Non- point source (NPS) pollution has been the major influential factor for degradation of water bodies. Best management practices (BMPs), as an integrated system for pollution prevention and control, which combines both structural and non-structural measures, has been considered as one of the most effective solution for non- point source pollution. However, economic cost has been an important factor for screening the best management practice. Taking economic feasibility into consideration, the implementation of BMPs would be more practical and resource- saving, which can effectively alleviate the contradiction between economic development and environmental protection in basin management. Since few studies on research progress of BMPs cost-effectiveness analysis have been reported in China, methods of cost-effectiveness analysis were illustrated in this paper, to provide the foundation for the further research. Recently, relevant researchers have used empirical calculation methods and economic models to estimate costs of BMPs, and non-point source pollution model was developed to evaluate environmental benefits. According to the accounting results, two optimization criteria, namely cost minimization and benefit maximization, were employed to screen for the most cost-effective measures. Application of cost- effectiveness analysis method included three categories, coupling NPS model with empirical calculation methods, coupling NPS model with economic model and cost-effectiveness analysis based on optimization algorithm. Besides, the limitations were discussed based on differences of time and space scale in coupling models and uncertainty issues. In the future, as the cost- effectiveness analysis of BMPs is related to various aspects of environmental, economic and social factors, on the one hand, more comprehensive agricultural economic database and water quality database should be built and fully validated, to reduce the uncertainty in the process of simulation. On the other hand, continuous development of computer technology could be expected, to improve efficiency and accuracy of cost-effectiveness analysis, and to strengthen the coupling of different types of model, eventually improving the feasibility in application of cost-effectiveness analysis method. In this paper, three aspects on application of BMPs economical assessment method in non- point source pollution control were illustrated, including concept definition, analysis methods and relevant applications. Suggestions and prospects on trend of further research were also deeply analyzed and summarized.

Full model and multi-loci additive model were used to analyze the days to silk (DS, female flowering) of maize nested association mapping (NAM) population. Analysis with the full model revealed that small effects of additive, dominance, epistasis, and their environmental interactions of many loci controlled the DS of maize NAM population. Dominance related effects had large impacts on the trait. Estimated total heritability was 79.86%, whereas 50.52% was due to dominance related effects. Environmental specific genetic effects also revealed as imperative for DS, explained 27.31% phenotypic variations. The highly significant (-log10 PEW>5) quantitative trait SNPs (QTSs) identified were 50 for full model, but 47 for additive model with low heritability (31.65%). Utilizing the association analysis results of DS, genotypes and total genetic effects of superior lines, superior hybrids were predicted that could be useful for future breeding program.

Exiguobacterium sp. has been figured out to be the main spoilage bacteria on many kinds of food, and it has the potential to be the main spoiler. Exiguobacterium has already been isolated from extreme environments and they have evolved and acquired some resistance including thermotolerance, cold resistance, alkali resistance, and osmotolerance. The Exiguobacterium can normally metabolize under 4 ℃ storage temperature. Further, Exiguobacterium has strong proteolysis ability to damage nutrient and food, and it can form biofilm, not only increasing the resistance to detergents and preservatives, but also consuming nutrients to grow and reproduce. The present study aimed to establish a rapid identification method of Exiguobacterium acetylicum based on a double real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The study took the genes P401_RS0117025 and oxi_50582462, which were screened in the early experiment and were specific to Exiguobacterium sp. and E. acetylicum respectively, as detection targets. The specificity of the PCR assay was verified with the DNA of 12 E. acetylicum strains and 14 non-E. acetylicum strains; the effectiveness of the assay was evaluated by the foundation of standard curve, as well as its repeatability. The sensitivity of different DNA and cell concentrations was identified. The results demonstrated that the specific genes and primers of the early experiment were both well-specific. The specific evaluation experiment results showed that the probes T-291 and T-2B were also well-specific. The R2 values of standard curve were 0.994 and 0.999, respectively, indicating that the assay was credible, and the RT- PCR showed high repeatability. When DNA of different concentrations were added as templates, there was no obvious different in standard deviation of threshold (Ct), and the coefficient of variation of the same concentration was fluctuation during 0.51 to 1.12. Even though at 1.629×10^－4 ng/μL, its repeatability was well maintained, which indicated that the assay could showed high repeatability at low DNA concentration. The sensitivity-evaluation showed that the DNA detection limit of the assay was 1.629×10^－7 ng/μL, and the detection limit of pure bacteria colonies was 3.4 CFU/mL without enrichment culture. In addition, the high-sensitivity resulted in its outcoming of short- time cast, for it did not need the step of enrichment culture, which was different from other studies. Finally, the mathematical relationship between Ct and Nt colony-forming units (CFU) was developed by software Origin 9. It was C_t=－1.759× Nt +31.678, the R² value of which was 0.939. When applied to the fresh-cut leafy vegetables, the assay and the equation could detect rapidly and accurately the CFU on them. In sum, this study establish as an accurate, sensitive and efficient double RT- PCR assay to detect quantitatively food spoilage bacteria E. acetylicum. It lays a theoretical basis for food shelf- life prediction, and provides some references to the supply chain of fresh-cut vegetables.

Due to the rapid development of livestock breeding and poultry raising，non-point source pollution has become a significant threat to environmental management and aquaculture industry development，as well as to human health in the last few decades. Therefore，it is particularly urgent to establish a monitoring method that can be used as the efficient indicator of fecal pollution with high sensitivity and strong specificity. In animal guts，genes which are directly involved in bacterium-host interactions may display increased level of host-associated genetic variation，making them promising candidates for fecal source tracking. Specific markers targeting bacterium-host interaction genes for human，cattle and chicken were reported previously， however，swine-specific marker for fecal source tracking has not been found yet. We applied a genome fragment enrichment (GFE) method to enrich swine- specific metagenomic region that differ from those of other animal species. Briefly，a portion of swine fecal DNA was labeled with biotin and pre-hybridized with a composite fecal DNA pool of other animals including cow (n=20)，goat (n=20)，chicken (n=8)，duck (n=20) and goose (n=5) to block nonunique fragments. Then the pre-hybridized product and another portion of swine fecal DNA labeled with K9 primer were taken together to perform a competitive DNA hybridization. After streptavidin enrichment and long- linker PCR amplification by K9 primer，the products that were assumed as swine- specific fecal DNA were cloned into vectors and were sequenced. Dot blot hybridization with negative control fecal DNA (composite fecal DNA pool of other animals) was used to identify cloned GFE sequences which were not swine-specific. The cloned GFE sequences were assigned to bacterial class annotations based on the top BLASTX hit (the lowest E-value score) with the GenBank non-redundant database. The putative protein transcript of each sequence was analyzed based on the similarity of gene sequences by using BLASTX with GenBank non- redundant database， and their biochemical functions were therefrom predicted. Sequence analyses of five hundred randomly selected clones from the libraries obtained by three rounds of metagenomic GFE revealed that this subset contained a total of 384 non-redundant sequences and most sequences (87%) ranged from 400 bp to 600 bp in size. Dot blot hybridization using DNA composite of non- target animals as probes showed that only eight clones exhibited cross-reaction，indicating a very low false-positive rate of 2.8%. BLASTX searches identified homologous sequences in GenBank database for 315 non- redundant DNA inserts，with other 69 (17.9% of 384 swine fecal DNA sequences) inserts showed no homology with any previously reported genes. Based on top BLASTX hits，the sequences were putatively grouped into 20 bacterial classes including the predominant group of Bacteroidetes-like sequences (43.2%)，among which，120 sequences were similar to Bacteroidetes-Prevotella. Clostridia-like sequences were the second most abundant group (19.5%)，and Bacillilike sequences represented 8.6% of the clones. Moreover，three sequences exhibited identity to genes in Archaea. Biochemical function annotation revealed that 38.5% of the total analyzed sequences were predicted as genes with unknown functions. Among the fragments associated with characterized function genes (61.5%)，the sequences were most frequently assigned to putative proteins associated with metabolism (22% ，e.g.，carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism)，cellular processes (12.8%，e.g.，membrane transport and DNA repair/replication/recombination) and information storage and processing (7.6%). It is concluded that gene encod surface proteins，membrane associated proteins，secretary proteins and carbohydrate metabolism proteins of dominant bacterial classes could be regarded as putative targets for swine-specific microbial genetic markers.

Comparing to open-pollinated varieties, rapeseed hybrids had an obvious heterosis in seed yield and adaptation to environment. In the procedure of hybrid breeding, it is very important to select the male and female parents, which greatly affects the hybrid performance. For the traditional method of hybrid breeding, the selection of parent lines for combination is random, which lacks foreseeability of the hybrid performance. Application of marker-assisted selection (MAS) can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the selection, and shorten the period of breeding program. Therefore, this study aimed to introduce MAS into the procedure of hybrid breeding in rapeseed, and to enhance the efficiency of breeding elite hybrids with good performance. In the present study, two male sterile lines and 26 cultivars (lines) were analyzed with 66 molecular markers. These makers were distributed on 19 chromosomes of Brassica napus and each chromosome contributed 2 to 4 markers. The two male sterile lines, MSL72A and Xiangyou 15A (XY15A), belong to a kind of genic male sterile (GMS) system named 9012A in rapeseed. The 26 cultivars (lines) included 19 semi-winter type cultivars (lines) from China, 4 winter type and 3 spring type cultivars (lines) from Germany. Fifty-two hybrids were derived by crossing the two male sterile lines with the 26 cultivars (lines). A dendrogram was established based on UPGMA (unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic means) cluster analysis. Nei72 distance between two male sterile lines and 26 cultivars (lines) were calculated, and the correlation between genetic distance and heterosis of hybrid performance was analyzed. The results showed that 254 polymorphic loci were derived from the 66 markers and each marker had a mean of 3.9 polymorphic loci. The mean genetic distance between XY15A and the 26 cultivars (lines) was 0.56, and the maximum and minimum genetic distances were 0.15 and 0.80, respectively. The mean genetic distance between MSL72A and the 26 cultivars (lines) was 0.58, and the maximum and minimum genetic distances were 0.28 and 0.84, respectively. The dendrogram and principal coordinate analysis of the two male sterile lines and the 26 cultivars (lines) showed that all the materials were divided into four primary groups, which were consistent with their geographical attribute. The four groups were the middle and lower reaches of Changjiang River, Huanghuai region, Europe spring type and Europe winter type. Correlation analysis indicated that the genetic distance based on molecular markers was significantly correlated with over male-parent heterosis of hybrid performance, and the correlation coefficients were 0.647** and 0.622** in hybrids derived from the two male sterile lines, XY15A and MSL72A， respectively. The seed yield of hybrids was also significantly correlated with the yield of male parents, and the correlation coefficients were 0.732** and 0.615**, respectively. All the results indicate that the hybrid performance depends on the performance of parent lines and the genetic distance between the two parent lines together. It will be highly efficient in hybrid breeding by combining male sterile lines with elite restorers which should have good performance and enough genetic distance with male sterile lines. Therefore, we consider that molecular markers could be used to select restorers for male sterile lines in hybrid breeding of rapeseed and enhance the breeding efficiency.

Cathepsin is a kind of protease that mainly exists in intracellular lysosome. Under the weak acid condition, cathepsin can be activated and acts as hydrolysate protein. Based on the different mechanisms of the protein hydrolysis, cathepsin is divided into four species, including aspartic acid protease, cysteine protease, serine protease and threonine protease. Cathepsin D and cathepsin E (CtpE) both belong to aspartic proteases, while the latter is fundamental basis for life activities of mammals. Moreover, CtpE is an important enzyme in participating physiological processes of aquatic animals, such as digestion, yolk formation and immune response. However, few researches were focused on immune function of CtpE gene in fish. In this study, a full- length cDNA of CtpE was cloned from medaka (Oryzias latipes), to identify the gene and protein sequences of CtpE in medaka, and to clarify the evolutionary relationship of O. latipes CtpE (OlCtpE) with other animals, providing a theoretical foundation for further research on the physiological function of CtpE in fish. The total RNA was extracted from medaka gut tissue, using Trizol kit according to the manual steps. The quality of total RNA was extracted by agarose gel electrophoresis. Reverse transcription- polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) were used to clone the full-length cDNA of OlCtpE from gut tissue in medaka. According to GenBank, the CtpE gene and corresponding protein sequence of Fundulus heteroclitus, Poecilia formosa, Austrofundulus limnaeus and Larimichthys crocea were downloaded and then analyzed through the global Clustal X alignment. The conserved region of the medaka OlCtpE gene fragment was amplified using the degenerate primers PF1 and PR1. The 3' RACE specific primers PE2 and PE3 were designed according to the conserved sequence, which was amplified by degenerate primers PF1 and PR1 using DNAStar software. The 5' RACE specific primers PE4, PE5 and PE6 were designed according to the conserved sequence, which was also amplified by degenerate primers PF1 and PR1 using DNAStar software. The RT-PCR product sequence, the 3' RACE and 5' RACE product sequences were assembled by using DNAman software. Clustal X 1.81 and MEGA 4.0 softwares were used to analyze the amino acid homology. The basic physical and chemical properties of proteins were predicted by ExPASy- PROSITE and ExPASy- ProtParam. The signal peptide and the glycosylation sites were predicted by SignalP 4.1 and NetNGlyc 1.0, respectively. The tertiary structure of OlCtpE protein was predicted by homology modeling method using SWISS-MODEL software. The results showed that the full-length cDNA of the OlCtpE was 1 301 bp, containing 24 bp 5'-untranslated regions (UTR), 56 bp 3'-UTR and 1 221 bp open reading frame, presumably encoding 406 amino acids. The cloned cDNA sequence of OlCtpE gene has been submitted to the GenBank database (accession number: KP864679). The N-terminus of OlCtpE protein contained a signal peptide of 17 amino acids, and it was a secretory protein. The OlCtpE protein contained three N- linked glycosylation sites,“NPTI”(amino acids 26-29),“NFSV”(amino acids 95-98) and“NLTV”(amino acids 162-165). The sequence homology from medaka CtpE protein was 77% with those of F. heteroclitus and A. limnaeus, 74% with that of P. latipinna, and 71% with that of L. crocea. A total of 22 CtpE proteins in different fish species had the active sites of conserved aspartate protease, which were“VIFDTGSSDLWV”(amino acids 98-109) and“AIVDTGTSLIAG”(amino acids 284-295) by homology analysis. The amino acid sequence homology was 43.60% between the CtpE protein from medaka and the porcine pepsinogen, and the two tertiary structures were also very similar. The tertiary structural analysis showed that the substrate was fixed to the active site in the active center, and the hairpin of the active site could provide space for the combination of substrate and enzyme. The overall shape of CtpE protein from medaka and porcine pepsinogen showed ellipsoid, and formed a relatively independent space entity. In conclusion, OlCtpE might play a very important role in the immune processing and presentation of exogenous antigen. Cloning and function analysis of the OlCtpE provide essential evidence for further studies on immune gene function.

The combined pollution of acid rain and cadmium (Cd) has been an important component of soil interacted with atmospheric pollution in China. The combined pollution posed harmful impact on human beings, and threatened the habitats of other, such as the urban garden plants. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effect of complicated pollution on the growth of plants, extension of plant population and ecosystem balance. The seed germination is the origin of the plant’s life cycle, which is the key link affecting extension of plant population. The stress resistance was bad in the seeding stage, especially poorer resistance to single and combined pollution compared to seedling stage. Therefore, the seeding period became the key to accomplish extension of plant population under habitat destruction. Previous studies on Hosta ventricosa focused on single pollution of Cd or acid rain; recently H. ventricosa was found to have tolerance against combined pollution of Cd and acid rain. Therefore, it is potential for phytoremediation of Cd polluted soil in acid rain area. In this study, H. ventricosa was selected as test material, to investigate the physico- ecological responses under combined pollution of simulated acid rain and Cd. The tolerance of H. ventricosa was examined under both seed germination and seedling periods, to provide science evidence for selection of urban plants with strong stress resistance under combined pollution. A completely random scheme of two factors (simulated acid rain and Cd) and five levels was used. The simulated acid rain was set at five pH levels (6.5, 5.5, 4.5, 3.5 and 2.5), and the Cd treatment fluids were set at five different Cd²⁺ concentrations (0, 10, 30, 50 and 100 mg/L). Both normal and abnormal germination rates were measured in each group. Meanwhile, after the seedling of H. ventricosa grew up to 10 to 15 cm height, the contents of chlorophyll, malondialdehyde (MDA) and H₂O₂, the activities of peroxidase (POD), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were measured in each group to investigate the physicoecological responses. Results showed that the combined pollution of acid rain and Cd had significant higher impact on seed germination and seedling growth of H. ventricosa than single pollution. The interaction of acid rain and Cd posed obviously synergistic effect, especially in high strength pollution (Cd²⁺ concentration ≥30 mg/L). Seed germination and seedling growth of H. ventricosa showed tolerance under stress of low concentration Cd²⁺ (10 mg/L) and low intensity acid rain, and the seed germination was even promoted by low concentration Cd²⁺ of 10 mg/L. The tolerance of seedling under Cd stress was weaker than mature seedling, and the critical tolerance value was believed to be 30 mg/L. The CAT activity was more sensitive than POD and SOD activites under the Cd stress, especially under the combined pollution of Cd and acid rain, and the peak value of the CAT activity was observed under 30 mg/L Cd²⁺. Therefore, the ability of CAT to eliminate reactive oxygen species (ROS) decreased under high concentration of Cd stress (≥30 mg/L). The production of H₂O₂ was faster than scavenging by antioxidant enzyme systems, so the seedling would completely lose the self-defensive ability. In conclusion, the seed germination and seedling growth can complete the self-update under the combined pollution of low intensity acid rain (pH ≥5.5) and low concentration Cd²⁺ (≤10 and 30 mg/L), respectively, but high intensity of the combined pollution will significantly affect seed germination and seedling growth, which can provide reference for phytoremediation of combined polluted soil environment.

The stable ecological environment of the warehouse for storage of grain, Chinese herbal medicine and tobacco provided good condition for growth of pests, thus caused mass propagation of pests. Rapid propagation of pests on stored grain has brought substantial economic loss to farmers. Many previous studies have showed that pest damage affected not only the quantity, but also the quality of stored grain. Therefore, study on the effect of pest damage on chemical composition of the hoard could provide a scientific basis for safe storage. Honeysuckle was one of the rare Chinese herbal medicine with disease prevention and healthcare functions, such as heat-clearance and detoxification, anti-inflammation and dispelling swollen. It had a long cultivation history in Anhui Province, and has been rated as one of demonstration varieties of authentic Chinese herbal medicine in GAP (good agricultaral practice for Chinese crude drugs) bases. However, honeysuckle was damaged by many pests after harvest, because of the backward storage conditions and management measures during the storage period. Oryzaephilus surinamensis which belongs to Silvanidae within Coleoptera, was one of the pests on honeysuckle, caused great economic loss to farmers and enterprises. In this study, the chemical component variations of honeysuckle after damage by O. surinamensis was tested in the laboratory, to investigate the effect of O. surinamensis damage on the chemical components of honeysuckle during the storage period. In the experiment, we set five population densities of pests (200, 400, 600, 800 and 1 000 individual/kg), and the protein, total sugar, total flavonoid, chlorogenic acid and vitamin C contents of honeysuckle were tested after fed by O. surinamensis for 7, 14, 21, 28 and 35 d using Kjeldahl determination method, anthrone colorimetry and ultraviolet spectroscopy method separately. The chemical component contents of honeysuckle not fed by O. surinamensis were also tested as controls, and three repetitions were proceeded. The result showed that the population density and damage time of O. surinamensis had significant effect on the chemical components of honeysuckle, and the protein, total sugar, total flavonoid, chlorogenic acid and vitamin C contents all declined after O. surinamensis damage. Under the population densities of 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1 000 individual/kg, the protein contents of honeysuckle declined by 1.43％, 3.21, 5.14％, 7.81％ and 9.54％ respectively, compared to the control after damage time of 7 d. The total sugar contents declined by 0.24％, 1.37％, 2.15％, 3.28％ and 4.17％ respectively; the total flavonoids contents declined by 1.25％, 1.84％, 2.43％, 3.51％ and 4.32％ respectively; the chlorogenic acid contents declined by 0.29％, 0.60％, 0.93％, 1.28％ and 1.56％ respectively; and the vitamin C contents declined by 0.02％, 0.06％, 0.09％, 0.13％ and 0.15％ respectively. With the extension of damage time, the content of each component continuously declined. Under the same damage time, the contents of each component declined with the increase of population density. The correlation analysis indicated that the protein, total sugar, total flavonoids, chlorogenic acid and vitamin C contents were all negatively correlated to the population density and damage time of O. surinamensis（P＜0.05). Two-way analysis of variance showed that, no significant effect was observed between the interaction of population density and damage time on each component of honeysuckle（P＞0.05）. In conclusion, O. surinamensis damage on honeysuckle could cause decline of the chemical component contents, and quality decrease of honeysuckle.

Pests and diseases have become serious because of global warming, which have caused great economic losses to agricultural production, and have threatened human life and health, so it was very urgent and challenging to prevent or control pests and diseases. Real-time dynamic monitoring of the occurrence of pests and diseases in large scale continuous space can guide the prevention or control work accurately and effectively to reduce the impact of pests and diseases as well as the environmental pollution caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Remote sensing technology can provide effective information for crop pests and diseases monitoring quickly and accurately on a massive continuous spatial surface. HJ- 1A/1B satellite has a high revisit period（4 days）. Multi- spectral images obtained by HJ- 1A/1B satellite sensors have high spatial resolution（30 m）and are very suitable for the monitoring of agricultural pests and diseases. The occurrence of wheat aphids seriously affects the yield and quality of wheat. Monitoring of the wheat aphids accurately and timely is helpful for effective prevention and control of pests. In this paper, by using the field location survey data and the HJ-CCD and HJ-IRS image data, the growth factors and the environmental factors of wheat are extracted, including normalized difference vegetation index（NDVI）, green normalized difference vegetation index（GNDVI）, reflectance of red band, land surface temperature（LST）and perpendicular drought index（PDI）. These factors had a great influence on the occurrence of wheat aphids. The monitoring model of wheat aphids in Tongzhou District and Shunyi District of Beijing was established by using the least square twin support vector machine（LSTSVM）. The LSTSVM has a good processing ability for large scale unbalanced data and has stronger robustness than the traditional support vector machine（SVM）. Computational complexity of LSTSVM is reduced by using the least squares algorithm to transform inequality constraints into equality constraints. Experimental results showed that: the overall monitoring accuracy of the LSTSVM model was 86.4% and the Kappa coefficient was 0.71; the traditional SVM model was 77.3% and 0.52; the Fisher linear discriminant analysis（FLDA）model was 77.3% and 0.54; and the learning vector quantization（LVQ）neural network model was 72.7% and 0.39. In sum, the algorithm proposed in this paper has higher precision than the traditional SVM, FLDA and LVQ neural network.

With increasing prevalence of early- onset dietary- related diseases in Chinese young people, understanding their motives for food choice and the associated factors is particularly important for further behavioral interventions and food policy decisions. In our study, the food choice questionnaire was adopted, to measure Chinese young people’s motives for food choice at an administrative division level in mainland China, and to understand physiological and socio-economic effects on the motives. Compared to ethical concern which was rated least important, sensory appeal, convenience and health were three most important motives ranked by people from Southwest, Southcentral, East, Northeast and North regions, while people from Northwest ranked familiarity as one of their most important motives. Canonical discriminant analysis indicated clear similarities and differences for each region of residence. Analysis of variance showed socioeconomic factors played independent roles in food choice motives. However, physiological factors, including body mass index, waist-hip ratio, self and caregivers’health conditions didn’t show any independent effects or interactions with socioeconomic factors. Cluster analysis indicated that Chinese young people from six experimental regions were mainly grouped in five different motive-oriented clusters. Nearly 40 percent of young people were basically health-oriented food consumers. Together, it would be possible to alter motives for food choice towards health by changing some socio-economic factors, like level of education, monthly expenses. These data are important for further studies on health conditions and eating behaviors of Chinese young people distributed in different areas.

With the development of diversification in tea consumption, white tea has increased its popularity owning to the natural- mellow taste. Up to now, the production area of white tea relatively concentrated in Fujian Province, limited yield of which is difficult to meet the demand of market. With the geographical advantage near Fujian Province, Zhejiang Province also has abundant tea resources. It is potential for Zhejiang Province to develop white tea production. This study aims at screening optimal withering and drying parameters for processing using local white tea materials of Zhejiang Province. In this study, the fresh leaves from the cultivar “Chunyu 2”, one of major tea cultivars in Zhejiang Province were selected as test materials, and treated by traditional processing technology of white tea. Optimal withering and drying parameters for processing wereexplored,bysensoryevaluationofthemadeteaandquantitativedeterminationonchemicalingredientsinmadetea. The results showed that the processing time varied due to differences in ambient temperature and relative humidity caused made under controlled temperature was more stable. Withering at 35 °C under short-term lead to the lower catechins and amino acid contents in made tea. Lower amino acid contents under short term of high-temperature withering may be mainly because of deficient protein hydrolysis. But white tea prepared by short term of high- temperature withering gained high taste score and aroma score by sensory evaluation because of taste- sweetness increasing and green- gas reducing. Meanwhile, the results also indicated that short term and high- temperature drying could facilitate chemical reaction of amino acids and other chemical compositions, reduce amino acid contents and increase aroma richness, and improve the quality of the made tea. It is concluded that the following two processing procedures are suitable for preparation of “Chunyu 2” white tea in this Zhejiang Province. 1) Fresh leaves → withering at 35 °C for 25 h → drying at 50 °C for 2 h, and 2) fresh leaves → sunshine withering for 40 h → drying at 100 °C for 30 min.

Probiotics are defined as “living micro-organisms which, upon ingestion in certain numbers, exert health benefits beyond inherent basic nutrition”. Recent reports have confirmed that probiotics can provide a variety of beneficial health effects, which are strain dependent. The regulation effect of probiotics was based on tolerance of acid environment in the stomach, and resistance to bile salt and trypsin in the small intestine. Most of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are considered as probiotics, and have been widely used as dietary additives in cultured dairy foods and other fermentation products. The source of LAB may be naturally fermented food or human and animal intestines. In this study, two strains were isolated from Chinese traditional food (Northeast pickle and stinky beans), and identified as Lactobacillus plantarum D28 and Enterococcus faecium B21 by 16S rRNA gene sequences, respectively. The growth and potential probiotic characteristics of the two lactic acid bacteria strains were further investigated. Growth curve and the effect of initial pH on the growth were studied by spectrophotometry method. Meanwhile, the resistance characteristics were investigated, including sodium chloride (NaCl), bile salt, artificial gastric juice and artificial intestinal juice. In addition, antioxidant activity and bile salt hydrolase activity (BSH) in vitro were determined by scavenging DPPH free radical and ninhydrin method, respectively. The results of growth curve showed that the growth rate of L. plantarum D28 was faster than E. faecium B21 under the same culture condition, and the steady stage of L. plantarum D28 and E. faecium B21 occurred at 18 h and 16 h, respectively. The growth rate of the two strains was affected by different initial pH; pH ranges of 5.5-7.0 and 6.0-7.0 were most favorite initial pH for L. plantarum D28 and E. faecium B21, respectively. Moreover, L. plantarum D28 had a good tolerance against NaCl (5%) and bile salt (0.15%) in vitro, and E. faecium B21 had a better tolerance against NaCl (8%) and bile salt (0.45%). Time-dependent behavior was found in the bacterial survival amount under the artificial gastric juice (pH 2.0) and artificial intestinal juice (pH 8.0) conditions. After treatment with artificial gastric juice (pH 2.0) for 180 min, the survival rate of L. plantarum D28 was higher than E. faecium B21, remaining 41.33 lg (CFU/mL) and 8.33 lg (CFU/mL), respectively. Moreover, similar result was found with treatment of artificial intestinal juice (pH 8.0) for 240 min, 36.33 lg (CFU/mL) and 18.67 lg (CFU/mL) for L. plantarum D28 and E. faecium B21, respectively. In addition, the two strains had certain antioxidant activity in vitro, and L. plantarum D28 had a higher DPPH free radical scavenging activity (34.86%) than that of E. faecium B21 (25.32%). Besides, both of the two stains had bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity, and E. faecium B21 (0.415 U/mg) had a higher BSH activity than that of L. plantarum D28 (0.114 U/mg). In conclusion, the growth rate of the two strains is affected by different initial pH, and L. plantarum D28 has a higher growth rate than E. faecium B21. L. plantarum D28 and E. faecium B21 both have tolerance to acid, bile salt, and NaCl, and are able to survive under the conditions of artificial gastric juice and artificial intestine juice. Therefore, both L. plantarum D28 and E. faecium B21 can be used as candidate for probiotic strains and application for lowering cholesterol research, and L. plantarum D28 can especially be applied to antioxidant-related research.

The polyamines spermidine and spermine and their precursor putrescine are a class of compounds containing two or more amino groups and participate in the regulation of various physiological and pathological processes by interacting with negatively-charged molecules, such as DNA, RNA and proteins. Recently, increasing studies suggest that polyamines also play important roles in follicular development, ovulation and steroidogenesis in female animals. The spermidine exists ubiquitously in species ranging from yeast to mammals. Recently, studies from our and other laboratories indicated that spermidine is involved in regulating animal reproduction through mediating spermatogenesis, oogenesis, follicular development and ovulation. However, to the best of our knowledge, the effect of the spermidine on the expression levels of hormone receptor genes associated with reproduction is unknown. To demonstrate the effect of the spermidine on the transcription of reproductive hormone receptor genes in mouse ovaries, Kunming mice were administrated with 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15 mg/g (body mass) spermidine by intraperitoneal injection. Ovarian tissue samples were collected after 24 h of spermidine administration. The levels of follicle- stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), luteinizing hormone receptor (LHR), estrogen receptor 1 (ER1), ER2 and androgen receptor (AR) mRNA expression in mouse ovaries were measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The results showed that the level of LHR mRNA expression in ovaries of mice administrated with 0.05 mg/g spermidine was significantly higher than the untreated group (P<0.05). The amount of LHR mRNA expression in ovaries of mice administrated with 0.15 mg/g spermidine was significantly lower than the control group (P<0.05). With increasing spermidine administration, a gradually increasing trend was observed in the change of FSHR, ER1, ER2 and AR expression levels. The amount of FSHR, ER1, ER2 and AR genes in ovaries of mice administrated with 0.15 mg/g spermidine was significantly high, compared with the untreated control, respectively (P<0.05). In conclusion, our present results demonstrate that exogenous spermidine mediates the transcription of genes associated with reproductive hormone receptors in ovaries of mice. It is indicated that spermidine might play an important role in regulating the responsiveness of the ovary to reproductive hormones through an unknown mechanism. Further research is needed to elucidate the mechanism of action of spermidine mediating ovarian functions in animals.

Alfalfa is one of the most important forage legume species in China and famous as“king of grass”. The nutrients in alfalfa can effectively increase the productivity and body immunity of animals. Relative reports suggested that addition of appropriate amount of alfalfa in forage can improve the production performance of animals, such as fattening pigs, sows, laying hens, rabbits and aquatic animals. Due to poor palatability and bad absorbing ability, the development and application of alfalfa was greatly restricted. However, alfalfa pellet feed can promote flavor and improve palatability, meanwhile reduce the waste of alfalfa resources. Previous research suggestes that as particle size of animal feed decreases, the contact between nutrients and digestive enzymes possibly increases, and the digestibility of nutrients can be improved simultaneously. Therefore, technical adjustment on particle size, color, flavor and palatability of the alfalfa feed is of great importance in raising livestock and poultry. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of alfalfa meal with different particle sizes on production performance, meat quality and blood biochemical index of Yangzhou goose, and provide theoretical reference of optimal particle size for production of alfalfa meal. In this study, 180 Yangzhou geese (half male and half female) with similar initial body mass were selected as test materials. They were divided into three groups randomly (experiment a groupsⅠ, Ⅱand Ⅲ), and each group had five replications with 12 geese per each replication. The three groups were fed with alfalfa meal with particle sizes of 272.0, 301.2 and 391.3 μm, respectively, and the whole experiment lasted for 42 days. Results indicated that there were no significant difference in final mass after 49 days (P>0.05); the average daily feed intake and average daily gain in the experiment a groupⅡwere significantly higher than that of the experiment a groupⅠ(P<0.05). After 70 days, the average daily gain in the groupⅠwas significantly higher than the group Ⅲ(P<0.05); the carcass mass, breast muscle mass and breast muscle ratio in the groupⅡ increased significantly compared with the group Ⅲ; the masses of tibia and bursa of Fabricius and pH of leg muscle in the groupⅠwere significantly higher than the group Ⅱ (P<0.05); the masses of heart, liver and spleen in the groupⅠwere significantly higher than the group Ⅲ (P<0.05); the shear forces of breast muscle in groupsⅠandⅡwere significantly higher than the group Ⅲ (P<0.05); the water-holding of leg muscle capacity in the groups the Ⅱ and Ⅲ was significantly higher than the group Ⅰ (P<0.05); the total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein cholesterol in the groupⅠwere significantly low compared with the groups Ⅱ and Ⅲ (P<0.05). In conclusion, the optimal particle size for alfalfa feed should be 272.0 μm. The pellet diet can effectively increase the production performance of Yangzhou goose, and promote the development of organs as well as the blood biochemical indexes.

Humidity is one of significant factors affecting the quantity of Pleurotus eryngii primordium. Artificial statistics are necessary to count the number of primordium, since the model for prediction of the formation rate of primordium has not been developed. In this paper, computer vision based on statistics was applied to develop a formation rate model for primordium. To solve the problem of statistics on primordium, image preprocessing and gray recognition template extraction were firstly studied. The number of primordium was accounted on the basis of primordium size. However, recognition rate was low because of the similarity between primordium and background. Second, combined with the gray image matrix of primordium, a characteristic- genetic- screening method based on size and shape of primordium was proposed to extract the morphological characteristics of primordium seed, and a feature library of primordium seeds was built to display the characteristic data information. Then, the large data analysis was carried out on the morphological database based on genetic idea, and 12 seeds were acquired. A primordium quantity neural network prediction model was established based on back-propagation neural network in which matching quantity of primordium seeds was considered as input, the actual quantity of primordium as output. Primordium statistics was completed and verified, with accuracy up to 94.79%. According to the statistics on the primordium under different relative humidity conditions, the formation rate model of primordium was established. It is found that computer vision based statistical method for primordium can be used to evaluate the formation rate of primordium under different humidity conditions.