We describe system verification tests and early science results from the pulsar processor (PTUSE) developed for the newly commissioned 64-dish SARAO MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa. MeerKAT is a high-gain ( ${\sim}2.8\,\mbox{K Jy}^{-1}$ ) low-system temperature ( ${\sim}18\,\mbox{K at }20\,\mbox{cm}$ ) radio array that currently operates at 580–1 670 MHz and can produce tied-array beams suitable for pulsar observations. This paper presents results from the MeerTime Large Survey Project and commissioning tests with PTUSE. Highlights include observations of the double pulsar $\mbox{J}0737{-}3039\mbox{A}$ , pulse profiles from 34 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from a single 2.5-h observation of the Globular cluster Terzan 5, the rotation measure of Ter5O, a 420-sigma giant pulse from the Large Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR $\mbox{J}0540{-}6919$ , and nulling identified in the slow pulsar PSR J0633–2015. One of the key design specifications for MeerKAT was absolute timing errors of less than 5 ns using their novel precise time system. Our timing of two bright MSPs confirm that MeerKAT delivers exceptional timing. PSR $\mbox{J}2241{-}5236$ exhibits a jitter limit of $<4\,\mbox{ns h}^{-1}$ whilst timing of PSR $\mbox{J}1909{-}3744$ over almost 11 months yields an rms residual of 66 ns with only 4 min integrations. Our results confirm that the MeerKAT is an exceptional pulsar telescope. The array can be split into four separate sub-arrays to time over 1 000 pulsars per day and the future deployment of S-band (1 750–3 500 MHz) receivers will further enhance its capabilities.

Design fixation refers to the designers’ inability to avoid becoming stuck with preexisting ideas in order to generate new ones. With the recent fast advancements and developments, XR has emerged as a powerful promising technology that can shed new light on this issue. Consequently, this paper aims at: (1) investigating the underlying mechanisms of design fixation as reported in literature; (2) exploring the state-of-art in the use of XR technology in design; and (3) identifying ways to mitigate design fixation by employing XR technology.

Many studies showed the differences in subjective response to sexual stimuli between heterosexual and homosexual men. However, the underlying neurobiological factors of sexual orientation are largely unknown. We addressed the question what is the major attribution of the expected differences in brain activation, i.e. neural circuits or different cognitive process. Twenty-eight healthy male volunteers, 14 heterosexuals and 14 homosexuals, were scanned by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging while subjects were viewing different types of stimuli, i.e. heterosexual couple stimuli (HCS), gay couple stimuli (GCS), lesbian couple stimuli (LCS) and neutral stimuli (NS). SPM02 was used for data analysis. Rating of sexual attractiveness was assessed. Subjective sexual arousal was induced by HCS and GCS in heterosexual and homosexual men, respectively. And sexual disgust was induced by GCS and LCS in heterosexual and homosexual men, respectively. As compared to viewing NS, viewing sexual stimuli induced significant different brain activations most of which had characteristic for cognitive process. These observations suggested that different cognitive pattern was major attribution of different subjective response to sexual stimuli between heterosexual and homosexual men.

The treatment of refractory schizophrenia has been a clinical challenge for most psychiatrists. The possible mechanism of the refractory schizophrenia included diagnostic errors, medical conditions and brain dysgensis. Here, we described a patient with childhood-onset schizophrenia who had severe psychiatric symptoms such as auditory hallucination and persecutory delusion and so on. We reexamined all his possible medical conditions and found the patient had an abnormal enlarged Cavus Septum Pellucidum (CSP) combined with Cavum Vergae (CV) (maximum length>30 mm). Some reports suggested that abnormal CSP(length>6 mm) has an significant association with schizophrenia. However, abnormally large CSP or CSP/CV and related prognosis were reported rarely. This case suggested that abnormally enlarged CSP or CSP/CV may lead to schizophrenia and worse prognosis.

Social phobia is increasingly recognized as a prevalent and socially impairing mental disorder. However, little data is available regarding the general and disease-specific impairments and disabilities associated with social phobia. Furthermore, most studies have not controlled for the confounding effects of comorbid conditions.

This study investigates: (a) the generic quality of life; (b) work productivity; and, (c) various other disorder-specific social impairments in current cases with pure (n = 65), comorbid (n = 51) and subthreshold (n = 34) DSM-IIIR social phobia as compared to controls with no social phobia (subjects with a history of herpes infections).

Social phobia cases reported a mean illness duration of 22.9 years with onset in childhood or adolescence. Current quality of life, as assessed by the SF-36, was significantly reduced in all social phobia groups, particularly in the scales measuring vitality, general health, mental health, role limitations due to emotional health, and social functioning. Comorbid cases revealed more severe reductions than pure and subthreshold social phobics. Findings from the Liebowitz self-rated disability scale indicated that: (a) social phobia affects most areas of life, but in particular education, career, and romantic relationship; (b) the presence of past and current comorbid conditions increases the frequency of disease-specific impairments; and, (c) subthreshold social phobia revealed slightly lower overall impairments than comorbid social phobics. Past week work productivity of social phobics was significantly diminished as indicated by: (a) a three-fold higher rate of unemployed cases; (b) elevated rates of work hours missed due to social phobia problems; and, (c) a reduced work performance.

Overall, these findings underline that social phobia in our sample of adults, whether comorbid, subthreshold, or pure was a persisting and impairing condition, resulting in considerable subjective suffering and negative impact on work performance and social relationships. The current disabilities and impairments were usually less pronounced than in the past, presumably due to adaptive behaviors in life style of the respondents. Data also confirmed that social phobia is poorly recognized and rarely treated by the mental health system.

What explains public attitudes towards a former aggressor state? Conventional wisdom would suggest the prevalence of negative sentiments rooted in historical hatred. In this article we contend that when individuals are proficient in a foreign language—e.g. a lingua franca—they have an alternative channel through which they are exposed to positive narratives put forth by other parties regarding the former aggressor state. And as a result, their attitudes towards the former aggressor state are more positive than those held by their linguistically limited counterparts. To test our argument, we focus on public attitudes towards the Japanese in Mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan—three Chinese-ethnic majority political units that experienced Japanese aggression leading up to and during World War II. Using survey data, we demonstrate that individuals who are proficient in the English language are much more likely to hold positive attitudes of the Japanese. These results are robust even when we consider whether some individuals are predisposed to being cosmopolitan; whether some individuals have more opportunities to learn English; and whether the linguistic effects are symptomatic of American soft power.

The aim of this research was to identify variation in the yak lipin-1 gene (LPIN1) and determine whether this variation affects milk traits. PCR-single stranded conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis was used to detect variation in the 5′ untranslated region of LPIN1 in 500 yaks from four populations: Tianzhu white yaks, Qinghai yaks, wild × domestic-cross yaks and Gannan yaks. Four unique PCR-SSCP patterns, representing four different DNA sequence variants (named A, B, C and D), were observed. These contained six single nucleotide polymorphisms. Female Gannan yaks with BC genotype produced milk with a higher fat content (P < 0.001) and total milk solids (P < 0.001), than those with the AA, AB and BB genotypes. These results would suggest that LPIN1 is having an effect on yak milk fat synthesis.

A systematic review and network meta-analysis were conducted to assess the relative efficacy of internal or external teat sealants given at dry-off in dairy cattle. Controlled trials were eligible if they assessed the use of internal or external teat sealants, with or without concurrent antimicrobial therapy, compared to no treatment or an alternative treatment, and measured one or more of the following outcomes: incidence of intramammary infection (IMI) at calving, IMI during the first 30 days in milk (DIM), or clinical mastitis during the first 30 DIM. Risk of bias was based on the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 tool with modified signaling questions. From 2280 initially identified records, 32 trials had data extracted for one or more outcomes. Network meta-analysis was conducted for IMI at calving. Use of an internal teat sealant (bismuth subnitrate) significantly reduced the risk of new IMI at calving compared to non-treated controls (RR = 0.36, 95% CI 0.25–0.72). For comparisons between antimicrobial and teat sealant groups, concerns regarding precision were seen. Synthesis of the primary research identified important challenges related to the comparability of outcomes, replication and connection of interventions, and quality of reporting of study conduct.

A systematic review and network meta-analysis were conducted to assess the relative efficacy of antimicrobial therapy given to dairy cows at dry-off. Eligible studies were controlled trials assessing the use of antimicrobials compared to no treatment or an alternative treatment, and assessed one or more of the following outcomes: incidence of intramammary infection (IMI) at calving, incidence of IMI during the first 30 days in milk (DIM), or incidence of clinical mastitis during the first 30 DIM. Databases and conference proceedings were searched for relevant articles. The potential for bias was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 algorithm. From 3480 initially identified records, 45 trials had data extracted for one or more outcomes. Network meta-analysis was conducted for IMI at calving. The use of cephalosporins, cloxacillin, or penicillin with aminoglycoside significantly reduced the risk of new IMI at calving compared to non-treated controls (cephalosporins, RR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.23–0.65; cloxacillin, RR = 0.55, 95% CI 0.38–0.79; penicillin with aminoglycoside, RR = 0.42, 95% CI 0.26–0.72). Synthesis revealed challenges with a comparability of outcomes, replication of interventions, definitions of outcomes, and quality of reporting. The use of reporting guidelines, replication among interventions, and standardization of outcome definitions would increase the utility of primary research in this area.

We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis to determine the comparative efficacy of antibiotics used to control bovine respiratory disease (BRD) in beef cattle on feedlots. The information sources for the review were: MEDLINE®, MEDLINE In-Process and MEDLINE® Daily, AGRICOLA, Epub Ahead of Print, Cambridge Agricultural and Biological Index, Science Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index – Science, the Proceedings of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners, World Buiatrics Conference, and the United States Food and Drug Administration Freedom of Information New Animal Drug Applications summaries. The eligible population was weaned beef cattle raised in intensive systems. The interventions of interest were injectable antibiotics used at the time the cattle arrived at the feedlot. The outcome of interest was the diagnosis of BRD within 45 days of arrival at the feedlot. The network meta-analysis included data from 46 studies and 167 study arms identified in the review. The results suggest that macrolides are the most effective antibiotics for the reduction of BRD incidence. Injectable oxytetracycline effectively controlled BRD compared with no antibiotics; however, it was less effective than macrolide treatment. Because oxytetracycline is already commonly used to prevent, control, and treat BRD in groups of feedlot cattle, the use of injectable oxytetracycline for BRD control might have advantages from an antibiotic stewardship perspective.

Vaccination against putative causal organisms is a frequently used and preferred approach to controlling bovine respiratory disease complex (BRD) because it reduces the need for antibiotic use. Because approximately 90% of feedlots use and 90% of beef cattle receive vaccines in the USA, information about their comparative efficacy would be useful for selecting a vaccine. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis of studies assessing the comparative efficacy of vaccines to control BRD when administered to beef cattle at or near their arrival at the feedlot. We searched MEDLINE, MEDLINE In-Process, MEDLINE Daily Epub Ahead of Print, AGRICOLA, Cambridge Agricultural and Biological Index, Science Citation Index, and Conference Proceedings Citation Index – Science and hand-searched the conference proceedings of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners and World Buiatrics Congress. We found 53 studies that reported BRD morbidity within 45 days of feedlot arrival. The largest connected network of studies, which involved 17 vaccine protocols from 14 studies, was included in the meta-analysis. Consistent with previous reviews, we found little compelling evidence that vaccines used at or near arrival at the feedlot reduce the incidence of BRD diagnosis.

There is an overabundance of microswimmers in nature, including bacteria, algae, mammalian cells and so on. They use flagellum, cilia or global shape changes (amoeboid motion) to move forward. In the presence of confining channels, these swimmers exhibit often non-trivial behaviours, such as accumulation at the wall, navigation and so on, and their swimming speed may be strongly influenced by the geometric confinement. Several numerical studies have reported that the presence of walls either enhances or reduces the swimming speed depending on the nature of the swimmer, and also on the confinement. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical explanation of several previously obtained numerical results. We treat the case of amoeboid swimmers and the case of squirmers having either a tangential (the classical situation) or normal velocity prescribed at the swimmer surface (pumper). For amoeboid motion we consider a quasi-circular swimmer which allows us to tackle the problem analytically and to extract the equations of the motion of the swimmer, with several explicit analytical or semi-analytical solutions. It is found that the deformation of the amoeboid swimmer as well as a high enough order effect due to confinement are necessary in order to account for previous numerical results. The analytical theory accounts for several features obtained numerically also for non-deformable swimmers.

The gut is composed of a single layer of intestinal epithelial cells and plays important roles in the digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune and barrier functions and amino acid metabolism. Weaning stress impairs piglet intestinal epithelium structural and functional integrities, which results in reduced feed intake, growth rates and increased morbidity and mortality. Several measures are needed to maintain swine gut development and growth performance after weaning stress. A large body of evidence indicates that, in weaning piglets, glutamine, a functional amino acid, may improve growth performance and intestinal morphology, reduce oxidative damage, stimulate enterocyte proliferation, modulate cell survival and death and enhance intestinal paracellular permeability. This review focuses on the effects of glutamine on intestinal health in piglets. The aim is to provide evidentiary support for using glutamine as a feed additive to alleviate weaning stress.

Molecular dynamics simulations of different defective kaolinites under tension were performed to reveal the effects of defect location, type, density and temperature on their mechanical properties. Four types of defective kaolinite with Si vacancies were constructed. Based on the atomic-scale deformation and failure processes of defective kaolinite and its stress–strain curves, the Young's moduli and tensile strengths in three crystal directions were obtained and compared with the existing theoretical values from the literature. The defect location at each layer does not affect the mechanical properties of kaolinite and the cracks initiated at the defective sites. The atom density of each model was calculated in order to investigate the defect-type effect on the mechanical properties of kaolinite. The simulation results also showed that kaolinite exhibits brittle failure behaviour and the mechanical properties degrade significantly with increasing defect density and temperature. The influence of temperature on the mechanical properties of defective kaolinite is discussed in detail.

In this paper, the lateral migration of a neutrally buoyant spherical particle in the pressure-driven rectangular channel flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid is numerically investigated with a fictitious domain method. The aspect ratio of the channel cross-section considered is 1 and 2, respectively. The particle lateral motion trajectories are shown for the bulk Reynolds number ranging from 1 to 100, the ratio of the solvent viscosity to the total viscosity being 0.5, and a Weissenberg number up to 1.5. Our results indicate that the lateral equilibrium positions located on the cross-section midline, diagonal line, corner and channel centreline occur successively as the fluid elasticity is increased, for particle migration in square channel flow with finite fluid inertia. The transition of the equilibrium position depends strongly on the elasticity number (the ratio of the Weissenberg number to the Reynolds number) and weakly on the Reynolds number. The diagonal-line equilibrium position occurs at an elasticity number ranging from roughly 0.001 to 0.02, and can coexist with the midline and corner equilibrium positions. When the fluid inertia is negligibly small, particles migrate towards the channel centreline, or the closest corner, depending on their initial positions and the Weissenberg number, and the corner attractive area first increases and then decreases as the Weissenberg number increases. For particle migration in a rectangular channel with an aspect ratio of 2, the transition of the equilibrium position from the midline, ‘diagonal line’ (the line where two lateral shear rates are equal to each other), off-centre long midline and channel centreline takes place as the Weissenberg number increases at moderate Reynolds numbers. An off-centre equilibrium position on the long midline is observed for a large blockage ratio of 0.3 (i.e. the ratio of the particle diameter to the channel height is 0.3) at a low Reynolds number. This off-centre migration is driven by shear forces, unlike the elasticity-induced rapid inward migration, which is driven by the normal force (pressure or first normal stress difference).

Although application of organic fertilizers has become a recommended way for developing sustainable agriculture, it is still unclear whether above-ground and below-ground crops have similar responses to chemical fertilizers (CF) and organic manure (OM) under the same farming conditions. The current study investigated soil quality and crop yield response to fertilization of a double-cropping system with rapeseed (above-ground) and sweet potato (below-ground) in an infertile red soil for 2 years (2014–16). Three fertilizer treatments were compared, including CF, OM and organic manure plus chemical fertilizer (MCF). Organic fertilizers (OM and MCF) increased the yield of both above- and below-ground crops and improved soil biochemical properties significantly. The current study also found that soil-chemical properties were the most important and direct factors in increasing crop yields. Also, crop yield was affected indirectly by soil-biological properties, because no significant effects of soil-biological activities on yield were detected after controlling the positive effects of soil-chemical properties. Since organic fertilizers could not only increase crop yield, but also improve soil nutrients and microbial activities efficiently and continuously, OM application is a reliable agricultural practice for both above- and below-ground crops in the red soils of China.

Previously, we reported a phylogenetic study of 98 Burkholderia pseudomallei clinical isolates from Hainan, China. Here, we update the B. pseudomallei strain library with 52 strains from newly identified cases dating from 2014 to 2017, analysed by multilocus sequence typing. Twenty-two sequence types (STs) were identified from the 52 cases, illustrating high genetic diversity; five of them (ST1480, ST1481, ST1482, ST1483 and ST1484) were novel. ST46, ST50 and ST58 predominated (34.6%) as was the case in the previous study (35.7%). An e-BURST map of the ST profiles of the two collections of isolates showed their genetic foundation to be largely unchanged. Neighbour-joining tree analysis was suggestive of a close phylogenetic relationship between the novel STs from this series and those first reported from Hainan (ST1105, ST1099, ST55 and ST1095). Moreover, the two novel STs (1481 and 1483) showed close similarity to ST58 which originated in Thailand indicating a close relationship between B. pseudomallei strains from both countries. The previously described allele profiles gmhD-36 and lepA-68 were found for the first time in our strain collections. Our study emphasises the importance of monitoring the epidemiological status and evolutionary trends of B. pseudomallei in China.

Pathogenesis of pregnancy toxemia (PT) is believed to be associated with the disruption of lipid metabolism. The present study aimed to explore the underlying mechanisms of lipid metabolism disorder in the livers of ewes with PT. In total, 10 pregnant ewes were fed normally (control group) whereas another 10 were subjected to 70% level feed restriction for 15 days to establish a pathological model of PT. Results showed that, as compared with the controls, the levels of blood β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), non-esterified fatty acids (NEFAs) and cholesterol were greater (P<0.05) and blood glucose level was lower (P<0.05) in PT ewes. The contents of NEFAs, BHBA, cholesterol and triglyceride were higher (P<0.05) and glycerol content was lower (P<0.05) in hepatic tissues of PT ewes than those of the controls. For ewes with PT, excessive fat vacuoles were observed in liver sections stained with hematoxylin–eosin; furthermore, inner structures of hepatocytes including nuclei, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum were damaged seriously according to the results of transmission electron microscope. Real-time PCR data showed that compared with the controls, the expression of hepatic genes involved in fatty acid oxidation (FAO) and triglyceride synthesis (TGS) was enhanced (P<0.05) whereas that related to acetyl-CoA metabolism (ACM) was repressed (P<0.05) in PT ewes. Generally, our results showed that negative energy balance altered the expression of genes involved in FAO, ACM and TGS, further caused lipid metabolism disorder in livers, resulting in PT of ewes. Our findings may provide the molecular basis for novel therapeutic strategies against this systemic metabolic disease in sheep.