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Abstract Background Phytosulfokine (PSK) functions as a plant peptide growth factor that plays important and diverse roles in plant development and stress responses. Nevertheless, PSKs have not been systematically analyzed in wheat. Results A genome-wide comparative analysis of PSK genes in wheat was conducted and 15 TaPSKs were identified and divided into four subgroups in the wheat genome based on sequence similarity. The examination of motif compositions of TaPSK genes revealed the presence of the YIYTQ signature motif in the C-terminus of all TaPSK polypeptide precursors, with a highly conserved feature across different species. Exogenous application of TaPSK peptide promoted root growth in wheat. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that the TaPSKs exhibited preferential or tissue-specific expression patterns in wheat. In particular, three homologs of the TaPSK1 genes were specifically expressed in grains, with the strongest expression observed in the developing grains at 15 days after anthesis. Compared with wild type, transgenic rice lines overexpressing TaPSK1-A exhibited larger grain size and higher thousand-grain weight. The promoter region and genomic sequence of the wheat TaPSK1-A gene were cloned. Sequence polymorphism showed that five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified in the promoter region of TaPSK1-A. A Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASP) marker was developed for TaPSK1-A based on –806 bp SNP (C/T transition), and two haplotypes, TaPSK1-A-HapI and TaPSK1-A-HapII were detected in 260 wheat accessions collected from different regions. The expression of TaPSK1-A, promoter activity, and thousand-grain weight (TGW) in the TaPSK1-A-HapII haplotype were higher than those in the TaPSK1-A-HapI haplotype. Furthermore, yeast one-hybrid assays revealed the binding of TaNF-YB1 and TaERF39 to the promoter regions of the TaPSK1-A gene, and TaMADS29 could bind to the promoters of TaPSK1-B and TaPSK1-D genes. Conclusions Comparative genome-wide analysis of TaPSK peptide family revealed that the TaPSK1 gene is involved in wheat grain development, and the developed TaPSK1-A-KASP marker could be utilized for marker-assisted selection breeding of wheat. Graphical Abstract

Abstract Cast iron alloys with low production cost and quite good mechanical properties are widely used in the automotive industry. To study the mechanical behavior of a typical ductile cast iron (GJS-450) with nodular graphite, uni-axial quasi-static and dynamic tensile tests at strain rates of 10−4, 1, 10, 100, and 250 s−1 were carried out. In order to investigate the influence of stress state on the deformation and fracture parameters, specimens with various geometries were used in the experiments. Stress strain curves and fracture strains of the GJS-450 alloy in the strain rate range of 10−4 to 250 s−1 were obtained. A strain rate-dependent plastic flow model was proposed to describe the mechanical behavior in the corresponding strain-rate range. The available damage model was extended to take the strain rate into account and calibrated based on the analysis of local fracture strains. Simulations with the proposed plastic flow model and the damage model were conducted to observe the deformation and fracture process. The results show that the strain rate has obviously nonlinear effects on the yield stress and fracture strain of GJS-450 alloys. The predictions with the proposed plastic flow and damage models at various strain rates agree well with the experimental results, which illustrates that the rate-dependent plastic flow and damage models can be used to describe the mechanical behavior of cast iron alloys at elevated strain rates. The proposed plastic flow and damage models can be used to describe the deformation and fracture analysis of materials with similar properties.

Abstract Road damage is a great threat to the service life and safety of roads, and the early detection of pavement damage can facilitate maintenance and repair. Street view images serve as a new solution for the monitoring of pavement damage due to their wide coverage and regular updates. In this study, a road pavement damage dataset, the Street View Image Dataset for Automated Road Damage Detection (SVRDD), was developed using 8000 street view images acquired from Baidu Maps. Based on these images, over 20,000 damage instances were visually recognized and annotated. These instances were distributed in five administrative districts of Beijing City. Ten well-established object detection algorithms were trained and assessed using the SVRDD dataset. The results have demonstrated the performances of these algorithms in the detection of pavement damages. To the best of our knowledge, SVRDD is the first public dataset based on street view images for pavement damages detection. It can provide reliable data support for future development of deep learning algorithms based on street view images.

A virtual battery (VB) provides a succinct interface for aggregating distributed storage-like resources (SLR) to interact with a utility-level system. To overcome the drawbacks of existing VB models, including conservatism and neglecting network constraints, this paper optimizes the power and energy parameters of VB to enlarge its flexibility region. An optimal VB is identified by a robust optimization problem with decision-dependent uncertainty. An algorithm based on the Benders decomposition is developed to solve this problem. The proposed method yields the largest VB satisfying constraints of both network and SLRs. Case studies verify the superiority of the optimal VB in terms of security guarantee and less conservatism.

Transformer-based deep networks have been widely employed for fusing multispectral and hyperspectral images because the global self-attention mechanism ensures that more pixel information is used in the fusion. However, the unreasonable information interactions between local windows in window self-attention-based Transformer can adversely affect the network’s modeling of the global relationship, resulting in low-quality fusion results. This study proposes a novel N-Gram based Swin Transformer Network (NGST-Net). It utilizes more pixels for modeling the global relationship, mining more spectral information of similar pixels. A N-Gram strategy is proposed to learn the spectral feature relationship between the local window and previous and subsequent windows to guide the information interactions between the local windows. A maskless shifted window strategy enables the efficient modeling of the global relationship. Experimental results show that the proposed NGST-Net has fewer parameters, higher inference speed, and smaller memory footprint than several recently published Transformer methods. The improvements in the SAM, ERGAS, and PSNR over the second-best method are 9.9%, 6.5%, and 1%, respectively, on the CAVE dataset. The inference speed of NGST-Net is 10.7 times faster than that of Fusformer. The proposed NGST-Net is a novel deep network model for the effective fusion of multispectral and hyperspectral images.

ABSTRACTGenetic changes have occurred in the genomes of prevalent African swine fever viruses (ASFVs) in the field in China, which may change their antigenic properties and result in immune escape. There is usually poor cross-protection between heterogonous isolates, and, therefore, it is important to test the cross-protection of the live attenuated ASFV vaccines against current prevalent heterogonous isolates. In this study, we evaluated the protective efficacy of the ASFV vaccine candidate HLJ/18-7GD against emerging isolates. HLJ/18-7GD provided protection against a highly virulent variant and a lower lethal isolate, both derived from genotype II Georgia07-like ASFV and isolated in 2020. HLJ/18-7GD vaccination prevented pigs from developing ASF-specific clinical signs and death, decreased viral shedding via the oral and rectal routes, and suppressed viral replication after challenges. However, HLJ/18-7GD vaccination did not provide solid cross-protection against genotype I NH/P68-like ASFV challenge in pigs. HLJ/18-7GD vaccination thus shows great promise as an alternative strategy for preventing and controlling genotype II ASFVs, but vaccines providing cross-protection against different ASFV genotypes may be needed in China.

BackgroundCerebrovascular disease, among the most prevalent neurological disorders, poses a substantial threat to human health with its elevated mortality and disability rates, placing considerable strain on healthcare systems. Although several studies in recent years have suggested a potential association between digestive system diseases and cerebrovascular diseases, the findings remain inconsistent.MethodsGenome-wide association study (GWAS) summary data for 12 digestive diseases and cerebrovascular diseases were used to conduct Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. In this investigation, we endeavored to elucidate the causal relationship between digestive system diseases and cerebrovascular diseases. Employing a comprehensive approach, including two-sample MR (TSMR), multivariate MR (MVMR), and two-step MR analysis, we leveraged summary statistics data obtained from published GWAS. The primary analysis method employed was inverse variance weighted (IVW), with MR-Egger and weighted median (WM) as secondary methods. Sensitivity analysis included heterogeneity testing, horizontal multivariate testing, MR-PRESSO, and a “leave-one-out” method. Additionally, the F-statistic was utilized to assess the strength of instrumental variables, ensuring robust results.ResultsIn the TSMR analysis, this study found a significant causal relationship between genetically predicted gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and any stroke (AS), any ischemic stroke (AIS), large-artery atherosclerotic stroke (LAS), intracranial aneurysm (IA), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). In MVMR analysis, this study found that even after adjusting for systolic blood pressure (SBP), body mass index (BMI) and type 2 diabetes (T2D), the causal relationship remains exist. In the two-step MR mediation analysis, it was found that BMI, SBP and T2D play mediating role in the causal relationship between GERD and cerebrovascular diseases.ConclusionThis study indicates a clear positive causal relationship between GERD and cerebrovascular diseases, and this causal association remains significant even after adjusting for BMI, SBP and T2D. The mediation MR analysis suggests that BMI, SBP and T2D may mediate the causal relationship between GERD and the risk of cerebrovascular diseases.

IntroductionThe effects of vitamin B12 metabolism on musculoskeletal health and the exact mechanism have not been fully determined. Our study aimed to assess the association of vitamin B12 and its biomarkers with musculoskeletal health in middle-aged and older adults.MethodsThe data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001–2002 were used to investigate the effects of serum vitamin B12 and its biomarkers (homocysteine and methylmalonic acid) on skeletal muscle health. Bone mineral density (BMD), lean mass, gait speed and knee extensor strength were used as indicators for musculoskeletal health.ResultsSerum vitamin B12 level was positively correlated with the total and appendicular lean mass (β = 584.83, P = 0.044; β = 291.65, P = 0.043) in older adults over 65 years of age. In the full population, plasma homocysteine was associated with total lean mass, appendicular lean mass, gait speed, and knee extensor strength (all P < 0.05). Among older adults over 65 years of age, homocysteine level was significantly negatively correlated with gait speed and knee extensor strength (β = -12.75, P = 0.019; β = -0.06, P

African swine fever (ASF) is an acute, hemorrhagic, and severe infectious disease caused by the ASF virus (ASFV). ASFV has evolved multiple strategies to escape host antiviral immune responses. Here, we reported that ASFV pB318L, a trans-geranylgeranyl-diphosphate synthase, reduced the expression of type I interferon (IFN-I) and IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs). Mechanically, pB318L not only interacted with STING to reduce the translocation of STING from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus but also interacted with IFN receptors to reduce the interaction of IFNAR1/TYK2 and IFNAR2/JAK1. Of note, ASFV with interruption of B318L gene (ASFV-intB318L) infected PAMs produces more IFN-I and ISGs than that in PAMs infected with its parental ASFV HLJ/18 at the late stage of infection. Consistently, the pathogenicity of ASFV-intB318L is attenuated in piglets compared with its parental virus. Taken together, our data reveal that B318L gene may partially affect ASFV pathogenicity by reducing the production of IFN-I and ISGs. This study provides a clue to design antiviral agents or live attenuated vaccines to prevent and control ASF.

Road pavement cracks are a critical factor affecting the health conditions of road pavements. Accurate crack detection contributes to providing data support for road maintenance measures. Compared to conventional crack detection algorithms, deep learning based crack segmentation methods have practical significance for road maintenance and traffic safety management due to their high precision and automation. However, existing deep learning methods often suffer from segmentation accuracy loss due to the varying crack sizes and the presence of stains on the pavement with spatial characteristics similar to cracks, leading to the misclassification of cracks. Therefore, this study proposed a multiscale enhanced road pavement crack segmentation network (MS-CrackSeg) by coupling spectral and spatial information to detect pavement cracks from unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral imagery. MS-CrackSeg can simultaneously learn the spatial and rich spectral features of cracks in the hyperspectral imagery, improving the discrimination of those targets with similar spatial features to cracks compared to previous approaches. Moreover, the Multiscale Self-Attention-like Feature Extraction Module (MSSA) is introduced to extract and fuse multiscale crack features to enhance the crack detection. Experiments on a dataset consisting of 1031 hyperspectral images demonstrated the superior crack segmentation of the proposed method compared to the comparative methods. In particular, the proposed method achieved the highest F1-score of 0.74 and mean Intersection over Union of 0.79, indicating an exceptional performance. The developed approach offers improved data support for road maintenance measures and has validated the advantages of UAV hyperspectral imagery in road crack segmentation. The annotated hyperspectral dataset and the code for MS-CrackSeg network are available at https://github.com/williamchen-x/MS-CrackSeg.

Deep learning has been developed to generate promising super resolution hyperspectral imagery by fusing hyperspectral imagery with the panchromatic band. However, it is still challenging to maintain edge spectral information in the necessary upsampling processes of these approaches, and difficult to guarantee effective feature extraction. This study proposes a pansharpening network denoted as HyperRefiner that consists of, (1) a well performing upsampling network SRNet, in which the dual attention block and refined attention block are cascaded to accomplish the extraction and fusion of features; (2) a spectral autoencoder that is embedded to perform dimensionality reduction under constrained feature extraction; and (3) the optimization module which performs self-attention at the pixel and feature levels. A comparison with several state-of-the-art models reveals that HyperRefiner can improve the quality of the fused image. Specifically, compared to the single-head HyperTransformer and with the Chikusei dataset, our network improved the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Erreur Relative Globale Adimensionnelle de Synthèse and Spectral Angle Mapper by 0.86%, 3.62%, and 2.09%, and reduce the total memory, floating point operations, model parameters and computation time by 41%, 75%, 86% and 46%, respectively. The experimental results show that HyperRefiner outperforms several networks and demonstrates its usefulness in hyperspectral image fusion. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/zsspo/Fusion_HyperRefiner.

Abstract Background Several COVID-19 vaccines are in widespread use in China. Few data exist on comparative immunogenicity of different COVID-19 vaccines given as booster doses. We aimed to assess neutralizing antibody levels raised by injectable and inhaled aerosolized recombinant adenovirus type 5 (Ad5)-vectored COVID-19 vaccine as a heterologous booster after an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine two-dose primary series. Methods Using an open-label prospective cohort design, we recruited 136 individuals who had received inactivated vaccine primary series followed by either injectable or inhaled Ad5-vectored vaccine and measured neutralizing antibody titers against ancestral SARS-CoV-2 virus and Omicron BA.1 and BA.5 variants. We also measured neutralizing antibody levels in convalescent sera from 39 patients who recovered from Omicron BA.2 infection. Results Six months after primary series vaccination, neutralizing immunity against ancestral SARS-CoV-2 was low and neutralizing immunity against Omicron (B.1.1.529) was lower. Boosting with Ad5-vectored vaccines induced a high immune response against ancestral SARS-CoV-2. Neutralizing responses against Omicron BA.5 were ≥ 80% lower than against ancestral SARS-CoV-2 in sera from prime-boost subjects and in convalescent sera from survivors of Omicron BA.2 infection. Inhaled aerosolized Ad5-vectored vaccine was associated with greater neutralizing titers than injectable Ad5-vectored vaccine against ancestral and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants. Conclusions These findings support the current strategy of heterologous boosting with injectable or inhaled Ad5-vectored SARS-CoV-2 vaccination of individuals primed with inactivated COVID-19 vaccine.

The road systems connecting villages, cities, and countries stand as a pivotal transportation infrastructure in modern society [...]

Abstract African swine fever virus (ASFV) poses a great threat to the global pig industry and food security. Currently, 24 ASFV genotypes have been reported but it is unclear whether recombination of different genotype viruses occurs in nature. In this study, we detect three recombinants of genotype I and II ASFVs in pigs in China. These recombinants are genetically similar and classified as genotype I according to their B646L gene, yet 10 discrete fragments accounting for over 56% of their genomes are derived from genotype II virus. Animal studies with one of the recombinant viruses indicate high lethality and transmissibility in pigs, and deletion of the virulence-related genes MGF_505/360 and EP402R derived from virulent genotype II virus highly attenuates its virulence. The live attenuated vaccine derived from genotype II ASFV is not protective against challenge of the recombinant virus. These naturally occurring recombinants of genotype I and II ASFVs have the potential to pose a challenge to the global pig industry.

This study reveals the dynamic compressive deformation anisotropy among 316L stainless steel fabricated via wire and arc additive manufacturing process(WAAM). Cylindrical samples extracted from as-built WAAM 316L plate with 35°, 45°, 55°and 90° from scanning direction, were referred to as , , and crystallographic orientations hereinafter, which had been confirmed through backscattered diffraction. Cylindrical samples were subjected to dynamic tests by a split Hopkinson pressure bar. The corresponding mechanical behaviors and deformed microstructures are associated. There are approximately 10% higher dynamic flow stresses from the samples than other samples during dynamic tests at strain rates less than 3500 s−1, which can be attributed to lower density of thinner deformation twins. The lower tendency towards deformation twinning in samples arises from the increase of effective stacking fault energy. WAAM 316L presents an anisotropy of resistance to adiabatic shearing, of which the order is , , and . Two adiabatic shear bands(ASB) in sample present distinct orientation characters, where the sub-grains in the first ASB show and -fiber while that in the subsequent one take -fiber. This micro-texture discrepancy from two ASBs could be contributed to the precondition change of macro texture in the matrix which give birth to.

Abstract Background Primary familial brain calcification (PFBC) is a rare hereditary neurodegenerative disorder associated with the MYORG gene; however, the clinical and radiological characteristics of MYORG‐PFBC remain unclear. Methods We present relevant medical data obtained from a patient affected by PFBC with a novel MYORG variant and conducted a mutational analysis of MYORG in her family members. We reviewed all reported PFBC cases with biallelic MYORG mutations until April 1, 2023, and summarized the associated clinical and radiological features and mutation sites. Results The patient (22‐year‐old woman) exhibited paroxysmal limb stiffness and dysarthria for 3 years. Computed tomography revealed calcifications in the paraventricular white matter, basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum. Whole‐exome sequencing revealed a novel homozygous frameshift variant (c.743delG: p.G248Afs*32) in exon 2 of the MYORG gene (NM_020702.5). To date, 62 families and 64 mutation sites have been reported. Among the reported biallelic MYORG mutations, 57% were homozygous and 43% were compound heterozygous. Individuals with biallelic MYORG mutations experience more severe brain calcification with approximately 100% clinical penetrance. Ten single heterozygous mutation sites are associated with significant brain calcifications. Conclusion All patients with primary brain calcification, particularly younger patients without a family history of the disease, should be screened for MYORG mutations.

The autoencoder (AE) framework is usually adopted as a baseline network for hyperspectral unmixing. Totally an AE performs well in hyperspectral unmixing through automatically learning low-dimensional embedding and reconstructing data. However, most available AE-based hyperspectral unmixing networks do not fully consider the spatial and spectral information of different ground features in hyperspectral images and output relatively fixed ratios of linear and nonlinear photon scattering effects under different scenarios. Therefore, these methods have poor generalization abilities across different ground features and scenarios. Here, inspired by the two-stream network structure, we propose a spatial–spectral adaptive nonlinear unmixing network (SSANU-Net) in which the spatial–spectral information of hyperspectral imagery is effectively learned using the two-stream encoder, followed by the simulation of the linear–nonlinear scattering component of photons using a two-stream decoder. Additionally, we adopt a combination of spatial–spectral and linear–nonlinear components using the optimized adaptive weighting strategy of learnable parameters. Experiments with several hyperspectral image datasets (i.e., Samson, Jasper Ridge, and Urban) showed that the proposed SSANU-Net network had higher unmixing accuracy and generalization performance compared with several conventional methods. This demonstrates that SSANU-Net represents a novel method for hyperspectral unmixing analysis.

Heavy renewable penetrations and high-voltage cross-regional transmission systems reduce the inertia and critical frequency stability of power systems after disturbances. Therefore, the power system operators should ensure the frequency nadirs after possible disturbances are within the set restriction, e. g., 0.20 Hz. Traditional methods utilize linearized and simplified control models to quantify the frequency nadirs and achieve frequency-constrained unit commitments (FCUCs). However, the simplified models are hard to depict the frequency responses of practical units after disturbances. Also, they usually neglect the regulations from battery storage. This paper achieves FCUCs with linear rules extracted from massive simulation results. We simulate the frequency responses on typical thermal-hydro-storage systems under diverse unit online conditions. Then, we extract the rules of frequency nadirs after disturbances merely with linear support vector machine to evaluate the frequency stability of power systems. The algorithm holds a high accuracy in a wide range of frequency restrictions. Finally, we apply the rules to three typical cases to show the influences of frequency constraints on unit commitments.

BackgroundThe causal relationship between gut microbiota and cerebrovascular disease remains unknown, despite several recent studies reporting an association between the two.MethodsTo assess this relationship, we conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) using summary statistics data from published genome-wide association studies (GWAS). This analysis allowed us to identify bacterial taxa that may affect cerebrovascular disease. Furthermore, we performed reverse MR to further analyze the significant bacterial taxa. Finally, we conducted a two-step MR analysis to examine the mediating role of metabolic factors [systolic blood pressure (SBP), type 2 diabetes (T2D), and body mass index (BMI)] in the association between gut microbiota and cerebrovascular disease. Additionally, a series of sensitivity analyses were carried out to validate the robustness of our findings.ResultsOur results showed that a genetically predicted high abundance of family Porphyromonadaceae reduced the risk of intracranial aneurysms (IA). Moreover, using inverse variance weighted (IVW) estimates, we found a nominal causal relationship between seventeen gut microbiota and IA, as well as its subtypes. In the case of stroke and its subtypes, we observed a nominal causal relationship with thirteen, eleven, eleven, nine, and eight bacteria for AS, AIS, CES, LAS, and SVS, respectively. Reverse MR analysis showed no significant causal relationship between intracranial aneurysms and gut microbiota. However, we did find that genetically predicted any stroke (AS) and any ischemic stroke (AIS) reduced the abundance of family Clostridiaceae1 (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.62–0.87, p = 3.39 × 10−4, and OR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.66–0.87, p = 7.06 × 10−5, respectively). Furthermore, genetic prediction of AIS (OR: 0.87, 95% CI: 0.77–0.99, p = 3.05 × 10−2) was associated with a reduced abundance of the order Clostridiales. Moreover, genus Streptococcus exhibited effects on AS, AIS, and SVS which were mediated by T2D. Conversely, the association between genus Eubacterium brachy group and AIS was mediated by SBP. No significant heterogeneity of instrumental variables or horizontal pleiotropy was observed.ConclusionThis MR analysis indicates that there exists a beneficial or detrimental causal effect of gut microbiota composition on cerebrovascular disease. And SBP and T2D may play mediating role in this process.

BackgroundStroke is a leading cause of death worldwide, but it is unclear whether circulating lipids and lipid-lowering drugs are causally associated with stroke and its subtypes.MethodsWe used two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) to examine the effects of blood lipids and lipid-lowering drugs on stroke and its subtypes.ResultsThe inverse variance weighted Mendelian randomization (IVW-MR) revealed the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (OR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.17–1.83; p = 0.0008) and apolipoprotein B (apoB) (OR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.21–1.77; p = 0.0001) was positively correlated with large artery stroke (LAS). However, no causal effect was found in LDL-C and apoB on LAS risk when we conducted mvMR. The IVW-MR also found a suggestive evidence that decreased LDL-C levels mediated by the PCSK9 (proprotein convertase subtilisin-kexin type 9) gene were associated with a reduced risk of any stroke (AS) (OR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.13–1.52; p = 0.0003), any ischemic stroke (AIS) (OR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.10–1.51; p = 0.001), and LAS (OR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.15–2.59; p = 0.008), while NPC1L1 (Niemann-Pick C1-like protein)-mediated LDL-C levels were associated with a higher risk of small vessel stroke (SVS) (OR, 6.10; 95% CI, 2.13–17.43; p = 0.0008). The SMR revealed that expression of PCSK9 was associated with risk of AS (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.03–1.28; p = 0.01), AIS (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.14–1.29; p = 0.03), cardioembolic stroke (CES) (OR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.01–1.61; p = 0.04). And, a significant association was found between the expression of NPC1L1 and the risk of SVS (OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.00–1.32; p = 0.04).ConclusionWe cautiously find that LDL-C and apoB was positively correlated with LAS. These findings suggest that the reducing LDL-C levels could be an effective prevention strategy for reducing the risk of stroke.

Abstract The uncertainty of LNG import risks will have a significant impact on China's energy security. This paper establishes a multi-agent game model based on the current LNG transportation network and global LNG supply and demand pattern, evaluates the LNG import risks faced by China under the global governance model, and simulates and predicts the optimal LNG import strategy of China in 2030. The research results show that between 2007 and 2020, China’s LNG import risks increased rapidly compared with political risks and national risks. From the perspective of risk identification, the comprehensive risk of China's imports from Southeast Asia and Australia is lower. However, due to the increasing demand gap for LNG, the Middle East, and Africa are still necessary supply sources. It is estimated that by 2030, the future LNG market will be oversupplied, and the United States is expected to become the world's top LNG supplier. China will reduce its dependence on Africa and the Middle East, and import a large amount of natural gas from the United States, Australia, Qatar, and Russia to reduce supply risks. From the perspective of import market competition, the new analysis model proposed in this article provides an effective tool for exploring the optimal strategy for LNG import.

Road pavement damage affects driving comfort markedly, threatens driving safety, and may even cause traffic accidents. The traffic management department conventionally captures pavement damage information mainly using manual and vehicle-mounted equipment, which is not conducive to the detection of large-scale road pavement distress. Street-view images can provide full-view images of urban roads where the data is updated regularly by navigation map service companies, making it possible to rapidly detect pavement damage in urban areas. This paper presents a new pavement damage detection approach that is built upon an improved YOLOv5 network and street-view images. The proposed model can deal with a large-scale detection layer to improve the detection precision of large distress targets, achieving thus both cross-layer and cross-scale feature fusion by using the Generalized Feature Pyramid Network (Generalized-FPN) structure. The improved network also involves a diagonal Intersection over Union loss for regression calculation of the boundary box and builds the decoupled Head structure to achieve the decoupling detection of prediction and regression. As a result, the fusion of the weak feature information in feature layers is enhanced at different spatial scales, a more suitable method is achieved for pavement damage detection in the complex context of multi-scale street-view images, and the accuracy of the modified network is much improved in the detection of pavement distress from street-view imagery. Furthermore, We created a large image sample set for model training and testing, and a total of 156,304 street-view images, obtained from Fengtai District, Beijing, China was used for demonstrating the usefulness of the proposed network. The findings indicated that the proposed approach could effectively achieve pavement damage detection of urban roads from street-view images, with a precision average of 79.8% on the test samples. Moreover, the developed model was applied for pavement damage detection for all the roads in Fengtai District, Beijing, indicating that our method can offer viable damage data for road maintenance planning.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that gut microbiota plays an important role in the development and treatment of different cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, heart failure, myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, and atherosclerosis. Furthermore, evidence from recent studies has shown that gut microbiota contributes to the development of myocarditis. Myocarditis is an inflammatory disease that often results in myocardial damage. Myocarditis is a common cause of sudden cardiac death in young adults. The incidence of myocarditis and its associated dilated cardiomyopathy has been increasing yearly. Myocarditis has gained significant attention on social media due to its association with both COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccinations. However, the current therapeutic options for myocarditis are limited. In addition, little is known about the potential therapeutic targets of myocarditis. In this study, we review (1) the evidence on the gut-heart axis, (2) the crosslink between gut microbiota and the immune system, (3) the association between myocarditis and the immune system, (4) the impact of gut microbiota and its metabolites on myocarditis, (5) current strategies for modulating gut microbiota, (6) challenges and future directions for targeted gut microbiota in the treatment of myocarditis. The approach of targeting the gut microbiota in myocarditis is still in its infancy, and this is the study to explore the gut microbiota-immune system-myocarditis axis. Our findings are expected to pave the way for the use of gut microbiota as a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of myocarditis.

The plant rhizosphere underlies the crosstalk between plant and soil and has a crucial role in plant growth and development under various environments. We examined the effect of temperature rise on the rhizosphere environment of soybean roots to clarify the rhizosphere crosstalk between roots and soil in response to warm temperature rises in a global warming background. The in situ results of root enzyme activity revealed that soybean roots secrete β-glucosidase, and enzyme spectrum imaging demonstrated different enzymatic activities under different temperature environments. The soil enzyme kinetics results showed that soil enzymatic activity increased with increasing temperature, and soybean rhizosphere soil enzymatic activity was higher than that of non-rhizosphere soil. Rhizosphere soil and non-rhizosphere soil showed that the dominant bacterial phylum in soybean rhizosphere soil was Acidobacteria, and the dominant bacterial genus was JG30-KF-AS9. Compared with non-rhizosphere soil, rhizosphere soil was more nutrient-rich, and root secretions provided abundant carbon sources and other nutrients for soil microorganisms in the rhizosphere. Rhizosphere microorganisms affect plant growth by influencing the decomposition of soil organic carbon. The organic carbon content of rhizosphere soil was higher than that of non-rhizosphere soil under high temperatures.

China’s market-oriented reform supports the sustainable development of energy mix and the low-carbon target, and natural gas has bridged the transition from traditional fossil energy to clean and renewable energies. The third-party access policy, launched recently by China’s natural gas market, drives the decouple between gas trade and transport. The decouple might lead to the transmission resources of physical network not optimally used, which is caused by the contractual arrangement between entry and exit capacities in commercial network. Aiming at this issue, we established a mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) to integrate the allocations of commercial capacity and physical flows, based on a minimum cost maximum flow problem (MCMF) abstracted from China’s existing gas network. The MPEC model was then used to strategically evaluate the transmission efficiency, and identify the critical factors of its loss. Our results show that there is transmission efficiency loss of China’s gas network from the shortage of geospatial gas supply and the invisible segmentation of gas network due to interdicted cost of pipeline, bottleneck of pipeline capacity and economic radius of gas supply chains to transport gas. Therefore, the critical factor of the loss to be identified will be helpful for strategically reducing the cost of decoupling gas trade and transport.

Detailed snow cover maps are essential for estimating the earth’s energy balance and hydrological cycle. Mapping the snow cover across spatially extensive and topographically complex areas with less or no cloud obscuration is challenging, but the SNPP-VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB) nighttime light data offers a potential solution. This paper aims to map snow cover distribution at 750 m resolution across the diverse 1,664,900 km2 of Xinjiang, China, based on SNPP-VIIRS DNB radiance. We implemented a swarm intelligent optimization technique Krill Herd algorithm, which finds the optimal threshold value by taking Otsu’s method as the objective function. We derived SNPP-VIIRS DNB snow maps of 14 consecutive scenes in December 2021, compared our snow-covered area estimations with those from MODIS and AMSR2 standard snow cover products, and generated composite snow maps by merging MODIS and SNPP-VIIRS DNB data. Results show that SNPP-VIIRS DNB snow maps are capable of providing reliable snow cover maps superior to MODIS and AMSR2, with an overall accuracy level of 84.66%. The composite snow maps at 500 m spatial resolution provided 55.85% more information on snow cover distribution than standard MODIS products and achieved an overall accuracy of 84.69%. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of snow cover detection in Xinjiang based on SNPP-VIIRS DNB, which can serve as a supplementary dataset for MODIS estimations where clouded pixels are present.

Conventional methods for monitoring pavement healthy states have the disadvantages of low efficiency and being time-consuming and destructive. Current studies indicate that traditional machine learning algorithms showed poor performance and low generalization capacity in identifying asphalt pavement aging and damage conditions. Further, deep learning network models have less been applied to the detection of asphalt pavement aging types and damage objects from UAV imagery. In this study, we first used a low-altitude UAV platform to acquire multispectral images of road pavement with centimeter-level spatial resolution. The fine spatial resolution can provide detailed textural information of the pavement damage objects such as cracks and potholes. Afterwards, we combined multiscale semantic segmentation, using the CNN model and SVM classifier into a framework to extract pavement potholes and cracks and classify the pavement surfaces into three aging states. Results demonstrated that the proposed framework achieved the highest overall accuracy (87.83% and 92.96%) and recall rate (85.4% and 90.65%) in the classification of the asphalt pavement images in the two segments of roads in Xinjiang, China. We concluded that the combination of the CNN + SVM and low-altitude UAV multispectral images would contribute to improve the accuracy in the detection of asphalt pavement aging states and damaged objects.

BackgroundErdheim-Chester disease (ECD) is a rare disease that affects multiple systems and is characterized by non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis. Classic clinical signs include long bone infiltration, central nervous system involvement, diabetes insipidus, and sheathing of the entire aorta. However, thrombosis is not recognized as a typical cardiac manifestation of ECD. Here, we report the case of an ECD patient with extensive arterial thrombus formation and embolism in several sections of the aorta.CaseA 36-year-old woman was admitted due to recurrent fever and left finger cyanosis for 20 days. Laboratory tests revealed that her C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 levels were significantly elevated. Thoracic computed tomographic angiography (CTA) revealed thrombosis from the aortic arch to the left subclavian artery accompanied by severe stenosis of the left subclavian artery. Abdominal CTA revealed splenic infarction due to splenic artery embolism and thrombus formation in multiple abdominal arteries. She underwent emergent arterial thrombectomy. During hospitalization, she complained of polyuria. The desmopressin test and pituitary magnetic resonance imaging findings suggested diabetes insipidus. Furthermore, positron emission tomography-computed tomography and bone emission computed tomography showed long bone impairment, and pathological examination of the bone samples confirmed ECD. Steroids and tocilizumab were selected as the initial therapies; however, thrombosis continued to develop. After replacement of tocilizumab with interferon-α, her condition became stable.ConclusionAlthough extremely rare, fatal thrombosis may be a significant cardiovascular manifestation of ECD.

The cold metal transfer (CMT) process, one of wire and arc additive manufacturing, was utilized to fabricate 316L stainless steel. As-built CMT 316L consists of austenitic coarse columnar grains aligned with depositing direction mainly and tiny areas of scattered ferrite (less than 5%) in dendrite. For comparison purposes, both as-built CMT 316L and annealed wrought 316L were dynamically characterized by Split-Hopkinson Pressure Bar. CMT 316L owns a nearly isotropic characteristic in dynamic compressions. Compared to wrought material, dynamic yield strength and flow stress for the CMT 316L are higher at small strains (below 10%) due to the special cellar structure in matrix but drop lower when the strain was larger than 10% for effect of twinning induced plasticity. Last but not least microstructural characterizations from a series of dynamic compressions of CMT 316L show that average twin thickness reaches maximum at strain rates about 1000–1500 s−1 and followed decreases with the increase of strain rates.

Measurement(s) color Technology Type(s) satellite imaging Factor Type(s) temporal interval Sample Characteristic - Environment water body • lake Sample Characteristic - Location global Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13257218

The Georgia-07-like genotype II African swine fever virus (ASFV) with high virulence has been prevalent in China since 2018. Here, we report that genotype I ASFVs have now also emerged in China. Two non-haemadsorbing genotype I ASFVs, HeN/ZZ-P1/21 and SD/DY-I/21, were isolated from pig farms in Henan and Shandong province, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis of the whole genome sequences suggested that both isolates share high similarity with NH/P68 and OURT88/3, two genotype I ASFVs isolated in Portugal in the last century. Animal challenge testing revealed that SD/DY-I/21 shows low virulence and efficient transmissibility in pigs, and causes mild onset of infection and chronic disease. SD/DY-I/21 was found to cause necrotic skin lesions and joint swelling. The emergence of genotype I ASFVs will present more problems and challenges for the control and prevention of African swine fever in China.

ObjectiveWe identified a novel inactivating mutation in the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) gene in a patient with refractory hypocalciuric hypercalcemia and analyzed its function. The effectiveness of radiofrequency ablation of the parathyroid glands to treat hypercalcemia caused by this mutation was explored.MethodsClinical data of patients before and after radiofrequency ablation were retrospectively analyzed. The CaSR mutation (D99N) found in the patient was studied in cell lines. HEK-293 cells were transfected with plasmids containing wild-type (WT) or mutant CaSR genes (D99N and W718X). Expression levels of the respective CaSR proteins were measured, and their functions were assessed by examining the effect of NPS R-568 (a CaSR agonist) on intracellular Ca2+ oscillations and that of exogenous parathyroid hormone (PTH) on intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels.ResultsThe effectiveness of pharmacological treatment was poor, whereas radiofrequency ablation of the parathyroid glands resulted in controlled blood calcium and PTH levels in the patient. In cell lines, upon NPS R-568 administration, the amplitude of intracellular Ca2+ oscillations in the D99N group was lower than that in the WT group and higher than that in the W718X group. Upon administration of PTH, intracellular cAMP levels in the D99N group were higher than those in the WT group and lower than those in the W718X group.ConclusionThe homozygous mutation D99N reduced CaSR activity and caused more severe hypocalciuric hypercalcemia. For patients with this type of hypercalcemia and poor response to pharmacological treatments, radiofrequency ablation of the parathyroid glands may be a suitable treatment option.

This study presents the structure and application of dunk tanks in high-level biosafety laboratories. The test methods and sterilization effects of dunk tanks were evaluated by using Bacillus subtilis as indicator. Results showed that sterilization effects of dunk tanks could be achieved by immersing the goods in 0.5% sodium hypochlorite disinfectant solution for 30 min at room temperature. Neutralizer sodium thiosulfate had no effect on the growth of Bacillus subtilis, and thus would not affect the disinfection results of sodium hypochlorite. Furthermore, suggestions for safe operation of dunk tanks are also provided in this study.

The hydrogen-induced plastic loss behavior of titanium alloys is often reported, but there are relatively few studies on high-strength aluminum alloys. In this article, the hydrogen-induced plastic damage behavior of 7085-T7651 high-strength aluminum alloy was investigated using a tensile specimen with pre-charging hydrogen, and the microstructure was characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry. The results showed that 7085-T7651 high-strength aluminum alloy material has certain hydrogen embrittlement sensitivities, and with the increase of hydrogen-charging time, the hydrogen content and sensitivity of the material increases significantly. For the first time, the theoretical analysis and intuitive quantitative characterization of the hydrogen-induced plastic loss behavior mechanism on 7085-T7651 high-strength aluminum alloy is stated as the formation of Mg and H segregation formed at the crystal boundary, which will result in the weakening of the crystal boundary.

In this paper, the mechanical properties, penetration characteristics, and deformation behaviors of FeNiCoCr high-entropy alloys (HEAs) annealed at different temperatures were investigated. The quasi-static and dynamic compression tests were conducted by a universal testing machine and Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) system, respectively. Furthermore, the penetration experiments of long rod projectiles (LRPs) of FeNiCoCr HEAs into semi-infinite steel targets launched by a small caliber ballistic gun with velocities ranging from 650 m/s to 1500 m/s were carried out, in comparison with that of steel LRPs. The microstructures of recovered projectiles were observed by the X-ray diffraction, optical microscope, and transmission electron microscope, which were used to further analyze the deformation behaviors of FeNiCoCr HEAs. The results showed that FeNiCoCr HEAs owned a single face-centered cubic structure. Annealing twins and grain refinement were detected, affecting the yield strength of the alloys. The strength of the alloy annealed at 600 °C was the highest and then decreased with the increasing annealing temperature. At higher strain rates, special adiabatic shear characteristics occurred in the alloys, while twins dominated the whole deformation process of the projectiles. Compared to other annealed alloys, the alloy annealed at 600 °C performed the best penetration performance. While the impact velocity had significant effects on the penetration performance of the alloy annealed at 1000 °C, the penetration performance of the alloy annealed at 850 °C on steel targets was almost the same as that of the steel LRPs.

The gut microbiome has emerged as a key regulator of host metabolism. Accumulating evidence has indicated that the gut microbiota is involved in the development of various human diseases. This association relies on the structure and metabolites of the gut microbiota. The gut microbiota metabolizes the diet ingested by the host into a series of metabolites, including short chain fatty acids, secondary bile acids, trimethylamine N-oxide, and branched-chain amino acids, which affects the physiological processes of the host by activating numerous signaling pathways. In this review, we first summarize the various mechanisms through which the gut microbiota influences adipose tissue dysfunction and metabolic processes that subsequently cause cardiovascular diseases, highlighting the complex interactions between gut microbes, their metabolites, and the metabolic activity of the host. Furthermore, we investigated the current status of clinical therapies for adipose tissue dysfunction directed at the gut microbiota. Finally, we discuss the challenges that remain to be addressed before this field of research can be translated to everyday clinical practice.

A series of Zr50.75Cu35.75Al8.5Ag5 bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) were prepared by controlling the cooling rate and over-heating temperature. The plastic deformation behavior of the BMGs was examined. The plasticity was enhanced when the BMG was prepared at a high cooling rate and low over-heating temperature. The plasticity of the Zr-based BMGs prepared under different casting conditions was discussed based on the amount of free volume. The structural heterogeneity of the BMGs prepared with different over-heating temperatures was examined using a high-resolution transmission electron microscope and mapped by using an energy dispersive x-ray spectroscope. The results showed that a low over-heating temperature could increase the degree of heterogeneity, but an extremely low over-heating temperature could lead to nanocrystallization. The difference in the heterogeneous structures caused the distinct plastic performance of the Zr50.75Cu35.75Al8.5Ag5 BMGs prepared with different over-heating temperatures.

Inflammatory factors and type I interferons (IFNs) are key components of host antiviral innate immune responses, which can be released from the pathogen-infected macrophages. African swine fever virus (ASFV) has developed various strategies to evade host antiviral innate immune responses, including alteration of inflammatory responses and IFNs production. However, the molecular mechanism underlying inhibition of inflammatory responses and IFNs production by ASFV-encoded proteins has not been fully understood. Here we report that ASFV infection only induced low levels of IL-1β and type I IFNs in porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs), even in the presence of strong inducers such as LPS and poly(dA:dT). Through further exploration, we found that several members of the multigene family 360 (MGF360) and MGF505 strongly inhibited IL-1β maturation and IFN-β promoter activation. Among them, pMGF505-7R had the strongest inhibitory effect. To verify the function of pMGF505-7R in vivo, a recombinant ASFV with deletion of the MGF505-7R gene (ASFV-Δ7R) was constructed and assessed. As we expected, ASFV-Δ7R infection induced higher levels of IL-1β and IFN-β compared with its parental ASFV HLJ/18 strain. ASFV infection-induced IL-1β production was then found to be dependent on TLRs/NF-κB signaling pathway and NLRP3 inflammasome. Furthermore, we demonstrated that pMGF505-7R interacted with IKKα in the IKK complex to inhibit NF-κB activation and bound to NLRP3 to inhibit inflammasome formation, leading to decreased IL-1β production. Moreover, we found that pMGF505-7R interacted with and inhibited the nuclear translocation of IRF3 to block type I IFN production. Importantly, the virulence of ASFV-Δ7R is reduced in piglets compared with its parental ASFV HLJ/18 strain, which may due to induction of higher IL-1β and type I IFN production in vivo. Our findings provide a new clue to understand the functions of ASFV-encoded pMGF505-7R and its role in viral infection-induced pathogenesis, which might help design antiviral agents or live attenuated vaccines to control ASF.

Early detection of people’s suspicious behaviors can aid in the prevention of crimes and make the community safer. Existing methods that are focused on identifying abnormal behaviors from video surveillance that are based on computer vision, which are more suitable for detecting ongoing behaviors. While criminals intend to avoid abnormal behaviors under surveillance, their suspicious behaviors prior to crimes will be unconsciously reflected in the trajectories. Herein, we characterize several suspicious behaviors from unusual movement patterns, unusual behaviors, and unusual gatherings of people, and analyze their features that are hidden in the trajectory data. Meanwhile, the algorithms for suspicious behavior detection are proposed based on the main features of the corresponding behavior, which employ spatiotemporal clustering, semantic annotation, outlier detection, and other methods. A practical trajectory dataset (i.e., TucityLife) containing more than 1000 suspicious behaviors was collected, and experiments were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results indicate that the proposed method for suspicious behavior detection has a recall of 93.5% and a precision of 87.6%, demonstrating its excellent performance in identifying the possible offenders and potential target places. The proposed methods are valuable for preventing city crime and supporting the appropriate allocation of police resources.

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and fatal disease caused by the African swine fever virus. Recently, the multigene family and CD2v gene-deleted ASF vaccine candidate HLJ/18-7GD was found to be safe and effective in laboratory and clinical trials. However, the immune-protective mechanisms underlying the effects of HLJ/18-7GD remain unclear. We assessed samples from pigs immunized with a single dose of 106 TCID50 HLJ/18-7GD. We found that pigs immunized with HLJ/18-7GD showed high levels of specific antibodies. T lymphocyte subsets (helper T cells (Th); cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL); double-positive T cells (DP-T cells)) were temporarily increased in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) after HLJ/18-7GD immunization. Once the HLJ/18-7GD-immunized pigs had been challenged with virulent HLJ/18, the percentage of Th, CTL, and DP-T cells increased significantly. PBMCs extracted from the pigs induced higher levels of CD8+ T cells after infection with the HLJ/18 strain in vitro. The levels of GM-CSF, IFN-γ, and TNF-α were upregulated at 7 days post-inoculation; this finding was contrary to the results obtained after HLJ/18 or HLJ/18ΔCD2v infection. The immune protection from HLJ/18-7GD resulted from many synergies, which could provide a theoretical basis for HLJ/18-7GD as a safe and effective ASF vaccine.

Underwater noise pollution caused by human activities may affect freshwater cetaceans to different degrees. To analyze the impacts of water intake pontoons on Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis), this study collected underwater noise data from such a pontoon in a nature reserve, plotted the power spectral density of acoustic signals, and calculated the root mean square sound pressure levels and the magnitude of sound source levels. The 1/3-octave sound pressure level root mean square values at the transient holding pens were

BackgroundHemangioblastoma is a benign tumor of the central nervous system and may appear as a component of von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease. At present, approximately 40 cases of optic nerve HGBs have been reported in the literature. VHL disease is a rare autosomal-dominant inherited cancer syndrome with different phenotypes caused by variants in the VHL gene. Herein, the authors describe a case of a pediatric patient with VHL disease and with optic nerve HGB, a rare phenotypic expression. The purpose of this study was to explore the genotype-phenotype, clinical features, treatment and follow-up of VHL-associated hemangioblastomas in pediatric patients.Case DescriptionA 12-year-old boy presented with vision loss, headache and dizziness at our hospital. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a large (19.8 mm*18.5 mm*23.5 mm) irregular mass located in the suprasellar region. The mass was successfully removed after craniotomy and microsurgical treatment. The pathological diagnosis was left optic nerve HGB. Genetic analyses showed p.Pro86Leu (c. 257C>T) heterozygous missense mutations in the VHL gene.ConclusionThis is the first reported pediatric case of VHL-associated optic nerve HGB. The genotype-phenotype correlation of VHL disease may provide new evidences for predicting tumor penetrance and survival. Gross tumor resection combined with stereotactic radiosurgery might be the most beneficial treatment.

In order to obtain the potential of the speed ratio parameter optimization of a CVT vehicle on the direct improvement of fuel economy， the first step is to obtain the distribution characteristic of engine operating condition from test data in the NEDC cycle， most of the operating conditions are located in the urban cycle are below the optimal operation curve（OOC）. Then，the area that can be optimized is evaluated according to the speed ratio control method， there is 7% of the engine operating condition in the urban cycle can be optimized，in some working conditions in the suburban cycle（when the vehicle speed is up to 70 km/h and 100 km/h）， it cannot be optimized and adjusted due to the speed ratio limited value of the CVT. According to the simulation results， only the speed ratio parameters of CVT transmission are adjusted， including adjusting some operation conditions to the optimal fuel economy curve， or optimizing in all area， or enlarging the speed ratio range of CVT transmission， and the direct contribution of the maximum fuel saving potential reaches 3.12%.

Abstract Background Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) causes enzootic bovine leukosis in cattle and leads to heavy economic losses in the husbandry industry. Heilongjiang Province, China, is rich in dairy cattle. However, its current BLV epidemiology and genotypes have still not been evaluated and confirmed. In this report, we investigated the BLV epidemiology in dairy cattle in the major regions of Heilongjiang Province via the nested PCR assay. Results A total of 730 blood samples were collected from nine different farms in six regions of Heilongjiang. The results showed that the infection rate of these regions ranged from null to 31%. With a clustering analysis of 60 published BLV env sequences, genotypes 1 and 6 were confirmed to be circulating in Heilongjiang. Importantly, a new genotype, 11, and a new subgenotype, 6E, were also identified in the Harbin and Daqing regions, respectively. An epitope analysis showed that a cluster of T-X-D-X-R-XXXX-A sequences in genotype 11 gp51 neutralizing domain 2 was unique among all currently known BLV isolates and was therefore a defining feature of this new genotype. Conclusions BLV epidemics and genotypes were initially investigated in dairy cattle of Heilongjiang. A relatively high infection rate was found in some regions of this province. A new genotype, G11, with a highly specific motif, was identified and thus added as a new member to the current BLV genotype family. This report provides an initial reference for future investigations and subsequent control of BLV transmission and spread in this region.

ABSTRACTAfrican swine fever (ASF) entered China in August 2018 and rapidly spread across the entire country, severely threatening the Chinese domestic pig population, which accounts for more than 50% of the pig population worldwide. In this study, an ASFV isolate, Pig/Heilongjiang/2018 (Pig/HLJ/18), was isolated in primary porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) from a pig sample from an ASF outbreak farm. The isolate was characterized by using the haemadsorption (HAD) test, Western blotting and immunofluorescence, and electronic microscopy. Phylogenetic analysis of the viral p72 gene revealed that Pig/HLJ/18 belongs to Genotype II. Infectious titres of virus propagated in primary PAMs and pig marrow macrophages were as high as 107.2 HAD50/ml. Specific-pathogen-free pigs intramuscularly inoculated with different virus dosages at 103.5–106.5 HAD50 showed acute disease with fever and haemorrhagic signs. The incubation periods were 3–5 days for virus-inoculated pigs and 9 days for contact pigs. All virus-inoculated pigs died between 6–9 days post-inoculation (p.i.), and the contact pigs died between 13–14 days post-contact (p.c.). Viremia started on day 2 p.i. in inoculated pigs and on day 9 p.c. in contact pigs. Viral genomic DNA started to be detected from oral and rectal swab samples on 2–5 days p.i. in virus-inoculated pigs, and 6–10 days p.c. in contact pigs. These results indicate that Pig/HLJ/18 is highly virulent and transmissible in domestic pigs. Our study demonstrates the threat of ASFV and emphasizes the need to control and eradicate ASF in China.

The recent rapid growth of the semiconductor industry in development of high power microwave source has open a new promising avenue by full electronic control over the electromagnetic field towards improve the microwave heating performance. In this paper, a coupled electromagnetic and heat transfer model was built to simulate microwave heating of multiple chicken blocks with temperature-dependent dielectric properties dependent on a solid-state microwave oven. Owing to the ability of solid-state source to precisely control the frequency, the temperature distribution simulated for the fixed frequency was compared with different frequency-shifted rates increasing process and decreacsing process between 2.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz. The simulated temperature distribution was validated by comparing with experimental temperature profiles obtained using a thermal imaging camera at the end of microwave heating. The results demonstrated the heating uniformity and efficiency is highly influenced by the head and tail frequency but also the frequency shifted rate. And a specific frequency-shifted rate decreasing process between 2.4 GHz and 2.5 GHz was proposed in improving the heating performance.