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Students in the 21st century are expected to possess the ability to solve ill-defined complex problems (ICPs). One challenge to understanding students' ability to solve ICPs is the lack of methods for measuring noncognitive and metacognitive behaviors and relating those behaviors to cognitive behaviors with the goal of investigating differences in student performance across ability levels. Based on the principles of the synthetic intelligence (PSI) framework, this study utilized a computerized interactive assessment platform to design a multidimensional evaluation framework (including the four dimensions of perception, cognition, metacognition, and motivation) and analyzed log file data collected from 132 elementary students with regard to solving ICPs. The results revealed new problem-solving strategies among students in the high-achievement group, who spent more time constructing problem models. Due to their ability to exercise goal-oriented self-control, students in the high-achievement group were able to fully explore the information they needed to optimize their solutions. The results also revealed three types of behaviors that characterized differences in motivation, the most notable of which characterized students who succeeded after relentless attempts. This study also explains the interaction mechanism underlying mental processes based on the PSI framework. The findings suggested that educators can highlight differences between environmental stimuli and students' internal assumptions, encourage students to adopt strategies that disambiguate the task goal and object, and strengthen their ability to search for relevant information to improve their performance in solving ICPs. The results also provide a new paradigm for assessing problem-solving capabilities based on the PSI framework.

Background Certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) induce long-lasting infections that cause cervical cancer. This study evaluated the prevalence of HPV infections and the distribution of their genotypes among clinic patients and healthy women in Beijing, China. Methods Cervical specimens were collected from 12,100 patients and 1176 subjects who underwent physical examinations at Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, between March 2016 and September 2020. HPV genotyping was performed using commercial kits designed to detect 15 high-risk and 2 low-risk HPV genotypes. Results There was a higher overall prevalence of HPV among the clinic patients (21.0%) than among the healthy women (11.9%). The most common HPV genotypes among the patients were: HPV-52 (5.4%), HPV-16 (3.4%), HPV-58 (3.2%), HPV-51 (2.6%), HPV-39 (2.0%), HPV-56 (2.0%), and HPV-66 (2.0%). Among the healthy women: HPV-52 (3.0%), HPV-51 (1.8%), HPV-58 (1.6%), HPV-66 (1.5%), HPV-16 (1.2%), HPV-56 (1.2%), and HPV-18 (1.1%). Multiple HPVs were detected in 29.1% of the gynecological outpatients and in 23.6% of the women receiving physical examinations. The most common pairs of HPV types detected were HPV-52 and HPV-16 in the clinic patients, and HPV-52 and HPV-56 in the healthy women. Age-specific HPV positivity and peak prevalence were observed among the individuals in both groups for women aged less than 25 years and those between 61 and 65 years of age. Conclusions Our results provide current estimates of HPV prevalence and genotypes in the Beijing region. The epidemiological characteristics observed also provide a reference for the development of cervical cancer screening strategies and selection of HPV vaccine antigen targets for this region. A comparison of these HPV prevalence data with those from other regions suggests that regional vaccines may be an important direction for future research.

Selfish interests usually preclude resource sharing, but under some conditions collective actions enhance per capita gains. Such Allee effects underlay early explanations of social evolution but current understanding focusses on kin selection (inclusive fitness). We find an Allee effect that explains unusual quasisociality (cooperative brood care) among parasitoid wasps without invoking or precluding kin selection effects. In Sclerodermus harmandi , individual females produce most offspring when exploiting small hosts alone. However, larger hosts are more successfully exploited by larger groups of females, with the per-female benefits outweighing the costs of host sharing. Further, the extremely biased sex ratios (97% female) are better explained by mutually beneficial female–female interactions that increase the reproductive value of daughters (local resource enhancement), rather than by the usually invoked local mate competition between males. Thus, atypical quasisocial behaviour in a parasitoid wasp directly enhances reproductive success and selects for very extremely female-biased sex ratios. The evolution of social behaviour is usually explained by kin selection. Here, the authors show that mutual host exploitation by a parasitoid wasp maximizes the average reproductive success of individual females, which suggests that cooperative brood care does not rely on kin selection in these wasps.

Ongoing climate change is increasing the frequency and magnitude of high-temperature events, and extreme weather events such as heatwaves are expected to become more common. The impacts of extreme temperatures are likely even more severe at higher trophic levels, which depend on the adaptive capacity of lower trophic levels. However, compared with parasitoids at the third trophic level, less is known about these effects on parasitoids at the fourth trophic level, which occupy the terminal end of food chains. This study investigates the effects of experimental heatwave duration variability on the development of two congeneric gregarious larval–pupal endoparasitoids, Oomyzus scaposus and O. spiraculus, parasitizing the seven-spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata L. Heatwave treatments negatively affected the brood size of both species. The heatwave also affected the sex ratio of O. scaposus, though it remained highly female-biased. Exposure to heatwaves for 1 h accelerated the development of O. scaposus. For O. scaposus, the body mass of both females and males was lowest under the 3 h heatwave treatment. In contrast, for O. spiraculus, heatwaves had a marginally negative effect on the body mass of both female and male adults, though this effect was not statistically significant. Our results indicate that both species respond similarly, and even daily heatwave exposure of a few hours can affect the performance of O. scaposus and O. spiraculus.

Background The harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), native to Asia, has been introduced to other major continents where it has caused serious negative impacts on local biodiversity. Though notable advances to understand its invasion success have been made during the past decade, especially with then newer molecular tools, the conclusions reached remain to be confirmed with more advanced genomic analyses and especially using more samples from larger geographical regions across the native range. Furthermore, although H. axyridis is one of the best studied invasive insect species with respect to life history traits (often comparing invasive and native populations), the traits responsible for its colonization success in non-native areas warrant more research. Results Our analyses of genome-wide nuclear population structure indicated that an eastern Chinese population could be the source of all non-native populations and revealed several putatively adaptive candidate genomic loci involved in body color variation, visual perception, and hemolymph synthesis. Our estimates of evolutionary history indicate (1) asymmetric migration with varying population sizes across its native and non-native range, (2) a recent admixture between eastern Chinese and American populations in Europe, (3) signatures of a large progressive, historical bottleneck in the common ancestors of both populations and smaller effective sizes of the non-native population, and (4) the southwest origin and subsequent dispersal routes within its native range in China. In addition, we found that while two mitochondrial haplotypes-Hap1 and Hap2 were dominant in the native range, Hap1 was the only dominant haplotype in the non-native range. Our laboratory observations in both China and USA found statistical yet slight differences between Hap1 and Hap2 in some of life history traits. Conclusions Our study on H . axyridis provides new insights into its invasion processes into other major continents from its native Asian range, reconstructs a geographic range evolution across its native region China, and tentatively suggests that its invasiveness may differ between mitochondrial haplotypes.

Predatory stink bugs capture prey by injecting salivary venom from their venom glands using specialized stylets. Understanding venom function has been impeded by a scarcity of knowledge of their venom composition. We therefore examined the proteinaceous components of the salivary venom of the predatory stink bug Arma custos (Fabricius, 1794) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae). We used gland extracts and venoms from fifth-instar nymphs or adult females to perform shotgun proteomics combined with venom gland transcriptomics. We found that the venom of A. custos comprised a complex suite of over a hundred individual proteins, including oxidoreductases, transferases, hydrolases, ligases, protease inhibitors, and recognition, transport and binding proteins. Besides the uncharacterized proteins, hydrolases such as venom serine proteases, cathepsins, phospholipase A2, phosphatases, nucleases, alpha-amylases, and chitinases constitute the most abundant protein families. However, salivary proteins shared by and unique to other predatory heteropterans were not detected in the A. custos venom. Injection of the proteinaceous (>3 kDa) venom fraction of A. custos gland extracts or venom into its prey, the larvae of the oriental armyworm Mythimna separata (Walker, 1865), revealed insecticidal activity against lepidopterans. Our data expand the knowledge of heteropteran salivary proteins and suggest predatory asopine bugs as a novel source for bioinsecticides.

Finding optimal sample sizes is critical for the accurate estimation of genetic diversity of large invasive populations. Based on previous studies, we hypothesized that a minimal sample size of 3–8 individuals is sufficient to dissect the population architecture of the harlequin lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis, a biological control agent and an invasive alien species. Here, equipped with a type IIB endonuclease restriction site-associated (2b-RAD) DNA sequencing approach, we identified 13,766 and 13,929 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), respectively, among native and invasive H. axyridis populations. With this information we simulated populations using a randomly selected 3000 SNPs and a subset of individuals. From this simulation we finally determined that six individuals is the minimum sample size required for the accurate estimation of intra- and inter-population genetic diversity within and across H. axyridis populations. Our findings provide an empirical advantage for population genomic studies of H. axyridis in particular and suggest useful tactics for similar studies on multicellular organisms in general.

Background Pneumoconiosis is a diffuse interstitial fibronodular lung disease, which is caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica. Whole lung lavage (WLL) is a therapeutic procedure used to treat pneumoconiosis. This study is to compare the effects of different negative pressure suction on lung injury in patients with pneumoconiosis undergoing WLL. Materials and methods A prospective study was conducted with 24 consecutively pneumoconiosis patients who underwent WLL from March 2020 to July 2020 at Emergency General Hospital, China. The patients were divided into two groups: high negative suction pressure group (group H, n = 13, negative suction pressure of 300–400 mmHg) and low negative suction pressure group (group L, n = 11, negative suction pressure of 40–50 mmHg). The arterial blood gas, lung function, lavage data, oxidative stress, and inflammatory responses to access lung injury were monitored. Results Compared with those of group H, the right and left lung residual were significantly increased in the group L ( P  = 0.04, P  = 0.01). Potential of hydrogen (pH), arterial partial pressure of oxygen (PaO 2 ), arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO 2 ), lactic acid (LAC) and glucose (GLU) varied from point to point in time ( P  < 0.01, respectively ). There was statistical difference in the trend of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) over time between the two groups ( P  < 0.01, P  = 0.02). In comparison with the group H, the levels of IL-10 ( P  = 0.01) and SOD ( P  < 0.01) in WLL fluid were significantly increased in the group L. There was no statistical difference in the trend of maximal volumtary ventilation (MVV), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1%), residual volume (RV), residual volume/total lung capacity (RV/TLC), carbon monoxide dispersion factor (DLCO%), forced expiratory volume in one second/ forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC%) over time between the two groups ( P  > 0.05, respectively ). Conclusion Low negative suction pressure has the potential benefit to reduce lung injury in patients with pneumoconiosis undergoing WLL, although it can lead to increased residual lavage fluid. Despite differing suction strategies, pulmonary function parameters including FEV1%, RV and DLCO% became worse than before WLL. Trial Registration Chinese Clinical Trial registration number ChiCTR2000031024, 21/03/2020.

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) serotype SAT3 is a rarely studied serotype primarily circulating in southern Africa, with African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) serving as its key reservoir. In this study, we performed a comprehensive phylogenetic and phylodynamic analysis of SAT3 based on 81 full-length VP1 gene sequences collected between 1934 and 2018. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses revealed five distinct topotypes, each with clear geographic and host associations. Notably, topotypes I, II and III were observed in both African buffalo and cattle (Bos taurus), while topotype IV appeared restricted to African buffalo. Likelihood mapping indicated moderate to strong phylogenetic signal, and the mean substitution rate was estimated at 3.709 × 10−3 substitutions/site/year under a relaxed molecular clock. The time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) was traced back to 1875. Discrete phylogeographic reconstruction identified Zimbabwe as a major center, with multiple supported cross-border transmission routes. Host transition analysis further confirmed strong directional flow from buffalo to cattle (BF = 1631.09, pp = 1.0), highlighting the wildlife–livestock interface as a key driver of SAT3 persistence. Together, these results underscore the evolutionary complexity of SAT3 and the importance of integrating molecular epidemiology, spatial modeling, and host ecology to inform FMD control strategies in endemic regions.