We study log $\mathscr {D}$-modules on smooth log pairs and construct a comparison theorem of log de Rham complexes. The proof uses Sabbah’s generalized b-functions. As applications, we deduce a log index theorem and a Riemann-Roch type formula for perverse sheaves on smooth quasi-projective varieties. The log index theorem naturally generalizes the Dubson-Kashiwara index theorem on smooth projective varieties.

The recent scientific progress has shown the promising effect of the vaccine in immunotherapy of cancer, which relies on the antigen processing/presentation capability of dendritic cells (DCs). As a result, cancer vaccines targeting DC, which also named as DC vaccine, was a hot-spot in vaccine development. Herein, a nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) was employed to load chlorin e6 (Ce6) to serve as a potential in situ DC vaccine (NLC/Ce6) for effective immunotherapy of gastric cancer. Taking advantage of the photodynamic effect of Ce6 to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) under laser irradiation, the NLC/Ce6 was able to trigger cell death and expose tumor-associated antigen (TAA). Moreover, mimicking the natural inflammatory response, the ROS can also recruit the DC for the effective processing/presentation of the in situ exposed TAA. As expected, we observed strong capability DC vaccination efficacy of this platform to effectively inhibit the growth of both primary and distant gastric tumors.

The potential relationship between service demands and remanufacturing services (RMS) is essential to make the decision of a RMS plan accurately and improve the efficiency and benefit. In the traditional association rule mining methods, a large number of candidate sets affect the mining efficiency, and the results are not easy for customers to understand. Therefore, a mining method based on binary particle swarm optimization ant colony algorithm to discover service demands and remanufacture services association rules is proposed. This method preprocesses the RMS records, converts them into a binary matrix, and uses the improved ant colony algorithm to mine the maximum frequent itemset. Because the particle swarm algorithm determines the initial pheromone concentration of the ant colony, it avoids the blindness of the ant colony, effectively enhances the searchability of the algorithm, and makes association rule mining faster and more accurate. Finally, a set of historical RMS record data of straightening machine is used to test the validity and feasibility of this method by extracting valid association rules to guide the design of RMS scheme for straightening machine parts.

Fat-soluble vitamins during pregnancy are important for fetal growth and development. The present study aimed at exploring the association between vitamin A, E and D status during pregnancy and birth weight. A total of 19 640 women with singleton deliveries from a retrospective study were included. Data were collected by the hospital electronic information system. Maternal serum vitamin A, E and D concentrations were measured during pregnancy. Logistic regression was performed to estimate the association between the vitamin status and low birth weight (LBW) or macrosomia. Women with excessive vitamin E were more likely to have macrosomia (OR 1·30, 95 % CI 1·07, 1·59) compared with adequate concentration. When focusing on Z scores, there was a positive association between vitamin E and macrosomia in the first (OR 1·07, 95 % CI 1·00, 1·14), second (OR 1·27, 95 % CI 1·11, 1·46) and third (OR 1·28, 95 % CI 1·06, 1·54) trimesters; vitamin A was positively associated with LBW in the first (OR 1·14, 95 % CI 1·01, 1·29), second (OR 1·31, 95 % CI 1·05, 1·63) and third (OR 2·00, 95 % CI 1·45, 2·74) trimesters and negatively associated with macrosomia in the second (OR 0·79, 95 % CI 0·70, 0·89) and third (OR 0·77, 95 % CI 0·62, 0·95) trimesters. The study identified that high concentrations of vitamin E are associated with macrosomia. Maintaining a moderate concentration of vitamin A during pregnancy might be beneficial to achieve optimal birth weight. Further studies to explore the mechanism of above associations are warranted.

A 6-week growth trial was conducted to evaluate the influences of dietary valine (Val) levels on growth, protein utilisation, immunity, antioxidant status and gut micromorphology of juvenile hybrid groupers. Seven isoenergetic, isoproteic and isolipidic diets were formulated to contain graded Val levels (1·21, 1·32, 1·45, 1·58, 1·69, 1·82 and 1·94 %, DM basis). Each experimental diet was hand-fed to triplicate groups of twelve hybrid grouper juveniles. Results showed that weight gain percentage (WG%), protein productive value, protein efficiency ratio, and feed efficiency were increased as dietary Val level increased, reaching a peak value at 1·58 % dietary Val. The quadratic regression analysis of WG% against dietary Val levels indicated that the optimum dietary Val requirement for hybrid groupers was estimated to be 1·56 %. Gut micromorphology and expression of growth hormone in pituitary, insulin-like growth factor 1, target of rapamycin and S6 kinase 1 in liver were significantly affected by dietary Val levels. In serum, fish fed 1·58 % dietary Val had higher superoxide dismutase, catalase, lysozyme activities and IgM concentrations than fish fed other dietary Val levels. Fish fed 1·58 % dietary Val had higher expression of NF-E2-related factor 2 in head kidney than fish fed other dietary Val levels. Generally, the optimum dietary Val requirement for maximal growth of hybrid groupers was estimated to be 1·56 % of DM, corresponding to 3·16 % of dietary protein, and dietary Val levels affected growth, protein utilisation, immunity and antioxidant status in hybrid groupers.

The present study investigated the effect of Bacillus subtilis DSM 29784 (Ba) and enzymes (xylanase and β-glucanases; Enz), alone or in combination (BE) as antibiotic replacements, on the growth performance, digestive enzyme activity, immune response and the intestinal barrier of broiler chickens. In total, 1200 1-d-old broilers were randomly assigned to five dietary treatments, each with six replicate pens of forty birds for 63 d as follows: (a) basal diet (control), supplemented with (b) 1 × 109 colony-forming units (cfu)/kg Ba, (c) 300 mg/kg Enz, (d) 1 × 109 cfu/kg Ba and 300 mg/kg Enz and (e) 250 mg/kg enramycin (ER). Ba, Enz and BE, similar to ER, decreased the feed conversion rate, maintained intestinal integrity with a higher villus height:crypt depth ratio and increased the numbers of goblet cells. The BE group exhibited higher expression of claudin-1 and mucin 2 than the other four groups. BE supplementation significantly increased the α-diversity and β-diversity of the intestinal microbiota and markedly enhanced lipase activity in the duodenal mucosa. Serum endotoxin was significantly decreased in the BE group. Compared with those in the control group, increased superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activities were observed in the jejunal mucosa of the Ba and BE groups, respectively. In conclusion, the results suggested that dietary treatment with Ba, Enz or BE has beneficial effects on growth performance and anti-oxidative capacity, and BE had better effects than Ba or Enz alone on digestive enzyme activity and the intestinal microbiota. Ba or Enz could be used as an alternative to antibiotics for broiler chickens.

The evolution of melt ponds on Arctic sea ice in summer is one of the main factors that affect sea-ice albedo and hence the polar climate system. Due to the different spectral properties of open water, melt pond and sea ice, the melt pond fraction (MPF) can be retrieved using a fully constrained least-squares algorithm, which shows a high accuracy with root mean square error ~0.06 based on the validation experiment using WorldView-2 image. In this study, the evolution of ponds on first-year and multiyear ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was compared based on Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 images. The relationships of pond coverage with air temperature and albedo were analysed. The results show that the pond coverage on first-year ice changed dramatically with seasonal maximum of 54%, whereas that on multiyear ice changed relatively flat with only 30% during the entire melting period. During the stage of pond formation, the ponds expanded rapidly when the temperature increased to over 0°C for three consecutive days. Sea-ice albedo shows a significantly negative correlation (R = −1) with the MPF in melt season and increases gradually with the refreezing of ponds and sea ice.

Double-layer absorbers have recently been extensively studied because single-layer absorbers can hardly meet the requirements of advanced absorbing materials. However, determining how to couple the matching and absorption layers remains a challenge. In the present work, we applied the hydrothermal method to prepare an ultrasmall Fe3O4 nanoparticle and a hierarchical MXene/Fe3O4 composite and then studied the microwave attenuation capabilities of single- and double-layer absorbers containing these two materials with different thicknesses. Absorbers with well-coupled layers showed improved absorption performance on account of the excellent impedance matching behavior of the Fe3O4 layer and the high microwave attenuation capability of the MXene/Fe3O4 layer. When the thickness of the matching layer filled with Fe3O4 was 0.1 mm and that of the absorption layer filled with MXene/Fe3O4 was 1.9 mm, a maximum reflection loss of −48.7 dB was achieved at 9.9 GHz. More importantly, when the thicknesses of the matching and absorption layers were 0.9 and 1.1 mm, respectively, the effective bandwidth was nearly 3.9 GHz. The double-layer absorbers with enhanced absorption properties may be regarded as a new generation of materials for electromagnetic wave absorption.

The X-ray emissions in the interaction of 3–6 MeV Xe23+ ions into thick solid In target are measured. The projectile-to-target and target Lα/Lβ X-ray production intensity ratios are observed to strongly depend on the projectile energy. The dependence deviates from Coulomb ionization predictions, which implies the important roles of coupling between subshells and the activation of 4fσ rotational couplings for projectile energy larger than 5 MeV.

In this paper, the atomic resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscope (HAADF-STEM) was used as the main research method. Using HAADF-STEM, two types of long-period stacking ordered structure (LPSO)—14H and 18R-LPSO—were observed in Mg96Gd2Y1Ni1 alloy, and the precipitates at various stages of aging were observed. Moreover, a type of rectangular β precipitates were found, and the atomic models of β precipitates along the [0001]Mg and ${\tf="TeXGyrePagella-Bold (TrueType)"\char9001} 11\bar 20\hbox{]}_{{\rm{Mg}}}$ directions were identified. At the aging peak stage, a three-dimensional network structure composed of LPSO/γ′ precipitates and β′ precipitates and β precipitates was observed. The hardness of the unaged homogenized Mg96Gd2Y1Ni1 alloy was only 87 HV and the hardness value of aging peak was 128.4 HV. Compared with the unaged alloy, the hardness of the peak-aged alloy increased by 47.59%. The composite strengthening of the three types of precipitates induced a significant strengthening to the alloy.

Chlamydia spp. are a group of obligate intracellular pathogens causing a number of diseases in animals and humans. Avian chlamydiosis (AC), caused by Chlamydia psittaci (C. psittaci) as well as new emerging C. avium, C. gallinacea and C. ibidis, have been described in nearly 500 avian species worldwidely. The Crested Ibis (Nipponia nippon) is a world endangered avian species with limited population and vulnerable for various infections. To get a better understanding of the prevalence of Chlamydia spp. in the endangered Crested Ibis, faecal samples were collected and analysed. The results confirmed that 20.20% (20/99) of the faecal samples were positive for Chlamydiaceae and were identified as C. ibidis with co-existence of C. psittaci in one of the 20 positive samples. In addition, ompA sequence of C. psittaci obtained in this study was classified into the provisional genotype Matt116, while that of C. ibidis showed high genetic diversity, sharing only 77% identity with C. ibidis reference strain 10-1398/6. We report for the first time the presence of C. ibidis and C. psittaci in the Crested Ibis, which may indicate a potential threat to the endangered birds and should be aware of the future protection practice.

Women experience both physical and psychological changes during different phases of the menstrual cycle (MC), which can affect their decision making. The present study aims to investigate the impact of the MC on women’s preferences for conspicuous consumption. In three studies, women in the low-fertility phase were found to be more inclined toward conspicuous consumption, with the MC effect on conspicuous consumption being mediated by the extent of pride. We assumed that women in the low-fertility phase would feel less proud due to an evolutionary drive and that they would consume conspicuous products as a means of compensation. Meanwhile, women who were only children did not manifest such behavior. We infer that women from one-child families may have a greater sense of security and confidence, which buffers the mediating effect. This research contributes to both evolutionary psychology and marketing research and provides new insights for future studies.

We recently reported Cambrowania ovata Tang and Xiao in Tang et al., 2019, from the early Cambrian Hetang Formation in South China and interpreted it as a problematic animal fossil, possibly related to either sponges or bivalved arthropods (Tang et al., 2019). Slater and Budd (2019) contested our taxonomic identification and phylogenetic interpretation; instead, they claimed that Cambrowania ovata is a large acritarch referable to morphotaxon Leiosphaeridia Eisenack, 1958, and thus is not an animal. Here we refute their criticisms, clarify the differences between Cambrowania and Leiosphaeridia and other acritarchs, and reiterate why an animal affinity for Cambrowania cannot be ruled out.