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Multiferroic materials, coexisting of ferroelectric, ferromagnetic and ferroelastic properties, possess potential applications in functional devices. BiFeO3 (BFO) is a unique room temperature multi...

Bi-Fe-O amorphous nanoparticles were synthesized via a facile sol-gel method using tartaric acid as the chelating agent. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission elec...

Recently, SnO

River ecosystems are critical for human and environmental health, with bacterioplankton playing a vital role in biogeochemical cycles. Unveiling the spatial patterns of bacterioplankton communities in relation to environmental factors is important for understanding the processes of microbial variation and functional maintenance. However, our understanding of the correlations among bacterioplankton communities, physicochemical factors, and land use, especially in large rivers affected by intensive anthropogenic activities, remains relatively poor. Here, we investigated the bacterioplankton communities in July 2018 in three main tributaries of the Pearl River, i.e., Beijiang, Xijiang, and Pearl River Delta, based on 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that the most dominant phyla, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria, and Planctomycetes accounted for 33.75%, 22.15%, 11.65%, and 10.48% of the total abundance, respectively. The bacterioplankton communities showed remarkable differences among the three tributaries in terms of composition, structure, diversity, and predictive functional profiles. Mantel and partial Mantel tests revealed that the bacterioplankton communities were affected by physicochemical variables (p &lt, 0.01) and land use (p &lt, 0.01). Redundancy analysis identified specific conductivity, dissolved oxygen, agricultural land, ammonium, urban land, and water transparency as the dominant environmental factors influencing the bacterioplankton communities in the Pearl River. Variation partitioning analysis indicated that both physicochemical factors and land use had direct effects on the bacterioplankton community, and that land use may also shape bacterioplankton communities through indirect effects of physicochemical factors on riverine ecosystems. This study provides fundamental information on the diversity, spatial patterns, and influencing factors of bacterioplankton communities in the Pearl River, which should enhance our understanding of how such communities change in response to environmental gradients and anthropogenic activities.

Mitochondrial genome is a powerful molecule marker to explore phylogenetic relationships and reveal molecular evolution in ichthyological studies. Gerres species play significant roles in marine fishery, but its evolution has received little attention. To date, only two Gerres mitochondrial genomes were reported. In the present study, three mitogenomes of Gerres (Gerres filamentosus, Gerres erythrourus, and Gerres decacanthus) were systemically investigated. The lengths of the mitogenome sequences were 16,673, 16,728, and 16,871 bp for G. filamentosus, G. erythrourus, and G. decacanthus, respectively. Most protein-coding genes (PCGs) were initiated with the typical ATG codon and terminated with the TAA codon, and the incomplete termination codon T/TA could be detected in the three species. The majority of AT-skew and GC-skew values of the 13 PCGs among the three species were negative, and the amplitude of the GC-skew was larger than the AT-skew. The genetic distance and Ka/Ks ratio analyses indicated 13 PCGs were suffering purifying selection and the selection pressures were different from certain deep-sea fishes, were which most likely due to the difference in their living environment. The phylogenetic tree was constructed by molecular method (Bayesian Inference (BI) and maximum Likelihood (ML)), providing further supplement to the scientific classification of fish. Three Gerres species were differentiated in late Cretaceous and early Paleogene, and their evolution might link with the geological events that could change their survival environment.

The piezoresistive pressure sensor made with a three-dimensional (3D) structure as the core material is considered a potential precision sensor for wearable devices because of its unique advantages of simple preparation principle, low power consumption, stable performance and high signal acquisition efficiency. It has attracted the attention of many scientific researchers who are committed to realizing the high intelligence and informatization of personal devices. After the rapid development in the 21st century, this technology has made many breakthroughs and showed strong application potential in high-tech fields such as human motion detection, health monitoring and electronic skin. However, this technology is still a long way from full commercial mass production. This paper introduces the unique advantages of the 3D graphene-based piezoresistive sensor in intelligent wearable devices, summarizes several production methods and applications of this 3D graphene-based piezoresistive sensor, explores the future development trend and application prospect of this technology, and discusses the challenges and prospects of piezoresistive pressure sensor based on three-dimensional graphene.

The length–weight relationships (LWRs) were determined for five fish species from the Beijiang River in China. Fishes were caught by gill nets (mesh sizes: 5, 7, 9 cm), and cage nets (mesh sizes: 0.5 cm) from April to September 2018. Length–weight relationships of four species were unknown to FishBase, and new records of maximum lengths are given for two species, one of which, Ancherythroculter lini, is endemic species of the Pearl River. All length–weight relationships were highly significant on a log scale with the coefficient of determination (r²) values ranged from 0.939 to 0.991. Values of b were within the expected range, varied from 2.935 for A. lini to 3.414 for Parasinilabeo assimilis.

A 76-year-old man suffering post-herpetic neuralgia developed severe thrombocytopenia 15 days after the administration of carbamazepine. Carbamazepine-dependent platelet antibodies were proved to be present in the patient’s serum by a modified Monoclonal Antibody Solid-phase Platelet Antibody Test (MASPAT), and the diagnosis of carbamazepine-induced immune thrombocytopenia was confirmed. For the patient, carbamazepine should be advised to be avoided permanently. The present report advocated the application of a modified MASPAT test for the detection of carbamazepine-dependent platelet antibodies.

Phytophthora root and stem rot, caused by Phytophthora sojae, is an economically important disease of soybean (Glycine max) in Heilongjiang Province, China. The objectives of this research were to determine the race profile of P. sojae in Heilongjiang and evaluate soybean cultivars for reactions to the pathogen races. A total of 96 single-zoospore P. sojae isolates were obtained from soil samples collected from 35 soybean fields in 18 counties in Heilongjiang from 2005 to 2007. Eight races of P. sojae, including races 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 44, and 54, were identified on a set of eight differentials, each containing a single resistance Rps gene, from 80 of the 96 isolates. Races 1 and 3 were predominant races, comprising 58 and 14 isolates, and representing 60 and 7% of the pathogen population, respectively. Races 4, 5, 44, and 54 were identified for the first time in Heilongjiang, and each was represented by two to three isolates only. Sixty-two soybean cultivars commonly grown in Heilongjiang Province were evaluated for their resistance to the eight P. sojae races identified using the hypocotyl inoculation technique. Based on the percentage of plant mortality rated 5 days after inoculation, 44 cultivars were resistant (

Recently, SnO2 is considered to be one of the most promising materials as electron transport layer in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Low-temperature processed SnO2 films are crucial for SnO2-based PSCs and flexible devices. However, it is difficult to prepare stoichiometric SnO2 films by e-beam evaporation at low-temperature. Herein, SnO2 films are fabricated by oxygen plasma activated e-beam evaporation technique at room-temperature. Oxygen plasma shows strong oxidation activity, which is essential to adjust the stoichiometry of SnO x in the evaporation process. The SnO2 films exhibit uniformity (R q = 3.05 nm), high transmittance (T > 90%), high hall mobility (μ e = 10.8 cm2 V −1 s−1) and good hydrophilic (water contact angle =19°). This work will promote the application of SnO2 films in PSCs and flexible devices.

Understanding the composition and assembly mechanism of waterborne pathogen is essential for preventing the pathogenic infection and protecting the human health. Here, based on 16S rRNA sequencing, we investigated the composition and spatial variation of potentially pathogenic bacteria from different sections of the Pearl River, the most important source of water for human in Southern China. The results showed that the potential pathogen communities consisted of 6 phyla and 64 genera, covering 11 categories of potential pathogens mainly involving animal parasites or symbionts (AniP), human pathogens all (HumPA), and intracellular parasites (IntCelP). Proteobacteria (75.87%) and Chlamydiae (20.56%) were dominant at the phylum level, and Acinetobacter (35.01%) and Roseomonas (8.24%) were dominant at the genus level. Multivariate analysis showed that the potential pathogenic bacterial community was significantly different among the four sections in the Pearl River. Both physicochemical factors (e.g., NO3–N, and suspended solids) and land use (e.g., urban land and forest) significantly shaped the pathogen community structure. However, spatial effects contributed more to the variation of pathogen community based on variation partitioning and path analysis. Null model based normalized stochasticity ratio analysis further indicated that the stochastic process rather than deterministic process dominated the assembly mechanisms by controlling the spatial patterns of potential pathogens. In conclusion, high-throughput sequencing shows great potential for monitoring the potential pathogens, and provided more comprehensive information on the potentially pathogenic community. Our study highlighted the importance of considering the influences of dispersal-related processes in future risk assessments for the prevention and control of pathogenic bacteria.

Particle separation technology plays an important role in a wide range of applications as a critical sample preprocessing step for analysis. In this work, we proposed and fabricated a multilayer lateral-flow particle filtration and separation device based on polydimethylsiloxane molding and transfer bonding techniques. Particle separation capability was demonstrated by 4.5-um polystyrene bead filtration and cancer cell (SK-BR-3) retrieving. This device exhibits higher throughput compared with most active particle separation methods and is less vulnerable to membrane clogging problem. This novel multilayer particle filtration and separation device is expected to find applications in biomedical, environmental and microanalysis fields.

While interactive television enables a new user-centered TV mode, catering to the tastes of TV users is one of the most critical tasks in delivering interactive TV experience. It faces two key challenges. First, the user behaviors on TV are much sparser than those of the internet users, thus making the modeling of user preferences more challenging. Second, an TV account is usually associated with multiple individuals in a family, making it difficult to discriminate the preferences of individual family members. In this paper, we thus propose a novel Clustering-Coupled Topic Model (CCTM), which characterizes user profile only by analyzing user viewing behaviors without any program metadata. This model clusters the users into different groups, then access the group preference for program recommendation by coupling the interest of different users in the same cluster group. We validate the performance of the CCTM with real-world data from a national interactive TV program. The experimental results have demonstrated that the CCTM can reasonably extract the users’ potential preference, which is further leveraged to recommend programs to the users.

Internet protocol television (IPTV), the television services through the Internet, has recently gained increasing popularity. One key advantage of IPTV over the traditional terrestrial TV, satellite TV, and cable TV is that it makes the TV viewing experience more interactive and personalized. Many efforts have been made for delivering personalized IPTV services, of which understanding user preferences is the most critical. A key challenge in analyzing IPTV user behaviors is that multiple individuals may be associated with an IPTV account, thus making it difficult to identify individual users. We propose a novel time-topic coupled latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model, which considers the topic of TV programs viewed as well as the timestamps of the viewing behaviors, in order to capture the inherent viewing patterns of individual users along the topic as well as the time dimensions. Based on the coupled LDA model, we further summarize the behavior patterns of IPTV users. We perform an in-depth study on several intrinsic characteristics of IPTV user activities by analyzing the real-world data collected from an operational nation-wide IPTV system in China and show that the proposed coupled LDA model is able to capture interesting viewing patterns.

Background Automated systems (MicroScan WalkAway 96 Plus, Phoenix 100, and Vitek 2 Compact) are widely used in clinical laboratories nowadays. The aim of this study is to evaluate the performance of these three systems for susceptibility testing of aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones against Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE). Methods A total of 75 CRE isolates were used in this study. Quinolone resistance determinants (QRDs) (qnrA, qnrB, qnrC, qnrD, qnrS, aac(6′)-Ib-cr, oqxAB and qepA) and aminoglycoside resistance determinants (ARDs) (aac(6′)-Ib, armA, npmA, rmtA, rmtB, rmtC, rmtD and rmtE) of these CRE were screened by PCR. The MICs of aminoglycosides (gentamicin and amikacin) and fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin) to CRE obtained with the automated systems were compared with the reference method (agar dilution method). Results Totally, 97.3% (73/75) of CRE harbored QRDs. The qnr gene was the most common QRD determinant identified in 68 (96.7%), followed by aac (6′)-Ib-cr in 56 (74.7%), oqxAB in 23 (30.7%), and qepA in 2 (2.7%), respectively. 22.7% (17/75) of CRE harbored ARD determinants. rmtA, rmtB and npmA were identified among these isolates in 6 (8.0%), 6 (8.0%) and 5 (6.7%), respectively. A total of 900 results were obtained in this study. Overall, the total error rate was 9.89%. Twenty-eight very major errors (3.11%), 22 major errors (2.44%) and 39 minor errors (4.33%) were identified against agar dilution method. The very major errors were almost evenly distributed between results for fluoroquinolones (2.89%) and aminoglycosides (3.33%), while the major errors and minor errors were more commonly found in the results of fluoroquinolones (3.11% and 6.44%, respectively) than aminoglycosides (1.78% and 2.22%, respectively). Conclusions Our study shows that testing difficulties in susceptibility testing do exist in automated systems. We suggest clinical laboratories using automated systems should consider using a second, independent antimicrobial susceptibility testing method to validate aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones susceptibility.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are cancer cells shed from primary tumor and circulating in the peripheral blood. CTCs initiate secondary tumor colonies and result in more than 90% of cancer death. Isolation and enumeration of CTCs have exhibited promising clinical applications in cancer early diagnosis, prognosis and personalized therapy. However, owing to the extremely low rarity (as low as one CTC in one billion blood cells), CTCs isolation remains a great technical challenge. Current CTCs isolation approaches are based either on their biological properties, including immunoassay, magnetic-activated cell sorting, fluorescence-activated cell sorting, or physical properties, including filtering, inertial microfluidics, deterministic lateral displacement and etc. In general, biology-based techniques are characterized as high purity but low throughput; while physical property based techniques have advantages of low cost and high throughput. In this work, we reported the fabrication of a multilayer crossflow device and demonstrated the capability of isolating CTCs from whole blood based on lateral-flow filtration. The device was consisted of a filter membrane sandwiched between two microfluidic channel layers and fabricated with standard PDMS soft lithography and multilayer bonding technique. A 77.3% filtration efficiency with 4.5um polystyrene beads and a 97% cancer cells recovery rate have been achieved for a single-pass filtration. To further enhance the enrichment ratio(concentration of CTCs prior to filtration over that post-filtration) of CTCs over blood cells, a recirculating filtration system was built by combing the crossflow device with pressure pump and electromagnetic valves. In this system, 1 ml blood sample was treated for 10 times within 40 minutes, with an enrichment ratio of more than 104.

In recent years, we have witnessed the explosive growth of microblogging services. As a popular platform for users to communicate and share information with friends, microblog has opened up new opportunities for recommendation. In this paper, we explore the possibility of recommending TV programs with microblogs. In particular, we leverage the following two important features of microblogs: (1) the rich user generated content reveals users' preferences on TV programs as well as the properties of TV programs and (2) the social interactions of the users suggest the mutual influences among the users. Taking into consideration of the above two properties, we proposed a hybrid recommendation model based on probabilistic matrix factorization, a popular collaborative filtering method. Two regularizers are added during matrix factorization: the social regularizer and the item similarity regularizer. We validate the proposed algorithm with Sina Weibo data set for TV program recommendation. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art collaborative filtering method, demonstrating the importance of incorporating social trust and item similarity in recommendation. In addition, we show that the proposed method is robust in recommending to new users, a typical cold-start scenario.

The advertising as a form of business promotion has more and more widely in different applications, and the lighting lamps is one of the key equipments in the entire outdoor advertising facilities. In order to improve advertising effectiveness and facilities security, especially for the outdoor advertising lighting applications in some remote areas, occasionally occur the advertising lamps stolen and damaged. A novel advertising lighting anti-thefts security system based on digital control technologies is designed and implementation in this paper. The designed system can achieve the real-time online status monitoring of advertising lighting lamps, once the abnormal situation the system can be issued on-site sound and light alarms and remote on-line notification, etc., which greatly improving the anti-theft security performance of outdoor advertising lighting.

To elucidate the differential gene expression patterns in soybeans during infection by Phytophthora sojae, a cDNA library for suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) was constructed with cDNAs from soybean cultivar Suinong 10 treated with sterile distilled water as the driver and cDNAs from Suinong 10 inoculated with P. sojae as the tester. A total of 2 067 recombinant colonies from the SSH library were randomly picked, amplified, and sequenced. After discarding 312 poor quality expressed sequence tags (EST), 1 755 high quality ESTs were assembled and edited to 1 384 tentatively unique genes (TUG), in which, 586 showed significant homology to known sequences, and 798 had low homology or no match with the known sequences. A cDNA microarray containing 307 singletons from the 586 TUGs and 222 singletons from the 798 TUGs was developed to characterize differentially expressed cDNAs in the SSH library, and eight cDNAs were identified to be up-regulated after microarray analysis and then confirmed by real-time PCR. They were homologous to the protein 10, and were also related to some proteins in disease resistance response, such as pathogen-related protein, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, isoflavone reductase, WRKY transcription factor 31, major allergen Pru ar 1, and pleiotropic drug resistance protein 12. Most of the up-regulated cDNAs encode enzymes of phytoalexin biosynthesis and pathogenesis-related proteins involved in plant disease resistance. Here, we fist reported the Pru ar 1 in soybeans. The findings of this research have contributed to better understanding of soybean resistance to P. sojae at the molecular level.

Impulse electric field measurement should satisfy some special requirements such as intensive signal amplitude, appropriate insulation, broadband response, and small size. Three types of integrated electro-optic sensors, designed and fabricated for measuring intensive impulse electric field, was implemented in this paper. The theoretical concerns and specific characteristics of these integrated electro-optic sensors were illustrated in terms of their structures and key parameters. The time domain input/output characteristic and frequency response of the sensors were examined too. Comparison of the time domain characteristics of these sensors revealed that the mono-shield sensor was more efficient than those with antennas in measurable amplitudes, which is critical for high electric field measurement in gas breakdown research. In addition, the application of the sensor in the lightning impulse experiment upon air gap not only verify the existence of streamer charge but also ensured that this sensor is expected to be widely used in transient measurement investigations such as the measurement of lightning electric field, air breakdown procedure, and maybe surface discharge.

In order to meet the demands for the electric field measurement along the composite insulators simultaneously, such as intensive signal, fine insulation, passive and small size, a novel measurement system based on the core device, the integrated electro-optic sensor, was developed. First, the theory of the system and the sensor were introduced. Second, after fabrication, the input/output character was obtained and the calibration was implemented between two parallel square metal planes under power frequency. By optimum design, this kind of novel sensor was suitable for insulated, intensive (> 250 kV/m), small size (55 mm x 2 mm x 1 mm) electric field measurement. Third, the axial and radial electric field distribution of the insulators were measured carefully in laboratory, and by combining the BEM and CSM method, the electric field of the same insulators was numerically calculated. Finally, the measurement and calculated results of electric field distribution were compared and the relationship between them were analyzed. This comparison verified the suitability and importance of the measurement system.

The internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region (ITS1, ITS2 and 5.8S rDNA) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) was amplified via the PCR method in seventeen different isolates of Phytophthora sojae using the common primers of the ITS of fungi. Around 800 bp-1,000 bp fragments were obtained based on the DL2000 marker and the sequences of the PCR products were tested. Taking isolate USA as outgroup, the phylogenetic tree was constructed by means of maximum parsimony analysis, and the genetic evolution among isolates was analyzed. The results showed that there is a great difference between the base constitution of ITS1 and ITS2 among various isolates. The seventeen isolates are classified into three groups, and the isolates from the same region belong to the same group, which shows the variation in geography.

Simple sequence repeats (SSR) marker analysis, combined with pedigree analysis, was carried out to trace the genetic constitutes of Suinong 14 and Hefeng 25 in assessing the contribution of foreign germplasm to those elite cultivars. The overall goal is to accumulate information for further effective utilization of foreign germplasm in Chinese soybean breeding programs. SSR clustering results indicated that the genetic base of elite Chinese soybean cultivars, including Suinong 14 and Hefeng 25, were broadened and enhanced via introduction of Amsoy from the U.S. and Shishengchangye from Japan. The pedigree analysis showed a very high coefficient of parentage between Shishengchangye and Hefeng 25, between Shishengchangye and Suinong 14, and between Amsoy and Suinong 14. The genetic similarity between Suinong 14 and Hefeng 25 was 60.58%. Among 20 linkage groups, more genomic regions were transferred from Hefeng 25 to Suinong 14 in linkage group (LG) I, L and C2 than other LGs. Among the unique alleles of foreign parents, five specific loci in Amsoy were transferred to Suinong 14, and three loci from Shishengchangye to Suinong 14. Some SSR loci were proved to be correlated with phenotypes: two loci for seed size introgressed from Shishengchangye to Suinong 14, and one locus for protein content from Amsoy to Suinong 14. These results indicate that the two foreign parents might have important contributions in the development of Suinong 14 and Hefeng 25.

The transient near-field of the electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a kind of high power transient phenomenon, which is strongly affected by the discharge current waveform. In this paper, two different kinds of discharge current waveforms satisfying the definition of the IEC61000-4-2 are introduced. The alternating-direction-implicit finite-difference time-domain (ADI-FDTD) method is applied to simulate the transient near-field of the indirect ESD through the vertical couple plane (VCP). The configuration of the current source is considered carefully. The simulation results under different discharge current waveforms show different transient effects. The simulated data are compared with those measured by an optic testing system

In this paper, we analyze user behaviors in Internet Protocol television (IPTV). We propose a novel coupled LDA model, which considers topic of TV programs viewed as well as the timestamps of the viewing behaviors, in order to capture the inherent viewing patterns of the users along the topic as well as the time dimensions. Based on the coupled LDA model, we further summarize the behavior patterns of IPTV users. We compare our model with other models on the real data collected from an operational nation-wide IPTV system and show that the proposed coupled LDA model is able to capture interesting viewing patterns.

The explosive growth of microblogs has attracted many corporations and organizations. Microblogging has been considered as a high-quality advertising platform. In this study, we attempt to reveal the patterns of advertisement propagation in Sina-Microblog through analyzing a selected set of message cascades. Each message cascade is represented by a propagation tree and 33 features were extracted, which cover mainly three aspects of a cascade: the volume of the participants, the topology of the propagation paths, and the promptness of the propagation in term of time. To reveal the propagation patterns, We then group these message cascades using K-means clustering algorithm. Analysis of the resulted clusters reveals the patterns of advertisement propagation, based on which we further propose several metrics to measure the effectiveness of advertisement in microblogs.

In order to meet the special demands of impulse electric field measurement simultaneously, such as intensive signal, fine insulation, transient, wide frequency band, and small size, three kinds of optical electric integrated electric field sensor were designed and fabricated. The output/input character and frequency response of the sensors were examined carefully. It can be find that the measurable amplitude of two traditional designed sensors is less than 80 kV/m, which is not suitable for intensive electric field measurement. But a novel sensor designed here is suitable for insulated, intensive (about 300 kV/m) electric field measurement. And the application of which in the lightning impulse experiment upon air gap ensure that the sensor can be expected to widespread use in transient intensive electric field measurement investigation.

In this study, 14 agronomic traits and 139 SSR loci, distributed on 20 linkage groups of soybean (Glycine max L.) cultivar Suinong 14 and its pedigree were analyzed to explain the genetic diversity and recombination of Suinong 14 and to provide useful information for breeding. The cluster analysis based on SSR makers agreed with the pedigree information. The Shannon-Weaver index of each SSR locus ranged from 0 to 1.677. The average genetic similarity coefficient among cultivars was 0.6380, ranged from 0.538 to 0.799. At least three SSR loci were needed to discriminate Suinong 14 from its pedigree, for example a combination of Satt543, Sat_130 and Satt218. These loci have more alleles. No significant difference was observed between the end portion and the mid-portion within a linkage group, which indicates that the distribution of recombination occurred randomly in each linkage group. No polymorphism was detected within 39 of 139 SSR loci between Suinong 14 and its 8 parents. It implys their importance during cultivar improvement. Satt168, a marker on LGB2, was the only locus transmitted from Zihua 4 to Suinong 14, which indicates that the genetic constitute of Suinong 14 is greatly changed compared with Zihua 4 through five generations of recombination.

The transient near-field of the electrostatic discharge (ESD) is a kind of high power transient phenomenon, which strongly affects the operation of the electronic devices. In this paper, the transient field of the indirect electrostatic discharge through the vertical coupling plane (VCP) is numerically simulated by using the FDTD method with the PML. The configuration of the current source is considered carefully. The simulation results on different positions show different transient effects. The simulated data are compared with those measured by an optic testing system.

Distribution automation can significantly improve the reliability and decrease the system energy loss. The adoption of loop topological structure in power distribution network is a popular choice in many cities for its high reliability in power supply. The complexity in the loop network increases difficulties in fault handling and recovery, which is a main obstacle in the implementation of loop network DA. Two modes of fault handling are introduced in this paper and the characteristics of them are discussed. Strategies for the fault isolation and recovery are introduced then. The design and implementation for a complex-network DA, which are applied in a reconstruction project in a power supply company, are introduced in details. The application of feeder terminal units (FTUs) in the supervision and control of the network is the critical technology to implementation of DA. Thus, fault can be detected and fault signals are transferred to the control center promptly. Fault handling and recovery are processed in the control center, and trip commands are executed. And the robustness in these operations is also considered.

Background Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) is prevalent around the world. Rapid and accurate detection of CRE is urgently needed to provide effective treatment. Automated identification systems have been widely used in clinical microbiology laboratories for rapid and high-efficient identification of pathogenic bacteria. However, critical evaluation and comparison are needed to determine the specificity and accuracy of different systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of three commonly used automated identification systems on the detection of CRE. Methods A total of 81 non-repetitive clinical CRE isolates were collected from August 2011 to August 2012 in a Chinese university hospital, and all the isolates were confirmed to be resistant to carbapenems by the agar dilution method. The potential presence of carbapenemase genotypes of the 81 isolates was detected by PCR and sequencing. Using 81 clinical CRE isolates, we evaluated and compared the performance of three automated identification systems, MicroScan WalkAway 96 Plus, Phoenix 100, and Vitek 2 Compact, which are commonly used in China. To identify CRE, the comparator methodology was agar dilution method, while the PCR and sequencing was the comparator one to identify CPE. Results PCR and sequencing analysis showed that 48 of the 81 CRE isolates carried carbapenemase genes, including 23 (28.4 %) IMP-4, 14 (17.3 %) IMP-8, 5 (6.2 %) NDM-1, and 8 (9.9 %) KPC-2. Notably, one Klebsiella pneumoniae isolate produced both IMP-4 and NDM-1. One Klebsiellaoxytoca isolate produced both KPC-2 and IMP-8. Of the 81 clinical CRE isolates, 56 (69.1 %), 33 (40.7 %) and 77 (95.1 %) were identified as CRE by MicroScan WalkAway 96 Plus, Phoenix 100, and Vitek 2 Compact, respectively. The sensitivities/specificities of MicroScan WalkAway, Phoenix 100 and Vitek 2 were 93.8/42.4 %, 54.2/66.7 %, and 75.0/36.4 %, respectively. Conclusions The MicroScan WalkAway and Viteck2 systems are more reliable in clinical identification of CRE, whereas additional tests are required for the Pheonix 100 system. Our study provides a useful guideline for using automated identification systems for CRE identification.

Genomic selection is a promising molecular breeding strategy enhancing genetic gain per unit time. The objectives of our study were to (1) explore the prediction accuracy of genomic selection for plant height and yield per plant in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], (2) discuss the relationship between prediction accuracy and numbers of markers, and (3) evaluate the effect of marker preselection based on different methods on the prediction accuracy. Our study is based on a population of 235 soybean varieties which were evaluated for plant height and yield per plant at multiple locations and genotyped by 5361 single nucleotide polymorphism markers. We applied ridge regression best linear unbiased prediction coupled with fivefold cross-validations and evaluated three strategies of marker preselection. For plant height, marker density and marker preselection procedure impacted prediction accuracy only marginally. In contrast, for grain yield, prediction accuracy based on markers selected with a haplotype block analyses-based approach increased by approximately 4 % compared with random or equidistant marker sampling. Thus, applying marker preselection based on haplotype blocks is an interesting option for a cost-efficient implementation of genomic selection for grain yield in soybean breeding. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11032-016-0504-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.