Abstract: Rhododendron mariesii Hemsley et Wilson, 1907, a typical member of the family Ericaeae, possesses valuable medicinal and horticultural properties. In this research, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of R. mariesii was sequenced and assembled, which proved to be a typical quadripartite structure with the length of 203,480 bp. In particular, the lengths of the large single copy region (LSC), small single copy region (SSC), and inverted repeat regions (IR) were 113,715 bp, 7,953 bp, and 40,918 bp, respectively. Among the 151 unique genes, 98 were protein-coding genes, 8 were tRNA genes, and 45 were rRNA genes. The structural characteristics of the R. mariesii cp genome was similar to other angiosperms. Leucine was the most representative amino acid, while cysteine was the lowest representative. Totally, 30 codons showed obvious codon usage bias, and most were A/U-ending codons. Six highly variable regions were observed, such as trnK-pafI and atpE-rpoB , which could serve as potential markers for future barcoding and phylogenetic research of R. mariesii species. Coding regions were more conserved than non-coding regions. Expansion and contraction in the IR region might be the main length variation in R. mariesii and related Ericaeae species. Maximum-likelihood (ML) phylogenetic analysis revealed that R. mariesii was relatively closed to the R. simsii Planchon, 1853 and R. pulchrum Sweet,1831. This research will supply rich genetic resource for R. mariesii and related species of the Ericaeae.

Abstract: Objective: The purpose of this study was to obtain the stress-strain of the cervical spine structure during the simulated manipulation of the oblique pulling manipulation and the cervical rotation-traction manipulation in order to compare the mechanical mechanism of the two manipulations. Methods: A motion capture system was used to record the key kinematic parameters of operating the two manipulations. At the same time, a three-dimensional finite element model of the C0-T1 full healthy cervical spine was established, and the key kinematic parameters were loaded onto the finite element model in steps to analyze and simulate the detailed process of the operation of the two manipulations. Results: A detailed finite element model of the whole cervical spine including spinal nerve roots was established, and the validity of this 3D finite element model was verified. During the stepwise simulation of the two cervical spine rotation manipulations to the right, the disc (including the annulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus) and facet joints stresses and displacements were greater in the oblique pulling manipulation group than in the cervical rotation-traction manipulation group, while the spinal cord and nerve root stresses were greater in the cervical rotation-traction manipulation group than in the oblique pulling manipulation group. The spinal cord and nerve root stresses in the cervical rotation-traction manipulation group were mainly concentrated in the C4/5 and C5/6 segments. Conclusion: The oblique pulling manipulation may be more appropriate for the treatment of cervical spondylotic radiculopathy, while cervical rotation-traction manipulation is more appropriate for the treatment of cervical spondylosis of cervical type. Clinicians should select cervical rotation manipulations for different types of cervical spondylosis according to the patient’s symptoms and needs.

Abstract: Alternative propulsion systems are needed to overcome the combustion emissions and noises caused by the fossil-fuel combustion-based gas turbines and propeller-driven propulsion systems. The electrohydrodynamic (EHD) thrust produced by the corona induced ionic wind is an attractive choice because its generation needs no mechanical moving part and emits no combustion emissions and noises. In this investigation, the electrohydrodynamic thrust provided by the positive point-to-grid corona discharge at the centimeter scale is theoretically and experimentally analyzed. The previous one-dimensional theory is reviewed to understand the fundamental characteristics of the EHD thrust. The thrust performance of a 4.1 mg, centimeter-scale, laser-micromachined EHD thruster is experimentally quantified. The measured thrust reaches up to 0.68 mN, corresponding to a thrust density of 8.7 N/m 2 , a thrust-to-weight ratio of 17 and a thrust-to-power ratio of 2.1 N/kW.

Abstract: —J. BLUNDEN, T. BOYER, AND E. BARTOW-GILLIES Earth’s global climate system is vast, complex, and intricately interrelated. Many areas are influenced by global-scale phenomena, including the “triple dip” La Niña conditions that prevailed in the eastern Pacific Ocean nearly continuously from mid-2020 through all of 2022; by regional phenomena such as the positive winter and summer North Atlantic Oscillation that impacted weather in parts the Northern Hemisphere and the negative Indian Ocean dipole that impacted weather in parts of the Southern Hemisphere; and by more localized systems such as high-pressure heat domes that caused extreme heat in different areas of the world. Underlying all these natural short-term variabilities are long-term climate trends due to continuous increases since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the atmospheric concentrations of Earth’s major greenhouse gases. In 2022, the annual global average carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere rose to 417.1±0.1 ppm, which is 50% greater than the pre-industrial level. Global mean tropospheric methane abundance was 165% higher than its pre-industrial level, and nitrous oxide was 24% higher. All three gases set new record-high atmospheric concentration levels in 2022. Sea-surface temperature patterns in the tropical Pacific characteristic of La Niña and attendant atmospheric patterns tend to mitigate atmospheric heat gain at the global scale, but the annual global surface temperature across land and oceans was still among the six highest in records dating as far back as the mid-1800s. It was the warmest La Niña year on record. Many areas observed record or near-record heat. Europe as a whole observed its second-warmest year on record, with sixteen individual countries observing record warmth at the national scale. Records were shattered across the continent during the summer months as heatwaves plagued the region. On 18 July, 104 stations in France broke their all-time records. One day later, England recorded a temperature of 40°C for the first time ever. China experienced its second-warmest year and warmest summer on record. In the Southern Hemisphere, the average temperature across New Zealand reached a record high for the second year in a row. While Australia’s annual temperature was slightly below the 1991–2020 average, Onslow Airport in Western Australia reached 50.7°C on 13 January, equaling Australia's highest temperature on record. While fewer in number and locations than record-high temperatures, record cold was also observed during the year. Southern Africa had its coldest August on record, with minimum temperatures as much as 5°C below normal over Angola, western Zambia, and northern Namibia. Cold outbreaks in the first half of December led to many record-low daily minimum temperature records in eastern Australia. The effects of rising temperatures and extreme heat were apparent across the Northern Hemisphere, where snow-cover extent by June 2022 was the third smallest in the 56-year record, and the seasonal duration of lake ice cover was the fourth shortest since 1980. More frequent and intense heatwaves contributed to the second-greatest average mass balance loss for Alpine glaciers around the world since the start of the record in 1970. Glaciers in the Swiss Alps lost a record 6% of their volume. In South America, the combination of drought and heat left many central Andean glaciers snow free by mid-summer in early 2022; glacial ice has a much lower albedo than snow, leading to accelerated heating of the glacier. Across the global cryosphere, permafrost temperatures continued to reach record highs at many high-latitude and mountain locations. In the high northern latitudes, the annual surface-air temperature across the Arctic was the fifth highest in the 123-year record. The seasonal Arctic minimum sea-ice extent, typically reached in September, was the 11th-smallest in the 43-year record; however, the amount of multiyear ice—ice that survives at least one summer melt season—remaining in the Arctic continued to decline. Since 2012, the Arctic has been nearly devoid of ice more than four years old. In Antarctica, an unusually large amount of snow and ice fell over the continent in 2022 due to several landfalling atmospheric rivers, which contributed to the highest annual surface mass balance, 15% to 16% above the 1991–2020 normal, since the start of two reanalyses records dating to 1980. It was the second-warmest year on record for all five of the long-term staffed weather stations on the Antarctic Peninsula. In East Antarctica, a heatwave event led to a new all-time record-high temperature of −9.4°C—44°C above the March average—on 18 March at Dome C. This was followed by the collapse of the critically unstable Conger Ice Shelf. More than 100 daily low sea-ice extent and sea-ice area records were set in 2022, including two new all-time annual record lows in net sea-ice extent and area in February. Across the world’s oceans, global mean sea level was record high for the 11th consecutive year, reaching 101.2 mm above the 1993 average when satellite altimetry measurements began, an increase of 3.3±0.7 over 2021. Globally-averaged ocean heat content was also record high in 2022, while the global sea-surface temperature was the sixth highest on record, equal with 2018. Approximately 58% of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave in 2022. In the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand’s longest continuous marine heatwave was recorded. A total of 85 named tropical storms were observed during the Northern and Southern Hemisphere storm seasons, close to the 1991–2020 average of 87. There were three Category 5 tropical cyclones across the globe—two in the western North Pacific and one in the North Atlantic. This was the fewest Category 5 storms globally since 2017. Globally, the accumulated cyclone energy was the lowest since reliable records began in 1981. Regardless, some storms caused massive damage. In the North Atlantic, Hurricane Fiona became the most intense and most destructive tropical or post-tropical cyclone in Atlantic Canada’s history, while major Hurricane Ian killed more than 100 people and became the third costliest disaster in the United States, causing damage estimated at $113 billion U.S. dollars. In the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Batsirai dropped 2044 mm of rain at Commerson Crater in Réunion. The storm also impacted Madagascar, where 121 fatalities were reported. As is typical, some areas around the world were notably dry in 2022 and some were notably wet. In August, record high areas of land across the globe (6.2%) were experiencing extreme drought. Overall, 29% of land experienced moderate or worse categories of drought during the year. The largest drought footprint in the contiguous United States since 2012 (63%) was observed in late October. The record-breaking megadrought of central Chile continued in its 13th consecutive year, and 80-year record-low river levels in northern Argentina and Paraguay disrupted fluvial transport. In China, the Yangtze River reached record-low values. Much of equatorial eastern Africa had five consecutive below-normal rainy seasons by the end of 2022, with some areas receiving record-low precipitation totals for the year. This ongoing 2.5-year drought is the most extensive and persistent drought event in decades, and led to crop failure, millions of livestock deaths, water scarcity, and inflated prices for staple food items. In South Asia, Pakistan received around three times its normal volume of monsoon precipitation in August, with some regions receiving up to eight times their expected monthly totals. Resulting floods affected over 30 million people, caused over 1700 fatalities, led to major crop and property losses, and was recorded as one of the world’s costliest natural disasters of all time. Near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Petrópolis received 530 mm in 24 hours on 15 February, about 2.5 times the monthly February average, leading to the worst disaster in the city since 1931 with over 230 fatalities. On 14–15 January, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano in the South Pacific erupted multiple times. The injection of water into the atmosphere was unprecedented in both magnitude—far exceeding any previous values in the 17-year satellite record—and altitude as it penetrated into the mesosphere. The amount of water injected into the stratosphere is estimated to be 146±5 Terragrams, or ∼10% of the total amount in the stratosphere. It may take several years for the water plume to dissipate, and it is currently unknown whether this eruption will have any long-term climate effect.

Abstract: The association between blood lipids and cognitive function in schizophrenia is still controversial. Thus, the present study aimed to verify the association between various lipid parameters and cognitive impairment in schizophrenic patients and potential lipid pathways. Methods A total of 447 adult inpatients with schizophrenia were divided into cognitive normal and cognitive impairment groups based on the Mini-Mental State Examination with a cut-off of 26. The blood lipid parameters were defined as abnormal levels based on the guideline. The liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method was used to preliminarily explore the potential lipid metabolism pathway associated with cognitive impairment. Results There were 368 (82.3%) patients who had cognitive impairment. Herein, apolipoprotein B was positively associated with cognitive function in overall patients and age (≥45 and & lt;45 years) and sex subgroups. After excluding patients with hypertension and diabetes, ApoB was still significantly associated with cognitive function in all the patients. The associations between other lipid parameters, including non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride, and cognitive impairment were heterogeneous in age and sex subgroups. In contrast, total cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1 were not significantly associated with cognitive impairment. Metabolomics analysis showed that metabolic pathway mainly involved sphingolipid metabolism. Meanwhile, sphinganine and 3-dehydrosphinganine were positively correlated with lipid parameters and decreased in patients with cognitive impairment as compared to those with normal cognition. Conclusions The present study suggests a positive association between lipids and cognitive function in schizophrenic patients and needs to be further verified by a prospective study.

Abstract: As one indispensable part of power systems, the reliable-operated power transformers are vital for energy transmission, whereas they are remarkably threatened by potential fault events. To achieve the satisfying and valid operation of power transformers, any fault events that may impact their health ought to be evaluated and early warned. With such motivations, this paper presents original insights on the assessment of power transmission health states via their internal dissolved gas, and an enhanced Association Rule Mining (ARM) model incorporating the analysis of High-Impact-Low-Probability (HILP) components, as well as a dynamic fault event risk evaluation approach, is proposed. The first step is to differentiate the risky components. Unlike the standard ARM, the rarely occurred components in each feature can also be assessed explicitly as the common components to explore the underlying HILP components in the proposed model, rather than just being viewed as trivial data and directly omitted. The second step is to rate the risk level of each risky component. A component importance measure-based evaluation approach is deployed to assess the corresponding risk weights of distinguished risky components. In this approach, the risk weight is determined straightforwardly via the impacts of each component on the variation level of total risks in the system, rather than simply by its frequency of occurrence or data share. Finally, the parameters of the risk weight evaluation approach can be dynamically adapted in an adjustment framework as well. This model is testified through an empirical case study, and the leading results can demonstrate its flexibility and robustness during real applications.