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It was acknowledged long ago that microorganisms have played critical roles in animal evolution. Tibetan wild asses (TWA,Equus kiang) are the only wild perissodactyls on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) and the first national protected animals; however, knowledge about the relationships between their gut microbiota and the host's adaptability remains poorly understood. Herein, 16S rRNA and meta-genomic sequencing approaches were employed to investigate the gut microbiota–host associations in TWA and were compared against those of the co-resident livestock of yak (Bos grunnies) and Tibetan sheep (Ovis aries). Results revealed that the gut microbiota of yak and Tibetan sheep underwent convergent evolution. By contrast, the intestinal microflora of TWA diverged in a direction enabling the host to subsist on sparse and low-quality forage. Meanwhile, high microbial diversity (Shannon and Chao1 indices), cellulolytic activity, and abundant indicator species such as Spirochaetes, Bacteroidetes,Prevotella_1, andTreponema_2supported forage digestion and short-chain fatty acid production in the gut of TWA. Meanwhile, the enterotype identification analysis showed that TWA shifted their enterotype in response to low-quality forage for a better utilization of forage nitrogen and short-chain fatty acid production. Metagenomic analysis revealed that plant biomass degrading microbial consortia, genes, and enzymes like the cellulolytic strains (Prevotella ruminicola, Ruminococcus flavefaciens, Ruminococcus albus, Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens, andRuminobacter amylophilus), as well as carbohydrate metabolism genes (GH43, GH3, GH31, GH5, and GH10) and enzymes (β-glucosidase, xylanase, and β-xylosidase, etc.) had a significantly higher enrichment in TWA. Our results indicate that gut microbiota can improve the adaptability of TWA through plant biomass degradation and energy maintenance by the functions of gut microbiota in the face of nutritional deficiencies and also provide a strong rationale for understanding the roles of gut microbiota in the adaptation of QTP wildlife when facing harsh feeding environments.

Background: Epidural analgesia is regarded one of the one techniques used to relieve pains associated with labor among women used and recommended by many among the 21st century modern obstetric practitioners. The technique has advantages and disadvantages but also there is myth surrounding the practice such as its impact towards the mother and the baby. Objectives: The major objective of this study was to investigate and assess the effect(s) of epidural analgesia in regard to labor progress, baby, mother and the mode of delivery. The study further aimed at finding out complications associated with the technique in regard to neonate and the effect of the practice in regard to APGAR score. Methods: This study was conducted in a period of one year from April 2016 to February 2018 at Square Hospital Limited, Panthapath, Dhaka Bangladesh. 50 women were given epidural analgesia as a technique to relieve pains during labour, and other 50 women were put in group serving as a control. Key areas of interest during the study were; the duration of active first and second stage(s), The APGAR score, the mode of delivery, reaction after giving epidural analgesia, and Mother’s satisfaction rate. Results: There was no huge difference in the two groups in regard to deliveries as a result of operation; control group stood at 8%, while study group was at 6%. There was also comparable need of oxytocin. The study also observed no life threatening side effect with very good rating of satisfaction in regard to relieving pains. The study credits Epidural analgesia is for high rate normal delivery and a small percentage of lower segment caesarean option.

Flavonoids are an important group of polyphenolic compounds which are widely distributed throughout the plant kingdom especially in colored fruits and flowers. They play important roles in many plant biological functions and have therapeutic effect on many chronic diseases in humans. The flavonoid biosynthesis and productivity in plants could be stimulated by many biotic and abiotic factors. Bitter pit in apple is an important physiological disorder in apple production, which consequently affects the quality of apple fruits and causes significant economic losses. This study was aimed to investigate the influence of bitter pit on the flavonoid contents in apple fruits and its molecular biological mechanism, so as to explore the alternative bioresource of flavonoids for medical application in human chronic diseases. The total flavonoid content was determined using the aluminum chloride colorimetric method. The result showed that the total flavonoid content in bitter-pit apple fruits (BG) were 4.28-fold as that in healthy apple fruits (JKG). By RNA sequencing, 257.002 and 225.713 M raw reads containing 38.55 and 33.857 Gb raw bases were obtained from JKG and BG respectively, after trimming the adapter sequences, primers, Ns, and reads with quality scores below 30, 226.702 and 202.951 M clean reads containing 32.807 G and 29.626 nucleotides were obtained respectively, their base ratios with quality values higher than 20 and 30 in reads (Q20 and Q30) were more than 98.3% and 95.0%, respectively. By miRNA sequencing, 4331 clean reads associated with 3753 target genes (2571 upregulated and 1181 downregulated) were obtained. After annotation, a total of 41894 RNAs were obtained, of which, 15852 were known transcripts and 26042 were novel transcripts. Among the obtained transcripts, there were 33582 mRNAs (12645 known and 20937 novel), 1860 lncRNAs (0 known and 1860 novel), 98 circRNAs (52 known and 46 novel), 5894 miRNAs (3017 known and 2877 novel), 322 other type of RNAs(0 known and 322 novel) and 138 unknown type of RNAs (138 known and 0 novel). Based on Gene Ontology (GO) gene functional annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, 2632 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained from JKG vs. BG comparison, in which, 2080 DEGs were upregulated and 552 were downregulated. Among the obtained DEGs, 26 DEGs (2 downregulated and 24 upregulated) were involved in flavonoid biosynthesis [ko00941], all of them are mRNAs, there were no lncRNAs, circRNAs and miRNAs related to flavonoid biosynthesis. Then, 8 of the 26 DEGs [ CYP98A3 (1), CYP98A3 (2), BADH , DAT , MdHCT (1), MdHCT (2), CHI (1) and CHI (2)] with fold change>1.0 (1.43–29.42) were selected for qRT-PCR validation, the result exhibited the consistent expression patterns with that of RNA-seq analysis ( R 2=0.8551), that is, the expression of the 8 DEGs were upregulated with the BG/JKG ratio of 1.05–7.17 in JKG vs BG comparison, and the ratios of qRT-PCR relative expression level were less than the fold change of RNA-seq FPKM value except DAT . The results of this study showed that the flavonoid biosynthesis and accumulation in apple fruits was significantly stimulated by bitter pit disease, which provided new insights into the influence of bitter pit on the flavonoid biosynthesis and accumulation in apples and indicated that the bitter-pit apples could be use as the potential bioresource of flavonoids for therapeutic utilization in human chronic diseases.

This thesis presents a method that a position measurement method for moving targets is proposed based on the positioning method based on the time difference of arrival (TDOA) which is based on the research on the positioning problem of station inspection operators and equipment in complex working conditions. The probability error method is introduced to optimize the traditional positioning method that realizes the target node positioning by optimizing the distance difference between the target node to be located in the network domain environment and different base stations, which can effectively improve the positioning accuracy of staff and equipment in the station. Through experiments in a complex power frequency electric field environment, the test results show that the results calculated by the optimization method are better than the existing traditional positioning methods, and can effectively improve the positioning accuracy under the condition of line-of-sight, and realize the substation space Mobile target positioning to ensure the safety of operators.

This study aimed to reaearch the effects of different dietary concentrate to forage (C:F) ratio on growth performance, rumen fermentation and bacteria diversity of barn feeding Tibetan sheep. The experiment contains fiver treatments (HS1, HS2 HS3, HS4 and HS5; n=8, respectively) based on dietary C: F ratios 0:100, 15:85, 30:70, 45:55, and 60:40, respectively. The ruminal bacterial community structure was investigated through high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes in V4 hypervariable region. The results showed that increases dietary concentrate feed level from 0% to 60% exerted a positive effect on DMI, BW gain, gain rate and feed conversation ratio (FCR) in Tibetan sheep. The increases dietary concentrate feed level increased NH3-N, propionate and valerate concentrations, whereas, reduced molar ratio of acetate to propionate (A/P ratio) (PBacteroidetes and the genus Prevotella_1 (P

This paper proposes a new composite model which contains two types of grains: the normal nanograins (ranging from 20 to 100 nm) and the finest grains (ranging from 2 to 4 nm). The finest grains were considered to be a part of the triple junctions, denoted as super triple junctions (STJs). The model describes the competition of deformation mechanism between stress-driven migration of grain boundary (GB) and GB sliding in mechanically loaded nanocrystalline materials. In the model, the enhanced strengthening occurs due to the effects of STJs as obstacles for GB sliding; the stress-driven migration of GB lead to the grain growth, which gives rise to a good ductility for nanocrystalline samples under plastic deformation. The dependences of the critical shear stress and energy difference for GB dislocations traversing through STJs and GB migration on some characteristic parameter rs were calculated and analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that the existence of the finest grains will simultaneously lead to good strength and good ductility.

Presently, China's long-distance education is on a rapid growth track, however, lack of distance education legislation results with an array of unsolved problems. This article examines the status and trends of Chinese distance education with reference to foreign legislations, makes suggestions about a long-term development strategy to ensure its healthy and orderly development.