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Phenylephrine is a commonly used vasopressor for the treatment of spinal-induced hypotension in obstetric patients, but it is associated with reflex bradycardia and a corresponding decrease in cardiac output. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of continuous epinephrine versus phenylephrine infusion in the prevention of postspinal maternal hypotension. Eighty-two women undergoing cesarean delivery were randomly divided into the epinephrine group (group E) and the phenylephrine group (group P). The patients received a continuous infusion of phenylephrine 1 μg kg−1 min−1 or epinephrine 0.1 μg kg−1 min−1 synchronously with intrathecal administration. Hemodynamic parameters were recorded, and umbilical cord blood gases were analyzed after delivery. The incidence of maternal hypotension, bradycardia, nausea, and vomiting was recorded. Blood pressure, heart rate, and cardiac output after spinal anesthesia induction were greater in group E than in group P (P < 0.05). In addition, there was a significant difference in the incidence of bradycardia (5% vs 22.5%, P = 0.02) and mean (SD) umbilical artery pH (7.31 [0.07] vs 7.28 [0.06], P = 0.04) between the groups. With the dose of 0.1 μg kg−1 min−1, infusion of epinephrine is more effective at maintaining blood pressure close to baseline during spinal anesthesia with a lower decrease in maternal heart rate and cardiac output compared with phenylephrine. Epinephrine may be superior to phenylephrine in terms of the incidence of bradycardia and umbilical artery pH. chictr.org.cn identifier: ChiCTR-IIC-17010960. •Phenylephrine is used for the treatment of hypotension with bradycardia and a decrease in CO.•Epinephrine may be suitable for the treatment of hypotension with less bradycardia.•It is the first to use epinephrine for preventing spinal induced hypotension in cesarean section.

The meat quality of chicken is an important factor affecting the consumer’s health. It was hypothesized that n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) could be effectively deposited in chicken, by incorporating antioxidation of soybean isoflavone (SI), which led to improved quality of chicken meat for good health of human beings. Effects of partial or complete dietary substitution of lard (LA) with linseed oil (LO), with or without SI on growth performance, biochemical indicators, meat quality, fatty acid profiles, lipid-related health indicators and gene expression of breast muscle were examined in chickens. A total of 900 males were fed a corn–soybean meal diet supplemented with 4% LA, 2% LA + 2% LO and 4% LO and the latter two including 30 mg SI/kg (2% LA + 2% LO + SI and 4% LO + SI) from 29 to 66 days of age; each of the five dietary treatments included six replicates of 30 birds. Compared with the 4% LA diet, dietary 4% LO significantly increased the feed efficiency and had no negative effect on objective indices related to meat quality; LO significantly decreased plasma triglycerides and total cholesterol (TCH); abdominal fat percentage was significantly decreased in birds fed the 4% LO and 4% LO + SI diets. Chickens with LO diets resulted in higher contents of α-linolenic acid (C18:3n-3), EPA (C20:5n-3) and total n-3 PUFA, together with a lower content of palmitic acid (C16:0), lignoceric acid (C24:0), saturated fatty acids and n-6:n-3 ratio in breast muscle compared to 4% LA diet (P < 0.05); they also significantly decreased atherogenic index, thrombogenic index and increased the hypocholesterolemic to hypercholesterolemic ratio. Adding SI to the LO diets enhanced the contents of EPA and DHA (C22:6n-3), plasma total superoxide dismutase, reduced glutathione (GSH)/oxidized glutathione and muscle GSH content, while decreased plasma total triglyceride and TCH and malondialdehyde content in plasma and breast muscle compared to its absence (P < 0.05). Expression in breast muscle of fatty acid desaturase 1 (FADS1), FADS2, elongase 2 (ELOVL2) and ELOVL5 genes were significantly higher with the LO diets including SI than with the 4% LA diet. Significant interactions existed between LO level and inclusion of SI on EPA and TCH contents. These findings indicate that diet supplemented with LO combined with SI is an effective alternative when optimizing the nutritional value of chicken meat for human consumers.

The fatty acid composition of chicken's meat is largely influenced by dietary lipids, which are often used as supplements to increase dietary caloric density. The underlying key metabolites and pathways influenced by dietary oils remain poorly known in chickens. The objective of this study was to explore the underlying metabolic mechanisms of how diets supplemented with mixed or a single oil with distinct fatty acid composition influence the fatty acid profile in breast muscle of Qingyuan chickens. Birds were fed a corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with either soybean oil (control, CON) or equal amounts of mixed edible oils (MEO; soybean oil : lard : fish oil : coconut oil = 1 : 1 : 0.5 : 0.5) from 1 to 120 days of age. Growth performance and fatty acid composition of muscle lipids were analysed. LC-MS was applied to investigate the effects of CON v. MEO diets on lipid-related metabolites in the muscle of chickens at day 120. Compared with the CON diet, chickens fed the MEO diet had a lower feed conversion ratio (P < 0.05), higher proportions of lauric acid (C12:0), myristic acid (C14:0), palmitoleic acid (C16:1n-7), oleic acid (C18:1n-9), EPA (C20:5n-3) and DHA (C22:6n-3), and a lower linoleic acid (C18:2n-6) content in breast muscle (P < 0.05). Muscle metabolome profiling showed that the most differentially abundant metabolites are phospholipids, including phosphatidylcholines (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamines (PE), which enriched the glycerophospholipid metabolism (P < 0.05). These key differentially abundant metabolites - PC (14:0/20:4), PC (18:1/14:1), PC (18:0/14:1), PC (18:0/18:4), PC (20:0/18:4), PE (22:0/P-16:0), PE (24:0/20:5), PE (22:2/P-18:1), PE (24:0/18:4) - were closely associated with the contents of C12:0, C14:0, DHA and C18:2n-6 in muscle lipids (P < 0.05). The content of glutathione metabolite was higher with MEO than CON diet (P < 0.05). Based on these results, it can be concluded that the diet supplemented with MEO reduced the feed conversion ratio, enriched the content of n-3 fatty acids and modified the related metabolites (including PC, PE and glutathione) in breast muscle of chickens.

Porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2 can cause reproductive failure in pigs, and swine are often simultaneously infected by combinations of the three viruses. We here report the development of a SYBR Green I-based multiplex real time PCR assay for simultaneous detection of porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2. Three pairs of specific primers were designed for the porcine parvovirus-VP2, porcine pseudorabies virus-gH and porcine circovirus type 2-ORF2 genes. Viral genomes were identified based on their distinctive melting temperatures in singleplex PCR reactions. The melting temperature was 74.5 °C for the 313 bp amplicon of porcine parvovirus-VP2 gene, 87.5 °C for the 355 bp amplicon of porcine pseudorabies virus-gH gene and 80.5 °C for the 171 bp amplicon of the porcine circovirus type 2-ORF2 gene, respectively. The detection limit of the method ranged from 0.01–0.03 TCID50/ml for the three viruses. In addition, porcine parvovirus, porcine pseudorabies virus and porcine circovirus type 2 viral loads were measured in 100 field samples, and the result showed that the concordance between real-time PCR and conventional PCR was 60.42%. The sensitivity and specificity of real-time PCR were 100% and 100%, while those of conventional PCR were 40.83% and 72.22%, respectively.

Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional disorder, affecting over 30% of the world’s human population. The primary method used to alleviate this problem is nutrient biofortification of crops so as to improve the iron content and its availability in food sources. The over-expression of ferritin is an effective method to increase iron concentration in transgenic crops. For the research reported herein, sickle alfalfa (Medicago falcata L.) ferritin was transformed into wheat driven by the seed-storage protein glutelin GluB-1 gene promoter. The integration of ferritin into the wheat was assessed by PCR, RT-PCR and Western blotting. The concentration of certain minerals in the transgenic wheat grain was determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry, the results showed that grain Fe and Zn concentration of transgenic wheat increased by 73% and 44% compared to nontransformed wheat, respectively. However, grain Cu and Cd concentration of transgenic wheat grain decreased significantly in comparison with non-transformed wheat. The results suggest that the over-expression of sickle alfalfa ferritin , controlled by the seed-storage protein glutelin GluB-1 gene promoter, increases the grain Fe and Zn concentration, but also affects the homeostasis of other minerals in transgenic wheat grain.

The influences of coal matrix expansion/contraction and effective stress on the permeability of coal with different thermal maturities are different during the C[H.sub.4]-C[O.sub.2] replacement process due to different mechanical properties and gas adsorption capacities. To accurately predict the variation law of coal permeability during the C[H.sub.4]-C[O.sub.2] replacement process, it is critical to understand how the matrix expansion/contraction and effective stress affect the permeability of coal at different thermal maturities during the C[H.sub.4]-C[O.sub.2] replacement. In this study, the permeability of two coal specimens with anthracite and high-rank bituminous coal during the C[H.sub.4]-C[O.sub.2] replacement process under different confining and injection pressures was tested using a CBM replacement testing machine. The results demonstrate that with decreasing gas injection pressure, the permeability of the two coal specimens exhibited a U-shaped correlation under different confining pressures. Under the same gas injection pressure, with increasing effective stress, the permeability presented a negative exponential decrease and the permeability of the anthracite decreased more significantly. Moreover, under the same confining pressure, with increasing gas injection pressure, the decreasing permeability agreed with Langmuir curve and the permeability of high-rank bituminous coal was more significantly reduced.

Natural occurring boron has two stable isotopes: boron-10 and boron-11. Boron-10 has high thermal neutron cross section in a wide range of energy and the product of boron-10's neutron reaction contains alpha particles. So, it is a good material for neutron absorbing and neutron detecting. In order to enrich boron-10 from natural boron, several methods had been proven to be feasible: chemical exchange distillation, cryogenic distillation and ion exchange resin method. The market now places higher demands on the economics of the separation method, so study on production of boron-10 by gas diffusion method is carried out. Using BF3 as processing gas, it is feasible to enrich high abundance of boron-10 by gas diffusion. The single stage separation effect and the hydraulic status of single stage was estimated. Binary gas diffusion cascades were designed and compared. Under given production requirements, the scale of the cascade was estimated and optimized. Finally, step cascade was picked for the production of 96% boron-10. Based on the cascade design, economic estimation of this separation method was conducted, and the target product cost was calculated. This study laid a good foundation for the expansion of boron isotope separation methods.

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is the major causative agent of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome which leads to significant economic losses in the global swine industry. In China, there is a widespread dissemination of PCV2 infection in the pig population. Serologi­cal diagnosis of the disease is considered as an effective control measure. Here, we developed a capsid protein (Cap)-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Cap-ELISA) for the detection of PCV2 antibodies in swine serum using a nuclear localization signal-truncated capsid protein produced in Escherichia coli. The Cap protein was expressed as water-soluble and purified using nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid (Ni-NTA) chromatography. After the optimization of the working conditions of the Cap-ELISA using chessboard titrations, a total of 649 serum samples were tested using the Cap-ELISA and a commercial ELISA kit. The diagnostic sensitivity (DSN), diagnostic specificity (DSP) and accuracy of the Cap-ELISA were determined to be 96.7%, 94.1% and 99.5%, respectively. Cross-reactivity analysis indicated that the Cap-ELISA was PCV2-specific and possessed no cross-reactions with antibodies against other common swine pathogens including porcine circovirus type 1 (PCV1), porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), classical swine fever virus (CSFV), porcine parvovirus (PPV), foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV), porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and pseudorabies virus (PRV). Repeatability of the experiment showed that Cap-ELISA was highly repeatable with the intra- and inter-plate coefficients of variation less than 10%. Hence, the Cap-ELISA has the potential for the swine industry to monitor PCV2 epidemiology and to evaluate PCV2 vaccine efficacy.

An understanding of the transport of solar wind plasma into and throughout the terrestrial magnetosphere is crucial to space science and space weather. For non-active periods, there is little agreement on where and how plasma entry into the magnetosphere might occur. Moreover, behaviour in the high-latitude region behind the magnetospheric cusps, for example, the lobes, is poorly understood, partly because of lack of coverage by previous space missions. Here, using Cluster multi-spacecraft data, we report an unexpected discovery of regions of solar wind entry into the Earth’s high-latitude magnetosphere tailward of the cusps. From statistical observational facts and simulation analysis we suggest that these regions are most likely produced by magnetic reconnection at the high-latitude magnetopause, although other processes, such as impulsive penetration, may not be ruled out entirely. We find that the degree of entry can be significant for solar wind transport into the magnetosphere during such quiet times. A full understanding of the penetration of solar wind plasma into the Earth’s magnetosphere, during geomagnetically quiet times, remains elusive. Using multi-spacecraft data, Shi et al. find unexpected entry of the solar wind into the high-latitude magnetosphere and suggest a probable entry mechanism.

Neural network (NN) has been applied as rotor position estimator in switched reluctance motor (SRM) whose characteristic is highly non-linear. However, conventional two inputs back propagate (BP) NN based rotor position estimator is not appropriate for real-time application in high speed operations because of its considerable computational time consumption in its hidden layer. In this study, an improved BP NN with inductance input pretreatment for the rotor position estimator of SRM is proposed. It achieves 75.44% computational burden reduction while staying at the same accuracy as the conventional one. Moreover, with the pretreatment, the NN can output the angle of full electrical period of the SRM operation. Training data includes rotor position, flux-linage which is acquired by finite element analysis and phase current Sensorless control algorithm is also described. Simulations and experiments are performed based on a 12/8 SRM. The results are compared with conventional method. The effectiveness of the proposed sensorless estimator and control strategy are testified under low speed, high speed and sudden loading change operations.