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Several observational studies have reported an association between obesity and primary liver cancer (PLC), while the causality behind this association and the comparison of the risk effects of different obesity indicators on PLC remain unclear. In this study, we performed two‐sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to assess the associations of genetically determined liver fat, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and body mass index (BMI) with the risk of PLC. The summary statistics of exposures were obtained from two genome‐wide association studies (GWASs) based on the UK Biobank (UKB) imaging cohort and the Genetic Epidemiology Research on Adult Health and Aging (GERA) cohort. GWAS summary statistics for PLC were obtained from FinnGen consortium R7 release data, including 304 PLC cases and 218 488 controls. Inverse‐variance weighted (IVW) was used as the primary analysis, and a series of sensitivity analyses were performed to further verify the robustness of these findings. IVW analysis highlighted a significant association of genetically determined liver fat (OR per SD increase: 7.14; 95% CI: 5.10‐9.99; P = 2.35E‐30) and VAT (OR per SD increase: 5.70; 95% CI: 1.32‐24.72; P =.020) with PLC but not of BMI with PLC. The findings were further confirmed by a series of MR methods. No evidence of horizontal pleiotropy between these associations existed. Our study suggested that genetically determined liver fat and VAT rather than BMI were associated with an increased risk of PLC, which suggested that visceral fat distribution is more predictive of the clinical risk of PLC than common in vitro measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural rubber is reinforced with carbon fiber; the protective performances of the carbonfiber reinforced rubber composite armour to shaped charge jet have been studied based on the depth of penetration experiments. The craters on the witness blocks, the nature rubber based composite plates’ deformation and the Scanning Electron Microscopy for the hybrid fiber reinforced rubber plate also is analyzed. The results showed that the composite armour can affect the stability of the jet and made part of the jet fracture. The carbon fiber reinforced rubber composite armour has good defence ablity especially when the nature rubber plate hybrid 15% volume percentage carbonfiber and the obliquity angle is 68°. The hybrid fiber reinforced rubber composite armour can be used as a new kind of light protective armour.

In order to analyze the genetic basis of root traits at seedling stage, we performed QTL analysis of root morphology with 148 recombinant inbred lines derived from indica variety 9311 and japonica variety Nipponbare (NPB). In two repetitions, a total of 26 QTLs were detected for the longest root length, total root length, root surface area, root volume, and root diameter, distributed on chromosomes 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, and 11 in rice. Four QTL clusters on chromosomes 2, 4, 7, and 10 were found, including a major QTL qLRL4 controlling the longest root length. To fine mapping of the major QTL, we constructed a near isogenic line NIL-qLRL4 with a segment from NPB between markers IND4-1 and IND4-4 with 9311 background. With a F2 population derived from the NIL-qLRL4 and 9311, we fine mapped the qLRL4 within ~68.23 kb region between markers IND4-1 and IND4-3, where eight candidate genes located. Fine mapping of this QTL for root length will help explore genetic mechanism of root elongation and morphogenesis in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice is a major source of cadmium (Cd) intake for Asian people. Indica rice usually accumulates more Cd in shoots and grains than Japonica rice. However, underlying genetic bases for differential Cd accumulation between Indica and Japonica rice are still unknown. In this study, we cloned a quantitative trait locus (QTL) grain Cd concentration on chromosome 7 (GCC7) responsible for differential grain Cd accumulation between two rice varieties by performing QTL analysis and map‐based cloning. We found that the two GCC7 alleles, GCC7PA64s and GCC793‐11, had different promoter activity of OsHMA3, leading to different OsHMA3 expression and different shoot and grain Cd concentrations. By analyzing the distribution of different haplotypes of GCC7 among diverse rice accessions, we discovered that the high and low Cd accumulation alleles, namely GCC793‐11 and GCC7PA64s, were preferentially distributed in Indica and Japonica rice, respectively. We further showed that the GCC7PA64s allele can be used to replace the GCC793‐11 allele in the super cultivar 93‐11 to reduce grain Cd concentration without adverse effect on agronomic traits. Our results thus reveal that the QTL GCC7 with sequence variation in the OsHMA3 promoter is an important determinant controlling differential grain Cd accumulation between Indica and Japonica rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to their high physicochemical stability, low skeletal density, tailorable surface properties, and high porosity, microporous crosslink polymers are highly promising for selective CO2 capture, separation, and storage. The crosslinking (CL) and crosslinker length (CLL) in a polymer play a quite significant role in enhancing selective CO2 capture. To investigate the role of CL and CLL, polymers with no crosslinking (non-crosslinking, NCL), and small-(SCL), and long-crosslinker lengths (LCL) were successfully fabricated. It is noteworthy that the polymer containing SCL has remarkable CO2 adsorption capacity and selectivity over the polymer with LCL and NCL. High selectivity for CO2 over CH4/N2 was observed in the sequence SCL ＞ LCL ＞ NCL. This indicates that not only CL but CLL is also significantly important in generating highly efficient adsorbents. The adsorption capacity reaches 208.3 mg g−1, which is higher than that of the benchmarks including activated carbon (122.8 mg g−1), and 13X zeolite (180.3 mg g−1), as well as most reported carbon-based adsorbents. The CO2/N2 and CO2/CH4 selectivity reaches 541.4 and 64, respectively. Moreover, excellent recyclability was observed without loss in CO2 adsorption for 10 cycles. Thus, high CO2 capture, excellent selectivity, and high recyclability under energy-saving mild regeneration conditions make microporous polymers a unique adsorbent for selective CO2 capture from flue gas and natural gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diesel composite armor has high penetration resistance and can be used in tank vehicles to improve their protective capability and increase fuel oil storage. This study provides a theoretical calculation method to investigate the interaction between a shaped charge jet and a diesel-filled airtight structure unit. Disturbance theory can predict the part of the jet that is disturbed by diesel fuel. The lumen radius for the container was varied to study its influence on the disturbance capability. A great lumen radius is found to cause lower maximum and minimum speeds of the disturbance velocity range of the jet, as well as a narrower disturbance velocity range. The reliability of the theoretical results was validated by experiments, and the experimental data show good agreement with the theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]