Mushroom production by automatic bottle culture system was introduced into China in 1999 and developed rapidly in recent ten years. According to the statistics of Chinese Mushroom Society, about 652 facilities of automatic mechanized bottle system were in 2011. The annual rate of increase of facility is expected to exceed 47%. The gross production by automatic bottle culture system was 990,000 tons in 2011. Beijing Hengdaxing Edible Mushroom Co., Ltd established in 2007 in Tongzhou district, Beijing is a company producing Pleurotus eryngii var. ferulae with annual production of 1,000 tons. The company has finished the technical reformation and expansion. Its designed production capacity is 6.5 tons per day and 2,000 tons per year. Beijing Fuqin Edible Mushroom Science & Technology Co., Ltd is an industrial production company of Flammulina velutipes. It was established in 2007. Its production capacity is 20 tons per day and 7,000 tons per year.

RNA interference (RNAi) technology based on feeding double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) has been employed for the control of insect pests. In general, strong lethal effects have been observed when feeding RNAi is applied to chewing insects. However, the efficacy of feeding RNAi for sap-sucking insects has not been reported to be limited most likely due to the reduced rate of dsRNA translocation into the plant sap. In this experiment, therefore, we tested whether the long-hairpin RNA (lhRNA) structure, which mimics the viroid, can improve its translocation within plant tissues, thereby increasing lethality of target gene, when compared with dsRNA structure. Either lhRNA of dsRNA structure (75 ng/ul) of vacuolar ATP synthase subunit A (V-ATPase) gene was delivered via rice seedling to Nilaparvata lugens, which is one of the major sucking insects on rice, and mortality was measured until 60 h post-treatment. Treatment of the lhRNA and dsRNA of V-ATPase gene caused increased mortality over time compared with eGFP-treated control, reaching the maximum level at 48 h post-treatment, and the mortality was significantly higher in lhRNA treatment than in dsRNA treatment. Gene silencing of target gene was confirmed at 24 h and 48 h post-treatment. In summary, treatment of lhRNA resulted in significantly higher mortalities than that of dsRNA, suggesting that delivery of lhRNA has an apparent advantage over dsRNA in exerting RNAi-induced lethality.

In the case of one standard-mum polyvinyl house, the density of F. occidentalis reached its peak in early June and decreased after the chemical control, which was carried out periodically. In the case of another standard-mum polyvinyl house, the density of F. occidentalis increased continuously in spite of the periodical chemical control after planting. In both polyvinyl houses, the density of F. occidentalis began to increase mid-May. The numbers of F. occidentalis collected on a tray with wet paper by heating the flowers of pink, white, and yellow Chrysanthemum standard mums were 18.4, 56.6, and 52.6 after flowering, but in the case of the leaves, the numbers were 7.8, 16.6, and 15.4. Also, the numbers of F. occidentalis collected on a tray with wet paper by heating the buds of pink, white, and yellow Chrysanthemum standard mums were 15.2, 45.8, and 41.6, but in the case of the leaves, the numbers were 2, 8.8 and 3.4. In the Y-tube olfactometer test, the frequency of F. occidentalis’ visits to one side arm of the Y-tube olfactometer was higher in the odor cue of the white flower than of the yellow, red, and violet flowers, but in the other combinations without white flowers, the frequency was higher in the odor cue of the violet and red flowers than of the yellow flowers. In the case of the four-choice olfactometer test, in the same visual cues as the odor cues of the pot mum flowers, the frequency of F. occidentalis was higher in the yellow flower than in the other flowers (white, red, and violet) in all the observation times (10, 15, and 20 minutes). In the case of the visual cues with disturbed odor cues, F. occidentalis preferred the yellow color to the other colors in all the observation times (10, 20, and 40 minutes). F. occidentalis preferred the white color to the other colors when the same odor cues as the flower color were provided, but the odor cue of the yellow flower was provided only without the color cue.

Spatial association of entomopathogenic and free-living nematode populations were analyzed at the landscape scale. Free-living nematodes were classified into functional guilds based on their trophic level (i.e. bacterivores, carnivores, fungivores, and omnivores) and life history characteristics (i.e. r-selected colonizing versus K-selected persisting species) in the soil ecosystem. Differences in life history traits were hypothesized to result in different spatial associations of populations. Spatial aggregation indices were calculated for each nematode group. Spatial associations were analyzed and compared for entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) and each trophic/life history group of free-living nematodes based on spatial analysis of distance indices (SADIE). Spatial aggregation indices (Ia) revealed that taxa with more K-selected persisting life history were less aggregated in their habitat, whereas more r-selected colonizer life history types showed more aggregation. Spatial aggregation index of EPN populations was similar to that of relatively r-selected colonizer type free-living nematodes, which share several life history traits including high reproductive rates and insect phoresy. There were substantial spatial associations between EPN and r-selected colonizer life history free-living nematode taxa.

We investigated the molecular and kinetic properties of two acetylcholinesterases (AmAChE1 and AmAChE2) from the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Western blot analysis revealed that AmAChE2 has most of catalytic activity rather than AmAChE1, further suggesting that AmAChE2 is responsible for synaptic transmission in A. mellifera, in contrast to most other insects. AmAChE2 was predominately expressed in the ganglia and head containing the central nervous system (CNS), while AmAChE1 was abundantly observed not only in the CNS but also in the peripheral nervous system/non-neuronal tissues. Both AmAChEs exist as homodimers; the monomers are covalently connected via a disulfide bond under native conditions. However, AmAChE2 was associated with the cell membrane via the glycophosphatidylinositol anchor, while AmAChE1 was present as a soluble form. The two AmAChEs were functionally expressed with a baculovirus system. Kinetic analysis revealed that AmAChE2 has approximately 2,500-fold greater catalytic efficiency toward acetylthiocholine and butyrylthiocholine than AmAChE1, supporting the synaptic function of AmAChE2. In addition, AmAChE2 likely serves as the main target of the organophosphate (OP) and carbamate (CB) insecticides as judged by the lower IC50 values against AmAChE2 than against AmAChE1. When OP and CB insecticides were pre-incubated with a mixture of AmAChE1 and AmAChE2, asignificant reduction in the inhibition of AmAChE2 was observed, suggesting a protective role of AmAChE1 against xenobiotics. Taken together, based on their tissue distribution pattern, molecular and kinetic properties, AmAChE2 plays a major role in synaptic transmission, while AmAChE1 has non-neuronal functions, including chemical defense.

The Herschel Space Observatory is the European Space Agency's state of the art infrared space telescope launched into space on 14 May 2009, covering the wavelength range from 70-700 microns with 3 instruments SPIRE, PACS and HIFI. Large area surveys are being carried out by Herschel in the AKARI legacy fields at the North and South Ecliptic Poles and the AKARI All-Sky Survey provides additional synergy with the largest survey with Herschel, H-ATLAS, covering more than 500 square degrees. This paper reports on some of the early results of these synergies between Herschel and AKARI including the first comparison of the AKARI All-Sky Survey number counts with the deeper Herschel surveys.

This paper presents Hα emission line detections for four galaxies at z > 3.5 made with AKARI as part of the FUHYU mission program. These are the highest-redshift Hα detections to date in star-forming galaxies. AKARI's unique near-infrared spectroscopic capability has made these detections possible. For two of these galaxies, this represents the first evidence of their redshifts and confirms their physical association with a companion radio galaxy. The star formation rates (SFRs) estimated from the Hα lines under-predict the SFRs estimated from their far-infrared luminosities by a factor of ~ 2 - 3. We have also detected broad Hα components in the two radio galaxies which indicate the presence of quasars.

We present the 18μm luminosity function (LF) of galaxies at 0.006 < z < 0.8 (the average redshift is ~ 0.04) using the AKARI mid-infrared All-Sky Survey catalogue. We have selected 243 galaxies at 18μm from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic region. These galaxies then have been classified into five types; Seyfert 1 galaxies (Sy1, including quasars), Seyfert 2 galaxies (Sy2), low ionization narrow emission line galaxies (LINER), galaxies that are likely to contain both star formation and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) activities (composites), and star forming galaxies (SF) using optical emission lines such as the line width of H α or the emission line ratios of [OIII]/ Hβ and [NII]/ Hα . As a result of constructing the LF of Sy1 and Sy2, we found the following results; (i) the number density ratio of Sy2 to Sy1 is 1.64±0.37 , larger than the results obtained from optical LF and (ii) the fraction of Sy2 in the entire AGN population may decrease with 18μm luminosity. These results suggest that most of the AGNs in the local universe are obscured by dust and the torus structure probably depends on the mid-infrared luminosity.

ANIR (Atacama Near InfraRed camera) is a near infrared camera for the University of Tokyo Atacama 1m telescope, installed at the summit of Co. Chajnantor (5,640 m altitude) in northern Chile. The high altitude and extremely low water vapor (PWV = 0.5 mm) of the site enable us to perform observation of hydrogen Paα emission line at 1.8751 μm . Since its first light observation in June 2009, we have been carrying out a Paα narrow-band imaging survey of nearby luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), and have obtained Paα for 38 nearby LIRGs listed in AKARI/FIS-PSC at the velocity of recession between 2,800 km/s and 8,100 km/s. LIRGs are affected by a large amount of dust extinction ( AV~ 3 mag), produced by their active star formation activities. Because Paα is the strongest hydrogen recombination line in the infrared wavelength ranges, it is a good and direct tracer of dust-enshrouded star forming regions, and enables us to probe the star formation activities in LIRGs. We find that LIRGs have two star-forming modes. The origin of the two modes probably come from differences between merging stage and/or star-forming process.

A study on the indigenous diatoms was carried out at 103 sites during August 2008 to April 2011 from the marine and the brackish waters in Korea. A fine structure of small-sized diatoms was examined using a light and scanning electron microscopy. Sixty species of diatoms were newly identified and composed of 3 class, 6 subclass, 16 order, 21 family and 39 genus. The detailed nomenclatures, references, photographs and distributions were here reported. Of 60 species, the most frequent species was Tryblionella coarctata appearing 24 times, and 22 times followed by Thalassiosira lacustris, Cocconeis stauroneiformis was 20 times. In the level of genus, Chaetoceros, Parlibells and Thalassiosira were included 4 species, Actinocyclus, Minidiscus and Licmophora were included 3 species. This study will provide the knowledge of the diversity level of diatom in Korea, the knowledge is important on the diatoms for further studies.