OBJECTIVE: The dietary intake of fructose-rich sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) may have a significant role in raising serum uric acid (SUA) levels as well as the risk of contracting gout and cardiovascular risk factors. Our objective was to investigate the impact of SSB intake on SUA, body mass index (BMI) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) among adolescents in Taiwan. METHODS: We evaluated data from 2727 representative adolescents who were multistage sampled from 36 Junior High schools in Taiwan. We cross-sectionally collected demographic, physical, dietary and anthropometric variables, and prospectively measured clinical outcomes. Data were analyzed using multiple regression and logistic models adjusted for covariates. RESULTS: We found that 87.7% of adolescents were SSB drinkers, with 25.1% drinking 4500 ml per day of such beverages. Increased SSB intake was associated with increased waist and hip circumferences, body fat, BMI, SBP and SUA. As compared with non-drinkers, SSB drinkers had a 3.2-4.9 elevated risk of obesity. The prevalence of hyperuricemia in heavy SSB users (40.2-49.4%) was appreciably greater than that for non-users (24.2%). Adolescents who consumed 4500 ml per day of heavy high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) containing beverages had a 0.42 mg dl À 1 higher SUA level and a 2.0-2.1 increased risk of developing hyperuricemia than non-drinkers. The consumption of HFCS-rich beverages was also found to interact with obesity in determining higher levels of SUA (2.2-2.4 mg dl À 1 increases). CONCLUSION: High SSB consumption has a notable effect on increased levels of BMI and SUA. The intake of HFCS-rich beverages and BMI were likely to interactively strengthen SUA levels among obese adolescents.

Increasingly, blockchain technology is attracting significant attentions in various agricultural applications. These applications could satisfy the diverse needs in the ecosystem of agricultural products, e.g., increasing transparency of food safety and IoT based food quality control, provenance traceability, improvement of contract exchanges, and transactions efficiency. As multiple untrusted parties, including small-scale farmers, food processors, logistic companies, distributors and retailers, are involved into the complex farm-to-fork pipeline, it becomes vital to achieve optimal trade-off between efficiency and integrity of the agricultural management systems as required in contexts. In this paper, we provide a survey to study both techniques and applications of blockchain technology used in the agricultural sector. First, the technical elements, including data structure, cryptographic methods, and consensus mechanisms are explained in detail. Secondly, the existing agricultural blockchain applications are categorized and reviewed to demonstrate the use of the blockchain techniques. In addition, the popular platforms and smart contract are provided to show how practitioners use them to develop these agricultural applications. Thirdly, we identify the key challenges in many prospective agricultural systems, and discuss the efforts and potential solutions to tackle these problems. Further, we conduct an improved food supply chain in the post COVID-19 pandemic economy as an illustration to demonstrate an effective use of blockchain technology. INDEX TERMS Blockchain technology, agricultural applications, food supply chains management, data integrity, traceability.

The nuclear shell structure, which originates in the nearly independent motion of nucleons in an average potential, provides an important guide for our understanding of nuclear structure and the underlying nuclear forces. Its most remarkable fingerprint is the existence of the so-called magic numbers of protons and neutrons associated with extra stability. Although the introduction of a phenomenological spin–orbit (SO) coupling force in 1949 helped in explaining the magic numbers, its origins are still open questions. Here, we present experimental evidence for the smallest SO-originated magic number (subshell closure) at the proton number six in 13–20C obtained from systematic analysis of point-proton distribution radii, electromagnetic transition rates and atomic masses of light nuclei. Performing ab initio calculations on 14,15C, we show that the observed proton distribution radii and subshell closure can be explained by the state-of-the-art nuclear theory with chiral nucleon–nucleon and three-nucleon forces, which are rooted in the quantum chromodynamics.

The PRECIS, a regional climate model system developed at the UK Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, which is nested in one-way mode within the HadAM3P, a higher-resolution version of the atmospheric component of the Hadley Centre climate model HadCM3, is employed to simulate the baseline climate for evaluation of model's capacity of simulating present climate and analyze the future climate change responses in the time-slice of 2071-2100 (2080s) under SRES B2 scenario over China relative to baseline average. It is indicated from the comparison of the simulated baseline climate with in situ observation that PRECIS can simulate the local distribution characteristics of surface air temperature over China quite well; generally speaking, the simulation for precipitation in the north of China and in winter is better than in the south of China and in summer, respectively; the simulation of precipitation in summer is sensitive to topography, and the simulated precipitation values are lower than observations over southeast coastal areas. It is shown from the analyses on the simulated climate change responses in 2080s under SRES B2 scenario relative to baseline that there would be an obvious surface air temperature increase in the north of China relative to that in the south of China, and especially in Northwest China and Northeast China, the amplitude of summer mean surface air temperature increments could reach 5℃; there would be an overall increase of the simulated precipitation in 2080s under SRES B2 scenario over most areas of China, while there would be significant precipitation decreases in South China in winter; there would be obvious precipitation decreases in Northeast China and North China in summer with high surface air temperature increase. However, it presents an obvious precipitation increase over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in summer.