The whitefly, Bemisia tabaci is a cryptic species complex in which one member, Middle East-Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) has invaded globally. After invading large countries like Australia, China, and the USA, MEAM1 spread rapidly across each country. In contrast, our analysis of MEAM1 in India showed a very different pattern. Despite the detection of MEAM1 being contemporaneous with invasions in Australia, the USA, and China, MEAM1 has not spread widely and instead remains restricted to the southern regions. An assessment of Indian MEAM1 genetic diversity showed a level of diversity equivalent to that found in its presumed home range and significantly higher than that expected across the invaded range. The high level of diversity and restricted distribution raises the prospect that its home range extends into India. Similarly, while the levels of diversity in Australia and the USA conformed to that expected for the invaded range, China did not. It suggests that China may also be part of its home range. We also observed that diversity across the invaded range was primarily accounted for by a single haplotype, Hap1, which accounted for 79.8% of all records. It was only the invasion of Hap1 that enabled outbreaks to occur and MEAM1’s discovery.

The Eastern population of the Lesser White-fronted Goose (EPLWFG) Anser erythropus is shared between Russia and China. The summer range of the EPLWFG has been recognised as a continuous area extending from the Olenyok River in the west to the Anadyr River in the east and northwards from 64°N. The aim of this study was to provide information on breeding behaviour; nest-sites, nesting habitats, and time of nesting; nesting success; timing of summer movements including moult migration; moult timing, duration, and moulting habitats; site fidelity; and the effect of human presence. To accomplish this, we combined the results from field surveys with GPS/GSM tracking. A total of 30 summer tracks from 19 individual EPLWFG were analysed. We estimated breeding propensity in 93.8% of adult LWFG, and this factor did not seem to depend on breeding success in the previous season. Reproductive success was 13.3% in all nesting attempts. Non-breeders arrived three-week later and departed a week earlier. The EPLWFG are highly mobile during the summer. The core moulting site for the entire EPLWFG was discovered by this study and is located along the lower reaches of the San-Yuryakh and Kyuanekhtyakh rivers flowing towards the Omulyakhskaya Bay of the East Siberian Sea. The EPLWFG flightless period was 24.8 ± 2.8 days. A part of failured EPLWFG (43.7 %) migrated back to its early summer breeding/staging site after having completed moult. The strong site fidelity (100%) of adult birds to both nesting and moulting sites promotes the formation of local breeding populations, which could be considered conservation units if genetic studies support this differentiation. The EPLWFG selects the remotest and least human-accessible area for their remigial moult, and the main site was discovered with the help of tracking.

We report on an experimental study of turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection with asymmetric top and bottom plates. The plates are covered with pyramid-shaped roughness elements whose aspect ratios are $\lambda =1$ or $\lambda =4$. In the low-Rayleigh-number regime ($Ra<1.9\times 10^9$), the heat transport efficiencies in the asymmetric cells, characterized by the Nusselt number, are smaller than those measured in a symmetric $\lambda = 1$ cell and are greater than those for a symmetric $\lambda = 4$ cell, whereas in the high-Rayleigh-number regime ($Ra>1.9\times 10^9$), the Nusselt numbers of the asymmetric cells are, in turn, greater than those for the symmetric cell with $\lambda = 1$ and smaller than those for the symmetric cell with $\lambda = 4$. In addition, the heat transports of individual plates are studied based on the temperature drops across both halves of the cell. In the low-$Ra$ regime, the $\lambda =1$ plate shows higher heat transfer than the $\lambda =4$ plate, while for the high-$Ra$ regime, the $\lambda =4$ plate shows a higher heat transport ability. In both regimes, the individual Nusselt number of the plate with lower heat transfer is insensitive to the topology of the other plate. Besides, it is found that the symmetry of the centre temperature distribution is robust to the symmetry breaking of boundary topographies. For the $Ra$ range explored, a weak temperature inversion is observed in the bulk of asymmetric rough cells. Finally, we remark that the temperature fluctuation at the cell centre and the Reynolds number associated with the large-scale circulation show universal power laws in terms of the flux Rayleigh number as $\sigma _{T_{c}}\sim Ra_F^{0.68}$ and $Re_{LSC}\sim Ra_F^{0.36}$, respectively.

Depression is highly prevalent in haemodialysis patients, and diet might play an important role. Therefore, we conducted this cross-sectional study to determine the association between dietary fatty acids (FA) consumption and the prevalence of depression in maintenance haemodialysis (MHD) patients. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated FFQ between December 2021 and January 2022. The daily intake of dietary FA was categorised into three groups, and the lowest tertile was used as the reference category. Depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Logistic regression and restricted cubic spline (RCS) models were applied to assess the relationship between dietary FA intake and the prevalence of depression. As a result, after adjustment for potential confounders, a higher intake of total FA [odds ratio (OR)T3 vs. T1 = 1·59, 95 % confidence interval (CI) = 1·04, 2·46] and saturated fatty acids (SFA) (ORT3 vs. T1 = 1·83, 95 % CI = 1·19, 2·84) was associated with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms. Significant positive linear trends were also observed (P < 0·05) except for SFA intake. Similarly, the prevalence of depression in MHD patients increased by 20% (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.01–1.43) for each standard deviation increment in SFA intake. RCS analysis indicated an inverse U-shaped correlation between SFA and depression (Pnonlinear > 0·05). Additionally, the sensitivity analysis produced similar results. Furthermore, no statistically significant association was observed in the subgroup analysis with significant interaction. In conclusion, higher total dietary FA and SFA were positively associated with depressive symptoms among MHD patients. These findings inform future research exploring potential mechanism underlying the association between dietary FA and depressive symptoms in MHD patients.

We present a systematic study on the effects of small aspect ratios $\varGamma$ on heat transport in liquid metal convection with a Prandtl number of $Pr=0.029$. The study covers $1/20\le \varGamma \le 1$ experimentally and $1/50\le \varGamma \le 1$ numerically, and a Rayleigh number $Ra$ range of $4\times 10^3 \le Ra \le 7\times 10^{9}$. It is found experimentally that the local effective heat transport scaling exponent $\gamma$ changes with both $Ra$ and $\varGamma$, attaining a $\varGamma$-dependent maximum value before transition-to-turbulence and approaches $\gamma =0.25$ in the turbulence state as $Ra$ increases. Just above the onset of convection, Shishkina (Phys. Rev. Fluids, vol 6, 2021, 090502) derived a length scale $\ell =H/(1+1.49\varGamma ^{-2})^{1/3}$. Our numerical study shows $Ra_{\ell }$, i.e. $Ra$ based on $\ell$, serves as a proper control parameter for heat transport above the onset with $Nu-1=0.018(1+0.34/\varGamma ^2)(Ra/Ra_{c,\varGamma }-1)$. Here $Ra_{c,\varGamma }$ represents the $\varGamma$-dependent critical $Ra$ for the onset of convection and $Nu$ is the Nusselt number. In the turbulent state, for a general scaling law of $Nu-1\sim Ra^\alpha$, we propose a length scale $\ell = H/(1+1.49\varGamma ^{-2})^{1/[3(1-\alpha )]}$. In the case of turbulent liquid metal convection with $\alpha =1/4$, our measurement shows that the heat transport will become weakly dependent on $\varGamma$ with $Ra_{\ell }\equiv Ra/(1+1.49\varGamma ^{-2})^{4/3} \ge 7\times 10^5$. Finally, once the flow becomes time-dependent, the growth rate of $Nu$ with $Ra$ declines compared with the linear growth rate in the convection state. A hysteresis is observed in a $\varGamma =1/3$ cell when the flow becomes time-dependent. Measurements of the large-scale circulation suggest the hysteresis is caused by the system switching from a single-roll-mode to a double-roll-mode in an oscillation state.

We report a home-built velocity-gradient-tensor-resolved particle image velocimetry (VGTR-PIV) system which spatio-temporally resolves all components of the velocity gradient tensor. This technique is applied to the paradigmatic turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection system in a cylindrical cell at three representative positions, i.e. centre, side and bottom regions. The VGTR-PIV system allows us to directly measure, for the first time, the spatio-temporally resolved energy dissipation rate and enstrophy in turbulent thermal convection. In the experiment, the Rayleigh number $Ra$ varied in the range $2 \times 10^8 \leqslant Ra \leqslant 8 \times 10^9$ and the Prandtl number $Pr$ was fixed at $Pr = 4.34$. Compared with the fully resolved energy dissipation rate $\varepsilon$, the pseudo-dissipation provides the best estimate within $3\,\%$, the planar (two-dimensional) surrogate has a larger relative error and the one-dimensional surrogate leads to the largest error. The power-law scalings of the time-averaged energy dissipation rate with the Rayleigh number follow $\langle \varepsilon _c \rangle _t / (\nu ^3 H^{-4}) = 9.86 \times 10^{-6} Ra^{1.54 \pm 0.02}$, $\langle \varepsilon _s \rangle _t / (\nu ^3 H^{-4}) = 9.26 \times 10^{-3} Ra^{1.25 \pm 0.02}$ and $\langle \varepsilon _b \rangle _t / (\nu ^3 H^{-4}) = 2.70 \times 10^{-2} Ra^{1.23 \pm 0.02}$ in the centre, side and bottom regions, respectively where $\nu$ is dynamic viscosity and $H$ is cell height. These scaling relations, along with our earlier measured time-averaged energy dissipation rate at the bottom wall surface $\langle \varepsilon _w \rangle _t / (\nu ^3 H^{-4}) = 9.65 \times 10^{-2} Ra^{1.25 \pm 0.02}$ (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 947, 2022, A15), provide important constraints against which theoretical models may be tested. For the centre and side locations in the convection cell, the probability density functions (p.d.f.s) of the energy dissipation rate and enstrophy both follow a stretched exponential distribution. For the bottom region, the p.d.f.s of dissipation and enstrophy exhibit a stretched exponential distribution outside the viscous boundary layer and an exponential distribution inside the viscous boundary layer. It is also found that extreme events with high dissipation are the most intermittent in the side region, whereas the bottom region is less intermittent than the cell centre.

The passive film of reinforcing steel in marine concrete is damaged by the infiltration of chloride and sulfate ions. Layered double hydroxide (LDH) can adsorb anions and release interlayer ions to form passive films due to its ion exchange property. A Mg-Al-NO3 layered double hydroxide/montmorillonite (LDH/Mnt) composite inhibitor was prepared by layer-by-layer self-assembly (LBL) of LDH and Mnt. The structure and morphology of the LDH/Mnt composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), laser Raman spectroscopy, N2-adsorption/desorption measurements, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The LDH/Mnt composites, as inhibitors of chloride ions and sulfate ions, exhibited high slow-release efficiency. The mass ratio of LDH and Mnt affected the curing capacity of the synthesized composites, and the optimum mass ratio was LDH/Mnt = 1:1 for which slow-release efficiency reached 94.16%.

This study aimed to investigate the structural and metabolic changes in cumulus cells of underweight women and their effects on oocyte maturation and fertilization. The cytoplasmic ultrastructure was analyzed by electron microscopy, mitochondrial membrane potential by immunofluorescence, and mitochondrial DNA copy number by relative quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The expression of various proteins including the oxidative stress-derived product 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE) and autophagy and apoptosis markers such as Vps34, Atg-5, Beclin 1, Lc3-I, II, Bax, and Bcl-2 was assessed and compared between groups. Oocyte maturation and fertilization rates were lower in underweight women (P < 0.05), who presented with cumulus cells showing abnormal mitochondrial morphology and increased cell autophagy. Compared with the mitochondrial DNA copies of the control group, those of the underweight group increased but not significantly. The mitochondrial membrane potential was similar between the groups (P = 0.8). Vps34, Atg-5, Lc3-II, Bax, and Bcl-2 expression and 4-HNE levels were higher in the underweight group compared with the control group (P < 0.01); however, the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio was lower in the underweight group compared with the control group (P = 0.031). Additionally, Beclin 1 protein levels were higher in the underweight group compared with the control group but without statistical significance. In conclusion, malnutrition and other conditions in underweight women may adversely affect ovulation, and the development, and fertilization of oocytes resulting from changes to the intracellular structure of cumulus cells and metabolic processes. These changes may lead to reduced fertility or unsatisfactory reproduction outcomes in women.

We report an experimental and numerical study on Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a slender rectangular geometry with the aspect ratio $\varGamma$ varying from 0.05 to 0.3 and a Rayleigh number range of $10^5\leqslant Ra\leqslant 3\times 10^9$. The Prandtl number is fixed at $Pr=4.38$. It is found that the onset of convection is postponed when the convection domain approaches the quasi-one-dimensional limit. The onset Rayleigh number shows a $Ra_c=328\varGamma ^{-4.18}$ scaling for the experiment and a $Ra_c=810\varGamma ^{-3.95}$ scaling for the simulation, both consistent with a theoretical prediction of $Ra_c\sim \varGamma ^{-4}$. Moreover, the effective Nusselt–Rayleigh scaling exponent $\beta =\partial (\log Nu)/\partial (\log Ra)$ near the onset of convection also shows a rapid increase with decreasing $\varGamma$. Power-law fits to the experimental and numerical data yield $\beta =0.290\varGamma ^{-0.90}$ and $\beta =0.564\varGamma ^{-0.92}$, respectively. Near onset, the flow shows a stretched cell structure. In this regime, the velocity and temperature variations in a horizontal cross-section are found to be almost invariant with height in the core region of a slender domain. As the Rayleigh number increases, the system evolves from the viscous dominant regime to a plume-controlled one, a feature of which is enhancement in the heat transport efficiency. Upon further increase of $Ra$, the flow comes back to the classical boundary-layer-controlled regime, in which the quasi-one-dimensional geometry has no apparent effect on the global heat transfer.

We present an experimental study of Rayleigh–Bénard convection using liquid metal alloy gallium-indium-tin as the working fluid with a Prandtl number of $Pr=0.029$. The flow state and the heat transport were measured in a Rayleigh number range of $1.2\times 10^{4} \le Ra \le 1.3\times 10^{7}$. The temperature fluctuation at the cell centre is used as a proxy for the flow state. It is found that, as $Ra$ increases from the lower end of the parameter range, the flow evolves from a convection state to an oscillation state, a chaotic state and finally a turbulent state for $Ra>10^5$. The study suggests that the large-scale circulation in the turbulent state is a residual of the cell structure near the onset of convection, which is in contrast with the case of $Pr\sim 1$, where the cell structure is transiently replaced by high order flow modes before the emergence of the large-scale circulation in the turbulent state. The evolution of the flow state is also reflected by the heat transport characterised by the Nusselt number $Nu$ and the probability density function (p.d.f.) of the temperature fluctuation at the cell centre. It is found that the effective local heat transport scaling exponent $\gamma$, i.e. $Nu\sim Ra^{\gamma }$, changes continuously from $\gamma =0.49$ at $Ra\sim 10^4$ to $\gamma =0.25$ for $Ra>10^6$. Meanwhile, the p.d.f. at the cell centre gradually evolves from a Gaussian-like shape before the transition to turbulence to an exponential-like shape in the turbulent state. For $Ra>10^6$, the flow shows self-similar behaviour, which is revealed by the universal shape of the p.d.f. of the temperature fluctuation at the cell centre and a $Nu=0.19Ra^{0.25}$ scaling for the heat transport.

It has been suggested that added sugar intake is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, previous studies only focused on sugar-sweetened beverages; the evidence for associations with total added sugars and their sources is scarce. This study aimed to examine the associations of total added sugars, their physical forms (liquid v. solid) and food sources with risk of NAFLD among adults in Tianjin, China. We used data from 15 538 participants, free of NAFLD, other liver diseases, CVD, cancer or diabetes at baseline (2013–2018 years). Added sugar intake was estimated from a validated 100-item FFQ. NAFLD was diagnosed by ultrasonography after exclusion of other causes of liver diseases. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and corresponding 95 % CI for NAFLD risk with added sugar intake. During a median follow-up of 4·2 years, 3476 incident NAFLD cases were documented. After adjusting for age, sex, BMI and its change from baseline to follow-up, lifestyle factors, personal and family medical history and overall diet quality, the multivariable HR of NAFLD risk were 1·18 (95 % CI 1·06, 1·32) for total added sugars, 1·20 (95 % CI 1·08, 1·33) for liquid added sugars and 0·96 (95 % CI 0·86, 1·07) for solid added sugars when comparing the highest quartiles of intake with the lowest quartiles of intake. In this prospective cohort of Chinese adults, higher intakes of total added sugars and liquid added sugars, but not solid added sugars, were associated with a higher risk of NAFLD.

We report an experimental study of the viscous boundary layer (BL) properties of turbulent Rayleigh–Bénard convection in a cylindrical cell. The velocity profile with all three components was measured from the centre of the bottom plate by an integrated home-made particle image velocimetry system. The Rayleigh number $Ra$ varied in the range $1.82 \times 10^8 \le Ra \le 5.26 \times 10^9$ and the Prandtl number $Pr$ was fixed at $Pr = 4.34$. The probability density function of the wall-shear stress indicates that using the velocity component in the mean large-scale circulation (LSC) plane alone may not be sufficient to characterise the viscous BL. Based on a dynamic wall-shear frame, we propose a method to reconstruct the measured full velocity profile which eliminates the effects of complex dynamics of the LSC. Various BL properties including the eddy viscosity are then obtained and analysed. It is found that, in the dynamic wall-shear frame, the eddy viscosity profiles along the centre line of the convection cell at different $Ra$ all collapse on a single master curve described by $\nu _t^d / \nu = 0.81 (z / \delta _u^d) ^{3.10 \pm 0.05}$. The Rayleigh number dependencies of several BL quantities are also determined in the dynamic frame, including the BL thickness $\delta _u^d$ (${\sim } Ra^{-0.21}$), the Reynolds number $Re^d$ (${\sim }Ra^{-0.46}$) and the shear Reynolds number $Re_s^d$ (${\sim } Ra^{0.24}$). Within the experimental uncertainty, these scaling exponents are the same as those obtained in the static laboratory frame. Finally, with the measured full velocity profile, we obtain the energy dissipation rate at the centre of the bottom plate $\varepsilon _{w}$, which is found to follow $\langle \varepsilon _{w} \rangle _t \sim Ra^{1.25}$.

We present an experimental and numerical study of turbulent thermal convection in the presence of an effective horizontal buoyancy that generates extra shear at the boundary. Geometrical confinements are also applied by varying the streamwise and spanwise aspect ratios of the convection cell to condense the plumes. With these, we systematically explore the effects of plume and shear on heat transfer. It is found that a streamwise confinement results in increased plume coverage but decreased shear compared with spanwise confinement. The fact that streamwise confinement leads to a higher vertical heat transfer efficiency than the spanwise confined case suggests that the increase of plume coverage is the dominant effect responsible for the enhanced heat transfer. Our results highlight the potential applications of coherent structure manipulation in efficient passive heat transfer control and thermal engineering. We also analyse the energetics of the present system and derive the expression of mixing efficiency accordingly. The mixing efficiency is found to increase with both the buoyancy ratio and streamwise dimension.

Athetis lepigone Möschler (Lepidoptera, Noctuidae) is a common maize pest in Europe and Asia. However, there is no long-term effective management strategy is available yet to suppress its population. Adults rely heavily on olfactory cues to locate their optimal host plants and oviposition sites. Pheromone-binding proteins (PBPs) are believed to be responsible for recognizing and transporting different odorant molecules to interact with receptor membrane proteins. In this study, the ligand-binding specificities of two AlepPBPs (AlepPBP2 and AlepPBP3) for sex pheromone components and host plant (maize) volatiles were measured by fluorescence ligand-binding assay. The results demonstrated that AlepPBP2 had a high affinity with two pheromones [(Z)-7-dodecenyl acetate, Ki = 1.11 ± 0.1 μM, (Z)-9-tetradecenyl acetate, Ki = 1.32 ± 0.15 μM] and ten plant volatiles, including (-)-limonene, α-pinene, myrcene, linalool, benzaldehyde, nonanal, 2-hexanone, 3-hexanone, 2-heptanone and 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one. In contrast, we found that none of these chemicals could bind to AlepPBP3. Our results clearly show no significant differences in the functional characterization of the binding properties between AlepPBP2 and AlepPBP3 to sex pheromones and host plant volatiles. Furthermore, molecular docking was employed for further detail on some crucial amino acid residues involved in the ligand-binding of AlepPBP2. These findings will provide valuable information about the potential protein binding sites necessary for protein-ligand interactions which appear as attractive targets for the development of novel technologies and management strategies for insect pests.

We prove a relative Lefschetz–Verdier theorem for locally acyclic objects over a Noetherian base scheme. This is done by studying duals and traces in the symmetric monoidal $2$ -category of cohomological correspondences. We show that local acyclicity is equivalent to dualisability and deduce that duality preserves local acyclicity. As another application of the category of cohomological correspondences, we show that the nearby cycle functor over a Henselian valuation ring preserves duals, generalising a theorem of Gabber.

Primitive lamprophyres in orogenic belts can provide crucial insights into the nature of the subcontinental lithosphere and the relevant deep crust–mantle interactions. This paper reports a suite of relatively primitive lamprophyre dykes from the North Qiangtang, central Tibetan Plateau. Zircon U–Pb ages of the lamprophyre dykes range from 214 Ma to 218 Ma, with a weighted mean age of 216 ± 1 Ma. Most of the lamprophyre samples are similar in geochemical compositions to typical primitive magmas (e.g. high MgO contents, Mg no. values and Cr, with low FeOt/MgO ratios), although they might have experienced a slightly low degree of olivine crystallization, and they show arc-like trace-element patterns and enriched Sr–Nd isotopic composition ((87Sr/86Sr)i = 0.70538–0.70540, ϵNd(t) = −2.96 to −1.65). Those geochemical and isotopic variations indicate that the lamprophyre dykes originated from partial melting of a phlogopite- and spinel-bearing peridotite mantle modified by subduction-related aqueous fluids. Combining with the other regional studies, we propose that slab subduction might have occurred during Late Triassic time, and the rollback of the oceanic lithosphere induced the lamprophyre magmatism in the central Tibetan Plateau.

High dietary fibre intake has been associated with a lower risk of diabetes, but the association of dietary fibre with prediabetes is only speculative, especially in China, where the supportive data from prospective studies are lacking. This study aimed to examine the association between dietary fibre intake and risk of incident prediabetes among Chinese adults. We performed a prospective analysis in 18 085 participants of the Tianjin Chronic Low-grade Systemic Inflammation and Health cohort study who were free of diabetes, prediabetes, cancer and CVD at baseline. Dietary data were collected using a validated 100-item FFQ. Prediabetes was defined based on the American Diabetes Association diagnostic criteria. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95 % CI. During 63 175 person-years of follow-up, 4139 cases of incident prediabetes occurred. The multivariable HR of prediabetes for the highest v. lowest quartiles were 0·85 (95 % CI 0·75, 0·98) (P for trend = 0·02) for total dietary fibre, 0·84 (95 % CI 0·74, 0·95) (P for trend < 0·01) for soluble fibre and 1·05 (95 % CI 0·93, 1·19) (P for trend = 0·38) for insoluble fibre. Fibre from fruits but not from cereals, beans and vegetables was inversely associated with prediabetes. Our results indicate that intakes of total dietary fibre, soluble fibre and fibre derived from fruit sources were associated with a lower risk of prediabetes.