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Aquaculture has been one of the fastest-growing sectors in agriculture and plays an important role in supplying high quality proteins for humans. Genetic improvement for important traits is essential for increasing aquaculture production. The aquaculture of Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer) has become important in Southeast Asia and Australia and has expanded to other countries. In Singapore, a breeding program was initiated in 2004, aimed at improving growth rates, high omega-3 content, and disease resistance within Asian seabass populations. Many genomic resources have been developed to achieve these goals. The breeding program was established with a broodstock of 549 broodfish collected from the wilds of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Through four generations of family-based selection, utilizing a combination of conventional selective breeding, molecular parentage analysis, marker-assisted selection, and genomic selection techniques, three distinct elite lines of Asian seabass were successfully established. Each line consisted of approximately 200 broodfish. These lines were selected for growth, higher omega-3 content, and disease resistance, respectively. These traits have been improved without dramatically reducing genetic variation. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the methodologies adopted and status of the genetic improvement of the above-mentioned traits. Concurrently, certain gaps in the existing body of research have been identified. In the future, additional traits related to the ability to use feeds with reduced fishmeal, as well as adaptation to climate change and resistance against emerging diseases should be included in the breeding program.

Social media are found to facilitate social information exchange among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals who are subjected to social stigma. This study tested the protective role of LGB-tailored social media uses and gratifications in promoting LGB group membership, which we hypothesized to reduce LGB stigma and enhance mental health among LGB individuals in Hong Kong. Based on a sample of 233 Chinese LGB individuals in Hong Kong, structural equation modeling showed evidence for our hypotheses, χ ( df =62) 2  = 88.20, GFI = 0.95, CFI = 0.98, NNFI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.07, RMSEA = 0.04. Community surveillance, identity expression, and emotional support on social media may promote mental health by instilling a sense of group membership and reducing stigma. Social media may build camaraderie and bolster resilience among LGB individuals that may otherwise be difficult in conservative regions.

The caudal fin represents a fundamental design feature of fishes and plays an important role in locomotor dynamics in fishes. The shape of caudal is an important parameter in traditional systematics. However, little is known about genes involved in the development of different forms of caudal fins. This study was conducted to identify and map quantitative trait loci (QTL) affecting the length of caudal fin and the ratio between tail length and standard body length in Asian seabass ( Lates calcarifer ). One F1 family containing 380 offspring was generated by crossing two unrelated individuals. One hundred and seventeen microsatellites almost evenly distributed along the whole genome were genotyped. Length of caudal fin at 90 days post-hatch was measured. QTL analysis detected six significant (genome-wide significant) and two suggestive (linkage-group-wide significant) QTL on seven linkage groups. The six significant QTL explained 5.5–16.6% of the phenotypic variance, suggesting these traits were controlled by multiple genes. Comparative genomics analysis identified several potential candidate genes for the length of caudal fin. The QTL for the length of caudal fin detected for the first time in marine fish may provide a starting point for the future identification of genes involved in the development of different forms of caudal fins in fishes.

In situ EBSD investigations were conducted to polycrystalline NiTi alloy during tensile deformation to study the variation selection of martensitic transformation and its effect on pseudoelasticity. Experiments show that more than one martensite variants are formed in most grains, and the directions of traces for some variants are close to the direction of macroscopic Lüders band. Then the Schmid factors of activated variants in each grain were calculated, the results show that Schmid factors of activated shear systems can be divided into three categories, I: maximum Schmid factor; II: sub-maximum Schmid; III: small Schmid factor. The appearance of the latter two categories is mainly influenced by constraints of neighboring grains and variety of local stress state caused by Lüders band. And the Schmid factors of residual martensites belong to the third category. It is mainly because dislocations are easily introduced at the front of the Lüders band during the transformation process, which decrease the order degree of B2 phase and increase the difficulty of reverse phase transformation, and the sample shows poor pseudoelasticity.

Ratio-dependent predator–prey models are favoured by many animal ecologists recently as they better describe predator–prey interactions where predation involves a searching process. When densities of prey and predator are spatially homogeneous, the so-called Michaelis–Menten ratio-dependent predator–prey system, which is an ordinary differential system, has been studied by many authors. The present paper deals with the case where densities of prey and predator are spatially inhomogeneous in a bounded domain subject to the homogeneous Neumann boundary condition. Its main purpose is to study qualitative properties of solutions to this reaction-diffusion (partial differential) system. In particular, we will show that even though the unique positive constant steady state is globally asymptotically stable for the ordinary-differential-equation dynamics, non-constant positive steady states exist for the partial-differential-equation model. This demonstrates that stationary patterns arise as a result of diffusion.

In this paper, we study blow-up solutions to the Cauchy problem of the inhomogeneous nonlinear Schrodinger equation. (equation omitted) We present existence and non-existence results and investigate qualitative properties of the solutions when they exist. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

A novel composite hydrogen sensor, consisting of Pd nanoclusters/TiO2 nanotube arrays, was fabricated and evaluated at room temperature. The Pd nanoclusters layer was deposited on top surface of the nanotube arrays by using a direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering method. Resistive response of the composite sensors to 0.5% hydrogen was measured. Experimental results indicated that the Pd nanoclusters can quickly and continually form or break multiple passages by absorbing or desorbing hydrogen, so that the composite hydrogen sensors have promising hydrogen sensitivity at room temperature.