Pebrine disease, caused by Nosema bombycis (Nb) infection in silkworms, is a severe and long-standing disease that threatens sericulture. As parasitic pathogens, a complex relationship exists between microsporidia and their hosts at the mitochondrial level. Previous studies have found that the translocator protein (TSPO) is involved in various biological functions, such as membrane potential regulation, mitochondrial autophagy, immune responses, calcium ion channel regulation, and cell apoptosis. In the present study, we found that TSPO expression in silkworms (BmTSPO) was upregulated following Nb infection, leading to an increase in cytoplasmic calcium, adenosine triphosphate, and reactive oxygen species levels. Knockdown and overexpression of BmTSPO resulted in the promotion and inhibition of Nb proliferation, respectively. We also demonstrated that the overexpression of BmTSPO promotes host cell apoptosis and significantly increases the expression of genes involved in the immune deficiency and Janus kinase-signal transducer and the activator of the transcription pathways. These findings suggest that BmTSPO activates the innate immune signalling pathway in silkworms to regulate Nb proliferation. Targeting TSPO represents a promising approach for the development of new treatments for microsporidian infections.

Vegetables are known to be beneficial to human health, but the association between vegetable consumption and gastric cancer remains uncertain. To synthesise knowledge about the relationship between vegetable group consumption and gastric cancer risk, update present meta-analyses and estimate associations between vegetable consumption and gastric cancer risk based solely on prospective studies, we perform a PRISMA-compliant three-level meta-analysis. Systematic search identified thirteen prospective studies with fifty-two effect sizes that met all inclusion criteria and no exclusion criteria for our meta-analysis. Pooled risk ratios (RRs) showed a positive association between high vegetable consumption and low gastric cancer risk (pooled RR 0·93, 95% confidence interval 0·90–0·97, P = 0·06). In moderator analyses for indicators of gender, region and quantity of vegetable intake, there was no significant difference between subgroups. However, the effect became significant in populations with lower than the minimum risk exposure level (TMREL) of vegetable consumption (P < 0·05). Higher vegetable intake is associated with a decreased risk of gastric cancer. This effect may be limited to specific populations, such as ones with lower vegetable consumption. Evidence from our study has important public health implications for dietary recommendations.

Inflammation is a central mechanism in metabolic disorders associated with morbidity and mortality and dietary factors can modulate inflammation. We aimed to prospectively investigate the association between an empirically developed, food-based dietary inflammatory pattern (EDIP) score and the risk of overall and cause-specific mortality, using data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2014. EDIP score was derived by entering thirty-nine predefined commonly consumed food groups into the reduced rank regression models followed by stepwise linear regression, which was most predictive of two plasma inflammation biomarkers including C-reactive protein and leucocyte count among 25 500 US adults. This score was further validated in a testing set of 9466 adults. Deaths from baseline until 31 December 2015 were identified through record linkage to the National Death Index. During a median follow-up of 7·8 years among 40 074 participants, we documented 4904 deaths. Compared with participants in the lowest quintile of EDIP score, those in the highest quintile had a higher risk of overall death (hazard ratio (HR) = 1·19, 95 % CI 1·08, 1·32, Ptrend = 0·002), and deaths from cancer (HR = 1·41, 95 % CI 1·14, 1·74, Ptrend = 0·017) and CVD (HR = 1·22, 95 % CI 0·98, 1·53, Ptrend = 0·211). When stratified by age, the association of EDIP with overall mortality was stronger among individuals under 65 years of age (Pinteraction = 0·001). Diets with a higher inflammatory potential were associated with increased risk of overall and cancer-specific mortality. Interventions to reduce the adverse effect of pro-inflammatory diets may potentially promote health and longevity.

Commercial sex has been a complex and controversial issue in Taiwan. It was banned several times and finally partially legalized in law when the Congress finally amended Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Law and authorized local governments to establish red-light districts. Unfortunately, in reality, until now, no local government has established a red-light district. Therefore, all commercial sex is still illegal in Taiwan. By reviewing this issue from gender, culture, and legal perspectives, this paper discusses the regulation of commercial sex in Taiwan in three parts. In the first part, this paper provides a historical view of the development of commercial sex and how the government regulated it in different periods. In the second part, this paper introduces the debate and various perspectives of feminist legal theories on this issue. Finally, compared with the regulation models of Japan and Singapore, this paper proposes an empowerment approach in response to the current Social Order Maintenance Law. Focusing on sex workers’ autonomy and subjectivity, the new approach hopes to balance the interests between the rights of sex workers and the needs of social order and public health.

Previous studies have supported the theory that there is a positive association between ferritin and carotid atherosclerosis in Western people. Diet plays an important role in determining serum ferritin concentration. Asian dietary patterns are different from Western dietary patterns, implying that there may be a difference in the association of ferritin with carotid atherosclerosis between Asian and Western people. However, few studies focus on the association between ferritin and carotid atherosclerosis among Asians. The aim of this study was to investigate how serum ferritin levels are associated with carotid atherosclerosis in an Asian adult population. A cross-sectional assessment was performed in 8302 adults in Tianjin, China. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaques were assessed using ultrasonography, and serum ferritin was measured using the protein chip-chemiluminescence method. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between quartiles of serum ferritin concentration and carotid atherosclerosis. In the present study, the overall prevalence of IMT and carotid plaques in participants is 29·2 and 22·7 %, respectively. In women, after adjustments for potentially confounding factors, the OR of IMT and carotid plaques by increasing serum ferritin quartiles were 1·00, 1·39 (95 % CI 0·98–1·99), 1·39 (95 % CI 0·99–1·97), 1·81 (95 % CI 1·30–2·55) (Pfor trend<0·001) and 1·00, 1·24 (95 % CI 0·89–1·73), 1·18 (95 % CI 0·85–1·65), 1·59 (95 % CI 1·15–2·20) (Pfor trend<0·01), respectively. However, no association was found between serum ferritin and carotid atherosclerosis in men. The study demonstrated that increased serum ferritin levels are independently associated with IMT and carotid plaques in Asian women but not in Asian men.

The relation between climate change and historical rhythms has long been discussed. However, this type of study still faces the lack of high-resolution data concerning long-term socio-economic processes. In this study, we collected 1586 items of direct and proffered evidence from 29 Chinese history books. We used semantic analysis to reconstruct a quantitative series of the social vicissitudes of the past 2000 yr with a 10-yr resolution to express the phase transition of the social vicissitudes of the dynasties in China. Our reconstruction demonstrates that social vicissitudes have clear cyclical features on multiple time scales. Analysis of the association of social rise and fall with climate change indicates that temperature displayed more significant effects on social vicissitudes in the long term, while precipitation displayed more significant effects on the social vicissitudes in the short term. There are great overlaps between social and climatic variables around the predominant or periodic bands. Social rise mostly occurred in the centennial-scale warm periods, whereas social decline mostly occurred in the centennial-scale cold periods. Under warm-wet conditions, social rise occurred over 57% of the time; under cold-dry conditions, the social decline occurred over 66% of the time.

Investigations of the relationships between climate and human history often place more emphasis on the science of climate change than on understanding human socio-economic processes, and therefore suffer from superficial results and an unbalanced perspective. This is partly due to the lack of high-resolution data concerning long-term socio-economic processes. Here, we base our study of climate and society on a series of 2130-yr-long economic proxy data from China with decadal resolution. The economy was associated significantly with temperature and precipitation at the two predominant bands of 100 and 320 yr. The phase transition of economic states was influenced positively by long-term temperature change combined with triggering effects of short-term changes in precipitation. However, climatic impact on economy should not be recognized as simple causality but some driving-response relation coupled with meditation by human agency at multiple scales. A model of ‘adaptive cycles’ implies, in relative to the developing phases, climate–economy relationship during the declining phases was more easily moderated by slower processes like rigidity and faster processes like unrest. From a more-macro perspective, climatic driving for the macro-economic cycles was moderated by larger and slower processes like social memory, spatial shifting of key economic areas, and social–technical advance.

SG-III laser facility is now the largest laser driver for inertial confinement fusion research in China. The whole laser facility can deliver 180 kJ energy and 60 TW power ultraviolet laser onto target, with power balance better than 10%. We review the laser system and introduce the SG-III laser performance here.

Intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) impairs postnatal growth and skeletal muscle development in neonatal infants. This study evaluated whether dietary β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate Ca (HMB-Ca) supplementation during the early postnatal period could improve muscle growth in IUGR neonates using piglets as a model. A total of twelve pairs of IUGR and normal-birth-weight (NBW) male piglets with average initial weights (1·85 (sem 0·36) and 2·51 (sem 0·39) kg, respectively) were randomly allotted to groups that received milk-based diets (CON) or milk-based diets supplemented with 800 mg/kg HMB-Ca (HMB) during days 7–28 after birth. Blood and longissimus dorsi (LD) samples were collected and analysed for plasma amino acid content, fibre morphology and the expression of genes related to muscle development. The results indicate that, regardless of diet, IUGR piglets had a significantly decreased average daily weight gain (ADG) compared with that of NBW piglets (P<0·05). However, IUGR piglets fed HMB-Ca had a net weight and ADG similar to that of NBW piglets fed the CON diet. Irrespective of body weight (BW), HMB-Ca supplementation markedly increased the type II fibre cross-sectional area and the mRNA expression of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), insulin-like growth factor-1 and myosin heavy-chain isoform IIb in the LD of piglets (P<0·05). Moreover, there was a significant interaction between the effects of BW and HMB on mTOR expression in the LD (P<0·05). In conclusion, HMB-Ca supplementation during the early postnatal period could improve skeletal muscle growth and maturity by accelerating fast-twitch glycolytic fibre development in piglets.

A planet centroid is an important observable object in autonomous optical navigation. A high-accuracy algorithm is presented to extract the planet centroid from its raw image. First, we proposed a planet segmentation algorithm to segment the planet image block to eliminate noise and to reduce the computation load. Second, we developed an effective algorithm based on Prewitt-Zernike moments to detect sub-pixel real edges by determining possible edges with the Prewitt operator, removing pseudo-edges in backlit shady areas, and relocating real edges to a sub-pixel accuracy in the Zernike moments. Third, we proposed an elliptical model to fit sub-pixel edge points. Finally, we verified the performance of this algorithm against real images from the Cassini-Huygens mission and against synthetic simulated images. Simulation results showed that the accuracy of the planet centroid is up to 0·3 pixels and that of the line-of-sight vector is at 2·1 × 10−5 rad.

Enhancement of heat transport across a fluid layer is of fundamental interest as well as great technological importance. For decades, Rayleigh–Bénard convection has been a paradigm for the study of convective heat transport, and how to improve its overall heat-transfer efficiency is still an open question. Here, we report an experimental and numerical study that reveals a novel mechanism that leads to much enhanced heat transport. When vertical partitions are inserted into a convection cell with thin gaps left open between the partition walls and the cooling/heating plates, it is found that the convective flow becomes self-organized and more coherent, leading to an unprecedented heat-transport enhancement. In particular, our experiments show that with six partition walls inserted, the heat flux can be increased by approximately 30 %. Numerical simulations show a remarkable heat-flux enhancement of up to 2.3 times (with 28 partition walls) that without any partitions.

Escherichia coli (E. coli) is the most widely applied model organism in current biological science. As a widespread opportunistic pathogen, E. coli can survive not only by symbiosis with human, but also outside the host as well, which necessitates the evaluation of its response to the space environment. Therefore, to keep humans safe in space, it is necessary to understand how the bacteria respond to this environment. Despite extensive investigations for a few decades, the response of E. coli to the real space environment is still controversial. To better understand the mechanisms how E. coli overcomes harsh environments such as microgravity in space and to investigate whether these factors may induce pathogenic changes in E. coli that are potentially detrimental to astronauts, we conducted detailed genomics, transcriptomic and proteomic studies on E. coli that experienced 17 days of spaceflight. By comparing two flight strains LCT-EC52 and LCT-EC59 to a control strain LCT-EC106 that was cultured under the same temperature conditions on the ground, we identified metabolism changes, polymorphism changes, differentially expressed genes and proteins in the two flight strains. The flight strains differed from the control in the utilization of more than 30 carbon sources. Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and one deletion were identified in the flight strains. The expression level of more than 1000 genes altered in flight strains. Genes involved in chemotaxis, lipid metabolism and cell motility express differently. Moreover, the two flight strains also differed extensively from each other in terms of metabolism, transcriptome and proteome, indicating the impact of space environment on individual cells is heterogeneous and probably genotype-dependent. This study presents the first systematic profile of E. coli genome, transcriptome and proteome after spaceflight, which helps to elucidate the mechanism that controls the adaptation of microbes to the space environment.