BMI, a body shape index and body roundness index may identify the presence of diabetes. Among the three anthropometric indices, BMI had the weakest association with diabetes. Body roundness index is an alternative index for assessing diabetes in Han Chinese people in Northeast China.

The physical, achievement, and personality characteristics of Chinese schoolchildren are evaluated. The results of two surveys of Chinese schoolchildren, conducted in Beijing and Jilin Province, are presented. In the Beijing sample, the differences between only children and others were small but statistically significant, with the only children having higher scores in achievement and physical size. In the Jilin Province sample, the differences between only children and others were also small but significant. These differences were found entirely in physical characteristics, with only children being smaller, perhaps because the only children in the Jilin sample were much younger than the non-only children. Analyses of the combined sample of Beijing and Jilin schoolchildren indicated that the only-child advantages in achievement were found among children from urban families, not rural peasant families. While significant differences in height and weight were found in all three samples, none of the results indicated a significant difference in the proportion of body fat. None of the analyses indicated that only children had undesirable personalities, as judged by teachers and mothers.

No abstract

It is difficult to control Holotrichia parallela Motschulsky with chemical insecticides due to the larvae's soil-living habit, thus the pest has caused great economic losses in agriculture. In addition, uridine diphosphate-glycosyltransferases (UGTs) catalyze the glycosylation process of a variety of small lipophilic molecules with sugars to produce water-soluble glycosides, and play multiple roles in detoxification, endobiotic modulation, and sequestration in an insect. Some UGTs were found specifically expressed in antennae of Drosophila melanogaster and Spodoptera littoralis, and glucurono-conjugated odorants could not elicit any olfactory signals, suggesting that the UGTs may play roles in odorant inactivation by biotransformation. In the current study, we performed a genome-wide analysis of the candidate UGT family in the dark black chafer, H. parallela. Based on a UGT gene signature and the similarity of these genes to UGT homologs from other organisms, 20 putative H. parallela UGT genes were identified. Bioinformatics analysis was used to predict sequence and structural features of H. parallela UGT proteins, and revealed important domains and residues involved in sugar donor binding and catalysis by comparison with human UGT2B7. Phylogenetic analysis of these 20 UGT protein sequences revealed eight major groups, including both order-specific and conserved groups, which are common to more than one order. Of these 20 UGT genes, HparUGT1265-1, HparUGT3119, and HparUGT8312 were highly (>100-fold change) expressed in antennae, suggesting a possible role in olfactory tissue, and most likely in odorant inactivation and olfactory processing. The remaining UGT genes were expressed in all tissues (head, thorax, abdomen, leg, and wing), indicating that these UGTs likely have different biological functions. This study provides the fundamental basis for determining the function of UGTs in a highly specialized olfactory organ, the H. parallela antenna.

No abstract