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Bletilla striata is an important Chinese herbal plant grown widely in southwest China (Qian et al. 2021). Leaf blight was found on cultivated bletilla crops in Yunnan in 2021. The disease infected bletilla leaves and it was present in the field from April to November with the highest incidence (86% plants diseased) recorded in early September in Puer area. Foliar lesions were circular (Φ0.5-1.8 cm) or oval, with pale-gray center and narrow gray-brown outer area surrounded by a yellow halo. The lesions coalesced later to form large irregular spots or blighted areas on leaves. Symptomatic bletilla leaves were sampled from fields in Jiangcheng (E101.8672o, N22.5803o) and Simao (E109.7816o, N22.7891o) counties, Yunnan in July 2021. Seven fungal isolates were obtained from (BJ01-BJ04) and Simao samples (HBJ05-HBJ07) via lesion-tissue culture and hypha-tip purification on PDA medium. A pathogenicity test following Koch's Postulates (Grimms et al. 2006) was conducted using each isolate by inoculating 45-day old bletilla plant (n=30, Zihua cultivar) in a greenhouse through spraying hypha-spore suspension (3.25×104 CFU/mL) prepared with 14 d fresh DNA culture. Non-inoculated plants (n=30) were used as controls. The experiment was repeated once. The isolates BJ02 and HBJ06 (deposited in Yunnan Agric. Univ. Microbes Herbarium) were shown pathogenic to bletilla since similar lesions formed on seedlings 7 d post inoculation and pure fungal cultures with the same colony morphology as those of BJ02 and HBJ06 were re-isolated from leaf lesions 14 dpi. Isolates BJ02 and HBJ06 produced identical colony and conidium morphology after they were incubated at 25oC for 7 d on PDA. Colonies were circular, pale brown, Φ5.5-7.5cm, with villous surface and abundant aerial hyphae. Mycelia were septate, colorless, Φ3-4 µm and with acute-angled branches. Conidiophores developed from hyphae were erect, septate, pale-brown colored and 60-200 µm long. Conidia (produced scarcely and ripened slowly) were long-oval or petaloid, straight or slightly curved, brown, sized 28-45×10-14 µm. Most conidia were divided into 4 cells by 3 septa; the middle two were bigger than the basal and apex cells. Both BJ02 and HBJ06 were identified as Curvularia sp. based on their morphological characters (Tan et al. 2018). The rDNA-ITS, TEF1α and GAPDH genes (Tan et al. 2018) were amplified from these isolates with PCR (White et al. 1990) and sequenced. ITS sequences of the two isolates were both 574 bp (acc. no. OL587997OL336480) and 100% (574/574 bp) identical shown by blast comparison. Further blast analyses of ITS (574 bp, OL587997), TEF1α (532 bp, ON637120) and GAPDH (881 bp, ON637121) from isolate BJ02 showed that they were 99.27% (547/551 bp), 100% (842/842 bp) and 99.8% (507/508 bp) identical respectively with those of Curvularia reesii BRIP4358 (MH414907). The 3 genes of BJ02 were concatenated and phylogenic analysis (Tamura et al, 2013) of the concatenated sequence with those of Curvularia spp. showed that BJ02 was clustered with C. reesii BRIP4358 on the same end-branch of the tree with 100% confidence. Therefore, BJ02 and HBJ06 are the same species identified as Curvularia reesii and it is the pathogen causing bletilla leaf blight. C. reesii was first isolated from the air in Australia in 1963 and was named by Tan et al. in 2018. It has not been reported as a plant pathogen elsewhere. This is the first record of this fungus causing bletilla leaf blight in China. Keywords: Bletilla striata; leaf blight; Curvularia reesii; disease symptoms; pathogen morphology; multigene identification References (1) D.J. Grimes. Microbes, 1(5): 223-228, 2006. (2) L.H. Qian et al. Jiangshu Agric. Sci. 49(19): 64-71, 2021. (3) K. Tamura et al. Mol. Bio.Evol. 30 (12): 2725- 2729, 2013. (4) Y. P. Tan et al. MycoKeys, 35: 1-25. 2018. (5) T.J. White et al. In: PCR Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications (eds. M.A. Innis et al.), Acad. Press, Inc. New York. 315-322, 1990.

1. Probiotic fermented feed (PFF) has been widely used in poultry production. The current study was designed to investigate whether PPF could alleviate the negative effects of hypoxia on yellow-feathered broilers reared at high altitude on the Tibet Plateau. 2. A total of 480, one-day-old male Lingnan yellow-feathered broilers were divided into four treatment groups with six replicates, each containing 20 broiler chickens. Broilers in the four groups were offered either a basal diet (without antibiotics) or test diets containing 5, 10 and 15% of PFF respectively. The experiment lasted for eight weeks. 3. Birds fed the 10% PFF diet exhibited increased (P 0.05) average daily gain (ADG) on d 28 and 56, body weight (BW) on d 56, total tract apparent digestibility (TTAD) of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and gross energy (GE). Feeding diets supplemented with 10% PFF increased (P 0.05) digestive activity and gut development in duodenum and jejunum. Supplementation with 10% or 15% PFF significantly increased (P 0.05) the caecal populations of

Whether patients with COVID-19 require invasive mechanical ventilation (MV) is not yet clear. This article summarizes the clinical treatment process and clinical data of patients with COVID-19 and analyzes the predictive factors for mechanical ventilation for these patients.A retrospective study was carried out from January 5, 2020, to March 23, 2020, including 98 patients with COVID-19 treated at three designated hospitals in Huangshi City, Hubei Province. Data collection included demographics, previous underlying diseases, clinical manifestations, laboratory examinations, imaging examination results, diagnosis, and prognosis. This study presents a summary of the patients' overall clinical characteristics and clarifies the predictive factors for MV in patients with COVID-19.There were 56 males and 42 females included in this study. The mortality rate was 26.53% (26/98). Fever, cough, and chest tightness were the most common symptoms (64.3%, 37.8%, and 12.2%, respectively). Thirty cases required MV, 30.61% of the total cases, and the mortality rate was 73.33%. The univariate comparison showed that dyspnea, acute physiologic assessment, chronic health evaluation (APACHE II) score, and the ratio between arterial blood oxygen partial pressure (PaO2) and oxygen concentration (FiO2) (P/F) were statistically different between the MV group and the non-MV group (p0.05).Results showed the following: dyspnea; increased white blood cell count; decreased platelets; lowered albumin levels; increased urea nitrogen; increased levels of myocardial enzymes Creatine Kinase (CK), Creatine Kinase, MB Form (CKMB) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH); increased lactate, and lowered blood calcium tests. These findings may indicate that the patients have an increased probability of needing MV support. A cutoff value for the initial APACHE II score of11.5 and the initial PaO2/FiO2 ratio of122.17 mmHg should be considered for MV support for patients with COVID-19.

This study was aimed to investigate the expression characteristics of HOXA10 in bladder cancer (BCa), and to further study whether it can promote the development of BCa via regulating FOSL1.The expression of HOXA10 was examined by quantitative Real Time-PCR (qRT-PCR) in 37 pairs of tumor tissue and paracancerous specimens of BCa patients; meanwhile, in BCa cell lines, the expression of HOXA10 was also verified using qRT-PCR. Subsequently, after HOXA10 knockdown model was constructed in BCa cell lines (EJ and J82) using lentivirus transfection, transwell, as well as wound healing assays, were performed to analyze the influence of the downregulation of HOXA10 on the biological function of BCa cells. Finally, Luciferase reporting assay and cell reverse experiment were applied to explore the specific interaction between HOXA10 and FOSL1.The results of qRT-PCR indicated that the expression level of HOXA10 in BCa tissue samples was remarkably higher than that in adjacent normal ones, with a statistically significant difference. At the same time, the overall survival rate of patients with high expression of HOXA10 was found to be lower than those with low expression. Meanwhile, compared with cells in sh-NC group, the metastasis ability of BCa cells in sh-HOXA10 group was remarkably weakened. In addition, it was found that the levels of FOSL1 and HOXA10 were negatively correlated in BCa tissues. The result of the Luciferase reporter gene assay revealed that HOXA10 could be targeted by FOSL1 through certain binding sites between them. In addition, HOXA10 was found to be capable of further regulating the malignant progression of BCa by modulating FOSL1.HOXA10 expression is remarkably elevated in BCa tissues and cell lines, which is closely relevant to the poor prognosis of BCa patients. In addition, HOXA10 may be able to accelerate BCa metastasis via modulating FOSL1 expression.

The BIG Data Center at Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences provides a suite of database resources in support of worldwide research activities in both academia and industry. With the vast amounts of multi-omics data generated at unprecedented scales and rates, the BIG Data Center is continually expanding, updating and enriching its core database resources through big data integration and value-added curation. Resources with significant updates in the past year include BioProject (a biological project library), BioSample (a biological sample library), Genome Sequence Archive (GSA, a data repository for archiving raw sequence reads), Genome Warehouse (GWH, a centralized resource housing genome-scale data), Genome Variation Map (GVM, a public repository of genome variations), Science Wikis (a catalog of biological knowledge wikis for community annotations) and IC4R (Information Commons for Rice). Newly released resources include EWAS Atlas (a knowledgebase of epigenome-wide association studies), iDog (an integrated omics data resource for dog) and RNA editing resources (for editome-disease associations and plant RNA editosome, respectively). To promote biodiversity and health big data sharing around the world, the Open Biodiversity and Health Big Data (BHBD) initiative is introduced. All of these resources are publicly accessible at http://bigd.big.ac.cn.

The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is indisputably one of man's best friends. It is also a fundamental model for many heritable human diseases. Here, we present iDog (http://bigd.big.ac.cn/idog), the first integrated resource dedicated to domestic dogs and wild canids. It incorporates a variety of omics data, including genome sequences assemblies for dhole and wolf, genomic variations extracted from hundreds of dog/wolf whole genomes, phenotype/disease traits curated from dog research communities and public resources, gene expression profiles derived from published RNA-Seq data, gene ontology for functional annotation, homolog gene information for multiple organisms and disease-related literature. Additionally, iDog integrates sequence alignment tools for data analyses and a genome browser for data visualization. iDog will not only benefit the global dog research community, but also provide access to a user-friendly consolidation of dog information to a large number of dog enthusiasts.

Background Recipient hepatectomy can be complicated by severe bleeding during caudate lobe dissection in living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT), especially when the inferior vena cava is encased or with dense adhesions from prior interventions. Total hepatic vascular exclusion (TVE) including total hepatic inflow (Pringle maneuver) and occlusion of supra- and infra-hepatic inferior vena cava during the partial hepatectomy has been studied well, but it has not been mentioned regarding recipient hepatectomy in LDLT. The aim of this study is to evaluate hemodynamic impact and surgical outcome by using the technique of TVE in LDLT. Methods From April 2010 to June 2010, 30 consecutive LDLT recipients at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital with TVE (TVE group, n = 14) or without TVE (non-TVE group, n = 16) for the caudate lobe dissection were analyzed retrospectively. Results The TVE group had a mean decrease in systolic blood pressure and cardiac index of 21% and 41% during caudate dissection in recipient hepatectomy, respectively. The TVE group had shorter time for caudate mobilization and less blood loss compared with the non-TVE group (3904 mL vs. 5650 mL, P = .461). Two patients in the non-TVE group were shifted to TVE as a salvage procedure to control bleeding. Three patients in the non-TVE group underwent relaparotomy for homeostasis. Conclusions Short-term TVE is a technically feasible procedure and should be considered during recipient hepatectomy with difficult caudate lobe dissection in LDLT to create a bloodless surgical field. Most patients tolerated the TVE without hemodynamic impact under anesthetic management.

L10 FePt thin films with an island-like morphology and magnetic perpendicular anisotropy were grown at low temperature (300 < Tdep < 375 0C) by magnetron sputtering on Hoya glass substrates using a 30 nm thick Cr (200) underlayer. An MgO buffer layer with a thickness of 2 nm was used to inhibit the diffusion from the Cr underlayer and promote the growth of (001) oriented L10 FePt films by inducing an in-plane lattice distortion. By varying the substrate temperature and the Ar sputter pressure (3.5 < PAr < 15 mTorr) during the deposition, the degree of chemical order, the microstructure and the magnetic properties were tuned and the best properties in term of squareness ratio (Mr/Ms ~ 0.95) and coercive field (Hc ~ 14 kOe) were observed for films deposited at Tdep = 350 °C and PAr = 5 mTorr, due to the appearance of a tensile strain, which favors the perpendicular anisotropy. The analysis of the angular dependence of remanent magnetization curves on the optimized sample suggests that the magnetization reversal is highly incoherent due to the inter-island interactions. . Our results provide useful information on the low temperature growth of FePt films with perpendicular anisotropy onto glass substrates, which are relevant for a variety of technological applications, such as magnetic recording and spintronic devices.

To analyze the functioning mode of miR-645 on breast cancer cell metastasis and provide therapeutic targets for breast cancer.Quantitative Real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) assay was employed to detect miR-645 expression level. Wound healing assay and transwell assay were performed to investigate metastasis capacity of breast cancer cells. Protein levels were assessed by Western blotting assay. The target gene was predicted and verified by bioinformatics analysis and luciferase assay.MiR-645 was upregulated in breast cancer tissues when compared with pericarcinous tissues (n=60). Downregulated miR-645 could attenuate breast cancer cell migration and invasion capacities, as well as inhibit the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). DCDC2 was chosen as the target gene of miR-645 by bioinformatic analysis and Luciferase reporter assay. Moreover, the silence of DCDC2 could rescue tumor suppression role of downregulated miR-645 on breast cancer metastasis.Knockdown of miR-645 exerted tumor-suppressive effects on breast cancer metastasis via targeting DCDC2 in vitro, which provided an innovative and candidate target for diagnose and treatment of breast cancer.

The effects of different amounts of Y2O3 addition (0, 0·25, 0·50, 0·75 and 1·00 wt-%) on the lattice parameters, sintering behaviour and mechanical properties of Al2O3/15 wt-%ZrO2 porous composite ceramics have been investigated. It is found that Y2O3 and Al2O3 tend to form Al5Y3O12 rather than a solid solution of (Al1–XYX)2O3, while Y3+ can displace Zr4+ of ZrO2 to form a solid solution and increase the lattice constants of tetragonal zirconia (t-ZrO2). The additions of Y2O3 into Al2O3/15 wt-%ZrO2 porous composite ceramics not only stabilise t-ZrO2 but also act as a sintering aid for promoting the sintering process. In addition, Y2O3 additions are beneficial to improving the modulus of rupture and cold crushing strength of Al2O3/15 wt-%ZrO2 porous composite ceramics; their maximum values are obtained at 0·75 wt-%Y2O3, which are 56 and 118 MPa respectively.

In this work we report the microstructure and magnetic property of single crystalline Nd 2 Fe 14 B ultrafine particles ball milled from HDDR Nd–Fe–B alloys. The average size of the particles is 283 nm, and TEM observation reveals that these particles are single crystalline. The coercivity of these particles is 6.0 kOe, which is much higher than that of the particles ball milled from sintered and hot pressed Nd–Fe–B magnets. Micromagnetic analysis shows that the coercivity degradation is caused by surface damage during ball milling.

In this work structural and magnetic properties of (L1 0 -FePt/A1-FePt) exchange coupled nanocomposites are presented. Semi spherical “dome-like” nanocomposites with L1 0 FePt isolated nanoparticles and A1 FePt (fcc) cap layers were obtained by depositing A1-FePt on type L1 0 FePt nanoparticles in order to understand the influence of the soft magnetic layer thickness on the magnetic properties of the system. Epitaxial growth is confirmed by X-ray diffraction and TEM, while the coercivity decreases dramatically for the L1 0 /A1-FePt system when the thickness of the A1-FePt cap layers is increased. This result can be used to realize ultrahigh magnetic recording media with tunable coercivity, suitable for conventional write heads.

FePt-based exchange-coupled composites consisting of a magnetically hard L10-FePt phase exchange-coupled with a soft ferromagnetic material are promising candidates for future ultra-high density (>1 Tbit/in2) perpendicular magnetic recording media, also being of interest for other applications including spin torque oscillators and micro-electro-mechanical systems, among others. In this paper, the effect of the thickness of a soft Co layer (3 < thCo < 20 nm) on the magnetic behavior of ledge-type fcc(100)-Co/L10(001)-FePt composites deposited on an MgO (100) substrate is systematically studied by combining morpho-structural analyses and angular magnetization measurements. Starting from a film consisting of isolated L10(001)–FePt islands, the ledge-type structure was obtained by depositing a Co layer that either covered the FePt islands or filled-up the inter-island region, gradually forming a continuous layer with increasing Co thickness. A perpendicular anisotropy was maintained up to thCo ∼ 9.5 nm and a significant reduction in the coercivity (about 50% for thCo ∼ 3 nm) with the increase in thCo was observed, indicating that, by coupling hard FePt and soft Co phases in a ledge-type configuration, the writability can be greatly improved. Recoil loops' measurements confirmed the exchange-coupled behavior, reinforcing a potential interest in these systems for future magnetic recording media.

Patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at higher risk of developing invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). However, there are limited data for this disease. To evaluate risk factors and the clinical characteristics of IPA in COPD patients, we conducted a hospital-based, retrospective case-control study of 30 COPD patients with IPA and 60 COPD control patients without IPA. Patients in the case group were significantly more likely to have concurrent co-morbidities than controls. Of the IPA patients, 65.4% had worsening radiological findings vs. 11.4% in the control group (p

Objectives Recipients after liver transplantation. (OLT) often experience renal dysfunction. Acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) after OLT occur among 20% to 50% and 30% to 90% of recipients, respectively; 2% to 5% of them deteriorate into end-stage renal disease each year. Since the predictable factors for CKD have not been well identified. We sought to investigate the incidence and predictors of CKD at 5 years after OLT. Patients and methods Between August 2002 and December 2005, we enrolled 77 patients who underwent adult living donor OLT with over 2 years of follow-up. The strategies to prevent renal dysfunction included induction with basiliximab to delay the use of tacrolimus: addition of mycophenolate mofetil to reduce the tacrolimus dosage; avoidance of the calcineurin inhibitor using sirolimus or administration of an angiotensin II receptor antagonist. The clinical variables were reviewed for analysis. Results The mean follow-up was 76 ± 14 months. The incidence of AKI (over 50% increase level of creatinine) was 29%. Ten (13.0%) patients developed CKD (creatinine > 2 mg/dL). One (1.3%) subject developed end-stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis. Upon multivariate analysis the development of CKD was significantly associated with the posttransplant 4-week creatinine level: 0.92 ± 0.23 versus 1.37 ± 0.93 mg/dL ( P = .008). Conclusion The 4-week creatinine value was predictive of the occurence of CKD over 5 years after OLT.

The effect of Mo and MoS 2 additions on the magnetic and microstructure properties has been investigated in Nd–Fe–Ga–B sintered magnets. Coercivity can be increased by both the additions, but the MoS 2 addition provides the larger increase per Mo atom for up to 0.6 at.% Mo. Microstructure investigation reveals a new amorphous intergranular Ga rich phase. This phase forms a thin layer in the grain boundaries and leads to a wetting behavior of the grain boundary phase, therefore increasing the coercivity. Molybdenum addition in the form of MoS 2 is found to modify the Nd 2 Fe 14 B phase, rather than form new minority phases, and the coercivity enhancement of the magnet is due to the increased anisotropy field of the hard magnetic phase.

Nanocrystalline PrCo 5 , SmCo 5 and Sm 2 (Co,Fe,Mn) 17 alloys were subjected to a high-degree plastic deformation at 950 °C with the height reduction ranging from 70% to 95%. With increasing degree of deformation, the PrCo 5 and SmCo 5 magnets showed improvement of the deformation-induced [0 0 1] texture. The PrCo 5 alloys, known to develop a superior texture at the lower degrees of deformation, showed only modest improvement and their magnetic performance was undermined by a low coercivity. The SmCo 5 alloys had their texture markedly enhanced and, after height reduction by 94.5%, they exhibited a remanence of 8.6 kG, maximum energy product of 18 MGOe and an intrinsic coercivity of 22.8 kOe. No induced texture was found in the alloys based on the Sm 2 Co 17 structure. The microstructures of the hot-deformed alloys were studied with a transmission electron microscopy, and possible mechanisms of the texture development in the RCo 5 alloys (R=Pr, Sm) are briefly discussed.

Many natural proteins have been developed into drugs and produced for direct application. Identifying improved hosts to achieve high-level heterologous protein production is a challenge in the study of heterologous protein expression in recombinant yeast. In this study, a novel high-throughput assay to screen such overproducing Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains was systematically developed. The protocol designed was based on screening host strain derivatives with increased superoxide dismutase dependent resistance to oxidative stress. Yeast cells transformed with recombinant plasmid carrying SOD1 gene as a reporter responded exquisitely to oxidative stress induced by elevated concentrations of paraquat. Improved yeast strains resulting from screening clones subjected to genome shuffling through selective pressure argue for a more effective screening system compared with traditonal selection. Moreover, this approach can be employed in general biochemical analysis without utilization of flow cytometry or well plate reader. Therefore, it is expected that the high-throughput assay would make superior strains producing heterologous proteins.

In recent years, online gaming has become very popular. In contrast to stand-alone games, online games tend to be large-scale and typically support interactions among users. However, due to the high network latency of the Internet, smooth interactions among the users are often difficult. The huge and dynamic geometry data sets also make it difficult for some machines, such as handheld devices, to run those games. These constraints have stimulated some research interests on online gaming, which may be broadly categorized into two areas: technological support and user-perceived visual quality . Technological support concerns the performance issues while user-perceived visual quality concerns the presentation quality and accuracy of the game. In this article, we propose a game-on-demand engine that addresses both research areas. The engine distributes game content progressively to each client based on the player's location in the game scene. It comprises a two-level content management scheme and a prioritized content delivery scheme to help identify and deliver relevant game content at appropriate quality to each client dynamically. To improve the effectiveness of the prioritized content delivery scheme, it also includes a synchronization scheme to minimize the location discrepancy of avatars (game players). We demonstrate the performance of the proposed engine through numerous experiments.

Innovating the rural reform, development path and stimulating the endogenous of rural development are conducive to solving the problems lying in "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" comprehensively in the aspects of theoretical innovation and practical guidance. In this study, the research paradigm of "literature review + empirical analysis of investigation cases + theoretical framework analysis + countermeasures and suggestions" is used for analysing Guangdong rural development models and the influencing factors of the endogenous power of rural development. Firstly, the domestic and foreign studies on rural development models and endogenous power are summarized. Secondly, the current situation of Guangdong rural development is statistically analysed from the aspects of new rural construction, rural social service system, comprehensive rural reform and income increase of farmers. Thirdly, five Guangdong rural development models are classified and sorted out through the investigation by the research team for more than 1 year, and 9 typical cases in Guangdong selected from the investigated materials are empirically analysed. Fourthly, efforts are made to analyse the internal logical relations among rural property right system reform, modern agricultural management system and mechanism, and rural grass root governance innovation and to analyse their influencing factors by establishing the theoretical model and paradigm of "supporting foundation - key factors - guarantee mechanism". Finally, several countermeasures and suggestions are proposed for promoting rural development and accelerating agricultural modernization by integrating abovementioned factors from aspects of early and pilot implementation and expansion of the promotion of practical achievements.

With the aim to synthesise well proportioned disperse poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC)/nanometre calcium carbonate (nano-CaCO3) composites, the authors used emulsifier tx10 polyoxyethylene octylphenol ether to prepare emulsion liquid for modifying nano-CaCO3. Let nano-CaCO3 well proportionedly disperse into the water, the authors created a new method for the characterisation of emulsion liquid and use the emulsion to synthesise PVC/nano-CaCO3 composite. The microstructure, particle size distribution and thermal properties of composite were respectively evaluated by TEM, laser particle size analyser and thermogravimetry analysis tests. The results showed that nano-CaCO3 were uniformly distributed in the PVC with 5·2 wt-%. Compared with the pristine PVC, the particle size distribution of the composite is more uniform and the thermal stability increases.

Summary It is difficult to estimate soil thickness eroded from annual erosion rates in cultivated Black soils in northeast China because of the uncertainty of the time when the soil was first cultivated for agricultural crops. Assuming soil organic carbon (SOC) profile curves for cultivated sites are the same as virgin sites before cultivation, it may be possible to estimate the total thickness of surface soils lost by erosion by vertical movement of plotted SOC profiles until those for the virgin and cultivated soils are superimposed. We collected pairs of soil samples (0–1 m) with one sample in each pair from a virgin site and the other from a nearby cultivated site in Heilongjiang province, northeast China. In undulating areas where soil erosion was moderate, the shapes of SOC distribution curves below 40 cm depth were nearly identical for both cultivated and virgin soils, but were offset vertically. This offset was attributed to the loss of surface soil by erosion in the cultivated land. By moving the distribution curve of SOC in cultivated soil downwards by 12.7 cm, we found nearly coincident curves below 45 cm for the virgin and cultivated soils. This thickness (12.7 cm) was believed to be the depth of soils that had been eroded since the onset of cultivation in Black soils in northeast China. We concluded that the amount of surface soil lost by erosion could be estimated from comparison of the vertical distribution of SOC in cultivated and virgin soils.

Purpose and objectives of “Project for High Performance Anisotropic Nanocomposite Permanent Magnets with Low Rare-Earth Content”, a subproject of MEXT's “Element Science and Technology Project”, is briefly discussed and recent findings obtained from multi-scale analysis of a hydrogenation-disproportionaion-desorption-recombination (HDDR)-processed Nd-Fe-Co-Ga-B alloy is presented.

Nisin is an effective food biopreservative widely used in food industry. However, 1 problem of concern is limited production rate and final nisin concentration. A nisin-producing strain, L. lactis Lac2, a mutant strain with high yield of nisin, was obtained in our laboratory recently. In the present study, a fractional factorial design was applied to investigate the main factors that affect the yield of L. lactis Lac2. Central composite experimental design and response surface methodology were adopted to derive a statistical model for optimizing the composition of the medium. The results showed that the optimum medium for nisin production of L. lactis Lac2 was composed of 2.68% sucrose (w/v), 0.5% tryptone (w/v), 1% yeast extract (w/v), 0.3% Tween-80 (w/v), 0.02% MgSO4.7H2O (w/v), 0.81% NaCl (w/v), 1.91% K2HPO4 (w/v), 0.05% ascorbic acid (w/v), and 2% agar (w/v) (if necessary) at pH 6.5. When cultured in the optimum medium, the nisin yield is an average of 3381.81 IU/mL, which nearly doubled the yield when incubated in the initial medium. Also, the concentration of tryptone was decreased while that of the sucrose was increased when compared with CM broth, which means a reduction of the fermentation cost.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of chromium picolinate (CrPic) on growth hormone (GH) secretion and pituitary GH mRNA expression in finishing pigs. Forty eight crossbred pigs with an initial body weight of 65.57 kg (SD = 1.05) were blocked by body weight and randomly assigned to two treatments with three replicates. Each group was fed the diet supplemented with or without 200 μg/kg chromium from CrPic for 40 days. The results showed that average daily gain of pigs was increased by 9.84% (p

A composite nanomaterial composed of NbC nanocrystals, Al4C3 nanorods and carbon nanofibers as well as amorphous carbon was fabricated by arc-discharging a Nb3Al block as an anode in CH4 gas. The growth process of the NbC–Al4C3–C composite was deduced according to the microstructures of its components and the experimental conditions. NbC nanocrystals with non-stoichiometric chemical composition were in a cubic shape. As the decomposition product of the precursor of CH4 gas, carbon nanofibers were thought to be as templates, reacting with Al atoms, to form Al4C3 nanorods with a diameter of 15–40 nm. A thin layer of aluminum carbide oxide covered the surface of Al4C3 nanorods. The temperature dependence of the resistivity for the NbC–Al4C3–C composite was described by the variable-range-hopping (VRH) model between about 100 K and 300 K because of the strong localization of electrons by disorder in the carbon matrix. Below 100 K, the transport behaviors of the pellet deviated from the VRH model due to the conduction competition between the semi-conducting carbon matrix and metallic NbC nanocrystals.

In the past decade, a lot of research work has been conducted to support collaborative visualization among remote users over the networks, allowing them to visualize and manipulate shared data for problem solving. There are many applications of collaborative visualization, such as oceanography, meteorology and medical science. To facilitate user interaction, a critical system requirement for collaborative visualization is to ensure that remote users will perceive a synchronized view of the shared data. Failing this requirement, the user¿¿s ability in performing the desirable collaborative tasks will be affected. In this paper, we propose a synchronization method to support collaborative visualization. It considers how interaction with dynamic objects is perceived by application participants under the existence of network latency, and remedies the motion trajectory of the dynamic objects. It also handles the false positive and false negative collision detection problems. The new method is particularly well designed for handling content changes due to unpredictable user interventions or object collisions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method through a number of experiments

One-dimensional nanorods of cubic aluminum oxide (γ-Al2O3) have been synthesized by DC electric arc discharge of Fe and Al powders. It is seen that the diameters of the γ-Al2O3 nanorods are relatively uniform, ranging from 20 to 30 nm. On the basis of detailed transmission electron microscopic observation, it is proposed that the growth of a γ-Al2O3 nanorod follows the vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) process assisted by a two-dimensional vapor–solid (VS) nucleation and growth mechanism. The features of heavy twinning in the nanorod imply that twins might contribute to the growth of the nanorod and serve as the nucleus of the nanorod. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Ninety six growing pigs (Duroc×Landrace×Jia) were used to investigate the effects of betaine on growth, nutrient utilization, carcass composition and meat quality at different levels of betaine in the diet. The pigs were randomly assigned by weight to four groups, each of which was replicated three times with eight pigs per replicate. Four groups were fed with diets supplemented with 0, 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 mg/kg betaine. The pigs were grown from 20 kg live weight to approximately 64 kg. The 1,000 mg/kg and 1,500 mg/kg betaine treated groups increased average daily gain by 13.20% (p

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of cadmium levels on weight gain, nutrient digestibility and the retention of iron, copper and zinc in tissues of growing pigs. A total of one hundred and ninety-two crossbred pigs (barrows, Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshine, 27.67±1.33 kg of average initial body weight) were randomly allotted to four treatments. Each treatment had three replicates with 16 pigs per pen. The corn-soybean basal diets were supplemented with 0, 0.5, 5.0, 10.0 mg/kg cadmium respectively, and the feeding experiment lasted for eight-three days. Cadmium chloride was used as cadmium source. The results showed that pigs fed the diet containing 10.0 mg/kg cadmium had lower ADG and FCR than any other treatments (p

A digestion trial in vitro was conducted to study effects of supplementation of NSP (non-starch polysaccharides) degrading enzyme (feed grade) on cell wall degradation and digestibility of nutrients in barley. The slices of barley were soaked in distilled water with or without 0.15% non-starch polysaccharides degrading enzyme. Microscopic examination of the slices showed that the endosperm cell wall of barley was completely degraded by the non-starch polysaccharides degrading enzyme. The residues and supernatant of digesta in vitro were separated by filtration with 0.1 mm nylon fabric. The residues were used for measurement of crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, and moisture. The supernatant was used for determination of viscosity, as well as amino-nitrogen and glucose content. The results showed that compared with the control, the amino-nitrogen and glucose content of the supernatant increased by 17.58% (p

In mammals, serum paraoxonase (PON1) is tightly associated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) particles. In human populations, PON1 exhibits a substrate dependent activity polymorphism determined by an Arg/Gln (R/Q) substitution at amino acid residue 192. The physiological role of this protein appears to be involvement in the metabolism of oxidized lipids. Several studies have suggested that the PON1R192 allele may be a risk factor in coronary artery disease. PON1 also plays an important role in the metabolism of organophosphates including insecticides and nerve agents. The PON1R192 isoform hydrolyzes paraoxon rapidly, but diazoxon, soman and sarin slowly compared with the PON1Q192 isoform. Both PON1 isoforms hydrolyze phenylacetate at approximately the same rate, while PON1R192 hydrolyzes chlorpyrifos oxon slightly faster than PONQ192. Animal model studies involving injection of purified rabbit PON1 into mice clearly demonstrated the ability of PON1 to protect cholinesterases from inhibition by OP compo...