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Hypertension (HTN) was a major preventable cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), contributing to a huge disease burden. Ambient temperature, air pollution and green space were important influencing factors of HTN, and few studies have assessed the effects and interactions of ambient temperature, air pollution and green space on HTN in rural areas. In this study, we selected 8400 individuals randomly in rural areas of Anhui Province by a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling. A total of 8383 individuals were included in the final analysis. We collected particulate pollutants and meteorological data from the local air quality monitoring stations and National Center for Meteorological Science from January 1 to December 31, 2020, respectively. The normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) of Anhui Province in 2020 was produced and processed by remote sensing inversion on the basis of medium resolution satellite images. The average annual mean exposure concentrations of air pollution, meteorological factors, and NDVI were calculated for each individual based on the geocoded residential address. HTN was defined according the Chinese Guidelines for Prevention and Treatment of HTN. The effects and interactions of ambient temperature, air pollution and green space on HTN were evaluated by generalized linear model and interaction model, respectively. In this study, the prevalence of HTN was 24.14%. The adjusted odd ratio of HTN for each 1 μg/m3 increasing in PM2.5 and PM10, 1 °C of ambient temperature, and 0.1 of NDVI were:1.276 (1.013, 1.043), 1.012 (1.006, 1.018), 0.862 (0.862, 0.981) and 0.669 (0.611, 0.733), respectively. The results showed that air pollutants were positively correlated with HTN, while ambient temperature and green space were negatively correlated with HTN. Meanwhile, the negative associations of green space on HTN could decrease with the increasing concentrations of air pollution, but increase with the rising of ambient temperature.

Presented here was the spectrum and laser performance of a Tm:YAP (YAlO3) laser crystal under 1 MeV electron irradiation. It was demonstrated that, under the radiation of S3E15, the absorption spectrum was enhanced of about 1.2 times at the absorption peak at 688 nm, and the absorption peak at 794 nm was enhanced of about 1.16 times, the laser threshold increased from 2.7 W to 2.93 W, the maximum output power reduced from 2.89 W to 2.585 W an d the slope efficiency decreased of nearly 3% at pump power of 13.325 W, the center wavelength drifted from 1991.68 nm to 1992.76 nm, the wavelength FWHM increased by about 0.7 nm.

Laser emission performances at 2 μm obtained from a Ho:Sc2SiO5 crystal was reported in this work. A few-layer MoS2 saturable absorber was used to obtain passively Q-switched regime. The laser beam quality was characterized by an M2 factor of 1.13 × 1.11. In continuous-wave mode the laser delivered 3.28 W output power for the pump with 12.58 W at 1.94 μm, which corresponds to an overall optical-to-optical efficiency of 0.26. The slope efficiency was 0.50. The maximum average power was 1.11 W and the laser run at 128.4 kHz repetition rate, indicating pulse energy of 8.62 μJ. The shortest laser pulse duration was measured to be 248 ns from which pulse peak power was determined as 34.77 W.

The endophytic fungus Harpophora oryzae is a beneficial endosymbiont isolated from wild rice. H. oryzae can not only promote rice growth and biomass accumulation but also protect rice roots from invasion by its close relative Magnaporthe oryzae. Autophagy is a highly evolutionary conserved process from lower to higher eukaryotic organisms, and is involved in the maintenance of normal cell differentiation and development. In this study, we isolated a gene (HoATG5) which encodes an essential protein required for autophagy from the beneficial endophyte fungus H. oryzae. Using targeted gene replacement, a ΔHoATG5 mutant was generated and used to investigate the biological functions of autophagy in H. oryzae. We found that the autophagic process was blocked in the HoATG5 deletion mutant. The mutant showed increased vegetative growth and sporulation, and was sensitive to nutrient starvation. The ΔHoATG5 mutant lost its ability to penetrate and infect the wounded barley leaves. These results provide new knowledge to elaborate the molecular machinery of autophagy in endophytic fungi.

Arginine is one of the most versatile amino acids in eukaryote cells, which plays important roles in a multitude of processes such as protein synthesis, nitrogen metabolism, nitric oxide (NO) and urea biosynthesis. The de novo arginine biosynthesis pathway is conserved among fungal kingdom, but poorly understood in plant pathogenic fungi. Here, we characterized the functions of three synthetic enzyme-encoding genes MoARG1, MoARG5,6, and MoARG7, which involved the seventh step, second-third step and fifth step of arginine biosynthesis in Magnaporthe oryzae, respectively. Deletion of MoARG1 or MoARG5,6, resulted in arginine auxotrophic mutants, which had a strict requirement for arginine on minimal medium (MM). Both ΔMoarg1 and ΔMoarg5,6 severely reduced in aerial hyphal growth, pigmentation, conidiogenesis, sexual reproduction and pathogenicity. Interestingly, like Saccharomyces cerevisiae, deletion of MoARG7 caused a leaky arginine auxotrophy, and attenuated pathogenicity. Limited appressorium-mediated penetration and restricted invasive hyphae growth in host cells are responsible for the severely attenuated pathogenicity of the Arg(-) mutants. Additionally, we monitored the NO generation during conidial germination and appressorial formation in both Arg(-) mutants and wild type, and demonstrated that NO generation may not occur via arginine-dependent pathway in M. oryzae. In summary, MoARG1, MoARG5,6, and MoARG7 are required for growth, conidiogenesis, sexual reproduction, and pathogenicity in M. oryzae.

The mitochondrial fission protein Fis1 regulates yeast mitochondrial fission and is required for ethanol-induced mitochondrial fragmentation and apoptosis. To examine the function of Fis1 in a plant pathogenic fungus, we cloned the MoFIS1 gene, a homolog of Saccharomyces cerevisiae FIS1, from Magnaporthe oryzae and characterized its function by targeted gene deletion and mutant phenotypic analysis. MoFIS1 deletion mutants were unaltered in conidial germination, appressorium formation, and mating tests, but were severely defective in colony growth, conidiation, virulence on rice and barley, growth under nitrogen and glucose deficiency, and growth under osmotic stress. Blast lesions on rice leaves caused by the ΔMofis1 strain were significantly reduced, were non-proliferating, and were less coalesced as compared to the highly coalesced and proliferating lesions resulting from infection with the wild-type strain. The defects in growth, conidiation, and virulence of the mutant were restored in a complementation strain of ΔMofis1. A MoFis1-GFP fusion protein co-localized with Mitotracker red in mitochondria. These results show that MoFIS1 encodes a mitochondrial protein that regulates fungal growth, conidiation, and virulence in M. oryzae.

The concepts of the Cone Packing Model, namely the Solid Angle Factor (SAF), Fan Angle (FA), Coordination Vector (α r ), Gap and Hole have been introduced to describe steric packing around the metal centre. In a treatment of more than 160 structures of lanthanide coordination compounds, it was found that the sums of the ligand SAFs (SAS) are mainly in the region SAS = 0.78, σ = 0.05. This result provides concrete evidence that “coordination saturation” in the lanthanide compounds is actually saturation in the coordination space. The Packing Centre Rule has shown for the first time that the vector sum of the ligand SAFs, i.e. ΣSAF· α r , of each structure closely approaches zero with an average ΣSAF· α r of 0.02 and a standard deviation of 0.015. The Packing Centre Rule indicates that there is a clear tendency for the ligands to distribute themselves so that the non-bonding repulsions are at a minimum.

The concept of ‘Seat’ is introduced to study steric packing quantitatively. Coordination space is analysed into a series of cone seats. Degeneracy, splitting, transformation and inversion of interlocking seats were studied with the seat level diagrams. Steric isomerism is described with different seat level diagrams. In weak covalent compounds, the isomer, with the maximum SAS of the occupied seats, is more favourable for ligand packing. The difference between the largest vacant seat and the smallest occupied seat is also suggested as a criterion for estimating stable isomers.

With the ligands packed around the central ion at the non-bonding contact distances, the geometries calculated according to the ‘Seat-ligand Least Fitting Method’ are found to be in close agreement with the actual molecular structure geometries, providing distinct evidence that steric packing plays a dominant role in molecular structure. Distortions of the geometrical frame caused by bonding and other interactions are discussed.

Steric effects are considered as the driving factors in ligand exchange reactions for the first time. Under weak ligand field interaction, various types of improper packing of ligands will induce packing rearrangements. The ligand mixing reactions, the non-integral metal-ligand ratio in compound compositions, the even-odd effect and related phenomena are analysed in the light of the steric packing of the ligands. The extended Seat-ligand Least Fitting Method and the extended Maximum Difference Isomer Criterion are proposed for the quantitative treatment of ligand exchange.

By comparing the residual space available in a molecular fragment with the space demanded by the additional ligands, structural and chemical properties of compounds containing this fragment can be studied quantitatively in the light of steric factors. This method is described in detail with the complexes of MCp 3 (where Cp is cyclopentadienyl) as an example.

Synergistic extraction in mixed substrates has been predicted according to the cone-packing model and confirmed in the uranyl extraction with TBP in mixed solutions of ammonium chloride and sodium acetate. The molecular structure of UO2(CH3-COO)Cl(dmf)2 (dmf = N,N-dimethylformamide) confirmed the suggested extraction mechanism.