The study aims were to present in vitro susceptibilities of clinical isolates from Gram-negative bacteria bloodstream infections (GNBSI) collected in China. GNBSI isolates were collected from 18 tertiary hospitals in 7 regions of China from 2018 to 2020. Minimum inhibitory concentrations were assessed using a Trek Diagnostic System. Susceptibility was determined using CLSI broth microdilution, and breakpoints were interpreted using CLSI M100 (2021). A total of 1,815 GNBSI strains were collected, with E. coli (42.4%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (28.6%) being the most prevalent species, followed by P. aeruginosa (6.7%). Susceptibility analyses revealed low susceptibilities (<40%) of ESBL-producing E. coli and K. pneumonia to third-/fourth-generation cephalosporins, monobactamases, and fluoroquinolones. High susceptibilities to colistin (95.0%) and amikacin (81.3%) were found for K. pneumoniae, while Acinetobacter baumannii exhibited a high susceptibility (99.2%) to colistin but a low susceptibility to other antimicrobials (<27.5%). Isolates from ICUs displayed lower drug susceptibility rates of K. pneumoniae and A. baumannii than isolates from non-ICUs (all P < 0.05). Carbapenem-resistant and ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae detection was different across regions (both P < 0.05). E. coli and K. pneumoniae were major contributors to GNBSI, while A. baumannii exhibited severe drug resistance in isolates obtained from ICU departments.

C-type lectins (CTLs), a diverse family of pattern recognition receptors, are essential for immune recognition and pathogen clearance in invertebrates. TcCTL17 contains one carbohydrate recognition domain and three scavenger receptor Cys-rich domains. Spatial and temporal expression analysis revealed that TcCTL17 is highly expressed in early pupa, early adult stages, and the larval gut at 20 days. The recombinant TcCTL17 exhibited dose-dependent binding to lipopolysaccharides and peptidoglycans, Ca2+-dependent binding and agglutination of bacteria in vitro. Knocking down TcCTL17 before bacterial exposure reduced survival rates and increased bacterial loads in T. castaneum larvae, accompanied by decreased antimicrobial peptide expression and haemolymph phenoloxidase activity. Additionally, TcCTL17 RNA interference caused developmental abnormalities, affecting metamorphosis and fecundity, possibly by influencing the 20E, JH, and vitellogenin pathways. These findings underscore dual functions of TcCTL17 in immunity and development, making it a potential target for pest management.

Rhopalosiphum padi is an important grain pest, causing severe losses during crop production. As a systemic insecticide, flonicamid can control piercing-sucking pests efficiently. In our study, the lethal effects of flonicamid on the biological traits of R. padi were investigated via a life table approach. Flonicamid is highly efficiently toxic to R. padi, with an LC50 of 9.068 mg L−1. The adult longevity and fecundity of the R. padi F0 generation were markedly reduced under the LC25 and LC50 concentrations of flonicamid exposure. In addition, negative transgenerational effects on R. padi were observed under exposure to lethal concentrations of flonicamid, with noticeable decreases in the reproductive period, adult longevity, total longevity, and total fecundity of the F1 generation under the LC25 concentration of flonicamid. Furthermore, the third nymph stage (N3), preadult stage, duration of the adult pre-reproductive period, duration of the total pre-reproductive period, reproductive period, adult longevity, total longevity, and total fecundity of the F1 generation were significantly lower under treatment with the LC50 concentration of flonicamid. The life table parameters were subsequently analysed, revealing that the intrinsic rate of increase (rm) and the net reproductive rate (R0) were significantly lower but that the finite rate of increase (λ) and the mean generation time (T) were not significantly different under the LC25 and LC50 concentrations of flonicamid. These data are beneficial for grain aphid control and are critical for exploring the role of flonicamid in the integrated management of this key pest.

Reducing nitrogen (N) fertilizer application is a sustainable practice in rice production. The effects of reducing N fertilizer input on grain yield and rice quality of early- and late-season dual-use rice (ELDR) in South China remain uncertain. Therefore, a short-term field trial was conducted with a high-yielding ELDR cultivar (Yuehesimiao, YHSM) and a low-yielding ELDR cultivar (Meixiangzhan 2, MXZ). The rice was cultivated with a 20% reduced N application rate (RN2), a 10% reduced rate (RN1) and the conventional N application rate (CN). In the early season, compared to CN, RN2 reduced the grain yield of YHSM and MXZ by an average of 16.1 and 6.6%, respectively, while RN1 lowered YHSM grain yield by 11.2% on average and had no effect on MXZ yield. In addition, RN2 decreased the milling and eating qualities of the two cultivars in the early season, while RN1 did not alter their milling, appearance or eating qualities. In the late season, neither RN2 nor RN1 affected grain yield or rice quality for both cultivars. Therefore, short-term reductions of 10 and 20% in N application could maintain grain yield and rice quality at current N fertilizer application rates in the late season. However, the early-season results only recommended a 10% reduced N fertilizer application rate for low-yielding ELDR cultivars to sustain grain yield and rice quality. The findings of this study can provide a theoretical basis for N management of ELDR in South China.

This paper proposes an online robust self-learning terminal sliding mode control (RS-TSMC) with stability guarantee for balancing control of reaction wheel bicycle robots (RWBR) under model uncertainties and disturbances, which improves the balancing control performance of RWBR by optimising the constrained output of TSMC. The TSMC is designed for a second-order mathematical model of RWBR. Then robust adaptive dynamic programming based on an actor-critic algorithm is used to optimise the TSMC only by data sampled online. The system closed-loop stability and convergence of the neural network weights are guaranteed based on the Lyapunov analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through simulations and experiments.

The AIMTB rapid test assay is an emerging test, which adopted a fluorescence immunochromatographic assay to measure interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production following stimulation of effector memory T cells in whole blood by mycobacterial proteins. The aim of this article was to explore the ability of AIMTB rapid test assay in detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection compared with the widely applied QuantiFERON-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus) test among rural doctors in China. In total, 511 participants were included in the survey. The concordance between the QFT-Plus test and the AIMTB rapid test assay was 94.47% with a Cohen’s kappa coefficient (κ) of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.79–0.90). Improved concordance between the two tests was observed in males and in participants with 26 or more years of service as rural doctors. The quantitative values of the QFT-Plus test was higher in individuals with a result of QFT-Plus-/AIMTB+ as compared to those with a result of QFT-Plus-/AIMTB- (p < 0.001). Overall, our study found that there was an excellent consistency between the AIMTB rapid test assay and the QFT-Plus test in a Chinese population. As the AIMTB rapid test assay is fast and easy to operate, it has the potential to improve latent tuberculosis infection testing and treatment at the community level in resource-limited settings.

One species-general life history (LH) principle posits that challenging childhood environments are coupled with a fast or faster LH strategy and associated behaviors, while secure and stable childhood environments foster behaviors conducive to a slow or slower LH strategy. This coupling between environments and LH strategies is based on the assumption that individuals’ internal traits and states are independent of their external surroundings. In reality, individuals respond to external environmental conditions in alignment with their intrinsic vitality, encompassing both physical and mental states. The present study investigated attachment as an internal mental state, examining its role in mediating and moderating the association between external environmental adversity and fast LH strategies. A sample of 1169 adolescents (51% girls) from 9 countries was tracked over 10 years, starting from age 8. The results confirm both mediation and moderation and, for moderation, secure attachment nullified and insecure attachment maintained the environment-LH coupling. These findings suggest that attachment could act as an internal regulator, disrupting the contingent coupling between environmental adversity and a faster pace of life, consequently decelerating human LH.

The rise of sequencing technologies has greatly contributed to our knowledge of the microbiota and its role in animal health and production. However, many members of the microbiota have historically been considered “unculturable.” Culturomics can be utilized to bring these fastidious microbes into cultivation and can be used in conjunction with culture-independent methods to study the microbiota in a more comprehensive manner. This review paper details culturomics’ role in revolutionizing human, swine, and bovine microbiota research and how its use has greatly increased the bacterial repertoire. Additionally, it describes how culturomics can be applied to develop microbiota-derived therapeutics, such as next-generation probiotics, and to study the role of the microbiota. Finally, this review provides potential methods and considerations for designing future culturomics studies.

The global transition towards diets high in calories has contributed to 2.1 billion people becoming overweight, or obese, which damages male reproduction and harms offspring. Recently, more and more studies have shown that paternal exposure to stress closely affects the health of offspring in an intergenerational and transgenerational way. SET Domain Containing 2 (SETD2), a key epigenetic gene, is highly conserved among species, is a crucial methyltransferase for converting histone 3 lysine 36 dimethylation (H3K36me2) into histone 3 lysine 36 trimethylation (H3K36me3), and plays an important regulator in the response to stress. In this study, we compared patterns of SETD2 expression and the H3K36me3 pattern in pre-implantation embryos derived from normal or obese mice induced by high diet. The results showed that SETD2 mRNA was significantly higher in the high-fat diet (HFD) group than the control diet (CD) group at the 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, and 16-cell stages, and at the morula and blastocyst stages. The relative levels of H3K36me3 in the HFD group at the 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, 16-cell, morula stage, and blastocyst stage were significantly higher than in the CD group. These results indicated that dietary changes in parental generation (F0) male mice fed a HFD were traceable in SETD2/H3K36me3 in embryos, and that a paternal high-fat diet brings about adverse effects for offspring that might be related to SETD2/H3K36me3, which throws new light on the effect of paternal obesity on offspring from an epigenetic perspective.

We report a Yb-doped all-fiber laser system generating burst-mode pulses with high energy and high peak power at a GHz intra-burst repetition rate. To acquire the uniform burst envelope, a double-pre-compensation structure with an arbitrary waveform laser diode driver and an acoustic optical modulator is utilized for the first time. The synchronous pumping is utilized for the system to reduce the burst repetition rate to 100 Hz and suppress the amplified spontaneous emission effect. By adjusting the gain of every stage, uniform envelopes with different output energies can be easily obtained. The intra-burst repetition rate can be tuned from 0.5 to 10 GHz actively modulated by an electro-optic modulator. Optimized by timing control of eight channels of analog signal and amplified by seven stages of Yb-doped fiber amplifier, the pulse energy achieves 13.3 mJ at 0.5 ns intra-burst pulse duration, and the maximum peak power reaches approximately 3.6 MW at 48 ps intra-burst pulse duration. To the best of our knowledge, for reported burst-mode all-fiber lasers, this is a record for output energy and peak power with nanosecond-level burst duration, and the widest tuning range of the intra-burst repetition rate. In particular, this flexibly tunable burst-mode laser system can be directly applied to generate high-power frequency-tunable microwaves.

Trematodes of the genus Ogmocotyle are intestinal flukes that can infect a variety of definitive hosts, resulting in significant economic losses worldwide. However, there are few studies on molecular data of these trematodes. In this study, the mitochondrial (mt) genome of Ogmocotyle ailuri isolated from red panda (Ailurus fulgens) was determined and compared with those from Pronocephalata to investigate the mt genome content, genetic distance, gene rearrangements and phylogeny. The complete mt genome of O. ailuri is a typical closed circular molecule of 14 642 base pairs, comprising 12 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and 2 non-coding regions. All genes are transcribed in the same direction. In addition, 23 intergenic spacers and 2 locations with gene overlaps were determined. Sequence identities and sliding window analysis indicated that cox1 is the most conserved gene among 12 PCGs in O. ailuri mt genome. The sequenced mt genomes of the 48 Plagiorchiida trematodes showed 5 types of gene arrangement based on all mt genome genes, with the gene arrangement of O. ailuri being type I. Phylogenetic analysis using concatenated amino acid sequences of 12 PCGs revealed that O. ailuri was closer to Ogmocotyle sikae than to Notocotylus intestinalis. These data enhance the Ogmocotyle mt genome database and provide molecular resources for further studies of Pronocephalata taxonomy, population genetics and systematics.

As intense, ultrashort, kHz-repetition-rate laser systems become commercially available, pulse cumulative effects are critical for laser filament-based applications. In this work, the pulse repetition-rate effect on femtosecond laser filamentation in air was investigated both numerically and experimentally. The pulse repetition-rate effect has negligible influence at the leading edge of the filament. Clear intensity enhancement from a high-repetition pulse is observed at the peak and tailing edge of the laser filament. As the repetition rate of the laser pulses increases from 100 to 1000 Hz, the length of the filament extends and the intensity inside the filament increases. A physical picture based on the pulse repetition-rate dependent ‘low-density hole’ effect on filamentation is proposed to explain the obtained results well.

Objectives: Ancillary staff members perform operational support functions and play an active role in enhancing the patient care experience. Infection prevention practices among ancillary staff play a critical role in preventing transmission of microorganisms, which ensures the safety of patients. Low hand hygiene compliance was found among porters in a cross-institutional hand hygiene audit in 2021. A quality improvement team was formed to improve hand hygiene compliance, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A focus-group discussion and survey were conducted to understand hand hygiene knowledge and challenges among porters. Using the findings, the team initiated Glo–germ education tools, pocket alcohol hand-rub agents, pocket moisturizer, poster display, and a toolbox messaging system via conversion of group roll call to satellite-area roll call. Respective satellite teams were sent hand hygiene reminders, and prompt corrective action was taken following noncompliance events. Analytic comparisons of pre- and postsurvey data were performed using the χ2 test, and P < .05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results: In total, 572 ancillary staff participated in the survey. Knowledge of hand hygiene practices improved significantly following the interventions, as shown in the comparison of pre- and postintervention results: knowledge of the hand hygiene steps (P < .001), knowledge of the duration of hand rub (P < .001), and knowledge of duration of handwashing (P < .001). Also, 295 staff members (97.68%) stated that implementation measures increased their awareness of the importance of hand hygiene. Moreover, the hand hygiene compliance rate improved from 77.8% to 100%. There were no significant differences related to sex (P = .089), age group (P = .355), years of working (P = .359), education level (P = .268), or difficulty in reading English (P = .906). Conclusions: Evaluating staff hand hygiene knowledge and understanding the challenges faced among porters helped toward the development of appropriate interventions and assurance of success in project.

The plant Camellia fascicularis, belonging to family Theaceae, has high ornamental and medicinal value, and rare gene resources for genetic improvement of Camellia crops, but is currently threatened with extinction because of the unique and extremely small wild populations. Molecular markers have clarified the wild plant species’ genetic diversity structure, new gene resources and relationship with crops. This will be beneficial for conservation of these valuable crop-related wild species and crop improvement. In this study, we identified 95,979 microsatellite loci from 155,011 transcriptome unigenes, and developed 14 polymorphic expressed sequence tag-derived simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) microsatellite markers for C. fascicularis. The number of alleles (Na) per locus was 2–8 with a mean of 4.86. The genetic diversity of 40 individuals from four natural populations of C. fascicularis was analysed using these polymorphic markers. The number of alleles (Na) for EST-SSR ranged from 2 to 5, with the expected heterozygosities (He) and observed heterozygosities (Ho) in all loci ranging from 0.183 to 0.683, and from 0.201 to 0.700, respectively, implying a rich genetic variation present in wild C. fascicularis populations. Moreover, the phylogenetic analysis among four populations, using the 14 EST-SSR markers developed in this study, grouped 40 individuals into three groups, which coincide with their geographic distribution. These results showed that 14 EST-SSR markers are available for the analysis of genetic variation in C. fascicularis populations and genetic improvement of new Camellias cultivars by interspecific hybridization, and are beneficial for conservation of the endangered species.

The goal of few-shot semantic segmentation is to learn a segmentation model that can segment novel classes in queries when only a few annotated support examples are available. Due to large intra-class variations, the building of accurate semantic correlation remains a challenging job. Current methods typically use 4D kernels to learn the semantic correlation of feature maps. However, they still face the challenge of reducing the consumption of computation and memory while keeping the availability of correlations mined by their methods. In this paper, we propose the adaptively mining correlation network (AMCNet) to alleviate the aforementioned issues. The key points of AMCNet are the proposed adaptive separable 4D kernel and the learnable pyramid correlation module, which form the basic block for correlation encoder and provide a learnable concatenation operation over pyramid correlation tensors, respectively. Experiments on the PASCAL VOC 2012 dataset show that our AMCNet surpasses the state-of-the-art method by $0.7\%$ and $2.2\%$ on 1-shot and 5-shot segmentation scenarios, respectively.

We report a compact, tunable, self-starting, all-fiber laser-based asynchronous optical sampling (ASOPS) system. Two Er-doped fiber oscillators were used as the pulsed-laser source, whose repetition rate could be set at 100 MHz with a tuning range of 1.25 MHz through a fiber delay line. By employing phase-locked and temperature control loops, the repetition rate offset of the two lasers was stabilized with 7.13 × 10−11 fractional instability at an average time of 1 s. Its capabilities in the terahertz regime were demonstrated by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, achieving a spectral bandwidth of 3 THz with a dynamic range of 30 dB. The large range of repetition rate adjustment in our ASOPS system has the potential to be a powerful tool in the terahertz regime.

The resurgence and outbreaks of mumps occur frequently in many countries worldwide in recent years, even in countries with high vaccination coverage. In this study, a descriptive and spatiotemporal clustering analysis at the township level was conducted to explore the dynamic spatiotemporal aggregation and epidemiological characteristics of mumps in Wuhan. During 2005 and 2019, there were 40 685 cases reported in Wuhan, with an average annual morbidity of 28.11 per 100 000 populations. The morbidity showed a fluctuating tendency, and peaked in 2010 and 2018. Bimodal seasonality was found, with a large peak between May and July, and a mild peak from November to January in the following year. Male students aged 5–9-year-old were the main risk group of mumps infection. Significant global spatial auto-correlation was detected except in 2007, 2009 and 2015. The spatial and temporal scan statistics indicated that the hot-spots mainly located at the western and southern areas of Wuhan with variations almost every year. Our findings could assist the public health authorities to develop and improve targeted health strategies, and allocate health resources rationally.

We propose a 2.1 μm high-energy dissipative soliton resonant (DSR) fiber laser system based on a mode-locked seed laser and dual-stage amplifiers. In the seed laser, the nonlinear amplifying loop mirror technique is employed to realize mode-locking. The utilization of an in-band pump scheme and long gain fiber enables effectively exciting 2.1 μm pulses. A section of ultra-high numerical aperture fiber (UHNAF) with normal dispersion and high nonlinearity and an output coupler with a large coupling ratio are used to achieve a high-energy DSR system. By optimizing the UHNAF length to 55 m, a 2103.7 nm, 88.1 nJ DSR laser with a 3-dB spectral bandwidth of 0.48 nm and a pulse width of 17.1 ns is obtained under a proper intracavity polarization state and pump power. The output power and conversion efficiency are 0.233 W and 4.57%, respectively, both an order of magnitude higher than those of previously reported holmium-doped DSR seed lasers. Thanks to the high output power and nanosecond pulse width of the seed laser, the average power of the DSR laser is linearly scaled up to 50.4 W via a dual-stage master oscillator power amplifier system. The 3-dB spectral bandwidth broadens slightly to 0.52 nm, and no distortion occurs in the amplified pulse waveform. The corresponding pulse energy reaches 19.1 μJ, which is the highest pulse energy in a holmium-doped mode-locked fiber laser system to the best of our knowledge. Such a 2.1 μm, high-energy DSR laser with relatively wide pulse width has prospective applications in mid-infrared nonlinear frequency conversion.