in the two study arms ($7,933 vs. $10,605). However, three times as many (103 vs. 36) families in the screening arm suffered catastrophic health expenditure for all cancer types. The overall treatment cost for all EC patients in the screening arm ($1,045,119) was 2.44 times that in the control arm ($428,292), and the ratio for cardial and non-cardial gastric cancer was 1.12 ($393,261 vs. $351,557).ConclusionCancer treatment secondary to screening may triple the likelihood of catastrophic patient medical expenditure, and sharply increase the economic pressure on the local community, particularly for cancer types which are of high prevalence. Financial support for patients and the health insurance system should be taken into consideration when planning budgets for cancer screening programs in communities which are resource-limited.

A novel chip-scale metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) refractive-index sensor is proposed and investigated in this paper by using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and multimode interference coupled-mode theory (MICMT), respectively. A slot cavity with an embedded tooth-shape cavity and a side-coupled semi-ring cavity are inserted between the input and output MDM waveguides. According to the simulation results, dual ultra-sharp and asymmetrical Fano peaks emerge in transmission spectrum with high performances. Besides, the transmission responses for the primary parameters of this structure are also investigated. To focus on developing integrated photonic devices, the original structure is successfully expanded by two additional semi-ring cavities through an innovative coupling approach, generating up to eight Fano peaks with outstanding characteristics. It is believed that this novel MDM structure will be a guideline for designing the chip-scale plasmonic devices.

Efficient dense reconstruction of objects or scenes has substantial practical implications, which can be applied to different 3D tasks (for example, robotics and autonomous driving). However, because of the expensive hardware required and the overall complexity of the all-around scenarios, efficient dense reconstruction using lightweight multi-view stereo methods has received much attention from researchers. The technological challenge of efficient dense reconstruction is maintaining low memory usage while rapidly and reliably acquiring depth maps. Most of the current efficient multi-view stereo (MVS) methods perform poorly in efficient dense reconstruction, this poor performance is mainly due to weak generalization performance and unrefined object edges in the depth maps. To this end, we propose EMO-MVS, which aims to accomplish multi-view stereo tasks with high efficiency, which means low-memory consumption, high accuracy, and excellent generalization performance. In detail, we first propose an iterative variable optimizer to accurately estimate depth changes. Then, we design a multi-level absorption unit that expands the receptive field, which efficiently generates an initial depth map. In addition, we propose an error-aware enhancement module, enhancing the initial depth map by optimizing the projection error between multiple views. We have conducted extensive experiments on challenging datasets Tanks and Temples and DTU, and also performed a complete visualization comparison on the BlenedMVS validation set (which contains many aerial scene images), achieving promising performance on all datasets. Among the lightweight MVS methods with low-memory consumption and fast inference speed, our F-score on the online Tanks and Temples intermediate benchmark is the highest, which shows that we have the best competitiveness in terms of balancing the performance and computational cost.

A film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), based on a polymer air cavity, is presented. The polymer reflective layer on the polymer air cavity can serve both as the reflective layer and the function layer for inducing the high-order mode resonance. With the aluminum nitride as the piezoelectric layer, the resonance frequency of the FBAR can reach 6.360 GHz, based on the finite element method. The product of the corresponding frequency and the quality factor, f × Q is more than 2 × 1013. This design model provides a good solution for the high-frequency filters and high-sensitivity sensor designs.

A high-frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator, based on sandwiched interdigital transducer (IDT), is presented. The resonator has the structure of diamond/AlN/IDT/AlN/diamond, with Si as the substrate. The results show that its phase velocity and electromechanical coupling coefficient are both significantly improved, compared with that of the traditional interdigital transduce-free surface structure. The M2 mode of the sandwiched structure can excite an operation frequency up to 6.15 GHz, with an electromechanical coupling coefficient of 5.53%, phase velocity of 12,470 m/s, and temperature coefficient of frequency of −6.3 ppm/°C. This structure provides a new ideal for the design of high-performance and high-frequency SAW devices.

The common cutworm, Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), is a voracious agricultural pest. To increase understanding of the migration patterns and genetic diversity of different geographic populations of this species, we analyzed genetic variation in nine microsatellite loci among 576 individuals collected from 17 locations in China and one in Myanmar during 2011–2012. We successfully identified 162 alleles, with an average of 18 alleles per locus and a range of 5 to 34. The mean observed heterozygosity of the 18 populations ranged from 0.18 to 0.98, and the expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.19 to 0.89. For the nine microsatellite markers studied, polymorphism information content ranged from 0.18 to 0.88 (mean=0.64). We found low genetic differentiation among the 18 populations (mean F-statistics (FST)=0.05) and high genetic diversity among individuals. Principle coordinates analysis indicated no significant correlation between geographic and genetic distance (r=0.04). The value of Nm (Nm>4) estimated using coalescent-based methods suggests strong gene flow with migration. The nine microsatellite markers identified in this study will be beneficial for further investigation of migration patterns and genetic diversity in S. litura.

Microstructures are fabricated with a fast fabrication speed, submicron-scale precision and a minimum feature size of 1.5 μm. The proposed rapid prototyping fabrication method takes advantage of the maskless lithography technique based on a digital mirror device (DMD) and photocurable resin, which has a broad range of uses in three-dimensional (3D) printing. To illustrate the feasibility of this method, a Dammann grating is fabricated. Using a series of experiments and optimized designs, we analyze the characteristics of the photocurable resin, quantify the dose modulation for lithography and redesign the mask pattern. Consequently, a Dammann grating with a 50% diffraction efficiency is successfully fabricated, which can not only guarantee the precision but also maintain the fabrication speed. This work demonstrates the potential of this method to rapidly and directly manufacture binary optical elements or structures at the nanoscale based on photocurable resin and DMD-based maskless lithography.

In this paper, we investigate and analyze numerically and theoretically a coupled plasmonic resonant system by using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and multimode interference coupled-mode theory (MICMT), respectively. First, by employing an end-coupled cavity associated with two side-coupled cavities, three ultra-sharp and asymmetrical Fano resonant peaks are observed in the transmission spectrum. High refractive index sensitivities and high figure of merits are achieved for all the peaks. In the interest of highly integrated optical devices, up to seven Fano peaks with asymmetrical line shapes are achieved when the composite structure is successfully extended by two additional cavities, whereas most of the reported results are about 1-4 Fano resonances in a single structure. Preferred performances are also obtained for this chip-scale structure. This proposed structure may have great potential applications for on-chip optical sensing and optical communication in highly integrated photonic circuits.

Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) is the most commonly-used tool for measurement of gene expression, but its accuracy and reliability depend on appropriate data normalization with the use of one or more stable reference genes. Adelphocoris suturalis is one of the most destructive pests of cotton, but until recently knowledge of its underlying molecular physiology had been hindered by a lack of molecular resources. To facilitate research on this pest, we evaluated 12 common housekeeping genes studied in insects (GAPDH, ACT, βACT, TBP, SDH, βTUB, EF1γ, EF1α, EF1δ, RPL32, RPS15, and RPL27) for their expression stability in A. suturalis when subjected to various experimental treatments, including three biotic (developmental stage and sex, tissue type, and metathoracic scent gland for varying developmental stages and sexes) and one abiotic (RNA interference injection) conditions. Four dedicated algorithms (ΔCt method, geNorm, BestKeeper and NormFinder) were used to analyze gene expression stability. In addition, RefFinder provided an overall ranking of the stability/suitability of these candidates. This study is the first to provide a comprehensive list of suitable reference genes for gene expression analyses in A. suturalis, which can serve to facilitate transcript expression study of related biological processes in this and related species.

Intercropping is an important agronomic practice. However, assessment of intercropping systems using field experiments is often limited by time and cost. In this study, the suitability of using the DeNitrification DeComposition (DNDC) model to simulate intercropping of maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean (Glycine max L.) and its aftereffect on the succeeding wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop was tested in the North China Plain. First, the model was calibrated and corroborated to simulate crop yield and nitrogen (N) uptake based on a field experiment with a typical double cropping system. With a wheat crop in winter, the experiment included five treatments in summer: maize monoculture, soybean monoculture, intercropping of maize and soybean with no N topdressing to maize (N0), intercropping of maize and soybean with 75 kg N ha−1 topdressing to maize (N75), and intercropping of maize and soybean with 180 kg N ha−1 topdressing to maize (N180). All treatments had 45 kg N ha−1 as basal fertilizer. After calibration and corroboration, DNDC was used to simulate long-term (1955 to 2012) treatment effects on yield. Results showed that DNDC could stringently capture the yield and N uptake of the intercropping system under all N management scenarios, though it tended to underestimate wheat yield and N uptake under N0 and N75. Long-term simulation results showed that N75 led to the highest maize and soybean yields per unit planting area among all treatments, increasing maize yield by 59% and soybean yield by 24%, resulting in a land utilization rate 42% higher than monoculture. The results suggest a high potential to promote soybean production by intercropping soybean with maize in the North China Plain, which will help to meet the large national demand for soybean.

Background: We aimed to establish a new approach for surveillance of cancer prevalence and survival in China, based on the Medical-Insurance-System-based Cancer Surveillance System (MIS-CASS). Methods: We constructed a standard procedure for data collection, cleaning, processing, linkage, verification, analysis, and estimation of cancer prevalence and survival (including both actual observations and model estimates) by conjoint use of medical insurance claims data and all-cause death surveillance data. As a proof-of-principle study, we evaluated the performance of this surveillance approach by estimating the latest prevalence and survival for upper gastrointestinal cancers in Hua County, a high-risk region for oesophageal cancer in China. Findings: In Hua County, the age-standardised relative 5-year survival was 39·2% (male: 36·8%; female: 43·6%) for oesophageal cancer and 33·3% (male: 29·6%; female: 43·4%) for stomach cancer. For oesophageal cancer, better survival was observed in patients of 45–64 years compared with national average estimates, and women of

In this paper, a novel scheme for multidepth three dimensional (3D) object authentication is presented based on partial fractional Fourier transform spectrum (FrFT) and phase retrieval technique. An inverse layer-based Fresnel transform (FT) is utilized to covert an original 3D object into a two-dimensional (2D) interim image whose phase and amplitude components are then merged in a random complex-valued field distribution, respectively. The random field distribution is further processed by an optical FrFT, resulting in an intensity spectrum where a sub-block area is randomly selected as ciphertext and recorded by a charged couple device (CCD). Simulation results show that partial information of the 3D object can be retrieved from a size-adjustable 2D FrFT spectrum by using a modified iterative retrieval method in FrFT domain with correct keys. Via this design, lateral position of the ciphertext and the merged location of the 2D interim image are introduced as additional keys. Consequently, the proposal achieve more design freedom and key space against potential attacks. The designed complex-valued random field distribution contains the main keys of the proposed scheme. Moreover, the introduction of this field distribution can further increase the dimension degree of position keys. The simulation results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

MTS-810 material testing machine and acoustic emission signal analyzer were adopted to explore the mechanical behavior of concrete beams broken by the static load and the nonlinear cumulative damage law of concrete beams broken by fatigue bending from single-stage loading. Then, by introducing the Ramesh Talreja’s Damage Criterion, the damage rule of single-stage loading was extended to the damage accumulation rule under multi-stage loading, and the results were verified by the results of two-stage and three-stage fatigue loading tests. Two main conclusions are achieved: first, affected by four-point bending load, the fatigue life of the concrete specimen is in line with the law of the two-parameter Weibull distribution, namely the higher the stress level is, the shorter the fatigue life is. Second, an obvious nonlinear relationship was discovered in the damage of concrete. The model deduced in this paper and the Palmgren-Miner linear damage accumulation model were adopted to compare the test results of flexural fatigue under single, two and three stage loads. The calculation results of this model were more reliable.

MTS-810 material testing machine and acoustic emission signal analyzer were adopted to explore the mechanical behavior of concrete beams broken by the static load and the nonlinear cumulative damage law of concrete beams broken by fatigue bending from single-stage loading. Then, by introducing the Ramesh Talreja's Damage Criterion, the damage rule of single-stage loading was extended to the damage accumulation rule under multi-stage loading, and the results were verified by the results of two-stage and three-stage fatigue loading tests. Two main conclusions are achieved: first, affected by four-point bending load, the fatigue life of the concrete specimen is in line with the law of the two-parameter Weibull distribution, namely the higher the stress level is, the shorter the fatigue life is. Second, an obvious nonlinear relationship was discovered in the damage of concrete. The model deduced in this paper and the Palmgren-Miner linear damage accumulation model were adopted to compare the test results of flexural fatigue under single, two and three stage loads. The calculation results of this model were more reliable.

Summary: Background: We aimed to establish a Medical-Insurance-System-based Cancer Surveillance System (MIS-CASS) in China and evaluate the completeness and timeliness of this system through reporting cancer incidence rates using claims data in two regions in northern and southern China. Methods: We extracted claims data from medical insurance systems in Hua County of Henan Province, and Shantou City in Guangdong Province in China from Jan 1, 2012 to Jun 30, 2019. These two regions have been considered to be high risk regions for oesophageal cancer. We developed a rigorous procedure to establish the MIS-CASS, which includes data extraction, cleaning, processing, case ascertainment, privacy protection, etc. Text-based diagnosis in conjunction with ICD-10 codes were used to determine cancer diagnosis. Findings: In 2018, the overall age-standardised (Segi population) incidence rates (ASR World) of cancer in Hua County and Shantou City were 167·39/100,000 and 159·78/100,000 respectively. In both of these areas, lung cancer and breast cancer were the most common cancers in males and females respectively. Hua County is a high-risk region for oesophageal cancer (ASR World: 25·95/100,000), whereas Shantou City is not a high-risk region for oesophageal cancer (ASR World: 11·43/100,000). However, Nanao island had the highest incidence of oesophageal cancer among all districts and counties in Shantou (ASR World: 36·39/100,000). The age-standardised male-to-female ratio for oesophageal cancer was lower in Hua County than in Shantou (1·69 vs. 4·02). A six-month lag time was needed to report these cancer incidences for the MIS-CASS. Interpretation: MIS-CASS efficiently reflects cancer burden in real-time, and has the potential to provide insight for improvement of cancer surveillance in China. Funding: The National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0901404), the Digestive Medical Coordinated Development Center of Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals (XXZ0204), the Sanming Project of Shenzhen (SZSM201612061), and the Shantou Science and Technology Bureau (190829105556145, 180918114960704). Keywords: Medical insurance system, Claims data, Cancer surveillance, Cancer incidence, China

Abstract: Crop modelling can facilitate researchers' ability to understand and interpret experimental results, and to diagnose yield gaps. In this paper, the Decision Support Systems for Agrotechnology Transfer 4.6 (DSSAT) model together with the CENTURT soil model were employed to investigate the effect of low nitrogen (N) input on wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield, grain N concentration and soil organic carbon (SOC) in a long-term experiment (19 years) under a wheat-maize (Zea mays L.) rotation at Changping, Beijing, China. There were two treatments including N0 (no N application) and N150 (150 kg N ha−1) before wheat and maize planting, with phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) basal fertilizers applied as 75 kg P2O5 ha−1 and 37.5 kg K2O ha−1, respectively. The DSSAT-CENTURY model was able to satisfactorily simulate measured wheat grain yield and grain N concentration at N0, but could not simulate these parameters at N150, or SOC in either N treatment. Model simulation and field measurement showed that N application (N150) increased wheat yield compared to no N application (N0). The results indicated that inorganic fertilizer application at the rates used did not maintain crop yield and SOC levels. It is suggested that if the DSSAT is calibrated carefully, it can be a useful tool for assessing and predicting wheat yield, grain N concentration, and SOC trends under wheat-maize cropping systems.

In order to study the catalytic activity of Cu(II) coordination polymer material, a novel 1D chained Cu(II) coordination polymer material, [CuL(bipy)(H2O)5]n (A1) (H2L = 1,4-phenylenediacetic acid, bipy = 2,2’-bipyridine), has been prepared by the reaction of 1,4-phenylenediacetic acid, 2,2’-bipyridine, Cu(CH3COO)2·H2O and NaOH. The composition of A1 was determined by elemental analysis, IR spectra and single crystal X-ray diffraction. The results of characterization show that each Cu(II) atom adopts six-coordination and forms a distorted octahedral configuration. The catalytic activity and reusability of A1 catalyst for A3 coupling reaction of benzaldehyde, piperidine, and phenylacetylene have been investigated. And the results show that the Cu(II) complex catalyst has good catalytic activity with a maximum yield of 54.3% and stability.

Reliable prediction of soil organic carbon (SOC) density and carbon sequestration potential (CSP) plays an important role in the atmospheric carbon dioxide budget. This study evaluated temporal and spatial variation of topsoil SOC density and CSP of 21 soil groups across Hebei Province, China, using data collected during the second national soil survey in the 1980s and during the recent soil inventory in 2010. The CSP can be estimated by the method that the saturated SOC content subtracts the actual SOC associated with clay and silt. Overall, the SOC density and CSP of most soil groups increased from the 1980s to 2010 and varied between different soil groups. Among all soil groups, Haplic phaeozems had the highest SOC density and Endogleyic solonchaks had the largest CSP. Areas of soil groups with the highest SOC density (90 to 120 t C ha−1) and carbon sequestration (120 to 160 t C ha−1) also increased over time. With regard to spatial distribution, the north of the province had higher SOC density but lower CSP than the south. With respect to land-use type, cultivated soils had lower SOC density but higher CSP than uncultivated soils. In addition, SOC density and CSP were influenced by soil physicochemical properties, climate and terrain and were most strongly correlated with soil humic acid concentration. The results suggest that soil groups (uncultivated soils) of higher SOC density have greater risk of carbon dioxide emission and that management should be aimed at maximizing carbon sequestration in soil groups (cultivated soils) with greater CSP. Furthermore, soils should be managed according to their spatial distributions of SOC density and carbon sequestration potential under different soil groups.

Through adding a groove to an end-coupled perfect ring (PR) resonator, a ring-groove (RG) joint metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure is proposed. Destructive interference for the expected surface plasmon mode will occur due to the phase differences between two optical paths, leading to the plasmonic-induced absorption response with abnormal dispersion, which is analogous to the electromagnetically induced absorption in the three-level atomic system. A transmission dip is achieved at the former-peak wavelength of the PR resonator, while two transmission peaks arise around the window. The proposed structure, which benefits from -0.3 ps group delay time, will be preferred in the ultrafast-light applications. Due to the same interference effect, plasmonic-induced transparency response with slow-light characteristic is also investigated by arranging the RG joint resonator to be a side-coupled configuration. Therefore, a new approach for on-chip light-speed control can be developed by using the proposed structures, whose performances are investigated by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and the coupled mode theory.

The principal pathology of Alzheimer′s disease includes neuronal extracellular deposition of amyloid-beta peptides and formation of senile plaques, which in turn induce neuroinflammation in the brain. Triptolide, a natural extract from the vine-like herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F, has potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive efficacy. Therefore, we determined if triptolide can inhibit activation and proliferation of microglial cells and astrocytes in the APP/PS1 double transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer′s disease. We used 1 or 5 μg/kg/d triptolide to treat APP/PS1 double transgenic mice (aged 4-4.5 months) for 45 days. Unbiased stereology analysis found that triptolide dose-dependently reduced the total number of microglial cells, and transformed microglial cells into the resting state. Further, triptolide (5 μg/kg/d) also reduced the total number of hippocampal astrocytes. Our in vivo test results indicate that triptolide suppresses activation and proliferation of microglial cells and astrocytes in the hippocampus of APP/PS1 double transgenic mice with Alzheimer′s disease.

On the basis of single metal-insulator-metal (MIM) ring resonator (RR) structure, which acts as a band-stopped filter, a dual RR (DRR) system is proposed to obtain the plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) effect. By rotating the second RR an angle, double PIT windows are achieved due to the dual interference effects, which are attributed to different excitation pathways from the first RR to the second RR. In addition, triple PIT peaks are also achieved by adding an extra inclined RR to the DRR system. Phase shifts, which will occur at each transparency window, are also achieved and analyzed. These compact MIM waveguide structures may be used in the highly integrated optical circuits for biochemical sensors optical signal processing, and optical data storage.

Prior to entering diapause, insects must prepare themselves physiologically to withstand the stresses of arresting their development for a lengthy period. While studies describing the biochemical and cellular milieu of the maintenance phase of diapause are accumulating, few studies have taken an “omics” approach to describing molecular events during the diapause preparatory phase. We used isobaric tags and mass spectrometry (iTRAQ) to quantitatively compare the expression profiles of proteins identified during the onset of diapause preparation phase in the heads of adult female cabbage beetles, Colaphellus bowringi. A total of 3,175 proteins were identified, 297 of which were differentially expressed between diapause-destined and non-diapause-destined female adults and could therefore be involved in diapause preparation in this species. Comparison of identified proteins with protein function databases shows that many of these differentially expressed proteins enhanced in diapause destined beetles are involved in energy production and conversion, carbohydrate metabolism and transport, and lipid metabolism. Further hand annotation of differentially abundant peptides nominates several associated with stress hardiness, including HSPs and antioxidants, as well as neural development. In contrast, non-diapause destined beetles show substantial increases in cuticle proteins, suggesting additional post-emergence growth. Using RNA interference to silence a fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) that was highly abundant in the head of diapause-destined females prevented the accumulation of lipids in the fat body, a common product of diapause preparation in this species and others. Surprisingly, RNAi against the FABP also affected the transcript abundance of several heat shock proteins. These results suggest that the identified differentially expressed proteins that play vital roles in lipid metabolism may also contribute somehow to enhanced hardiness to environmental stress that is characteristic of diapause.

A series of silicate glass fibers with different ratios of Fe2O3/ZrO2 were prepared, and their corrosion resistance, mass loss, and strength loss were characterized. The crystallization and melting properties of the fibers were analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), high temperature viscometer, and high temperature microscope. The results show that the deformation temperature, sphere temperature, hemisphere temperature, and crystallization temperature of the fiber initially decrease and then increase with the increase of Fe2O3/ZrO2 ratio, while the molding temperature decreases with the increase of the ratio of Fe2O3/ZrO2. When the ratio is close to 1 : 1, its alkali resistance is almost same as that of AR-glass fiber, and the drawing process performance is better. However, with the increase of the ratio, its alkali resistance continues to decline and the poor wire drawing performance is not conducive to the drawing operation.

Entomopathogenic fungus as well as their toxins is a natural threat surrounding social insect colonies. To defend against them, social insects have evolved a series of unique disease defenses at the colony level, which consists of behavioral and physiological adaptations. These colony-level defenses can reduce the infection and poisoning risk and improve the survival of societal members, and is known as social immunity. In this review, we discuss how social immunity enables the insect colony to avoid, resist and tolerate fungal pathogens. To understand the molecular basis of social immunity, we highlight several genetic elements and biochemical factors that drive the colony-level defense, which needs further verification. We discuss the chemosensory genes in regulating social behaviors, the antifungal secretions such as some insect venoms in external defense and the immune priming in internal defense. To conclude, we show the possible driving force of the fungal toxins for the evolution of social immunity. Throughout the review, we propose several questions involved in social immunity extended from some phenomena that have been reported. We hope our review about social ‘host−fungal pathogen’ interactions will help us further understand the mechanism of social immunity in eusocial insects.

The microstructures of hard-to-deform materials such as titanium alloy are very sensitive to temperature change in hot working process. During ring rolling process, unreasonable rolling paths will lead to drastic temperature change in local region of ring, thus damaging the microstructure and performance of rolled ring. This work proposes a method for designing the rolling paths which could accurately control the ring temperature by target-temperature driven intelligent FE simulation. The main idea of target-temperature driven intelligent simulation is introduced. An intelligent 3D-FE model for TA15 titanium alloy ring rolling is established under ABAQUS/Explicit environment. The rolling paths under different initial conditions are obtained by intelligent FE simulations. The influence rule of initial conditions on rolling paths is revealed. The temperature control effects and change under different initial conditions are discussed. Considering the temperature control effects, a feasible range of initial ring temperature is suggested. Using the proposed method, the quick and accurate design for the rolling paths in radial-axial ring rolling process is realized. It is of great significance for the design and optimization of rolling paths and the accurate regulation of ring temperature in actual production.

The striped stem borer (SSB), Chilo suppressalis (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is a major pest of rice in China. Variation in host-plant quality may affect the body size of herbivorous insects, which in turn, can determine their life-history parameters such as survival, fecundity and fitness. In this study, we tested the effects of high-quality aromatic rice varieties on the fitness of SSB in China. Results showed that 1st instar larvae had higher penetrating rates and survival rates on the high-quality aromatic rice varieties (EX-1 and WX-988) than that on the non-aromatic rice varieties (EZ-5 and LYP-9). In addition, shorter developmental periods, greater female pupal weights and higher of other life-history parameters (hatching rate, pupation rate, eclosion rate and increase index) were found on the high-quality aromatic rice varieties, although only female pupal weight showed a significant difference between the two varieties. The highest dead heart rate was found on the aromatic rice variety of EX-1. These results indicate that SSB sustains a lower fitness cost when consuming the high-quality aromatic rice varieties (EX-1 and WX-988) than on the non-aromatic rice varieties (EZ-5 and LYP-9) in Central China.

Developmental characteristics of the predatory bug Orius similis fed on Tetranychus cinnabarinus were investigated at three constant temperatures (25, 28, and 31°C) under laboratory conditions (75±5% relative humidity and a 14L : 10D photoperiod). The survival of nymphs was highest at 28°C (75.57%) and at this temperature female adults O. similis had the longest oviposition period (21.1 d), the greatest fecundity (40.3 eggs) and the highest potential intrinsic rate of increase (rm: 0.108 d-1). These results suggest that O. similis can maintain greater population densities at 28°C than at the other temperatures tested. In addition, the functional response indicates that the attack rate of O. similis (1.04) and the maximum prey capacity (30.7 spider mites per bug in 24h) are greatest at 28°C. The results of this study provide useful information on the biology and time when to release O. similis in order to reduce the abundance of T. cinnabarinus in cotton fields.

Ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation is an important environmental factor. It is generally known that UVB exhibits high genotoxicity due to causing DNA damage, potentially leading to skin carcinogenesis and aging in mammals. However, little is known about the effects of UVB on the development and metamorphosis of insects, which are the most abundant terrestrial animals. In the present study, we performed dose-response analyses of the effects UVB irradiation on Tribolium castaneum metamorphosis, assessed the function of the T. castaneum prothoracicotropic hormone gene (Trcptth), and analyzed ecdysteroid pathway gene expression profile and ecdysterone titers post-UVB irradiation. The results showed that UVB not only caused death of T. castaneum larvae, but also delayed larval-pupal metamorphosis and reduced the size and emergence rate of pupae. In addition, we verified the function of Trcptth, which is responsible for regulating metamorphosis. It was also found that the expression profiles of Trcptth as well as ecdysteroidogenesis and response genes were influenced by UVB radiation. Therefore, a disturbance pulse of ecdysteroid may be involved in delaying development under exposure to irradiation. To our knowledge, this is the first report indicating that UVB can influence the metamorphosis of insects. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the impact of UVB on signaling mechanisms in insect metamorphosis.

In this paper, multiple Fano resonances preferred in the refractive index sensing area are achieved based on sub-wavelength metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguides. Two slot cavities, which are placed between or above the MIM waveguides, can support the bright modes or the dark modes, respectively. Owing to the mode interferences, dual Fano resonances with obvious asymmetrical spectral responses are achieved. High sensitivity and high figure of merit are investigated by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. In view of the development of chip-scale integrated photonics, two extra slot cavities are successively added to the structure, and consequently, three and four ultra-sharp Fano peaks with considerable performances are obtained, respectively. It is believed that this proposed structure can find important applications in the on-chip optical sensing and optical communication areas.

The brassica leaf beetle, Phaedon brassicae Baly (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), one of the pests infesting cruciferous vegetables in China and Japan, is a multivoltine species that oversummers and overwinters as an adult. The effects of both temperature and photoperiod on reproductive diapause induction were systematically investigated in this beetle. Under 16L : 8D, most of the beetles entered reproductive diapause at 12-30°C, indicating that photoperiod played a crucial role in estivation diapause induction. Under 12L : 12D, all adults developed without diapause at 28 and 30°C; less than 25% of the individuals entered reproductive diapause at 16-24°C; however, 46.1% of the individuals entered diapause at 12°C, suggesting that low temperature also had a relatively important influence on the determination of diapause. The photoperiodic response curves indicate that this species is a typical short-day species. The critical day-lengths at 20, 24 and 28°C were 13.2, 13.6 and 13.8 h, respectively. Transferring them from 16L : 8D to 12L : 12D or vice versa at different ages and/or stages during their development revealed that the photoperiod experienced by adults during the first 11 days might be important for diapause determination, even though an effect of photoperiod on the larval and pupal stages can not be excluded. Transferring individuals kept at a photoperiod of 12L : 12D from 25°C to 12°C or vice versa at different ages and/or stages during their development revealed that the temperature cue for diapause is mainly perceived by the late instar larvae and pupae.

Endothelial dysfunction plays a key role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. However, the gender-related differences in risk factors for endothelial dysfunction are controversial. We investigated the gender differences in the risk factor profiles for endothelial dysfunction in Chinese hypertensive patients.Vascular endothelial functions in 213 hypertensive patients were measured by digital reactive hyperemia peripheral arterial tonometry (RH-PAT). Peripheral blood samples were collected, and the self-reported smoking and alcohol consumption status, age, body mass index, heart rate, blood pressure and drug administrations were recorded.RH-PAT indexes were attenuated in both male and female hypertensive patients [1.60 (1.38-2.02) vs. 1.63 (1.44-1.98)]. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified plasma creatinine (p < 0.001), total cholesterol (p = 0.001), homocysteine (p = 0.002) and smoking (p < 0.001) as the independent factors correlated with gender (male). Multivariate linear regression analysis further identified homocysteine as the factor that is significantly and independently correlated with the decrease in the RH-PAT indexes in female patients (odds ratio: -0.166, 95% confidence interval: -0.292 to -0.040, p = 0.01). However, none of these four factors were correlated with the RH-PAT indexes in male patients.There are gender-related differences in the risk factors for endothelial dysfunction in Chinese hypertensive patients. Homocysteine is an independent factor for endothelial dysfunction in female hypertensive patients.

The cabbage beetle Colaphellus bowringi Baly is a serious insect pest of crucifers and undergoes reproductive diapause in soil. An understanding of the molecular mechanisms of diapause regulation, insecticide resistance, and other physiological processes is helpful for developing new management strategies for this beetle. However, the lack of genomic information and valid reference genes limits knowledge on the molecular bases of these physiological processes in this species.Using Illumina sequencing, we obtained more than 57 million sequence reads derived from C. bowringi, which were assembled into 39,390 unique sequences. A Clusters of Orthologous Groups classification was obtained for 9,048 of these sequences, covering 25 categories, and 16,951 were assigned to 255 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways. Eleven candidate reference gene sequences from the transcriptome were then identified through reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Among these candidate genes, EF1α, ACT1, and RPL19 proved to be the most stable reference genes for different reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction experiments in C. bowringi. Conversely, aTUB and GAPDH were the least stable reference genes.The abundant putative C. bowringi transcript sequences reported enrich the genomic resources of this beetle. Importantly, the larger number of gene sequences and valid reference genes provide a valuable platform for future gene expression studies, especially with regard to exploring the molecular mechanisms of different physiological processes in this species.