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Abstract As the pioneer of the Green Revolution in China, Guangdong province witnessed the improvement and spread of semi-dwarf Xian/Indica rice cultivars and possessed diverse rice germplasm of landrace and cultivars. A total of 517 accessions containing a core germplasm of 479 newly sequenced landraces and modern cultivars were used to reveal breeding signatures and key variations for regional genetic improvement of indica rice from Guangdong. Four subpopulations were identified in the collection, which including Ind IV as a novel subpopulation that not covered by previously released accessions. Modern cultivars of subpopulation Ind II were inferred to have less deleterious variations, especially in yield related genes. About 15 Mb genomic segments were identified as potential breeding signatures by cross-population likelihood method (XP-CLR) of modern cultivars and landraces. The selected regions spanning multiple yield related QTLs (quantitative trait locus) which identified by GWAS (genome-wide association studies) of the same population, and specific variations that fixed in modern cultivars of Ind II were characterized. This study highlights genetic differences between traditional landraces and modern cultivars, which revealed the potential molecular basis of regional genetic improvement for Guangdong indica rice from southern China.

Root-microbiome interactions are of central importance for plant performance and yield. A distinctive feature of legumes is that they engage in symbiosis with N2-fixing rhizobia. If and how the rhizobial symbiotic capacity modulates root-associated microbiomes are still not yet well understood. We determined root-associated microbiomes of soybean inoculated with wild type (WT) or a noeI mutant of Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens USDA 110 by amplicon sequencing. UPLC-MS/MS was used to analyze root exudates. The noeI gene is responsible for fucose-methylation of Nod factor secreted by USDA 110 WT strain. Soybean roots inoculated with the noeI mutant showed a significant decrease in nodulation and root-flavonoid exudation compared to roots inoculated with WT strain. The noeI mutant-inoculated roots exhibited strong changes in microbiome assembly in the rhizosphere and rhizoplane, including reduced diversity, changed co-occurrence interactions and a substantial depletion of root microbes. Root exudates and soil physiochemical properties were significantly correlated with microbial community shift in the rhizosphere between different rhizobial treatments. These results illustrate that rhizobial symbiotic capacity dramatically alters root-associated microbiomes, in which root exudation and edaphic patterns play a vital role. This study has important implications for understanding the evolution of plant-microbiome interactions.

ObjectiveTo compare outcomes associated with patient education about glycemic control via group chat versus patient education as usual among individuals with diabetes in China.MethodsWe searched the following databases both in English and in Chinese languages: PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang database, VIP database, and CBM for articles published up to Jan 1, 2018. The studies were screened by two independent reviewers. Using criteria from the risk of bias assessment tool developed by Cochrane Collaboration to assess the risk of bias of eligible studies. A meta-analysis of studies was performed using comprehensive meta-analysis version 3.0.ResultsTwenty-five unique randomized clinical trials, including 2,838 patients, were identified. The education delivered via group chat had large overall pooled effect sizes in improving glucose control measured by hemoglobin A1c [Hedges' g = -0.81, 95% CI: (-0.98, -0.64)], fasting blood glucose [Hedges' g = -1.11, 95% CI: (-1.37, -0.85)], and 2 h postprandial blood glucose [Hedges' g = -0.98, 95% CI: (-1.20, -0.76)]. Additionally, patient education delivered via group chat has shown consistently superior outcomes in glucose control in short-term (0-3 months), mid-term (3-6 months) and longer-term (6-12 months).ConclusionsEducational interventions via group chat had a superior outcome in blood glucose control compared to education as usual in China. Educational interventions via group chat had superior short-term, mid-term, and longer-term outcomes in blood glucose control compared to education as usual in China.

Abstract Conventional inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging with sparse aperture usually suffers from high side lobes and wide main lobes, which limit the applications of radar super‐resolution imaging, multi‐target resolution, and cognitive reconfiguration. This paper proposes a fast, super‐resolution imaging method employing continuous compressive sensing for sparse‐aperture ISAR. First, the received echo in each range bin is characterised as a linear combination of multiple frequencies shown in a continuous atomic set, established into an atomic norm minimisation (ANM) mode. Second, to improve the resolution and reduce the computational burden significantly, a locally convergent iterative algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers, which iteratively performs ANM with a sound reweighting strategy, is implemented. Then, the low‐rank Toeplitz covariance matrix, which contains the information of the target, is obtained. Subsequently, the Vandermonde decomposition of the Toeplitz covariance matrix is performed to acquire the locations and intensities of the scattering points. Finally, the super‐resolution result is generated by depicting the estimated scatterers in the image. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposal is highly effective in recovering the super‐resolution image and shows better performance than state‐of‐the‐art methods.