Migrants' willingness to contact local residents in China

Although the integration of migrants has been increasingly pursued by the policy makers in many countries, there remains a paucity of knowledge regarding what migrants themselves think about integration. Based on the 2014 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this study draws upon new assimilation theory to investigate migrants' willingness to contact locals in China. Our results suggest that most migrants in China are willing to contact natives, but their willingness may not be strong. Different from the actual intergroup contact, migrants' willingness to develop intergroup contact is not affected by their socioeconomic status. Instead, such willingness might be developed based on the cultural commonalities between migrants and natives. Residential segregation can weaken migrants' willingness to contact locals even after the endogeneity bias of residential choice is controlled by using instrumental variable method and focusing on migrants who live in the housing provided by employers. This draws a darker picture of migrant integration. Previous literature explains that migrants faced with residential segregation have fewer opportunities to form intergroup contact which in turn can hamper their overall integration. Our analysis goes a step further by revealing that they may also lose their motivation to make intergroup contact – a preference that is critical to changing their disadvantaged situation

Enhanced virtual synchronous machine (VSM) control algorithm for hybrid grid forming converters

There has been considerable interest in convertor solutions which to a greater or lesser extent mimic the behaviour of synchronous machines, thus overcoming many of the disadvantages of the existing technology which are potentially destabilizing at high penetration. These solutions are frequently referred to as Grid Forming Convertors (GFC). For offshore installations, where some equipment is on shore, locating equipment offshore is more expensive and carries greater commercial risks, requiring extensive testing and confidence building prior to deployment in real applications. This is time consuming and particularly significant for GB and where there are significant quantities of offshore generation. Onshore solutions to stability are therefore desirable for Off-Shore Transmission Owners (OFTOs) and might also be applied by retrofitting to existing conventional converter plant. This paper presents and discusses findings of the second stage of the research focusing on the enhanced control algorithm for Hybrid Grid Forming Convertors for Offshore Wind Applications and its performance, while the previous paper [3] presents the initial findings comparing various hybrid solutions for offshore networks where the STATCOM onshore is replaced by synchronous compensator and GFC or Virtual Synchronous Machines (VSM) converter of similar rating with the aim to achieve levels of Grid-Forming capability

A unified construction of weightwise perfectly balanced Boolean functions

At Eurocrypt 2016, Méaux et al. presented FLIP, a new family of stream ciphers {that aimed to enhance the efficiency of homomorphic encryption frameworks. Motivated by FLIP, recent research has focused on the study of Boolean functions with good cryptographic properties when restricted to subsets of the space $\mathbb{F}_2^n$. If an $n$-variable Boolean function has the property of balancedness when restricted to each set of vectors with fixed Hamming weight between $1$ and $n-1$, it is a weightwise perfectly balanced (WPB) Boolean function. In the literature, a few algebraic constructions of WPB functions are known, in which there are some constructions that use iterative method based on functions with low degrees of 1, 2, or 4. In this paper, we generalize the iterative method and contribute a unified construction of WPB functions based on functions with algebraic degrees that can} be any power of 2. For any given positive integer $d$ not larger than $m$, we first provide a class of $2^m$-variable Boolean functions with a degree of $2^{d-1}$. Utilizing these functions, we then present a construction of $2^m$-variable WPB functions $g_{m;d}$. In particular, $g_{m;d}$ includes four former classes of WPB functions as special cases when $d=1,2,3,m$. When $d$ takes other integer values, $g_{m;d}$ has never appeared before. In addition, we prove the algebraic degree of the constructed WPB functions and compare the weightwise nonlinearity of WPB functions known so far in 8 and 16 variables

milR20 negatively regulates the development of fruit bodies in Pleurotus cornucopiae

The mechanism underlying the development of fruit bodies in edible mushroom is a widely studied topic. In this study, the role of milRNAs in the development of fruit bodies of Pleurotus cornucopiae was studied by comparative analyses of the mRNAs and milRNAs at different stages of development. The genes that play a crucial role in the expression and function of milRNAs were identified and subsequently expressed and silenced at different stages of development. The total number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially expressed milRNAs (DEMs) at different stages of development was determined to be 7,934 and 20, respectively. Comparison of the DEGs and DEMs across the different development stages revealed that DEMs and its target DEGs involved in the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway, protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, endocytosis, aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, RNA transport, and other metabolism pathways, which may play important roles in the development of the fruit bodies of P. cornucopiae. The function of milR20, which targeted pheromone A receptor g8971 and was involved in the MAPK signaling pathway, was further verified by overexpression and silencing in P. cornucopiae. The results demonstrated that the overexpression of milR20 reduced the growth rate of mycelia and prolonged the development of the fruit bodies, while milR20 silencing had an opposite effect. These findings indicated that milR20 plays a negative role in the development of P. cornucopiae. This study provides novel insights into the molecular mechanism underlying the development of fruit bodies in P. cornucopiae

Selective Autophagy of BES1 Mediated by DSK2 Balances Plant Growth and Survival

Plants encounter a variety of stresses and must fine-tune their growth and stress-response programs to best suit their environment. BES1 functions as a master regulator in the brassinosteroid (BR) pathway that promotes plant growth. Here, we show that BES1 interacts with the ubiquitin receptor protein DSK2 and is targeted to the autophagy pathway during stress via the interaction of DSK2 with ATG8, a ubiquitin-like protein directing autophagosome formation and cargo recruitment. Additionally, DSK2 is phosphorylated by the GSK3-like kinase BIN2, a negative regulator in the BR pathway. BIN2 phosphorylation of DSK2 flanking its ATG8 interacting motifs (AIMs) promotes DSK2-ATG8 interaction, thereby targeting BES1 for degradation. Accordingly, loss-of-function dsk2 mutants accumulate BES1, have altered global gene expression profiles, and have compromised stress responses. Our results thus reveal that plants coordinate growth and stress responses by integrating BR and autophagy pathways and identify the molecular basis of this crosstalk

A new operando surface restructuring pathway via ion-pairing of catalyst and electrolyte for water oxidation

The highly efficient and stable electrolysis needs the rational control of the catalytically active interface during the reactions. Here we report a new operando surface restructuring pathway activated by pairing catalyst and electrolyte ions. Using SrCoO3-δ-based perovskites as model catalysts, we unveil the critical role of matching the catalyst properties with the electrolyte conditions in modulating catalyst ion leaching and steering surface restructuring processes toward efficient oxygen evolution reaction catalysis in both pH-neutral and alkaline electrolytes. Our results regarding multiple perovskites show that the catalyst ion leaching is controlled by catalyst ion solubility and anions of the electrolyte. Only when the electrolyte cations are smaller than catalyst's leaching cations, the formation of an outer amorphous shell can be triggered via backfilling electrolyte cations into the cationic vacancy at the catalyst surface under electrochemical polarization. Consequently, the current density of reconstructed SrCoO3-δ is increased by 21 folds compared to the pristine SrCoO3-δ at 1.75 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode and outperforms the benchmark IrO2 by 2.1 folds and most state-of-the-art electrocatalysts in the pH-neutral electrolyte. Our work could be a starting point to rationally control the electrocatalyst surface restructuring via matching the compositional chemistry of the catalyst with the electrolyte properties

Rapid detection of grass carp reovirus type 1 using RPA-based test strips combined with CRISPR Cas13a system

IntroductionDue to the existence of grass carp reovirus (GCRV), grass carp hemorrhagic disease occurs frequently, and its high pathogenicity and infectivity are great challenges to the aquaculture industry. As a highly pathogenic pathogen, the outbreak of hemorrhagic disease often causes tremendous economic losses. Therefore, it is important to rapidly and accurately detect GCRV on site to control timely.MethodsIn this study, recombinant enzyme amplification (RPA) combined with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas13a system was employed to establish a method to detect the vp7 gene of grass carp reovirus type 1. This method can be adopted for judging the results by collecting fluorescence signal, ultraviolet excitation visual fluorescence and test strip.ResultsCombined with the RPA amplification experiment, the detection limit of the RPA-CRISPR method can reach 7.2 × 101 copies/μL of vp7 gene per reaction, and the detection process can be completed within 1 h. In addition, this method had no cross-reaction with the other 11 common aquatic pathogens. Then, the performance of the RPA-CRISPR/Cas13a detection method was evaluated by comparing it with the real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR detection method of clinical samples. The results of RPA-CRISPR/Cas13a detection were shown to be in consistence with the results obtained from the real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR detection. The coincidence rate of this method with 26 GCRV clinical samples was 92.31%.DiscussionIn summary, this method has high sensitivity, specificity and on-site practicability for detecting GCRV type 1, and has great application potential in on-site GCRV monitoring

Comparative study of the composition and genetic diversity of the picoeukaryote community in a Chinese aquaculture area and an open sea area

Picoeukaryotes (<2–3 μm) perform key roles for the functioning of marine ecosystems, but little is known regarding the composition and diversity of picoeukaryotes in aquaculture areas. In this study, the Illumina MiSeq platform was used for sequencing the V4 variable region within the 18S rDNA gene to analyse genetic diversity and relative abundance of picoeukaryotic communities in the Qinhuangdao scallop cultivation area of the Bohai Sea. The community was dominated by three super groups, the alveolates (54%), stramenopiles (41%) and chlorophytes (3%), and three groups, dinoflagellates (54%), pelagomonadales (40%) and prasinophytes (3%). Furthermore, a contrasting station with open water away from the eutrophic aquaculture area was chosen. The communities collected from the two stations exhibited significant differences, with higher diversity in the aquaculture area. These results provide the first snapshot of the picoeukaryotic diversity in surface waters of the Qinhuangdao scallop cultivation area, and basic data for future studies on picoeukaryote community in an aquaculture region