Genetic diversity and population genetic structure of Paeonia suffruticosa by chloroplast DNA simple sequence repeats(cpSSRs)

Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.is an endemic shrub flower in China with 2n=10.This study used 228 cultivars from four populations,i.e.,Jiangnan,Japan,Northwest,and Zhongyuan,as materials to explore the genetic diversity levels among different populations of tree peony varieties.The results showed that 34 bands were amplified using five pairs of cp SSR primers,with an average of 6.8 bands per primer pair.The average number of different alleles(N_(a)),effective alleles(N_(e)),Shannon's information index(I),diversity(H),and polymorphic information content(PIC)were 3.600,2.053,0.708,0.433,and 0.388,respectively.The PIC value was between 0.250 and 0.500,indicating a moderate level of polymorphism for the five cp SSR primer pairs.The genetic diversity levels of peony cultivars varied among different populations,with the Northwest population showing relatively lower levels(I=0.590,H=0.289,and PIC=0.263).A total of 52 haplotypes were identified in the four examined populations,and the number of haplotypes per population ranged from 11 to 22.Forty-four private haplotypes were detected across populations,and the Northwest population exhibiting the highest count of private haplotypes with 17.The mean number of effective number of haplotypes(N_(eh)),haplotypic richness(R_h),and diversity(H)were 8.351,6.824,and 0.893,respectively.Analysis of molecular variance indicated that genetic variation within tree peony germplasm was greater than that between germplasm resources,and the main variation was found within individuals of peony germplasm.Cluster analysis,principal coordinate analysis,and genetic structure analysis classified tree peonies from different origins into two groups,indicating a certain degree of genetic differentiation among these four tree peony cultivation groups.This study provides a theoretical basis for the exploration,utilization,and conservation of peony germplasm resources,as well as for research on the breeding of excellent varieties.

Associations between food insecurity with gestational diabetes mellitus and maternal outcomes mediated by dietary diversity:A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND Food insecurity(FI)during pregnancy negatively impacts maternal health and raises the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus(GDM)and pregnancy-induced hypertension(PIH),resulting in adverse outcomes for both mother and baby.AIM To investigate the relationships between FI and pregnancy outcomes,particularly GDM and PIH,while also examining the mediating role of the dietary diversity score(DDS).METHODS A cross-sectional study was undertaken to examine this relationship,involving 600 pregnant women.Participants were women aged 18 years or older who provided complete data on FI and pregnancy outcomes.The FI was measured via the Household Food Security Survey Module,with GDM defined as fasting plasma glucose levels of≥5.1 mmol/L or a 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test value of≥8.5 mmol/L.The DDS is determined by evaluating one's food consumption based on nine distinct food groups.A logistic regression model was used to explore the relationship between FI and PIH,and GDM.RESULTS Seventeen percent of participants reported experiencing FI during pregnancy.The study found a significant association between FI and an elevated risk of GDM[odds ratio(OR)=3.32,95%CI:1.2-5.4].Once more,food-insecure pregnant women had higher rates of PIH(OR=0.10,95%CI:0.02-0.45)and they also faced a higher likelihood of neonatal complications,such as neonatal intensive care unit’s admissions and the birth of infants with extremely low birth weight.The FI wasfurther linked to metabolic disruptions,such as elevated fasting blood sugar(FBS),low-density lipoprotein cholesterol,and triglyceride levels.Our results indicate that the DDS acts as a significant mediator in the relationship between FI and the incidence of GDM.In particular,the mediation analysis showed that approximately 65%of the effect was mediated through DDS(P=0.002).CONCLUSION These findings underscore the serious challenges that FI presents during pregnancy and its effects on maternal and infant health.Additionally,the study explored how DDS mediates the relationship between FI and the incidence of GDM.

Resource allocation for cooperative diversity systems based on quadrature modulation

To improve the error performance and the resource utilization of cooperative systems, the optimum resource allocation, i.e., power allocation and partner choice, for an adaptive decode-and-forward （DF） cooperative diversity system based on quadrature modulation is investigated. The closed-form expression of the bit error rate （BER） system performance is derived and an optimal power allocation （OPA） algorithm is proposed to optimize the power allocation between the local and relayed signals under the minimum BER criterion. Based on the OPA algorithm, a partner choice strategy is proposed to determine the partner locations specified by various cooperation gains. Simulation results show that the proposed resource optimization algorithms are superior to the unoptimized algorithms by significantly reducing the BER and improving the cooperative gain, which is useful to simplify the practical partner choice process.

Cooperative diversity based on rotation code

In order to obtain coding gain along with diversity gain,rotation code was applied to cooperative diversity employing decoded-and-forward cooperative protocol.Different from the same two symbols transmitted in conventional repetition-coded scheme,two different symbols were transmitted separately in two successive timeslots in the proposed rotation-coded cooperative diversity.In this way,constellation spread in the available two-dimensional signal space rather than on a single-dimensional line in repetition-coded scheme,which was supposed to be responsible for the additional coding gain.Under the proposed cooperative transmission model,upper bounds for the symbol-error-rate(SER)of cooperative diversity based on repetition code and rotation code were derived respectively.Both analytical and simulated results show that cooperative diversity based on rotation code can obtain an improved coding gain(by about 2 dB)than repetition-coded scheme without the expense of power or bandwidth.

A CROSS-LAYER STRATEGY FOR COOPERATIVE DIVERSITY IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

We investigate the problem of how to minimize the energy consumption in multi-hop Wireless Sensor Network (WSN),under the constraint of end-to-end reliability Quality of Seervice (QoS) requirement.Based on the investigation,we jointly consider the routing,relay selection and power allocation algorithm,and present a novel distributed cross-layer strategy using opportunistic relaying scheme for cooperative communication.The results show that under the same QoS requirement,the proposed cross-layer strategy performs better than other cross-layer cooperative communication algorithms in energy efficiency.We also investigated the impact of several parameters on the energy efficiency of the cooperative communication in WSNs,thus can be used to provide guidelines to decide when and how to apply cooperation for a given setup.

A Novel Practical Cooperative Diversity Method for the Power-Limited Wireless Sensor Network

A novel practical cooperative diversity method for power-limited wireless sensor network system was proposed. At first, the system model was presented and the cooperation problem is formulated under the minimum outage probability criterion, then the focus was put on the power efficiency of system, such as the relay selection, cooperation strategy and power allocation etc. At last the uniform procedure of the proposed method was given. The results of the simulation clearly demonstrate that our method not only has the properties of simple operation and wide applying scope, but also outperforms those of current classical methods on the aspect of outage probability under the basis of the same power limitation.

Improved scheme with cooperative diversity based on distributed space-time block coding

An improved scheme with cooperative diversity based on distributed space-time block coding （WCD- DSTBC） is proposed, which effectively achieves diversity gains and improves the performance of the system by sharing some single-antenna users＇ antennas to form a virtual antenna array and combining with distributed spacetime block coding （DSTBC） mode. Then the relation between the system BER and the interuser BER for WCDDSTBC scheme is theoretically derived and the closed-form expression of BER for WCD-DSTBC system is obtained. The simulation results show that the proposed WCD-DSTBC scheme achieves distinct gains over the non-cooperative multi-carrier CDMA （MC-CDMA） system. When system BER is le-3 and interuser BER is le-3, about 2.5 dB gain can be gotten. When interuser channel state information （CSI） outgoes the users＇ individual CSI, about 3 dB gain is also achieved.

Enhanced cooperative packet retransmission employing joint cooperative diversity and symbol mapping diversity

A joint cooperation diversity and symbol mapping diversity (SMD) strategy is proposed for cooperative packet retransmission system with high-order modulation such as 16QAM. Substantial SER/BER (symbol error rate/bit error rate) gains result from multiple packet transmissions over independent paths and distinct bit-to-symbol mappings for each packet transmis-sion. The SER/BER performance of relay assisted retransmission system is analyzed. Simulation results show that the joint-diversity strategy can provide more BER gains than other relaying strategies (i.e., decode-and-forward and constellation rearrangement relaying strategies) when no relay makes a decision error; but if some relays make decision errors, the joint-di-versity strategy outperforms other relaying strategies only when the relays are closer to the source than to the destination.

Enhanced quadrature signaling-based cooperative transmission with full rate and full diversity

Quadrature signaling-based cooperative transmission is an efficient and simple scheme to obtain spatial diversity.However,this scheme causes date rate loss compared with direct transmission.In this work,our focus is on recovering from the data rate loss while simultaneously achieving spatial diversity.Particularly,an enhanced quadrature signaling-based cooperative scheme was designed,which can realize full-rate transmission by using the signal space diversity(SSD)technique.Then,accurate bit error rate(BER)expression for the full-rate scheme was derived over independent and non-identically distributed(INID)Rayleigh fading channels.Specifically,a closed-form BER expression is obtained,which is quite tight over the whole SNR range,and thus allows for rapid and efficient evaluation of system performance under various channel conditions.Moreover,an asymptotic approximation of the BER was derived to show that the full-rate scheme can achieve full diversity.Simulation results verify the tightness of the analysis and show that the full-rate scheme significantly outperforms the traditional quadrature signaling-based scheme by about 2 dB with the same complexity order.

Resilience effects for household food expenditure and dietary diversity in rural western China

A more resilient livelihood is increasingly recognized as an efficient way to improve vulnerable households’food security and optimize their dietary decisions.This study quantifies rural household resilience in western China,identifies the three pillars(absorptive capacity,adaptive capacity,and transformative capacity)contribution to resilience,and then establishes the estimated Resilience Capacity Index(RCI)linked with food security and dietary diversity supported by the multiple indicator multiple cause(MIMIC)model.Results show that,despite geographical heterogeneity,the RCI consistently increased from 2015 to 2021.Households with a higher RCI inheriting better capacity to deal with risk and shocks are significantly and positively correlated with increasing food expenditure and diversifying food choices.It can be because resilient households will allocate more money to food expenditure instead of saving for livelihood uncertainty.Thus,policymakers can provide more incentives for rural households to adopt more dynamic and effective risk management strategies.This,in turn,could yield positive spillover effects by preventing human capital loss associated with dietary-related chronic diseases and mortality.

Performance analysis of amplify-and-forward cooperative diversity with multiple-antenna nodes via analog network coding

Network coding (NC), which works in the network layer, is an effective technology to improve the network throughput, by allowing the relay to encode the information from different users and ensuring the destination to retrieve the desired information. Employing network coding technique in a cooperative network can improve the network performance further. In this paper, we introduce analog network coding (ANC) to a simple two-user cooperative diversity network, which adopts amplify-and-forward (AF) mode and all nodes use multiple antennas. The impact of the number of antenna on the system achievable rate is investigated. And the bit error rate (BER) performances of the traditional relay cooperative network and the cooperative network based on analog network coding under different propagation conditions are discussed. The simulation results show that the performance of the traditional cooperative network has improved significantly due to the employ of network coding.

Off-farm employment,agriculture production activities,and household dietary diversity in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas of Asia

Access to off-farm employment has been expected to be a critical approach to ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition,two important targets of achieving Zero Hunger.This study aims to investigate the role of off-farm employment in improving dietary diversity through substitution effect and complementary effect with agricultural production activities and income effect.This study adopts Poisson/Tobit/Probit/OLS regressions and the instrument variable method based on the primary survey data collected among 1,282 households at 12 sites in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas of China,Nepal,Cambodia,Thailand,and Myanmar in 2019.The results show that off-farm employment is positively associated with household dietary diversity and the consumption of flesh meat,fish and other aquatic animals,fruits,and milk and dairy products,which are rich in protein and micronutrients.The results of mechanism analysis show that off-farm employment contributes to household dietary diversity by improving crop diversity,especially for poor households,boosting the probability of livestock raising for households with the middle one-third disposal income,and increasing household income.The positive association between off-farm employment and household dietary diversity is much higher for households with the bottom one-third disposal income,low illiteracy,and from upper-middle income countries.These findings imply that off-farm employment does play a vital role in achieving multiple benefits of poverty alleviation,malnutrition reduction,and agrobiodiversity conservation in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas.However,it may enlarge the gaps in dietary diversity between households with low human capital and from low and lower-middle income countries and those with high human capital and from middle-high countries.

Community structure and species diversity dynamics of a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in China:2005 to 2020

Here,we characterize the temporal and spatial dynamics of forest community structure and species diversity in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in China.We found that community structure in this forest changed over a 15-year period.Specifically,renewal and death of common species was large,with the renewal of individuals mainly concentrated within a few populations,especially those of Aidia canthioides and Cryptocarya concinna.The numbers of individual deaths for common species were concentrated in the small and mid-diameter level.The spatial distribution of community species diversity fluctuated in each monitoring period,showing a more dispersed diversity after the 15-year study period,and the coefficient of variation on quadrats increased.In 2010,the death and renewal of the community and the spatial variation of species diversity were different compared to other survey years.Extreme weather may have affected species regeneration and community stability in our subtropical monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forests.Our findings suggest that strengthening the monitoring and management of the forest community will help better understand the long-and short-term causes of dynamic fluctuations of community structure and species diversity,and reveal the factors that drive changes in community structure.

Bandwidth Efficient Three-User Cooperative Diversity Scheme Based on Relaying Superposition Symbols

Recently, Cooperative diversity in wireless communication systems has gained much attention. A simple two-user cooperative diversity scheme called decode-and-forward cooperation scheme has been presented by Laneman (2004). Each user has one partner to decode its information and retransmit it by employing repeti-tion coding. This scheme can offer diversity order of two. But the bandwidth efficiency is low. In this paper, we propose a bandwidth efficient three-user cooperative diversity scheme based on relaying superposition symbols. Each user has two partners and each partner relays superposition symbols of the other two users instead of repetition. Thus, the bandwidth efficiency is improved compared to the baseline decode- and-forward cooperative diversity scheme presented by Laneman. Moreover, the proposed scheme can also offer diversity order of two. Then, in order to improve the system performance, a new constellation labeling for the superposition 8PSK modulation is designed. It is a simple way to exploit the symbol mapping diver-sity and a gain of about 2 dB can be obtained. Furthermore, the performance improvement comes at no addi-tional power or bandwidth expense.

Single carrier frequency domain equalization and diversity combining for cooperative systems

A low-complexity single carrier frequency-domain equalizer （SC/FDE） and diversity combining method for cooperative systems with demodulate-and-forward relaying over frequency-selective channels is proposed. At the relay nodes, linear SC/FDE is adopted and normalized correlation coefficlent is mtrodueed to derive an equivalent source-to-relay-destination （S-R-D） channel that is highlighted in this study. At the destination, a joint SC/FDE and diversity combining receiver is proposed by utilizing the equivalent S-R-D channel. Simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed SC/FDE scheme over the straightforward SC/FDE which ignores the decisions errors at the intermediate relay nodes.

THE THEORETICAL BER PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF A COOPERATIVE DIVERSITY SCHEME IN FREQUENCY SELECTIVE FADING CHANNEL

A novel cooperative diversity scheme based on Distributed Space-Time Block Coding and Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (DSTBC-MC-CDMA) is proposed which works well in frequency selective fading channels with multiple single-antenna users. And an analytical error model is established to describe the symbol decoding errors between interusers, based on which a close form expression for theoretical Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the scheme is derived to analyze the influence of the interuser decoding errors on the BER performance of the scheme. Then simulation is complimented to verify the analytic result above, which also shows that the BER performance of DSTBC-MC-CDMA outgoes that of non-cooperative MC-CDMA with considerable gains. Further- more, the simulations coincide with the theoretical results well.

Biodiversity metrics on ecological networks: Demonstrated with animal gastrointestinal microbiomes

Biodiversity has become a terminology familiar to virtually every citizen in modern societies.It is said that ecology studies the economy of nature,and economy studies the ecology of humans;then measuring biodiversity should be similar with measuring national wealth.Indeed,there have been many parallels between ecology and economics,actually beyond analogies.For example,arguably the second most widely used biodiversity metric,Simpson(1949)’s diversity index,is a function of familiar Gini-index in economics.One of the biggest challenges has been the high“diversity”of diversity indexes due to their excessive“speciation”-there are so many indexes,similar to each country’s sovereign currency-leaving confused diversity practitioners in dilemma.In 1973,Hill introduced the concept of“numbers equivalent”,which is based on Renyi entropy and originated in economics,but possibly due to his abstruse interpretation of the concept,his message was not widely received by ecologists until nearly four decades later.What Hill suggested was similar to link the US dollar to gold at the rate of$35 per ounce under the Bretton Woods system.The Hill numbers now are considered most appropriate biodiversity metrics system,unifying Shannon,Simpson and other diversity indexes.Here,we approach to another paradigmatic shift-measuring biodiversity on ecological networks-demonstrated with animal gastrointestinal microbiomes representing four major invertebrate classes and all six vertebrate classes.The network diversity can reveal the diversity of species interactions,which is a necessary step for understanding the spatial and temporal structures and dynamics of biodiversity across environmental gradients.

Biodiversity responses to insular fragmentation in Amazonia: Two decades of research in the Balbina Hydroelectric Reservoir

As hydropower development expands across lowland tropical forests,flooding and concomitant insular fragmentation have become important threats to biodiversity.Newly created insular landscapes serve as natural laboratories to investigate biodiversity responses to fragmentation.One of these most iconic landscapes is the Balbina Hydroelectric Reservoir in Brazilian Amazonia,occupying>400000 ha and comprising>3500 forest islands.Here,we synthesise the current knowledge on responses of a wide range of biological groups to insular fragmentation at Balbina.Sampling has largely concentrated on a set of 22 islands and three mainland sites.In total,39 studies were conducted over nearly two decades,covering 17 vertebrate,invertebrate,and plant taxa.Although species responses varied according to taxonomic group,island area was consistently included and played a pivotal role in 66.7%of all studies examining patterns of species diversity.Species persistence was further affected by species traits,mostly related to species capacity to use/traverse the aquatic matrix or tolerate habitat degradation,as noted for species of vertebrates and orchid bees.Further research is needed to improve our understanding of such effects on wider ecosystem functioning.Environmental Impact Assessments must account for changes in both the remaining habitat amount and configuration,and subsequent long-term species losses.

Strong evidence for latitudinal diversity gradient in mosses across the world

Species richness generally decreases with increasing latitude,a biodiversity gradient that has long been considered as one of the few laws in ecology.This latitudinal diversity gradient has been observed in many major groups of organisms.In plants,the latitudinal diversity gradient has been observed in vascular plants,angiosperms,ferns,and liverworts.However,a conspicuous latitudinal diversity gradient in mosses at a global or continental scale has not been observed until now.Here,we analyze a comprehensive data set including moss species in each band of 20° in latitude worldwide.Our results show that moss species richness decreases strongly with increasing latitude,regardless of whether the globe is considered as a whole or different longitudinal segments(e.g.,Old World versus New World) are considered separately.This result holds when variation in area size among latitudinal bands is taken into account.Pearson's correlation coefficient between latitude and species richness is-0.99 for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.Because bryophytes are an extant lineage of early land plants and because mosses not only include most of extant species of bryophytes but also are important constituents of most terrestrial ecosystems,understanding geographic patterns of mosses is particularly important The finding of our study fills a critical knowledge gap.

Diversity of Orchids in Terms of Their Distribution, Uses and Conservation in Annapurna Conservation Area of Nepal

The Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA), the first conservation area and the largest protected area (PA) in Nepal, is incredibly rich in biodiversity. Notwithstanding this, orchids in the ACA have not been explored enough yet thus making the need for ambitious research to be carried out. Previous study only included 81 species of orchids within ACA. This study aims to update the record of species and genera richness in the ACA. In total 198 species of orchids, belonging to 67 genera (40% and 62% of the total recorded orchid species and genera in Nepal) has been recorded in ACA. This represents an increase of 144% in species and 56% in genera over the previous data. Out of the 198 species, 99 were epiphytes, 6 were holomycotrophic and 93 were terrestrial. Among the 67 genera, Bulbophyllum (17) species were dominant, followed by Dendrobium (16), Herminium (10), Coelogyne, Plantanthera (9 each), Eria, Habenaria, Oberonia (8 each), Calanthe (7), and Liparis (6). Fifty-six species were found to be ornamentally significant and 85 species medicinally significant.