General

Predatory mites biologically control a range of arthropod crop pests and are often central to agricultural IPM strategies globally. Conflict between chemical and biological pest control has prompted increasing interest in selective pesticides with fewer off-target impacts on beneficial invertebrates, including predatory mites. However, the range of predatory mite species included in standardized pesticide toxicity assessments does not match the diversity of naturally occurring species contributing to biocontrol, with most testing carried out on species from the family Phytoseiidae (Mesostigmata)...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The California Floristic Province (CA-FP) is the most species-rich region of North America north of Mexico. One of several proposed hypotheses explaining the exceptionally diversity of the region is that the CA-FP harbors myriad recently diverged lineages with nascent reproductive barriers. Salvia subgenus Audibertia is a conspicuous element of the CA-FP, with multiple sympatric and compatible species. METHODS: Using 305 nuclear loci and both organellar genomes, we reconstruct species trees, examine genomic discordance, conduct divergence-time estimation, and analyze contemporaneous patterns of gene flow and mechanical reproductive isolation...

A considerable amount of research has revealed that there exists an evolutionary mismatch between ancestral environments and conditions following the rise of agriculture regarding the contact between humans and animal reservoirs of infectious diseases. Based on this evolutionary mismatch framework, we examined whether visual attention exhibits adaptive attunement toward animal targets' pathogenicity. Consistent with our predictions, faces bearing heuristic infection cues held attention to a greater extent than did animal vectors of zoonotic infectious diseases...

BACKGROUND: Thyroid cancer diagnoses have increased over recent decades at a rate much higher than that of any other cancer in Australia. Rural patients are known to have reduced access to healthcare and may have different thyroid cancer presentation rates. This study examined the relationship between thyroid cancer diagnosis and patient rurality. METHODS: Data from the Australia and New Zealand Thyroid Cancer Registry from 2017 to 2022 were analyzed, stratifying patient postcodes into rurality groups using the Australian Statistical Geography Standard...

AIM: The aim of this study was to uncover perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic and the responses implemented by the UK and Scottish Governments to help control the spread of infection. Such understanding could help to inform future responses to pandemics at individual, community and national levels. METHOD: Q methodology was used to elicit perspectives from people in England and Scotland with different experiences of the pandemic including public health officials, key workers, those on furlough, those who were unvaccinated or vaccinated to different levels, those who were 'shielding' because they were at higher risk and people with different scientific expertise...

Objective: To explore the clinical features of fatty liver disease (FLD) from non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) to metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MASLD), so as to elucidate its clinical application value under three renames. Methods: Patients who were hospitalized in the Department of Hepatology, Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Xinjiang Medical University, from January 2020 to September 2023 and met the diagnosis of NAFLD, metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), or MASLD were selected as the research subjects...

Objective: To evaluate the long-term efficacy of percutaneous microwave ablation (MWA) therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods: 2054 cases with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage 0~B at the Fifth Medical Center of the Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital from January 2006 to September 2020 were retrospectively collected. All patients were followed up for at least 2 years. The primary endpoint of overall survival and secondary endpoints (tumor-related survival, disease-free survival, and postoperative complications) of patients treated with ultrasound-guided percutaneous MWA were analyzed...

We studied chigger and gamasid mite loads on small mammals during the dry season in Vietnam and used both our field data and museum collections to estimate the influence of environmental factors on mite abundance and prevalence. Generalized linear (mixed effect) models were used to analyze the data. We examined 1,239 small mammal individuals, which were obtained from field expeditions and museum collections belonging to 59 species. In different localities, Rattus Fischer (Rodentia: Muridae), Niviventer Marshall (Rodentia: Muridae), and Maxomys Sody (Rodentia: Muridae) were the most common animals captured...

When undertaking any review of the structure of the hair and its mechanical properties it becomes apparent that the overall behaviour of keratin fibres is commonly attributed to the presence of hydrogen, disulfide and ionic bonds. The action of physico-chemical agents used during various cosmetic treatments is viewed as the result of an interaction with these bonds. Thus, the breaking of bonds by chemical agents, or via mechanical or thermal stresses, affects the relative balance of disulfide and hydrogen bonds and the contribution of hydrophobic interactions, which are all important factors that may alter hair behaviour...

OBJECTIVE: Examine racial/ethnic disparities in 30-day readmission and frequent hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries with dementia in traditional Medicare (TM) vs. Medicare Advantage (MA). METHOD: In this case-control study, we used 2018-2019 TM and MA claims data. Participants included individuals 65+ with two years of continuous enrollment, diagnosis of dementia, a minimum of four office visits in 2018, and at least one hospitalization in 2019, [cases: TM (n=36,656); controls: MA (n=29,366)]...

BACKGROUND: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), a factor accelerating the degradation of LDL receptors, was associated with a gender-dependent risk for cardiovascular (CV) events in the general population and with all-cause and CV mortality in two relatively small studies in black Africans and South Korean haemodialysis patients. The effect modification by gender was untested in these studies. METHODS: The study enrolled 1188 dialysis patients from the Prospective Registry of The Working Group of Epidemiology of Dialysis Region Calabria (PROGREDIRE) cohort...

BACKGROUND: Inequalities in access to palliative and end of life care are longstanding. Integration of primary and palliative care has the potential to improve equity in the community. Evidence to inform integration is scarce as research that considers integration of primary care and palliative care services is rare. AIM: To address the questions: 'how can inequalities in access to community palliative and end of life care be improved through the integration of primary and palliative care, and what are the benefits?' DESIGN: A theory-driven realist inquiry with two stakeholder workshops to explore how, when and why inequalities can be improved through integration...

Understanding the origin of novel morphological traits is a long-standing objective in evolutionary developmental biology. We explored the developmental genetic mechanisms that underpin the formation of a textbook example of evolutionary novelties, the cephalic horns of beetles. Previous work has implicated the gene regulatory networks associated with compound eye and ocellar development in horn formation and suggested that horns and compound eyes may influence each other's sizes. Therefore, we investigated the functional significance of genes central to visual system formation in the initiation, patterning, and size determination of head horns across three horned beetle species...

BACKGROUND: Individuals with mental illness have poor oral health compared to those without mental health conditions. However, the literature is still lacking regarding the specifics of this relationship. OBJECTIVE: This study aims at examining the relationship between depression and oral health problems such as oral conditions, access to dental care, and oral hygiene measures. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using a secondary data analysis of 9,693 participants from the 2017 to March 2020 prepandemic National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)...

Protein complexes from edible oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus sp.) composed of pleurotolysin A2 (PlyA2) and pleurotolysin B (PlyB) exert toxicity in feeding tests against Colorado potato beetle (CPB) larvae, acting through the interaction with insect-specific membrane sphingolipid. Here we present a new strategy for crop protection, based on in planta production of PlyA2/PlyB protein complexes, and we exemplify this strategy in construction of transgenic potato plants of cv Désirée. The transgenics in which PlyA2 was directed to the vacuole and PlyB to the endoplasmic reticulum are effectively protected from infestation by CPB larvae without impacting plant performance...

Efficiently reconciling the substantial volume strain with maintaining the stabilities of both interfacial protection and three-dimensional (3D) conductive networks is a scientific and technical challenge in developing tin-based anodes for sodium ion storage. To address this issue, a proof-of-concept self-adaptive protection for the Sn anode is designed, taking advantage of the arbitrary substrate growth of graphdiyne. This protective layer, employing a flexible chain doping strategy, combines the benefits of 2D graphdiyne and linear chain structures to achieve 2D mechanical stability, electronic and ion conductions, ion selectivity, adequate elongation, and flexibility...

AIM: The purpose of the study was to describe social and healthcare educators' evidence-based healthcare competence and explore the associated factors. DESIGN: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out. METHODS: The research spanned 5 universities, 19 universities of applied sciences, and 10 vocational colleges in Finland from September to December 2022. Social and healthcare educators (n = 256), of which 21 worked at universities, 176 worked at universities of applied sciences, and 49 worked at vocational colleges...

Detection and characterization of hidden defects, impurities, and damages in homogeneous materials like aluminum die casting materials, as well as composite materials like Fiber-Metal Laminates (FML), is still a challenge. This work discusses methods and challenges in data-driven modeling of automated damage and defect detectors using measured X-ray single- and multi-projection images. Three main issues are identified: Data and feature variance, data feature labeling (for supervised machine learning), and the missing ground truth...

For the most popular method of scan formation in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) based on plane-parallel scanning of the illuminating beam, we present a compact but rigorous K-space description in which the spectral representation is used to describe both the axial and lateral structure of the illuminating/received OCT signals. Along with the majority of descriptions of OCT-image formation, the discussed approach relies on the basic principle of OCT operation, in which ballistic backscattering of the illuminating light is assumed...

Underwater visual detection technology is crucial for marine exploration and monitoring. Given the growing demand for accurate underwater target recognition, this study introduces an innovative architecture, YOLOv8-MU, which significantly enhances the detection accuracy. This model incorporates the large kernel block (LarK block) from UniRepLKNet to optimize the backbone network, achieving a broader receptive field without increasing the model's depth. Additionally, the integration of C2fSTR, which combines the Swin transformer with the C2f module, and the SPPFCSPC_EMA module, which blends Cross-Stage Partial Fast Spatial Pyramid Pooling (SPPFCSPC) with attention mechanisms, notably improves the detection accuracy and robustness for various biological targets...