In the wake of constant improvements in sequencing technologies, numerous insect genomes have been sequenced. Currently, 1219 insect genome‐sequencing projects have been registered with the National ...Center for Biotechnology Information, including 401 that have genome assemblies and 155 with an official gene set of annotated protein‐coding genes. Comparative genomics analysis showed that the expansion or contraction of gene families was associated with well‐studied physiological traits such as immune system, metabolic detoxification, parasitism and polyphagy in insects. Here, we summarize the progress of insect genome sequencing, with an emphasis on how this impacts research on pest control. We begin with a brief introduction to the basic concepts of genome assembly, annotation and metrics for evaluating the quality of draft assemblies. We then provide an overview of genome information for numerous insect species, highlighting examples from prominent model organisms, agricultural pests and disease vectors. We also introduce the major insect genome databases. The increasing availability of insect genomic resources is beneficial for developing alternative pest control methods. However, many opportunities remain for developing data‐mining tools that make maximal use of the available insect genome resources. Although rapid progress has been achieved, many challenges remain in the field of insect genomics.
This paper presents a new unified approach for analyzing the static and dynamic behaviors of functionally graded beams (FGB) with the rotary inertia and shear deformation included. As two special ...cases, the Euler–Bernoulli and Rayleigh beam theories can be analytically reduced from the Timoshenko beam theory. All material properties are arbitrary functions along the beam thickness. A single fourth-order governing partial differential equation is derived and all physical quantities can be expressed in terms of the solution of the resulting equation. The static result of deflection and stress distribution is presented for a cantilever FGB. Furthermore, two branches of flexural waves propagating in FGB are obtained with different wave speeds. The higher wave speed disappears when the effects of neither the rotary inertia nor shear deformation are considered. Free vibration of an FGB is analyzed and the frequency equation is given. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of a simply supported beam are obtained for frequencies lower than, equal to and higher than the cut-off frequency. Numerical results are presented for an FGB with the power-law gradient and a laminated beam. The second frequency spectrum is found to exist when frequencies exceed the cut-off frequency. In addition, double frequencies may occur for certain specified geometry of the beam. Previous results for a homogeneous Timoshenko beam can be recovered from the present only letting the material properties be constant. The suggested method is also applicable to layered Timoshenko beams.
We take advantage of climate simulations from two multimodel experiments to characterize and evaluate the cloud phase partitioning in 16 general circulation models (GCMs), specifically the vertical ...structure of the transition between liquid and ice in clouds. We base our analysis on the ratio of ice condensates to the total condensates (phase ratio, PR). Its transition at 90% (PR90) and its links with other relevant variables are evaluated using the GCM‐Oriented Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation Cloud Product climatology, reanalysis data, and other satellite observations. In 13 of 16 models, the PR90 transition height occurs too low (6 km to 8.4 km) and at temperatures too warm (−13.9°C to −32.5°C) compared to observations (8.6 km, −33.7°C); features consistent with a lack of supercooled liquid with respect to ice above 6.5 km. However, this bias would be slightly reduced by using the lidar simulator. In convective regimes (more humid air and precipitation), the observed cloud phase transition occurs at a warmer temperature than for subsidence regimes (less humid air and precipitation). Only few models manage to roughly replicate the observed correlations with humidity (5/16), vertical velocity (5/16), and precipitation (4/16); 3/16 perform well for all these parameters (MPI‐ESM, NCAR‐CAM5, and NCHU). Using an observation‐based Clausius‐Clapeyron phase diagram, we illustrate that the Bergeron‐Findeisen process is a necessary condition for models to represent the observed features. Finally, the best models are those that include more complex microphysics.
Key Points
Cloud phase intermodel differences are very large
Prognostic cloud phase scheme is necessary to reproduce realistic cloud phase
These results could lead to an improvement of the next generation of GCMs
Summary
Background
Tinea capitis is still common in developing countries, such as China. Its pathogen spectrum varies across regions and changes over time.
Objectives
This study aimed to clarify the ...current epidemiological characteristics and pathogen spectrum of tinea capitis in China.
Methods
A multicentre, prospective descriptive study involving 29 tertiary hospitals in China was conducted. From August 2019 to July 2020, 611 patients with tinea capitis were enrolled. Data concerning demography, risk factors and fungal tests were collected. When necessary, the pathogens were further identified by morphology or molecular sequencing in the central laboratory.
Results
Among all enrolled patients, 74·1% of the cases were in patients aged 2–8 years. The children with tinea capitis were mainly boys (56·2%) and were more likely than adults to have a history of animal contact (57·4% vs. 35·3%, P = 0·012) and zoophilic dermatophyte infection (73·5% vs. 47%). The adults were mainly female (83%) and were more likely than children to have anthropophilic agent infection (53% vs. 23·9%). The most common pathogen was zoophilic Microsporum canis (354, 65·2%), followed by anthropophilic Trichophyton violaceum (74, 13·6%). In contrast to the eastern, western and northeastern regions, where zoophilic M. canis predominated, anthropophilic T. violaceum predominated in central China (69%, P < 0·001), where the patients had the most tinea at other sites (20%) and dermatophytosis contact (26%) but the least animal contact (39%). Microsporum ferrugineum was the most common anthropophilic agent in the western area, especially in Xinjiang province.
Conclusions
Boys aged approximately 5 years were the most commonly affected group. Dermatologists are advised to pay more attention to the different transmission routes and pathogen spectra in different age groups from different regions.
What is already known about this topic?
Tinea capitis is an infection of the scalp and hair caused by dermatophytes and is still common in developing countries. Prepubertal children are mainly affected.
The pathogen spectrum of tinea capitis varies across different geographical areas and changes over time.
Nationwide prospective epidemiological surveys of tinea capitis in China are rare and out of date.
What does this study add?
This study provides data concerning the epidemiological characteristics and pathogen spectrum of tinea capitis in contemporary China.
Boys aged approximately 5 years were most commonly affected and were more likely than adults to have zoophilic dermatophyte infection.
The main pathogens of tinea capitis in China are zoophilic dermatophytes, mainly Microsporum canis. In contrast to the other regions, the predominant pathogens in central China are anthropophilic dermatophytes.
Plain language summary available online
The 14‐3‐3 proteins bind to and modulate the activity of phosphorylated proteins that regulate a variety of metabolic processes in plants. Over the past decade interest in the plant 14‐3‐3 field has ...increased dramatically, mainly due to the vast number of mechanisms by which 14‐3‐3 proteins regulate metabolism. As this field develops, it is essential to understand the role of these proteins in metabolic and stress responses. This review summarizes current knowledge about 14‐3‐3 proteins in plants, including their molecular structure and function, regulatory mechanism and roles in carbon and nitrogen metabolism and stress responses. We begin with a molecular structural analysis of 14‐3‐3 proteins, which describes the basic principles of 14‐3‐3 function, and then discuss the regulatory mechanisms and roles in carbon and nitrogen metabolism of 14‐3‐3 proteins. We conclude with a summary of the 14‐3‐3 response to biotic stress and abiotic stress.
By binding to and modulating the activity of phosphorylated proteins, 14‐3‐3 proteins regulate various metabolic processes in plants, including carbon and nitrogen metabolism, stress response, and other metabolic processes.
Internet of things (IoT) is one of the most emerging technologies nowadays and it is one of the key enablers of industrial cyber physical system (CPSs). It has started to participate in almost every ...aspect of our social life, ranging from financial transactions to the healthcare system, communication to national security, battlefield to smart homes, and so on. However, the wide deployment of IoT suffers certain issues as well, such as interoperability, compatibility, heterogeneity, large amount of data, processing of heterogeneous data etc. Among others, energy efficiency and security are the utmost prominent issues. Scarce computing resources of IoT devices put hindrances on information sharing across edge or IoT network. Indeed, unintentional or malicious interference with IoT data may lead to severe concerns. In this study, the researcher exploits the potential benefits of a blockchain system and integrates it with software-defined networking (SDN) while justifying energy and security issues. More in detail, the researcher proposed a new routing protocol with the cluster structure for IoT networks using blockchain-based architecture for SDN controller. The proposed architecture obviates proof-of-work (PoW) with private and public blockchains for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication between SDN controllers and IoT devices. In addition to this, distributed trust-based authentication mechanism makes blockchain even more adoptive for IoT devices with limited resources. The experimental results show that the proposed cluster structure based routing protocol outperforms the state-of-the-art Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV), Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector (DSDV), Secure Mobile Sensor Network (SMSN), Energy efficient secured cluster based distributed fault diagnosis (EESCFD), and Ad-hoc On-demand Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV), in terms of energy consumption, network throughput, and packet latency. Proposed protocol help overcome the issues especially, energy management and security of the next generation industrial cyber physical systems.
Advanced LIGO's discovery of gravitational-wave events is stimulating extensive studies on the origin of binary black holes. Assuming that the gravitational-wave events can be explained by binary ...primordial black hole mergers, we utilize the upper limits on the stochastic gravitational-wave background given by Advanced LIGO as a new observational window to independently constrain the abundance of primordial black holes in dark matter. We show that Advanced LIGO's first observation run gives the best constraint on the primordial black hole abundance in the mass range 1M_{⊙}≲M_{PBH}≲100M_{⊙}, pushing the previous microlensing and dwarf galaxy dynamics constraints tighter by 1 order of magnitude. Moreover, we discuss the possibility to detect the stochastic gravitational-wave background from primordial black holes, in particular from subsolar mass primordial black holes, by Advanced LIGO in the near future.
Plastic crystal neopentylglycol (NPG) exhibits colossal barocaloric effects (BCEs) with record-high entropy changes, offering exciting prospects for the field of solid-state cooling through the ...application of moderate pressures. Here, we show that the intermolecular hydrogen bond plays a key role in the orientational order of NPG molecules, while its broken due to thermal perturbation prominently weakens the activation barrier of orientational disorder. The analysis of hydrogen bond strength, rotational entropy free energy and entropy changes provides insightful understanding of BCEs in order-disorder transition. External pressure reduce the hydsrogen bond length and enhance the activation barrier of orientational disorder, which serves as a route of varying intermolecular interaction to tune the order-disorder transition. Our work provides atomic-scale insights on the orientational order-disorder transition of NPG as the prototypical plastic crystal with BCEs, which is helpful to achieve superior caloric materials by molecular designing in the near future.