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Root-lesion nematodes, Pratylenchus spp., are economically important pathogens because of their detrimental and economic impact on a wide range of crops. In August 2018, two samples of both roots and rhizosphere soil were collected from a corn field in Liangyuanqu of Shangqiu city, Henan Province, China. Root-lesion nematodes were recovered from the roots and soil samples using the modified Baermann funnel extraction method. Both the morphological characters and molecular analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and D2-D3 expansion region of 28S ribosomal RNA sequences confirmed that the root-lesion nematode population collected from corn in this study was P. neglectus. Phylogenetic analyses showed that this isolate formed a highly supported clade with other P. neglectus isolates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of P. neglectus on corn in Henan Province of China. This study reports the first partial sequences of 28S D2-D3 region of P. neglectus on corn in China. Due to the great harmfulness of root-lesion nematodes to corn, care should be taken to prevent the spread of P. neglectus to other regions in China. At the same time, further study on the biological characteristics of P. neglectus is needed, which will be helpful to develop corresponding management and control strategies.

To identify molecular markers for early diagnosis and new targets for treatment of cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Our study involved 52 carcinoma tissues that were confirmed pathologically as cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) at the Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University in 2021. We obtained 36 control specimens from patients who had undergone hysterectomy for benign uterine diseases in 2021, with no cervical lesions as confirmed by pathology. Total RNA was extracted from all the samples. Reverse transcription and quantitative real-time PCR were performed. Immunohistochemical staining for interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) protein was performed. Descriptive analyses including mean and standard deviation were used to compare different groups. For data that do not conform to normal distribution, we use Wilcox rank sum test to make statistics to compare different groups with the median and interquartile. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare non-parametric continuous data, and categorical variables were analyzed using chi-square test. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the possibility of using ISG15 as a new biomarker for cervical squamous cell carcinoma. Compared with normal cervical tissues, mRNA expression of ISG15 in cervical cancer tissues was significantly lower (P<0.01); mRNA expression was significantly lower in patients with nerve invasion (P<0.05). Difference in ISG15 protein expression was statistically significant (no expression/low expression) in the cancer samples compared to normal tissues (P<0.01). The area under ROC curve was 0.810 (P<0.001) and the sensitivity and specificity were 75% and 54%, respectively. Spearman's correlation analysis showed that ISG15 mRNA was positively correlated with protein expression (r=0.358, P=0.001). Deficiency of ISG15 may be associated with the occurrence and progression of CSCC. It could be used as a potential tumor marker in research and treatment of CSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a class of credibilistic optimization (CO) problems, in which a convex objective is minimized subject to ambiguous credibilistic constraints. The considered CO problem is usually computational intractable. Our purpose in this paper is to discuss the robust counterpart approximations of ambiguous credibilistic constraints. Under mild assumptions, the closed property about the feasible region of credibilistic constraint is discussed. Using the obtained results, this paper deals with the robust counterpart approximations of credibilistic constraints under two types of ambiguity sets of possibility distributions. The first type is exponential function-based ambiguity set of possibility distribution, while the second type of ambiguity set is a particular case of the first one, and it is based on range and expectation information of fuzzy variables. The developed approximation techniques are capable to utilize the knowledge of ambiguity sets of possibility distributions when building distribution uncertainty-immunized solutions. As a result, the obtained safe approximations of ambiguous credibilistic constraints are computationally tractable convex/linear constraints. To apply the proposed approximation approach, a portfolio optimization problem is addressed, in which the investor is to find a portfolio to maximize the value-at-risk of his total return under the support and expectation information of uncertain returns. We use two types of robust counterpart approximations to credibilistic constraints. The computational results support our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of ZnxFe3-xO4 (ZFO, x=0.4) thin films were epitaxially deposited on single-crystal (001)-SrTiO3 (STO) substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The anomalous thickness-dependent strain states of ZFO films were found, i.e., a tensile in-plane strain exists in the thinner ZFO film and which monotonously turns into compressive in the thicker films. Considering the lattice constant of bulk ZFO is bigger than that of STO, this strain state cannot be explained in the conventional framework of lattice-mismatch-induced strain in the hetero-epitaxial system. This unusual phenomenon is proposed to be closely related to the Volmer-Weber film growth mode in the thinner films and incorporation of the interstitial atoms into the island's boundaries during subsequent epitaxial growth of the thicker films. The ZFO/STO epitaxial film is found in the nature of magnetic semiconductor by transport measurements. The in-plane magnetization of the ZFO/STO films is found to increase as the in-plane compressive strain develops, which is further proved in the (001)-ZFO/PMN-PT film where the film strain state can be in situ controlled with applied electric field. This compressive-strain-enhanced magnetization can be attributed to the strain-mediated electric-field-induced in-plane magnetic anisotropy field enhancement. The above results indicate that strain engineering on magnetic oxide semiconductor ZFO films is promising for novel oxide-electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ferroelectric properties of the BiFeO3/La0.625Ca0.375MnO3 (BFO/LCMO) heterostructures were investigated using different bottom electrode configurations at different magnetic fields and temperatures. It is found that the apparent coercive voltage (Vac) increases linearly with the increase of LCMO resistances for different electrodes, and the extrinsic relative contribution from different LCMO electrodes to the variation of Vac caused by magnetic field can be quantitatively analyzed based on the scenario of voltage drop model. The magnetic field and temperature dependences of the heterostructure coercive voltage (Vac0) obtained by subtracting the voltage drop on LCMO from Vac are closely related to the interface behaviors. These findings not only further elucidate the physics of magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic heterostructures but also are helpful for designing artificial prototype device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) research program concentrates on demonstrating steady-state high-performance H-mode operations with ITER-like tungsten divertor. Calorimetry was applied to actively water-cool the plasma facing components (PFCs) by increasing the water temperature for power balance investigation. Considering the energy balance of EAST long-pulse high-performance discharges with upper single null (USN) configuration, thus far, approximately 78% of the injected energy could be accounted for. The method of estimation of heat flux on upper tungsten divertor target with a high time- and spatial-resolved infrared camera has been developed, and the sum of its heat load was found to be significantly consistent with that measured through calorimetry. The record longest steady-state H-mode plasma #73 999 was sustained for up to 101.2 s with net injected energy exceeding ∼0.25 GJ in the USN configuration. Heat load analysis of this discharge using calorimetric measurement indicates that the modification of heat load distribution was observed and this was induced by a slight change in the magnetic configuration. Not all temperature increments in the five cooling water modules reached the saturated state for the 100 s level discharge, which means that 100 s timescales are insufficient as compared to the thermal transport timescale in the targeted PFCs. The heat load on the tungsten divertor targets is not evenly distributed with the ratio of ∼2 in favour of the outer divertor.The experimental results and analysis of the physics involved in these USN configuration discharges are reported and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]