Camellia sinensis L.) cultivar “Sunrouge” contains anthocyanins, catechins and flavonols. To determine whether ingesting green tea containing anthocyanins improves visual function and blood pressure (BP) in healthy adults, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed. A total of 120 healthy subjects, aged between 20 and 60 years and with a systolic BP (SBP) value of ≤125 and <155 and a diastolic BP (DBP) value <95, or a DBP of ≤75 mmHg and <95 mmHg and a SBP <155 mmHg, were randomly assigned to one of three groups. For 12 weeks, the placebo group received barley extract without catechin; another group received “Sunrouge” extract containing 11.2 mg anthocyanin and 323.6 mg epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG); and a third group received “Yabukita” extract containing 322.2 mg EGCG. Home BP, accommodation ability, visual analog scale questionnaires for eyestrain, and metabolic-associated markers were analyzed at weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12 of the intake period. The ingestion of “Sunrouge” tea significantly improved accommodation ability and eyestrain in subjects younger than 45 years and in subjects who operated visual display terminals every day. It also elevated BP. “Yabukita” tea ingestion significantly increased serum adiponectin levels. No adverse effects were observed. We conclude that long-term intake of “Sunrouge” tea containing anthocyanins and flavonols might improve visual function.The green tea ( In recent years, fatigue and eyestrain associated with the use of visual display terminals (VDT) have become increasingly prevalent among younger individuals. In Japan, the penetration ratios of personal computers and smartphones in households reached 76.8% and 72.0%, respectively, in 2015 . EyestraCamellia sinensis L.) is consumed worldwide, with large quantities being consumed in Japan and China, where it has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries. Green tea contains many functional ingredients such as catechins, caffeine, flavonols, vitamins, and dietary fiber. It has been reported to have various bioregulatory functions, such as anti-carcinogenic and anti-metastatic [O-gallate (EGCG), which are believed to prevent lifestyle-related diseases. In addition, “Sunrouge” tea is rich in antioxidative anthocyanins [Green tea  with slightly elevated blood pressure (BP).This was a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. The study protocol is shown in We recruited a total of 258 healthy volunteers (aged 21–55 years), of which 120 subjects  were eligible. Key eligibility and exclusion criteria are shown in Three types of test drinks were manufactured industrially by Nikken Foods Co. Ltd. . Green tea (cv. “Yabukita” and “Sunrouge”) was extracted in hot water and the tea extract was concentrated and spray-dried to prepare a composite granulated powder with cyclodextrin. Barley tea extract powder that included no catechins and caffeine was used as the placebo. Subjects drank the tea, obtained by diluting the extract powder at the time of drinking, after each meal. The extracts were analyzed for flavonoids, caffeine, and anthocyanin content by high-performance liquid chromatography using UV-VIS detection ,22. The The primary outcomes measured were systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), accommodation (focusing ability of the eye) after stress or after rest, and the difference between accommodation ability after rest and after stress. Secondary outcomes measured were answers to a visual analog scale (VAS) questionnaire for eyestrain symptoms, intraocular pressure, peripheral blood flow, oxidized low density lipoprotein (Ox-LDL), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), superoxide dismutase (SOD), 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), high sensitivity-C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), adiponectin, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), total homocysteine, and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C).The subjects performed twice-daily home BP checks by themselves on the upper part of the arm opposite to the dominant hand, using an automated sphygmomanometer. BP measurement was carried out after urination and before breakfast within one hour after getting up in the morning, and after urination and before going to bed in the evening. Measurements were taken three times, with subjects in the sitting position, with five minutes of rest between measurements. The average of two stable measurement values was assumed to be the day’s measurement. BP values were determined before intake and at 4, 8, and 12 weeks after intake and were calculated as the averages of the BP measurements executed for 5 days prior to the recorded date of measurement. To evaluate the effects of tea on eye focusing ability, we measured accommodation using an accommodate . Briefly, we asked subjects to press the stop button when the cross mark was clearly visible (their far point). Then, subjects were again asked to press the stop button when the cross mark became blurry (their near point). Each subjects’ amplitude of accommodation was measured by the distance between their near point and their far point; the resulting distance (cm) was converted into diopters (D). An increase in the value of D was considered to be an improvement in accommodation.We asked the subjects to play the game “Tetris” using a tablet-type device for 20 min to induce eyestrain (stress period) and then to wear a blindfold during a 10 min break (break period). Accommodation of both of their eyes was monitored twice—once after the stress period and once after the break period. In addition, we asked them to ingest the test food right before the visual load of VDT work. We analyzed three kinds of accommodation values for each eye: accommodation measured after the stress period, the break period, and the difference between the stressing and the break time.We examined changes in eyestrain symptoms before and after  the intake using a visual analog scale (VAS) test. Our test was labeled “I feel extreme eyestrain” (0) and “I have no eyestrain” (100) on the extreme ends of a 100 mm line. The VAS questionnaire for eyestrain symptoms also included labels for “tired eyes,” “blurred vision,” “weight of eyelid,” “an ache behind the eyes,” “red eyes,” “bleary eyes,” “dryness of eyes,” “stiff shoulder,” “lower back pain,” “moodiness,” and “heaviness of the head.”Subjects were instructed to record any subjective symptoms regarding body conditions in their diaries, which were submitted to the responsible physician at the beginning of the run-in period; at weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12 of the intake period; and at the end of the withdrawal period.www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index.htm .This study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hokkaido Information University  in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration . This study was registered at t-tests. All statistical analyses were performed with SPSS ver. 19 . The statistical analysis was performed using the per protocol analysis set. Values are expressed as means ± standard deviations (SD). Differences between intervention groups were evaluated by one-way ANOVA and the Tukey post-hoc tests. For each group, differences between pre- and post-intake were evaluated using paired p-value of <0.05 was considered significant, while a p-value of <0.10 was defined as a marginal difference.A Thirty-eight subjects in the “Yabukita” group, 39 in the “Sunrouge” group, and 37 in the placebo group completed the final visit evaluation, and the data of these subjects were used for the final analysis. The average intake rates for the experimental period were 98.0 ± 3.6%, 97.7 ± 3.6%, and 99.4 ± 1.4%, as calculated using the intake check sheets of the “Yabukita” group, “Sunrouge” group, and placebo group, respectively. The flow diagram for this study is shown in The mean age, height, body weight, body mass index (BMI), and body fat ratio for each group are presented in n = 8) compared to the placebo group (n = 10)  A. Change(n = 10) B. p = 0.031) significantly improved in the “Sunrouge” group compared to the “Yabukita” group , as shown in p = 0.052)  A. Moreov= 0.052) A,B. “SunSeveral studies have reported that consecutive intake of 64 mg of anthocyanins by patients after cardiac infarction lowered BP, due to anthocyanins’ ameliorating effect on hypertension ,24. We hSecondary outcomes were data on intraocular pressure, peripheral blood flow, Ox-LDL, TBARS, SOD, 8-OHdG, hs-CRP, adiponectin, ADMA, total homocysteine, and LDL-C. Among oxidative stress markers, at week 4, TBARS and SOD levels in the “Yabukita” group were significantly higher than in the placebo group, while Ox-LDL and urinary 8-OHdG did not differ between the groups, as shown in We compared the changes listed in the VAS questionnaire for eyestrain symptoms—“tired eyes,” “blurred vision,” “weight of eyelid,” “an ache behind the eyes,” “red eyes,” “bleary eyes,” “dryness of eyes,” “stiff shoulder,” “lower back pain,” “moodiness,” and “heaviness of the head”—from baseline for each week in all test groups. We observed no significant differences among the three groups; therefore, a stratified analysis was conducted for the presence or absence of daily VDT operation and age.p = 0.052) (As shown in = 0.052) D. The biological mechanism of the eye strain reduction effect of anthocyanins is thought to be the effect of antioxidants  and rhodA similar result has been reported for blackcurrant anthocyanin. Nakanishi et al. reported that after the intake of 50 mg of blackcurrant anthocyanin concentrate , significant improvement was seen in eyestrain symptoms (eye and lower back), assessed using a questionnaire . Lee et In the future, a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) needs to be carried out on the effect of “Sunrouge” green tea on the reduction of eyestrain in non-presbyopic subjects with a workload involving increased VDT operation. No blood flow improvement was associated with “Sunrouge” intake, as assessed by peripheral blood flow measurement, but these results do not exclude the possibility that consecutive intake of “Sunrouge” tea, which rich in anthocyanins, may have positive effects on blood flow. Therefore, further examination is needed on blood flow improvement by “Sunrouge” tea.Changes in serum homocysteine were significantly higher in the “Yabukita” and “Sunrouge” groups at week 12 than in the placebo group, as shown in O-(3-O-methyl)-gallate, one-fifth the epigallocatechin, twice the myricetin, two-fifths of the quercetin and a seven-tenths of the kaempferol of “Yabukita” green tea . The change in HDL cholesterol levels from week 0 to week 12 in the “Yabukita” tea group (5.28 ± 9.11 mg/dL) was significantly higher than that in the placebo group (−1.00 ± 6.81 mg/dL) (p = 0.008). This result suggests that the effect of “Yabukita” tea on lipid metabolism is greater in subjects without a daily habit of tea drinking. A subgroup analysis was performed between the two subject groups with and without a daily habit of tea drinking , liver and renal function, and BP after the ingestion of tea. As shown in One subject who ingested the placebo tea exhibited an adverse event related to liver function, and recovered from this symptom within a week. One subject who ingested the “Yabukita” tea was admitted to the hospital because of an acute virus infection. An additional subject who ingested the “Yabukita” tea was admitted to the hospital with venous thrombosis; since the onset of the disease occurred immediately after the start of the study, this subject had likely not ingested the test meal. The relationship between homocysteine and thrombus formation was higher in “Yabukita” group; however, the values of all subjects were in the normal range. Accordingly, the principal investigator judged that there were no serious adverse events related to the study intervention. These results suggest that the intake of “Sunrouge” or “Yabukita” tea containing 324 mg of EGCG, 203 mg of caffeine and 11 mg of anthocyanins for 12 weeks is safe. “Sunrouge” and “Yabukita” teas have large amounts of catechins including 300 mg of EGCG, and it has been reported that a large amount of EGCG may cause hepatic damage . HoweverConsecutive ingestion of the “Sunrouge” tea extract significantly improved eye AA in subjects younger than 45 years and in subjects operating VDT every day. It also elevated BP. Moreover, in subjects who operated VDT everyday, the “Sunrouge” group noted significant improvements in eyestrain at week 4, lower back pain at week 8, and top-heavy feelings at week 12 when compared to the placebo group. This result shows the possibility that “Sunrouge” is usable as an eyestrain-reducing agent or a hypertensive agent. “Yabukita” tea extract ingestion significantly increased serum adiponectin levels. No adverse effects were observed. These results suggest that the eyestrain-reducing effect of “Sunrouge” is higher in subjects younger than 45 years or in subjects operating VDT. The eyestrain-reducing effect of “Sunrouge” may therefore be higher in subjects who do not have presbyopia. In the future, we need to carry out an RCT on the eyestrain-reducing effect of “Sunrouge” tea for non-presbyopic subjects with a workload involving increased VDT operation. We hypothesize that the difference in efficacy is due to a difference in anthocyanins, catechins, or flavonols composition ratios rather than a difference in EGCG content between “Sunrouge” green tea and “Yabukita” green tea.


The Heterogeneous dust Evolution Model for Interstellar Solids (THEMIS), this work explores the surface processes and chemistry relating to core/mantle interstellar and cometary grain structures and their influence on the nature of these fascinating particles. It appears that a realistic consideration of the nature and chemical reactivity of interstellar grain surfaces could self-consistently and within a coherent framework explain: the anomalous oxygen depletion, the nature of the CO dark gas, the formation of ‘polar ice’ mantles, the red wing on the 3 μm water ice band, the basis for the O-rich chemistry observed in hot cores, the origin of organic nano-globules and the 3.2 μm ‘carbonyl’ absorption band observed in comet reflectance spectra. It is proposed that the reaction of gas phase species with carbonaceous a-C(:H) grain surfaces in the interstellar medium, in particular the incorporation of atomic oxygen into grain surfaces in epoxide functional groups, is the key to explaining these observations. Thus, the chemistry of cosmic dust is much more intimately related with that of the interstellar gas than has previously been considered. The current models for interstellar gas and dust chemistry will therefore most likely need to be fundamentally modified to include these new grain surface processes.Within the framework of  The fir— carbon depletions and their variations,— C-shine (cloud- and core-shine),— the oxygen depletion problem,— the CO dark gas mystery,— interstellar and proto-stellar ices,— organic nano-globules, and— comet reflectance spectra.This work is an attempt to provide a global framework within which to link and interpret, in a self-consistent and coherent manner, a wide diversity of open questions within the sphere of interstellar dust research. These relate to the observational and laboratory analyses of:The following therefore principally revolves around the links between dust, chemistry and dust surface chemistry.1 simply provide passive surfaces on which to combine hydrogen atoms to form molecular hydrogen and to hydrogenate heavier species, which are then ejected into the gas to drive and enrich the gas phase chemistry. However, as emphasized here, dust surfaces are far from passive and probably play a key role in chemistry in space. For, without dust in the ISM the chemistry there would probably be very different and, with fewer molecular coolants resulting from that chemistry, there would be little star formation, few planets and little likelihood of life. Also, without chemistry there would indeed be no dust.However, with seemingly only a few exceptions –24, ISM The finer details of the ideas presented here will almost certainly be shown to be wrong in the course of time. However, it is hoped that the global approach to cosmic dust evolution that is proposed here will provide a framework within which future studies can be developed to test these ideas.The paper is organized as follows: §2 discusses carbon depletion and accretion from the gas, the nature of core/mantle grains, C-shine and mantle evolution, §3 considers the consequences of dust evolution, accretion anomalies, surface chemistry and surface epoxide and aziridine functional groups, grain surface carbonyl groups and CO sequestration from the gas, §4 discusses the role of evolved grain mantles, ‘organic’ materials and nano-globules, ‘volatile ice’ mantles, photolysis effects, hot core processing, comets and chemistry, §5 suggests some experiments that might be used to explore the ideas proposed here and §6 concludes this work.2.At the heart of the ideas and the global approach presented here is the new dust modelling framework THEMIS (The Heterogeneous dust Evolution Model for Interstellar Solids) ,21,26,27The following sub-sections provide a series of dust chemistry anchor points for the following sections that have been developed within, and now extend, the THEMIS framework.2.1SilFe,FeS/a-C), and core/mantle amorphous carbon grains (a-C:H/a-C). The model is built upon the laboratory-measured properties of interstellar dust analogue materials, i.e. amorphous silicate, iron, iron sulfide and hydrogenated amorphous carbon materials, and provides a viable explanation for the observed interstellar dust IR-FUV extinction, IR-mm thermal emission, dust absorption/emission spectra and the evolution of the dust properties in the transition between diffuse and molecular regions =6×10−11, which is more than or equal to 200 times larger than could be explained by the available chemical models; suggesting that grain surface chemistry may play a role in its formation [2H4O]=(2−6)×10−10, where its isomer acetaldehyde , dimethyl ether (CH3OCH3), ethanol (C2H5OH) and methanal (HCOOH) are also observed =2 or 0). The observational evidence for CH3OH in ice could perhaps be regarded as somewhat contradictory and it is worthy of note that it and ammonia, NH3, were not detected in the cometary volatiles analysed by the COSAC instrument onboard Rosetta’s Philae lander (see later), which are thought to be representative of the cold ISM ice composition. However, measurements of the coma of comet 67P made with the ROSINA mass spectrometer onboard Rosetta do show the presence of N2, abundant CO and CO2, Ar . Additionally, it might explain why the Serpens cloud and other enhanced gas phase CO regions are also overabundant in CO2 [It seems that the abundant COce phase ,131. Thi the ISM ,132. Thet in CO2 ,132.FigNH≃1020 cm−2, AV≃0) to form surface epoxide groups (>O(s)), predominantly on carbonaceous nanoparticle grain surfaces. In this medium, the relative abundance of carbon atoms in a-C(:H) nanoparticles is of the order of NC,np/NH≃1.2×10−4 (120 ppm) [(i) The activation of a-C(:H) grain surface C=C bonds in olefinic structures  by reaction with atomic O in the low-density and optically thin ISM (120 ppm) ,9. The cNOH≃3×1013 cm−2) appears to require a small degree of extinction, i.e. AV∼0.5 mag. [(ii) The reaction of epoxide-activated surfaces with gas phase hydrogen atoms under the effects of UV irradiation to form and liberate OH radicals into the gas phase. Observationally, the formation of gas phase OH ,CO(s)2 and CO(s) in the ices in the Taurus and Serpens molecular clouds [2 formation [(s)2 via:(iii) In somewhat denser, more extinguished regions with  10.6 μm . The comr clouds . Thus, tormation . The pho2O(s)/CO(s) ice formation would appear to be a viable follow-on process after the nanoparticle surfaces have been saturated with −OH and C=O at the monolayer level by epoxide-driven chemistry.11 At this point, the reaction of CO molecules with surface epoxide groups would no longer be possible and so surface CO2 formation would naturally switch off and surface-catalysed H2O(s) formation slow down.(iv) Apolar HHere, a new four-step scenario for the onset of and early-phase formation of ‘ice’ mantles is proposed:Schematic views of this scenario is shown in 4.2.12(s) in ice is not yet completely understood and is perhaps still somewhat controversial [2O(s) and CO2(s) appear in so-called polar ices, and at higher densities this mix is associated with CO(s) in so-called apolar ices [2O and CO2 are completely ‘frozen out’ while CO still exists both in the solid and gas phases. Any viable model for the formation of CO2(s) in interstellar ices must be consistent with the following observational constraints [2(s) is present at a level of 15–40% with respect to H2O(s) [(i) COo H2O(s) ,131,135,2(s) formation route [(ii) an apparent universality of the COon route ,2(s) molecular environments; ≃85% with H2O(s) and ≃15% with CO(s) [(iii) separate COth CO(s)  and12C/13C isotopic compositions of gas and solid phase CO and of CO2(s) [(iv) the similar f CO2(s) .As has been highlighted, an origin for the formation of this ice mantle molecular component through the possible . Howeveroversial . Neverthoversial ,133,134.lar ices . Further(s) formation constraints because2(s) and H2O(s) are formed, respectively, by the reaction of accreting gas phase CO molecules and H atoms with surface epoxide groups (>O) on a-C(:H) grains via:nH≥100 cm−3, CO is present in the gas at a level ≃20% with respect to Og)( [2(s) and H2O(s) proceed with equal efficiency, then CO2(s) would naturally be present within ices at a level of ∼20%, with respect to H2O(s).(i) interstellar ice species are principally formed and retained on grain surfaces  and it i to O(g) . The rat(ii) a-C(:H) grain surface epoxide-driven chemistry relies on the presence of reactive surface groups that are activated by relatively mild UV radiation conditions. This reaction pathway is then likely to be widespread and universal in both its nature and operation.2(s) formation is directly related to, and goes hand-in-hand with, H2O(s) formation. When the reactive surface and near surface layers are saturated, CO2(s) formation will switch off and the accreting CO can no longer be oxidized but simply accretes with H2O .12 Thus, early-stage ‘polar’ ice formation is driven by an active chemistry phase and late-stage ‘apolar’ ice formation by gas phase freezing onto benign surfaces.(iii) With the proposed reaction pathway, it seems that the initial stages of ice formation occur onto reactive surfaces and quite naturally lead to an initial ‘polar’ ice composition in which CO2(s) forms directly from the interaction of gas phase CO with a-C(:H) grain surface epoxide groups. Hence, the 12C/13C isotopic compositions of gas and solid phase CO and of CO2(s) are directly related and can only be similar.(iv) By this mechanism, COIn the light of the preceding discussion, it would appear that the proposed a-C(:H) grain surface epoxide-activated reactions meet all of the CO2(s) in the ices seen in the outer reaches of molecular clouds and around low-mass protostars.All of the above are then entirely in agreement with the constraints imposed by the observations of CO4.2.2It is perhaps somewhat troubling in interstellar ice and gas chemistry studies that methanol appears to show orders of magnitude variation in its determined ice phase abundances . In quie3OH(s), IR features appear to be present in only a few per cent of lines of sight through dark clouds and towards young stellar objects [Further, the solid methanol, CH objects . A simpl4.3HO and >C≤OHO, which may be at the origin of the broad approximately 3.2 μm carboxyl band in comet 67P reflectance spectrum and also the ubiquitous red wing on the interstellar approximately 3 μm water ice band. Such a scenario might also provide an explanation for the aromatic-rich organic nano-globules with a significant carbonyl component. Hard UV/EUV photolysis of such globules could remove even this carbonyl component and so explain the carbonyl-poor organic nano-globules, if oxygen-containing functional groups are preferentially removed but nitrogen hetero-atoms are retained in more resistant fivefold aromatic ring systems. It also appears that interstellar radiation field-driven chemistry in PDRs could lead to the formation of small organic molecules and radicals in these regions, e.g. C2H, C3H, l-C3H+, c-C3H2, l-C3H2, C4H and CH3CN [nHmXp species and even molecular hydrogen [As recently proposed, the outer carbonaceous layers of grains, be they a-C(:H) grains or mantles on amorphous silicates, are likely to be converted to a-C materials via UV/EUV photolysis –13,15. Tnd CH3CN –140, CnHhydrogen ,141.4.43C≤HO) and a hydrogen to heavy atom ratio close to unity, NH/(NC+NO) =1.0±0.3, whereas the three significantly more abundant molecules  all have a value of NH/(NC+NO) exactly equal to two. This perhaps indicates formation via the hydrogenation from more primitive  epoxide- and carbonyl-containing species in a hydrogen-rich (gas phase) environment. Indeed, it would appear possible to form most of the molecules in ϕ≃0.3 pc, Tk=40–60 K and nH=105–106 cm−3) appears to favour the formation of the more ‘primitive’ ethylene oxide, ethanal and methanoic acid molecules while the core  favours the more ‘evolved’, hydrogen-richer ethanol and methanol, while dimethyl ether appears under both core and envelope conditions [To date, it seems that the molecule ethylene oxide  surface chemistry in star-forming regions will need to be included into circumstellar and interstellar chemistry models.4.53, CH2OH and CH3CH2), 2 amides (R−C≤2NHO with R=H and CH3) and 1 ketone, (CH3)2C=O [3, methanol, CH3OH, carbon dioxide, CO2 or carboxylic acids, R−COOH were present in measurable quantities. Half of the 16 detected species contain C=O double bonds (in both >C=O and =C=O bonds) and half contain nitrogen atoms in −NH2 amines (4/16), −N= groups (2/16) and −C≡N nitrile groups (2/16). However, perhaps most surprising of all, the most abundant molecule, after water, is formamide, H−C2, CO, CO2, Ar [2O, NH3, CH4, CH3OH, H2CO, H2S, HCN, SO2, CS2 and C2H5OH.Comets are repositories of primitive interstellar and solar nebula matter and therefore carry important information on our origins. With the arrival of Rosetta/Philae at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we have gained a deeper insight into these primitive solar system bodies. For example, the comet chemistry, as measured by the Cometary Sampling and Composition (COSAC) instrument detection of 16 organic molecules, shows a large abundance of carbonyl (>C=O) species; 6 of the 16 molecules contain carbonyl bonds, including: 3 aldehydes (R−CCH3)2C=O . However CO2, Ar  and also230O107C14N6, equivalent to C/O=0.13 (≃0.70), N/O=0.06 (≃0.20) and N/C=0.43 (≃0.29). Thus, with respect to oxygen, the detected organics are deficient by about 70–80% in both carbon and nitrogen, which implies that within the comet there must be, or originally must have been, a more carbon-rich phase with N/C ≃0.25 that probably also contains some oxygen. This sort of composition does resemble the above-discussed organic nano-globules that, as per the 16 detected organics, also contain carbonyl (ketone), nitrile and alcohol functional groups but also contain carboxyl groups, aromatic domains and are relatively nitrogen-rich  reactions on interstellar a-C(:H) grain surfaces leading to epoxide (and aziridine) functional groups that further react with other gas phase species during mantle accretion  to form carbonyl/carboxyl/hydroxyl-containing carbonaceous shells much akin to the analysed organic nano-globule structures. Thus, if present, an approximately 3.2 μm absorption ‘carbonyl’ band could perhaps give rise to the impression of early ice mantle accretion if it were to be mis-identified as the water ice absorption feature. The observed organic nano-globules (see §(a) above) are rather rich in carbonyl bonds and therefore ought to exhibit a broad approximately 3.2 μm absorption feature. The strong indication that they derive from cold (and therefore dense media) would seem to lend support to the idea that the presence of such a feature in interstellar dust in the outer reaches of molecular clouds should not be excluded.n absorption bands in all of the spectra, at ≃3.3 μm and ≃3.4 μm, respectively [The Comet 67P refractory grains directly analysed with the COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer (COSIMA) dust particle instrument onboard Rosetta appear to be somewhat reminiscent of IDPs in that they contain olivine and pyroxene silicates, iron sulfides but no clear evidence for organic matter . The latectively . Thus, tectively –145. Furectively .5.T≃20 K) interstellar analogue laboratory experiments and it is hoped that the ideas presented here might inspire some such efforts in this direction, such as:— the irradiation of an a-C:H thin film with atomic oxygen (nitrogen) (sulfur) at low temperatures to test the degree of surface epoxylation (aziridation) (episulfidation) that is possible; to this end, an a-C:H film with approximately 50% atomic hydrogen would probably be a good starting material, and the most reactive, because it contains a high olefinic, C=C, bond fraction ,12,2-less ‘polar ice’ analogues containing only surface-bonded alcohol, −OH, and carboxyl, −C≤O−O, functional groups and— a targeted study of the reaction of H atoms and CO molecules at epoxylated a-C:H surfaces with the aim of exploring the possible formation of water-less and CO2, CO and CO2 molecules with the aim of spectroscopically identifying surface −OH, −O−, >C=O, −C≤HO, −C≤OHO, −C2NHO, etc. functional groups, i.e. alcohols, ethers, and carbonyl-containing ketones, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, carboxylates and amides based on the above predicted reaction pathways.— a general investigation of the interaction of epoxylated a-C:H surfaces with H, O, N, C and S atoms and HClearly, it would be possible to test the viability of many of the above scenarios by dedicated low-temperature  grains is a rather labile dust element. The re-accretion of carbon in the denser ISM, resulting in the formation of a-C(:H) carbon mantles on all grains, would then seem to be requisite and a natural consequence of its ‘volatility’. Core/mantle-type grain and aggregate structures would then appear to be the norm and such structures are reflected in the organic nano-globules extracted from meteoritic and cometary materials, which were clearly formed in a cold interstellar environment. Indeed, interstellar core/mantle dust models appear to be rather successful in explaining the dust observables, especially effects such as C-shine, and are therefore re-gaining acceptance after first being proposed more that 30 years ago by the late Mayo Greenberg. The latest core/mantle model, THEMIS, is built upon this early foundation but has added a more physically realistic nanoparticle physics and surface chemistry into the mix.O−C<) and aziridination (>CN−C<) in driving interstellar chemistry in diffuse-dense ISM interface regions. This surface functionalization should occur as a result of O and N atom interaction with olefinic-rich a-C:H grains through:One particularly new, innovative and promising idea presented here is the possible role of grain surface epoxylation , to form ketone, aldehyde, carboxylic acid, carboxylate and organic (poly)carbonate functional groups on grain surfaces, could provide a coherent, connected and self-consistent solution to some current interstellar chemistry conundrums, including:This possible role of epoxide structures on interstellar grain surfaces might therefore merit further observational, experimental and modelling explorations.


Mangifera indica L.) is called “king of fruits” due to its sweetness, richness of taste, diversity, large production volume and a variety of end usage. Despite its huge economic importance genomic resources in mango are scarce and genetics of useful horticultural traits are poorly understood. Here we generated deep coverage leaf RNA sequence data for mango parental varieties ‘Neelam’, ‘Dashehari’ and their hybrid ‘Amrapali’ using next generation sequencing technologies. De-novo sequence assembly generated 27,528, 20,771 and 35,182 transcripts for the three genotypes, respectively. The transcripts were further assembled into a non-redundant set of 70,057 unigenes that were used for SSR and SNP identification and annotation. Total 5,465 SSR loci were identified in 4,912 unigenes with 288 type I SSR (n ≥ 20 bp). One hundred type I SSR markers were randomly selected of which 43 yielded PCR amplicons of expected size in the first round of validation and were designated as validated genic-SSR markers. Further, 22,306 SNPs were identified by aligning high quality sequence reads of the three mango varieties to the reference unigene set, revealing significantly enhanced SNP heterozygosity in the hybrid Amrapali. The present study on leaf RNA sequencing of mango varieties and their hybrid provides useful genomic resource for genetic improvement of mango.Mango ( Mangifera indica L.) is an evergreen dicotyledonous angiosperm. Although several tetraploid Mangifera species are reported, cultivated mango is a diploid tree (2n = 40) with a relatively small genome size of 439 Mbp [Mangifera belongs to order Sapindales of the family Anacardiaceae [Mango . Quantification of RNA was done using NanoDrop spectrophotometer and quality check for DNA contamination was done by electrophoresis in 1% denaturing agarose gel. To assess RNA integrity the samples were run on RNA 6000 Pico chip Bioanalyzer (Agilent). The transcriptome library was prepared after quantification and quality check of the Poly(A) RNA using SOLiD total RNA Seq kit for ‘Neelam’ and ‘Dashehari’ and Illumina MiSeq for ‘Amrapali’, respectively.de novo assembly approach using Velvet-Oasis software, which have been developed for short read assembly of transcriptome data and are based on de-Brujin graph algorithm [High quality sequence reads of cDNA libraries were used to generate transcript shotgun assembly (TSA) contigs. Transcripts for ‘Neelam’ and ‘Dashehari’ were assembled via lgorithm , 34 Longlgorithm . The asslgorithm  with defThe final assembled unigene contigs were used for mining of genomic-SSRs using MISA  and SSR Taq DNA polymerase (0.75 U) in a final reaction volume of 15 μl. The PCR reaction profile was denaturation at 94°C for 5 min followed by 35 cycles of 94°C for 1 min, 55°C for 1 min, 72°C for 1 min and finally, 72°C for a final extension of 7 min. Re-screening of primers that did not amplify at these conditions was done by decreasing the annealing temperature sequentially by 1°C, and for the primers producing multiple bands, by increasing the annealing temperature by 1°C [™ 5500 . The SSR profiles were scored manually, each allele was scored as present (1) or absent (0) for each of the SSR loci. The SSR markers giving consistent expected size products only (100–250 bp) were used for further analysis of variation.Genomic DNA was isolated from leaf samples of eight genotypes using CTAB method , quantife by 1°C . The optFor the annotation of TSA unigenes, BLAST algorithm  was usedKEGG Automatic Annotation Server (KAAS)  was usedThe unigene set was used as reference for mapping of high quality filtered sequence reads from all the three varieties using BWA with default parameters . To tracA total of 60,359,815, 58,212,961 and 4,853,226 raw sequence reads were generated for ‘Neelam’ (mango_N), ‘Dashehari’ (mango_D) and ‘Amrapali’ (mango_A), respectively using two runs of SOLiD sequencing with average read length of 50 bp (mango_N and mango_D) and one run of Illumina Miseq 2x250 (mango_A) with average read length of 250 bp. After quality check, adapter trimming and removal of low quality reads, 53,617,132, 47,818,267 and 4,313,270 high quality reads were retained for ‘Neelam’, ‘Dashehari’ and ‘Amrapali’, respectively. We performed three separate de-novo assemblies using Velvet-Oases assembly pipeline and CLC Genomic workbench 6.5.1 for the SOLiD and Miseq data, respectively. The assembly resulted in 27,528, 20,771 and 35,182 transcripts for mango_N, mango_D and mango_A with transcript N50 values of 557 bp, 451 bp and 591 bp and largest transcript size of 3,129 bp, 2,958 bp and 5,891 bp, respectively .TSA contigs of individual genotypes were further assembled into 70,057 non-redundant unigenes set, which was used as reference for the identification of genic-SSR and SNP . The meaRaw sequenced data described in this paper can be found in the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database of the NCBI with SRA Accession number SRR1298995, SRR1297075, SRR1956775 under BioProject Number PRJNA193591, PRJNA193588, PRJNA279829 with TSA Accession number GBVX00000000, GBVW00000000, GEEEC00000000 for ‘Dashehari’, ‘Neelam’ and ‘Amrapali’, respectively.Citrus sinensis (28.76%), followed by Citrus clementina (17.43%), Theobroma cacao (6.8%), Jatropha curcas (4.44%) and Vitis vinifera (4.19%)  of the unigenes showed significant similarity to known proteins and were functionally annotated while 30,259 (43.2%) unigenes showed no significant hits. Mango unigenes showed the highest similarity with  (4.19%) . This rea indica .Gene ontology (GO) terms were assigned successfully to 26,001 of the BLASTX annotated unigenes using BLAST2GO, which were broadly categorized into three main categories; biological process (BP), cellular component (CC) and molecular function (MF) and were further classified into 47 functional groups . The mosTotal 8,958 unigenes were assigned Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers; the highly represented enzyme classes were hydrolases  transferases  and oxidoreductases . The large number of unigenes under these three major enzyme groups indicates expression of genes related to secondary metabolite biosynthesis pathway in the mango leaves , 53.KASS server was used for pathway mapping and orthologous gene assignment for the assembled unigenes, and we mapped 4,977 unigenes to 349 different KEGG pathways. The most represented pathway in terms of total number of hits from the transcript data were “ribosome”, “biosynthesis of amino acids”, “carbon metabolism”, “spliceosome”, “purine metabolism” and RNA transport which is quite similar to the results with the transcriptome of mango variety ‘Kent’ which showed the maximum transcripts representations for “biosynthesis of amino acids”, “ribosome” and “RNA transport” , but it A total of 5,465 SSR loci of different categories  were identified in 4,912 contigs, representing 7.01% of the total 70,057 unigenes. We excluded mononucleotide repeats, complex SSR and those having total lengths of <10 bp because SSR marker based mono-nucleotide repeats are not reproducible due to recombination slippage and PCR amplification problems, whereas complex SSRs show the least polymorphism . This exPCR primers were designed successfully from the unique sequences flanking 1,069 SSR loci for the development of genic-SSR markers and were designated MSSR1 to MSSR1069 (M = Mango). Primers could not be designed for the remaining 4,396 SSR loci because their flanking sequences were either too short or the nature of sequence did not fulfill our criteria for primer design. Of the 1,069 SSR markers, 227 type I SSR loci (n ≥ 20 bp)  were filThe non-redundant set of 70,057 transcripts was used as a reference for mapping of high quality reads from parents (‘Neelam’ and ‘Dashehari’) and hybrid  and total 42,984 SNP positions were identified with full details saved as text file. In-house shell scripts was written which reads the transcript name and its SNP position from this text file, and extracts all the mapping reads information at each SNP position, including the full read name, base call in the mapped read at SNP position and position of the SNP in the reads as well as in the reference transcript. The results were tabulated in an Excel sheet, which included variety wise information on heterozygosity at each SNP position. This helped identify level of heterozygosity in the parents and hybrid ‘Amrapali’ using stringent criteria. After quality filtration we identified 22,306 SNPs in 10,571 transcripts common to all the three genotypes with an average of 2.1 SNPs and a range of 1–16 SNPs per contig .vis-a-vis in its parental lines ‘Neelam’ and ‘Dashehari’ at the same position. ‘Amrapali’ showed 6,831 novel heterozygous SNP loci that were homozygous for contrasting alleles in the two parental varieties, which could be the basis of its superior performance. In addition, ‘Amrapali’ has maintained heterozygosity at 7,561 SNP loci that are heterozygous either in ‘Neelam’  or ‘Dashehari’  or both the parents . On the other hand there were 6,760 SNP loci, which were heterozygous in either one or both the parents but became homozygous in ‘Amrapali’ (We classified the SNPs into two categories: i) homozygous within a variety and ii) heterozygous within a variety, and found that in ‘Neelam’ the proportion of heterozygous SNPs was 49.3% while in ‘Dashehari’ it was only 30.19%. Interestingly, in their hybrid Amrapali the heterozygosity level increased to 64.5% . Furthermrapali’ . The losIn this study we have presented development and validation of a comprehensive set of genic-SSR and SNP markers in mango by deep sequencing of leaf transcriptome using next generation sequencing technology. Considering the need to generate large number of molecular markers for mango breeding applications, a set of 288 type I genic-SSR markers were developed, and a subset of these was validated successfully for robust amplification in eight mango varieties. These markers can be used for diversity analysis and genetic mapping of useful horticultural traits in mango. In addition, an analysis of 22,306 SNP loci in hybrid mango clone ‘Amrapali’ and its parental lines ‘Neelam’ and ‘Dashehari’ revealed substantially higher heterozygosity in ‘Amrapali’. Among the parental lines ‘Neelam’ showed significantly higher level of heterozygosity than ‘Dashehari’. The identified genic-SNPs provide much-needed resource for the development of high density, cost-effective genotyping assays which would greatly help the mango breeding programs and genome wide association studies for the yield and quality traits in mango.S1 FigCitrus sinensis (28.76%), Citrus clementina (17.43%), Theobroma cacao (6.8%), Jatropha curcas (4.44%) and Vitis vinifera (4.19%).Mango transcripts showed highest similarity with (TIF)Click here for additional data file.S2 FigThe most abundant SSRs were with five reiterations, the frequency of a given SSR structure and the number of repeat units in it showed an inverse relationship.(TIF)Click here for additional data file.S1 Table(XLSX)Click here for additional data file.S2 Table(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.S3 Table(XLSX)Click here for additional data file.


P = 0.004) as compared with < 60 Gy, especially in Asian countries . However, contradictory results of treatment benefit for ≥ 60 Gy were observed in two studies from Western countries, and the pooled treatment benefit of ≥ 60 Gy radiation was inconclusive . There was a marginal benefit in locoregional control in those treated with high dose (> 50.4/51 Gy) radiation when compared with those treated with low dose (≤ 50.4/51 Gy) radiation . Patients that received ≥ 60 Gy radiation had better locoregional control , and for distant metastasis control, neither the > 50.4 Gy nor the ≥ 60 Gy treated group had any treatment benefit as compared to the groups that received ≤ 50.4 Gy and < 60 Gy group respectively. Taken together, a dose range of 50 to 70 Gy radiation with CCRT is recommended for non-operable EC patients. A dose of ≥ 60 Gy appears to be better in improving overall survival and locoregional control, especially in Asian countries, while the benefit of ≥ 60 Gy radiation in Western countries still remains controversial.The standard radiation dose 50.4 Gy with concurrent chemotherapy for localized inoperable esophageal cancer as supported by INT-0123 trail is now being challenged since a radiation dose above 50 Gy has been successfully administered with an observable dose–response relationship and insignificant untoward effects. Therefore, to ascertain the treatment benefits of different radiation doses, we performed a meta-analysis with 18 relative publications. According to our findings, a dose between 50 and 70 Gy appears optimal and patients who received ≥ 60 Gy radiation had a significantly better prognosis (pooled HR = 0.78,  Esophageal cancer (EC) has a very high incidence and mortality rate worldwide. Approximately 75% of all cases occur in Asia with China bearing the largest burden, accounting for about 50% of the total cases and cancer specific deaths . Surgeryhttps://www.nccn.org). Up until the time of putting together this meta-analysis, there were no RCTs that looked at evaluating varying radiation doses in non-surgical patients )) and (“tumor”[Title]) or (“cancer”[Title]) or (“carcinoma”[Title]) or (“neoplasm”[Title]) or (“neoplasms”[Title])) and (“radiotherapy”[Title]) or (“radiation”[Title]) or (“chemoradiation”[Title]) or (“chemoradiotherapy”[Title]) or (“radiochemotherapy” [Title]) or (“irradiation” [Title]) or (“chemo-irradiation”[Title]) or (“chemo-radiotherapy”[Title])) and (“dose” [Abstract]). There was no language restriction.The primary endpoints considered were frequency of LRF and DMF, HRs with their 95% CIs for OS after treatment. Patients were classified by radiation dose using a threshold as defined by the individual studies.http://digitizer.sourceforge.net/) and the resulting data were then entered in the calculation spreadsheet appended to Tierney’s paper.Data were extracted from the primary publications. Two authors (Y Chen and HP Zhu) independently reviewed the studies to exclude irrelevant or overlapping studies and extracted the data from all included studies. For each study, the following details were extracted: name of the first author, year of publication, sample size, age of the patients, study period, geographic area, radiation technology, radiation dose of whole group, chemotherapy regimens, radiation dose in LD and HD groups, pathological types, clinical stage and median follow-up time. Disparities were discussed until a consensus was reached. The frequencies of LRF and DMF from the different groups were expressed as an OR with its 95% CI. If a figure for HR and 95% CI was not available, an estimate value was calculated indirectly by using the methods described by Tierney et al. . Survivahttp://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.htm) was performed to assess each study. The quality categories were defined as follows: high quality (score 7–9), medium quality (score 4–6) and low quality (score less than 4) [For non-randomized studies, the 9-star Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (Available from:  than 4) . Quality than 4) . This sc than 4) .Z test. Statistical heterogeneity was assessed using the Cochran‘s Q and I2 statistics as concluded by Chen et al [2 = 25%–50%, 50%–75%, and > 75% mean low, moderate and high heterogeneity, respectively with I2>50% suggesting significant heterogeneity. A random-effect model was conducted to analyze the estimates when significant heterogeneity was found among the studies; otherwise, a fixed-effect model was used. Publication biases among the studies were performed. Egger’s publication bias plots of (< 60 Gy vs ≥ 60 Gy) meta-analysis and (< 60 Gy vs ≥ 60 Gy from Asian countries) subgroup meta-analysis were used to find any evidence of publication bias. Egger’s test, estimated by STATA , was performed to measure the publication bias. Statistical significance was defined as p < 0.05. Subgroup analyses were performed according to threshold of radiation dose and the different geographic areas.RevMan 5.3 analysis software  was used to obtain pooled statistics for HRs of OS or ORs of LRF and DMF. The statistical significance of the pooled estimates was examined by a en et al . Briefly


Prior studies indicate that the semantic radical in Chinese characters contains category information that can support the independent retrieval of category information through the lexical network to the conceptual network. Inductive reasoning relies on category information; thus, semantic radicals may influence inductive reasoning. As most natural concepts are hierarchically structured in the human brain, this study examined how semantic radicals impact inductive reasoning for hierarchical concepts. The study used animal and plant nouns, organized in basic, superordinate, and subordinate levels; half had a semantic radical and half did not. Eighteen participants completed an inductive reasoning task. Behavioural and event-related potential (ERP) data were collected. The behavioural results showed that participants reacted faster and more accurately in the with-semantic-radical condition than in the without-semantic-radical condition. For the ERPs, differences between the conditions were found, and these differences lasted from the very early cognitive processing stage  to the relatively late processing stages . Semantic radicals can help to distinguish the hierarchies earlier (in the N400 period) than characters without a semantic radical (in the LPC period). These results provide electrophysiological evidence that semantic radicals may improve sensitivity to distinguish between hierarchical concepts. In natural categories, items form a hierarchical structure whereby each level has a different degree of abstraction, with greater abstraction at higher levels9. Usually, humans organize natural categories into subordinate , basic , and superordinate  levels. An important function of categories is to support inferences10. Inductive inferences go beyond the available data in a fundamental way and arrive at conclusions that are likely, but not certain, given the available evidence12. Inductive inference is closely related to linguistic information: research has revealed that linguistic information facilitates the acquisition of superordinate-level but not basic-level categories13. Other research has found that nouns facilitate superordinate classification, but render subordinate classification more difficult14. Studies of children and adults alike have found that a superordinate level label  leads to improved short- and longer-term memory recall15.A multitude of studies examining the relationship between language and thought  denoting the metal category per se. Nearly 80% of commonly used Chinese characters have a pictophonetic structure , 71% of which have pictophonetic characters that conform to the rule that the semantic radical provides category information, and the phonetic radical provides pronunciation information . Regarding the aforementioned question, plutonium (“”) and zinc (“”) are both pictophonetic characters. They contain the same semantic radical , and can be easily judged as metal objects even if an individual does not understand the exact meaning of the character. In Mandarin Chinese, the semantic radical serves as a category label for all category levels. For instance, the semantic radical “” labels metal objects. This semantic radical applies to category members at both the subordinate and the basic levels, which clearly indexes category membership. Even as young as 4-years-old, Chinese children can understand the category membership indexed by a semantic radical20.Research into natural category recognition has found that language affects classification processing. For example, both Mandarin Chinese and English can provide explicit labels that denote category membership. In studies of English-speaking children, an explicit cue like 21 and two-character words22. Words with semantic radicals garner shorter reaction times than those without semantic radicals. In addition, the above study also found that semantic radicals facilitated the reorganization of atypical items, whereby faster responses were obtained to atypical items with semantic radicals than to typical items without semantic radicals. Electrophysiological evidence from a semantic-classification task, wherein participants judged the membership of atypical  versus typical  pictorial exemplars of a category , showed that English speakers exhibited larger N400 event-related potential (ERPs) component differences between typical and atypical members, whereas Mandarin speakers showed no such differences for morphologically transparent nouns . However, orthographically transparent items elicited moderate N300 and N400 effects . Thus, the semantic radical did not engender facilitation in this ERP study, which contradicts the behavioural study of Zhang and Peng21. However, in the behavioural study, the variable was the semantic radical; the researchers compared Chinese words with and without semantic radicals. In contrast, in the ERP study, the variables were the language and type of transparency. That is, English and Chinese were compared as morphologically transparent and orthographically transparent. Thus, whether the semantic radical can facilitate category processing as indicated by ERPs remains unclear.Studies have shown that a semantic radical can facilitate categorization for single-23. Therefore, the representation of a radical at the radical level, and the representation of that radical at the concept level are reciprocally linked. A semantic radical can be represented not only at the lexical level, but it can also allow independent access to the conceptual level24. Generally, a skilled reader develops word representation that includes strong interconnections among the three lexical constituents; that is, orthography, phonology, and semantics26. When a character contains a semantic radical, it generates a processing bias: semantic radicals correctly pertaining to a character’s meaning facilitate reaction times in a semantic categorization task, and the semantic path appears to be the default means of character recognition27. ERP evidence for semantic radical processing has revealed that, compared to a condition without a semantic radical, a larger N400 is found in a “with-semantic-radical” condition than in a “without-semantic-radical” condition. The greater N400 elicited by a Chinese character with a high-frequency radical can be interpreted in terms of impeded processing due to inhibition from a greater radical-neighbourhood28. Another study has also regarded the N400 as an index for impeded character processing29. The N400 component was first found in a sentence comprehension study, which indicated that its magnitude is modulated by semantic relationships, with larger N400 magnitudes occurring for semantic anomalies30. A larger N400 is found when processing pictophonetic characters, suggesting that more cognitive resources are needed when processing pictophonetic characters than when processing single characters.The retrieval of category information from semantic radicals is closely related to the processing of Chinese characters. Chinese characters are first represented at the feature level, passed to the radical level where the radicals are combined into complex characters, and finally the intended concept can be accessed. Additionally, the semantic radical can allow retrieval of the concept information independently31. Recent studies about reasoning have indicated that P3 amplitudes reflect the satisfaction of expectations. That is, the P3 amplitude was relatively large when tasks were undemanding, whereas more difficult demands usually reduced the P3 amplitude32. Late ERP components, such as the N400 and LPC, were also found for the processing of categorization tasks. Studies have shown that the N400 can also index category membership34, whereby typical members usually elicit a more moderate negative wave than atypical members. This suggests that the clearer the relationship, the smaller the N400 magnitude. During reasoning, the LPC component is modulated by the strength of a premise and conclusion; the LPC component is larger in amplitude in a mismatching-premise condition than in a matching-premise condition35.Previous studies have revealed that ERP components, such as the N1, P3, N400, and LPC are sensitive to inductive reasoning, and the N1 is sensitive to selective attention, which influences the further processing of perceptual features22; on the other hand, there is evidence that more effort is required to process pictophonetic characters than to process single characters29. Combining these two sides together, it is difficult to discern how pictophonetic characters facilitate inductive reasoning in the former studies. Moreover, linguistic information is more closely related to superordinate-level concept processing in studies of syllabic languages. Whether the same is true of logographic languages, such as Chinese, remains unclear.Semantic radicals can allow access to concept-level information independent of category information retrieval, and there is evidence that characters with semantic radicals facilitate categorization compared to those without semantic radicals. Accordingly, we hypothesized that characters with semantic radicals  would facilitate inductive reasoning regarding hierarchical concepts, and the facilitation would be closely related to the processing of pictophonetic characters. However, when considering the processing of pictophonetic characters, confusion has emerged. On the one hand, existing evidence  has shown that pictophonetic characters facilitate categorization and reasoning compared to single charactersTherefore, the main purpose of this study was to clarify how semantic radicals facilitate category-based induction. We hypothesized that semantic radicals would facilitate hierarchical category-based inductive reasoning. In detail, a with-semantic-radical condition was expected to elicit faster reaction times and a higher accuracy rate. As semantic radicals provide physical similarity, a larger N1 amplitude may be elicited. Based on the aforementioned evidence that more difficult demands usually reduce P3 amplitudes, a lower P3 was expected to be elicited in the with-semantic-radical condition. As there is evidence that semantic radicals can facilitate the categorization, a lower LPC amplitude was expected in the with-semantic-radical condition. However, as there is conflicting evidence regarding the N400 component, it is difficult to infer the situation. As characters were used as the material in this study, the induction was based on linguistic processing: thus, in accordance with the results of linguistic studies, a larger N400 amplitude was expected in the with-semantic-radical condition.To test this hypothesis, an inductive reasoning task was employed in which a subordinate-level concept was used as a premise, and the result could be the subordinate-, basic-, or superordinate-level concept. ERPs were recorded to investigate the electrophysiological underpinnings because this would also help confirm the detailed processing time periods.F = 7.441, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.304, and semantic radicals F = 6.480, p = 0.021, ηp2 = 0.271 were found, with participants reacting faster in the with-semantic-radical condition than in the without-semantic-radical condition. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of the levels showed that subordinate-subordinate reasoning elicited slower reactions than the subordinate-basic (p = 0.024) and subordinate-superordinate (p = 0.002) reasoning. There was no interaction between the levels and semantic radicals F = 0.735, p = 0.461, ηp2 = 0.041.Main effects of the levels F = 2.841, p = 0.095, ηp2 = 0.143 was not found, but a main effect of the semantic radicals F = 56.738, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.769, was found; participants were more accurate in the with-semantic-radical condition than in the without-semantic-radical condition. An interaction between the levels and semantic radicals was found F = 5.574, p = 0.016, ηp2 = 0.247. A simple effects analysis showed that the main effect of semantic radicals was found in the subordinate-subordinate F = 42.492, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.714, subordinate-basic F = 21.156, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.554, and subordinate-superordinate reasoning F = 8.132, p = 0.011, ηp2 = 0.324. Another simple effects analysis showed that the main effect of the levels emerged in the without-semantic-radical condition F = 11.225, p < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.584, and a post-hoc test indicated that subordinate-basic induction was more accurate than the subordinate-subordinate induction (p < 0.001). No other significant results were found  = 2.599, p = 0.091, ηp2 = 0.133 was not found, but a main effect was found for the semantic radicals F = 6.235, p = 0.023, ηp2 = 0.268; a larger N1 amplitude was found in the with-semantic-radical condition. Main effects of frontality F = 4.475, p = 0.045, ηp2 = 0.208 and laterality F = 11.145, p = 0.001, ηp2 = 0.396 were found. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of frontality indicated that the frontal central (p = 0.023) and central sites (p = 0.009) elicited a larger negative amplitude than the parietal site. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of laterality also found that the middle line showed a larger negative amplitude than the left (p = 0.002) and right (p < 0.001) sides  = 3.142, p = 0.059, ηp2 = 0.156 was not found, but a main effect was found for the semantic radicals F = 4.770, p = 0.043, ηp2 = 0.219, with a larger P3 amplitude found in the without-semantic-radical condition. Main effects of frontality F = 33.203, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.661, and laterality F = 7.712, p = 0.003, ηp2 = 0.312, were also found. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of frontality indicated that the frontal site showed a larger positive amplitude than the central site (p = 0.002), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001). The central frontal site showed a larger positive amplitude than the central site (p < 0.001), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001). The central site showed a larger positive amplitude than the central parietal (p < 0.001) and parietal sit (p < 0.001) site; and the central parietal site showed a larger positive amplitude than the parietal site (p = 0.019). A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of laterality found that the middle line showed a lower positive amplitude than the left (p = 0.003) and right (p = 0.009) sides.A main effect of the concept levels F = 1.911, p = 0.173, ηp2 = 0.101 was not found, but a main effect was found for the semantic radicals F = 8.952, p = 0.008, ηp2 = 0.249, with a larger N400 being found in the with-semantic-radical condition. An interaction between the concept levels and semantic radicals was found F = 12.766, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.429, and a simple effects analysis showed that the main effect of the concept levels was found in the with-semantic-radical condition F = 4.431, p = 0.029, ηp2 = 0.249, but not in the without-semantic-radical condition F = 0.507, p = 0.612, ηp2 = 0.060. The post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of the with-semantic-radical condition indicated that subordinate-subordinate reasoning elicited a larger negative amplitude than the subordinate-basic (p = 0.011) and subordinate-superordinate (p = 0.016) reasoning. Another way of simple effects analysis found a difference of semantic radicals in the subordinate-subordinate (p < 0.001) and subordinate-superordinate reasoning (p < 0.034), larger N400 wave were found in the with-semantic-radical condition.A main effect of the concept levels F = 114.828, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.871 was found, but a main effect of laterality was not found F = 2.105, p = 0.143, ηp2 = 0.110. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of frontality showed that the frontal site had a larger negative amplitude than the central frontal site (p = 0.001), central site (p < 0.001), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001); the frontal central site showed a larger negative amplitude than the central site (p < 0.001), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001); the central parietal site showed a larger negative amplitude than the parietal site (p < 0.001) and parietal site (p < 0.001); and the central parietal site showed a larger negative amplitude than the parietal site (p = 0.015).A main effect of frontality F = 4.00, p = 0.034, ηp2 = 0.190, and semantic radicals F = 9.626, p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.362 were found, with a larger positive amplitude in the without-semantic-radical condition. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of the concept levels found that the subordinate-subordinate reasoning elicited a larger positive amplitude than the subordinate-basic reasoning (p = 0.052).Main effects of the concept levels F = 30.657, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.643 was found, but this was not found for laterality F = 2.964, p = 0.091, ηp2 = 0.148. A post-hoc test (Bonferroni) of frontality indicated that the frontal site showed a larger positive amplitude than the central site (p = 0.006), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001); the frontal central site showed a larger negative amplitude than the central site (p < 0.001), central parietal site (p < 0.001), and parietal site (p < 0.001); and the central parietal site showed a larger negative amplitude than the parietal site (p < 0.001) and parietal site (p = 0.045).  = 3.221, p = 0.046, ηp2 = 0.087. A simple effects analysis found that for the with-semantic-radical condition, the concept level effect occurred in the N400 time period F = 6.111, p = 0.009, ηp2 = 0.264, the subordinate-subordinate inference elicited a larger N400 amplitude than the subordinate-basic (p = 0.011) and subordinate-superordinate (p = 0.016) inferences, and there was no concept level effect in the LPC period F = 2.120, p = 0.145, ηp2 = 0.110. For the without-semantic-radical condition, the concept level effect was not found in the N400 time period F = 0.877, p = 0.396, ηp2 = 0.049, but it did occur in the LPC time period F = 5.833, p = 0.0126, ηp2 = 0.255.The above results imply that the concept level effect occurred earlier in the with-semantic-radical condition  than in the without-semantic-radical condition . In order to test the reliability of this time effect, we conducted a separate analysis of variance (ANOVA) of the timing (N400 and LPC), concept level effect, and semantic radical effect. As the main purpose of the test was to examine the timing effect, the electrode position effect was not taken into consideration. A three-way interaction between timing, concept level, and semantic radical was found In the present study, a main effect of concept level was found for the reaction times but not for accuracy. Post-hoc tests indicated that subordinate-subordinate inferences required the longest reaction time. This result may be due to the similarity of the subordinate concepts leading to a longer time requirement to discriminate between them.More importantly, the main effect of a semantic radical was significant for both reaction time and accuracy. Characters with a semantic radical engendered faster reaction times and greater accuracy, which indicates that semantic radicals facilitated inductive inferences in terms of behavioural performance. Furthermore, an interaction was present between the concept level and semantic radical for accuracy. In the without-semantic-radical condition, a main effect of levels was found. The subordinate-basic level showed the highest accuracy, while no main effect of level emerged in the with-semantic-radical condition, which suggests that semantic radicals reduced the difference between the three levels. For the behavioural data, it can be concluded that semantic radicals facilitated the category-based induction in all three hierarchies.36. During the N1 time window, the characters were processed at the feature level, and a larger N1 was found in the with-semantic-radical condition, indicating that greater attentional resources were captured by the semantic radicals. In this study, characters with semantic radicals have more strokes than those without, which may indicate that the more complex a character is, the more attention it attracts. The N1 wave in our study showed a frontal-central distribution, which could originate from the motor cortex, supplementary motor area, and/or cingulate gyrus37.Regarding the ERPs, for the N1, P3, N400, and LPC, a main effect of semantic radicals was found in all time periods. The N1 component indicates spatially selective attention, which is modulated by covert orienting such that a greater amplitude is observed for attended areas than for unattended areas32, and the lower P3 amplitude elicited in the with-semantic-radical condition may indicate that more effort was needed when recognizing pictophonetic characters than recognizing those with a semantic radical. This may be related to the processing of pictophonetic characters; unlike the phonetic-semantic method of syllabic languages, logograph characters, like those used in Chinese, employ a special picture-semantic method. Compared to characters without a semantic radical, pictophonetic characters involve a more complex processing period in which the semantic radical and phonetic radical are first separated at the radical level to retrieve its information. They are then combined at the character level to access the actual meaning, while characters without a semantic radical are processed as a feature and then transferred to the character level. In addition, fMRI studies of Chinese character processing have found that intrinsic orthographical information may also require additional orthographic-to-semantic mapping to be accessed. As such, more need more semantic processing of characters containing semantic radicals is required compared with those without semantic radicals. Thus, P3 can serve as an index of selective attention38. The parietal distribution of the P3 component in our study should be regarded as a task-relevant P3b component39. The P3b originates when temporal-parietal mechanisms process stimulus information for memory storage40, and the amplitude of the P3 elicited by a stimulus is predictive of later memory for that stimulus41. Thus, the smaller P3b for the characters with a semantic radical reflects the increased attention consumption for information retrieval from memory for the category.A previous study found that more difficult demands usually reduce the P3 amplitude42. Moreover, other studies showed that the N400 could also index category membership34. These results suggest that the clearer the relationship is, the smaller the N400 magnitude should be. In the present study, an interaction between the semantic radicals and concept levels was found during the N400 time period, indicating that the semantic radicals and concept levels impact inductive reasoning in a combined fashion. The simple effects analysis showed that a larger N400 amplitude of the with-semantic-radical characters was found for subordinate-subordinate and subordinate-superordinate reasoning, while no effect was shown in the subordinate-basic reasoning. This may be because the basic-level concept has processing priority13. The larger N400 observed in the with-semantic-radical condition may be due to the processing of pictophonetic characters. Wu et al.28 found that the greater N400 elicited by Chinese characters with a high-frequency radical  can be interpreted in terms of impeded processing due to inhibition from a greater radical-neighbourhood. Another study also regarded the N400 as an index for impeded character processing27. Thus, the larger N400 found in the with-semantic-radical condition may relate to Chinese character processing; because characters with semantic radicals are more complex than those without, more cognitive resources may be required during semantic information retrieval.The N400 component was first found in a sentence comprehension study, which indicated that its magnitude is modulated by semantic relationships, with larger N400 magnitudes occurring for semantic anomalies35. In the present study, a larger LPC was found in the without-semantic-radical condition, which means that participants may have lower confidence for a without-semantic-radical conclusion. The LPC component showed a posterior distribution. A previous study has revealed that a more posterior distribution of the LPC/P600/SPS indicates a parsing failure and/or an attempt to revise the syntactic structure43.The LPC component is modulated by the strength of a premise and conclusion; the LPC component is larger in amplitude in a mismatching-premise condition than in a matching-premise conditionThe timing analysis clearly shows that, in the with-semantic-radical condition, the concept level effect was observed during the N400 time window, while it emerged during the P600 time window in the without-semantic-radical condition. This finding means that a semantic radical can help to distinguish the hierarchical category concepts earlier. As the behavioural data showed that characters with semantic radicals enjoyed faster reaction times and a higher accuracy rate, this indicates that the semantic radical actually facilitated inductive reasoning. As the inductive reasoning task in our study was based on hierarchical category concepts, the mechanism underlying facilitation may be that the earlier the hierarchy can be distinguished, the easier/faster induction can be.23. A semantic radical is first processed at the feature level, wherein its physical features are recognized. This is the perceptual processing stage, which is indicated by the N1 component, wherein characters with semantic radicals capture more attentional resources and thus elicit a larger N1.The facilitation of inferences by semantic radicals is closely related to the activation of semantic information processing, as shown in the radical representation modelThe second stage is processing at the radical level. During this stage, semantic information spreads from the lexical network to the conceptual network. As the ERP evidence showed, during the P3 and N400 time periods, more effort was required for characters with a semantic radical, as there are more radicals in this condition than in the without-semantic-radical condition. As the N400 component relates to semantic relationships, the P3 time window may be an index of the information spread from the lexical network to the conceptual network, because increased information content in a pictophonetic character results in more difficult processing.The third stage is the character level, in which not only semantic information but also category information is accessed. As the hierarchical conceptual levels are more abstract than the actual meaning of each word, and the recognition of the hierarchical levels means that the character has reached the conceptual level, not only can the actual meaning be accessed, but also the abstract level can be fully recognized. The recognition occurred earlier when a character had a semantic radical (N400 period) than when it did not (LPC period).In summary, facilitation of inductive inferences by semantic radicals is closely related to the semantic radical information retrieval processes. Activation starts from the physical features, passes to the lexical network, and then spreads to the conceptual network, with different mechanisms at each stage. The semantic radical main effect lasted from the N1 period to the LPC period, while the category hierarchy effect only emerged from the N400 period. This may indicate that semantic radical information retrieval was earlier than category information, that category hierarchy processing is based on semantic information retrieval, and that the semantic radical can help to distinguish between the hierarchies earlier. Moreover, the combined behavioural and ERP results together demonstrate that a semantic radical can have a great impact on category-based induction in all three levels. The differences revealed by the characters with and without a semantic radical reflects how language shapes our thoughts; the facilitation caused by the semantic radical is not innate, but is gradually formed during the use of pictophonetic characters.In conclusion, the physical and/or semantic features of semantic radicals facilitate the inductive inference of hierarchical concepts. Such facilitation is closely related to semantic radical processing as lexical information was accessed earlier than conceptual information. Semantic radicals facilitate category-based induction in all three hierarchies. Semantic radicals can help to distinguish between the hierarchies earlier than characters without a semantic radical.Eighteen healthy undergraduate students  participated in the study. All participants were right-handed with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, and they had no history of brain injury or mental illness. They had not taken part in similar experiments before. All received reimbursement for their participation after the experiment. The experiment was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki . All experimental protocols were approved by the University’s ethics committee (the Ethics Committee of Kunming University), and the methods were carried out in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. All participants were fully informed of the experimental procedure and other requirements, and they signed an informed consent form before experiments commenced.animal and plant) and six basic concepts were chosen . The basic concepts were easily classified due to their high frequency of use. Participants within the same participant pool who did not take part in the experiment were asked to write down as many members as possible of each basic concept category. Then, another group of 40 participants rated the typicality and familiarity of the members generated using a 7-point scale, where 7 indicated “typical,” 4 indicated “uncertain,” and 1 indicated “atypical.” For each category, the top 10 words with and without a semantic radical were selected for the main study. The semantic radical for the bird category is “”, for the insect category is “”, for the flower category is “”, for the mammal category is “”, for the vegetable category is “”, and for the fruit category is “” and “”. Because there were few members of the insect and bird categories without a semantic radical, only eight members from the insect and bird categories each without a semantic radical were chosen, so that 60 members of categories with semantic radicals and 56 members of categories without semantic radicals were selected for the six basic categories. The words with a semantic radical differed significantly from those without a semantic radical (t(55) = 8.73, p < 0.01) in terms of their typicality rating, which could be due to material attributes. Semantic radicals relevant to the category were used for typical members, which were expected to facilitate the classification processes. The typicality of the two groups of materials was matched by deleting the 10 words with the highest score for semantic radicals and the six lowest words for those without semantic radicals. Thus, the words with and without semantic radicals were equal in number . A paired t-test indicated that the typicality did not differ between groups (t(49) = 1.692, p = 0.097). Furthermore, when preparing materials, we not only asked students to rate the typicality, but also the familiarity, using a 7-point scale, where 7 indicated very familiar while 1 meant not familiar at all. A simple t-test for familiarity showed that there was no difference between with-semantic and without semantic radical conditions  = 1.660, p = 0.103). A significant difference was found in stroke numbers  = 3.340, p = 0.002); there are more strokes in characters that have semantic radicals.In the experiment, two superordinate concepts , and they then participated in the classification test. In the classification test, the name of a subordinate level concept  was shown, and then a basic level or a superordinate level name followed. Participants were asked if the former name was a member of the latter category. The learning phase lasted approximately 10–30 minutes. Only when the accuracy reached 90% did the participant proceed to the next stage. Participants repeated the learning phase until 90% accuracy was reached.There were two independent variables: namely, hierarchy  and semantic radical . The experiment used a 3 × 2 within-subjects design, with 720 trials in total. For each level of hierarchy, there were 240 trials, which consisted of 120 “yes” responses and 120 “no” responses. After each set of 80 trials, participants took a 5 minute break. The participants sat 60 cm from a screen  and were asked to fixate on its centre. The E-Prime 2.0 software and a hardware response box  were used to present the stimuli.At the beginning of each trial, a fixation cross was presented in the centre of a grey screen for 500 ms. Subsequently, a randomly chosen premise (a Chinese word) appeared in the centre of the screen for 650 ms, followed by a blank screen for 100 ms. Then, a capital letter, for example “X,” was presented in the centre of the screen for 100 ms, followed by a blank screen. The capital letter denoted that the premise had the characteristics of X . Because six basic level categories were employed in the study, six letters were chosen . The main purpose of the task was to perform inductive reasoning regarding whether a specific feature was shown . Therefore, as participants could solve the inductive reasoning based on their knowledge rather than induction, abstract letters were chosen to represent a feature of each category.Subsequently, the result was shown, and participants judged whether the results had the same character X as the premise. If no response was obtained after 3,000 ms, the experiment continued with the next trial. A response or no response was followed by a blank screen of 1,000–1,200 ms duration see Fig. .Figure 4The instructions for the experiment were as follows: you will see a fixation cross at the centre of the screen. Subsequently, you will see the name of an object and then a capital letter, for example “X,” will be presented at the centre of the screen. The capital letter means that the premise object has the characteristics of X, and the X is standing for the character. After the capital letter, you will see another object’s name. Your task is to judge whether the latter object possesses the feature “X.” If you consider that the latter object has the feature “X,” press the “1” key. Otherwise, press the “5” key. Before the formal experiment, there is a practice session. After the practice, if you still have questions about the experimental requirements, you can seek help from the experimenter and repeat the practice. Please react as quickly and as accurately as possible.During the practice session, when the participants performed the correct reasoning, they saw the mark “√” after the judgment . There were different capital letters assigned to each category, “A” for bird, “B” for insect, “C” for mammal, “W” for vegetable, “X” for fruit, and “Y” for flower.39. The impedance of all electrodes was maintained below 5 kΩ. The horizontal electrooculograms (EOGs) were recorded from the orbital rims of both eyes. The vertical EOG was recorded from the left eye both supraorbitally and infraorbitally. The signals were band-pass filtered (0.05–100 Hz) and continuously sampled at the 500 Hz/channel for offline analysis. Offline computerized artifact rejection software was used to eliminate trials with EOG artifacts (mean EOG voltage exceeding ± 80 μV). There were over 40 trials for each of the three levels of the hierarchy , which meets the criteria for ERP analysis44. Repeated-measures ANOVAs were performed on the mean amplitudes within the time windows, with the factors of hierarchy , semantic radical , laterality , and frontality . For all analyses, the degrees of freedom of the F ratio were corrected for violations of the sphericity assumption based on the Greenhouse-Geisser correction, and Bonferroni corrections were used for each comparison.Brain electrophysiological activity was recorded from 64 Ag/AgCl electrodes mounted on an elastic cap , with a ground electrode on the medial frontal line, using the FCz online reference and offline algebraic re-reference analysis to the left and right mastoids


FecB) gene and its association with multiple birth and postnatal growth in Chhotanagpuri sheep.Chhotanagpuri breed of sheep reared for mutton in Jharkhand, India, having problem of low litter size and body weight. The response of genetic improvement for traits with low heritability through traditional selection method is time-consuming. Therefore, marker-assisted selection based on a polymorphism study of suitable candidate gene can response quickly. Thus, this study was aimed at identification of different allelic and genotypic frequencies of Booroola fecundity  heavier than those of “AB” and “AA” genotype at 52 weeks of age.“AA,” “AB,” and “BB” genotypes were found at locus-1 as it is polymorphic for “BB” genotype has emerged as favored genotype for multiple births and better growth indicator. Therefore, homozygous lambs for “B” allele should be selected and utilized in breeding program for better growth rate. InevitaFecB) is an autosomal gene, which enhances ovulation rate through codominant effect and litter size by partial dominance [FecB locus is situated in the region of ovine chromosome 6, which is syntenic to human chromosome 4 [The prolificacy trait is quantitative in nature and controlled by multiple genes . Improveominance ,6. The Fmosome 4 . High prmosome 4 ,9. The Bmosome 4 -13.FecB gene and its association with multiple birth and postnatal growth in Chhotanagpuri sheep.Hence, this study has been undertaken to identify different allelic and genotypic frequencies of All the animal experiments were conducted after approval of committee for the purpose of control and supervision of experiments on animals.th, 8th, 12th, 24th, 36th, 48th, and 52nd week of age. Birth weights of lambs were recorded within 2 h of birth. Body weights were recorded in the morning before offering feed.This investigation was conducted on 92 Chhotanagpuri lambs maintained under Mega sheep seed project, at Instructional Small Ruminant Farm of Ranchi Veterinary College, Birsa Agricultural University, Kanke, Jharkhand, India. The lambs were maintained under natural feeding system during pre-weaning period (0-3 months of age) with their dams. However, adult sheep were maintained under semi-intensive system of management with 7-8 h of grazing daily. To study the growth rate, absolute body weights of Chhotanagpuri sheep were recorded at birth, 4et al. [The jugular blood samples of 92 individuals (5 ml each) from Chhotanagpuri lambs were collected in vacutainer tubes containing ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as anticoagulant. Cold chain was maintained throughout the sampling process. Genomic DNA was isolated from white blood cells using standard phenol-chloroform-Isoamyl alcohol method as per the standard protocol described by Sambrook et al. . The extFecB gene was amplified from the genomic DNA of Chhotanagpuri lambs by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using forward (5’- CCAGAGGACAATAGCAAAGCAAA-3’) and reverse primer (5’- CAAGATGTTTTCATGCCTCATCAACAGGTC-3’) reported elsewhere [® PCR system 9700, Applied Biosystems, USA) using PCR reaction mixture containing 1.5 µl 10× PCR buffer, 0.5 µl magnesium chloride (25 mM), 0.5 µl (10 mM) dNTPs, 0.5 µl (20 ng/µl) of each primer, 1U of Taq polymerase , and 1.5 µl diluted genomic DNA (50 µg/µl). The final volume was adjusted to 25 µl by adding nuclease-free water. The thermocycling steps consisted of initial denaturation at 94°C for 3 min; while the cycling parameter consisted of denaturing step of 30s at 94°C, an annealing step of 30s at 58°C and an extension step of 30s at 72°C for 33 cycles; while the final extension step of 7 min was performed at 72°C. A non-template control reaction was simultaneously run to eliminate reagent contamination. The amplified products were resolved on 2% agarose gel in Tris-acetate EDTA buffer (×1). The agarose gel was stained with ethidium bromide and documented under UV light in a gel documentation system .The 190 bp fragment of the FecB gene fragment.Single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) of PCR amplified FecB gene was carried out by diluting 4 µl amplified PCR product to 10 µl of SSCP gel loading dye . After denaturation at 95°C for 5 min, the samples were snap chilled immediately on ice for 10 min. Then, the contents were separated using 12% vertical acrylamide: bis-acrylamide gel electrophoresis at 8 V/cm for 16 h under refrigerated condition (29:1 acrylamide to bisacrylamide). The SSCP patterns of DNA fragments were visualized by silver staining of the polyacrylamide gel after electrophoresis [The SSCP analysis of phoresis .® PCR purification kit  to remove primer dimers and other PCR ingredients before custom sequencing following manufacturer’s instructions. Custom sequencing of the purified PCR products from four selected animals was performed in both the directions using DNA sequencing service provided by Xcelris, Hyderabad following BigDye terminator v3.1 Cycle Sequencing Method .The PCR products were purified using PureLinkhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) on BLASTN searches [The sequence chromatogram was annotated with BioEdit Sequence Alignment Editor Software version 7.0.5 . The annotated sequences were identified based on being the closest match to the sequences submitted in the nonredundant GenBank nucleotide database . The statistical significance of various fixed effect was studied by F-test. Whenever, the effect was significant, the differences were tested for significance by Duncan’s multiple range test as modified by Kramer [The genotypic frequency, as well as the frequency of different alleles of y Kramer  at 5% leThe 260/280 nm absorbance ratio for all the DNA samples ranged from 1.7 to 1.9 indicating acceptable quality of genomic DNA which was confirmed by visualization in agarose gel. PCR amplified product showed a prominent band of 190 bp size shown in SSCP revealed a polymorphic pattern with three genotypes, depicted as AA, AB, and BB, based on different band pattern observed. Three bands were present in the case of AA and BB genotype, whereas four bands were present in AB genotype .FecB gene fragment of Chhotanagpuri sheep and submitted to NCBI GenBank (Accession number KX896751). Custom nucleotide sequencing revealed single A/G polymorphism at 746 position (locus-1) of the coding region of FecB (BMPR-IB) gene whereas locus-2 was found to be monomorphic at 750 position as compare to reference sequences .Manual annotation of the sequence chromatograms by BioEdit Sequence Alignment Editor Software version 7.0.5 revealed gene sequences of the partially amplified The genotypic and allelic frequencies in single and multiple born lambs were given in th week of age at an interval of 4 weeks and thereafter at 24, 36, 48, and 52 weeks of age. Least square analysis of variance was performed to see the effect of FecB genotypes ) on body weight of lambs at birth and different stages of growth (Body weights of lambs were studied from birth to 12f growth .The lambs having “BB” genotype weighed significantly (p≤0.01) heavier than lambs of “AB” genotype from 8 to 52 weeks of age. However, the difference between “AA” and “BB” genotype was found to be non-significant (p≥0.01). Similarly, the difference between “AB” and “AA” genotypes was also found to be non-significant (p≥0.01) up to 48 weeks of age . HoweverFecB and related fecundity associated genes such as 1, FecXH, FecXBFecB, FecX, and GFecX genes are well recognized to be associated with fertility, growth, and developmental parameters [FecB gene fragment and its association with postnatal growth rate up to 52 weeks of age in Chhotanagpuri sheep. Three SSCP variants of FecB gene at locus-1  were observed. Genotypic frequencies at locus-1 among multiple birth lambs were 0.048, 0.343, and 0.608 for “AA,” “AB,” and “BB” genotypes, respectively, which revealed that “BB” genotypes are favored genotype for multiple births. This is in accordance with the finding of Guan et al. [et al. [FecB gene in small tailed Han sheep and poll Dorset sheep. Similarly, Guan et al. [et al. [FecB gene polymorphism in Garole sheep and obtained two types of allele of that gene as observed in this study. In a related study by Sun et al. [FecB gene having a significant effect on litter size in Hu sheep. Similar studies on related fecundity genes have also documented several polymorphisms, and many of them were found to be associated with fertility parameters in sheep as well as goats. Genome-wide association studies by Demars et al. [FecX gene associated with increased litter size and ovulation rate in Grivette and Olkuska ewes. In a related study by Feng et al. [FecG polymorphism is having a positive significant association with high litter size in Jining Gray goats.Chhotanagpuri sheep as the sole recognized sheep breed of Jharkhand carries ample significance but suffers from low litter size. The rameters -25. In tn et al.  where me [et al. , who foun et al.  have als [et al.  reportedn et al. , on micrs et al.  have ideg et al.  have revet al. [FecB gene had no significant effect on prolificacy of Jining Gray goats whereas Ahlawat et al. [FecB, BMP15, and GDF9 genes have no effect on prolificacy of seven Indian goat breeds including the highly prolific Black Bengal goats. Findings of Ghaffari et al. [et al. [FecB mutation. Shafieiyan et al. [FecB and HFecG genes in high prolific Iranian Lory sheep. The difference in opinion may be due to environmental factors, the difference in breeds or genetic materials used.However, Chu et al.  reportedt et al.  have shoi et al.  in Shal  [et al.  in Northn et al.  have alsth to 52nd week of age, though its effect was not significant for birth weight and weight at 4th week of age. At all stages of growth from 8 to 52-week of age, lambs with “BB” genotype weighed significantly more than heterozygous (“AB”) lambs, but the difference with those with “AA” genotype was not significant except at 52 weeks of age. The superiority of “BB” genotype over “AB” for body weights from 8 to 52-week of age ranged between 8.82% (8 weeks) and 13.17% (36 weeks). However, its superiority over “AA” genotype ranged between 0.35% (8 weeks) and 9.05% (36 weeks). This is in accordance with findings of Guan et al. [This study revealed a significant effect of genotypes at locus-1 on body weights of lambs from 8n et al.  where thLambs of BB genotype were found to be favorable for multiple birth and B allele was found to have better growth potential. Thus, the lambs for “BB” genotype may be selected and utilized for breed improvement under breeding program.TO, LBS, and DKS have designed the research plan TO have performed the wet lab analysis MG, SSK, and RK have analyzed the data. TO, MG, and DKS have drafted the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.


We aim to introduce a k-Struve function and investigate its various properties, including mainly certain inequalities associated with this function. One of the inequalities given here is pointed out to be related to the so-called classical Turán-type inequality. We also present a differential equation, several recurrence relations, and integral representations for this k-Struve function. Díaz and Pariguan  introducmple, to  and the γ is the Euler-Mascheroni constant .Consider the power seriesandwhereandFurther suppose that both series converge onIf the sequenceis increasing (or decreasing), then the functionis also increasing (or decreasing) onIf bothfandgare even, or both are odd functions, then the above results will be applicable.Letbe fixed. Then the following statements hold. (i)Forthen the functionis increasing on(ii)The functionis decreasing for fixedand increasing for fixedAlso, the functionis log-convex onfor fixed(iii)The functionis decreasing onfor fixedTo prove (i), recall the series in . Clearlyrelation , we findmentclass2pt{minimν isFor (ii), since entclass1pt{minimaIn view of , we haveFor (iii), it is obvious from (i) thatrelation , 8) is  is 8\docConsidering  and sett}c=−1 in  gives10Applying , we obtaOne of the most significant consequences of Theorem mentclass2pt{minimmentclasspt{minimat}a∈R in ):13\docHere, we present a differential equation and recurrence relations regarding the k-Struve function nt}Sν,ck .LetandThen thek-Struve functionsatisfies the following second-order non-homogeneous differential equation:nt}Sν,ck  satisfieBy using the k-Struve function nt}Sν,ck  and the equation . □LetandThen the following recurrence relations hold true:x and using relation 20\documeHere, we present two integral representations for the function LetandThenandIn particular, we haveandt by We begin by recalling the k-beta function (see )26\docuula see , 7, 9)3, 9326\d∖{0}) in  and 23)26\documeν=k/2 in  and (23)ν=k/2 in  and 25)26\documeWe introduce a k-Struve function and investigate its various properties, including mainly certain inequalities associated with this function. One of the inequalities given here is pointed out to be related to the so-called classical Turán-type inequality, whose many variants have been investigated. We also present a differential equation, several recurrence relations, and integral representations for this k-Struve function.The results presented here are sure to be new and potentially useful. Since the research subject here and its related ones are competitive, the content of this paper may attract interested readers who have been interested in this and related research subjects.