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Background: This study aims to compare the performance of the recently developed Chinese (city) tariff of the EQ-5D-3L against the UK, US, Japanese and Korean tariffs in a general rural population in China.Methods: From November 2015 to September 2016, 12,085 permanent residents aged 45-69 from 257 villages randomly selected from Hua County, Henan Province, China, were interviewed using EQ-5D-3L, and a one-on-one questionnaire investigation was used to collect data on factors associated with HRQOL. The health utility scores were calculated using the UK, US, Japanese, Korean and Chinese (city) tariffs. The agreement, known-groups validity and sensitivity of these five tariffs were evaluated. Transition scores for pairs of observed EQ-5D-3L health states were calculated and compared.Results: The Korean tariff yielded the highest mean health utility score (0.963), followed by the Chinese (city) (0.948), US (0.943), UK (0.930) and Japanese (0.921) tariffs, but the differences in the scores of any two tariffs did not exceed the MCID. The Chinese (city) tariff showed higher ICC values (ICCs> 0.89, 95% CI:0.755-0.964) and narrower limits of agreement (0.099-0.167) than the Korean tariff [(ICCs> 0.71, 95% CI:0.451-0.955); (0.146-0.253)]. The Chinese (city) tariff had a higher relative efficiency and effect size statistics in 10 out of 11 variables as compared to the UK, US and Japanese tariffs. The Chinese (city) tariff (0.215) was associated with moderate mean absolute transition scores compared with the UK (0.342), US (0.230), Japanese (0.149) and Korean (0.189) tariffs for 1485 observed pairs of the EQ-5D-3L health states.Conclusions: Health utility scores derived from the five tariffs differed. The Chinese (city) tariff was the most suitable of these tariffs and was without obvious weakness. We recommend adopting the Chinese (city) tariff when applying EQ-5D-3L to assess quality of life among the elderly in China's agricultural region with socio-economic status similar to Hua County. Results of this study had provided a crucial basis for health surveys, health promotion projects, health intervention trials, and health economic evaluation taking HRQOL as a target in rural areas of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leaf rust (LR) is a destructive foliar disease of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) worldwide. Growing resistant cultivars with adult plant resistance (APR) are the ideal way to control the disease. The aim of the present study was to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for leaf rust resistance using 137 doubled-haploid (DH) lines derived from the Pingyuan 50 × Mingxian 169 cross. The same population was previously tested for stripe rust (YR) and powdery mildew (PM) response, and the data were reassessed to determine the presence of QTL with pleiotropic effects. Phenotyping for leaf rust response was conducted in six environments at Baoding in Hebei province and Zhoukou in Henan province. The DH lines were genotyped using the wheat 55K SNP array and additional SSR markers. Eight QTLs for LR resistance were identified in the present study using the inclusive composite interval mapping (ICIM). The flanking sequences of all the SNP probes were subjected to BLAST against the Chinese Spring reference sequence to determine physical positions. Six LR resistance loci were contributed by Pingyuan 50, but QLr.hebau-2DS2 and QLr.hebau-3AL were from Mingxian 169. QLr.hebau-3DS, a new and stable QTL detected in all environments, explained 4.2–20.0% of the phenotypic variation. Another new QTL, QLr.hebau-3AL detected in four environments had a PVE (phenotypic variance explained) of 5.7–10.1%. QLr.hebau-1BL, QLr.hebau-2DS2, and QLr.hebau-7DL are new loci. Two QTLs showed potential pleiotropic effects on disease response. QTL on chromosome 7DL might be pleiotropic to LR and PM, and the QTL on 5DL might confer pleiotropic resistance to LR and YR. Kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers for QLr.hebau-3AL and QLr.hebau-3DS were successfully developed and validated. The QTL identified with their flanking markers and in the present study could be useful for fine mapping, candidate gene mining, and marker-assisted selection (MAS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]