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The missense variant rs13107325 (C/T, p.Ala391Thr) in SLC39A8 consistently showed robust association with schizophrenia in recent genome-wide association studies (GWASs), suggesting the potential pathogenicity of this non-synonymous risk variant. Nevertheless, how this missense variant confers schizophrenia risk remains unknown. Here we constructed a knock-in mouse model (by introducing a threonine at the 393th amino acid of mouse SLC39A8 (SLC39A8-p.393T), which corresponds to rs13107325 (p.Ala391Thr) of human SLC39A8) to explore the potential roles and biological effects of this missense variant in schizophrenia pathogenesis. We assessed multiple phenotypes and traits (associated with rs13107325) of the knock-in mice, including body and brain weight, concentrations of metal ions (including cadmium, zinc, manganese, and iron) transported by SLC39A8, blood lipids, proliferation and migration of neural stem cells (NSCs), cortical development, behaviors and cognition, transcriptome, dendritic spine density, and synaptic transmission. Many of the tested phenotypes did not show differences in SLC39A8-p.393T knock-in and wild-type mice. However, we found that zinc concentration in brain and blood of SLC39A8-p.393T knock-in mice was dysregulated compared with wild-types, validating the functionality of rs13107325. Further analysis indicated that cortical dendritic spine density of the SLC39A8-p.393T knock-in mice was significantly decreased compared with wild-types, indicating the important role of SLC39A8-p.393T in dendritic spine morphogenesis. These results indicated that SLC39A8-p.393T knock-in resulted in decreased dendritic spine density, thus mimicking the dendritic spine pathology observed in schizophrenia. Our study indicates that rs13107325 might confer schizophrenia risk by regulating zinc concentration and dendritic spine density, a featured characteristic that was frequently reported to be decreased in schizophrenia.

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have revealed that genetic variants at the 22q13.2 risk locus were robustly associated with schizophrenia. However, the causal variants at this risk locus and their roles in schizophrenia remain elusive. Here we identify the risk missense variant rs1801311 (located in the 1st exon of NDUFA6 gene) as likely causal for schizophrenia at 22q13.2 by disrupting binding of YY1, TAF1, and POLR2A. We systematically elucidated the regulatory mechanisms of rs1801311 and validated the regulatory effect of this missense variant. Intriguingly, rs1801311 physically interacted with NAGA (encodes the alpha-N-acetylgalactosaminidase, which is mainly involved in regulating metabolisms of glycoproteins and glycolipids in lysosome) and showed the most significant association with NAGA expression in the human brain, with the risk allele (G) associated with higher NAGA expression. Consistent with eQTL analysis, expression analysis showed that NAGA was significantly upregulated in brains of schizophrenia cases compared with controls, further supporting that rs1801311 may confer schizophrenia risk by regulating NAGA expression. Of note, we found that NAGA regulates important neurodevelopmental processes, including proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells. Transcriptome analysis corroborated that NAGA regulates pathways associated with neuronal differentiation. Finally, we independently confirmed the association between rs1801311 and schizophrenia in a large Chinese cohort. Our study elucidates the regulatory mechanisms of the missense schizophrenia risk variant rs1801311 and provides mechanistic links between risk variant and schizophrenia etiology. In addition, this study also revealed the novel role of coding variants in gene regulation and schizophrenia risk, i.e., genetic variant in coding region of a specific gene may confer disease risk through regulating distal genes (act as regulatory variant for distal genes).

The present research introduced the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C) to China and evaluated its structure and psychometric properties in Chinese adolescent samples. The PSWQ-C is a 14-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure the generality, excessiveness, and uncontrollability aspects of pathological worries in children and adolescents. Factor analysis results suggested that the three reverse-scored items represented one or more unknown factors rather than worry; thus, they were discarded and the remaining 11 positively worded items formed the Chinese version of the PSWQ-C (CH-PSWQ-C). The CH-PSWQ-C was found to have acceptable internal consistency reliability and favorable convergent and divergent validity by examining its correlations with measures of anxiety, depression, and some personality characteristics. To illustrate the utility of the CH-PSWQ-C in Chinese adolescent samples, we used the CH-PSWQ-C to explore the moderating effect of neuroticism on the relationship between earthquake experiences and worry; the results suggested that adolescents with high neuroticism were more vulnerable to worry after experiencing serious disasters.

The vibrational performance of wood materials critical affects the acoustic quality of a lute. The purpose of this research was to apply a multiple choice model to predict the quality of musical instruments based on data on lute soundboard vibrational properties of Paulownia wood. In the lute production, lute material selection mainly depends on the subjective evaluation of technicians, which is not only inefficient, but inaccurate. In this study, nine lutes were fabricated. Using the multiple selection model, the lute tone quality was predicted by the soundboard wood vibration data. Compared with the actual value, the dependent value predicted by the count of observations with the maximum probability had 22 erroneous judgments. The model precision is 87.78%. The results confirmed that the prediction model can be used as a guideline for the selection of the soundboard wood in musical instrument plants.

As an important material of making instrument resonant component, paulownia has a significant influence on instrument acoustic quality. Using the method of support vector machine (SVM), an evaluation model for predicting the Yueqin acoustic quality was developed based on the wood vibration performance. Generally, the wood selection in the Yueqin manufacture mainly depends on observance weighting by hands, knocking and listening by an instrument technician. The defect in scientific theory impedes the improvement of Yueqin quality. In this study, nine Yueqin were fabricated. Based on the information of their raw materials and Yueqin acoustic quality evaluation, a prediction model was proposed. In the total 180 groups of data, 60 groups of data were randomly selected for the training, 30 groups of data were randomly selected from the unused data for the verification. The radial basis function is used to establish the Yueqin soundboard wood acoustic quality evaluation model and simulate the prediction. The results revealed that the prediction of Yueqin acoustic quality could be achieved based on the soundboard wood vibration performance using the MATLAB simulation. The classification accuracy was 90.00%, indicating that the predicted values were highly consistent with the experimental values. The models are able to be used to precisely predict the Yueqin acoustic quality based on the vibration performance of soundboards.

Flux-rope/TCR events near the magnetotail lunar orbit ( - 67 R E X * - 39 R E) were studied using magnetic-field and plasma data measured by THEMIS B and C between January 2011 and March 2012. The aberrant coordinate GSM*, where the X * axis is rotated 4° relative to GSM- X , was used to count the occurrence rate. The number ratio of earthward to tailward events was about 3:5. Moreover, the event occurrence rate distribution showed a clear dawn-dusk asymmetry distribution, with dusk-side events accounting for 57.98%. A superposed epoch analysis of the flux-rope events showed that earthward events had a shorter duration in the leading than in the trailing part. Earthward events also displayed a lower temperature and a lower flow speed than tailward events. We studied the relationship between the event occurrence rate and geomagnetic activity level even further. The occurrence rate of tailward flux-rope/TCR events increases with increasing AE-index, whereas earthward events occur mainly in the relatively quiet period of geomagnetic activity (AE ~ 100–300 nT). Flux-rope/TCR events identified within a 10 mm time frame were treated as belonging to a single reconnection event. By comparing the occurrence rates of earthward and tailward events along X *, we estimated the most likely location of the near-Earth reconnection site as X * = - 36 R E.

The desire for good health has been a major impetus to drive the development of protein-polysaccharide complexes as fat substitutes. In the present study, complex gels were developed using two widely abundant renewable resources, soy protein isolate (SPI) and cellulose nanofiber (CNF). The aim was to assess the effects of incorporating CNF into SPI on the rheological and textural properties of the resultant mixture, and its potential application as an imitation of cream. Four mixtures with different SPI:CNF ratios (20:1, 15:1, 10:1, and 7:1 w/w) but at the constant total solid content 8 % were formulated. The SPI–CNF mixtures with a higher CNF proportion showed higher viscosity, storage modulus, and loss modulus, and an easier gelation characteristic. The most similar textural properties between the SPI–CNF (7:1) mixture and cream were observed. When 10, 20, or 30 % of this mixture was added into ice cream to replace an equivalent amount of cream, the targeted low fat, low calorie, anti-melting, and textural properties were achieved.

Cellulose nanofibers (CNFs), derived from the most abundant and renewable biopolymer, are known as natural one-dimensional nanomaterials because of their high aspect ratio. CNFs also are rich in hydroxyl groups, offering opportunities for functionalization toward development of high-value nanostructured composites. Herein, CNFs were extracted from poplar wood powder by chemical pretreatment combined with high-intensity ultrasonication, and then coated with polyaniline (PANI) through in situ polymerization. The PANI-coated CNFs formed nanostructured frameworks around PANI, thereby conferring the CNF/PANI composite with stability and higher charge transport. The optimum PANI content to achieve maximum conductivity of CNF/PANI composites was determined. The morphology, crystall structure, chemical composition, and conductivity of the samples were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and four-point probe method, respectivily. Our results demonstrated that CNFs can be effective as a template for a flexible and stable conducting polymer to form higher-order nanostructures.

We report a method to fibrillate raw dried cotton fibers into individual cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) by chemical purification (removal of non-cellulosic components) and pretreatment by a high-speed blender (breaking down the fiber structures) combined with high-pressure homogenization (nanofibrillation). The resultant CNFs were found to have a width of approximately 10–30 nm and high aspect ratios. The high light transmittance of the CNF/acrylic resin composite indicated that our treatment successfully disintegrated the raw cotton fibers into uniform CNFs. The cotton CNFs were found to have the advantages of high crystallinity and thermal stability.

A hydrothermal method of fabricating nanomaterials at wood surfaces is described in this paper. Nanomaterials with different morphologies including spherical anatase TiO2, amorphous SiO2, wurtzite ZnO nanorod arrays, intertwining MnO2 nanowires, shuttle-shaped CaCO3 nanorods, and rhombic and cubic NaCl were deposited at wood surfaces. TiO2–ZnO compound nanoparticles and CuO nanoparticles were also created. The surface morphologies and crystalline structures of the prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, respectively. No obvious changes in the color of wood were caused by the hydrothermal process except those nanomaterials of Mn or Cu deposited at surfaces.

Chemical pretreatment combined with high-intensity ultrasonication was performed to disintegrate cellulose nanofibers from poplar wood powders. The cellulose content in each suspension was treated as the control variable because the suspension concentration significantly influences the properties of the resultant cellulose nanofibers via ultrasonic processing. The as-obtained cellulose nanofibers were characterized by fiber diameter distribution, crystal structure, and rheological analysis. An increase of not more than 1.2 % of the cellulose content resulted in finer nanofibers. Both storage modulus and loss modulus of cellulose nanofiber suspensions rapidly increased with increasing concentration because of the gradual formation of a stronger network structure. In addition, the dynamic mechanical behavior of suspensions with fiber contents lower than 0.8 % was affected by the frequency and temperature alteration in contrast with the suspension with higher fiber contents. The sol–gel transformation and the visco-elastic transition depend on the hydroxyl bonding and the cross-linking extent of cellulose nanofibers in various concentration environments.

In this study, wood materials with significantly improved UV resistance were successfully fabricated by growing highly ordered ZnO nanorod arrays on wood surfaces using a facile one-pot hydrothermal method. The resultant samples were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction, and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transformation infrared (ATR–FTIR) techniques. The SEM images clearly show the highly ordered and well-aligned ZnO nanorod arrays directly grown onto the wood surface. ATR–FTIR spectra demonstrate that stable chemical bonds between the hydroxyl groups of the ZnO nanorod array film and the wood surface were formed at the interface of the two materials. An accelerated aging test was used to measure the UV resistance of the original wood and the ZnO/wood composite. The experimental results indicate that the ZnO/wood samples exhibited a more superior UV resistance than the original wood. This significantly improved UV resistance is mainly attributed to the excellent UV absorption of the well-aligned ZnO nanorod arrays grown on the wood surface.

Hydrophobic titanium dioxide (TiO2) was successfully grown on a wood surface using a hydrothermal method. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and water contact angle (WCA) were employed to characterize the features of grown TiO2 and its hydrophobicity. EDS, XRD, and FTIR proved that anatase TiO2 chemically bonded to the wood surface through the combination of hydrogen groups during the hydrothermal process. The values of WCAs manifested that the hydrophobicity of the treated wood was mainly dependent on specific reaction conditions, especially on reaction pH value and hydrothermal temperature. The highest WCA reached 154° when the hydrothermal temperature was 130 °C. The treated wood thus possessed a superhydrophobic surface.

Cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) were isolated from four kinds of plant cellulose fibers by a chemical-ultrasonic treatment. The chemical composition, morphology, crystalline behavior, and thermal properties of the nanofibers and their intermediate products were characterized and compared. The CNFs extracted from wood, bamboo, and wheat straw fibers had uniform diameters of 10–40 nm, whereas the flax fibers were not uniformly nanofibrillated because of their initially high cellulose content. The chemical composition of each kind of nanofibers was mainly cellulose because hemicelluloses and lignin were significantly removed during chemical process. The crystallinity of the nanofibers increased as the chemical treatments were applied. The degradation temperature of each kind of nanofiber reached beyond 330 °C. Based on the properties of the CNFs, we expect that they will be suitable for use in green nanocomposites, filtration media and optically transparent films.

Thin TiO2 coating was grown on wood surface using a cosolvent-controlled hydrothermal method. The surface morphology, chemical composition, and functional groups were examined by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. The crystalline phase of TiO2 was investigated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD). The combustion test was carried out on the Dual Analysis Cone Calorimeter, according to the fire testing standard ISO 5660-1. Resulted from the combined analysis of SEM and EDXA, FTIR and XRD, it was demonstrated that the anatase TiO2 layer accompanying some spheral morphology chemically bonded to wood surface with intact and smooth appearance. The significant differences in combustion parameters between the untreated and the TiO2 coated wood were observed. In comparison to the untreated wood, the burning time of TiO2 coated wood was doubled, and the smoke, CO, CO2 emissions were markedly reduced. As a result, the TiO2 coating can effectively act as a protective layer to prolong the combustion duration of wood and prevent the harmful gas from spreading.

The effects of grain angle, thickness of face veneer, and shelling ratio on dynamic modulus of elasticity (E) of veneer-overlaid particleboard composite (VOP) were examined by using nondestructive test. In this study, the possibility that E of VOP can be predicted by means of some empirical formula was also discussed. This study has shown that grain angle, thickness of face veneer, and shelling ratio have substantial effects on E of VOP. The E at 0° of grain angle of face veneer was the largest, decreasing rapidly with increase in the grain angle. The lowest value of E occurred at 90° of grain angle of face veneer. The relationship between grain angle of face veneer and E of VOP can be expressed in the form of Jenkin’s and Hankinson’s equations. The orthotropic properties of wood and VOP defined as the ratio E0/ E90 were 25.7 for wood and 4.7 for VOP. When the grain direction of face veneer was parallel to the length of the specimens, the E of VOP increased with increasing shelling ratio. VOP increased E from 125 to 179% over that of the particleboard and veneer thickness from 2.1 upto 3.6 mm. However, when the grain direction of face veneer was perpendicular to the length of the specimens, the E of VOP decreased with increasing shelling ratio. VOP decreased E from 23 to 41% over that of the particleboard and veneer thickness from 2.1 upto 3.6 mm. The relationship between E of VOP and face veneer thickness can be expressed in the form of a second-order parabolic equation. Rule of Mixture (ROM) can be used to predict E of VOP from the E of wood element and particleboard element.