High-elevation environments present harsh challenges for the pursuit of agropastoral subsistence strategies and relatively little is known about the mechanisms early communities employed to adapt to such locations successfully. This article presents the sequential carbon and oxygen analysis of archaeological caprine teeth from Bangga (c. 3000–2200 BP), which is approximately 3750masl on the Tibetan Plateau. Made visible through this method, intra-tooth variation in isotopic composition allows insights into herding strategies that possibly included the provisioning of livestock with groundwater and agricultural fodder and summer grazing in saline or marsh environments. Such intensive provisioning differs markedly from lower-elevation agropastoralism.

Broomcorn millet and foxtail millet were first cultivated in Neolithic China then the process spread west across Asia during the Bronze Age. But the distinctive ceramic, and later bronze, vessels utilised in East Asian cuisines for boiling and steaming grains did not move west alongside these crops. Here, the authors use measurements of 3876 charred millet grains to evaluate regional variations and implications for food preparation. In contrast to wheat grains, which became smaller as their cultivation moved east, millet grains became larger as they spread from northern China into Inner Asia and Tibet. This indicates the decoupling of millets from associated cooking techniques as they reached geographical and cultural areas.

Grain-cooking traditions in Neolithic China have been characterised as a ‘wet’ cuisine based on the boiling and steaming of sticky varieties of cereal. One of these, broomcorn millet, was one of the earliest Chinese crops to move westward into Central Asia and beyond, into regions where grains were typically prepared by grinding and baking. Here, the authors present the genotypes and reconstructed phenotypes of 13 desiccated broomcorn millet samples from Xinjiang (1700 BC–AD 700). The absence in this area of sticky-starch millet and vessels for boiling and steaming suggests that, as they moved west, East Asian cereal crops were decoupled from traditional cooking practices and were incorporated into local cuisines.

The silkworm Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae) is a lepidopteran model insect of great economic importance. The parasitoid Exorista sorbillans (Diptera, Tachinidae) is the major pest of B. mori and also a promising candidate for biological control. However, the molecular interactions between hosts and dipteran parasitoids have only partially been studied. Gene expression analysis by reverse-transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is indispensable to characterise their interactions. Accurate normalisation of RT-qPCR-based gene expression requires the use of reference genes that are constantly expressed irrespective of experimental conditions. In this study, the expression stability of 13 traditionally used reference genes was estimated by five statistical algorithms (ΔCt, geNorm, Normfinder, BestKeeper, and RefFinder) to determine the best reference genes for gene expression studies in different tissues of B. mori under E. sorbillans parasitism. Specifically, TATA-box-binding protein was the best reference gene in epidermis and testis, while elongation factor 1α was the most stable gene in prothoracic gland and midgut. Elongation factor 1γ, ribosomal protein L3, actin A1, ribosomal protein L40, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A were the most suitable genes in head, silk gland, fat body, haemolymph, Malpighian tubule and ovary, respectively. Our study offers a set of suitable reference genes for gene expression normalisation in B. mori under the parasitic stress of E. sorbillans, which will benefit the in-depth exploration of host-dipteran parasitoid interactions, and also provide insights for further improvements of B. mori resistance against parasitoids and biocontrol efficacy of dipteran parasitoids.

REAP-2 is an interactive dose-response curve estimation tool for Robust and Efficient Assessment of drug Potency. It provides user-friendly dose-response curve estimation for in vitro studies and conducts statistical testing for model comparisons with a redesigned user interface. We also make a major update of the underlying estimation method with penalized beta regression, which demonstrates great reliability and accuracy in dose estimation and uncertainty quantification. In this note, we describe the method and implementation of REAP-2 with a highlight on potency estimation and drug comparison.

Studies of ‘food globalisation’ have traced the dispersal of cereals across prehistoric Eurasia. The degree to which these crops were accompanied by knowledge of soil and water preparation is less well known, however. The authors use stable isotope and archaeobotanical analyses to trace long-term trends in cultivation practices on the Loess Plateau (6000 BC–AD 1900). The results indicate that ancient farmers cultivated grains originating in South-west Asia and used distinct strategies for different species. Barley was integrated into pre-existing practices, while wheat was grown using novel soil and water management strategies. These distinct approaches suggest that the spread of prehistoric crops and knowledge about them varied by local context.

The high-altitude landscape of western Tibet is one of the most extreme environments in which humans have managed to introduce crop cultivation. To date, only sparse palaeoeconomic data have been reported from this region. The authors present archaeobotanical evidence from five sites (dating from the late first millennium BC and the early first millennium AD) located in the cold-arid landscape of western Tibet. The data indicate that barley was widely grown in this region by c. 400 BC but probably fulfilled differing roles within local ecological constraints on cultivation. Additionally, larger sites are characterised by more diverse crop assemblages than smaller sites, suggesting a role for social diversity in the development of high-altitude agriculture.

Percutaneous coronary intervention for stenosis of coronary artery after Kawasaki disease presents various challenges. The diameters of reference vessels and femoral artery in children are smaller, and the morphological changes are different from adults. Herein, we describe our successful experience with a severe coronary artery stenosis at the proximal portion of left anterior descending treated with drug-coated balloon dilation.

Archaeological research demonstrates that an agropastoral economy was established in Tibet during the second millennium BC, aided by the cultivation of barley introduced from South-western Asia. The exact cultural contexts of the emergence and development of agropastoralism in Tibet, however, remain obscure. Recent excavations at the site of Bangga provide new evidence for settled agropastoralism in central Tibet, demonstrating a material divergence from earlier archaeological cultures, possibly corresponding to the intensification of agropastoralism in the first millennium BC. The authors’ results depict a more dynamic system of subsistence in the first millennium BC, as the populations moved readily between distinct economic modes and combined them in a variety of innovative ways.

Scholarly interest has been growing in an episode of Old World globalisation of food resources significantly predating the ‘Silk Road’. This process was characteristic of crosscontinental translocations of starch-based crops mostly during the third and second millennia BC but which might have been initiated in an earlier period (Jones et al. 2011). Among these translocations we can include a range of crops originally from Southwest Asia, notably bread wheat and barley, and others originally from northern China, such as broomcorn and foxtail millet (Hunt et al. 2008; Motuzaite-Matuzeviciute et al. 2013). Parallel patterns of crop movement between North Africa and South Asia have been observed and discussed in some depth (Boivin & Fuller 2009; Fuller et al. 2011; Boivin et al. 2013). The impetus behind this growth of interest has been the expansion of archaeobotanical research in South and East Asia over the past decade (Fuller 2002; Crawford 2006; Lee et al. 2007; Liu et al. 2008; Zhao 2010). This paper considers the agents responsible for the food globalisation process during the third and second millennia BC. A key aspect of trans-Eurasian starch-crop movement was that it constituted an addition to agricultural systems, rather than movement to regions devoid of existing starch-based agriculture. Other economic plants, such as grapes, dates and peas, also moved considerable distances in the archaeological record, often to areas previously devoid of those plants. However, the novel starchy crops held a particular significance. In both cases, Southwest Asian wheat and barley and East Asian millets went on to become important staple foods in many of their new destinations.

The majority of the early crops grown in Europe had their origins in south-west Asia, and were part of a package of domestic plants and animals that were introduced by the first farmers. Broomcorn millet, however, offers a very different narrative, being domesticated first in China, but present in Eastern Europe apparently as early as the sixth millennium BC. Might this be evidence of long-distance contact between east and west, long before there is any other evidence for such connections? Or is the existing chronology faulty in some way? To resolve that question, 10 grains of broomcorn millet were directly dated by AMS, taking advantage of the increasing ability to date smaller and smaller samples. These showed that the millet grains were significantly younger than the contexts in which they had been found, and that the hypothesis of an early transmission of the crop from east to west could not be sustained. The importance of direct dating of crop remains such as these is underlined.

Quality control of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) target in the laser fusion program is vital to ensure that energy deposition from the lasers results in uniform compression and minimization of Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities. The technique of nuclear microscopy with ion beam analysis is a powerful method to provide characterization of ICF targets. Distribution of elements, depth profile, and density image of ICF targets can be identified by particle-induced X-ray emission, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, and scanning transmission ion microscopy. We present examples of ICF target characterization by nuclear microscopy at Fudan University in order to demonstrate their potential impact in assessing target fabrication processes.

In this article, single-phase CuIn(SxSe1-x)2 thin films with different x have been prepared using a new two-step method consisting of partly selenizing Cu–In precursors in Se ambient, and then exposing the partly selenized films to H2S/Ar under different conditions. The x-ray diffraction indicated that the CuIn(SxSe1-x)2 films exhibited the homogeneous chalcopyrite structure. With the increase of the sulfurization temperature from 425 to 525 °C, x increases from 0 to 1, Eg increases from 0.95 to 1.42 eV, the Raman shift of the A1[Se–Se] mode increases from 173 to 197 cm−1, and the resistivity increases from 101 to 103 Ω.cm.

Early farming in northern China featured the cultivation of two species of millet, broomcorn and foxtail. Although previously seen as focused on the Yellow River, the authors show that the earliest agriculture is actually found in the foothills of the neighbouring mountain chains, where drier and better drained locations suited millet cultivation, particularly broomcorn. In this they echo new thoughts on the locale of early agriculture in south-west Asia, on the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent rather than in the valleys of the Nile or the Euphrates.

In hydroxylated poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) (HO–SBS) micelle, ZnS/CdS composite nanocrystals were prepared by adding Cd2+ ions and Zn2+ ions to the system sequentially. The resulting composites were identified with elemental analysis, transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, surface photovoltage spectroscopy, and electric field induced surface photovoltage spectroscopy.