Understanding the interactive effects of temperature and diet on insect life cycles is crucial for effective pest management. Here, the influence of different temperatures and diets on the life cycle of Conogethes punctiferalis was investigated using the age-stage, two-sex life table analysis. The results support the hypothesis that temperature and diets (maize, apple, and artificial diet) significantly influence the entire life cycle performance of C. punctiferalis. The duration of larval development was significantly prolonged, whereas adult lifespan was shortened and showed lower reproductive capacity on apple and artificial diet than maize. The total pre-oviposition period was longer on apples than on maize and artificial diet at both temperatures (20, 26°C). The highest r (0.113 d−1), λ (1.128 d−1), R0 (57.213), and GRR (75.54) of C. punctiferalis were found on maize at 26°C, while the highest T (45.062) was found on apples. Similar results were obtained in the age-specific survival curves (sxj), fecundity (mx), maternity (lxmx), and reproductive value (vxj) of YPM on different host plants when exposed to 20°C. These findings highlight the need for further research into the complex interactions between temperature, diet, and insect life history traits to develop effective pest management strategies and enhance our understanding of insect ecology in agroecosystems.

Palygorskite (Pal) shows great potential for physical, chemical and biological uses due to its colloidal, catalytic and adsorption properties. Pal mines, however, are facing the challenge of low-grade materials (5–15%), making it difficult to use Pal in emerging fields such as new materials, environmental protection and health. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop an efficient method for separating and purifying Pal to obtain high purity levels. Hence, we have developed a dispersant-assisted rotating liquid film reactor separation strategy based on sodium hexametaphosphate as the dispersant. This strategy utilizes the double electron layer of Pal and the density difference between impurities to achieve effective disaggregation and purification of Pal bundles through the promotion of repulsive driving effects. Under optimal conditions, the purity of Pal can be increased from less than 10% to over 80%. This research presents a novel approach to the efficient refining of low-grade Pal. The crudely purified Pal’s adsorption capacity for methylene blue increased from 84.2 to 256.4 mg g–1.

Hydrotalcite-like layered double hydroxides (LDHs) containing different ratios of Ni2+, Cu2+, Mg2+ and Al3+ in the layers have been prepared by a new method, the key features of which are a very rapid mixing and nucleation process in a colloid mill followed by a separate ageing process. The compositions and structural parameters of the materials synthesized using the two routes are very similar, although the degree of crystallinity is slightly higher for the LDHs produced using the new method. The major advantage of the new method is that it produces smaller crystallites, having a very narrow range of distribution of crystallite size. In the conventional coprecipitation process at constant pH, the mixing process takes a considerable time during which nuclei formed at the beginning of the process have a much longer time to undergo crystal growth than those formed at the end of the process. The consequence is that a wide dispersion of crystallite sizes is obtained. In the colloid mill process, however, the mixing and nucleation is complete in a very short time and is followed by a separate ageing process.

As for the efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), one of the important goals is to increase the light harvesting efficiency to further improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE). The excellent photoanode materials should possess a uniform porous structure, a large surface area, high crystallinity, and good stability. Herein, the porous TiO2 electrode (named as S-1.5) with the above merits had been prepared by the simple template-assisted method with camphene as the pore-forming reagent. The surface area of the porous TiO2 electrode can be tailored by introducing the amount of camphene. The porous TiO2 layer with the optimal surface area directly adhered on the top of the ultra-thin P25 dense layer had been constructed and this unique electrode with a “double layers structure”, which named as S-1.5/P25. When DSSCs assembled with this photoanode, a desirable PCE of 8.31% had been achieved, which was obviously higher than that of the commercial P25 (7.62%) in parallel. The improved PCE can be attributed to the improved utilization of sunlight, the facilitated photo-generated electron transfer, and the reduced interface resistance. Meanwhile, the related characterization including electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, intensity-modulated photovoltage spectroscopy, and intensity-modulated photocurrent spectroscopy was characterized to explore the possible mechanism.

The objective of the present study was to elucidate whether resveratrol could facilitate the survival of boar sperm during liquid preservation and fast cooling processes. Boar semen were diluted with Modena extender containing different concentrations of resveratrol. Sperm motility was evaluated by visual estimation. Membrane integrity, acrosome integrity and mitochondrial membrane potentials were measured by SYBR-14/PI, FITC-PNA and JC-1 staining, respectively. Moreover, the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malonaldehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) were measured using commercial assay kits. B-cell lymphoma protein-2 (BCL2) content was determined by western blotting. During liquid preservation at 17oC, the addition of 50 μM resveratrol to the Modena extender significantly improved sperm motility, membrane integrity, acrosome integrity, and sperm mitochondrial membrane potentials. Similar results were also observed in the 150 μM resveratrol group during the fast cooling process. Furthermore, addition of resveratrol led to a decrease of ROS and MDA, and an increase in the content of T-AOC and BCL2. These observations suggest that addition of resveratrol to Modena extender protects boar sperm against oxidative stress. The optimal concentrations of resveratrol are 50 μM and 150 μM during liquid preservation and fast cooling process, respectively.

West Junggar in the southwestern Central Asian Orogenic Belt is a critical area for the study of the Junggar oceanic basin and may also reveal tectonic evolutionary events before the final closure of the Palaeo-Asian Ocean. The sedimentary formations and paragenetic associations of the Upper Carboniferous Chengjisihanshan Formation in southern West Junggar jointly reveal a back-arc basin setting with zircon U–Pb ages of 313–310 Ma for the basaltic rocks. Geochemically, the basaltic rocks are tholeiitic with low SiO2 (47.76–52.06 wt %) and K2O (0.05–0.74 wt %) but high MgO (6.55–7.68 wt %) contents and Mg no. (52.9–58.9) values. They display slightly flat rare earth element patterns with weak positive Eu anomalies, and show enrichments in large ion lithophile elements relative to high field strength elements with negative Nb and Ta anomalies, exhibiting both N-MORB-like and arc-like signatures, similar to the back-arc basin basalt from the Mariana Trough. The high positive zircon εHf(t) and bulk εNd(t) values as well as high initial Pb isotopes, together with relatively high Sm/Yb and slightly low Th/Ta ratios imply a depleted spinel lherzolitic mantle source metasomatized by slab-derived fluids. The field and geochemical data jointly suggest that the volcanic rocks within the Chengjisihanshan Formation were formed in an intra-oceanic back-arc basin above the northwestward subduction of the Junggar oceanic lithosphere in southern West Junggar. The confirmation of the Late Carboniferous back-arc basin basalts, together with other geological observations, indicate that an arc-basin evolutionary system still existed in southern West Junggar at c. 310 Ma, and the Junggar Ocean closed after Late Carboniferous time.

Scabies is a parasitic disease caused by the ectoparasite Sarcoptes scabiei, affecting different mammalian species, including rabbits, worldwide. In the present study, we cloned and expressed a novel inorganic pyrophosphatase, Ssc-PYP-1, from S. scabiei var. cuniculi. Immunofluorescence staining showed that native Ssc-PYP-1 was localized in the tegument around the mouthparts and the entire legs, as well as in the cuticle of the mites. Interestingly, obvious staining was also observed on the fecal pellets of mites and in the integument of the mites. Based on its good immunoreactivity, an indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using recombinant Ssc-PYP-1 (rSsc-PYP-1) as the capture antigen was developed to diagnose sarcoptic mange in naturally infected rabbits; the assay had a sensitivity of 92·0% and specificity of 93·6%. Finally, using the rSsc-PYP-1-ELISA, the Ssc-PYP-1 antibody from 10 experimentally infected rabbits could be detected from 1 week post-infection. This is the first report of S. scabiei inorganic pyrophosphatase and the protein could serve as a potential serodiagnostic candidate for sarcoptic mange in rabbits.

Nanostructured bulk NiAl materials were prepared at high pressure and temperature (0–5.0 GPa and 600–1500 °C, respectively). The sintered samples were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, density, and indentation hardness measurements. The results show that NiAl nanoparticles may have a compressed surface shell, which may be the reason why NiAl nanomaterials were difficult to densify sintering using conventional methods and why high-pressure sintering was an effective approach. We also observed that B2-structured NiAl could undergo a temperature-dependent phase transition and could be transformed into Al0.9Ni4.22 below 1000 °C for the first time. It is interesting to note that Vickers hardness decreased as grain size decreased below ∼30 nm, indicating that the inverse Hall-Petch effect may be observed in nano-polycrystalline NiAl (n-NiAl) samples. Moreover, a tentative interpretation was developed for high-pressure nanosintering, based on the shell-core model of nanoparticles.

Cubic boron nitride (cBN) composites starting with cBN–Al mixtures were sintered on WC-16 wt% Co substrates under static high pressure of 5.0 GPa and at temperatures of 800–1400 °C for 30 min. Vickers hardness of the sintered samples increased with increasing cBN content, and the highest hardness of 32.7 GPa was achieved for the cBN–5 wt% Al specimens sintered at 1400 °C. The reactions between cBN and Al started to occur at about 900 °C, and the reaction products strongly depended on the Al content, sintering temperature, and Co diffusion from the substrates according to the x-ray diffraction (XRD) observations. The high pressure and high temperature in situ resistance measurement indicated that the reactions between cBN and Al could be completed in about 90 s when the temperature was higher than ∼1200 °C at high pressure. The cBN composite sintered at 1200 °C from a cBN–15 wt% Al mixture showed the best cutting performance.

An interval quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping method for complex polygenic diseases (as binary traits) showing QTL by environment interactions (QEI) was developed for outbred populations on a within-family basis. The main objectives, within the above context, were to investigate selection of genetic models and to compare liability or generalized interval mapping (GIM) and linear regression interval mapping (RIM) methods. Two different genetic models were used: one with main QTL and QEI effects (QEI model) and the other with only a main QTL effect (QTL model). Over 30 types of binary disease data as well as six types of continuous data were simulated and analysed by RIM and GIM. Using table values for significance testing, results show that RIM had an increased false detection rate (FDR) for testing interactions which was attributable to scale effects on the binary scale. GIM did not suffer from a high FDR for testing interactions. The use of empirical thresholds, which effectively means higher thresholds for RIM for testing interactions, could repair this increased FDR for RIM, but such empirical thresholds would have to be derived for each case because the amount of FDR depends on the incidence on the binary scale. RIM still suffered from higher biases (15–100% over- or under-estimation of true values) and high standard errors in QTL variance and location estimates than GIM for QEI models. Hence GIM is recommended for disease QTL mapping with QEI. In the presence of QEI, the model including QEI has more power (20–80% increase) to detect the QTL when the average QTL effect is small (in a situation where the model with a main QTL only is not too powerful). Top-down model selection is proposed in which a full test for QEI is conducted first and then the model is subsequently simplified. Methods and results will be applicable to human, plant and animal QTL mapping experiments.