Li Yan

Constructing an all-directional, multilevel, and composite interconnection network, accelerating the free flow of producer services elements across regions, and further improving the efficiency of resource integration demand to conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis of producer services trade. Thus, using bilateral trade data, this paper builds producer services trade network composed of 61 major countries and innovatively combines the methods of social network and economic geography to explore its spatiotemporal evolution and system properties. The results show that, firstly, the producer services trade network has spatial heterogeneity, which is characterized by high-value agglomerations in Western Europe and East Asia, and low-value agglomerations in Southern Europe and Southeast Asia. Secondly, most countries tend to choose trading partners with close geographical locations or common cultures to establish a cohesive subgroup. Thirdly, the producer services trade network has a significant core-periphery structure, the “spaghetti bowl” effect, which leads to a downward trend in the number of core and semi-peripheral countries. Finally, the trade agreement relations, language relations, and differences in economy, geography, institution, and technology all have a significant impact on the evolution of producer services trade network, but this change has little relationship with the population size divergences of different countries.

Good balance between product and service is the key in the innovative design of product service systems. In this study, the evolution route of the PSS based on Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch ideal final result was provided. The function model of the PSS was constructed according to the service blueprint and function system diagrams. On this basis, an innovation design method of the PSS based on function incentive was established. The function incentive strategies included function synergy, function supplement, and function substitution. Finally, the PSS design process of agricultural machinery based on computer-aided innovation platform was analyzed to verify this method.

As human consumption is one of the key contributors to environmental problems, it is increasingly urgent to promote sustainable consumption. Drawing on the agentic-communal model of power, this research explores how the psychological feeling of power influences consumers’ preference for green products. We show that low power increases consumers’ preference for green products compared to high power. Importantly, we identify two factors moderating the main effect of power on green consumption. Specifically, we find that the effect of power on green consumption is more salient among those with high green consumption values. In addition, the effects of power are dynamic as a function of power distance belief, such that low power promotes green consumption in the low-PDB context while high power promotes green consumption in the high-PDB context. Taken together, these findings provide novel insights into understanding green consumption from the perspectives of social power, green values, and PDB. Besides contributing to the literature, the findings have significant implications for marketers and policy-makers in promoting green campaigns, bridging the attitude-behavior gap, and building a more sustainable society.

Vernalization, the requirement of a long exposure to low temperatures to induce flowering, is an essential adaptation of plants to cold winters. We have shown recently that the vernalization gene VRN-1 from diploid wheat Triticum monococcum is the meristem identity gene APETALA1, and that deletions in its promoter were associated with spring growth habit. In this study, we characterized the allelic variation at the VRN-1 promoter region in polyploid wheat. The Vrn-A1a allele has a duplication including the promoter region. Each copy has similar foldback elements inserted at the same location and is flanked by identical host direct duplications. This allele was found in more than half of the hexaploid varieties but not among the tetraploid lines analyzed here. The Vrn-A1b allele has two mutations in the HDD region and a 20-bp deletion in the 5′ UTR compared with the winter allele. The Vrn-A1b allele was found in both tetraploid and hexaploid accessions but at a relatively low frequency. Among the tetraploid wheat accessions, we found two additional alleles with 32 bp and 54 bp deletions that included the HDD region. We found no size polymorphisms in the promoter region among the winter wheat varieties. The dominant Vrn-A1 allele from two spring varieties from Afghanistan and Egypt and all the dominant Vrn-B1 and Vrn-D1 alleles included in this study showed no differences from their respective recessive alleles in promoter sequences. Based on these results, we concluded that the VRN-1 genes should have additional regulatory sites outside the promoter region studied here. © Springer-Verlag 2004.

Growth habit varies among accessions of hexaploid wheat. The winter habit genotype requires a cold treatment to induce flowering and is generally planted in the fall. Spring habit genotypes flower in the absence of a vernalization treatment. Spring habit is conferred by a dominant allele at any of the three VRN-1 loci, but varieties carrying the VRN-A1 locus are the most frequent and usually flower earlier. To facilitate selection in populations segregating at the VRN-A1 locus and to assist in genotyping wheat accessions of unknown VRN-1 composition, a PCR-based marker for growth habit would be useful. The VRN-A1 gene was recently cloned allowing for the development of markers for growth habit. In this report, we designed primer sets specific for the VRN-A1 locus, and used them to amplify an 810-bp segment of the VRN-A1 gene between intron 4 and exon 8 from 40 spring wheat lines and 37 winter wheat lines. Three diagnostic nucleotide changes were identified that differentiated the dominant Vrn-A1 and recessive vrn-A1 alleles in 75 out of the 77 genotypes analyzed in this study. One of these differences resulted in the presence of an additional AciI restriction site in the allele for spring growth habit. This difference was exploited to develop a cleavage amplification polymorphic sequence that can be used to determine the allelic state at VRN-A1 in germplasm collections, and as a marker in backcross breeding projects. An additional pair of dominant markers was developed from a different polymorphism.

Genes from the SNF2 family play important roles in transcriptional regulation, maintenance of chromosome integrity and DNA repair. This study describes the molecular cloning and characterization of cereal genes from this family. The predicted proteins exhibit a novel C-terminal domain that defines a new subfamily designated SNF2P that includes human and mouse proteins. Comparison between genomic and cDNA sequences showed that cereal Snf2P genes consisted of 17 exons, including one only 8 bp long. Two barley alleles differed by the presence of a 7.7-kb non-LTR retrotransposon in intron 6. An alternative annotation of the orthologous Arabidopsis gene would improve its similarity with the other members of the subfamily. Intron 2 was not spliced out in approximately half of the rice Snf2P mRNAs present in leaves, resulting in a premature stop codon. Transcripts from the barley and wheat Snf2P genes were found in apexes, leaves, sheaths, roots and spikes. The Snf2P genes exist as single copies on wheat chromosome arm 5AmL and in the colinear regions on barley chromosome arm 4HL and rice chromosome 3. High-density genetic mapping and RT-PCR suggest that Snf2P is not a candidate gene for the tightly linked vernalization gene Vrn2.

Purpose To investigate the reliability and accuracy of two pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling sequences, using two-dimensional gradient-echo echo planar imaging and 3D gradient and spin echo as the readout, respectively. Materials and Methods Each sequence was performed twice 4 weeks apart on six normal control subjects, six elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and one participant with Alzheimer's disease. Eight of these subjects also underwent H 215O positron emission tomography scans on the same day or proximal to their second MRI scan. The longitudinal repeatability of EPI and GRASE pCASL were evaluated with the intraclass correlation coefficient and within-subject coefficient of variation. Results The ICCs of global perfusion measurements were 0.697 and 0.413 for GRASE and EPI based pCASL respectively. GRASE pCASL also demonstrated a higher longitudinal repeatability for regional perfusion measurements across 24 regions-of-interests compared with EPI pCASL. When compared with PET, EPI pCASL showed a higher degree of spatial correlation with PET than GRASE pCASL, although the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion The 3D GRASE pCASL offers better repeatability than 2D EPI pCASL, thereby may provide a reliable imaging marker for the evaluation of disease progression and treatment effects in MCI and early AD subjects. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A self-designed questionnaire was given to 634 health professionals in a large teaching hospital in Hubei Province in mainland China, to clarify the participants’ attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients. Statistic description was used to analyze the data. The item ‘inappropriate information about cancer easily leads to medical disputes’ scored highest at 3.86, while the scores of such items as ‘advantages of fully informing patients outweigh disadvantages’, ‘if their family members demand nondisclosure, you will find it difficult to cooperate in good faith with patients’, and ‘telling white lies to patients disturbs you a lot’ were less than 3. The health care staff placed a high value on both the desire and priority of patients to know the truth, though most of them did not think that patients had received enough information about their disease. In order to improve cancer patients’ current state of knowledge, health professionals should learn more about informed consent, and special methods and guidelines compatible with Chinese culture are urgently required in China