The cyst nematodes, subfamily Heteroderinae, are plant pathogens of worldwide economic significance. A new cyst nematode of the genus Cactodera within the Heteroderinae, Cactodera xinanensis n. sp., was isolated from rhizospheres of crops in the Guizhou and Sichuan provinces of southwest China. The new species was characterized by having the cyst with a length/width = 1.3 ± 0.1 (1.1–1.6), a fenestral diameter of 28.1 ± 4.3 (21.3–38.7) μm, vulval denticles present; second-stage juvenile with stylet 21.5 ± 0.5 (20.3–22.6) μm long, tail 59.4 ± 2.0 (55.9–63.8) μm long and hyaline region 28.7 ± 2.7 (25.0–36.3) μm long, lateral field with four incisures; the eggshell with punctations. The new species can be differentiated from other species of Cactodera by a longer tail and hyaline region of second-stage juveniles. Phylogenetic relationships within populations and species of Cactodera are given based on the analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS-rRNA), the large subunit of the nuclear ribosomal RNA (28S-rRNA) D2-D3 region and the partial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene sequences here. The ITS-rRNA, 28S-rRNA and COI gene sequences clearly differentiated Cactodera xinanensis n. sp. from other species of Cactodera. A key and a morphological identification characteristic table for the species of Cactodera are included in the study.

The target backsheath field acceleration mechanism is one of the main mechanisms of laser-driven proton acceleration (LDPA) and strongly depends on the comprehensive performance of the ultrashort ultra-intense lasers used as the driving sources. The successful use of the SG-II Peta-watt (SG-II PW) laser facility for LDPA and its applications in radiographic diagnoses have been manifested by the good performance of the SG-II PW facility. Recently, the SG-II PW laser facility has undergone extensive maintenance and a comprehensive technical upgrade in terms of the seed source, laser contrast and terminal focus. LDPA experiments were performed using the maintained SG-II PW laser beam, and the highest cutoff energy of the proton beam was obviously increased. Accordingly, a double-film target structure was used, and the maximum cutoff energy of the proton beam was up to 70 MeV. These results demonstrate that the comprehensive performance of the SG-II PW laser facility was improved significantly.

Frequent freezing injury greatly influences winter wheat production; thus, effective prevention and a command of agricultural production are vital. The freezing injury monitoring method integrated with ‘3S’ (geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning system (GPS) and remote sensing (RS)) technology has an unparalleled advantage. Using HuanJing (HJ)-1A/1B satellite images of a winter wheat field in Shanxi Province, China plus a field survey, crop types and winter wheat planting area were identified through repeated visual interpretations of image information and spatial analyses conducted in GIS. Six vegetation indices were extracted from processed HJ-1A/1B satellite images to determine whether the winter wheat suffered from freezing injury and its degree of severity and recovery, using change vector analysis (CVA), the freeze injury representative vegetation index and the combination of the two methods, respectively. Accuracy of the freezing damage classification results was verified by determining the impact of freezing damage on yield and quantitative analysis. The CVA and the change of normalized difference vegetation index (ΔNDVI) monitoring results were different so a comprehensive analysis of the combination of CVA and ΔNDVI was performed. The area with serious freezing injury covered 0.9% of the total study area, followed by the area of no freezing injury (3.5%), moderate freezing injury (10.2%) and light freezing injury (85.4%). Of the moderate and serious freezing injury areas, 0.2% did not recover; 1.2% of the no freezing injury and light freezing injury areas showed optimal recovery, 15.6% of the light freezing injury and moderate freezing injury areas showed poor recovery, and the remaining areas exhibited general recovery.

Carrier-based unmanned aerial aircraft (UAV) structure is subjected to severe tensile load during takeoff, especially the drawbar, which affects its fatigue performance and structural safety. However, the complex structural features pose great challenges for the engineering design. Considering this situation, a structural design, fatigue analysis, and parameters optimisation joint working platform are urgently needed to solve this problem. In this study, numerical analysis of strain fatigue is carried out based on the laboratory fatigue failure of the carrier-based aircraft drawbar. Taking the sensitivity of drawbar parameters to stress and life into account and optimum design of drawbar with fatigue life as a target using the parametric method, this study also includes cutting-edge parameters of milling cutters, structural details of the drawbar and so on. Then an experimental design is applied using the Latin hypercube sampling method, and a surrogate model based on RBF neural network is established. Lastly, a multi-island genetic algorithm is introduced for optimisation. The results show that the error between the obtained optimal solution and simulation is 0.26%, while the optimised stress level is reduced by 15.7%, and the life of the drawbar is increased by 122%.

The aim of this study was to develop and externally validate a simple-to-use nomogram for predicting the survival of hospitalised human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) patients (hospitalised person living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs)). Hospitalised PLWHAs (n = 3724) between January 2012 and December 2014 were enrolled in the training cohort. HIV-infected inpatients (n = 1987) admitted in 2015 were included as the external-validation cohort. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method was used to perform data dimension reduction and select the optimal predictors. The nomogram incorporated 11 independent predictors, including occupation, antiretroviral therapy, pneumonia, tuberculosis, Talaromyces marneffei, hypertension, septicemia, anaemia, respiratory failure, hypoproteinemia and electrolyte disturbances. The Likelihood χ2 statistic of the model was 516.30 (P = 0.000). Integrated Brier Score was 0.076 and Brier scores of the nomogram at the 10-day and 20-day time points were 0.046 and 0.071, respectively. The area under the curves for receiver operating characteristic were 0.819 and 0.828, and precision-recall curves were 0.242 and 0.378 at two time points. Calibration plots and decision curve analysis in the two sets showed good performance and a high net benefit of nomogram. In conclusion, the nomogram developed in the current study has relatively high calibration and is clinically useful. It provides a convenient and useful tool for timely clinical decision-making and the risk management of hospitalised PLWHAs.

Two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have been used to investigate the interaction between a laser pulse and a foil exposed to an external strong longitudinal magnetic field. Compared with that in the absence of the external magnetic field, the divergence of proton with the magnetic field in radiation pressure acceleration (RPA) regimes has improved remarkably due to the restriction of the electron transverse expansion. During the RPA process, the foil develops into a typical bubble-like shape resulting from the combined action of transversal ponderomotive force and instabilities. However, the foil prefers to be in a cone-like shape by using the magnetic field. The dependence of proton divergence on the strength of magnetic field has been studied, and an optimal magnetic field of nearly 60 kT is achieved in these simulations.

A multi-scale strategy is employed in the paper to investigate the thermo-mechanical properties of 2.5D angle-interlock woven shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs). In the study, the mesoscopic model of 2.5D woven SMPCs and microscopic model of yarns are firstly developed. After that, the themo-viscoelastic constitutive relationship of the yarn is described in the form of hereditary integral and the parameters of relaxation moduli are obtained from nonlinear fitting of Prony series based on the results of finite element method (FEM). Based on the multi-scale models and the constitutive relationship, the effects of warp and weft arranged densities on viscoelastic properties of 2.5D woven SMPCs are studied in detail. Finally, the shape memory behavior along the warp direction in small strain region is also analyzed. The research in the paper lays a foundation for design and application of woven SMPCs in engineering.

We study the shape and motion of gas bubbles in a liquid flowing through a horizontal or slightly inclined thin annulus. Experimental data show that in the horizontal annulus, bubbles develop a unique ‘tadpole-like’ shape with a semi-circular cap and a highly stretched tail. As the annulus is inclined, the bubble tail tends to vanish, resulting in a significant decrease of bubble length. To model the bubble evolution, the thin annulus is conceptualised as a ‘Hele-Shaw’ cell in a curvilinear space. The three-dimensional flow within the cell is represented by a gap-averaged, two-dimensional model, which achieved a close match to the experimental data. The numerical model is further used to investigate the effects of gap thickness and pipe diameter on the bubble behaviour. The mechanism for the semi-circular cap formation is interpreted based on an analogous irrotational flow field around a circular cylinder, based on which a theoretical solution to the bubble velocity is derived. The bubble motion and cap geometry is mainly controlled by the gravitational component perpendicular to the flow direction. The bubble elongation in the horizontal annulus is caused by the buoyancy that moves the bubble to the top of the annulus. However, as the annulus is inclined, the gravitational component parallel to the flow direction becomes important, causing bubble separation at the tail and reduction in bubble length.

This paper aims to build the finite element model of the composite sinusoidal specimens and to carry out the parametric analysis. In this paper, the damage behaviour and the energy-absorbing results of composite sinusoidal specimens have been studied by quasi-static crushing experiments. The failure mechanisms of specimens under quasi-static crushing is further analysed. A numerical simulation has been performed by using the finite element model code LS-DYNA. The numerical results, in terms of load -displacement data, have been compared against experimental data, and good agreement has been found. Moreover, a sensitivity study has been carried out by varying material properties in order to assess their influence on the numerical results, and the material parameter selection scheme is optimised based on the constructed corresponding response surfaces. The results show that the response surface model has passed the test of goodness of fit, and the optimisation method can effectively assist the finite element modelling, and greatly decrease the numbers of trial and error.

The triplite LiFeSO4F displays both the highest potential ever reported for an Fe-based compound, as well as a comparable specific energy with that of popular LiFePO4. The synthesis is still a challenge because the present approaches are connected with long time, special equipments or organic reagents, etc. In this work, the triplite LiFeSO4F powder was synthesized through an ambient two-step solid-state route. The reaction process and phase purity were analyzed, coupled with structure refinement and electrochemical test.

Bacillary dysentery continues to be a major health issue in developing countries and ambient temperature is a possible environmental determinant. However, evidence about the risk of bacillary dysentery attributable to ambient temperature under climate change scenarios is scarce. We examined the attributable fraction (AF) of temperature-related bacillary dysentery in urban and rural Hefei, China during 2006–2012 and projected its shifting pattern under climate change scenarios using a distributed lag non-linear model. The risk of bacillary dysentery increased with the temperature rise above a threshold (18·4 °C), and the temperature effects appeared to be acute. The proportion of bacillary dysentery attributable to hot temperatures was 18·74% (95 empirical confidence interval (eCI): 8·36–27·44%). Apparent difference of AF was observed between urban and rural areas, with AF varying from 26·87% (95% eCI 16·21–36·68%) in urban area to −1·90% (95 eCI −25·03 to 16·05%) in rural area. Under the climate change scenarios alone (1–4 °C rise), the AF from extreme hot temperatures (>31·2 °C) would rise greatly accompanied by the relatively stable AF from moderate hot temperatures (18·4–31·2 °C). If climate change proceeds, urban area may be more likely to suffer from rapidly increasing burden of disease from extreme hot temperatures in the absence of effective mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Global, first-principles study of the kinetic ballooning mode (KBM) is crucial to understand tokamak edge physics in high-confinement mode (H-mode). In contrast to the ion temperature gradient mode and trapped electron mode, the KBM is found to be very sensitive to the equilibrium implementations in gyrokinetic codes. In this paper, we show that a second-order difference in Shafranov shift or geometric coordinates, or a difference between local and global profile implementations can bring a factor of two or more discrepancy in real frequency and growth rate. This suggests that an accurate global equilibrium is required for validation of gyrokinetic KBM simulations.

Aerial photography was conducted in the high Arctic Ocean during a Chinese research expedition in summer 2010. By partitioning the images into three distinct surface categories (sea ice/snow, water and melt ponds), the areal fraction of each category, ice concentration and the size and geometry of individual melt ponds, are determined with high-spatial resolution. The ice concentration and melt pond coverage have large spatial deviations between flights and even between images from the marginal ice zone to the pack ice zone in the central Arctic. Ice concentration and pond coverage over high Arctic (from 84°N to north) was ~75% and ~6.8%, respectively, providing ‘ground truth’ for the unusual transpolar reduction strip of ice indicated concurrently by AMSR-E data and for the regions (north of 88°N) where no passive microwave sensors can cover. Melt pond size and shape distributions are examined in terms of pond area (S), perimeter (P), mean caliper dimension (MCD) (L), roundness (R), convex degree (C), the ratio of P/S and fractal dimension (D). Power-law relationships are developed between pond size and number. Some general trends in geometric metrics are identified as a function of pond area including R, C, P/S and D. The scale separation of pond complexity is demonstrated by analyzing area-perimeter data. The results will potentially help the modelling of melt pond evolution and the determination of heterogeneity of under-ice transmitted light fields.

An outbreak of acute hepatitis recently occurred in a nursing home in Zhejiang Province, China. The objectives of this study were to confirm the outbreak and identify the aetiology, source and transmission patterns. All residents and staff in or near the nursing home during the period from 1 October 2014 to 21 May 2015 were investigated regarding hygiene and for epidemiological information including water and food (eating meat especially pork products). Serum and stool specimens were collected for detection of hepatitis E virus (HEV) antibodies using ELISA and RNA using RT–PCR. Samples that were RNA positive were genotyped. Of 185 senior residents and 24 staff in the nursing home, there were 37 laboratory-confirmed cases during the outbreak. Of these cases, 12 patients (three deaths) were symptomatic with jaundice, a common clinical symptom for hepatitis E infection. HEV strains were isolated from three cases and they formed a single cluster within genotype 4d. A case-control study was conducted to investigate potential risk factors for the outbreak and the results revealed that cases more often washed their dishes and rinsed their mouths using tap water than the controls (P < 0·05). Based on hygiene investigation and meteorological information, it is likely that HEV-infected sewage and faeces contaminated the water network on rainy days. Collectively, these results suggest that the outbreak of HEV genotype 4 infection was most likely caused by contaminated tap water rather than food.

At the end of 2013, China reported a countrywide outbreak of measles. From January to May 2014, we investigated the clinical and immunological features of the cases of the outbreak admitted to our hospital. In this study, all 112 inpatients with clinically diagnosed measles were recruited from the 302 Military Hospital of China. The virus was isolated from throat swabs from these patients, and cytokine profiles were examined. By detecting the measles virus of 30 of the 112 patients, we found that this measles outbreak was of the H1 genotype, which is the major strain in China. The rates of complications, specifically pneumonia and liver injury, differed significantly in patients aged <8 months, 8 months to 18 years, and >18 years: pneumonia was more common in children, while liver injury was more common in adults. Pneumonia was a significant independent risk factor affecting measles duration. Compared to healthy subjects, measles patients had fewer CD4+IL-17+, CD4+IFN-γ+, and CD8+IFN-γ+ cells in both the acute and recovery phases. In contrast, measles patients in the acute phase had more CD8+IL-22+ cells than those in recovery or healthy subjects. We recommend that future studies focus on the age-related distribution of pneumonia and liver injury as measles-related complications as well as the association between immunological markers and measles prognosis.

The herbicide chlorsulfuron is commonly applied to cereals and may persist in alkaline soil long enough to damage subsequent sensitive crops. Sewage water, a potential source of the heavy metal cadmium (Cd), is used to irrigate agricultural soils in many developing countries. The current work evaluated the effects of the residual herbicide chlorsulfuron and Cd on maize seedlings, with particular attention to the mechanism of their action on plant growth. Maize seeds were planted in soil that had been sprayed with chlorsulfuron and Cd, after which residues in both seedlings and the soil were measured. The chlorsulfuron dose was correlated with the amount of residue found in seedlings but not in the soil. In all, 39 metabolites were identified in seedlings using the Automated Mass spectral Deconvolution and Identification System software program and the retention index method. The combination of chlorsulfuron and Cd significantly reduced multiple metabolites in the shikimate pathway, malic acid and citric acid production in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and lactic acid, glucose, aspartic acid, asparagine and 3-glycerophosphoric acid production. In addition, chlorsulfuron caused an increase in multiple amino acids, including tyrosine, methionine and asparagine, and a marked decrease in caffeic and cinnamic acids (the secondary metabolites derived from the shikimate pathway and galactose). Finally, chlorsulfuron and Cd stress markedly increased shikimate acid, decreased 3-glycerophosphoric acid and caused negative correlations between the amounts of phenylalanine and tyrosine and those of quinic- and cinnamic-acid. In conclusion, chlorsulfuron and Cd did not have a synergistic effect on maize seedlings; rather, the combination of these pollutants had an antagonistic effect on some amino acids.

In this work, we compiled 604 blazars with available core-dominance parameter, out of which 149 blazars are known to have γ-ray emissions. We compared the logR between the 149 Fermi-detected blazars (FDB) and the rest non-Fermi-detected blazars (non-FDB), and found that the average values are < logR > = 1.12 ± 0.88 for FDBs and < logR > = 0.05 ± 0.94 for non-FDBs. A K-S test shows that the probability for the distributions of FDB and non-FDB to come from the same parent distribution is P = 2.38 × 10−7. We also investigated the correlation between the core-dominance parameters and the γ-ray emission variability index (VI) for 125 FDBs (45 BLs and 79 FSRQs), and found that there is a tendency for VI to increase with the core-dominance parameter for 79 FSRQs, but there is no such tendency for 46 BLs.