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Background: Adequate nutritional knowledge and healthy dietary behaviours are essential for promoting rational nutrition for children. However, lack of nutritional knowledge and unhealthy dietary behaviours are common among Chinese children. Therefore, we developed a school‐based nutrition education (NE) program to assess its impacts on nutritional knowledge and dietary behaviours in pupils. Methods: In this trial, one school was assigned as an intervention group (n = 199) and the other two schools were designated as a control group (n = 140). Children in the intervention group received the NE program in addition to their regular health curriculum, whereas the control group continued with their usual health curriculum without any NE program materials. Results: Concerning nutritional knowledge, the mean difference (follow‐up minus baseline) of average knowledge scores in the intervention group was significantly higher than that in the control group (1.99 ± 3.22 vs. 0.66 ± 3.60, p = 0.001). However, subgroup analysis revealed that this difference disappeared among boys and students with malnutrition status. Regarding dietary behaviours, the NE program significantly increased the proportion of children exhibiting high frequencies of meat and nuts consumption in the intervention group, along with diverse food choice at breakfast. Additionally, it markedly reduced the proportion of children exhibiting high frequencies of sugar‐sweetened beverages and fast food consumption. Structural equation modelling analyses indicated a significant direct effect of NE intervention on nutritional knowledge and an indirect effect on dietary behaviours. Conclusions: The NE program effectively enhanced nutritional knowledge scores and further improved dietary behaviours among Chinese primary school students. Future NE programs should pay more attention to boys and children with malnutrition. Highlights: The nutrition education (NE) program is a school‐based initiative that aims to provide NE and assess its impacts on nutritional knowledge and dietary behaviours in pupils.The NE program significantly enhanced students' nutritional knowledge, particularly among female students and those with normal weight.A marked increase in the proportion of children consuming meat and nuts was observed, whereas there was a decrease in the proportion of consuming sugar‐sweetened beverages and fast food.Structural equation modelling analyses indicated that the NE intervention had a significant direct effect on nutritional knowledge and an indirect effect on dietary behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, and Streptococcus thermophilus (BLS) are widely recognized as the crucially beneficial bacteria in the gut. Many preclinical and clinical studies have shown their protective effects against non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, whether gestational BLS supplementation could alleviate NAFLD in the offspring is still unknown. Kunming mice were given a high‐fat diet (HFD) for 4 weeks before mating. They received BLS supplementation by gavage during pregnancy. After weaning, offspring mice were fed with a regular diet up to 5 weeks old. Gestational BLS supplementation significantly increased the abundance of Actinobacteriota, Bifidobacterium, and Faecalibaculum in the gut of dams exposed to HFD. In offspring mice exposed to maternal HFD, maternal BLS intake significantly decreased the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes as well as the relative abundance of Prevotella and Streptococcus, but increased the relative abundance of Parabacteroides. In offspring mice, maternal BLS supplementation significantly decreased the hepatic triglyceride content and mitigated hepatic steatosis. Furthermore, maternal BLS supplementation increased the glutathione content and reduced malondialdehyde content in the liver. In addition, mRNA and protein expression levels of key rate‐limiting enzymes in mitochondrial β‐oxidation (CPT1α, PPARα, and PGC1α) in the livers of offspring mice were significantly increased after gestational BLS supplementation. Thus, gestational BLS supplementation may ameliorate maternal HFD‐induced steatosis and oxidative stress in the livers of offspring mice by modulating fatty acid β‐oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) is the first enzyme in the phenylpropanoid pathway and plays a critical role in plant growth, development and stress defence. However, there have been few reports of the PAL gene family in lucerne (also known as alfalfa, Medicago sativa L.), one of the most important forage legume species worldwide. In this study, we report that PAL in lucerne is encoded by a family of seven genes: MsPAL1–MsPAL7. Furthermore, a comprehensive genome-wide bioinformatics analysis of the MsPAL gene family is presented, including chromosomal locations, phylogenetic relationships, gene structures and conserved motifs. The cis -elements and potential biological functions of these genes were investigated, revealing the potential roles of MsPAL members in response to various stresses. RT-qPCR results showed that the expression of MsPAL6 was significantly upregulated under both salinity- and waterlogging-stress conditions. Other MsPAL members such as MsPAL1 and MsPAL2 were downregulated under saline conditions and upregulated significantly after waterlogging stress. Our findings provide useful information for further practical analyses and for the genetic improvement of abiotic stress tolerance of lucerne. We performed a genome-wide analysis of the PAL gene family in Medicago sativa using routine bioinformatic tools and describe our findings in this manuscript. Both MsPAL4 and MsPAL6 displayed increased expression under both salinity and waterlogging conditions. Our observations provide the first insight into the function of PAL family genes when lucerne is subjected to salinity and waterlogging stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In an intelligent transportation system (for short, ITS) environment, a vehicle's motion is affected by the information in a large scale. The purpose of this paper is to study the integration effect of multiple vehicles' delayed velocities on traffic flow. Design/methodology/approach: This paper constructed a new car-following model to study the integration effect of multiple vehicles' delayed velocities on traffic flow. The new model is analyzed by linear and nonlinear perturbation method theoretically and also verified by simulation. Findings: It is found out that the integration of preceding vehicles' delayed velocities affect the stability of traffic flow importantly, and three preceding vehicles' delayed velocities information should be considered in real traffic. Originality/value: The new car-following model by considering the integration effect of multiple vehicles' delayed velocities is firstly proposed in this paper. The research result shows that three preceding vehicles' delayed velocities information is the best choice to stabilizing traffic flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-boundary twins (referred to as twin pairs) are frequently observed at grain boundaries with small grain boundary angle ( θ) in deformed Mg alloys. This study calculates the distribution of the high peak geometric compatibility factor ( m′) values over potential variants with θ. The misorientation angles ( α) between the potential variants of twin pairs are also evaluated. It reveals that α is a reasonable reflection of the m′ parameter for ideal basal texture. There is a clear variant with high m′, but there may be two variants with similar small values of α. Moreover, it shows that θ correlates reasonably with high peak values of m′, particularly below 30° of misorientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily experiences often involve the processing of multiple sequences, yet storing them challenges the limited capacity of working memory (WM). To achieve efficient memory storage, relational structures shared by sequences would be leveraged to reorganize and compress information. Here, participants memorized a sequence of items with different colors and spatial locations and later reproduced the full color and location sequences one after another. Crucially, we manipulated the consistency between location and color sequence trajectories. First, sequences with consistent trajectories demonstrate improved memory performance and a trajectory correlation between reproduced color and location sequences. Second, sequences with consistent trajectories show neural reactivation of common trajectories, and display spontaneous replay of color sequences when recalling locations. Finally, neural reactivation correlates with WM behavior. Our findings suggest that a shared common structure is leveraged for the storage of multiple sequences through compressed encoding and neural replay, together facilitating efficient information organization in WM., Competing Interests: QH No competing interests declared, HL Reviewing editor, eLife, (© 2023, Huang and Luo.)