MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous, non-coding RNAs, which are functional in a variety of biological processes through post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. However, the role of miRNAs in the interaction between Bacillus thuringiensis and insects remains unclear. In this study, small RNA libraries were constructed for B. thuringiensis-infected (Bt) and uninfected (CK) Spodoptera exigua larvae (treated with double-distilled water) using Illumina sequencing. Utilising the miRDeep2 and Randfold, a total of 233 known and 726 novel miRNAs were identified, among which 16 up-regulated and 34 down-regulated differentially expressed (DE) miRNAs were identified compared to the CK. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis revealed that potential target genes of DE miRNAs were associated with ABC transporters, fatty acid metabolism and MAPK signalling pathway which are related to the development, reproduction and immunity. Moreover, two miRNA core genes, SeDicer1 and SeAgo1 were identified. The phylogenetic tree showed that lepidopteran Dicer1 clustered into one branch, with SeDicer1 in the position closest to Spodoptera litura Dicer1. A similar phylogenetic relationship was observed in the Ago1 protein. Expression of SeDicer1 increased at 72 h post infection (hpi) with B. thuringiensis; however, expression of SeDicer1 and SeAgo1 decreased at 96 hpi. The RNAi results showed that the knockdown of SeDicer1 directly caused the down-regulation of miRNAs and promoted the mortality of S. exigua infected by B. thuringiensis GS57. In conclusion, our study is crucial to understand the relationship between miRNAs and various biological processes caused by B. thuringiensis infection, and develop an integrated pest management strategy for S. exigua via miRNAs.

The Righi–Leduc heat flux generated by the self-generated magnetic field in the ablative Rayleigh–Taylor instability driven by a laser irradiating thin targets is studied through two-dimensional extended-magnetohydrodynamic simulations. The perturbation structure gets into a low magnetization state though the peak strength of the self-generated magnetic field could reach hundreds of teslas. The Righi–Leduc effect plays an essential impact both in the linear and nonlinear stages, and it deflects the total heat flux towards the spike base. Compared to the case without the self-generated magnetic field included, less heat flux is concentrated at the spike tip, finally mitigating the ablative stabilization and leading to an increase in the velocity of the spike tip. It is shown that the linear growth rate is increased by about 10% and the amplitude during the nonlinear stage is increased by even more than 10% due to the feedback of the magnetic field, respectively. Our results reveal the importance of Righi–Leduc heat flux to the growth of the instability and promote deep understanding of the instability evolution together with the self-generated magnetic field, especially during the acceleration stage in inertial confinement fusion.

In October 2015, the Chinese Government announced that the one-child policy had finally been replaced by a universal two-child policy. China’s universal two-child policy is highly significant because, for the first time in 36 years, no one in an urban city is restricted to having just one child. This cross-sectional study was conducted to explore future fertility intentions and factors influencing individual reproductive behaviour (whether to have two children) in Dalian City. A total of 1370 respondents were interviewed. The respondents’ mean ideal number of children was only 1.73, and urban respondents’ sex preference was symmetrical. A total of 19.0% of the respondents were unmarried, 64.5% were married and had childbearing experience and only 6.3% of married respondents had two children. Among the 1370 participants, 30.4% stated that they would have a second child, while 69.6% refused to have a second child in the future. Binary logistic regression analysis (Model 1) showed that the following characteristics were associated with having only one child in the future: being female, being older, having a lower education level, being born in Dalian, having a lower family income and reporting one child as the ideal number of children. Model 2 (comprising only respondents with childbearing experience) showed that respondents who were female, had a lower family income and were unable to obtain additional financial support from parents were more likely to intend to stick at one child. In addition, respondents’ ideal number of children and childbearing experiences had a significant influence on future fertility intentions. These results suggest that fertility intentions and reproductive behaviours are still below those needed for replacement level fertility in Dalian City. China’s policymakers should pay more attention to these factors (socioeconomic characteristics, economic factors, desired number of children and childbearing experiences) and try to increase individual reproductive behaviour.

The dependence of fishbone cycle on energetic particle intensity has been investigated in EAST low-magnetic-shear plasmas. It is observed that the fishbone mode growth rate, saturation amplitude as well as fishbone cycle frequency clearly increase with increasing neutral beam injection (NBI) power. Moreover, enhanced electron density and temperature perturbations as well as energetic particle loss were observed with greater injected NBI power. Simulation results using M3D-K code show that as the NBI power increases, the resonant frequency and the energy of the resonant particles become higher, and the saturation amplitude of the mode also changes, due to the non-perturbative energetic particle contribution. The relationship between the calculated energetic particle pressure ratio and fishbone cycle frequency is obtained as ${f_{\textrm{FC}}} = 2.2{(1000{\beta _{\textrm{ep,calc}}} - 0.1)^{5.9 \pm 0.5}}$. Results consistent with the experimental observations have been achieved based on a predator–prey model.

Changes in soil chemistry in response to varying climatic regimes can alter the equilibria of soil systems and result in different clay minerals. Variations in phyllosilicate clay composition can reflect temporal and spatial climatic changes, such as summer/winter monsoon cycles. The objective of this research was to investigate the mineralogy of the clay fractions as a proxy for determining variations in the East Asian monsoon climate, based on a section at Chaoyang in China spanning the last 0.423 Ma BP. The clay mineralogy record in the Chaoyang section was compared with other proxies as recorded in this section and with other palaeoclimatic indicators, including oxygen isotopes from oceanic sediments and loess–palaeosol sections on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). The results from clay mineralogy and related climatic studies show that the summer monsoon has a trend of four increased stages and four decreased stages; whereas the winter monsoon displays the opposite trend. During the last 0.423 Ma BP, the strongest winter monsoon occurred around 0.243–0.311 Ma BP. During this period, which included an intense winter monsoon, the soil in the section had the least illite, one of the smallest kaolinite and illite/Chlorite (I/C) indices and an overall decreasing clay content. The period 0.225–0.243 Ma BP had the strongest summer monsoon over the last 0.423 Ma BP. This period had the greatest amount of illite, the highest I/C index, greater overall clay content and the strongest magnetic susceptibility signal. Additionally, this section contained the smallest mean grain size. The multi-monsoon climate cycles of alternating cold-dry and warm-moist conditions as recorded in the Chaoyang section corresponded well with multiple glaciation cycles based on deep sea sediments. This indicates that the Chaoyang section provides a record of palaeoclimate changes in northeast China that can be linked to mineralogical suites to assist in reconstructing the palaeoclimate over the Late Middle Pleistocene, and complements the global palaeoclimate records in the CLP.

In this paper, we present a surface reconstruction via 2D strokes and a vector field on the strokes based on a two-step method. In the first step, from sparse strokes drawn by artists and a given vector field on the strokes, we propose a nonlinear vector interpolation combining total variation (TV) and H1 regularization with a curl-free constraint for obtaining a dense vector field. In the second step, a height map is obtained by integrating the dense vector field in the first step. Jump discontinuities in surface and discontinuities of surface gradients can be well reconstructed without any surface distortion. We also provide a fast and efficient algorithm for solving the proposed functionals. Since vectors on the strokes are interpreted as a projection of surface gradients onto the plane, different types of strokes are easily devised to generate geometrically crucial structures such as ridge, valley, jump, bump, and dip on the surface. The stroke types help users to create a surface which they intuitively imagine from 2D strokes. We compare our results with conventional methods via many examples.

In this paper, the ion jet generation from the interaction of an ultraintense laser pulse and a rear-side concave target is investigated analytically using a simple fluid model. We find that the ion expanding surface at the rear-side is distorted due to a strong charge-separation field, and that this distortion becomes dramatic with a singular cusp shown on the central axis at a critical time. The variation of the transverse ion velocity and the relative ion density diverge on the cusp, signaling the emergence of an on-axis ion jet. We have obtained analytical expressions for the critical time and the maximum velocity of the ion jet, and suggested an optimum shape for generating a collimated energetic ion jet. The above theoretical analysis has been verified by particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical simulations.

Timing of seed germination influences plant lifetime fitness and can affect the ability of plant populations to colonize and persist in changing environments. However, the genetic variation of the seed germination response remains poorly understood. The amplified restriction fragment polymorphism (AFLP) technique was applied to characterize the genetic variation of germinated seeds collected from three Festuca hallii populations in the Canadian prairie. Three subpopulations with early, intermediate and late germination were identified from each population, based on germination tests at 10, 15 and 20°C in controlled growth chambers. Three AFLP primer pairs were employed to screen a total of 540 assayed seedling samples and 188 polymorphic AFLP bands were scored for each sample. None of the assayed AFLP bands were significantly associated with seed germination, but marked differences in estimates of mean band frequency were observed for various groups of germinating seeds under different test temperatures. Partitioning of the total AFLP variation showed that 5.9% AFLP variation was present among seeds of the three populations, 0.3% among seeds of three germination subpopulations, and 0.5% among seeds grouped for germination temperature. Genetic differentiation was significant among 27 groups of seeds representing population, germination timing and test temperature. Subpopulations with early and intermediate germination shared similar genetic backgrounds and were genetically differentiated from the late germination subpopulation. These results indicate that seed genotypes respond slightly differently to environmental variation, resulting in significant but weak genetic differentiation in the germination of F. hallii seeds. Implications for plant establishment and fescue restoration are discussed.

The effects of melt overheating treatment on solidification of Pb-Bi alloys were studied from the viewpoint of liquid-liquid structure change (LLSC). Anomalous temperature dependence of internal friction, electrical resistivity, and entropy of liquid Pb-Bi alloys suggested that discontinuous LLSC occurred within about 520–740 °C, based on which the solidification experiments were carried out with different states of Pb-Bi melts. The results revealed that the LLSC affected the solidification behavior and microstructures significantly, that is, the enlarged undercooling, increased nucleation rate, and refined and improved morphologies were brought about when solidifying from the melt experienced LLSC. It is assumed that the LLSC changed the energy constitution of the melt system, and further affected the effective partition coefficient, thermodynamics, and kinetics of crystal growth, then finally altered the solidification behavior and solidified microstructures. This work brings a novel insight into the effect of melt overheating treatment on solidification, by which it could be more effective to manipulate melts.

The effects of alternating temperatures on seed dormancy changes, germination and seedling emergence were investigated in ‘Arctic’ and ‘Lineta’ orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.). Thermal time models were successfully developed for 0, 5, 10 and 15°C temperature amplitudes, using 28 constant and alternating temperature regimes. These models were then modified by linking seed germination in Petri dishes and seedling emergence in soil. A field experiment was conducted with four seeding dates over 2 years to validate the modified thermal time models. Temperature regimes with a 5–15°C amplitude enhanced seed germination percentages of orchardgrass, indicating that the conditional dormancy was released by these temperature regimes. Base temperatures decreased with increasing temperature amplitude. Seeds germinated more rapidly under alternating temperatures than under constant temperatures. The dual effects of temperature for dormancy breaking and germination were accounted for by thermal time models based on alternating temperature regimes, which accurately predicted the timing and percentage of ‘Arctic’ and ‘Lineta’ orchardgrass seedlings emerging in the field (R2≥0.88).

Eleven isolates within four species of the entomogenous fungus Aschersonia from China, the USA, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Columbia were characterized using 17 RAPD primers. Genetic diversity among these strains of Aschersonia was found. The clustering results showed that the genetic variability among interspecies was more than that among intraspecies of Aschersonia. In the constructed phylogenetic tree, these isolates were not clustered according to their geographic origins or hosts. Furthermore, sequences of the divergent domain at the 5′-end of the large subunit (LSU) in nuclear rRNA from the mitosporic entomogenous fungi were employed to analyse the phylogenetic relationships of 11 Aschersonia isolates. The relationships of interspecies or intraspecies shown in the phylogenetic tree were almost consistent with the results of the morphological study. Different species isolated from different geographic origins could be clearly distinguished in the tree. But there were no close relationships among species isolated from the same family or order of insect hosts. The tree indicated that isolate Aa, belonging to A. aleyrodis, was the same as Aa992 and Aa3.4485. Moreover, results of RAPD analyses were consistent with those of LSU nuclear rDNA analysis for the same isolates tested, which consequently indicates that both methods can be independently applied for classification and identification of Aschersonia.

A simple pulse sonoelectrochemical technique was used to synthesize highly dispersed spherical palladium particles and a dendritic Pd superstructure in the presence of cethyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) at room temperature. The shape and size of spherical nanocrystalline Pd can be controlled by varying current density, the interval between two continuous ultrasonic pulses, ultrasonic intensity, and the concentration of CTAB. The possible growth mechanism of dendritic-structured Pd is discussed.