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Background: A variety of chronic diseases are affected by diet. To our knowledge, few studies have investigated the relationship between dietary patterns and renal impairment in individuals with diabetes within an Asian population. This study aimed to assess the relationship between renal impairment and dietary patterns in individuals with diabetes within a Chinese population. Methods: In this cross‐sectional survey, we analysed data on 1522 participants with diabetes aged 18 years or older who took part in the China National Diabetic Chronic Complications Study. We utilised the Chinese Diabetes Complications Questionnaire, including the semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire (SQFFQ). We identified three dietary patterns using factor analysis: Chinese traditional, healthy and plant‐based dietary patterns, and these dietary patterns were used to classify participants into four groups based on the quartiles of their scores. A decrease in the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; <60 mL/min/1.73 m2) and an increase in the albumin‐to‐creatinine ratio (ACR; ≥3 mg/mmol) were used as indicators of renal impairment. Binary logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) of the highest quartile (Q4: high intake levels of each dietary pattern) for renal impairment compared to the lowest quartile (Q1: low intake levels of each dietary pattern). Results: Among the 1522 participants, there was a 5.5% prevalence of low eGFR, with prevalence rates of 5.2% in men and 5.9% in women, yet the prevalence of albuminuria was as high as 47.9%. After adjusting for confounders, participants in Q4 of the plant‐based dietary pattern had a smaller OR for renal impairment than those in Q1. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that a plant‐based dietary pattern is associated with a reduced risk of renal impairment in a population with diabetes. Key points: The relationship between dietary patterns and renal impairment, including low eGFR and albuminuria, in individuals with diabetes was explored. The plant‐based dietary pattern based on foods such as potatoes, whole grains and soybean products is associated with a reduced risk of albuminuria and chronic kidney disease in a population with diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tiger fish (genus Datnioides) are critical ornamental and economic fish and are valuable freshwater fish worldwide, belonging to the order Lobotiformes. Currently, there are five extant species (Datnioides campbelli, D. microlepis, D. polota, D. pulcher, and D. undecimradiatus) of Datnioides in the world, usually inhabiting in south and southeast Asia. Due to the decline of wild population sizes of tiger fish and the lack of molecular research on them, in the present study, we sequenced, assembled, and characterized the complete nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) operon of all five extant tiger fish species, in order to elucidate the phylogenetic relationship among the genus Datnioides. The nrDNA sequences of five tiger fish species were 8548–9182 bp in length, encompassing complete 18S rDNA, ITS1, 5.8S rDNA, ITS2, 28S rDNA, and IGS regions. Numerous repetitive sequences were detected, substantially influencing the sequence length of different regions in each species. We employed maximum-likelihood (ML) method and Bayesian inference (BI) method to construct phylogenetic trees for Datnioides. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that each region in nrDNA operon is not sufficiently phylogenetically informative to delineate the species in Datnioides; nevertheless, the whole operon is able to delineate five tiger fish species much better, three of five species were successfully partitioned. Particularly, regardless of employed markers, it was strongly supported that D. campbelli was considerably partitioned from the other four species, possibly due to the geographical separation. In spite of the fact that discrimination of Datnioides species requires further investigation, our study provides reference genome resources for the Lobotiformes, as well as insights into the phylogenetic position of Lobotiformes and further biological conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study provides comprehensive analyses of a newly constructed passive energy-efficient building located in Harbin, China, which is a prime example of how to design a passive building that withstands the severe cold climate in northeast Asia. Conduction transfer functions of heat flux equilibrium are employed to simulate energy consumption characteristics of the paradigm passive building. The climatic conditions in severe cold region are analyzed, and the energy-saving designs in the studied engineering cases are summarized for their practical applications. Building physical models are established to perform numerical simulation analyses on the passive building paradigm in northeast Asian frigid zone. The dominant technical parameters of envelope structure affecting energy consumption in severe cold region, including thermal insulation thickness and heat transfer coefficient of building envelope, as well as window-to-wall ratio for each building facade, are taken into consideration as simulation variables to calculate cooling load, heating load, electricity consumption, and CO2 emission, which account for energy efficiency of passive buildings. The simulation results demonstrate the high energy-saving potential of the proposed passive building design and render the optimal energy-efficient parameters suitable for severe cold regions, which can reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission while ensuring comfort for occupants. The present study provides a theoretical reference for envelope structures of passive buildings in severe cold regions, which is of great significance to the development of green buildings and relevant policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2008 financial crisis forced investors to be more concerned with the risk management of financial instruments, especially derivatives. The main objective of this paper is to study the effect of issuer credit risk on the pricing of options. In particular, we focus on Asian options, which are options traded in the over-the-counter market. The contribution of this study is two-fold. We first derive the approximation formula for the arithmetic Asian option subject to issuer credit risk. We then study how the contract designs and the issuers' characteristics affect the credit discount of Asian options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Bombax ceiba L. (the red silk cotton tree) is a large deciduous tree that is distributed in tropical and sub-tropical Asia as well as northern Australia. It has great economic and ecological importance, with several applications in industry and traditional medicine in many Asian countries. To facilitate further utilization of this plant resource, we present here the draft genome sequence for B. ceiba. Findings We assembled a relatively intact genome of B. ceiba by using PacBio single-molecule sequencing and BioNano optical mapping technologies. The final draft genome is approximately 895 Mb long, with contig and scaffold N50 sizes of 1.0 Mb and 2.06 Mb, respectively. Conclusions The high-quality draft genome assembly of B. ceiba will be a valuable resource enabling further genetic improvement and more effective use of this tree species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a major pathogen of bacterial liver abscess in Asia. Particularly, patients with community-acquired Klebsiella pneumoniae liver abscess (CA-KPLA) tend to have a higher risk of invasive infection and pulmonary is a common invasive infectious site, making it a global clinical crisis. Therefore, considerable attention should be focused on the early prediction and active treatment strategies of such patients. The clinical data of 127 CA-KPLA cases hospitalized from January 2017 to February 2022 were collected from a single center. Risk factors were analyzed by the use of univariable and multivariable analysis. Furthermore, independent risk factors of pulmonary affection were utilized to construct a predictive nomogram. The incidence of pulmonary affection in KPLA patients was 57.5% (73/127) and the majority manifested as nodular lesions with cavities and pleural effusion in chest CT images. Based on the predictive nomogram, the SOFA score (>2) was defined as the most dominant independent risk factor for the occurrence of pulmonary affection, followed by the maximum diameter of liver abscess (>3 cm), multiple liver abscesses, bacteremia, and badly-controlled diabetes sequentially. The validation of this nomogram also demonstrated good discriminative ability and satisfactory consistency. Finally, early drainage of liver abscess, initial combinational antibiotics, and early Carbapenem-including antibiotic usage were established as favorable factors for therapy in pulmonary affected CA-KPLA patients. This study provided an effective model for the early prediction of pulmonary affection in patients with CA-KPLA and some rational strategies for their early therapeutic remission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To resovle the problems of in-situ conservation and resource utilization of Pyrus caller-yana, maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) and geographic information system (GIS) were used to predict the global ecological suitable region of P. calleryana in different climate scenarios based on 236 distribution data and 19 ecological factors. The results showed that the ecological suitable regions of P. calleryana were mainly concentrated in North America, Asia and other regions, with a total area of 1.6×10 7 km 2 . In China, the regions with high ecological suitability were Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. The main factors affecting the geographical distribution of P. calleryana were mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation, followed by the seasonality of temperature. The model simulations indicated that P. calleryana would have different suitable habitat areas and marginally suitable habitat areas in different climate scenarios. In terms of the spatial distribution of the potential habitat area, both the distributional range and the center of distribution of suitable and marginally suitable habitat area would shift from east to west. The suitable habitat area in North America and marginally suitable habitat areas in Europe would increase rapidly.