This work investigates unit cell dimensions, crystal size and specific surface area of aluminous goethite that was progressively dehydroxylated to form hematite. Goethite synthesized from the ferrous system altered to hematite with DTGA maximum increasing from 236° to 273°C for 0 to 30.1 mole % Al-substitution. Unit cell dimensions of goethite and hematite decreased as Al-substitution increased and increased as excess OH increased. The crystallographically equivalent a axis of goethite and c axis of hematite were more sensitive than other axes to the presence of excess structural OH associated with Al-substitution. Specific surface area increased from 147 to 288 m2/g for goethite and from 171 to 230 m2/g for hematite as Al-substitution increased. An increase in specific surface area on heating goethite at temperatures between 200° and 240°C is related to a decrease in the size of coherently diffracting domains of goethite crystals and to the development of pore and structural defects associated with the formation of hematite. The decrease in specific surface area for heating temperatures above 240°C is attributed to the growth of hematite crystals by diffusion.

Helicoverpa punctigera (Wallengren), the native budworm, is an important highly polyphagous pest that has caused serious damage on a wide variety of crops in Australia. In Australia, its range overlaps that of its congener, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner), a notorious invasive pest globally. We used CLIMEX, a bioclimatic niche modelling software package, to estimate the potential geographical distribution of H. punctigera under current and future climates (A1B scenario). Under both current and future climate conditions, the model indicates that H. punctigera could establish throughout the tropics and subtropics. Comparing the potential distributions under each climate scenario revealed that in the future its potential distribution is likely to shift poleward and into higher altitudes, into areas that are currently too cold as observed in the South of Brazil, Europe, North America, South East Asia, and South Pacific Islands including New Zealand. The projected potential distribution can inform pre- and post-border biosecurity strategies for the management of this pest in each country.

Glaciers in the eastern Pamir have reportedly been gaining mass during recent decades, even though glaciers in most other regions in High Mountain Asia have been in recession. Questions still remain about whether the trend is strengthening or weakening, and how far the positive balances extend into the eastern Pamir. To address these gaps, we use three different digital elevation models to reconstruct glacier surface elevation changes over two periods (2000–09 and 2000–15/16). We characterize the eastern Pamir as a zone of transition from positive to negative mass balance with the boundary lying at the northern end of Kongur Tagh, and find that glaciers situated at higher elevations are those with the most positive balances. Most (67% of 55) glaciers displayed a net mass gain since the 21st century. This led to an increasing regional geodetic glacier mass balance from −0.06 ± 0.16 m w.e. a−1 in 2000–09 to 0.06 ± 0.04 m w.e. a−1 in 2000–15/16. Surge-type glaciers, which are prevalent in the eastern Pamir, showed fluctuations in mass balance on an individual scale during and after surges, but no statistical difference compared to non-surge-type glaciers when aggregated across the region.

Studies in countries with high immunisation coverage suggest that the re-emergence of pertussis may be caused by a decreased duration of protection resulting from the replacement of whole-cell pertussis vaccine (WPV) with the acellular pertussis vaccine (APV). In China, WPV was introduced in 1978. The pertussis vaccination schedule advanced from an all-WPV schedule (1978–2007), to a mixed WPV/APV schedule (2008–2009), then to an all-APV schedule (2010–2016). Increases in the incidence of pertussis have been reported in recent years in Jinan and other cities in China. However, there have been few Chinese-population-based studies focused on the impact of schedule changes. We obtained annual pertussis incidences from 1956 to 2016 from the Jinan Notifiable Conditions Database. We used interrupted time series and segmented regression analyses to assess changes in pertussis incidence at the beginning of each year, and average annual changes during the intervention. Pertussis incidence decreased by 1.11 cases per 100 000 population (P = 0.743) immediately following WPV introduction in 1978 and declined significantly by 1.21 cases per 100 000 population per year (P < 0.0001) between 1978 and 2001. Immediately after APV replaced the fourth dose of WPV in 2008, the second and third doses in 2009, then replaced all four doses in 2010, pertussis incidence declined by 1.98, 1.98 and 1.08 cases per 100 000 population, respectively. However, the results were not statistically significant. There were significant increasing trends in pertussis incidence after APV replacements: 1.63, 1.77 and 1.78 cases/year in 2008–2016, 2009–2016 and 2010–2016, respectively. Our study shows that the impact of an all-WPV schedule may be less than the impacts of the sequential WPV/APV schedules. The short-term impact of APV was better than that of WPV; however, the duration of APV-induced protection was not ideal. The impact and duration of protective immunity resulting from APVs produced in China need further evaluation. Further research on the effectiveness of pertussis vaccination programme in Jinan, China is also necessary.

Nitrogen adsorption and desorption isotherms were obtained for microcrystalline, platy crystals of synthetic Al-substituted goethites synthesized from the ferrous system and heated to 260°C. Specific surface area, cumulative pore area and frequency of mesopore wall-separations of 2–15 nm in size increased as Al substitution increased. Nanometre-size micropores developed at heating temperatures between 200 and 240°C and decreased during the growth of hematite crystals between 240 and 260°C. Aluminium substitution had little effect on micropore development and a moderate effect on mesopore development. The increases in micropore volume and specific surface area due to heating are much smaller than is reported in the literature for large, lath-like crystals of goethite that develop abundant slit-shaped micropores.

Goethite is an important component of many soils and its transformation to hematite by fire may affect phosphate retention. This study deals with the kinetics of phosphate sorption and desorption by synthetic aluminous goethites and their dehydroxylated products. Phosphate sorption and subsequent desorption were measured for periods up to 128 h. Phosphate sorption increased with equilibrium solution concentration, Al substitution and surface area, and decreased with increasing crystal size. The trend in amount of phosphate sorbed was: partially dehydroxylated goethite > hematite > goethite. Sorption and desorption kinetics are well described by the modified Elovich equation. Desorption of a minor proportion of the sorbed P was rapid and this was sometimes followed by minor resorption. The amount of P desorbed directly reflected the amount that was initially sorbed. Acid dissolution of the Fe oxides with sorbed phosphate suggested that most phosphate was present at the crystal surface and not in relatively poorly accessible micropores.

Measurements of the kinetics of acid dissolution of synthetic aluminous goethites and corresponding hematites produced by heating of parent Al-goethites at various temperatures were carried out in 1 M HC1 at 30, 40 and 50°C. Dissolution-time curves show sigmoidal shapes for the goethites (110°C), whereas deceleratory shapes were obtained for most of the partly and fully dehydroxylated samples. The dissolution rate for all materials decreased with increasing Al substitution and increased with increasing dissolution temperature, specific surface area and heating temperature. On a unit surface area basis, hematite dissolved ∼ 2–8 times faster than goethite. Dissolution kinetics of most heated goethite samples (200–260°C) were quite well described (R2 > 0.96) by the modified first-order Kabai equation. The activation energy and frequency factor for dissolution increased with increasing Al substitution.

Curcumin has been attributed with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial activities, and has shown highly protective effects against enteropathogenic bacteria and mycotoxins. Ochratoxin A (OTA) is one of the major intestinal pathogenic mycotoxins. The possible effect of curcumin on the alleviation of enterotoxicity induced by OTA is unknown. The effects of dietary curcumin supplementation on OTA-induced oxidative stress, intestinal barrier and mitochondrial dysfunctions were examined in young ducks. A total of 540 mixed-sex 1-day-old White Pekin ducklings with initial BW (43.4±0.1 g) were randomly assigned into controls (fed only the basal diet), a group fed an OTA-contaminated diet (2 mg/kg feed), and a group fed the same OTA-contaminated feed plus 400 mg/kg of curcumin. Each treatment consisted of six replicates, each containing 30 ducklings and treatment lasted for 21 days. There was a significant decrease in average daily gain (ADG) and increased feed : gain caused by OTA (P<0.05); curcumin co-treatment prevented the decrease in BW and ADG compared with the OTA group (P<0.05). Histopathological and ultrastructural examination showed clear signs of enterotoxicity caused by OTA, but these changes were largely prevented by curcumin supplementation. Curcumin decreased the concentrations of interleukin-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α and malondialdehyde, and increased the activity of glutathione peroxidase induced by OTA in the jejunal mucosa of ducks (P<0.05). Additionally, curcumin increased jejunal mucosa occludin and tight junction protein 1 mRNA and protein levels, and decreased those of ρ-associated protein kinase 1 (P<0.05). Notably, curcumin inhibited the increased expression of apoptosis-related genes, and downregulated mitochondrial transcription factors A, B1 and B2 caused by OTA without any effects on RNA polymerase mitochondrial (P<0.05). These results indicated that curcumin could protect ducks from OTA-induced impairment of intestinal barrier function and mitochondrial integrity.

The study investigated whether different dietary energy and protein sources affect laying performance, antioxidant status, fresh yolk fatty acid profile and quality of salted yolks in laying ducks. In all, 360 19-week-old Longyan ducks were randomly assigned to four diets in a factorial arrangement (2×2). The four diets consisted of two energy sources, corn (CO) or sorghum (SO) and two protein sources, soybean meal (SM) and rapeseed meal with corn distillers dried grains with solubles (RMD), and each treatment contained six replicates of 15 birds each. The experimental diets were isocaloric (metabolizable energy, 10.84 MJ/kg) and isonitrogenous (CP, 17%). The results showed that egg production, average egg weight, egg mass and feed conversion ratio were not affected by diets (P>0.05). Plasma contents of reduced glutathione (GSH), GSH/oxidized glutathione and total antioxidant capacity were lower (P<0.05) in ducks fed the RMD diets compared with those fed SM diets with a substantial increase (P=0.006) in plasma content of malondialdehyde (MDA). Egg yolks from ducks fed SO diets had higher proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and lower saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids compared with CO diets (P<0.001). Similarly, ducks fed RMD diets had a higher content of PUFA and n-6/n-3 ratio in fresh yolks (P<0.001), and increased salted yolk MDA, carbonylated proteins content and incidence of hard salted yolks (P<0.05) compared with SM diets. Scanning electron microscopy showed that salted yolks contained rougher polyhedral granules and fewer fat droplets, and were surrounded with a layer of bunchy fibers in ducks fed SO+RMD than those fed CO+SM diet. In conclusion, the current study showed that feeding laying ducks with diets containing SO or RMD reduced antioxidant capacity and increased egg yolk concentrations of PUFA. It appeared that egg yolks from ducks fed these diets were more sensitive to lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation during salting, and reduced the quality of salted yolks.

This paper describes the Raman and infrared spectroscopy of SrSO4 or celestine from the Muschelkalk of Winterswijk, The Netherlands. The infrared absorption spectrum is characterised by the SO4 2-modes V1 at 991 cm-1, v3 at 1201, 1138 and 1091 cm-1, and v4 at 643 and 611 cm-1. An unidentified band is observed at 1248 cm-1. In the Raman spectrum at 293 K the V1 mode is found at 1000 cm-1 and is split in two bands at 1001 and 1003 cm-1 upon cooling to 77 K.The v2 mode, not observed in the infrared spectrum, is observed as a doublet at 460 and 453 cm-1. The v3 mode is represented by four bands in the Raman spectrum at 1187, 1158, 1110 and 1093 cm-1 and the v4 mode as three bands at 656, 638 and 620 cm-1. Cooling to 77 K results in a general decrease in bandwidth and a minor shift in frequencies. A decrease in intensities is observed upon cooling to 77 K due to movement of the Sr atom towards one or more of the oxygen atoms in the sulfate group.