Jidapterus edentus provides an opportunity to understand the morphology and paleoecology of the chaoyangopterids.In the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, the toothless pterosaurs flourished with the chaoyangopterids and tapejarids playing a key role in understanding the early diversity and evolution of the Azhdarchoidea. Unlike the more diverse tapejarids, the rarer chaoyangopterids are characterized by a long and low rostrum, supporting a close relationship with the huge azhdarchids. Unfortunately, our knowledge is still limited in the osteology, paleoecology, and taxonomy of the Chaoyangopteridae. As one of the best preserved skeletons, the type and only specimen of Jidapterus edentus reveals valuable information about the morphology of the Chaoyangopteridae such as a rostrum with a curved dorsal profile, high Rostral Index (RI), larger angle between the dorsal and postorbital processes of the jugal, sequentially shorter fourth to seventh cervical vertebrae, sternum with a plate wider than long, contact of the metacarpal I with the distal syncarpal, pneumatic foramen on first wing phalanx, hatchet-like postacetabular process with unconstricted neck and small dorsal process, distinctly concave anterior margin of pubis, subrectangular pubic plate with nearly parallel anterior and posterior margins, longer proximal phalanges of pedal digits III and IV, as well as reduced and less curved pedal unguals. These features further support the validity of Jidapterus edentus as a distinct species and the close relationship of the chaoyangopterids with the azhdarchids. Paleoecologically, the chaoyangopterids are probably like the azhdarchids, more terrestrial than the contemporaneous and putatively arboreal tapejarids, which may have been limited to the forest-dominated ecosystem of the Jehol Biota.Our study of the osteology of Jidapterus edentus further supports the close relationship of the Chaoyangopteridae with the Azhdarchidae in sharing a high RI value and reduced and mildly-curved pedal unguals, and it also implies a possible paleoecological similarity in their terrestrial capability. Combined with the putatively arboreal and herbivorous tapejarids, this distinct lifestyle of the chaoyangopterids provides new insights into the diversity of pterosaurs in the ecosystem of the Jehol Biota.The osteology of  As one of the most significant Cretaceous pterosaur groups, the toothless Azhdarchoidea is famous for its huge-sized azhdarchids and high-crested tapejarids –3. The AChaoyangopterus zhangi Wang and Zhou 2003 [Jidapterus edentus Dong et al. 2003 [Eopteranodon lii Lü and Zhang 2005 [Eoazhdarcho liaoxiensis Lü and Ji 2005 [Shenzhoupterus chaoyangensis Lü et al. 2008 [Chaoyangopterus was the only valid taxon, with Jidapterus, Eopteranodon, and Eoazhdarcho as its junior synonyms, and referred it to the Pteranodontidae. Later, the suggestion was made and widely accepted that these taxa belong to the Azhdarchoidea [Jidapterus, which is based on the best preserved skeleton, but has been excluded from some phylogenetic analyses [Jidapterus edentus here to resolve the taxonomic validity of Jidapterus and reveal more information about the morphology and paleoecology of the Chaoyangopteridae.The Jehol Biota includes five species previously assigned to Chaoyangopteridae: hou 2003 , Jidapteal. 2003 , Eopteraang 2005 , Eoazhda Ji 2005  and Shenal. 2008 –15. For al. 2008  argued trchoidea , 15–17. rchoidea , 18, 19.analyses . We redeJidapterus. Whereas, phylogenetic analysis cannot corroborate a hypothesis that sister taxa belong to the same species because it assumes bifurcate evolution and sister taxa can also be sister species, it can falsify such a hypothesis. If a species is recovered as a sister taxon to a large clade, it is not supported as belonging to one of the species of that clade. In addition, if another taxon is recovered as more closely related to the possible members of the same species, then those original members are not supported as conspecifics. Jidapterus has been recovered as the sister group to Chaoyangopterus in every phylogenetic analysis of their relationships, and even suggested to be the same species by Witton [Jidapterus edentus as a distinct species and determine its evolutionary relationships, a phylogenetic analysis of all putative chaoyangopterids and most pterosaur species was conducted. These putative chaoyangopterids include Jidapterus edentus (RCPS-030366CY), Chaoyangopterus zhangi (IVPP V13397 and PMOL-AR00076), Shenzhoupterus chaoyangensis (HGM 41HIII-305A), Eoazhdarcho liaoxiensis (GMN-03-11-002), Eopteranodon lii (BPV-078), Lacusovagus magnificens Witton 2008 [One of the operative questions of this, and every paleontological description, is whether the material described belongs to the same species as its sister taxon. It is a consequence of evolution that closely related species appear similar, and incomplete preservation in paleontological specimens, especially non-overlapping preservation, can obscure some of their differences. The traditional diagnosis and comparative description of specimens is both sufficient and necessary to distinguish species, but this is taken to another step here by phylogenetic analysis of y Witton . To testJidapterus edentus (RCPS-030366CY) is a nearly complete and articulated skeleton with skull, mandible, and postcranium preserved. The rostral portion of skull is well preserved, whereas the other skull remains are scattered. The fore- and hindlimbs as well as the mid-cervicals are articulated; whereas the rest of the postcranial skeleton  is disarticulated and scattered. The specimen was prepared by an unnamed technician before this study and deposited in the Research Center of Palaeontology & Stratigraphy of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China (RCPS).The holotype of Jidapterus edentus and the relationships of the Pterosauria was executed using TNT version 1.5 [Euparkeria capensis Broom 1913 [The phylogenetic analysis of sion 1.5 . It is bsion 1.5 , which ision 1.5  and Andrsion 1.5 , 23. It sion 1.5 –26, Lü esion 1.5 , and Pinsion 1.5 , as welloom 1913  was usedoom 1913 . Orderedoom 1913 ) were alBPV, Beijing Museum of Natural History, Beijing; BXGM, Benxi Geological Museum, Benxi; RCPS, Research Center of Palaeontology & Stratigraphy, Jilin University, Changchun; D, Dalian Natural History Museum, Dalian; GMN, Geological Museum of Nanjing, Nanjing; HGM, Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou; IMCF, Iwaki Coal and Fossil Museum, Fukushima; IVPP, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing; LPM, Liaoning Paleontological Museum of Chaoyang National Geopark, Chaoyang; PMOL, Paleontological Museum of Liaoning, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang; SDUST, Collections of Vertebrate Paleontology, Shandong University of Science and Technology; SMNK, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart; TMM, Texas Memorial Museum, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX; ZMNH, Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, Hangzhou.Pterosauria Kaup 1834 Pterodactyloidea Plieninger 1901 Azhdarchoidea Unwin 1995 Chaoyangopteridae Lü et al. 2008 Jidapterus edentus Dong, Sun & Wu 2003 [ Wu 2003 RCPS-030366CY = CAD-01), a nearly complete and mostly articulated skeleton including skull, mandible, and postcranial remains .Chaoyangopterus in having a longitudinal ridge along labial margin of the rostrum, a larger angle between the dorsal and postorbital processes of the jugal, and sequentially shorter fourth to seventh cervical vertebrae. It differs from Shenzhoupterus in having a high Rostral Index (5.1), straight occlusal margin of the rostral jaws, and a longitudinal ridge along labial margin of the rostrum, sequentially decreased fourth to seventh cervical vertebra, and different limb bone proportions.Chaoyangopterid pterosaur species that is diagnosed by the following combination of characters: long and low rostrum  with straight ventral margin and curved dorsal margin, longitudinal ridge along labial margin of the rostrum, long and slender premaxillary process, long symphysis over half of mandible length; moderately elongate mid-cervical vertebrae, absence of pneumatic foramen on lateral side of mid-cervicals; sternal plate wider than long, pneumatic foramen on first wing phalanx, hatchet-like postacetabular process with unconstricted neck and small dorsal process, a distinctly concave anterior margin of pubis, pubic plate sub-rectangular with nearly parallel anterior and posterior sides; and pedal digit III-1 shorter than pedal digit IV-1, longer proximal phalanges of pedal digits III and IV, and reduced and less curved unguals. It differs from Chaoyangopterus specimens, both considered sub-adults, it is roughly the same size with a wingspan estimate of 1.53 m , the ratio of the prenarial rostrum length to the height at the anterior margin of the nasoantorbital fenestra , is 5.1.and Zhou ; 5.3 in gopterus . The proA low ridge extends anteroposteriorly along the lateral surface of the premaxillary process Figs  and 2. AChaoyangopterus (PMOL-AR00076) [The jugal is displaced from its original position Figs  and 3. IAR00076) , it is mNear the right fourth wing phalanx, a lamina-like element is identified as a pterygoid . It is bA fragmentary quadrate  is preseA possible basioccipital  is locatChaoyangopterus and Tapejara but appear to be relatively smoother [A large and plate-like element is identified as a part of the braincase Figs  and 4A dsmoother , 41.Chaoyangopterus, the mandible is low and anteriorly pointed with an elongated symphysis. This symphysis is 110.7 mm long, about 53.8% of the mandible length. Along the symphysis is a low ventral keel, but this is possibly a taphonomic artifact. At the level of the posterior end of the symphysis, the mandible reaches the maximum depth. Posterior to the symphysis, the dentary reduces in depth. The lateral surface of the mandible is smooth without visible foramina.The mandible is exposed mostly in ventral view . As the The cervical series is nearly complete in preservation. A possible atlas-axis complex is preserved but isolated from the rest of the cervical series . AnotherThe identified atlas-axis complex is unfused. The atlas consists of three disarticulated elements. A tiny and rounded element is articulated with the axis with a curved suture, probably representing the intercentrum and centrum of the atlas. This intercentrum is rounded and convex on its exposed face. The centrum is poorly ossified on its exposed face, concave anteriorly, and convex posteriorly. It is about 4.9 mm wide and 2.2 mm long. A tiny element is also identified as the neural arch of the atlas. This neural arch has a broad plate and a neural spine. Ventrally, the arch has a rugose edge that is possibly the articular facet for the intercentrum/centrum. Its neural spine is flattened. The axis is crushed and cannot be described in much detail. It is triangular in outline with a tall neural spine. Both the right postzygapophysis and postexapophysis are visible.The third cervical is exposed in dorsal view . It is mChaoyangopterus  and Shenzhoupterus (HGM 41HIII-305A), the fourth to seventh cervical vertebrae are almost in the same length [Jidapterus is unusual in having its fourth cervical as its longest vertebra, suggesting that some isolated elongate cervicals identified as fifth cervicals might be fourth cervicals. The neural spines are all damaged, so their heights are uncertain. A tiny foramen is apparently present in the lateral surface of the fourth cervical , the tibia is the longest of the long bones [Chaoyangopterus is possibly due to the ontogenetic variance. Proximally, the tibia is broad and gradually constricts along the shaft towards the distal end. The distal end of the tibia is not fused with proximal tarsals as in osteologically mature pterosaurs [The tibia is 148.1 mm long, the longest element in the hindlimb, but distinctly shorter than the first wing phalanx . The simAP00076; ); whereaIVPP V1337, the tierosaurs , 37.The fibula is reduced to a slender and rod-like element. The left fibula is obscured by the overlapping right femur and tibia. The right fibula is well exposed with a length of 61.2 mm. Its proximal end is not positioned at the level of the tibia proximal end, possibly due to preservation. However, the similar condition seems to be present on the left side.The tarsus is preserved on the left side. Its elements are slightly displaced from their original position, although they are still preserved between the tibia and pes. The tarsus is composed of two proximal tarsals and two distal tarsals. The proximal tarsals are not fused with the tibia. They are large and semilunate, which functions as a roller joint to articulate with the distal tarsals. Lateral distal tarsal is subrectangular and located distally against metatarsals III–V. The medial distal tarsal is irregular in shape with a tubercle-like process on its proximomedial corner. It is preserved against metatarsals I–II distally, the lateral distal tarsal laterally, and the proximal tarsals proximally.Chaoyangopterus, however, metatarsal I is shorter than metatarsal II [The pes is preserved in articulation on both sides . The metarsal II . MetatarNemicolopterus”, Sinopterus, and Tapejara [Sinopterus,”Nemicolopterus”, and Tapejara) [The pedal formula is 2-3-4-5-1. The relative length of the digits increases sequentially from digit I to IV. Most of the non-ungual phalanges are elongate, slender, and nearly straight, except for the phalanges III-2, IV-2, and IV-3, which are well reduced and nubbin-like as in other monofenestratan pterosaurs . ProximaTapejara , 62, 63.apejara) , 62–65. Jidapterus edentus and the relationships of the Pterosauria resulted in a single most parsimonious tree, depicted in Normannognathus wellnhoferi Buffetaut et al. 1998 [Cycnorhamphus suevicus Quenstedt 1855 [Ardeadactylus longicollum von Meyer 1854 [Guidraco venator Wang et al. 2012 [Ludodactylus sibbicki Frey et al. 2003 [Cearadactylus atrox Leonardi and Borgomanero 1985 [Brasileodactylus araripensis Kellner 1984 [The phylogenetic analysis of al. 1998  recovereedt 1855 , Ardeadayer 1854  placed aal. 2012  as sisteal. 2003 , and a Cero 1985 —Brasileoner 1984  sister gJidapterus was recovered as the sister group to the specimen LPM L112113, supporting the hypothesis that Jidapterus edentus and Chaoyangopterus zhangi are distinct species. It is a possibility that all three taxa could belong to one large and variable species, but Jidapterus and LPM L112113 have a closer relationship to the exclusion Chaoyangopterus, which would satisfy many of the phylogenetic definitions of a species [Shenzhoupterus. The taxonomy of the two Liaoning Paleontological Museum of Chaoyang National Geopark specimens , a slightly curved dorsal margin with a straight ventral margin, a long dentary symphysis over half of the mandible length, absence of dentary crest, moderately elongate mid-cervical vertebrae (ratio of the length versus the width is 3–4), and several similar limb proportions  with whh RI 3.7–.1, a slid Campos , 15, 16 gopterid  and alsoJidapterus was argued to be a junior synonym of Chaoyangopterus by Wang and Zhou [Jidapterus is more similar to Chaoyangopterus than to Shenzhoupterus in sharing a general cranial profile and postcranial dimensions, but due to lack of published information about of their holotypes, the differences between Jidapterus and Chaoyangopterus have been obscured. For example, the manual phalanx II-1 is much shorter than the other proximal phalanges in Jidapterus, much different from the original description of the holotype of Chaoyangopterus in which the manual phalanx II-1 is the longest [Jidapterus with both juvenile and larger specimens of Chaoyangopterus. Their features more confidently to exclude Jidapterus from Chaoyangopterus, such as a shallow longitudinal trough along the labial margin of the rostrum  in having a more elongate rostrum (RI: 5.1), straight occlusal margin of the rostrum, shallow longitudinal trough along the labial margin of the rostrum, length of the fourth to seventh cervical vertebra sequentially decreased, and different limb bone proportions , Chaoyangopterus (4.8–5.3), and Shenzhoupterus (3.7) are much higher than in the tapejarids (0.51–0.65) and thalassodromines (1.65–2.45). RI values of chaoyangopterids fall well into the RI range of azhdarchids  [Redescription of coatlus) .Jidapterus, which is slightly more pronounced than in the rostra of Chaoyangopterus and Shenzhoupterus [Azhdarcho in which a dorsally concave rostrum is possibly present [The rostrum is dorsally concave in oupterus , 9, 19.  present . In tapeJidapterus. This labial margin of the rostrum was interpreted by Lü et al. [Tupuxuara [Tupuxuara leonardii, the ‘median palatal ridge’ is distinctly ventral to the labial margin of the rostrum, visible in lateral view, and positioned more posteriorly close to the anterior margin of the nasoantorbital fenestra [Jidapterus is very elongate, nearly occupies the whole length of the rostrum, and also forms the labial margin of the rostrum. A low condition of the ‘median palatal ridge’ is also known in T. longicristatus, but is invisible in lateral view. Moreover, the ‘median palatal ridge’ of Tupuxuara is flatten laterally; whereas, the labial margin is raised laterally by a low ridge in Jidapterus. Therefore, this structure is not the ‘median palatal ridge’ of the thalassodromine Tupuxuara. In fact, the ‘median palatal ridge’ is widely absent in tapejarids, chaoyangopterids, and azhdarchids [Chaoyangopterus and Shenzhoupterus, the shallow trough is not reported, possibly representing a feature characteristic of Jidapterus.Moreover, along the labial margin of the rostrum, there is a shallow longitudinal trough that is dorsally bordered by a low ridge, possibly diagnostic for ü et al.  as a ‘miupuxuara , 74. In fenestra , 74, 75.darchids , 38, 74.Chaoyangopterus [Jidapterus of all chaoyangopterids. As in other azhdarchoids, the cristospine is short. However, the sternum plate appears to be much wider than long, differing from a square-like or semicircular profile in tapejarids [Eopteranodon [Jidapterus is diagnostic in the Chaoyangopteridae.Except for a fragment in gopterus , the stepejarids , 45, 46.eranodon , 15, 16.Jidapterus is elongate and contacts the distal syncarpal. This feature is unknown in other chaoyangopterids, possibly due to poor preservation. However, Shenzhoupterus has a reduced metacarpal I [Huaxiapterus jii [Sinopterus dongi and “Huaxiapterus” benxiensis [The metacarpal I of carpal I . This vaerus jii  but absenxiensis , 53, 56.Jidapterus, is the first for the Chaoyangopteridae. As in other azhdarchoids, the pelvic girdle is notable in having a hatchet-like postacetabular process and a broad pubis anterior to the acetabulum [Jidapterus, such as a postacetabular process bearing an unconstricted neck and small dorsal process, concave anterior margin of the pubis, and subrectangular pubic plate with nearly parallel anterior and posterior sides [Jidapterus is comparable with Tapejara and Vectidraco in having a relatively elongated and unconstricted neck, but it differs from the latter two in having a small dorsal process. In contrast, the neck of the postacetabular process is short and distinctly constricted in other azhdarchoids [Jidapterus. The pubis of Jidapterus has a concave anterior margin, as in Vectidraco, but different from the straight anterior margin in other azhdarchoids [Jidapterus, while a ventrally widen condition is present in Tapejara [Vectidraco and other azhdarchoids [The pelvic girdle documented in etabulum , 57, 58.or sides , 57, 58.archoids , 58. TheTapejara , but it Jidapterus is relatively shorter, about 85.9% of the metatarsal III. When the ungual is excluded, the ratio of the pedal digit III to the metatarsal III is about 61.5% in SMNK PAL 3830 and 68.2% in Jidapterus. This variance is due to a larger ungual in the tapejarids. Moreover, in tapejarids , the penultimate phalanges are much longer than the proximal phalanges in pedal digits II and III; even in the pedal digit IV, the pedal digit IV-1 and IV-4 are subequal in length. In Jidapterus, however, a longer penultimate phalanx is only present in pedal digit II, a slightly shorter condition is present in pedal digit III, and a much shorter condition is present in pedal digit IV. In addition, the pedal digit I-1 is the longest in tapejarids, whereas it is slightly shorter than pedal digit IV-1 in Jidapterus. The relatively larger unguals and longer penultimate phalanges in tapejarids imply a stronger grasping ability than that in Jidapterus or other chaoyangopterids.Among azhdarchoids, the pedal morphology is well known in tapejarids [Jidapterus are disparate in size (the former is roughly twice as large as the latter) and shape. The manual unguals are large and strongly recurved, possibly suitable for the grasping, but the pedal unguals are reduced in size and curvature, possibly implying terrestrial adaptation. The pedal unguals also vary in curvature in other azhdarchoids [Zhejiangopterus) are similar to that of Jidapterus with a slight curvature and small size [Jidapterus (64 and 57.6 degrees in the inner and outer curvature respectively) is comparable to that of the extant ground tetrapods , the ungual is 95.5 and 66.7 degrees in the inner and outer curvature. In the Brazil tapejarid (SMNK PAL 3830), both the ungual and keratinous sheath are well preserved, with larger inner and outer curvature . It should be noted that keratinous sheaths are not preserved in Jidapterus and there is possible variation between unguals and sheaths. The value of the tapejarids range from 95.5 degrees to 147.5 degrees in the inner curvature, and 66.7–140 degrees in the outer curvature. This range is beyond that of the extant ground tetrapods, and comparable with those of other extant tetrapods in arboreal, climbing, and predatory behavior  behavior .Huaxiapterus” corollatus (2.15) and “H.” benxiensis (1.91)). The ratio of wing metacarpal to ulna is 1.28–1.39 in chaoyangopterids, 1.44–1.75 in the azhdarchids, and 1.05–1.13 in tapejarids (except for “H.” corollatus with 1.33). The ratio of wing metacarpal to the first wing phalanx is 0.91–0.95 in most chaoyangopterids (except for Jidapterus with 0.81–0.85), 1.03–1.04 in the azhdarchids, and 0.74–0.86 in tapejarids and 0.71 in thalassodromines. The ratio of humerus to femur is 0.62–0.75 in chaoyangopterids (except Jidapterus: 0.78–0.81), 0.62 in Zhejiangopterus, and 0.78–0.96 in tapejarids (except “Huaxiapterus” benxiensis: 0.55). The first wing phalanx versus the femur in length is about 1.44–1.53 in chaoyangopterids (except Jidapterus: 1.70–1.84) and Zhejiangopterus but larger in tapejarids (1.57–1.9). The ratio of the first to second wing phalanges varies in the range of 1.45–1.67 in chaoyangopterids, 1.67 in thalassodromines, and 1.46–1.96 in azhdarchids, but smaller in tapejarids (1.26–1.38) (except “H.” corollatus: 1.62). The ratio between the first and third wing phalanges is 2.16–2.56 in chaoyangopterids, 3.78 in Quetzalcoatlus, and 1.74–2.03 in tapejarids (except “H.” corollatus: 2.54).In limb proportions, chaoyangopterids are more comparable with azhdarchids than tapejarids , Table 2Eopteranodon falls well into the Tapejaridae, which is consistent with their cranial morphology and previous phylogenetic analyses [Tapejara wellnhoferi specimen SMNK PAL 1137 based on repeated and different-sized limb bones, whereas the remaining elements of the skeleton could not be referred to individual A or B [Microtuban with the chaoyangopterids or thalassodromines [Microtuban are more comparable to that of the chaoyangopterids than the thalassodromines.Based on the above limb proportions, analyses , 15, 16.l A or B . The unrdromines . As showJidapterus (RCPS-030366CY) and Chaoyangopterus (PMOL-AR00076) are comparable in length on nearly all their forelimb bones  are comparable in Jidapterus (RCPS-030366CY), Chaoyangopterus (PMOL-AR00076) and Shenzhoupterus (HGM 41HIII-305A), indicating that these chaoyangopterids may have the same pattern of ontogenetic feature of wing phalanges.Both the juvenile specimens of Jidapterus possibly exhibits terrestrial adaptations as in azhdarchids, because the pedal unguals are greatly reduced and gently curved, and comparable with that of the extant ground tetrapods in curvature Click here for additional data file.S1 FigAn incomplete skeleton includes skull, lower jaws, forelimbs and partial hindlimbs, collected from the Jiufotang Formation of Shangheshou, Chaoyang, western Liaoning. Scale bar = 10 mm.(TIF)Click here for additional data file.S2 Fig(TIF)Click here for additional data file.S3 FigTNT node numbers are depicted below the branches that subtend the nodes. Branch lengths and support measures are listed in (TIF)Click here for additional data file.S1 Table(XLSX)Click here for additional data file.


Paulownia tomentosa seedlings, phytoplasma-infected seedlings treated with 20 and 60 mg·L−1 MMS, and healthy seedlings. A total of 2,051 proteins were obtained, 879 of which were found to be differentially abundant in pairwise comparisons between the sample groups. Among the differentially abundant proteins, 43 were related to Paulownia witches' broom disease and many of them were annotated to be involved in photosynthesis, expression of dwarf symptom, energy production, and cell signal pathways.Phytoplasma is an insect-transmitted pathogen that causes witches' broom disease in many plants. Paulownia witches' broom is one of the most destructive diseases threatening Paulownia production. The molecular mechanisms associated with this disease have been investigated by transcriptome sequencing, but changes in protein abundance have not been investigated with isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation. Previous results have shown that methyl methane sulfonate (MMS) can help Paulownia seedlings recover from the symptoms of witches' broom and reinstate a healthy morphology. In this study, a transcriptomic-assisted proteomic technique was used to analyze the protein changes in phytoplasma-infected  Paulownia, a fast-growing greening tree species, has many sought-after characteristics, including lightweight wood, high biomass production, and vigorous resprouting ability, which make them ideal environment protection trees. However, Paulownia is susceptible to a phytoplasma that causes Paulownia witches' broom (PaWB) disease, which gradually reduces biomass production  and that the phytoplasma was not detected in the recovered plants  and P. tomentosa seedlings infected with PaWB phytoplasma (PIP), both of them were obtained from the Institute of Paulownia. These seedlings were cultured for 30 days on 1/2 MS medium before being clipped . The terminal buds of 1.5-cm HP were transferred into the same medium without MMS as the control. All the seedlings were cultured in a darkroom at 20°C for 5 days. After that, they were cultured at 25 ± 2°C under 130 μmol·m−2 s−1 light intensity with a 16/8 h light /dark photoperiod for 25 days. Then, the terminal buds of 1.5-cm seedlings in the four treatment groups were sheared, immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored at −80°C. For each treatment, 60 terminal buds were planted in 20 flasks. Each treatment was performed in triplicate.All samples in this study were tissue culture seedlings, healthy The four samples  were ground to powder in liquid nitrogen, then these different powder were added the moderate lysis buffer with 1 mM PMSF and 2 mM EDTA, the details of the protein extraction method was described as Tang et al. .To label the peptides obtained from the HP, PIP, PIP-20, and PIP-60 samples with iTRAQ reagent, 100 μg total protein from each sample solution was digested with Trypsin Gold . The peptides in the four samples were labeled with isobaric tags, the details method of iTRAQ-labeled according to the method of Meng et al. . The labThe labeled peptide mixture was firstly resuspended and then the supernatant was loaded on a LC-20AD nano HPLC system (Shimadzu), then the data acquisition was performed with a TripleTOF 5600 System  fitted with a Nanospray III source (AB sciex) and a pulled quartz tip as the emitter . The mass spectrometer was operated with a RP of ≥30,000 full-width half-maximum for time-of-flight mass spectrometry scans. The method of the peptides were separated according to Qiao et al. .Raw data files were firstly converted into Mascot generic format files using Proteome Discoverer 1.2 software , then these data were matched against the transcriptome database containing 105,812 all-unigene sequences  terms. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and the Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG) databases were used to classify and group the identified proteins. Quantitative protein ratios were weighted and normalized by the median ratio in Mascot. Proteins with a fold change ≥ 1.2 and p < 0.05) in different comparisons. At last, the number of the genes that corresponding to the correlated proteins and the number of differential expressed proteins were figured out. The other important correlation analysis is to compare the abundance levels of the differentially expressed proteins and their corresponding genes from the transcriptome sequencing.In this section, the correlation analysis of the transcriptome and proteome data was carried out. Firstly, the proteins identified by iTRAQ were matched to 105,812 unigene sequences of the transcriptome. After that, the proteins which have homologs in the transcritome were screened out. Then we calculated the number of the correlated protein in four different comparisons, including the PIP vs. PIP-20 comparison, PIP-20 vs. PIP-60 comparison, HP vs. PIP-60 comparison and HP vs. PIP comparison, and the correlated proteins can be considered as the identified proteins which have been expressed at the transcription level. Subsequently, the quantitative analysis of the correlated proteins was performed, and the criterion of the quantitation protein is the unique peptide ≥2. According to the results of the quantitative analysis, we further picked out the differentially expressed proteins (fold change ≥ 1.2 and https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi) was used to confirm the function of these proteins, then the functional classification of them was performed.A comparison scheme of PaWB-related proteins was described by Liu et al. . The pro−ΔΔCt method . First-strand cDNAs of the RNA samples were synthesized using an iScript cDNA synthesis kit . From the transcriptome data  were defined as proteins having a 95% confidence level, A correlation analysis of the transcriptome and proteome data was carried out, and the numerical relationships between the correlated proteins and the total proteins were calculated in the different comparisons. In the PIP vs. PIP-20 comparison, 2,050 proteins were correlated with the transcriptional data; among them, 1,046 proteins were quantitated and 278 of them were differentially abundant. In the PIP-20 vs. PIP-60 comparison, 2,048 proteins were correlated with the transcriptional data; among them 1,051 proteins were quantitated and 204 of them were differentially abundant. In the HP vs. PIP-60 comparison, 2,049 proteins were correlated with the transcriptional data; among them, 1,083 proteins were quantitated and 174 of them were differentially abundant. In the HP vs. PIP comparison, 1,073 proteins were quantitated and 223 of them were differentially abundant. All the numbers of these proteins corresponding genes were shown in Table Based on these results, we compared the abundance levels of the proteins and the expression levels of their corresponding genes. The following patterns were detected: (1) the same trend between the corresponding mRNA and protein levels; (2) the opposite trend between the corresponding mRNA and protein levels: (3) no change in protein levels, but changes in gene expression levels; (4) changes in protein levels, but no change in gene expression levels. These results show that the protein abundance level is not necessarily reflected in the expression level of the corresponding mRNA. Similar results have been reported in phytoplasma-infected Mexican lime  was used to confirm the functional of the 43 DAPs in other plant. The result showed 40 DAPs functions have been confirmed in other plants (Table PSRP4), the component of the light harvesting complex (LHCI) and alpha carbonic anhydrase (CA), and the subunit E of photosystem I (PSI-E2); three proteins were associated with energy metabolism pathway, such as ATP synthase gamma subunit, NADP-malic enzyme (NADP-ME), and the subunit of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPC); two Ca2+-binding protein involved in cell signal transduction pathways; five proteins, included aldo/keto reductase, cinnamyl-alcohol dehydrogenase, fasciclin-like arabinogalactan protein, germin-like protein, and pectin methylesterase took part in plant defense. In addition these DAPs with functions, 3 of PaWB-related proteins were annotated as unknown function, their function still need to verify.To confirm and dig out the function of the 43 DAPs, protein sequence BLAST  significantly reduced, and the mutants also showed strongly reduced accumulation of three complexes , which were responsible for photosynthetic electron transport.In the phytoplasma-infected seedlings, we detected one DAP, r et al.  reportedP. tomentosa plants might partly explain the yellowish leaves symptom.There were three DAPs belong to Photosystem I (PSI), including TLP, LHCI, and PSI-E2. It is well known that thylakoid lumens in both integral and soluble membrane proteins, and TLP take part in light harvesting and electron transfer in the photosynthetic chain. In this study, the TLP was down-regulated in the diseased seedlings. Evidences showed that the reduction of TLP not only damaged the thylakoid electron flow, but also decreased chlorophyll a content and further slacked the photosynthesis  displayed reduced length of the vegetative stem  and brassinosteroid (BR) were changed after phytoplasma infection: for example, the abundance of the glycine rich protein Phytoplasma genomes lack many metabolic pathways, making them unlikely to synthesize nucleotides, and they lack the key gene for ATP synthesis, they may need to import ATP from their host  under the study accession SRP057771 and SRP068599. The 4 cDNA libraries SRA accession number are as follows: SRS924899 (HP), SRS924915 (PIP), SRS1252326 (PIP-20) and SRS924916 (PIP-60).All sequencing data generated in this study is available from the SRA-Archive , the Central Financial Forestry Science Promotion Project (GTH [2012]01), the Fund of the Technology Innovation Team Project of Zhengzhou (121PCXTD515) and the Fund of Zhongyuan Scholarship Foundation of Henan Province (122101110700).The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


The early identification of dengue infection is essential for timely and effective quarantine and vector control measures for preventing outbreaks of the disease. Kaohsiung City is responsible for most of the dengue cases in Taiwan. Thus, this study aims to identify major factors involved in the prevalence of dengue fever by analyzing the epidemiological and clinical characteristics, and to establish associations between weather parameters and dengue occurrence in this City.A retrospective study was conducted with 3,322 confirmed dengue cases. Appropriate statistical methods were used to compare differences and correlations between dengue occurrence and demographic, clinical and weather parameters.Aedes mosquitoes would have enough time to be infected and transmit the dengue virus. The diagnosis and notification criteria should not only include common symptoms of fever, myalgia, headache, skin rash and arthralgia, but should also be adjusted to include the most frequent symptoms of loss of appetite and feeling thirsty to shorten the notification time. Significantly positive correlations were found between the number of confirmed cases and weather parameters  at a time lag of 1 month and 2 months. The predictive models for dengue occurrence using these three parameters at a 2-month lag time were established.The outbreak of dengue fever was found to be initiated by imported cases of dengue viruses from other endemic countries. Most of the confirmed cases were not reported to the health authority during the first visit to a doctor, and it took a median of 5 days after the appearance of the first syndromes for medical personnel to report suspected dengue cases. Accordingly, The surveillance of imported cases, adjustment of notification criteria and application of climatic predictive models would be helpful in strengthening the dengue early warning surveillance system. The global distribution of dengue fever (DF) in tropical and subtropical regions has caused a serious public health problem. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 50–100 million dengue infections occur each year, and close to 75% of the population exposed to DF are in the Asia-Pacific region . Thus, mFlavivirus , which have high populations and many man-made containers that serve as larval habitats for dengue mosquitoes . Among the 3,248 autochthonous cases, there were 176 patients infected twice with DV. Most (98.3%) of twice-infected cases belonged to the non-differential serotype at the first infection. At the second infection, 47.2% of twice-infected cases belonged to the non-differential serotype, 30.1% of cases infected with DENV-2, and 19.9% infected with DENV-3. Most (88.6%) of twice-infected cases have fever and nearly half of cases have the symptoms of headache, arthralgia, myalgia, thirsty and loss of appetite. There was no evidence showing that the presence of severe symptoms in the second infection for the twice-infected cases.Average 48% of the serum samples from confirmed cases could not be identified as typical DV serotypes (DENV-1~4) and were classified as non-differential serotype (NDS). The distribution of DV serotypes varied throughout the 5-year period. Except for NDS appearing each year, there were 1 (DENV-1), 3 , 2 (DENV-2 and DENV-3), 4 (DENV-1~4) and 3 (DENV-1~3) serotypes found in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively , Fig 2. Most  of the confirmed cases were not reported to NIDNSS at the first visit to a doctor, and most cases were reported at the second visit to a doctor. The major medical institutes to report suspected cases were local health centers, metropolitan hospitals and academic medical centers. The highest number of cases was reported by local health centers from 2007 to 2009 and by clinics and academic medical centers in 2010 and 2011 . The leap< 0.05). Among the 36 patients conformed as DHF, 83.3% had fever, 52.8% were thirsty, 50.0% had headache, and 44.4% had loss of appetite (p< 0.05) because these symptoms (except for skin rash) were not included in the dengue diagnosis and notification criteria in Taiwan. The confirmed cases showed significantly different clinical manifestations with age (p< 0.05), except for hemorrhage and shock . Among the 4 groups with different DV serotypes, being thirsty and loss of appetite (p< 0.05) were significantly more common in the DENV-1 group, while arthralgia (p< 0.05) was significantly more common in the DENV-3 group. The patients infected with DENV-3 were more likely to have arthralgia, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and rash than cases with DENV-2 (p< 0.05). Patients infected with DENV-2 and DENV-3 tended to be notified at the first or second visit to a doctor (p< 0.05), probably because they tended to have conspicuous dengue symptoms, such as fever, headache, arthralgia and myalgia.The confirmed cases infected with the 4 different DV serotypes showed significant differences in frequency of arthralgia, being thirsty, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea , p< 0.05p< 0.05) were found between the number of confirmed cases and weather parameters  at a time lag of 1 month and 2 months. The regression models that predict occurrence of dengue cases at a time lag of 2 months using temperature, rainfall and relative humidity  explained 10%~30% of the variability  in 2007 to 4 d (median) in 2011. It indicated that the bonus-penalty policy and health training of medical workers has improved the efficiency of diagnosis and notification of DF.Aedes mosquitoes would have enough time to be infected with DV by biting individuals infected with DV and transmitting DV before starting quarantine and vector control measures, such as using pesticides and removing water-containing vessels. Such a delay in dengue case reporting has resulted in increasing dengue transmission in Kaohsiung City. It could be attributed to a lack of information regarding the dengue diagnosis guide and dengue notification procedures for medical workers. It was previously determined that complicated dengue notification procedures made medical workers hesitate to notify suspected patients in Taiwan [Many medical workers failed to report suspected dengue cases at their first visit to doctors. It took 5 d (median) after the appearance of the first syndromes for medical personnel to report suspected dengue cases during 2007–2011, while it took 6 d (median) to confirm dengue cases. It was estimated that 95% of the viral incubation period between the time when a mosquito took a viremic bloodmeal and the time when that mosquito became infectious was between 5 and 33 days at 25°C, and 2 and 15 days at 30°C [The present study and the other four studies conducted in Brazil , SingapoPrevious studies from Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, the Philippines and India found that males are more prone to DF than females, suggesting that the more common outdoor work habits of males gave them more chances than females to be bitten by mosquitoes ,21. HoweDengue infection has a wide clinical spectrum that varies with different regions and age groups ,5,22. EaThis study has shown that the clinical manifestations in dengue patients varied with different DV serotypes, probably due to differences in their pathogeneses, replication ability and infection activity . Skin raAedes mosquito population dynamics [Aedes mosquitoes and DV transmission [Aedes mosquito life cycle. Thus, higher rainfall was associated with increased Aedes populations, but intense rainfall might wash out containers and have a negative effect on Aedes populations [Aedes mosquitos, and it might take approximately 1 to 2 months for the development of high Aedes mosquito populations to transmit DV, resulting in a high occurrence of dengue cases. Brunkard et al. [i.e., temperature, rainfall and relative humidity) on the occurrence of dengue cases. Thus, based on the 5-year data in the current study, the predictive models for dengue occurrence using temperature, rainfall and relative humidity at a 2-month lag time were derived in Kaohsiung City, which is located in southern Taiwan. These models could be applied to establish an early warning dengue surveillance system for early intervention to reduce the medical, social and economic impact of the disease. Future studies are needed to test and verify these models.It is well known that climate influences dengue ecology by affecting vector dynamics, DV development and mosquito/human interactions, with complicated relationships between climate variables and transmission factors . Temperadynamics , and thedynamics . Thus, sdynamics ,10,29,30ulations . Accordiulations , but notd et al.  also fouThis study identified imported dengue cases and a delay in reporting suspected cases responsible for the epidemic of dengue fever. The climatic predictive models were first established in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan for early identification of dengue outbreaks. Thus, preventing and controlling dengue outbreaks in Kaohsiung could be through the surveillance of imported cases, adjustment of notification criteria and application of climatic predictive models. The results could be provided to other regions with similar situations for reducing risk of dengue infection.


The correspondence between five precipitation products, including CMORPH, GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS, and ground-based measurements of precipitation were evaluated on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales during 2000–2014 in the Qinling-Daba Mountains over China, which is a significant area with vital value of climate and hydrology. Performances of the precipitation products in the relatively arid/humid years were also analyzed. In general, ITPCAS data displayed the highest accuracy, GPCP-2 and CMORPH data showed relatively poor performance, and GPCC and TRMM 3B43 data were average at different temporal scales among the five precipitation products. The Pearson correlation coefficient of each station had minor fluctuations for the five precipitation products. A larger deviation was found at Wudu station, most likely due to the undulating terrain. The performances of the precipitation products from highest to least accuracy are as follows: ITPCAS > TRMM 3B43 > GPCC > GPCP-2 > CMORPH. Except for CMORPH (-20.76%), the percentage precipitation differences (PPDs) of the other four precipitation products fluctuated in the range of 10% during the relatively arid (2001) and humid (2011) years. In addition, all precipitation products and ground gauge observed precipitation did not show an obvious gradient with altitude, which is different from that in other mountainous areas and is perhaps due to complex terrain, lack of observation in high altitudes, and precipitation undercatch. In consideration of the significance of Qinling-Daba Mountains as the geographic and ecological dividing lines, the present study may provide a new perspective for hydrological, climatic, and ecological researches and practices in local and other mountainous areas. Precipitation is widely recognized as a fundamental component of the global water cycle and plays a critical role in the survival of human beings as our primary source of fresh water. It also has both direct and indirect economic impacts on human activities . InformaSatellites offer an incomparable advantage to observe Earth’s system processes and parameters . With thDinku et al.  reportedIn addition, Janowiak et al.  comparedThe Qinling-Daba Mountains, referring to both Qinling Mountain and Daba Mountain, are the division lines of geography and climate between northern and southern China, which are also roughly consistent with 0°C isothermal curves  in January, 800 mm isohyet curves, and 2000 h sunshine hour contour lines , 16. The2  and span a total area of about 222,300 km2  17, 18], 182 .CMORPH, a satellite-only product, is produced through a morphing technique that uses precipitation estimates from passive microwave observations and propagates these features using motion vectors from geostationary satellite IR (infrared) imagery at half-hour intervals . The shahttps://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.gpcp.html) [GPCP-2 has the coarsest resolution compared to the other four precipitation products analyzed in this study. It incorporates precipitation estimates derived from low-orbit microwave data, geosynchronous infrared data, and surface rain gauge observations. GPCP Version1 is a combination of precipitation estimates from MW (microwave) and IR (infrared) sensors in polar orbit satellites and geostationary satellites, as well as surface observations. GPCP-2 calibrates, or adjusts, the more frequent geosynchronous infrared observations by utilizing the higher accuracy of the low-orbit microwave observations . GPCP-2 cp.html) .https://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?project=TRMM&tree=project).TRMM 3B43 is a standard monthly precipitation product  that incftp://ftp.dwd.de/pub/data/gpcc/html/gpcc_monitoring_v5_doi_download.html) [The GPCC’s  Monitoring Product Version5 in a 1.0° × 1.0° grid with a timespan from 1982 to present was obtained for analysis from the following website (ad.html) . It is bad.html) .http://dam.itpcas.ac.cn/rs/?q=data) [The dataset of ITPCAS was developed by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (?q=data) , 33. It ?q=data) . The ITPThe preliminary precipitation product of ITPCAS was produced following the subsequently described steps (1–4). 1) Gridded data merged from TRMM 3B42 and GLDAS-1 were interpolated into the 756 meteorological stations. 2) The differences between the observations and the interpolated TRMM 3B42/GLDAS-1 values (output of step1) were calculated at each station point. 3) The difference values (output of step2) were interpolated back into grid points, forming a so-called “correction field”. 4) This field was added to the TRMM 3B42/GLDAS-1 field as a manner of bias-correction . Althoughttp://data.cma.cn/). Manual quality control for rainfall data from ground-based station was performed. All stations are distributed in low and middle altitudes from 200 to 2300 m, and scarce stations are distributed in areas with elevations over 3000 m. Among the stations, 9 had complete records for several years but without a continuous time series. Therefore, 27 stations were used to evaluate annual and monthly precipitation, while 18 stations were evaluated for seasonal precipitation, the individual station, and precipitation gradient. Information about the rain gauge stations is summarized in Daily precipitation records from 27 rain gauge stations in the Qinling-Daba Mountains over 2000–2014 were collected from the National Meteorological Information Center of the China Meteorological Administration , which was adopted in this work to show the basic elevation variation in the Qinling-Daba Mountains.DEM is a representation of terrain elevation as a function of geographic location , which iFor proper evaluation and comparison of precipitation data from different sources, a uniform spatial and temporal resolution was first acquired to place all precipitation products under the same conditions , 39.In consideration of the base temporal resolution of GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC Monitoring Product and ITPCAS, evaluation was conducted on a monthly scale and also on seasonal and annual scales aggregated from monthly data.In order to compare the five products under the same conditions, all precipitation products were resampled to the same horizontal 0.5° × 0.5° grid scale to guarantee the coherent spatial resolution. Bilinear interpolation was adopted by combining the surrounding four grids , consideData of the five precipitation products, including CMORPH, TRMM 3B43, GPCP-2, GPCC, and ITPCAS, were aggregated to season and annual accumulation. GPCC was adjusted by a correction factor provided by metadata before the aggregate was conducted. Additionally, a buffer of 0.1° was utilized to ensure that the rain gauge stations in the study area depicted a more accurate distribution of precipitation (considering the boundary effect).Pp is the rainfall value of a precipitation product; and Pg is the rainfall value from ground-based measurements.The two methods employed to investigate the performances of five precipitation products over the relative arid and humid years included PD (absolute precipitation difference) and PPD (percentage of precipitation difference):n is the total number of samples of gauge and satellite-based precipitation; G is the observation precipitation of ground-based measurements; P is the rainfall value from precipitation products in corresponding time intervals; n of G and P, respectively; and r is used to assess the linear agreement between rain gauge precipitation and precipitation products. A Range of -1 to 1 with positive values indicates positive correlation, while negative values represent negative correlation. RMSE indicates the overall level of error, which is sensitive to large or small errors. Positive and negative errors are considered errors in MAE to assess the accuracy of data. BIAS reflects the extent of deviation of precipitation products in rainfall values, in which the closer to 0 the BIAS is, the more accurate the precipitation product is.A series of indexes were used to quantitatively assess the performances of precipitation products with ground-based measurements from different perspectives. These included the Pearson correlation coefficient (r), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and relative bias (BIAS).Given the importance of the correlation coefficient to evaluate the precipitation products emphasized in a large number of studies –46, the To compare the annual precipitation from CMORPH, GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS with ground-based measurements, scatter plots of annual rainfall from precipitation products versus rain gauge data were created and shown in It is clear that TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS had high values of r above 0.8, which indicate that these three products, especially ITPCAS with an r value of 0.90, had high agreement with rain gauge observations on an annual scale. CMORPH and GPCP-2 possessed almost equal r values of 0.72. TRMM 3B43 and GPCC exhibited the similar skills for rainfall estimation based on r values of 0.84 and 0.83, respectively.The other indexes are listed in Meanwhile, ITPCAS exhibited the least RMSE with a value of 130.40, which means it had the smallest discrepancy with the observation rainfall. In comparison to GPCP-2 and CMORPH, GPCC and TRMM 3B43 showed smaller and similar RMSE values of 165.02 and 168.65, respectively. The lowest and highest MAE values occurred in ITPCAS and CMORPH.The above comparisons reveal that the correspondence with rain gauge data of ITPCAS was better than the other evaluated products, although it had a slightly larger BIAS than GPCP-2 on an annual scale. After that, TRMM 3B43 and GPCC had an almost equal degree of agreements with observed data for similar evaluation indexes. There is no doubt that GPCP-2 and CMORPH agreed the least, where CMORPH had the smallest r value and the greatest RMSE, MAE, and BIAS values.To capture the full season, March-May are denoted as the spring months, June-August summer months, September-November autumn months, and December-following February winter months. Values of r, RMSE, MAE, and BIAS of precipitation products from the different seasons are shown in Except CMORPH with an r value of -0.08 in winter, r values of the other four precipitation products were above 0.6 , which sThe BIAS for TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS were within 50% , and ranPrecipitation products displayed a similar trend for RMSE and MAE  with higOverall, ITPCAS had the highest r value, lowest RMSE and MAE values, and a relatively low BIAS, which indicates better agreement with the rain gauge observations on a seasonal scale compared to the other products. Contrarily, GPCP-2 and CMORPH displayed comparatively bad performances in the seasonal precipitation evaluation among the five precipitation products, while TRMM 3B43 and GPCC showed average and similar performances.Taking into account the possible impact of the seasonal cycle on the correlation coefficients, monthly precipitation was stratified per month. After that, twelve correlation coefficients between the five precipitation products and ground-based measurements were calculated . All preThe average correlation coefficients of the five precipitation products on a monthly scale were lower than that on an annual scale, except for GPCP-2, which had rigorous correlation coefficients that were considered as the performance of precipitation products on a monthly scale after removing the possible effects of seasonal cycle to a certain degree.The highest r value for ITPCAS and lowest r value for CMORPH were shown in GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS had overestimations with BIAS values of 7.02%, 10.52%, 8.87%, and 7.19%, respectively . In contITPCAS had a lower RMSE value of 25.22 compared to the other products . The RMSIn summary, ITPCAS displayed perfect r, RMSE, and MAE values and a relatively low BIAS value of 7.19%, which is just slightly higher than 7.02% of GPCP-2. ITPCAS still outperformed the other products on a monthly scale. GPCC had a better representation for true rainfall compared to TRMM 3B43 based on r and BIAS values, while TRMM 3B43 had slightly lower RMSE and MAE values. Overall, all evaluation indexes were proximal for GPCC and TRMM 3B43. CMORPH had the poorest estimation of all products on a monthly scale, and GPCP-2 displayed a more accurate capability than CMORPH but a worse performance than ITPCAS, TRMM 3B43, and GPCC.In terms of temporal scales, all precipitation products were in good agreement on an annual scale, which were superior to that on a monthly scale except for GPCP-2. Meanwhile, there was slightly greater consistency between the products and ground-based measurements in autumn compared to the other seasons.All rain gauge stations had high r values above 0.7 at the 99% significance level, which are in fairly good agreement with the ground-based measurements . ITPCAS The BIAS values of 18 rain gauge stations fluctuated in the range of ±30% except for Wudu station, where GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS had the greatest BIAS . BIAS ofRMSE values of ITPCAS ranged from 11.71 to 39.55, which were the lowest among the precipitation products suggesting minimal errors . MeanwhiOverall, the five precipitation products performed well in terms of obtained r values, with ITPCAS performing the greatest. TRMM 3B43 and GPCC displayed good performances but were slightly inferior to ITPCAS. GPCP-2 had the largest BIAS values at Wudu station. In contrast, CMORPH displayed the lowest r and highest RMSE, MAE, and BIAS values, meaning it had the worst agreement with the observed rainfall data among the five precipitation products.The 18 rain gauge stations with continuous time series show relatively good agreements with ground-based measurements as a whole based on all evaluation indexes. Although the indexes vary in different regions, they still simulate precipitation reasonably well at respective stations.The total annual precipitation was calculated by the sum of annual precipitation from the 18 rain gauge stations based on a continuous record from year to year. In 2001, a minimum annual precipitation value of 663.84 mm was obtained, while a maximum value of 999.98 mm occurred in 2011. Thus, 2001 and 2011 are regarded as the relatively arid and humid years, respectively, which were about 19.60% lower and 21.10% greater than the average annual precipitation of 825.70 mm. In the following section, the performance differences of the precipitation products in 2001 and 2011 were discussed to further explore their advantages. PD and PPD, mentioned in the Methodology section, were used as the evaluation indexes.PPD was used as an example to explain differences in the rain gauge data. In 2001, it appeared that CMORPH had an underestimation of -6.53%, while the other four products showed overestimation in varying degrees for annual precipitation . MeanwhiAfter overall evaluation, the performance of each individual station was also assessed in accordance to PD and PPD values .In the relatively arid and humid years, no obvious trend in PPDs occurred for all rain gauge stations except Wudu, where ITPCAS, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and GPCP-2 met their maximum PPDs. In 2001, the largest PPDs for ITPCAS, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and GPCP-2 were 30.33%, 54.55%, 60.78%, and 90.14% and were 37.26%, 43.44%, 52.83%, and 72.19% in 2011, respectively . The pooThe inhomogeneity of precipitation distribution is one factor that caused the diversity in plant population and natural landscape at different elevation zones . MultiplNo clear precipitation gradient can be seen in The precipitation gradient is related to multiple complex factors. Numerous high peaks and fault basins are scattered along the Qinling-Daba Mountains, and the Hanjiang Valley is located between Qinling Mountain and Daba Mountain, which together constitutes the complex terrain and causes uneven distribution of precipitation in the Qinling-Daba Mountains. An obvious precipitation gradient does not exist in this study perhaps due to the diverse spatial distribution of different observation sites and the limited observation data in alpine mountainous areas. There is a possibility that horizontal (latitude/longitude) precipitation gradients dominate in the rain gauge data and precipitation products with relatively low resolution.On the other hand, the rainfall measured by rain gauge is affected by multiple factors, especially in mountainous areas, where the actual precipitation is often less than the precipitation observed due to undercatch, such as wind effect, wetting and evaporation losses. Yang et al. –55 foundBased on the evaluation of the five precipitation products with ground-based measurements on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales, ITPCAS showed the best performance, TRMM 3B43 and GPCC displayed moderate and similar estimation, GPCP-2 was slightly worse than the first three products, and CMORPH had the worst performance. In this study, the TRMM post real-time research product of 3B43 showed better agreement with observation data than did CMORPH with a higher spatial resolution, which is consistent with previous researches. For example, Hu et al.  ranked TIn addition, Feidas  revealedAs the best product for simulating precipitation on different time scales, ITPCAS was produced by merging TRMM 3B42, GLDAS , and rainfall observations from meteorological stations in China , 62. It These results indicate that various studies and operational practices require diverse spatial and temporal resolutions and that higher and finer resolutions may not always lead to more accurate and expected results for multiple reasons . Sun’s rPrecipitation products from CMORPH, GPCP-2, TRMM 3B43, GPCC, and ITPCAS were evaluated with ground-based measurements on a 0.5° × 0.5° grid and annual, seasonal, and monthly time scales in the Qinling-Daba Mountains during 2000–2014. Performances of the precipitation products in relatively humid and arid years and rainfall variation with altitude were also discussed. Based on the obtained results, the following conclusions were made:ITPCAS has better correspondence with rain gauge data than other rainfall data on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales, which is followed by TRMM 3B43 and GPCC. CMORPH shows the worst agreement with observed data. The precipitation products perform better on an annual scale than on monthly scales. Meanwhile, there is slightly greater consistency between the products and ground-based measurements in autumn compared to the other seasons. All precipitation products suggest good capability at individual stations, but larger errors resulted at Guangyuan, Wanyuan, and Wudu station.ITPCAS, TRMM 3B43, and GPCC presented fairly steady capacity during the relative arid and humid years. Although GPCP-2 and CMORPH show large fluctuations, the percentage precipitation differences (PPDs) fluctuate in the range of 30% in total.All precipitation data, including ground-based measurements do not exhibit significant or obvious precipitation gradients in the Qinling-Daba Mountains, which may be due to limited and scarce rain gauge stations or undercatch in high altitude regions with complex terrain in the studied areas.According to our study, the accuracy differences between ITPCAS and the other four precipitation products are remarkable. In general, we conclude that out of all examined products, ITPCAS can stimulate precipitation fairly well with the best consistency on annual, seasonal, and monthly scales in the Qinling-Daba Mountains. In addition, further investigations should be conducted on the performance of precipitation products in the future, including the new GPM .


All classification results showed a high overall accuracy (OA) ranging from 90% to 95%. Among the three classifiers and 14 sub-datasets, SVM produced the highest OA with the least sensitivity to the training sample sizes, followed consecutively by RF and kNN. In relation to the sample size, all three classifiers showed a similar and high OA (over 93.85%) when the training sample size was large enough, i.e., greater than 750 pixels/class or representing an area of approximately 0.25% of the total study area. The high accuracy was achieved with both imbalanced and balanced datasets.In previous classification studies, three non-parametric classifiers, Random Forest (RF), k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM), were reported as the foremost classifiers at producing high accuracies. However, only a few studies have compared the performances of these classifiers with different training sample sizes for the same remote sensing images, particularly the Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imager (MSI). In this study, we examined and compared the performances of the RF, kNN, and SVM classifiers for land use/cover classification using Sentinel-2 image data. An area of 30 × 30 km There is undoubtedly a high demand for land use/cover maps for the monitoring and management of natural resources, development strategies, and global change studies ,2,3,4. LRemote sensing satellite images are considered as one of the most important data sources for land use/cover mapping  due to tSentinel-2 is the latest generation Earth observation mission of the ESA (European Space Agency) designed for land and coastal applications, and it includes the identical Sentinel-2 A and Sentinel-2 B satellites which launched in June 2015 and March 2017, respectively . SentineAccording to Lu and Weng , it is nIn the last decade, the nonparametric methods  have gained great attention of remote sensing based applications. To understand the rise of machine learning methods in land use/cover mapping, we searched the number of articles in the ISI Web of Knowledge (Indexes in SCI-EXPANDED and SSCI) with different keywords ” during the timespan from 2007 to 2017. The results shown in Several studies have been implemented in order to find the best classification algorithm for land use/cover studies by comparing the performance of these classifiers either among themselves or with other classification algorithms. However, their conclusions are quite different. For example, in the studies by Adam et al.  and GhosIn addition, to the best of our knowledge, only a limited amount of research was published that compared and evaluated the performance of RF, SVM, and kNN with different training sample strategies using Sentinel-2 imagery, especially in Vietnam. Therefore, it is practical for a study to compare and evaluate the performance of RF, SVM and kNN for land use/cover mapping over North Vietnam using the new satellite data, Sentinel-2 A. The objectives of this study are: (i) to evaluate the performance of the three most increasing classifiers, RF, kNN, and SVM, when applied to a Sentinel-2 image and (ii) to assess the effects of the training samples size, strategies, and type  on the accuracy of the classification results of the three aforementioned classifiers.The overall methodology of the study is described in 2 of a peri-urban and rural with heterogeneous land cover area in the north of the Red River Delta (RRD), Vietnam was chosen . The composited-10 band-20m imagery was used for classification in this study. Sentinel-2 A, level 1 C (ID = L1C_T48QXJ_A010168_20170603T034152) acquired on 3 June 2017, was downloaded from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website . SpectraThe training data (training and testing samples) was collected based on the manual interpretation of the original Sentinel-2 data and high-resolution imagery available from Google Earth.To collect training sample data, the create polygon tool in the ArcGIS 10.5 toolbox was used to create 135 polygons for each land cover class. Due to the different polygon sizes, the number of pixels for each land cover class also differed .For an accurate assessment of the classification results, 650 points for every land cover class was collected. However, to ensure that the training and testing datasets were independent, we buffered 15 m for all point samples (testing dataset) and removed points which had buffered-points intersecting with (or belonging to) polygon samples. As results, we obtained the number of testing points (pixels) as shown in To evaluate the effect of the training sample sizes, as well as the performance of classification algorithms on the classification accuracies, we randomly divided training sample data into 14 different datasets , in whicTuned parameters play an important role in producing high accuracy results when using SVM, RF, and kNN. Each classifier has different tuning steps and tuned parameters. For each classifier, we tested a series of values for the tuning process with the optimal parameters determined based on the highest overall classification accuracy. In this study, the classified results under the optimal parameters of each classifier were used to compare the performance of classifiers . −2, 2−1, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27), and ten values of γ  were tested. This procedure was applied to all 14 sub-datasets. In land cover classification studies, according to Knorn et al.  and Shi In order to implement the RF , two parThe kNN approach is a non-parametric  that hasIn order to assess the accuracy of classification performance, there are many metrics available in the literature. The two most popular metrics are overall accuracy (OA) and Kappa statistic. Recently however, the Kappa statistic is becoming less common in remote sensing classification accuracy assessment . One of In this study, we used a stratified sampling approach; moreover, we divided training data into several sub-datasets, including imbalanced and balanced datasets. This approach matches the OA metric. In addition, to compare the performance of each classifier, we used the same training (input) and testing  datasets; thus, the effect of individual class’s distribution on OA does not bias the results. We also calculated the 95% confidence interval (error tolerance) δ of the probability estimate  for everDue to the limitation of space and the consistency of the results, only the results of eight sub-datasets—4 balanced  and 4 imbalanced —are shown. The results of the remaining sub-datasets were still tested and showed a consistent trend in results.With the kNN classifier, to classify one object, the algorithm bases the class attributes of its k nearest neighbors . TherefoAs stated in As shown in −2, 2−1, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27), γ .In order to find the optimal values for the SVM model, several values were examined for C and γ: C  were applied to the whole image for classification results. As shown in The highest accuracy for the three classifiers occurred when the training sample size was large enough, i.e., iset_5; kNN, RF, and SVM were 94.59%, 94.70%, and 95.32%, respectively . HoweverFor balanced datasets (bset_1 to bset_7), the SVM classifier still produced the highest accuracy at 95.29%, followed by RF at 94.59% and kNN at 94.10%. However, the performance of each classifier on different training sample sizes was only slightly different . For theWith the RF classifier, the larger training sample also produced higher accuracy with the first 4 sub-datasets (bset_1 to bset_4). However, the difference at bset_1 and bset_4 was not as large as with the kNN classifier. With the smallest training sample (bset_1), RF produced a higher accuracy (91.47%) than that of kNN (89.95%); however, with bset_4 (750 pixels/class), the accuracy results of RF and kNN were similar at 93.61% and 93.45%, respectively. The stable accuracy results of bset_5, bset_6, and bset_7  were also observed with the RF classifier. The SVM classifier showed different results. When the training sample size was small (bset_1 and bset_2), the classification accuracy was high and slightly different at 92.63% and 92.35%, respectively. However, when the training sample size increased from 125 pixels/class (bset_2) to 250 pixels/class (bset_3) and 500 pixels/class (bset_4), the training sample size had a strong impact on classification accuracy. This is an interesting finding; because the results showed a contrast with previous studies which stated that the training sample size was less sensitive with SVM. This might be true if the training sample size is small enough (less than 125 pixels/class) or large enough (greater than 750 pixels/class). Due to the actual proportion of land cover type on the landscape, the rare classes have a low number of pixels in the training sample ; therefoMany studies investigated the performance of the RF classifier on different training sample sizes and strategies of different satellite images, but the conclusions are contradictory. Colditz  and MellWith the SVM classifier, as shown in Classification of Sentinel-2 imagery  using three different machine learning algorithms were implemented, evaluated, and compared. Fourteen different sub-datasets, including balanced and imbalanced, with different training sample sizes from 50 to more than 1250 pixels/class were performed. All classification results (OA) were high, approximately ranging from 90% to 95%, with the SVM classifier on average producing the highest OA with the least sensitivity to training sample size, followed by the RF and kNN classifiers. The difference in OA between kNN and RF was large when the training sample size increased from sub-dataset-1 to sub-dataset-4 for both imbalanced and balanced cases; however, the difference between various training sample sizes of the SVM classifier was insignificant. For all three classifiers, when the training sample was large enough (greater than 750 pixels/class), with both imbalanced and balanced datasets , the OA was approximately similar and high (over 93.85%). Furthermore, it is recommended that in land cover classification using remote sensing images and machine learning algorithms, the training sample size should represent approximately 0.25% of the total study area.


Teratomas, which most frequently affect adult females, are the most common type of germ cell tumor, it always comprises derivatives of at least 2 germ layers. The most common site of primary teratomas is the ovary. Sacrococcygeal teratomas (SCTs), which are exceedingly rare in adults, are generally found in newborns or children.A 39-year-old woman presented to our clinic with a 1-year history of gradually aggravated difficulty in micturition and defecation, and a tumor in her right buttock present since birth. Appropriate preoperative examinations showed a large (15.6 cm × 12.2 cm × 30.0 cm) multicystic SCT.Histologic examination confirmed a mucinous tumor arising in a giant SCT.Abdominoperineal rectal resection was performed.The patient recovered well and was discharged on day 33 of admission.We report the first case of a mucinous tumor arising in an SCT, in which the teratoma presented mature tissue elements derived only from the endodermal germ layer (keratinous debris). The most common site of primary teratomas is the ovary, followed by the testis, anterior mediastinum, retroperitoneum, and sacrococcygeal area.–5Teratomas always comprise derivatives of at least 2 germ layers, including the mesoderm, endoderm, and ectoderm, and are deemed as tumors. Teratomas have the potential to imitate many neoplasms of various organs and to copy almost all tissues of the human body, in a very flexible way. Especially, pituitary teratomas are very rare, with only very few cases reported. Currently, it is generally accepted that primary low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasms can metastasize to the ovaries and subsequently give rise to mucinous ascites/pseudomyxoma peritonei, which may also result from the intraabdominal spread of an appendiceal mucinous neoplasm.–10 However, to our knowledge, there is currently no report about a mucinous tumor arising in an SCT.Mucinous tumors are present in 2% to 11% of mature ovarian cystic teratomas, and 3% to 8% of mucinous ovarian tumors are associated with teratomas.We here present an extremely rare case of a mucinous tumor arising in a large, mature, multicystic SCT in a 39-year-old woman. The tumor consisted of 3 main cysts: 2 cysts containing numerous thin-walled, mucin-filled cysts, and a single cyst containing only keratinous debris, which was composed of derivatives of the endodermal germ layer.2A 39-year-old woman presented with a tumor in her right buttock, which was present since birth. The tumor was gradually increasing in size but had not been previously treated. She visited our clinic due to a 1-year history of gradually aggravated difficulty in micturition and defecation, characterized by an inability to void without external pressure applied. Meanwhile, she also experienced pain that made it impossible for her to remain still in any position. The tumor was bulky and solid on palpation and could be felt from the sacrum and coccyx. On digital rectal examination, the finger could not get above the extraluminal cystic mass in the posterior wall of the rectum. However, no obvious abnormality in the rectal mucosa was noted.Routine laboratory tests revealed alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) 1.48 ng/mL , carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) 42.68 ng/mL , carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) 58.40 U/mL , and carbohydrate antigen 72-4 (CA72-4) 45.12 U/mL .A large presacral tumor could be seen on plain radiographs, which had invaded the coccyx Fig. A. AbdomiAbdominoperineal rectal resection was performed Fig. A and B. Pathologic assessment Fig. A and B oThe patient recovered well and was discharged on day 33 of admission. She did not receive any adjuvant therapy. The patient is currently under clinical and imaging follow-up to identify any future recurrence.3,11; however, rare cases of these tumors occurring in other various organs, including the testes and retroperitoneum,14 have been reported. Mucinous tumors are reportedly present in 2% to 11% of mature ovarian cystic teratomas, and 3% to 8% of mucinous ovarian tumors are associated with teratomas. On the other hand, this is, to our knowledge, the first report of a mucinous tumor arising in an SCT. It is generally accepted that the origin of mucinous tumors is usually the ovaries or appendix,11; however, in the present case, the appendix and ovaries were all normal. There have also been some reports of these tumors originating in various other organs such as the gallbladder and bile ducts, stomach, pancreas, colon, fallopian tube, uterine corpus, urachus, urinary bladder, breast, and lung. However, the mucinous jelly-like material observed in our patient showed invading mucin only, and no cells were seen   Fig. B, which ,15,16 In the present case, the mass could be seen at the patient's hip, but the predominant mass was pelvic and extended into the abdomen; hence it was classified as SCT type III , 42.68 ng/mL , 58.40 U/mL , and 45.12 U/mL , respectively. Although the AFP level was within the normal range, we speculate that the reason for this finding was that the tumor had not yet undergone malignant transformation. Postoperatively, the serum AFP, CEA, CA19-9, and CA72-4 levels were 1.48 ng/mL, 4.17 ng/mL, 11.25 U/mL, and 6.35 U/mL, respectively, indicating marked decreases in the CEA, CA19-9, and CA72-4 levels. These results confirm the value of these serologic markers in diagnosing SCT. In addition, a slight decrease in the AFP level was also observed.SCTs can express a diversity of serum tumor markers such as elevated AFP, CEA, CA72-4, and CA19-9Taking into account the spread of the tumor and the risk for recurrence, we deemed it inappropriate to obtain biopsy samples from the rectum and skin of our patient. Instead, we diagnosed SCT and designed the operation plan according to the radiographic investigations. The postoperative pathology confirmed this diagnosis.,23 The surgical approach selected should be based on numerous factors, including the tumor size, location, and invasion to the surrounding organs, and appropriate selection might be the key to successful operation. The main surgical approach generally includes the transabdominal, transsacral, or transperineum approach, or a combination thereof.–27 In our case, the abdominoperineal approach was adopted, owing to a suspicion that the tumor had invaded the rectum and due to its large size. On laparotomy, there was no evidence of peritoneal dissemination, although the tumor was found to have invaded the rectum. As the patient's family members refused colostomy, we kept the rectum while removing as much of the tumor as possible. Presently, endoscopic resection of teratomas is also performed in some hospitals; however, this approach is not appropriate for large tumors like in our case.The preferred initial treatment modality for SCTs or mucinous tumors includes complete en bloc resection of the tumor, with or without chemotherapy, both in children and adults.Our case highlights the following points in terms of resection of giant SCTs by the abdominoperineal approach: the specific location of the tumor and the relationship with the surrounding organs should be defined before the operation to select the appropriate surgical approach. When a resection is made at the perineum, it is important to try to avoid the anus, as it is easy to cause infection due to fecal contamination of the incision. Of course, bowel preparation and replacing the wound dressing in a timely manner after urination and defecation postoperatively are also important to avoid infection. In cases of large tumors, in which the residual cavity is large, a drainage tube should be placed in the cavity to reduce the risk of hematoma formation. Lastly, care should be taken not to remove the skin incision suture prematurely; intermittent removal of the suture after more than 2 weeks is recommended to prevent the wounds from reopening.


Flexible, stretchable electroluminescent fibers are of significance to meet the escalating requirements of increasing complexity and multifunctionality of smart electronics. We report a stretchable alternating current electroluminescent (ACEL) fiber by a low-cost and all solution-processed scalable process. The ACEL fiber provides high stretchability, decent light-emitting performance, with excellent stability and nearly zero hysteresis. It can be stretched up to 80% strain. Our ACEL fiber device maintained a stable luminance for over 6000 stretch-release cycles at 50% strain. The mechanical stretchability and optical stability of our ACEL fiber device provides new possibilities towards next-generation stretchable displays, electronic textiles, advanced biomedical imaging and lighting, conformable visual readouts in arbitrary shapes, and novel health-monitoring devices. Smart electronic devices have attracted much attention due to the expectation that they can be easily stretched, compressed, bended, twisted, folded, and knotted. As a type of electronic device, providing an essential functionality, stretchable electroluminescent devices with high conformity and excellent light-emitting properties are of particular interest ,2,3,4. SIt is highly desirable to develop stretchable and high performance smart devices based on fibers to enable wide usage in smart electronic products. Compared to conventional planar electronic devices, devices based on fibers have been attracting increasing interest due to the beneficial combination of miniaturization, adaptability, and wearability. To date, supercapacitors , solar cHere, we present a flexible and stretchable ACEL fiber via an all solution-processed scalable method. The ACEL fiber comprises an elastic core fiber from polydimethyl-siloxane (PDMS), two electrodes (inner and outer) from silver nanowires (AgNWs), and an emissive layer from ZnS:Cu phosphors/PDMS composite. The luminance of the resulted ACEL fiber is largely independent of the stretching strains. Notably, it maintained a stable luminance performance during 6000 stretch-release cycles within a 9% variation. The flexible and stretchable ACEL fiber provides high luminance with low hysteresis and demonstrates excellent mechanical and optical stability during operation.The structures and morphologies of different components of the stretchable ACEL fiber are characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM). Shown as E is the electric field, U is the voltage passing through the phosphor layer, and d is the thickness of the phosphor layer, the increased luminance could be attributed to the decrease in the thickness of the phosphor ZnS:Cu/PDMS composite layer, resulting in the increase of the electric field (E) passing through the phosphor ZnS:Cu/PDMS composite layer. This geometry-induced field gradient led to the acceleration of electrons in phosphor particles and, consequently, increased the luminance of the ACEL fiber. For a further increase of the stretching strain, the luminance dropped gradually, which could due to a further decrease of the density of the phosphor particles. As shown in 2 at a strain of 20%, corresponded with a ~123.3% increase in the luminance value. At the strain of 80%, the luminance dropped to 117.6 cd/m2; a value which is still ~5.1% higher than that of the non-stretched fiber. The dependence of luminance on the stretching strains for the ACEL fiber is shown in L is the luminance, V is the applied voltage, and L0 and β are the constants related to the device. Even under 20% strain and at different frequencies and for various fitting parameters L0 and β, the root-mean-square deviations of the fitting was ~0.999. This observation indicates that, for the stretched ACEL fiber, the emission performances can be well-described with the conventional equation, and the fit still maintains its stability. As shown in 2 was obtained at 5 kHz and a bias voltage of 500 V. Although the applied voltage of our ACEL fiber device is still high, it can be greatly reduced by fine-tuning the device architecture and material’s properties . In p) and shifted to 457 nm with a FWHM of 97 nm at 5 kHz and a bias voltage of 500 V. At the same time, the Commission Internationale de I’Eclairage (CIE) color coordinate changes from x = 0.18, y = 0.35 to x = 0.16, y = 0.22. This observation indicates a change of the emitting color from green to blue with increasing frequency. This phenomenon is similar to those reported in the literatures [Furthermore, we studied the relationship between voltage and luminance at an AC frequency of 1 to 5 kHz and a strain of 20% b. The meeratures ,29,30. Ip, followed by further stretch the fiber to 80% strain and release it back to 50% strain, and then recording the luminance with applied voltages decreasing from 500 to 150 Vp. We believe that the changes of the thickness of the phosphor layer, the density of the phosphor particles, the conductivity both of the inner and outer AgNWs, and the contact resistance between each layer can all contribute to hysteretic behavior. Notably, hardly any hysteresis was observed in To evaluate the hysteresis of luminance–voltage behavior and verify the reversible performance of the ACEL fiber after stretch-release cycles, the corresponding luminance for the fiber at 50% strain were recorded with applied bias voltages increasing from 150 to 500 VL – L0)/L0) over the investigated 6000 stretching-releasing cycles. After 6000 cycles, there was an obvious luminance decrease of the fiber device, which may due to the contact resistance increase among the AgNWs of the unencapsulated devices. Additionally, the slight emission fluctuation in the cycles was attributed to the contact problem between the copper foil electrode and AgNWs during the measurement. Even after experiencing 10,000 stretch-release cycles, the cross-section of the ACEL fiber still shows good contact interfaces without any obvious visible cracks and damage , that is, the luminance fitted normal distribution. Over 50% samples exhibits luminance between 98.5 and 101.5 cd/m2, and the other data we studied in our work is based on the fiber devices whose luminance performance is around 100 cd/m2 under 1 kHz AC, 400 Vp, and 20% strain. Furthermore, the stretchability and light-emitting performance of this ACEL fiber was compared with previously-reported light-emitting fibers  with the weight ratio of 10:1. The mixture was degassed in vacuum oven for 15 min. The bubbleless mixture was injected into an airtight 2.5-mm-diameter plastic tube template. The mixture was cured at 60 °C for 90 min. Then, the stretchable PDMS fiber was removed from the template. Starting solution of 10 mg/mL AgNWs ethanol dispersion was obtained from ColdStones Tech. Co. Ltd. , wherein the diameters and lengths of the AgNW were 90–110 nm and 30–40 μm, respectively. This solution was diluted to 0.5 mg/mL by adding more ethanol. The AgNWs were spray coated onto PDMS fiber. In order to obtain a homogeneous layer, the PDMS fiber was rotated along with its axis while being heated during spray-coating processes. Electroluminescent phosphor particles (ZnS:Cu) were purchased from Lonco Co. Ltd.  and blended with PDMS at a weight ratio of 2:1. The composite was diluted by adding n-hexane to 25% the weight of the phosphor. The light-emitting layer was obtained by dip coating this diluted composite onto the AgNWs coated fiber. Then the fiber with light-emitting layer was cured at 60 °C for 90 min. Finally, AgNWs were spray-coated as the outer electrode.All measurements were performed under ambient conditions. Copper tape was used to electrically connect the AgNW electrodes of the fiber devices to the external power source for further tests. The as-fabricated fiber device was placed in a tensile stage with two clamps which can control the stretch accurately. A function generator  connected with a power amplifier  was used to power the as-fabricated fiber device. The electroluminescence emission spectra and luminance were measured by a spectroradiometer . The surface morphology was imaged by SEM measurement .2 at 200 Vp and 1 kHz when it was stretched to 80% strain, and a maximum luminance of 307.3 cd/m2 at 500 Vp and 5 kHz at 20% strain. Furthermore, the remarkable stability was demonstrated by performing over 6000 stretching-releasing cycles to 50% strain, where the device maintained a stable luminance. In addition, the experimental results fit well with classic theoretical predictions. Due to the easy fabrication process, stable light-emitting performance, and good stretchability of the developed fibers, we believe our stretchable ACEL fiber will conceivably open up new prospective fields and affect various devices encompassing wearable light-emitting electronics, biomedical devices, and other unprecedented applications for the next generation of optoelectronic devices.In conclusion, we have reported an alternating current electroluminescent fiber device, which provides unprecedented features, including high stretchability, stability, and excellent light-emitting performance without any noticeable hysteresis, through a simple, scalable, and low-cost fabrication process. In particularly, we found the fabricated fibers provide uniform luminance regardless of viewing angles and maintained a stable electroluminescent performance when subjected to bending, stretching, and knotting. These exceptional features endow our ACEL fiber a luminance of 14.63 cd/m


The commonest, and dose-limiting, toxicity was pain in the infusion arm. One patient given DACA through a central venous catheter experienced chest pain with transient electrocardiogram changes, but no evidence of myocardial infarction. At the highest dose levels, several patients also experienced flushing, pain and paraesthesia around the mouth, eyes and nose and a feeling of agitation. Other side-effects, such as nausea and vomiting, myelosuppression, stomatitis and alopecia, were uncommon. There was one minor response but no objective responses. DACA pharmacokinetics were linear and did not differ between days 1 and 3. The pattern of toxicity seen with DACA is unusual and appears related to the mode of delivery. It is possible that higher doses of DACA could be administered using a different schedule of administration. © 1999 Cancer Research CampaignDACA, also known as XR5000, is an acridine derivative active against both topoisomerase I and II. In this phase I study, DACA was given as a 3-h intravenous infusion on 3 successive days, repeated every 3 weeks. A total of 41 patients were treated at 11 dose levels between 9 mg m