A heterozygous moth genome provides insights into herbivory and detoxification

How an insect evolves to become a successful herbivore is of profound biological and practical importance. Herbivores are often adapted to feed on a specific group of evolutionarily and biochemically related host plants1, but the genetic and molecular bases for adaptation to plant defense compounds remain poorly understood2. We report the first whole-genome sequence of a basal lepidopteran species, Plutella xylostella, which contains 18,071 protein-coding and 1,412 unique genes with an expansion of gene families associated with perception and the detoxification of plant defense compounds. A recent expansion of retrotransposons near detoxification-related genes and a wider system used in the metabolism of plant defense compounds are shown to also be involved in the development of insecticide resistance. This work shows the genetic and molecular bases for the evolutionary success of this worldwide herbivore and offers wider insights into insect adaptation to plant feeding, as well as opening avenues for more sustainable pest management.Minsheng You … Simon W Baxter … et al

Quaternary quality a medium quality that connects macro quality with micro quality

To construct the outlook on great quality, the concept of quality can be divided into two aspects, micro quality and macro quality at present. However, the definition of micro quality and its contents are not related organically with the conception of macro quality and its contents. So an intermediate variable between micro quality and macro quality is needed to link them together, and this intermediate variable is named as medium quality. This paper introduces the connotation of medium quality that includes the concept of quaternary quality, namely zero quality, unary quality, binary quality and ternary quality, and explains the progressive logical relationships of these four qualities. Micro quality and macro quality are cohered by medium quality organically, and thus formulates the scientific outlook on great quality

Statistical Process Control for Unimodal Distribution Based on Maximum Entropy Distribution Approximation

In statistical process control, the control chart utilizing the idea of maximum entropy distribution density level sets has been proven to perform well for monitoring the quantity with multimodal distribution. However, it is too complicated to implement for the quantity with unimodal distribution. This article proposes a simplified method based on maximum entropy for the control chart design when the quantity being monitored is unimodal distribution. First, we use the maximum entropy distribution to approximate the unknown distribution of the monitored quantity. Then we directly take the value of the quantity as the monitoring statistic. Finally, the Lebesgue measure is applied to estimate the acceptance regions and the one with minimum volume is chosen as the optimal in-control region of the monitored quantity. The results from two cases show that the proposed method in this article has a higher detection capability than the conventional control chart techniques when the monitored quantity is asymmetric unimodal distribution

Measurements of Mixed Transient Flows

Laboratory experiments were carried out to observe the mechanism of transition between free‐surface flow and pressurized flow conditions in a circular pipe. Filling or pressurization of a pipe is typically accomplished by a positive surge moving toward the free‐surface flow region. Under certain conditions air-water interaction during pressurization can produce water hammer pressures. Draining or depressurization also produces a shock surface, i.e. a negative surge, that moves toward the pressurized zone. Unlike the positive surge, the negative surge produces negative pressure in the pressurized zone. Some aspects of the transition between positive and negative surges were also studied

HCPCF-based in-line fiber Fabry-Perot refractometer and high sensitivity signal processing method

Abstract An in-line fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) based on the hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) for refractive index (RI) measurement is proposed in this paper. The FPI is formed by splicing both ends of a short section of the HCPCF to single mode fibers (SMFs) and cleaving the SMF pigtail to a proper length. The RI response of the sensor is analyzed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. The results show that the FPI sensor has linear response to external RI and good repeatability. The sensitivity calculated from the maximum fringe contrast is –136 dB/RIU. A new spectrum differential integration (SDI) method for signal processing is also presented in this study. In this method, the RI is obtained from the integrated intensity of the absolute difference between the interference spectrum and its smoothed spectrum. The results show that the sensitivity obtained from the integrated intensity is about –1.34×105 dB/RIU. Compared with the maximum fringe contrast method, the new SDI method can provide the higher sensitivity, better linearity, improved reliability, and accuracy, and it’s also convenient for automatic and fast signal processing in real-time monitoring of RI