This study aimed to demonstrate the utilization value of 1PN embryos. The 1PN zygotes collected from December 2021 to September 2022 were included in this study. The embryo development, the pronuclear characteristics, and the genetic constitutions were investigated. The overall blastocyst formation and good-quality blastocyst rates in 1PN zygotes were 22.94 and 16.24%, significantly lower than those of 2PN zygotes (63.25 and 50.23%, respectively, P = 0.000). The pronuclear characteristics were found to be correlated with the developmental potential. When comparing 1PN zygotes that developed into blastocysts to those that arrested, the former exhibited a significantly larger area (749.49 ± 142.77 vs. 634.00 ± 119.05, P = 0.000), a longer diameter of pronuclear (29.81 ± 3.08 vs. 27.30 ± 3.00, P = 0.000), and a greater number of nucleolar precursor body (NPB) (11.56 ± 3.84 vs. 7.19 ± 2.73, P = 0.000). Among the tested embryos, the diploidy euploidy rate was significantly higher in blastocysts in comparison with the arrested embryos (66.67 vs. 11.76%, P = 0.000), which was also significantly higher in IVF-1PN blastocysts than in ICSI-1PN blastocysts (75.44 vs. 25.00%, P = 0.001). However, the pronuclear characteristics were not found to be linked to the chromosomal ploidy once they formed blastocysts.

In summary, while the developmental potential of 1PN zygotes is reduced, our study shows that, in addition to the reported pronuclear area and diameter, the number of NPB is also associated with their developmental potential. The 1PN blastocysts exhibit a high diploidy euploidy rate, are recommend to be clinically used post genetic testing, especially for patients who do not have other 2PN embryos available.

The aim of this study was to investigate the antioxidant effect of alpha-lipoic acid (α-LA) in dairy cows and its metabolic mechanism. Thirty Holstein cows weighing 550 ± 25 kg, 200 ± 15 days of lactation and calving 2–3 times were randomly divided into three groups, ten cows in each group. Different doses of α-LA were added based on body weight: 0 (CTL), 30 (LA-L) and 60 (LA-H) mg/kg per head per day; 7 days adaptation period, 30 days formal period. Milk production was recorded daily during the test period. Milk and blood samples were collected on the last day. ELISA kits and automatic biochemical analyser were used to detect the indicators in blood; serum metabolites were detected and analysed by non-target metabolomics. The results of the study showed that the addition of α-LA significantly increased milk yield; blood concentrations for HDL, triglyceride, cortisol and triiodothyronine were significantly elevated; and levels of glutathione reductase and nitric oxide synthase were significantly reduced in LA-L group as compared to CTL group. The concentrations of IL-1β, IL-2, TNF-α, IgG and IgA were significantly higher after supplementation with α-LA. Metabolomics analysis revealed 13 and 15 differential metabolites each in positive or negative modes. Methylmalonic acid levels were significantly higher following α-LA supplementation compared to CTL group, as were D-lactose, D-maltose and oleanolic acid levels in LA-L group. In summary, α-LA can enhance milk production, improve antioxidant capacity and immunity, and is more beneficial for animal production and economic benefits at 30 mg/kg.

The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) and the little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata) are among the top 100 invasive alien species globally, causing significant ecological and economic harm. Therefore, it is crucial to study their potential geographic distribution worldwide. This study aimed to predict their global distribution under current and future climate conditions. We used distribution data from various sources, including CABI, GBIF, and PIAKey, and key climate variables selected from 19 environmental factors to model their potential geographic distribution using MaxEnt. The AUC values were 0.925 and 0.937 for L. humile and W. auropunctata, respectively, indicating good predictive performance. Suitable areas for L. humile were mainly in southern North America, northern South America, Europe, central Asia, southern Oceania, and parts of Africa, while W. auropunctata suitable areas were mostly in southern North America, most of South America, a small part of Europe, southern Asia, central Africa, and some parts of Oceania. Under climate change scenario, suitable areas for L. humile increased, while highly suitable areas for W. auropunctata decreased. The top four countries with the largest areas of overlapping suitable habitat under current climate were Brazil, China, Australia, and Argentina, while under future SSP585 climate scenario, the top four countries were Brazil, China, Indonesia, and Argentina. Some countries, such as Estonia and Finland, will see an overlapping adaptation area under climate change. In conclusion, this study provides insight into controlling the spread and harm of L. humile and W. auropunctata.

A local COVID-19 outbreak with two community clusters occurred in a large industrial city, Shaoxing, China, in December 2021 after serial interventions were imposed. We aimed to understand the reason by analysing the characteristics of the outbreak and evaluating the effects of phase-adjusted interventions. Publicly available data from 7 December 2021 to 25 January 2022 were collected to analyse the epidemiological characteristics of this outbreak. The incubation period was estimated using Hamiltonian Monte Carlo method. A well-fitted extended susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model was used to simulate the impact of different interventions under various combination of scenarios. There were 387 SARS-CoV-2-infected cases identified, and 8.3% of them were initially diagnosed as asymptomatic cases. The estimated incubation period was 5.4 (95% CI 5.2–5.7) days for all patients. Strengthened measures of comprehensive quarantine based on tracing led to less infections and a shorter duration of epidemic. With a same period of incubation, comprehensive quarantine was more effective in containing the transmission than other interventions. Our findings reveal an important role of tracing and comprehensive quarantine in blocking community spread when a cluster occurred. Regions with tense resources can adopt home quarantine as a relatively affordable and low-impact intervention measure compared with centralized quarantine.

Resistant starch (RS) has received increased attention due to its potential health benefits. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of dietary corn RS on immunological characteristics of broilers. A total of 320 broiler chicks were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments: normal corn–soyabean (NC) diet group, corn starch diet group, 4 %, 8 % and 12 % RS diet groups. This trial lasted for 42 d. The relative weights of spleen, thymus and bursa, the concentrations of nitric oxide (NO) and IL-4 in plasma at 21 d of age, as well as the activities of total nitric oxide synthase (TNOS) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in plasma at 21 and 42 d of age showed positive linear responses (P < 0·05) to the increasing dietary RS level. Meanwhile, compared with the birds from the NC group at 21 d of age, birds fed 4 % RS, 8 % RS and 12 % RS diets exhibited higher (P < 0·05) relative weight of bursa and concentrations of NO and interferon-γ in plasma. Birds fed 4 % RS and 8 % RS diets showed higher (P < 0·05) number of IgA-producing cells in the jejunum. While compared with birds from the NC group at 42 d of age, birds fed 12 % RS diet showed higher (P < 0·05) relative weight of spleen and activities of TNOS and iNOS in plasma. These findings suggested that dietary corn RS supplementation can improve immune function in broilers.

Listeriosis is a rare but serious foodborne disease caused by Listeria monocytogenes. This matched case–control study (1:1 ratio) aimed to identify the risk factors associated with food consumption and food-handling habits for the occurrence of sporadic listeriosis in Beijing, China. Cases were defined as patients from whom Listeria was isolated, in addition to the presence of symptoms, including fever, bacteraemia, sepsis and other clinical manifestations corresponding to listeriosis, which were reported via the Beijing Foodborne Disease Surveillance System. Basic patient information and possible risk factors associated with food consumption and food-handling habits were collected through face-to-face interviews. One hundred and six cases were enrolled from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020, including 52 perinatal cases and 54 non-perinatal cases. In the non-perinatal group, the consumption of Chinese cold dishes increased the risk of infection by 3.43-fold (95% confidence interval 1.27–9.25, χ2 = 5.92, P = 0.02). In the perinatal group, the risk of infection reduced by 95.2% when raw and cooked foods were well-separated (χ2 = 5.11, P = 0.02). These findings provide important scientific evidence for preventing infection by L. monocytogenes and improving the dissemination of advice regarding food safety for vulnerable populations.

Celestial navigation is an important means of maritime navigation; it can automatically achieve inertially referenced positioning and orientation after a long period of development. However, the impact of different accuracy of observations and the influence of nonstationary states, such as ship speed change and steering, are not taken into account in existing algorithms. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an adaptively robust maritime celestial navigation algorithm, in which each observation value is given an equivalent weight according to the robust estimation theory, and the dynamic balance between astronomical observation and prediction values of vessel motion is adjusted by applying the adaptive factor. With this system, compared with the frequently used least square method and extended Kalman filter algorithm, not only are the real-time and high-precision navigation parameters, such as position, course, and speed for the vessel, calculated simultaneously, but also the influence of abnormal observation and vessel motion status change could be well suppressed.

The composites were synthesized by the reaction of Bi(NO3)3·5H2O, KI, and MoS2 and were prepared with different molar ratios of Bi/Mo (1:5, 1:2, 1:1, and 4:1) by altering the amount of bismuth nitrate pentahydrate. The phase composition and chemical bonds of the composites were characterized via X-ray diffraction and FT-IR, and the morphologies of the samples were characterized via scanning electron microscopy. With the increase of lanthanum source, the lamellar structure of the sample surface became more and more obvious. The results showed that the phase composition of the composites with different ratios of Bi/Mo was different. When the Bi/Mo reached 4:1, the composite material was Bi2MoO6/BiOI. The heterojunction structure formed between Bi2MoO6 and BiOI effectively promotes the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes and improved the photocatalytic activity. Therefore, the effect of the composites on the degradation of RhB was better than pure BiOI under the irradiation of a 350-W xenon lamp.

Flexibility is a particularly important biomechanical property for intracranial vascular stents. To study the flexibility of stent, the following work was carried out by using the finite element method: Four mechanical models were adopted to simulate the bending deformation of stents, and comparative studies were conducted about the distinction between cantilever beam and simply supported beam, as well as the distinction between moment-loading method and displacement-loading method. A complete process as implanting a stent including compressing, expanding and bending was also simulated, for analyzing the effects of compressing and expanding deformation on stent flexibility. At the same time, the effects of the arrangement and the number of bridges on stent flexibility were researched. The results show that: 1. A same flexibility index was obtained from cantilever beam model and simply supported beam model; displacement-loading method is better than moment-loading for simulating the bending deformation of stents. 2. The flexibility of stent with compressing and expanding deformation is lower than that in the initial form. 3. Crossly arranging the neighboring bridges in axial direction, can effectively improve the stent flexibility and reduce the flexibility difference in various bending directions; the bridge number, has proportional non-linear correlation with the stent rigidity as well as the maximum moment required for bending the stent.

The majority of improvements to LIB technology have come through the development of new novel cathode materials. One promising cathode material is Li2FeSiO4 (LFS), desirable for its low cost and high theoretical capacity. However, the ionic conduction and transport mechanisms within this material are still not well understood, and require further investigation to improve upon cycling rate performance. To this end combined measurements of XRD & XANES have been performed in operando on LFS during electrochemical cycling, i.e. at selected electrochemical states of charge during the formation cycle the crystalline structure and the transition metal oxidation state as well as the site symmetry were characterized via the two aforementioned techniques. These in operando measurements expose once more a charging rate-dependent phase evolution during the formation cycle, which can be well characterized using a simplified equivalent circuit analogue.

The effect of Ta concentration on the fundamental mechanical properties of W–Ta alloys has been studied from first principles study. The lattice constants, the cell volumes, and the formation energies of the W1−x Ta x (x = 0.0625, 0.125, 0.1875, 0.25, 0.3125, 0.5, 0.5625, 0.625, 0.75) alloys were calculated. It is shown that Ta alloying in bcc W lattice is an infinite solid solution and the W0.5Ta0.5 have the lowest formation energy. With the optimized geometry and lattice, the elastic constants are calculated and then the elastic moduli and other mechanical parameters are derived. Results show that although the mechanical strength of the W–Ta alloys is lower than that of pure W metal, it is much higher than that of pure Ta metal. On the other hand, the B/G ratio and the Poisson's ratio of the W–Ta alloys is much higher than that of pure W, and even higher than that of pure Ta, indicating that Ta alloying can improve the ductility of bcc W substantially.

This paper presents three-dimensional (3D) direct numerical simulations (DNS) of flow past a circular cylinder over a range of Reynolds number ($Re$) up to 300. The gradual wake transition process from mode A* (i.e. mode A with large-scale vortex dislocations) to mode B is well captured over a range of $Re$ from 230 to 260. The mode swapping process is investigated in detail with the aid of numerical flow visualization. It is found that the mode B structures in the transition process are developed based on the streamwise vortices of mode A or A* which destabilize the braid shear layer region. For each case within the transition range, the transient mode swapping process consists of dislocation and non-dislocation cycles. With the increase of $Re$, it becomes more difficult to trigger dislocations from the pure mode A structure and form a dislocation cycle, and each dislocation stage becomes shorter in duration, resulting in a continuous decrease in the probability of occurrence of mode A* and a continuous increase in the probability of occurrence of mode B. The occurrence of mode A* results in a relatively strong flow three-dimensionality. A critical condition is confirmed at approximately $Re=265{-}270$, where the weakest flow three-dimensionality is observed, marking a transition from the disappearance of mode A* to the emergence of increasingly disordered mode B structures.

In this article, we discuss the stability of soft quasicrystalline phases in a coupled-mode Swift-Hohenberg model for three-component systems, where the characteristic length scales are governed by the positive-definite gradient terms. Classic two-mode approximation method and direct numerical minimization are applied to the model. In the latter approach, we apply the projection method to deal with the potentially quasiperiodic ground states. A variable cell method of optimizing the shape and size of higher-dimensional periodic cell is developed to minimize the free energy with respect to the order parameters. Based on the developed numerical methods, we rediscover decagonal and dodecagonal quasicrystalline phases, and find diverse periodic phases and complex modulated phases. Furthermore, phase diagrams are obtained in various phase spaces by comparing the free energies of different candidate structures. It does show not only the important roles of system parameters, but also the effect of optimizing computational domain. In particular, the optimization of computational cell allows us to capture the ground states and phase behavior with higher fidelity. We also make some discussions on our results and show the potential of applying our numerical methods to a larger class of mean-field free energy functionals.

In this paper, hierarchical nanostructures of BiOBr/AgBr on electrospun carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were prepared by combination of electrospinning and carbonization. Compared with the smooth surface of CNFs, the rough surface with hierarchical nanostructures of BiOBr/AgBr can be obtained by adding the certain amount of BiOBr/AgBr precursors into the spinning solution. The as-prepared composite CNFs exhibited highly photocatalytic activities for degradation of rhodamine-B and reduction of p-nitrophenol under the visible-light irradiation and at room temperature. Furthermore, the as-prepared composite CNFs showed the favor separation, recovery, and cyclic utilization properties.

The vertebrate assemblage from the Early Cretaceous non-marine Xinlong Formation of the Napai Basin, in the south-western part of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (southern China), is reviewed. The assemblage includes chondrichthyans (at least six species of hybodont sharks including Hybodus, Thaiodus, Heteroptychodus and Acrorhizodus), actinopterygians (Halecomorphi and Ginglymodi), turtles (the adocid Shachemys and the carettochelyid Kizylkumemys), crocodilians (cf. Theriosuchus) and dinosaurs (the sauropods Fusuisaurus and Liubangosaurus, carcharodontosaurid and spinosaurid theropods, iguanodontians and a possible psittacosaurid). This assemblage shows many similarities to those from non-marine formations of the Khorat Group of north-eastern Thailand. It seems to be particularly close to that from the Khok Kruat Formation, considered as Aptian in age, as shown especially by sharks and turtles and by the presence of iguanodontians. An Aptian age is therefore proposed for the Xinlong Formation. A study of the stable oxygen and carbon isotope compositions of reptile apatite suggests that this part of South China experienced subtropical arid conditions during the deposition of the Xinlong Formation. In its composition, the vertebrate fauna from the Xinlong Formation seems to be more similar to coeval faunas from SE Asia than to assemblages from northern China (including the Jehol Biota). Although this may partly reflect different depositional and taphonomic environments (fluvial for the Xinlong Formation versus lacustrine for the Jehol Biota) it seems likely that, during Early Cretaceous time, southern China and SE Asia were part of a distinct zoogeographical province, different from that corresponding to northern China. This may be the result of both climatic differences (with relatively cool climates in northern China versus a subtropical climate in the south) and geographical barriers such as mountain chains.

This study was designed to determine the effect of melatonin on the in vitro maturation (IVM) and developmental potential of bovine oocytes denuded of the cumulus oophorus (DOs). DOs were cultured alone (DOs) or with 10−9 M melatonin (DOs + MT), cumulus–oocyte complexes (COCs) were cultured without melatonin as the control. After IVM, meiosis II (MII) rates of DOs, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, apoptotic rates and parthenogenetic blastocyst rates of MII oocytes were determined. The relative expression of ATP synthase F0 Subunit 6 and 8 (ATP6 and ATP8), bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP-15) and growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF-9) mRNA in MII oocytes and IFN-tau (IFN-τ), Na+/K+-ATPase, catenin-beta like 1 (CTNNBL1) and AQP3 mRNA in parthenogenetic blastocysts were quantified using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The results showed that: (1) melatonin significantly increased the MII rate of DOs (65.67 ± 3.59 % vs. 82.29 ± 3.92%; P < 0.05), decreased the ROS level (4.83 ± 0.42 counts per second (c.p.s) vs. 3.78 ± 0.29 c.p.s; P < 0.05) and apoptotic rate (36.99 ± 3.62 % vs. 21.88 ± 2.08 %; P < 0.05) and moderated the reduction of relative mRNA levels of ATP6, ATP8, BMP-15 and GDF-9 caused by oocyte denudation; (2) melatonin significantly increased the developmental rate (24.17 ± 3.54 % vs. 35.26 ± 4.87%; P < 0.05), and expression levels of IFN-τ, Na+/K+-ATPase, CTNNBL1 and AQP3 mRNA of blastocyst. These results indicated that melatonin significantly improved the IVM quality of DOs, leading to an increased parthenogenetic blastocyst formation rate and quality.

In this study, we analyze the influence of passive joint viscous friction (PJVF) on modal space decoupling for a class of symmetric spatial parallel mechanisms (SSPM). The Jacobian matrix relating the platform movements to each passive joint velocity is first gained by vector analysis and the passive joint damping matrix is then derived by applying the Kane method. Next, an analytic formula index measuring the degree of coupling effects between the damping terms in the modal coordinates is proposed using classical modal analysis of dynamic equations in task space. Based on the index, a new optimal design method is found which establishes the kinematics parameters for minimizing the coupling degree of damping and achieves optimal fault tolerance for modal space decoupling when all struts have identical damping and stiffness coefficients in their axial directions. To illustrate the effectiveness of the theory, the new method was used to redesign two configurations of a specific manipulator.