Spodoptera litura is an important pest that causes significant economic damage to numerous crops worldwide. Sex pheromones (SPs) mediate sexual communication in S. litura and show a characteristic degree of rhythmic activity, occurring mainly during the scotophase; however, the specific regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we employed a genome-wide analysis to identify eight candidate circadian clock genes in S. litura. Sequence characteristics and expression patterns were analyzed. Our results demonstrated that some circadian clock genes might regulate the biosynthesis and perception of SPs by regulating the rhythmic expression of SP biosynthesis-related genes and SP perception-related genes. Interestingly, all potential genes exhibited peak expression in the scotophase, consistent with the SP could mediate courtship and mating behavior in S. litura. Our findings are helpful in elucidating the molecular mechanism by which circadian clock genes regulate sexual communication in S. litura.

A deep ice core was drilled at Dome A, Antarctic Plateau, East Antarctica, which started with the installation of a casing in January 2012 and reached 800.8 m in January 2017. To date, a total of 337 successful ice-core drilling runs have been conducted, including 118 runs to drill the pilot hole. The total drilling time was 52 days, of which eight days were required for drilling down and reaming the pilot hole, and 44 days for deep ice coring. The average penetration depths of individual runs were 1 and 3.1 m for the pilot hole drilling and deep ice coring, respectively. The quality of the ice cores was imperfect in the brittle zone (650−800 m). Some of the troubles encountered are discussed for reference, such as armoured cable knotting, screws falling into the hole bottom, and damaged parts, among others.

The tobacco cutworm Spodoptera litura (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) is a polyphagous pest with a highly selective and sensitive chemosensory system involved in complex physiological behaviors such as searching for food sources, feeding, courtship, and oviposition. However, effective management strategies for controlling the insect pest populations under threshold levels are lacking. Therefore, there is an urgent need to formulate eco-friendly pest control strategies based on the disruption of the insect chemosensory system. In this study, we identified 158 putative chemosensory genes based on transcriptomic and genomic data for S. litura, including 45 odorant-binding proteins (OBPs, nine were new), 23 chemosensory proteins (CSPs), 60 odorant receptors (ORs, three were new), and 30 gustatory receptors (GRs, three were new), a number higher than those reported by previous transcriptome studies. Subsequently, we constructed phylogenetic trees based on these genes in moths and analyzed the dynamic expression of various genes in head capsules across larval instars using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Nine genes–SlitOBP8, SlitOBP9, SlitOBP25, SlitCSP1, SlitCSP7, SlitCSP18, SlitOR34, SlitGR240, and SlitGR242–were highly expressed in the heads of 3- to 5-day-old S. litura larvae. The genes differentially expressed in olfactory organs during larval development might play crucial roles in the chemosensory system of S. litura larvae. Our findings substantially expand the gene inventory for S. litura and present potential target genes for further studies on larval feeding in S. litura.

The high overall plant-based diet index (PDI) is considered to protect against type 2 diabetes in the general population. However, whether the PDI affects gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) risk among pregnant women is still unclear. We evaluated the association between PDI and GDM risk based on a Chinese large prospective cohort – the Tongji Maternal and Child Health Cohort. Dietary data were collected at 13–28 weeks of pregnancy by a validated semi-quantitative FFQ. The PDI was obtained by assigning plant food groups positive scores while assigning animal food groups reverse scores. GDM was diagnosed by a 75 g 2-h oral glucose tolerance test at 24–28 weeks of gestation. Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate OR of GDM, with associated 95 % CI, comparing women in different PDI quartiles. Among the total 2099 participants, 169 (8·1 %) were diagnosed with GDM. The PDI ranged from 21·0 to 52·0 with a median of 36·0 (interquartile range (IQR) 33·0–39·0). After adjusting for social-demographic characteristics and lifestyle factors etc., the participants with the highest quartile of PDI were associated with 57 % reduced odds of GDM compared with women in the lowest quartile of PDI (adjusted OR 0·43; 95 % CI 0·24, 0·77; P for trend = 0·005). An IQR increment in PDI was associated with 29 % decreased odds of GDM (adjusted OR 0·71; 95 % CI 0·56, 0·90). Findings suggest that adopting a plant-based diet during pregnancy could reduce GDM risk among Chinese women, which may be valuable for dietary counselling during pregnancy.

Emergency search and rescue on the sea is an important part of national emergency response for marine perils. Optimal route planning for maritime search and rescue is the key capability to reduce the searching time, improve the rescue efficiency, as well as guarantee the rescue target’s safety of life and property. The main scope of the searching route planning is to optimise the searching time and voyage within the constraints of missing search rate and duplicate search rate. This paper proposes an optimal algorithm for searching routes of large amphibious aircraft corresponding to its flight characteristics and sea rescue capability. This algorithm transforms the search route planning problem into a discrete programming problem and applies the route traceback indexes to satisfy the duplicate search rate and missing search rate.

A series of new synthetic armored cables were developed and tested to ensure that they were suitable for use with the RECoverable Autonomous Sonde (RECAS), which is a newly designed freezing-in thermal ice probe. The final version of the cable consists of two concentric conductors that can be used as the power and signal lines. Two polyfluoroalkoxy jackets are used for electrical insulation (one for insulation between conductors, and the other for insulation of the outer conductor). The outer insulation layer is coated by polyurethane jacket to seal the connections between the cable and electrical units. The 0.65 mm thick strength member is made from aramid fibers woven together. To hold these aramid fibers in place, a sheathing layer was produced from a polyamide fabric cover net. The outer diameter of the final version of the cable is ~6.1 mm. The permissible bending radius is as low as 17–20 mm. The maximal breaking force under straight tension is ~12.2 kN. The cable weight is only ~0.061 kg m−1. The mechanical and electrical properties and environmental suitability of the cable were determined through laboratory testing and joint testing with the probe.

The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) guidelines recommend the Royal Free Hospital-Nutritional Prioritizing Tool (RFH-NPT) to identify malnutrition risk in patients with liver disease. However, little is known about the application of the RFH-NPT to screen for the risk of malnutrition in China, where patients primarily suffer from hepatitis virus-related cirrhosis. A total of 155 cirrhosis patients without liver cancer or uncontrolled co-morbid illness were enrolled in this prospective study. We administered the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002), RFH-NPT, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) and Liver Disease Undernutrition Screening Tool (LDUST) to the patients within 24 h after admission and performed follow-up observations for 1·5 years. The RFH-NPT and NRS-2002 had higher sensitivities (64·8 and 52·4 %) and specificities (60 and 70 %) than the other tools with regard to screening for malnutrition risk in cirrhotic patients. The prevalence of nutritional risk was higher under the use of the RFH-NPT against the NRS-2002 (63 v. 51 %). The RFH-NPT tended more easily to detect malnutrition risk in patients with advanced Child–Pugh classes (B and C) and lower Model for End-stage Liver Disease scores (<15) compared with NRS-2002. RFH-NPT score was an independent predictive factor for mortality. Patients identified as being at high malnutrition risk with the RFH-NPT had a higher mortality rate than those at low risk; the same result was not obtained with the NRS-2002. Therefore, we suggest that using the RFH-NPT improves the ability of clinicians to predict malnutrition risk in patients with cirrhosis primarily caused by hepatitis virus infection at an earlier stage.

The Antarctic subglacial drilling rig (ASDR) is designed to recover 105 mm-diameter ice cores up to 1400 m depth and 41.5 mm-diameter bedrock cores up to 2 m in length. In order to ensure safe and convenient drilling, drilling auxiliaries are designed to support fieldwork and servicing. These auxiliaries are subdivided into several systems for power supply, drill tripping in the borehole, ice core and chip processing, and drill servicing and maintenance. The required equipment also includes two generators, a drilling winch with a cable, logging winch with a cable, control desk, pipe handler with a fixed clamp, chip chamber vibrator, centrifuge, emergency devices and fitting and electrical tools. Additionally, several environmental protective measures such as a new liquid-tight casing with a thermal casing shoe and a bailing device for recovering drilling fluid from the borehole were designed. Most of the auxiliaries were tested during the summer of 2018–2019 near Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica while drilling to the bedrock to a depth of 198 m.

Drilling to the bedrock of ice sheets and glaciers offers unique opportunities for examining the processes occurring in the bed. Basal and subglacial materials contain important paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental records and provide a unique habitat for life; they offer significant information regarding the sediment deformation beneath glaciers and its effects on the subglacial hydraulic system and geology. The newly developed and tested Antarctic subglacial drilling rig (ASDR) is designed to recover ice and bedrock core samples from depths of up to 1400 m. All of the drilling equipment is installed inside a movable, sledge-mounted, temperature-controlled and wind-protected drilling shelter and workshop. To facilitate helicopter unloading of the research vessel, the shelter and workshop can be disassembled, with individual parts weighing <2–3 tons. The entire ASDR system weighs ~55 tons, including transport packaging. The ASDR is designed to be transported to the chosen site via snow vehicles and would be ready for drilling operations within 2–3 d after arrival. The ASDR was tested during the 2018–2019 summer season near Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica. At the test site, 2-week drilling operations resulted in a borehole that reached bedrock at a depth of 198 m.

A new, modified version of the cable-suspended Ice and Bedrock Electromechanical Drill (IBED) was designed for drilling in firn, ice, debris-rich ice and rock. The upper part of the drill is almost the same for all drill variants and comprises four sections: cable termination, a slip-ring section, an antitorque system and an electronic pressure chamber. The lower part of the IBED comprises an auger core barrel, reamers, a core barrel for ice/debris-ice drilling and a conventional geological single-tube core barrel or custom-made double-tube core barrel. First, the short and full-scale field versions of the IBED were tested at an outdoor testing stand and a testing facility with a 12.5 m-deep ice well. Then, in the 2018–2019 summer season, the IBED was tested in the field at a site ~12 km south of Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica, and a ~6 cm bedrock core was recovered from a 198 m-deep borehole. A total of 18 d was required to penetrate the ice sheet. The retrieved core samples of blue ice, basal ice and bedrock provided valuable information regarding the Earth's paleo-environment.

The first case of 2019-nCoV pneumonia infection occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, South China Seafood Market in December 2019. As a group with a high probability of infection, health workers are faced with a certain degree of psychological challenges in the process of facing the epidemic. This study attempts to evaluate the impact of 2019-nCoV outbreak on the psychological state of Chinese health workers and to explore the influencing factors. During the period from 31 January 2020 to 4 February 2020, the ‘Questionnaire Star’ electronic questionnaire system was used to collect data. The 2019-nCoV impact questionnaire and The Impact of Event Scale (IES) were used to check the psychological status of health workers in China. A total of 442 valid data were collected in this study. Seventy-four (16.7%) male and 368 (83.3%) female individuals participated in this study. The average score of high arousal dimension was 5.15 (s.d. = 4.71), and the median score was 4.0 (IQR 2.0, 7.0). The average score of IES was 15.26 (s.d. = 11.23), and the median score was 13.5 (IQR 7.0, 21.0). Multiple regression analysis showed that there were critical statistical differences in high arousal scores among different gender groups (male 3.0 vs. female 5.0, P = 0.075). Whether being quarantined had significant statistical differences of IES scores (being quarantined 16.0 vs. not being quarantined 13.0, P = 0.021). The overall impact of the 2019-nCoV outbreak on health workers is at a mild level. Chinese health workers have good psychological coping ability in the face of public health emergencies.

The present study examined the relationship between the Lie scale scores and striatal D2/D3 receptor availability with respect to the cerebellum in 42 healthy community volunteers in Taiwan using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with [123I]iodo-benzoaminde (IBZM). Even after controlling of age and educational level, subjects' Lie scale scores of the Maudsley personality inventory correlate negatively with D2/D3 receptor availability. Individual with higher Lie scale scores may have higher impulsivity due to lower dopaminergic availability.

Systematic accounts of East Asian government responses to the ‘limits of productivist regimes’ (Gough, 2004) remain surprisingly rare. This article develops three distinct types of East Asian welfare development, i.e. quantitative, type-specific, and radical, employing set-theoretic methods. It then uses these types to analyse six policy fields, including education, health care, family policy, old-age pensions, public housing, and passive labour market policy, in six East Asian societies: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. We find that all cases except Hong Kong and Singapore have experienced at least one radical shift in their welfare models over the past three decades (1990–2016). East Asian governments have increasingly combined quantitative expansion or retrenchment of ‘productive’ and ‘protective’ policy structures but have done so in unique ways. South Korea has followed the most ‘balanced’ approach to welfare development and stands out as the best candidate for further type-specific expansions moving forward.

Surface modification with poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine) (PMPC) is an effective method for improving hemocompatibility. Peptide GREDVY immobilized on Ti is of great benefit to endothelialization. Micropattern of PMPC and GREDVY can regulate cells distribution, behaviors, and nitric oxide (NO) release. Copper can be used as catalytic to release NO from a donor in vitro, which can inhibit platelets adhesion, activation, and aggregation. The Ti-PDA(Cu)-M/R(P) micropattern was fabricated with PMMPC-HD {PMMPC [monomer contain MPC and methacrylic acid (MA)] was cross-linked with hexamethylene diamine} and peptide Gly-Arg-Glu-Asp-Val-Tyr (GREDVY) using PDMS stamp, and it was characterized by SEM, FTIR, and XPS. The results demonstrated that the PMPC and peptide GREDVY were immobilized onto polydopamine successfully. Simultaneously, the copper existed in polydopamine was confirmed by XPS. The rate of NO release in vitro catalyzed by copper ions was 1.5–5.3 × 10−10 mol/(cm2 min). It will be beneficial to inhibiting platelets adhesion and proliferation of ECs.