A droplet-based electricity generator with high instantaneous power density.

Extensive efforts have been made to harvest energy from water in the form of raindrops1-6, river and ocean waves7,8, tides9 and others10-17. However, achieving a high density of electrical power generation is challenging. Traditional hydraulic power generation mainly uses electromagnetic generators that are heavy, bulky, and become inefficient with low water supply. An alternative, the water-droplet/solid-based triboelectric nanogenerator, has so far generated peak power densities of less than one watt per square metre, owing to the limitations imposed by interfacial effects-as seen in characterizations of the charge generation and transfer that occur at solid-liquid1-4 or liquid-liquid5,18 interfaces. Here we develop a device to harvest energy from impinging water droplets by using an architecture that comprises a polytetrafluoroethylene film on an indium tin oxide substrate plus an aluminium electrode. We show that spreading of an impinged water droplet on the device bridges the originally disconnected components into a closed-loop electrical system, transforming the conventional interfacial effect into a bulk effect, and so enhancing the instantaneous power density by several orders of magnitude over equivalent devices that are limited by interfacial effects.

Trim69 is a microtubule regulator that acts as a pantropic viral inhibitor.

Through a screen that combines functional and evolutionary analyses, we identified tripartite motif protein (Trim69), a poorly studied member of the Trim family, as a negative regulator of HIV-1 infection in interferon (IFN)-stimulated myeloid cells. Trim69 inhibits the early phases of infection of HIV-1, but also of HIV-2 and SIVMAC in addition to the negative and positive-strand RNA viruses vesicular stomatitis virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, with magnitudes that depend on the combination between cell type and virus. Mechanistically, Trim69 associates directly to microtubules and its antiviral activity is linked to its ability to promote the accumulation of stable microtubules, a program that we uncover to be an integral part of antiviral IFN-I responses in myeloid cells. Overall, our study identifies Trim69 as the antiviral innate defense factor that regulates the properties of microtubules to limit viral spread and highlights the cytoskeleton as an unappreciated battleground in the host-pathogen interactions that underlie viral infections.

Optimizing genomic control in mixed model associations with binary diseases.

Complex computation and approximate solution hinder the application of generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) into genome-wide association studies. We extended GRAMMAR to handle binary diseases by considering genomic breeding values (GBVs) estimated in advance as a known predictor in genomic logit regression, and then reduced polygenic effects by regulating downward genomic heritability to control false negative errors produced in the association tests. Using simulations and case analyses, we showed in optimizing GRAMMAR, polygenic effects and genomic controls could be evaluated using the fewer sampling markers, which extremely simplified GLMM-based association analysis in large-scale data. Further, joint association analysis for quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN) candidates chosen by multiple testing offered significant improved statistical power to detect QTNs over existing methods.

First Report of Nigrospora oryzae Causing Leaf Spot Disease on Amorphophallus albus in Shaanxi Province of China.

Amorphophallus albus P. Y. Liu & J. F. Chen is a typical cash crop widely planted in southwest China (Gao et al., 2022). In early August of 2021, a peculiar leaf spot disease was first detected on A. albus in Ankang Academy of Agricultural Sciences manufacturing base (32°69'N, 109°02'E), Shaanxi, China. Small irregular yellow-brown spots (1 to 2 mm) were observed on the surface of A. albus leaf. Following infection of the leaf, it expanded (3 to 5 mm) and became necrotic. Nine planting bases were investigated, and approximately 75% of plants were symptomatic during the rapid expansion period of bulb growth in Hanyin, Langao and Hanbin counties, Ankang City, Shaanxi, China. Higher disease incidence was observed at temperatures above 30℃ and humidity above 80%. Twenty-seven symptomatic tissues of infected leaves were first surface sterilized by immersion in 75% ethanol for 1 minute, followed by rinsing three times in sterile distilled water. The tissues were then cut into 4-5 mm pieces, plated on 1.5% potato dextrose agar (PDA), and incubated at 28±2°C. The hyphal tip from the growing edge of colonies cultured for three days at 28±2℃ was transferred to PDA to obtain pure cultures. Fungal colonies were white, then grey to black with an unevenly distributed, fast-growing aerial mycelium covering the petri dish within five days at 28±2℃. The colony turned dark brown when maintained in the dark at 28±2℃ after seven days, then grayish brown upon sporulation after 15 days (Fig.1f-g). Conidia were brown or black, smooth, spherical to sub-spherical, single-celled (8-12 µm × 10-13µm, average 9-11.5 µm in diameter, n=5µm). The nutritional hyphae exhibited septa, and a portion of the aerial hyphae formed a long, rough conidium, giving rise to a nearly spherical apical sac (Fig.1h). The surface gave rise to several small peduncles bearing clusters of surfaced spherical conidia (Fig.1i). Surfaced spherical conidia were generated on the surface of the small peduncle (Fig.1j). These morphological features were consistent with Nigrospora oryzae (Li et al., 2017). Genomic DNA was extracted from mycelia of the pathogen using an Ezup column fungal genomic DNA extraction kit (Sangon Biotech, Shanghai, China). To confirm the identity of the pathogen, the genomic fragments for the internal transcribed spacer (ITS), LSU (28S) and BenA gene of the isolate were amplified by PCR (Wang et al., 2017) and sent for sequencing. The resultant sequence (GeneBank ID of gene ITS, LSU, BenA are OR723825, OR775345, OR277316, respectively) were compared with the voucher specimens. BLAST results showed >99% identity with those of N.oryzae (GeneBank ID of N.oryzae strain LC2707 ITS, LSU, BenA are KX985954, KY806242, KY019481, respectively). A neighbor joining phylogenetic tree with the concatenated sequences of these genes showed that A-pb169 had the closest match with N. oryzae (Fig. 2). For pathogenicity testing, fifty plants in a period of rapid expansion of bulb growth were selected. Four leaves per plant were inoculated by sprayed till runoff with a conidial suspension of the pathogen (50 µL, 1×106 conidia/ml sterile water), and incubated at 30±2℃ and 80 ± 5% humidity. Control plants received sterile water. On the third day after inoculation, a yellow-brown spot appeared on leave surfaces, the spot gradually expanded; the infection rate was 90 to 95%. Fifteen days after inoculation, infected leaves showed symptoms like those observed in the field, whereas 100 control leaves sprayed with sterile water remained symptomless (Fig.1 a-e). The pathogen was reisolated from infected leaves and confirmed as N. oryzae by morphology and molecular identification. To our knowledge, this is the first report of leaf spot disease of A. albus caused by N. oryzae in China. Since its one of the major cash crops of the southeastern China, further work is necessary to determine its spread and economic impact as well as developing sustainable disease management options.

[Resources and utilization of medicinal plants in countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative].

The protection, development, and utilization of medicinal plant resources are important cornerstones of maintaining human health. However, due to factors such as the reduction of high-quality land resources, deterioration of ecological environments, and excessive and disorderly resource development, medicinal plant resources are becoming scarce, and some of them are insufficiently supplied. With the proposal of "the Belt and Road" Initiative, the cooperation between China and "the Belt and Road" partners(the countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative)is increasingly close, which provides a new opportunity for carrying out trade of medicinal plant resources and alleviating the problem of imbalance and relative inadequacy of medicinal plant resources in countries. This study first determined the distribution and species information of plant resources in countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative by investigating the database of plant distribution and that of medicinal plant resources. Then, according to the published data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES), this study identified the rare and endangered medicinal plants and the medicinal plants under trade control in countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative and finally sorted out the list of potential medicinal plant resources in countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative that can be used by China. This data resource can not only be used for the overall protection of important endangered species but also scientifically guide the development and utilization of medicinal resources, providing guidance and a theoretical basis for the sustainable development of medicinal plant resources in countries and regions involved in "the Belt and Road" Initiative.

Extract latent features of single-particle trajectories with historical experience learning.

Single-particle tracking has enabled real-time, in situ quantitative studies of complex systems. However, inferring dynamic state changes from noisy and undersampling trajectories encounters challenges. Here, we introduce a data-driven method for extracting features of subtrajectories with historical experience learning (Deep-SEES), where a single-particle tracking analysis pipeline based on a self-supervised architecture automatically searches for the latent space, allowing effective segmentation of the underlying states from noisy trajectories without prior knowledge on the particle dynamics. We validated our method on a variety of noisy simulated and experimental data. Our results showed that the method can faithfully capture both stable states and their dynamic switch. In highly random systems, our method outperformed commonly used unsupervised methods in inferring motion states, which is important for understanding nanoparticles interacting with living cell membranes, active enzymes, and liquid-liquid phase separation. Self-generating latent features of trajectories could potentially improve the understanding, estimation, and prediction of many complex systems.

Self-Adaptive Droplet Bouncing on a Dual Gradient Surface.

Rapid detachment of impacting droplets from underlying substrate is highly preferred for mass, momentum, and energy exchange in many practical applications. Driven by this, the past several years have witnessed a surge in engineering macrotexture to reduce solid-liquid contact time. Despite these advances, these strategies in reducing contact time necessitate the elegant control of either the spatial location for droplet contact or the range of impacting velocity. Here, this work circumvents these limitations by designing a dual gradient surface consisting of a vertical spacing gradient made of tapered pillar arrays and a lateral curvature gradient characterized as macroscopic convex. This design enables the impacting droplets to self-adapt to asymmetric or pancake bouncing mode accordingly, which renders significant contact time reduction (up to ≈70%) for a broad range of impacting velocities (≈0.4-1.4 m s-1 ) irrespective of the spatial impacting location. This new design provides a new insight for designing liquid-repellent surfaces, and offers opportunities for applications including dropwise condensation, energy conversion, and anti-icing.

Genome-wide hierarchical mixed model association analysis.

In genome-wide mixed model association analysis, we stratified the genomic mixed model into two hierarchies to estimate genomic breeding values (GBVs) using the genomic best linear unbiased prediction and statistically infer the association of GBVs with each SNP using the generalized least square. The hierarchical mixed model (Hi-LMM) can correct confounders effectively with polygenic effects as residuals for association tests, preventing potential false-negative errors produced with genome-wide rapid association using mixed model and regression or an efficient mixed-model association expedited (EMMAX). Meanwhile, the Hi-LMM performs the same statistical power as the exact mixed model association and the same computing efficiency as EMMAX. When the GBVs have been estimated precisely, the Hi-LMM can detect more quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) than existing methods. Especially under the Hi-LMM framework, joint association analysis can be made straightforward to improve the statistical power of detecting QTNs.

Hierarchical mixed-model expedites genome-wide longitudinal association analysis.

A hierarchical random regression model (Hi-RRM) was extended into a genome-wide association analysis for longitudinal data, which significantly reduced the dimensionality of repeated measurements. The Hi-RRM first modeled the phenotypic trajectory of each individual using a RRM and then associated phenotypic regressions with genetic markers using a multivariate mixed model (mvLMM). By spectral decomposition of genomic relationship and regression covariance matrices, the mvLMM was transformed into a multiple linear regression, which improved computing efficiency while implementing mvLMM associations in efficient mixed-model association expedited (EMMAX). Compared with the existing RRM-based association analyses, the statistical utility of Hi-RRM was demonstrated by simulation experiments. The method proposed here was also applied to find the quantitative trait nucleotides controlling the growth pattern of egg weights in poultry data.

Laser-Textured Hybrid Brass Pattern Array Surface for High-Efficiency Fog Collection.

Fog collection holds promise for addressing water shortage. However, the conventional fabrication of fog collection devices, normally chemical methods, suffers many challenges, such as complicated preparation and environmental issues. Herein, we proposed a green fabrication strategy to construct superhydrophobic/hydrophilic surfaces on the brass substrate via the combination of laser fabrication and heat treatment. The wettability of brass is directly dictated by the laser process parameters. The different superhydrophobic/hydrophilic hybrid pattern surface with a rectangular/triangular array was designed for an optimal fog collection performance. The maximum water collection efficiency of the prepared surface is measured up to 427.36 mg h-1 cm-2, which is 97% higher than that of the control sample. Furthermore, the surface can be folded into different forms to realize a flexible collector. We envision that our work provides a green fabrication strategy to construct a superwetting surface for highly efficient fog collection.

Dual-waveguide stacked graphene light modulator based on an MZI structure.

In order to solve the defects of the high driving voltage and a large volume of the existing electro-optical modulators, a double-waveguide stacked graphene optical modulator based on a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer structure is designed in this paper. First, the modulator size of traditional planar structure is effectively reduced by stacking two modulators vertically. Secondly, by changing the relative position of the electrode and the waveguide, the coupling effect of the electrode and the waveguide is enhanced, and the driving voltage is reduced. Finally, the performance of the designed electro-optic modulator is verified by the finite element method. The half-wave voltage of 0.55 V · cm and the modulation bandwidth of 58.8 GHz are realized on the basis of the length of 1.14 mm. The insertion loss is 1.15 dB, and the return loss is -44.8d B.

First report of powdery mildew on Vigna unguiculata caused by Podosphaera xanthii in China.

Vigna unguiculata belongs to the Legume family, and is an annual twining, herbaceous vine plant, which is native to Africa. V. unguiculata is the most economically beneficial type of off-season vegetables in Hainan, China because of its rich in nutrients such as protein, minerals, dietary fiber, and vitamins (Jayathilake et al. 2018). In April 2022, typical powdery mildew infection was observed on V. unguiculata leaves in Haikou, Hainan Province, China (20°3'40.428"N, 110°19'45.217"E). More than 70% leaves of 13 V. unguiculata plants displayed severe powdery mildew disease. The diseased leaves at first exhibited white rounded irregular patches, which gradually enlarged, fused and covered all the leaf as well as stems. Edges of the infected leaves crinkled upwards, and the leaves often fell off the plants at the late infection stage. On the infected leaves, many conidiophores and dense mycelium were observed by microscopic analysis. Hyphae were septate, branched, epigenous, and flexuous to straight. Hyphal appressoria were indistinct or slightly nipple-shaped, and the haustoria developed were in the shape of oval-sphere and 9 to 11µm long. Foot cells of conidiophores were straight, cylindrical, and measured 43 to 70 × 10 to 12 µm. The conidiophores arising straightly from a hyphal cell, were measured 168 to 252 (mean = 204) µm in length and produced 6 to 9 immature conidia in each chain. Conidia were ovate, pyriform or barrel-shaped, with fibrosin bodies, and measured 26 to 32 (mean = 29.4) × 16 to 20 (mean = 18.6) µm. The chasmothecia was not found in all samples. These morphological characteristics were typical of the conidial stage of the powdery mildew Podosphaera xanthii of genus Podosphaera (Braun and Cook 2012). To further confirm the identity of this causal fungus, the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, and the partial sequence of large subunit ribosomal RNA gene (28S rRNA), were amplified with primer pairs ITS1/ ITS4 (White et al. 1990) and NL1/NLP2 (Mori et al. 2000) from extracted genomic DNA. The obtained 563-bp ITS region and 715-bp 28S rRNA gene sequences were deposited in GenBank (ITS, OQ415534; 28S rRNA, OQ415545.1), and were compared with BLAST analysis in the GenBank nr database. The results revealed that the ITS region sequence was 99.82% identity with P. xanthii isolate HUVU-08 (MH143485.1), and the 28S rRNA gene partial sequence was 100% identity with P. xanthii isolate XHL1 (MK357442.1). On the basis of the morphological characteristics and sequence analysis, this fungus was identified as P. xanthii. Pathogenicity tests were performed by gently brushing conidia onto the leaves of six healthy potted V. unguiculata plants. Six non-inoculated plants were used as control. All plants were maintained in a greenhouse at 26 ± 2°C. After 2 weeks inoculation, similar symptoms were observed in the inoculated plants, whereas no symptoms occurred on the control plants. By microscopic observation, the fungus present on the inoculated plants was morphologically identical to those on originally diseased plants. Furthermore, ITS and 28S rRNA sequences of the re-isolated fungus individually displayed 100% identity with OQ415534 and OQ415545.1. So far, although powdery mildew disease caused by P. xanthii on different plants including Sigesbeckia orientalis (Mukhtar et al. 2022), Vigna radiata (Sheu et al. 2021), Cosmos bipinnatus (Kong et al. 2023), Verbena brasiliensis (Luecke et al. 2020), Cucurbita ficifolia (Choi et al. 2022), Glandularia tenera (Pei et al. 2023) and Verbena bonariensis (Choi et al. 2023) have been reported, to our knowledge, this is the first report of powdery mildew caused by P. xanthii on V. unguiculata in Hainan, China, which seriously threatens the utilization of V. unguiculata on off-season vegetables industry.

A sensitive electrochemical sensor for chiral detection of tryptophan enantiomers by using carbon black and ß­cyclodextrin.

A chiral sensor for the electrochemical identification of tryptophan (Trp) isomers is described. The electrochemical sensor was prepared based on the combination of (a) carbon black (CB-COOH) as conductive material, (b) Cu2+-modified ß-cyclodextrin (Cu-ß-CD), and (c) ß-CD-based metal-organic frameworks (ß-CD-MOF) as chiral selectors. The Cu-ß-CD can be self-assembled into the CB-COOH and ß-CD-MOF through electrostatic interactions, which was characterized by zeta potential analysis. UV-vis spectroscopy proved that Cu-ß-CD displays a higher combination for D-Trp than L-Trp, and the ß-CD-MOF at the surface of the GCE has a higher affinity for L-Trp than D-Trp, which endow an easier permeation of L-Trp to the surface of the electrode, thus leading to a larger electrochemical signal of differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The enantioselectivity for L-Trp over D-Trp (IL/ID) is 2.13, with a low detection limit for D-Trp (11.18 µM) and L-Trp (5.48 µM). In addition, the proposed chiral sensor can be chosen to determine  the percentage of D-Trp in enantiomer mixture solutions and real sample detection with a recovery from 98.2 to 102.8% for L-Trp and 97.9 to 101.1% for D-Trp.

Modeling and Optimization of LoRa Networks under Multiple Constraints.

With the access of massive terminals of the Internet of Things (IoT), the low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN) applications represented by Long Range Radio (LoRa) will grow extensively in the future. The specific Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) protocol within the LoRa network considers both low power consumption and long-range communication. It can optimize data transmission to achieve low communication latency, ensuring a responsive system and a favorable user experience. However, due to the limited resources in LoRa networks, if certain terminals have heavy traffic loads, it may result in unfair impacts on other terminals, leading to increased data transmission latency and disrupted operations for other terminals. Therefore, effectively optimizing resource allocation in LoRa networks has become a key issue in enhancing LoRa transmission performance. In this paper, a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model is proposed to minimize network energy consumption under the maximization of user fairness as the optimization goal, which considers the constraints in the system to achieve adaptive resource allocation for spreading factor and transmission power. In addition, an efficient algorithm is proposed to solve this optimization problem by combining the Gurobi mathematical solver and heuristic genetic algorithm. The numerical results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the number of packet collisions, effectively minimize network energy consumption, as well as offering favorable fairness among terminals.

Passive Beamforming Design of IRS-Assisted MIMO Systems Based on Deep Learning.

In the intelligent reflecting surface (IRS)-assisted MIMO systems, optimizing the passive beamforming of the IRS to maximize spectral efficiency is crucial. However, due to the unit-modulus constraint of the IRS, the design of an optimal passive beamforming solution becomes a challenging task. The feature input of existing schemes often neglects to exploit channel state information (CSI), and all input data are treated equally in the network, which cannot effectively pay attention to the key information and features in the input. Also, these schemes usually have high complexity and computational cost. To address these issues, an effective three-channel data input structure is utilized, and an attention mechanism-assisted unsupervised learning scheme is proposed on this basis, which can better exploit CSI. It can also better exploit CSI by increasing the weight of key information in the input data to enhance the expression and generalization ability of the network. The simulation results show that compared with the existing schemes, the proposed scheme can effectively improve the spectrum efficiency, reduce the computational complexity, and converge quickly.

Simulation and Experimentation of a Grounding Network Detection Scheme Based on a Low-Frequency Electromagnetic Method.

The grounding network is a significant component of substations, and the corrosion of its ground resistance is predominantly detected using the electromagnetic method. However, the application of electromagnetic methods for detecting corrosion within earthing networks has received relatively limited attention in research. Currently, the prevailing method utilizes electromagnetic techniques to identify the breakage points within the given earthing network. In this study, we propose a corrosion detection method for grounding networks based on the low-frequency electromagnetic method, which measures the resistance value between individual nodes of the network. Specifically, an excitation source signal of a predetermined frequency was transmitted to the measurement segment of the grounding network, which facilitated the direct measurement of the strength of the induced magnetic field above the center of the measuring conductor. The recorded electromagnetic data were subsequently uploaded to the host computer for data processing, and the computer interface was constructed based on a LABVIEW design. By leveraging the relationship between the induced electric potential, current strength, excitation source strength, and additional voltage detection devices, the resistance of the conductor under examination could be determined. Furthermore, the proposed method was tested under suitable conditions, and it demonstrated favorable results. Thus, the proposed method can serve as a foundation for developing electromagnetic testing instruments tailored to the investigated grounding network.

The Complete Mitochondrial Genome and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Freshwater Shellfish Novaculina chinensis (Bivalvia: Pharidae).

Razor clams, belonging to the Pharidae and Solenidae families, are ecologically and economically important; however, very little research has been conducted on the Pharidae family. The genus Novaculina is a marine-derived freshwater lineage, and Novaculina chinensis is a rare freshwater species of the Pharidae family. In order to understand the phylogenetic relationships of N. chinensis, we sequenced the mitochondrial genome of the genus Novaculina, which is 16,262 bp in length and consists of 12 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), and 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs). The phylogenetic relationships of 69 Imparidentian mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) indicated that N. chineisis is closely related to Sinonovacula constricta of the order Adapedonta. Our study also found that the Ka/Ks ratios of 12 protein-coding genes in the Pharidae family are lower than one, indicating the occurrence of negative purification selection. Morphological observations of the siphons of N. chinensis, Novaculina myanmarensis, and Novaculina gangetica indicate that N. chinensis may be the ancestral clade of the genus Novaculina, which has not been proposed in previous studies. Our study provides useful molecular information on the phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships of Pharidae and also contributes to the conservation and management of the germplasm resources of N. chinensis.

A dual-function transcription factor, SlJAF13, promotes anthocyanin biosynthesis in tomato.

Unlike modern tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) cultivars, cv. LA1996 harbors the dominant Aft allele, which is associated with anthocyanin synthesis in tomato fruit peel. However, the control of Aft anthocyanin biosynthesis remains unclear. Here, we used ethyl methanesulfonate-induced and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated mutation of LA1996 to show, respectively, that two class IIIf basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors, SlJAF13 and SlAN1, are involved in the control of anthocyanin synthesis. These transcription factors are key components of the MYB-bHLH-WD40 (MBW) complex, which positively regulates anthocyanin synthesis. Molecular and genetic analyses showed that SlJAF13 functions as an upstream activation factor of SlAN1 by binding directly to the G-Box motif of its promoter region. On the other hand, SlJAZ2, a JA signaling repressor, interferes with formation of the MBW complex to suppress anthocyanin synthesis by directly binding these two bHLH components. Unexpectedly, the transcript level of SlJAZ2 was in turn repressed in a SlJAF13-dependent manner. Mechanistically, SlJAF13 interacts with SlMYC2, inhibiting SlMYC2 activation of SlJAZ2 transcription, thus constituting a negative feedback loop governing anthocyanin accumulation. Taken together, our findings support a sophisticated regulatory network, in which SlJAF13 acts as an upstream dual-function regulator that fine tunes anthocyanin biosynthesis in tomato.

Reference values of impulse oscillometry (IOS) for healthy Chinese children aged 4-17 years.

OBJECTIVE: To establish the predicted value of pulmonary function determined by impulse oscillometry (IOS) in children (4-17 years old) in China. METHODS: A total of 6270 healthy children aged 4-17 years in China were included. The Master Screen IOS pulmonary function device (Jaeger Co, Germany) was used to detect the respiratory impedance (Zrs), resonant frequency (Fres), respiratory system resistance (Rrs) and respiratory system reactance (Xrs) at various oscillation frequencies, and the indices above were analysed. Stepwise multivariate regression was used to establish the regression equation of related parameters of IOS in different sexes, ages, height, and weight. RESULTS: The differences in the main IOS parameters between different age stages were statistically significant regardless of sex (P < 0.05). The stepwise multivariate regression analysis showed that IOS parameters were related to height, age, and weight, and most IOS parameters were most closely related to height (the absolute value of the regression coefficient was the largest). With increasing age and height, the values of Z5, R5, R20, R5-R20, and Fres decreased, while the value of X5 increased. Through height, age, and weight, we obtained the normal predicted values equation of children's IOS parameters. Compared with the other reference equations, our reference equation is more suitable for Chinese children. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed the reference values of IOS parameters in healthy Chinese children. In the evaluation of results for lung function measurements, this predicted value equation is more consistent with the characteristics of Chinese children than other reference equations. CLINICAL TRIAL: ChiCTR: 1800019029.

Canonical transformation for multivariate mixed model association analyses.

KEY MESSAGE: In extension of Single-RunKing to analyze multiple correlated traits, mvRunKing not only enlarged number of the analyzed phenotypes with canonical transformation, but also improved statistical power to detect pleiotropic QTNs through joint association analysis. Based on genomic variance-covariance matrices, we simplified multivariate mixed model association analysis to multiple univariate ones by using canonical transformation, and then individually implemented univariate association tests in the Single-RunKing. which enlarged number of the analyzed phenotypes. With canonical transformation back to the original scale, the association results would be biologically interpretable. Especially, we rapidly estimated genomic variance-covariance matrices with multivariate GEMMA and optimized separately the polygenic variances (or heritabilities) for only the markers that had large effects or higher significance levels in univariate mixed models, greatly improving computing efficiency for multiple univariate association tests. Beyond one test at once, joint association analysis for quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN) candidates can significantly increase statistical powers to detect QTNs. A user-friendly mvRunKing software was developed to efficiently implement multivariate mixed model association analyses.