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.

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal female reproductive system tumour. Despite the great advances in surgery and systemic chemotherapy over the past two decades, almost all patients in stages III and IV relapse and develop resistance to chemotherapy after first-line treatment. Ovarian cancer has an extraordinarily complex immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment in which immune checkpoints negatively regulate T cells activation and weaken antitumour immune responses by delivering immunosuppressive signals. Therefore, inhibition of immune checkpoints can break down the state of immunosuppression. Indeed, Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionised the therapeutic landscape of many solid tumours. However, ICIs have yielded modest benefits in ovarian cancer. Therefore, a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanistic basis of the immune checkpoints is needed to improve the efficacy of ICIs in ovarian cancer. In this review, we systematically introduce the mechanisms and expression of immune checkpoints in ovarian cancer. Moreover, this review summarises recent updates regarding ICI monotherapy or combined with other small-molecule-targeted agents in ovarian cancer.

Corporate bond returns exhibit predictability in a manner consistent with efficient pricing. Many equity characteristics, such as accruals, standardized unexpected earnings, and idiosyncratic volatility, do not impact bond returns. Profitability and asset growth are negatively related to corporate bond returns. Because firms that are profitable or have high asset growth (and hence more collateral) should be less risky, with lower required returns, the evidence accords with the risk–reward paradigm. Past equity returns are positively related to bond returns, indicating that equities lead bonds. Cross-sectional bond return predictors generally do not provide materially high Sharpe ratios after accounting for trading costs.

The Yellow Sea region is of high global importance for waterbird populations, but recent systematic bird count data enabling identification of the most important sites are relatively sparse for some areas. Surveys of waterbirds at three sites on the coast of southern Jiangsu Province, China, in 2014 and 2015 produced peak counts of international importance for 24 species, including seven globally threatened and six Near Threatened species. The area is of particular global importance for the ‘Critically Endangered’ Spoon-billed Sandpiper Calidris pygmaea (peak count across all three study sites: 62 in spring [2015] and 225 in autumn [2014] and ‘Endangered’ Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer (peak count across all three study sites: 210 in spring [2014] and 1,110 in autumn [2015]). The southern Jiangsu coast is therefore currently the most important migratory stopover area in the world, in both spring and autumn, for both species. Several serious and acute threats to waterbirds were recorded at these study sites. Paramount is the threat of large-scale land claim which would completely destroy intertidal mudflats of critical importance to waterbirds. Degradation of intertidal mudflat habitats through the spread of invasive Spartina, and mortality of waterbirds by entrapment in nets or deliberate poisoning are also real and present serious threats here. Collisions with, and displacement by, wind turbines and other structures, and industrial chemical pollution may represent additional potential threats. We recommend the rapid establishment of effective protected areas for waterbirds in the study area, maintaining large areas of open intertidal mudflat, and the urgent removal of all serious threats currently faced by waterbirds here.

The transverse navigation system has been designed and developed to solve the challenges of navigation in polar regions. However, considerable theoretical errors are introduced into the system when the spherical Earth model is adopted. To tackle this problem, a transverse navigation mechanism under the ellipsoidal Earth model has been proposed in this research and the application regions of the proposed algorithm are specified and evaluated through error analysis. The analysis shows the presented transverse navigation system works in both polar and part of the non-polar regions. Field tests were conducted to evaluate the navigation performance in Nanjing, a non-polar region. A novel experimental method, where the field test data in mid-latitude areas was used to simulate the real Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data and the reference information in polar regions, was adopted to investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm in polar areas. The results show: that in the mid-latitude areas, the presented transverse navigation system achieves the same accuracy as the traditional inertial navigation system and that in polar regions, the proposed transverse mechanism outperforms the traditional method with a much lower error in longitude and yaw.

Gradual fault detection is always an important issue in integrated navigation systems, and the gradual fault is the most difficult fault to detect. To detect gradual faults in a timely and precise manner in integrated navigation systems, the statistical concepts of the normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residuals are introduced according to the characteristics of gradual system failure in this paper. The applicability of the improved residual χ2 detection method is discussed. Then, the gradual fault detection program based on the improved residual χ2 detection method is designed with the criterion of normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residual. The simulation results and vehicle tests show that: 1) The residual of the failed sub-system can be calculated accurately with the improved residual χ2 detection method, which has strong applicability in gradual fault detection; 2) The gradual fault can be detected in a short time by using the normalised residual mean and the sum of absolute residual.

ING2 (inhibitor of growth protein-2) is a member of the ING-gene family and participates in diverse cellular processes involving tumor suppression, DNA repair, cell cycle regulation, and cellular senescence. As a subunit of the Sin3 histone deacetylase complex co-repressor complex, ING2 binds to H3K4me3 to regulate chromatin modification and gene expression. Additionally, ING2 recruits histone methyltransferase (HMT) activity for gene repression, which is independent of the HDAC class I or II pathway. However, the physiological function of ING2 in mouse preimplantation embryo development has not yet been characterized previously. The expression, localization and function of ING2 during preimplantation development were investigated in this study. We showed increasing expression of ING2 within the nucleus from the 4-cell embryo stage onwards; and that down-regulation of ING2 expression by endoribonuclease-prepared small interfering RNA (esiRNA) microinjection results in developmental arrest during the morula to blastocyst transition. Embryonic cells microinjected with ING2-specific esiRNA exhibited decreased blastulation rate compared to the negative control. Further investigation of the underlying mechanism indicated that down-regulation of ING2 significantly increased expression of p21, whilst decreasing expression of HDAC1. These results suggest that ING2 may play a crucial role in the process of preimplantation embryo development through chromatin regulation.

It is well known that c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) plays pivotal roles in various mitotic events, but its function in mammalian oocyte meiosis remains unknown. In this study, we found that no specific JNK2 signal was detected in germinal vesicle stage. JNK2 was associated with the spindles especially the spindle poles and cytoplasmic microtubule organizing centers at prometaphase I, metaphase I, and metaphase II stages. JNK2 became diffusely distributed and associated with the midbody at telophase I stage. Injection of myc-tagged JNK2α1 mRNA into oocytes also revealed its localization on spindle poles. The association of JNK2 with spindle poles was further confirmed by colocalization with the centrosomal proteins, γ-tubulin and Plk1. Nocodazole treatment showed that JNK2 may interact with Plk1 to regulate the spindle assembly. Then we investigated the possible function of JNK2 by JNK2 antibody microinjection and JNK specific inhibitor SP600125 treatment. These two manipulations caused abnormal spindle formation and decreased the rate of first polar body (PB1) extrusion. In addition, inhibition of JNK2 resulted in impaired localization of Plk1. Taken together, our results suggest that JNK2 plays an important role in spindle assembly and PB1 extrusion during mouse oocyte meiotic maturation.

Semi-dwarfism is an important agronomic trait in rice breeding programmes. sd-1, termed the ‘Green Revolution gene’, confers semi-dwarf stature, increases harvest index, improves lodging resistance, and is associated with increased responsiveness to nitrogen fertilizer. It has contributed substantially to the significant increase in rice production. In this paper, a novel semi-dwarf mutant in rice is reported. Genetic analysis revealed that only a single dominant gene locus non-allelic to sd-1, temporarily designated Sdt97, is involved in the control of semi-dwarfism of the mutant. The semi-dwarfism of the mutant could be partly restored to the tall wild-type by application of exogenous GA3, suggesting that the mutant gene Sdt97 may be involved in the gibberellin (GA) synthesis pathway and not the GA response pathway in rice. A residual heterozygous line (RHL) population derived from a recombinant inbred line (RIL) was developed. Simple sequence repeat (SSR) and bulked segregation analysis (BSA) combined with recessive class analysis (RCA) techniques were used to map Sdt97 to the long arm of chromosome 6 at the interval between two STS markers, N6 and TX5, with a genetic distance of 0·2 cM and 0·8 cM, respectively. A contig map was constructed based on the reference sequence aligned by the Sdt97 linked markers. The physical map of the Sdt97 locus was defined to a 118 kb interval, and 19 candidate genes were detected in the target region. This is the first time that a dominant semi-dwarf gene has been reported in rice. Cloning and functional analysis of gene Sdt97 will help us to learn more about molecular mechanism of rice semi-dwarfism.

To understand the genetic basis of seed setting rate (SSR) in rice, two breeding lines (Oryza sativa ssp. indica), T226 with higher and stable SSR and T219 with lower and fluctuating SSR from different natural conditions, were used for constructing recombinant inbred lines (RILs). Genotype by environment (G×E) interaction and quantitative trait loci (QTL) for SSR were analysed using a population with 202 RILs under eight differing environments. A significant G×E interaction for SSR was detected in rice using the Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) statistical model, and the IPCA1 and IPCA2 of the G×E interaction accounted for a variation of 57.6%. QTL controlling the SSR were detected by the method of interval analysis. Seventeen QTL on nine chromosomes were identified across eight environments, totally explaining the phenotypic variances from 4.6 to 35.7%. Most of the QTL, each explaining a small part of the phenotypic variances and interacting with environments, were detected in one or two environments, and their alleles for increasing the SSR were derived from T226. However, the QTL (MRG5959–MRG2180) on chromosome 3 was detected across six different environments. It explained maximum phenotypic variances in each detected environment and its allele for increasing the SSR was derived from T226. Another QTL, mapped between markers RM592 and RM169 on chromosome 5, was detected in five various environments and its allele increasing the SSR was derived from T219.

Absract:The microscopic domain structures in 2D ferroelectrics under applied biaxial strains are investigated using a phase field model based on the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation that takes both long-range electric and -elastic interactions into account. The stable polarization patterns are simulated at different temperatures and applied inequiaxial strains. The results show that the ferroelectrics transfer from multi-domain state to single-domain state when temperature surpasses a critical value. On the other hand, the macroscopic equilibrium polarization states are also studied through a nonlinear thermodynamic theory. The corresponding transition from a1, a2 state (p1 ≠ 0, P2 ≠ 0) to a1 state (p1 ≠0, P2 = 0) or a2 state (p2 ≠ 0, P2 = 0) is also found from the “strain-straintemperature” phase diagram, which is constructed by minimizing Helmholtz free energy.

In the present work we studied the depth of damage layer in machined silicon wafers that was incorporated with chemical etching using micro-Raman spectroscopy. Subsurface damage causes changes in the shape and intensity for the shoulder (450–570 cm−1) of the most intense band (519 cm−1) and the second band (300 cm−1) regions of the Raman spectrum. Etching reduces the thickness of the damage layer and, hence, the intensities at the shoulder and the second band. The intensities at the shoulder and the second band become stable when the damage layer is completely etched out. The shoulder consists of two Gaussian profiles: the major and the minor. The band for the major profile is independent of etching depth, but the band for the minor profile shifts toward the longer wave numbers with increasing etching period until the damage layer is completely etched out. The depth of the damage layer is determined by the profiles of the shoulder and the second band and confirmed by the band shift of the minor profile. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) further verified the results with respect to the depth of the damage layer. TEM observation showed that dislocations and stacking faults are responsible for the subsurface damage.