Guangxi Province Of China Research Articles

Disseminated Talaromyces marneffei infection associated with haemophagocytic syndrome in an HIV-negative patient in northern China: a case report

BackgroundTalaromyces marneffei is endemic to eastern India, Southeast Asia, and Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in China. It is common in immunocompromised individuals, especially in HIV-infected patients.Case presentationA 66-year-old male who had a history of hypertension and resided in Shandong Province (Northern China) was admitted for recurrent fever for one month. The patient had recurrent fever, multiple lymphadenopathies, hepatosplenomegaly, a back rash, and a progressive decrease in white blood cells and platelets. Talaromyces marneffei was isolated from peripheral blood and bone marrow after admission, and suspected fungal cells were found via lymph node pathology. The patient’s infection secondary to haemophagocytic syndrome continued to worsen despite antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and symptomatic treatment, leading to death due to multiple-organ failure.ConclusionAlthough rare, infection due to Talaromyces marneffei in HIV-negative patients has been increasing in recent years, and we should be vigilant about “new” infections in nonendemic areas.

Research on the Logic and Path of Red Culture in the Information Age for Promoting the Casting of Chinese National Community Consciousness ---- Taking Guangxi as an Example

Abstract Chinese national community consciousness is an important task and distinctive main line to strengthen and improve national work in the information age, and the role of red culture as an essential carrier of Chinese national historical memory to promote Chinese national community consciousness cannot be ignored. The transformation of red culture resources through digital empowerment is described in this paper, and the digital development path of red culture in the information age is constructed. Then, it analyzes the internal logic of red culture forging the sense of community of the Chinese nation, and utilizes the coupling model and regression analysis to study the path of red culture forging the sense of community of the Chinese nation. Finally, taking Guangxi Province of China as an example for empirical evidence, the comprehensive score of Guangxi’s red culture development rises from 0.268 in 2016 to 0.735 in 2022, an increase of 0.123, and the degree of coupling and coordination between red culture and casting a firm sense of community of the Chinese nation is in the range of 0.3 to 0.5. It indicates that the red culture and casting a firm sense of community of the Chinese nation of Guangxi Province have an excellent coordinated development trend in the period of 2016-2022, and the red culture for the promotion of Chinese national community consciousness is a good solution. The trend of coordination development provides a practical path for red culture to promote the development of casting Chinese national community consciousness.

A Comparative Study on Service Trade Competitiveness: Guangxi Province of China and ASEAN Countries in the Belt and Road Initiative

A Comparative Study on Service Trade Competitiveness: Guangxi Province of China and ASEAN Countries in the Belt and Road Initiative

A Hybrid Short‐Term Wind Power Forecasting Model Considering Significant Data Loss

Accurate wind power forecasting (WPF) is pivotal for the power system dominated by high penetration of renewable energy. Most forecasting techniques require sufficient data samples as a premise for achieving accurate prediction. Due to equipment faults during data collection, complete data is not always available, resulting that the forecasting accuracy is greatly diminished. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel two‐stage hybrid forecasting approach including data restoration stage and forecasting stage. For the data restoration stage, the bidirectional long short‐term memory (Bi‐LSTM) is integrated into generative adversarial network (GAN) to recover the missing data with consideration of the complex time dynamics and correlations among heterogeneous data. To improve the prediction accuracy, the complete generated wind power sequence is decomposed into multiple time sequences with low volatility based on the enhanced variational mode decomposition (VMD). For the forecasting stage, a hybrid forecasting algorithm that combines convolutional neural network (CNN) and bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) with an improved attention mechanism is proposed, strengthening the forecasting performance by assigning optimal weights to key features. The proposed hybrid forecasting method outperforms traditional methods based on real wind farm data with different shares of data loss from Guangxi province in China. © 2023 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

GC-MS Fingerprinting Combined with Chemical Pattern-Recognition Analysis Reveals Novel Chemical Markers of the Medicinal Seahorse

Seahorse is a valuable marine-animal drug widely used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), and which was first documented in the “Ben Cao Jing Ji Zhu” during the Liang Dynasty. Hippocampus kelloggi (HK) is the most common seahorse species in the medicinal material market and is one of the genuine sources of medicinal seahorse documented in the Chinese pharmacopeia. It is mainly cultivated in the Shandong, Fujian, and Guangxi Provinces in China. However, pseudo-HK, represented by Hippocampus ingens (HI) due to its similar appearance and traits, is often found in the market, compromising the safety and efficacy of clinical use. Currently, there is a lack of reliable methods for identifying these species based on their chemical composition. In this study, we employed, for the first time, a strategy combining gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) fingerprints and chemical patterns in order to identify HK and HI; it is also the first metabolomic study to date of HI as to chemical components. The obtained results revealed remarkable similarities in the chemical fingerprints, while significant differences were also observed. By employing hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA), based on the relative contents of their characteristic peaks, all 34 samples were successfully differentiated according to their species of origin, with samples from the same species forming distinct clusters. Moreover, nonadecanoic acid and behenic acid were exclusively detected in HK samples, further distinguishing them from HI samples. Additionally, the relative contents of lauric acid, tetradecanoic acid, pentadecanoic acid, n-hexadecanoic acid, palmitoleic acid, margaric acid, oleic acid, fenozan acid, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) exhibited significant differences between HK and HI (p < 0.0001), as determined by an unpaired t-test. Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) identified seven components (DHA, EPA, n-hexadecanoic acid, tetradecanoic acid, palmitoleic acid, octadecanoic acid, and margaric acid) with high discriminatory value (VIP value > 1). Thus, nonadecanoic acid, behenic acid, and these seven compounds can be utilized as chemical markers for distinguishing HK from HI. In conclusion, our study successfully developed a combined strategy of GC-MS fingerprinting and chemical pattern recognition for the identification of HK and HI, and we also discovered chemical markers that can directly differentiate between the two species. This study can provide a foundation for the authentication of Hippocampus and holds significant importance for the conservation of wild seahorse resources.

Molecular epidemiological and genetic characterization of pseudorabies virus in Guangxi, China.

Pseudorabies virus (PRV) is an important pathogen that can cause harm to the pig population. Since 2011, there have been a number of large-scale outbreaks of pseudorabies on Chinese farms where animals had been vaccinated with the Bartha-K61 vaccine. In order to understand the epidemiological trend and genetic variations of PRV in Guangxi province, China, 819 tissue samples were collected from swine farms where PRV infection was suspected from 2013 to 2019, and these were tested for infectious wild strains of PRV. The results showed a positive rate of PRV in Guangxi province of 28.21% (231/819). Thirty-six wild-type PRV strains were successfully isolated from PRV-positive tissue samples, and a genetic evolutionary analysis was performed based on the gB, gC, gD, gE, and TK genes. Thirty of the PRV strains were found to be closely related to the Chinese variant strains HeN1-China-2012 and HLJ8-China-2013. In addition, five PRV strains were genetically related to Chinese classical strains, and one isolate was a recombinant of the PRV variant and the vaccine strain Bartha-K61. Amino acid sequence analysis showed that all 36 PRV strains had characteristic variant sites in the amino acid sequences of the gB, gC, gD, and gE proteins. Pathogenicity analysis showed that, compared to classical PRV strains, the PRV variant strains were more pathogenic in mice and had a lower LD50. Taken together, our results show that wild-type PRV infections are common on pig farms in Guangxi province of China and that the dominant prevalent strains were those of the PRV variants. The PRV variant strains also had increased pathogenicity in mice. Our data will provide a useful reference for understanding the prevalence and genetic evolution of PRV in China.

Development of a quadruplex real-time quantitative RT-PCR for detection and differentiation of PHEV, PRV, CSFV, and JEV.

Porcine hemagglutinating encephalomyelitis virus (PHEV), porcine pseudorabies virus (PRV), classical swine fever virus (CSFV), and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) cause similar neurological symptoms in the infected pigs, and their differential diagnosis depends on laboratory testing. Four pairs of specific primers and probes were designed targeting the PHEV N gene, PRV gB gene, CSFV 5' untranslated region (5'UTR), and JEV NS1 gene, respectively, and a quadruplex real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) was developed to detect and differentiate PHEV, PRV, CSFV, and JEV. The assay showed high sensitivity, with the limit of detection (LOD) of 1.5 × 101 copies/μL for each pathogen. The assay specifically detected only PHEV, PRV, CSFV, and JEV, without cross-reaction with other swine viruses. The coefficients of variation (CVs) of the intra-assay and the inter-assay were less than 1.84%, with great repeatability. A total of 1,977 clinical samples, including tissue samples, and whole blood samples collected from Guangxi province in China, were tested by the developed quadruplex qRT-PCR, and the positivity rates of PHEV, PRV, CSFV, and JEV were 1.57% (31/1,977), 0.35% (7/1,977), 1.06% (21/1,977), and 0.10% (2/1,977), respectively. These 1,977 samples were also tested by the previously reported qRT-PCR assays, and the coincidence rates of these methods were more than 99.90%. The developed assay is demonstrated to be rapid, sensitive, and accurate for detection and differentiation of PHEV, PRV, CSFV, and JEV.

Integrative taxonomic analyses reveal first country records of Occidozygashiwandashanensis Chen, Peng, Liu, Huang, Liao & Mo, 2022 and Hylaranalatouchii (Boulenger, 1899) (Anura, Dicroglossidae, Ranidae) from Vietnam.

Occidozygashiwandashaensis was recently discovered from Guangxi Province of China. Hylaranalatouchii is a widespread species in southern China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. Both species are expected to be found in the border areas between Vietnam and China; however, no records of these frogs have been documented from Vietnam so far. We record two species of amphibians for the first time from Vietnam, namely Occidozygashiwandashaensis from Bac Giang Province and Hylaranalatouchii from Hai Phong City and Quang Ninh Province in northern Vietnam. Morphologically, the Vietnamese representatives of O.shiwandashanensis resemble the type series from China. The specimens of H.latouchii from Vietnam slightly differ from the type series from China by having a larger size (SVL 48.6-51.7 mm in males, SVL 58.4 mm in the females vs. 36.0-40.0 mm in males, 42.0-53.0 mm in females). Genetic distances between the Vietnamese records and the type specimens of O.shiwandashanensis from China varied from 0 to 1.5% (16S gene). Genetic divergences between the Vietnamese records and H.latouchii from the type locality were 2.0-2.6% (16S gene). In addition, morphological data and natural history notes of the aforementioned species are provided, based on the new records from Vietnam. -.

The spatial patterns and driving mechanisms of blue carbon ‘loss’ and ‘gain’ in a typical mangrove ecosystem: A case study of Beihai, Guangxi Province of China

The role of mangroves in carbon sequestration is critical in mitigating climate change. For better identifying the carbon conservation hotspots of mangroves influenced by environmental factors, the spatial distribution and driving mechanisms of mangrove vegetation and soil carbon sequestration, as well as the future carbon dynamics of mangroves, required clarification. Firstly, we assessed the spatial pattern of vegetation biomass and soil depth-varied soil total organic carbon (TOC) in Xiaoguansha, Guangxi Province of China, and its relationships with duration of inundation (DTI) were explored. Additionally, the carbon storage capacity of adjacent mangrove tidal flats as potential carbon reservoirs was quantified. Thirdly, freshwater, and nutrient inputs, biotic factors of mangrove, and soil composition were selected as impact factors, and their mechanisms in carbon sequestration were elucidated by using Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM). Finally, medium values of environmental factors on mangrove carbon sequestration were revealed, based on which future loss and gain patterns of carbon sequestration under the combined effects were fully discussed. The results showed that: (1) The Above-ground biomass (AGB) and TOC densities were 32.89 Mg C/ha and 185.10 Mg C/ha in the study area, and both were enriched in the Interior areas. The carbon sequestration in the tidal flats was equivalented to >1/5 of total carbon sequestration of mangroves. (2) DTI was the most critical factor affecting the carbon sequestration pattern and was found to be positive correlated with AGB and TOC via changing soil contents (SC), whereas it exhibits a negative correlation with AGB and TOC through influencing canopy density (CD). CD and TP were identified as significant predictors. (3) Median analysis indicated that future carbon ‘gain’ area will move nearshore, whereas the carbon-rich intertidal area may undergo carbon loss. This study provided new insights and scientific understanding for management of mangrove blue carbon function.

Development of a Quadruplex RT-qPCR for the Detection of Porcine Rotaviruses and the Phylogenetic Analysis of Porcine RVH in China.

Rotavirus A species (RVA), RVB, RVC, and RVH are four species of rotaviruses (RVs) that are prevalent in pig herds, and co-infections occur frequently. In this study, a quadruplex real-time quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR) for the simultaneous detection of four porcine RVs was developed by designing specific primers and probes based on the VP6 gene of RVA, RVB, RVC, and RVH, respectively. The method showed high specificity and could only detect RVA, RVB, RVC, and RVH, without cross-reaction with other porcine viruses; showed excellent sensitivity, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1.5 copies/µL for each virus; showed good repeatability, with intra-assay coefficients of variation (CVs) of 0.15-1.14% and inter-assay CVs of 0.07-0.96%. A total of 1447 clinical fecal samples from Guangxi province in China were tested using the developed quadruplex RT-qPCR. The results showed that RVA (42.71%, 618/1447), RVB (26.95%, 390/1447), RVC (42.92%, 621/1447), and RVH (13.68%, 198/1447) were simultaneously circulating in the pig herds, and the co-infection rate of different species of rotaviruses was found to be up to 44.01% (579/1447). The clinical samples were also detected using one previously reported method, and the coincidence rate of the detection results using two methods was more than 99.65%. The phylogenetic tree based on the VP6 gene sequences of RVH revealed that the porcine RVH strains from Guangxi province belonged to the genotype I5, which was closely related to Japanese and Vietnamese strains. In summary, an efficient, sensitive, and accurate method for the detection and differentiation of RVA, RVB, RVC, and RVH was developed and applied to investigate the prevalence of porcine RVs in Guangxi province, China. This study is the first to report the prevalence of porcine RVH in China.

First report of stem-end rot caused by Botryosphaeria fabicerciana on mango fruits in China.

Mango (Mangifera indica L.), belongs to the family Anacardiacea, and is one of the most popular tropical fruits in the world. Stem-end rot is a major postharvest disease of mango fruit, causing severe losses during storage in China (Chen et al., 2015). In July 2021, the mango fruits harvested from Baise Municipal National Agricultural Science and Technology Park (23.683568 N, 106.986325 E) of Guangxi province in China developed stem-end rot during storage. The disease incidence reached ca. 8.3%. The initial symptoms appeared as light brown lesions surrounding the peduncle, which quickly expanded becoming large dark-brown lesions. Small pieces of epidermis (5 mm × 5 mm) from 8 typical diseased friuts were cut from the edges of lesions surface-sterilized with 2% sodium hypochlorite and rinsed with sterile distilled water. The tissue was plated on potato dextrose agar (PDA) and incubated at 28 ℃ in the dark for 3 days. Fifteen, similarcolonies were isolated from the symptomatic tissue. The representative isolates DF-1, DF-2 and DF-3 were selected for morphological characterization, molecular identification, and pathogenicity testing. The colonies were circular with fluffy aerial mycelium, initially white turning to smoke-gray from the center in upper side and greenish black in reverse side, covering the 90 mm diameter Petri dish after 4 days of incubationon PDAat 28 ℃in dark. Pycnidia were produced on the surface of the colony after 30 days. Conidia were fusiform, aseptate, hyaline, thin-walled with granular contents, apex sub-obtuse, base subtruncate to bluntly rounded, 14.0-20.3 (16.8±1.6) μm × 3.1-7.2 (5.1±0.9) μm (n=50). The sexual stage was absent. Based on morphology, isolates were preliminarilyidentified asBotryosphaeriaspeices.To accurately identify the pathogen, genomic DNA was extracted from the mycelium of the three isolates DF-1, DF-2 and DF-3. The internal transcribed spacer of rDNA region (ITS), elongation factor 1-alpha (EF-1α) and beta-tubulin gene (TUB) genes were amplified using primers ITS1/ITS4, EF1-728F/EF1-986R and Bt2a/Bt2b, respectively (Slippers et al., 2004). The nucleotide sequences were all deposited in GenBank (ITS: OP729176-OP729178 EF-1α: OP758194-OP758196 and TUB: OP758197-OP758199). Based on the BLASTn analysis, the ITS, EF1-α and TUB sequences of three isolates were 100%, 99% and 99% similar to the Botryosphaeria fabicerciana MFLUCC 10-0098 sequences (ITS: JX646789, EF-1α: JX646854 and TUB: JX646839). Multi-locus phylogenetic analyses (ITS, EF-1α and TUB) showed that the isolate DF-1, DF-2 and DF-3 were clustered within Botryosphaeria fabicerciana clade based on the maximum likelihood , Bayesian inference, and maximum parsimony methods. The pathogenicity test was performed by placing discs mycelium around the peduncle of mature mango fruits by pin-prick method. Each treatment carried out with 12 fruits. The inoculated fruits were placed in plastic boxes at 28 ℃ with three replicates. Three days after inoculation, typical symptoms of stem-end rot were observed. The control fruits were inoculated with sterile PDA discs, and remained symptomless. The same fungus was re-isolated from the symptomatic tissue to complete Koch's postulate. Botryosphaeria fabicerciana (basionym: Fusicoccum fabicercianum) was first reported as pathogen causing senescent twig of Eucalyptus spp. in China (Chen et al., 2011; Phillips et al., 2013). To our knowledge, this is the first report of Botryosphaeria fabicerciana causing stem-end rot of Mangifera indica in China.

Two Species of Stemphylium, S. astragali and S. henanense sp. nov., Causing Leaf and Stem Spot Disease on Astragalus sinicus in China.

Astragalus sinicus is a versatile legume crop, primarily utilized as a green manure in China. During 2020 and 2021, A. sinicus plants exhibiting dark brown or reddish-brown lesions or spots on leaves and stems were collected from fields in the Henan, Sichuan, and Guangxi provinces of China. Sixteen single-spore isolates were isolated from the infected leaf and stem tissue samples. Phylogenetic analyses based on the concatenated internal transcribed spacer, gapdh, and cmdA sequences indicated that 14 of them belong to Stemphylium astragali, whereas two isolates can be well separated from other known species in this genus. Based on the morphological characteristics and nucleotide polymorphisms with sister taxa, the two isolates were identified as a new species named S. henanense. Furthermore, pathogenicity assays showed that the S. astragali and S. henanense isolates caused leaf and stem spot symptoms on A. sinicus. Altogether, we describe a new species of Stemphylium (i.e., S. henanense sp. nov.) causing leaf spot disease of A. sinicus. In addition, this is the first report of S. astragali causing stem spot disease of A. sinicus.

Dynamic analysis on the structure of metro station under high-speed railway load

High-speed railways often run over underground metro stations. Dynamic load induced by high-speed train can influence the internal force of underground structure and hence can pose danger to the underground structure. Hence, it is necessary to estimate the safety of underground structure due to high-speed train load. In this paper, the effects of dynamic load induced by high-speed train on metro station are investigated by carrying out three-dimensional numerical analysis. Guinan high-speed railway, which is designed to run over Jinqiao metro station in Nanning, Guangxi province of China are adopted as the background of this case study. The hardening soil model with small-strain stiffness was adopted to model the behaviour of soil. Two typical speed of railway train (i.e., 160 km/h and 350 km/h) are considered in this study. Based on the numerical analysis, vertical vibration acceleration and bending moment of the structure of the metro station are presented and analysed.

Mitochondrial Genome Uncovered Hidden Genetic Diversity in Microdous chalmersi (Teleostei: Odontobutidae)

The Hainan small-toothed sleeper, Microdous chalmersi, is an endemic species disjunctly distributed in Hainan and Guangxi provinces of China. Morphological differences have been previously observed between these populations. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of M. chalmersi from Hainan and Guangxi in order to test whether there is a cryptic species. We reconstructed a phylogenetic tree of samples collected from the two populations along with eight representative species of other odontobutids using thirteen mitochondrial coding genes and two rRNA genes. The results showed that five individuals of M. chalmersi from each population clustered into reciprocal monophyletic clades. Furthermore, genetic distance between individuals of the two populations was much larger than that between individuals from the same population. The genetic distance between the two Microdous populations was comparable to interspecific genetic distance of a closely related genus, Odontobutis. We propose that M. chalmersi from Guangxi and Hainan could belong to two different species, but detailed morphological and genetic studies should be carried out to test this hypothesis.

Isolation, Characterization and Phylogenetic Analysis of Stagonospora tainanensis, the Pathogen Causing Sugarcane Leaf Blight in China

Sugarcane leaf blight (SLB), a major fungal leaf disease of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.), has been attributed to Stagonospora tainanensis. In December 2020 and May 2021, signs of leaf blight were observed on sugarcane in the fields of Chongzuo City, in the Guangxi Province of China. Lesions on the leaves were characterized by yellow or dark red spots in the center. Fungal species were isolated, purified and subjected to pathogenicity evaluation on the sugarcane plants. An isolate that caused symptoms the same as those observed in the field was initially identified as S. tainanensis (Leptosphaeria taiwanensis, perfect state) based on its morphological characteristics both of asexual and sexual stages. Dark brown and nearly spherical pycnidia with conidia of long ellipsoidal, hyaline, one to four cells and 29.27 to 54.39 μm long and 9.03 to 16.12 μm wide were found on corn meal agar medium. Ascomata with asci of cylindrical to clavate, a short stipe and eight spores slightly constricted at the septum, with the size of the spore ranging from 36 to 44 μm long and 8.5 to 12 μm wide, were formed on the sugarcane-leaf-decoction saccharose agar medium. The identity of the species was further confirmed by rDNA ITS and TEF-1α sequencing. The optimal temperature for mycelial growth was 25 °C and the optimal pH was 6.0. The pathogen grew well in a medium with oats as the carbon source and yeast extract as the nitrogen source, but poorly in a medium with urea as the nitrogen source. This study is the first to identify the sugarcane leaf blight pathogen in Guangxi, and the first publication describing the biological characterization of S. tainanensis. The occurrence of sugarcane leaf blight should alert sugarcane breeders and plant pathologists to consider integrating control of this potentially important disease into the agenda of their breeding and disease control programs.

Longevity of centenarians is reflected by the gut microbiome with youth-associated signatures.

Centenarians are an excellent model to study the relationship between the gut microbiome and longevity. To characterize the gut microbiome signatures of aging, we conducted a cross-sectional investigation of 1,575 individuals (20-117 years) from Guangxi province of China, including 297 centenarians (n = 45 with longitudinal sampling). Compared to their old adult counterparts, centenarians displayed youth-associated features in the gut microbiome characterized by an over-representation of a Bacteroides-dominated enterotype, increase in species evenness, enrichment of potentially beneficial Bacteroidetes and depletion of potential pathobionts. Health status stratification in older individuals did not alter the directional trends for these signature comparisons but revealed more apparent associations in less healthy individuals. Importantly, longitudinal analysis of centenarians across a 1.5-year period indicated that the youth-associated gut microbial signatures were enhanced with regard to increased evenness, reduction in interindividual variation and stability of Bacteroides, and that centenarians with low microbial evenness were prone to large microbiome instability during aging. These results together highlight a youth-related aging pattern of the gut microbiome for long-lived individuals.

Integration of targeted sequencing and pseudo-tetraploid genotyping into clinically assisted decision support for β-thalassemia invasive prenatal diagnosis.

The high prevalence of β-thalassemia indicates the severe medical burden in Guangxi province in China. Millions of thousands of prenatal women with healthy or thalassemia-carrying fetuses received an unnecessary prenatal diagnosis. We designed a prospective single-center proof-of-concept study to evaluate the utility of a noninvasive prenatal screening method in the stratification of beta-thalassemia patients before invasive procedures. Next-generation and optimized pseudo-tetraploid genotyping-based methods were utilized in preceding invasive diagnosis stratification to predict the mater-fetus genotype combinations in cell-free DNA, which is from maternal peripheral blood. Populational linkage disequilibrium information with additional neighboring loci to infer the possible fetal genotype. The concordance of the pseudo-tetraploid genotyping with the gold standard invasive molecular diagnosis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this method. 127 β-thalassemia carrier parents were consecutively recruited. The total genotype concordance rate is 95.71%. The Kappa value was 0.8248 for genotype combinations and 0.9118 for individual alleles. This study offers a new approach to picking out the health or carrier fetus before invasive procedures. It provides valuable novel insight into patient stratification management on β-thalassemia prenatal diagnosis.

First Report of Leaf Spot Caused by Phyllosticta capitalensis on Alpinia oxyphylla Miq. in China.

Alpinia oxyphylla Miq. is mainly distributed in Hainan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of China. Between July and August 2021, a leaf spot disease was observed in Ledong, Hainan Province, China (18°70'20.50″ N, 109°25'25.47″E) on A.oxyphylla. The incidence of infected leaves ranged from 8% to 10%, and the incidence rate of infected plants was about 50%. Symptoms appeared as primary yellow-brown withered spots on the diseased leaves, which further developed into irregular red-brown spots. The center of the lesions was gray-black, and the tissue was irregularly necrotic, ruptured or perforated, and there were yellow chlorotic halos around the edges of the lesions (Figure 1A). Tissues 5 mm in diameter were taken from the junction of diseased and healthy tissue for pathogen isolation, Successively, a total of 8 isolates were obtained from the affected leaves. Three single spore isolates (YZ-HN-001, YZ-HN-043 and YZ-HN-051) were obtained and confirmed to be identical based on morphological characteristics. Therefore, the representative isolate YZ-HN-001 was selected for morphological and molecular identification. On Potato Dextrose Agar(PDA), the colony was gray-white at first and gradually turned dark green to dark brown with lead gray on the back, growth was slow, and mycelium was short and dense (Figure 1B and Figure 1C). Pycnidia were epiphyllous, globose, brown (about 120-140 µm in diameter), and conidia were elliptical, colorless, single celled and smooth (8-12×4-7 µm) (Figure 1D). Molecular identification was performed by partially sequencing the internal transcribed spacer gene (ITS), 18S rRNA gene and the actin gene (ACT) by using the primers ITS1/ITS4 (White et al. 1990), EF4/Fungi5 (Khodaparase et al. 2005) and ACT-512F/ACT-783R (Carbone and Kohn. 1999). The sequences of the amplified fragments were deposited in GenBank, the ITS sequence (ON005130, 616 bp) showed 100% identity with Phyllosticta capitalensis strain CGMCC3.14345 (JN791605.1), the 18S rRNA sequence (ON005129, 541 bp) showed 99% identity with P. capitalensis isolate MUCC0029 (AB454185.1) and the ACT sequence (ON049348, 251 bp) showed 100% identity with P. capitalensis strain DZSN202005-2 (MW533248.1). A phylogenetic analysis was conducted in MEGA X using the neighbor-joining method and showed that isolate YZ-HN-001 clustered together with P. capitalensis (Figure 2). Based on the above morphological and molecular characteristics, the isolate was determined to be P. capitalensis. Pathogenicity tests were conducted in three replicates by inoculating surface-sterilized leaves of A. oxyphylla. The leaves were wounded and inoculated with colonized PDA plugs (5×5 mm) from 15-day-old cultures. Control leaves wounded in the same way and were inoculated with sterile PDA plugs (5×5 mm). Leaves were moisturized by spraying with sterile water every three days. After 20 days at room temperature (23 to 28℃), similar symptoms were observed in the inoculated leaves as in the field (Figure 1E), but no symptoms were observed on the control leaves (Figure 1F). The same P. capitalensis was reisolated in the inoculated leaves, confirming Koch's postulates. Phyllosticta capitalensis has been reported to cause leaf spots or black spots on various host plants around the world (Wikee et al. 2013), including on oil palm (Nasehi et al. 2020), tea plant (Cheng et al. 2019 ), and castor (Tang et al. 2020). Nevertheless, to our knowledge, this is the first report of leaf spot caused by P. capitalensis on A. oxyphylla worldwide.

The impact of principals’ transformational leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment on teachers’ teaching effectiveness in ethnic areas of China: Taking gender as a moderator

Guangxi is a border area where ethnic minorities are distributed, with poor economic development foundation, slow growth, relatively traditional, high turnover rate and outdated education. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact and to identify the path of principals’ transformational leadership on teachers’ teaching effectiveness in ethnic autonomous region of China. A regression analysis survey design was adopted to collect the data from the teachers of elementary schools. Based on 5-point Likert Scale of 771 questionnaires from Guangxi Province of China, the survey concluded: (1) principals’ transformational leadership, teachers’ organizational commitment, and teachers’ teaching effectiveness differed significantly by gender and age, (2) principals’ transformational leadership significantly influenced teachers’ teaching effectiveness, in addition, teachers’ organization commitment can partially mediate the effects, (3) gender can moderate the path of principals’ transformational leadership to teachers’ organization commitment, specifically, male teachers carry more weight. The study findings may serve as a guide for further research on management and leadership of leaders and members in educational organizations.

Comparison of treatment persistence, adherence, and risk of exacerbation in patients with COPD treated with single-inhaler versus multiple-inhaler triple therapy: A prospective observational study in China.

Aim: This study sought to compare treatment persistence, adherence, and risk of exacerbation among patients with COPD treated with single-inhaler triple therapy (SITT) and multiple-inhaler triple therapy (MITT) in the Chinese population. Methods: This was a multicenter, prospective observational study. Patients with COPD from ten hospitals in Hunan and Guangxi provinces in China were recruited from 1 January 2020 to 31 November 2021 for the study and were followed up for oneyear. Treatment persistence, adherence, and exacerbation rates during the 12-month follow-up were analyzed in COPD patients treated with SITT and MITT. Results: A total of 1,328 patients were enrolled for final analysis, including 535 (40.3%) patients treated with SITT and 793 (59.7%) treated with MITT. Of these patients, the mean age was 64.9years and most patients were men. The mean CAT score was 15.2 ± 7.1, and the median (IQR) FEV1% was 54.4 (31.2). The SITT group had a higher mean CAT score, more patients with mMRC >1, and lower mean FEV1% and FEV1/FVC than the MITT patients. Moreover, the proportion of patients with ≥1 exacerbation in the previous year was higher in the SITT cohort. SITT patients had, compared to MITT patients, a higher proportion of adherence (proportion of days covered, PDC) ≥0.8 (86.5% vs. 79.8%; p = 0.006), higher treatment persistence [HR: 1.676 (1.356-2.071), p < 0.001], lower risk of moderate-to-severe exacerbation [HR: 0.729 (0.593-0.898), p = 0.003], and severe exacerbation [HR: 0.675 (0.515-0.875), p = 0.003], as well as reduced all-cause mortality risk [HR: 0.475 (0.237-0.952), p = 0.036] during the 12-month follow-up. Persistence was related to fewer future exacerbations and mortality than non-persistence in the SITT and MITT groups. Conclusion: Patients with COPD treated with SITT showed improved treatment persistence and adherence, as well as a reduction in the risk of moderate-to-severe exacerbation, severe exacerbation, and mortality compared to patients treated with MITT in the Chinese population. Clinical Trial Registration: https://www.chictr.org.cn/, identifier ChiCTR-POC-17010431.