The Chinese pangolin Manis pentadactyla is categorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, but the development of effective conservation strategies is hindered by a lack of data on its distribution range and population dynamics. In addition, standardized survey and analysis methods are required to facilitate the sharing of results and maximize conservation effectiveness. To fill these knowledge and methodological gaps, we investigated the occurrence of pangolin burrows in the subtropical forest ecosystem of Fujian, China. We surveyed a total of 70 transects across five land-cover types within the Fujian Junzifeng National Nature Reserve and detected 87 burrows. The majority of burrows (87%) were located in mixed conifer and broadleaf forests. We used six environmental variables in a generalized linear model to examine the relationship between the occurrence of burrows and environmental factors. The average model results from the best model set showed that the distribution of burrows was significantly influenced by forest type. For effective pangolin conservation, we recommend that local conservation authorities prioritize the protection of mixed conifer and broadleaf forests. Our findings support the local conservation of the Chinese pangolin and the standardization of surveys and conservation efforts across the species’ range.

Persistent malnutrition is associated with poor clinical outcomes in cancer. However, assessing its reversibility can be challenging. The present study aimed to utilise machine learning (ML) to predict reversible malnutrition (RM) in patients with cancer. A multicentre cohort study including hospitalised oncology patients. Malnutrition was diagnosed using an international consensus. RM was defined as a positive diagnosis of malnutrition upon patient admission which turned negative one month later. Time-series data on body weight and skeletal muscle were modelled using a long short-term memory architecture to predict RM. The model was named as WAL-net, and its performance, explainability, clinical relevance and generalisability were evaluated. We investigated 4254 patients with cancer-associated malnutrition (discovery set = 2977, test set = 1277). There were 2783 men and 1471 women (median age = 61 years). RM was identified in 754 (17·7 %) patients. RM/non-RM groups showed distinct patterns of weight and muscle dynamics, and RM was negatively correlated to the progressive stages of cancer cachexia (r = –0·340, P < 0·001). WAL-net was the state-of-the-art model among all ML algorithms evaluated, demonstrating favourable performance to predict RM in the test set (AUC = 0·924, 95 % CI = 0·904, 0·944) and an external validation set (n 798, AUC = 0·909, 95 % CI = 0·876, 0·943). Model-predicted RM using baseline information was associated with lower future risks of underweight, sarcopenia, performance status decline and progression of malnutrition (all P < 0·05). This study presents an explainable deep learning model, the WAL-net, for early identification of RM in patients with cancer. These findings might help the management of cancer-associated malnutrition to optimise patient outcomes in multidisciplinary cancer care.

This paper provides an overview of the current status of ultrafast and ultra-intense lasers with peak powers exceeding 100 TW and examines the research activities in high-energy-density physics within China. Currently, 10 high-intensity lasers with powers over 100 TW are operational, and about 10 additional lasers are being constructed at various institutes and universities. These facilities operate either independently or are combined with one another, thereby offering substantial support for both Chinese and international research and development efforts in high-energy-density physics.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of physical multimorbidity on the trajectory of cognitive decline over 17 years and whether vary across wealth status. The study was conducted in 9035 respondents aged 50+ at baseline from nine waves (2002–2019) of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging. A latent class analysis was used to identify patterns of physical multimorbidity, and mixed multilevel models were performed to determine the association between physical multimorbidity and trajectories of cognitive decline. Joint analyses were conducted to further verify the influence of wealth status. Four patterns of physical multimorbidity were identified. Mixed multilevel models with quadratic terms of time and status/patterns indicated significant non-linear trajectories of multimorbidity on cognitive function. The magnitude of the association between complex multisystem patterns and cognitive decline increased the most as follow-up progressed. Individuals with high wealth and hypertension/diabetes patterns have significantly lower composite global cognitive z scores over time as compared with respiratory/osteoporosis patterns. Physical multimorbidity at baseline is associated with the trajectory of cognitive decline, and the magnitude of the association increased over time. The trend of cognitive decline differed in specific combinations of wealth status and physical multimorbidity.

In this article, we establish the Grothendieck–Serre conjecture over valuation rings: for a reductive group scheme $G$ over a valuation ring $V$ with fraction field $K$, a $G$-torsor over $V$ is trivial if it is trivial over $K$. This result is predicted by the original Grothendieck–Serre conjecture and the resolution of singularities. The novelty of our proof lies in overcoming subtleties brought by general nondiscrete valuation rings. By using flasque resolutions and inducting with local cohomology, we prove a non-Noetherian counterpart of Colliot-Thélène–Sansuc's case of tori. Then, taking advantage of techniques in algebraization, we obtain the passage to the Henselian rank-one case. Finally, we induct on Levi subgroups and use the integrality of rational points of anisotropic groups to reduce to the semisimple anisotropic case, in which we appeal to properties of parahoric subgroups in Bruhat–Tits theory to conclude. In the last section, by using extension properties of reflexive sheaves on formal power series over valuation rings and patching of torsors, we prove a variant of Nisnevich's purity conjecture.

The aims of this study were to examine the spillover effects of violent attacks, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) exposure, and their interactions on health professionals’ mental health, and the role of organizational support in their relationships in China. A two-phase survey data (n = 10,901) before and after the first outbreak of COVID-19 was integrated with regional macro data on the number of lawsuit cases of violent attacks and COVID-19 cases. Three studies were designed to isolate the general spillover impact of violent attacks on the mental health of health professionals, how COVID-19 affects the mental health of health professionals, and whether organizational support moderates the relationship between violent attacks and mental health through econometric regressions. Violent attacks and COVID-19 are negatively associated with the mental health of health professionals, and the outbreak of COVID-19 adversely deteriorates the spillover effects of violent attacks. Physicians, not nurses, are the most affected group. Better perceived support from hospitals can significantly mitigate the adverse effects of COVID-19, violent attacks, and their interactions on the mental health of health professionals. COVID-19 deteriorates the adverse effects of violent attacks on the mental health of health professionals, while better organizational support is helpful to mitigate these effects.

The North China Plain is an important summer maize/winter wheat rotation area. However, over the years, continued intensive tillage has destroyed the soil aggregate accelerating the mineralization and decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC), which plays an important role in soil quality, as increased organic carbon storage improves soil fertility and crop yields. Thus, the objective of this study was to explore the comprehensive impact of tillage methods on soil aggregates, aggregate-associated SOC, and carbon sequestration capacity under a regime of straw return. In 2002, we started a 14-year long-term tillage experiment; then in 2016–2017, we tested the following tillage methods, zero tillage (ZT), rotary tillage (RT), subsoiling (SS), and conventional tillage (CT). The results showed that in the 0–10 cm soil layer, tillage methods significantly reduced the proportion of aggregates in the order of 2–0.25 > 5–2 > 0.25–0.053 mm. Additionally, conservation tillage (i.e., SS and ZT) significantly increased the percentage of macroaggregates (0–40 cm) and their SOC content, compared to CT. Additionally, the contribution rate of macroaggregates to SOC was 17.2% and 30.6% higher under SS and ZT than under CT, respectively. Conservation tillage methods improved the carbon sequestration capacity of soil aggregates. Our study provides a theoretical basis for the development of more suitable tillage methods. Furthermore, long-term conservation tillage seemingly protected large aggregates and, SOC, whereby carbon sequestration was enhanced and soil carbon emissions were effectively reduced.

“Picking out the impurities” is a typical scenario in production line which is both time consuming and laborious. In this article, we propose a target-oriented robotic push-grasping system which is able to actively discover and pick the impurities in dense environments with the synergies between pushing and grasping actions. First, we propose an attention module, which includes target saliency detection and density-based occluded-region inference. Without the necessity of expensive labeling of semantic segmentation, our attention module can quickly locate the targets in the view or predict the candidate regions where the targets are most likely to be occluded. Second, we propose a push–grasp synergy framework to sequentially select proper actions in different situations until all targets are picked out. Moreover, we introduce an active pushing mechanism based on a novel metric, namely Target-Centric Dispersion Degree (TCDD) for better grasping. TCDD describes whether the targets are isolated from the surrounding objects. With this metric, the robot becomes more focused on the actions around the targets and push irrelevant objects away. Experimental results on both simulated environment and real-world environment show that our proposed system outperforms several baseline approaches,which also has the capability to be generalized to new scenarios.

Different from developed countries, there is a paucity of research examining how the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) and Mediterranean diets relate to lipids in less-developed ethnic minority regions (LEMR). A total of 83 081 participants from seven ethnic groups were retrieved from the baseline data of the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort study, which was conducted in less-developed Southwest China between May 2018 and September 2019. Multivariable linear regression models were then used to examine the associations of the DASH and alternative Mediterranean diet (AMED) scores, assessed by modified DASH score and AMED, as well as their components with total cholesterol (TC), LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, TAG and TC/HDL-cholesterol. The DASH scores were negatively associated with TC, HDL-cholesterol and TAG. Comparing the highest quintiles with the lowest DASH scores, TC decreased 0·0708 (95 % CI −0·0923, −0·0493) mmol/l, HDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0380 (95 % CI −0·0462, −0·0299) mmol/l and TAG decreased 0·0668 (95 % CI −0·0994, −0·0341) mmol/l. The AMED scores were negatively associated with TC, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol. Comparing the highest quintiles with the lowest AMED scores, TC decreased 0·0816 (95 % CI −0·1035, −0·0597) mmol/l, LDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0297 (95 % CI −0·0477, −0·0118) mmol/l and HDL-cholesterol decreased 0·0275 (95 % CI −0·0358, −0·0192) mmol/l. Although both the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet were negatively associated with blood lipids, those associations showed different patterns in LEMR, particularly for TAG and HDL-cholesterol.

Natural enemies that impact pest populations must be understood in order to build integrated pest control strategies and to understand the most important aspects affecting pest dynamics. Haloxylon ammodendron (C. A. Mey.) Bunge is an important perennial plant species extensively used in sand stabilization and wind prevention in arid areas. This study aimed to determine the main defoliators that damage H. ammodendron and the parasitoid complex associated with them. Twelve species of defoliators were found in Northern Xinjiang, and Teia dubia (Tauscher) (Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae), Scrobipalpa sp. (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), and Eucharia festiva Hüfnagel (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae) were the dominant pests. T. dubia is the predominant defoliator with three generations a year. Northwest China, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean region are potentially suitable habitats for T. dubia in the world, while Xinjiang is the primary distribution area in China. Parasitoids belonging to seven species and four families were reared from the larvae of T. dubia, they were all endoparasitoids and koinobiont. Cotesia sp. (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is the dominant parasitoid and prefer to parasitic in the 3rd–5th instar larvae. The present study provides the basis for understanding the species composition and natural enemies of lepidopteran defoliators. It will be an effective tool for the integrated pest management programs of H. ammodendron forest.

This study aimed to evaluate to what extent the different interval times between trophectoderm (TE) biopsy and vitrification influence the clinical outcomes in preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) cycles. Patients who underwent frozen embryo transfer (FET) after PGT between 2015 and 2019 were recruited. In total, 297 cycles with single day 5 euploid blastocyst transfer were included. These cycles were divided into three groups according to the interval times: <1 h group, 1–2 h group, and ≥2 h group. Blastocyst survival, clinical pregnancy, miscarriage, and ongoing pregnancy rates were compared. The results showed that, in PGT-SR cycles, survival rate in the ≥2 h group (96.72%) was significantly lower than in the <1 h group (100%, P = 0.047). The clinical pregnancy rate in the ≥2 h group was 55.93%, significantly lower than in the <1 h group (74.26%, P = 0.017). The ongoing pregnancy rates in the 1–2 h group and the ≥2 h group were 48.28% and 47.46%, respectively, significantly lower than that in the <1 h group (67.33%, P < 0.05). The miscarriage rate in the 1–2 h group was 18.42%, significantly higher than that in the <1 h group (5.33%, P = 0.027). In PGT-A cycles, the clinical pregnancy and ongoing pregnancy rates in the <1 h group were 67.44% and 53.49%, respectively, higher than that in the 1–2 h group (52.94%, 47.06%, P > 0.05) and the ≥2 h group (52.63%, 36.84%, P > 0.05). In conclusion, vitrification of blastocysts beyond 1 h after biopsy significantly influences embryo survival and clinical outcomes and is therefore not recommended.

It is urgent to develop new antimalarial drugs with good therapeutic effects to address the emergence of drug resistance. Here, the artelinic acid-choline derivative (AD) was synthesized by dehydration reaction and esterification reaction, aimed to avoid the emergence of drug resistance by synergistic effect of artemisinins and choline derivative, which could compete with choline for rate-limiting enzymes in the phosphatidylcholine (PC) biosynthetic pathway. AD was formulated into liposomes (ADLs) by the thin-film hydration method. Efficacy of ADLs was evaluated by Peters 4-day suppression test. The suppression percentage against Plasmodium yoelii BY265 (PyBY265) in ADLs group was higher than those of positive control groups (dihydroartemisinin liposomes, P < 0.05) and other control groups (P ⩽ 0.05) at the doses of 4.4, 8.8, 17.6 µmol (kg·d)−1, respectively. The negative conversion fraction, recrudescence fraction and survival fraction of ADLs group were superior to other control groups. Pharmacokinetics in rats after intravenous injection suggested that ADLs exhibited higher exposure levels (indexed by area under concentration-time curve) than that of AD solution, artelinic acid liposomes or artelinic acid solution (P < 0.01). Taken together, ADLs exhibited promising antimalarial efficacy and pharmacokinetic characteristics.