As a member of the Scathophagidae family, Scathophaga stercoraria (S. stercoraria) is widely distributed globally and is closely associated with animal feces. It is also a species of great interest to many scientific studies. However, its phylogenetic relationships are poorly understood. In this study, S. stercoraria was found in plateau pikas for the first time. The potential cause of its presence in the plateau pikas was discussed and it was speculated that the presence of S. stercoraria was related to the yak feces. In addition, 2 nuclear genes (18SrDNA and 28SrDNA), 1 mitochondrial gene (COI), and the complete mitochondrial genome of S. stercoraria were sequenced. Phylogenetic trees constructed based on 13 Protein coding genes (13PCGs), 18S and 28S rDNA showed that S. stercoraria is closely related to the Calliphoridae family; phylogenetic results based on COI suggest that within the family Scathophagidae, S. stercoraria is more closely related to the genus Leptopa, Micropselapha, Parallelomma and Americina. Divergence times estimated using the COI gene suggest that the divergence formation of the genus Scathophaga is closely related to changes in biogeographic scenarios and potentially driven by a combination of uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) and dramatic climate changes. These results provide valuable information for further studies on the phylogeny and differentiation of the Scathophaga genus in the future.

Hypertension represents one of the most common pre-existing conditions and comorbidities in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. To explore whether hypertension serves as a risk factor for disease severity, a multi-centre, retrospective study was conducted in COVID-19 patients. A total of 498 consecutively hospitalised patients with lab-confirmed COVID-19 in China were enrolled in this cohort. Using logistic regression, we assessed the association between hypertension and the likelihood of severe illness with adjustment for confounders. We observed that more than 16% of the enrolled patients exhibited pre-existing hypertension on admission. More severe COVID-19 cases occurred in individuals with hypertension than those without hypertension (21% vs. 10%, P = 0.007). Hypertension associated with the increased risk of severe illness, which was not modified by other demographic factors, such as age, sex, hospital geological location and blood pressure levels on admission. More attention and treatment should be offered to patients with underlying hypertension, who usually are older, have more comorbidities and more susceptible to cardiac complications.

Primary liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Most patients are diagnosed at late stages with poor prognosis; thus, identification of modifiable risk factors for primary prevention of liver cancer is urgently needed. The well-established risk factors of liver cancer include chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV), heavy alcohol consumption, metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, and aflatoxin exposure. However, a large proportion of cancer cases worldwide cannot be explained by current known risk factors. Dietary factors have been suspected as important, but dietary aetiology of liver cancer remains poorly understood. In this review, we summarised and evaluated the observational studies of diet including single nutrients, food and food groups, as well as dietary patterns with the risk of developing liver cancer. Although there are large knowledge gaps between diet and liver cancer risk, current epidemiological evidence supports an important role of diet in liver cancer development. For example, exposure to aflatoxin, heavy alcohol drinking and possibly dairy product (not including yogurt) intake increase, while intake of coffee, fish and tea, light-to-moderate alcohol drinking and several healthy dietary patterns (e.g. Alternative Healthy Eating Index) may decrease liver cancer risk. Future studies with large sample size and accurate diet measurement are warranted and need to consider issues such as the possible aetiological heterogeneity between liver cancer subtypes, the influence of chronic HBV or HCV infection, the high-risk populations (e.g. cirrhosis) and a potential interplay with host gut microbiota or genetic variations.

Image stitching is important for the perception and manipulation of undersea robots. In spite of a well-developed technique, it is still challenging for undersea images because of their inevitable appearance ambiguity caused by the limited light in the undersea environment, and local disturbance caused by moving objects, ocean current, etc. To get a clean and stable background panorama in the undersea environment, this paper proposes an undersea image-stitching method by introducing graph-based registration and blending procedures. Specifically, in the registration procedure, matching the features in each undersea image pair is formulated and solved by graph matching, to incorporate the structural information between features. In the blending procedure, an energy function on the indirect graph Markov random field is proposed, which takes both image consistency and neighboring consistency into consideration. Coincidentally, both graph matching and energy minimization can be mathematically formulated by integer quadratic programming problems with different constraints; the recently proposed graduated nonconvexity and concavity procedure is used to optimize both problems. Experiments on both synthetic images and real-world undersea images witness the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper presents new LA-ICP-MS zircon U–Pb chronology, whole-rock geochemical and zircon Hf isotopic data for the felsic lavas of the Huili Group from the southwestern Yangtze Block. LA-ICP-MS zircon U–Pb dating shows that these rocks were emplaced in Late Mesoproterozoic time (∼1028 to 1019 Ma). Relative to typical I-type and S-type granitoids, all the samples are characterized by low Sr and Eu, and high high-field-strength element contents, high TFeO/MgO, enriched rare earth element compositions and negative Eu anomalies, indicating that they share the geochemical signatures of A-type granitoid. They can be further divided into two groups: Group I and Group II. Group I are A1-type felsic rocks and were produced by fractional crystallization of alkaline basaltic magmas. The Group II felsic lavas belong to the A2-type and were derived by partial melting of a crustal source with mixing of mantle-derived magmas. Both Group I and Group II felsic lavas may erupt in a continental back-arc setting. The coexistence of A1- and A2-type rocks in the southwestern Yangtze Block suggests that they can occur in the same tectonic setting.

Disaster can strike people in any community at any time anywhere in the world. Disasters occur with high frequency, take on multiple forms, and exert wide influence, typically causing property damage, injuries, and death. As the world’s largest developing country, China incurs great costs when a disaster hits. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the Chinese government focused its attention on the construction of an emergency response system, the creation of disaster prevention and mitigation systems, and the development of a disaster medicine program. Here, we describe the current status of disaster medicine in China, focusing on the following four aspects: the Emergency Management System, Education & Training, Rescue Practices, and Research. We also discuss the future of disaster medicine in China. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:157–165)

We apply a recently developed filtering approach, i.e. filter-space technique (FST), to study the scale-to-scale transport of kinetic energy, thermal energy, and enstrophy in two-dimensional (2D) Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) turbulence. Although the scaling laws of the energy cascades in 2D RT systems follow the Bolgiano–Obukhov (BO59) scenario due to buoyancy forces, the kinetic energy is still found to be, on average, dynamically transferred to large scales by an inverse cascade, while both the mean thermal energy and the mean enstrophy move towards small scales by forward cascades. In particular, there is a reasonably extended range over which the transfer rate of thermal energy is scale-independent and equals the corresponding thermal dissipation rate at different times. This range functions similarly to the inertial range for the kinetic energy in the homogeneous and isotropic turbulence. Our results further show that at small scales the fluctuations of the three instantaneous local fluxes are highly asymmetrically distributed and there is a strong correlation between any two fluxes. These small-scale features are signatures of the mixing and dissipation of fluids with steep temperature gradients at the fluid interfaces.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of lutein and lycopene supplementation on carotid artery intima–media thickness (CAIMT) in subjects with subclinical atherosclerosis. A total of 144 subjects aged 45–68 years were recruited from local communities. All the subjects were randomly assigned to receive 20 mg lutein/d (n 48), 20 mg lutein/d+20 mg lycopene/d (n 48) or placebo (n 48) for 12 months. CAIMT was measured using Doppler ultrasonography at baseline and after 12 months, and serum lutein and lycopene concentrations were determined using HPLC. Serum lutein concentrations increased significantly from 0·34 to 1·96 μmol/l in the lutein group (P< 0·001) and from 0·35 to 1·66 μmol/l in the combination group (P< 0·001). Similarly, serum lycopene concentrations increased significantly from 0·18 to 0·71 μmol/l in the combination group at month 12 (P< 0·001), whereas no significant change was observed in the placebo group. The mean values of CAIMT decreased significantly by 0·035 mm (P= 0·042) and 0·073 mm (P< 0·001) in the lutein and combination groups at month 12, respectively. The change in CAIMT was inversely associated with the increase in serum lutein concentrations (P< 0·05) in both the active treatment groups and with that in serum lycopene concentrations (β = − 0·342, P= 0·031) in the combination group. Lutein and lycopene supplementation significantly increased the serum concentrations of lutein and lycopene with a decrease in CAIMT being associated with both concentrations. In addition, the combination of lutein and lycopene supplementation was more effective than lutein alone for protection against the development of CAIMT in Chinese subjects with subclinical atherosclerosis, and further studies are needed to confirm whether synergistic effects of lutein and lycopene exist.

Differential thermal analysis, as the main means of measurement, was used to prepare bulk MgB2 samples and monitor the sintering reaction process. Combined with microstructure observation by scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction analysis, the formation process of MgB2 phase at the temperature before Mg melting was summarized. Additionally, a new kinetic analysis (a variant on the Flynn–Wall–Ozawa) method under nonisothermal conditions was used to determine that the reaction between Mg and B powders involves random nucleation followed by an instantaneous growth of nuclei (Avrami–Erofeev equation, n = 2), which can properly explain the in situ formation process of bulk MgB2 at the temperature before Mg melting. The value of activation energy E and the function of conversion f(α) are obtained independently, and thereby the determination of mechanism function is not affected by the value of E. The values of E decrease from 175.418 to 160.395 kJ mol−1 with the increase of the conversion degrees (α) from 0.1 to 0.8. However, as the conversion degrees approach 0.9, the value of E increases to 222.647 kJ mol−1, and the corresponding pre-exponential factor A is about three orders of magnitude larger than the previous ones.

The black muntjac (Muntiacus crinifrons) is a critically endangered mammalian species, confined to a narrow region of south-eastern China. In the present study, the homogeneous ear fibroblast cells of a black muntjac were respectively cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) (low glucose), DMEM (high glucose) and RPMI-1640. The population doubling time of subcultured cells was not significantly different between the three different media, but cell growth was greater in DMEM (low glucose). The interspecies embryos were reconstructed using the fibroblasts of black muntjac as donors and enucleated goat or rabbit oocytes as recipients and their blastocyst rates were 0 and 11.5%, respectively. The results demonstrated that the two cytoplasts could support reprogramming of the ear fibroblasts of black muntjac, but the developmental potential of the reconstructed embryos was different.

Interferon, an important cytokine, is an immunomodulator and possesses antiviral and anti-tumour activity. In vitro, it can be administrated in the treatment of diseases alone or with genetically engineered vaccine to enhance the immune effect of the latter. The recombinant transferring vector pSY681–ChIFN-γ was obtained in this study by inserting the chicken type II interferon (ChIFN-γ) gene into the Fowlpox virus (FPV) transferring vector pSY681. The resulting plasmid was then transfected into chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cell cultures pre-infected with the parental FPV S-FPV-017. Finally, the recombinant Fowlpox virus (rFPV) expressing ChIFN-γ (rFPV–ChIFN-γ) was produced by homologous recombination with the FPV gene in CEF. rFPV-positive plaques were verified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), restriction analysis and indirect immunofluorescence assays. The rFPV–ChIFN-γ supernatants, cultured in CEF for 72 h and inoculated into rat fibroblasts (L929), had an inhibitory effect on the replication of Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) with an antiviral titre of 2048 U/ml.

Three-dimensional temperature (T)–pressure (P)–composition (X) phase diagrams of binary carbon-hydrogen (C–H) and carbon-oxygen (C–O) systems for activated low pressure diamond growth have been calculated. Based on an approximation of linear combination between C–H and C–O systems, a projective ternary carbonhydrogen-oxygen (C–H–O) phase diagram has also been obtained. There is always a diamond growth region in each of these phase diagrams. Once a supply of external activating energy stops, the diamond growth region will not exist. Nearly all of the reliable experimental data reported in the literature drop into the possible diamond growth region of the calculated projective ternary C–H–O phase diagram under the conditions of 0.01–100 kPa and above 700 K.