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Changes in serum inflammatory factors occur throughout the onset and multiple myeloma (MM) progression, the feedback loops make it harder to distinguish between causes and effects. In the present study, we performed a bidirectional summary‐level Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to elucidate the causal relationships of C‐reactive protein (CRP) and inflammatory regulators with MM. Summary‐level data of genetic variants associated with inflammation were extracted from two genome‐wide association studies (GWASs) on CRP and human cytokines, while data on MM was from large meta‐analyses of GWASs among 372 617 UK Biobank participants. The inverse‐variance weighted (IVW) method was used as the primary MR analysis and MR‐Egger, weighted median, and MR‐pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR‐PRESSO) were used as the sensitivity analyses. Our results suggested that higher levels of monocyte‐specific chemokine‐3 (IVW estimate odds ratio [ORIVW] per SD genetic cytokines change: 1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03‐1.49; P =.02), vascular endothelial growth factor (1.14, 1.03‐1.27; P =.02), interleukin‐10 (1.33, 1.01‐1.75; P =.04) and interleukin‐7 (1.24, 1.03‐1.48; P =.02) were associated with increased risk of MM, while lower levels of tumor necrosis factor‐β (0.84, 0.74‐0.92; P <.001) was strongly associated with an increased risk of MM. And conversely, genetically predicted MM was related to increased levels of interleukin‐17 (IVW estimate β: 0.051, 95% CI: 0.018‐0.085; P = 2.7 × 10−3). Besides, we observed no such significant associations for other inflammatory factors in our study. Overall, our study provides genetic evidence on the relationships of CRP and systemic inflammatory regulators with MM. Targeted interventions of specific inflammatory factors may have implications to alleviate MM cancer risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, rice–fish coculture has gained more popularity at a growing pace in China. Controlled-release fertilizer can provide nutrients in a timely manner and increase nutrient efficiency. A 2-year field experiment, which adopted both conventional japonica and two indica hybrid rice varieties, was performed to evaluate the effects of controlled-release fertilizer and inorganic compound fertilizer on rice matter accumulation and yield in rice–crayfish coculture and conventional rice farming. The results showed that compared to conventional rice farming, rice–crayfish coculture decreased dry matter accumulation at mature stage and yield by 4.02–8.15% and 4.13–9.34%, respectively. This was mainly due to a decrease in the crop growth rate, net assimilation rate, leaf area index, and light accumulation duration before elongation stage. Compared to inorganic compound fertilizer, controlled-release fertilizer increased dry matter accumulation at the mature stage and yield by 5.02–6.95% and 3.29–6.21%, respectively. Compared to conventional rice farming, rice–crayfish coculture decreased N partial factor productivity and N agronomic use efficiency by 4.13–9.34% and 3.96–8.98%, respectively. Compared to inorganic compound fertilizer, controlled-release fertilizer increased those by 3.29–6.15% and 7.36–14.01%. There was a positive linear correlation between the N partial factor productivity, N agronomic use efficiency, and yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global rice production will be increasingly challenged by providing healthy food for a growing population at minimal environmental cost. In this study, a 2-year field experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of a novel rice cultivation mode (screenhouse cultivation, SHC) and organic material (OM) incorporation (wheat straw and wheat straw-based biogas residue) on methane (CH) and nitrous oxide (NO) emissions and rice yields. In addition, the environmental factors and soil properties were also determined. Relative to the traditional open-field cultivation (OFC), SHC decreased the CH and NO emissions by 6.58-18.73 and 2.51-21.35%, respectively, and the global warming potential (GWP) was reduced by 6.49-18.65%. This trend was mainly because of lower soil temperature and higher soil redox potential in SHC. Although the rice grain yield for SHC were reduced by 2.51-4.98% compared to the OFC, the CH emissions and GWP per unit of grain yield (yield-scaled CH emissions and GWP) under SHC were declined. Compared to use of inorganic fertilizer only (IN), combining inorganic fertilizer with wheat straw (WS) or wheat straw-based biogas residue (BR) improved rice grain yield by 2.12-4.10 and 4.68-5.89%, respectively. However, OM incorporation enhanced CH emissions and GWP, leading to higher yield-scaled CH emissions and GWP in WS treatment. Due to rice yield that is relatively high, there was no obvious effect of BR treatment on them. These findings suggest that apparent environmental benefit can be realized by applying SHC and fermenting straw aerobically before its incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated rice-duck farming (IRDF), as a mode of ecological agriculture, is an important way to realize sustainable development of agriculture. A 2-year split-plot field experiment was performed to evaluate the effects of IRDF on methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions and its ecological mechanism in rice season. This experiment was conducted with two rice farming systems (FS) of IRDF and conventional farming (CF) under four paddy-upland rotation systems (PUR): rice-fallow (RF), annual straw incorporating in rice–wheat rotation system (RWS), annual straw-based biogas residues incorporating in rice–wheat rotation system (RWB), and rice-green manure (RGM). During the rice growing seasons, IRDF decreased the CH 4 emission by 8.80–16.68%, while increased the N 2 O emission by 4.23–15.20%, when compared to CF. Given that CH 4 emission contributed to 85.83–96.22% of global warming potential (GWP), the strong reduction in CH 4 emission led to a significantly lower GWP of IRDF as compared to CF. The reason for this trend was because IRDF has significant effect on dissolved oxygen (DO) and soil redox potential (Eh), which were two pivotal factors for CH 4 and N 2 O emissions in this study. The IRDF not only mitigates the GWP, but also increases the rice yield by 0.76–2.43% compared to CF. Moreover, compared to RWS system, RF, RWB and RGM systems significantly reduced CH 4 emission by 50.17%, 44.89% and 39.51%, respectively, while increased N 2 O emission by 10.58%, 14.60% and 23.90%, respectively. And RWS system had the highest GWP. These findings suggest that mitigating GWP and improving rice yield could be simultaneously achieved by the IRDF, and employing suitable PUR would benefit for relieving greenhouse effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Thirty-one japonica cultivars with contrasting agronomic traits were used and 5 nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatments of level and timing were performed to determine the effects of N application on grain phytic acid and proteins including albumin, globulin, prolamin, and glutelin. Variance analysis showed a large effect of N and a smaller effect of cultivar on grain phytic acid and proteins. With increased N level, grain phytic acid concentrations progressively reduced whereas concentrations of the 4 proteins and ratios of glutelin to total protein increased, indicating that N level has a beneficial effect on rice nutritional quality. In addition, substantial genotypic differences in response of grain phytic acid and proteins to N treatments were detected. Some cultivars such as Xiushui09, Zhendao10, and Yanjing5 exhibited more stability of grain proteins under contrasting N treatments, and the significance of this stability is discussed in regard to its use in rice quality improvement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The effects of four levels of panicle nitrogen fertilizer on the grain filling characteristics of three rice ( Oryza sativa L.) varieties (super japonica rice Ningjing 3, three-line japonica hybrid rice Changyou 3 and three-line indica–japonica hybrid rice Yongyou 12) were analyzed. The results showed that difference in time of maximum filling rate ( T max ) was the smallest between the superior and inferior spikelets of Ningjing 3, bigger between those of Changyou 3, the biggest between those of Yongyou 12. Ningjing 3 was of the synchronous grain-filling type, Yongyou 12 the asynchronous type, and the Changyou 3 the medium type. The grain filling rate, the initial filling power ( R 0 ), the maximum filling rate ( G max ), and the average filling rate ( G ) of the superior and inferior spikelets of the three varieties under the treatment of panicle N with the amount of 120 kg ha −1 (middle panicle N, shortened as NM) treatment were higher than those of other treatments. NM treatment led to the highest increase in grain weight at the middle stage of filling for all the three varieties. The treatment shortened the early and late stages of grain filling, but extended the middle stage when the filling rate was the highest. However, the middle stage of grain filling of Changyou 3 and Yongyou 12 was much more extended than that of Ningjing 3, indicating a better effect of N on hybrid rice varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A field experiment involving six japonica rice cultivars with contrasting agronomic traits and seven nitrogen (N) fertilizer treatments was performed to determine the effects of N and genotype on distribution of four kinds of grain proteins and amino acids in milled and brown rice. For brown and milled rice, albumin and globulin were controlled more by genotype than N treatments, whereas prolamin and glutelin were largely determined by N. Substantial genotypic differences in response of milled/brown (M/B) ratios of proteins to N treatments were detected. In comparison with large panicle cultivars, small panicle cultivars such as Wuyujing3 had the lower ratio and exhibited more stability under contrasting N treatments. N had significant influence on amino acid composition of brown and milled rice, with contents of the 17 amino acids measured increasing with elevated N rate. However, cysteine and methionine in brown rice and lysine and methionine in milled rice were not significantly affected by N. In addition, N had little effect on ratios of M/B for most of the amino acids. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Diamond wire sawing technology is widely used in polysilicon cutting. The poor lubrication performance of the common water-based cutting fluid results in many cutting grooves and kerfs on wafer surface, which increases the difficulty of subsequent processing. In this paper, the application of nanoparticles water-based cutting fluid in polysilicon diamond wire sawing was proposed to further improve surface quality of wafers. A novel water-based cutting fluid was prepared with nano silicon carbide (N–SiC), polyethylene glycol (PEG2000) and sodium carboxymethylcellulose (CMC-Na). The dispersibility and friction performance of N–SiC cutting fluid were studied. And then the cutting performance of cutting fluid with different N–SiC content was investigated. Research results show that the dispersibility and friction performance of cutting fluid with 0.2 wt% N–SiC, 0.5 wt% CMC-Na and 6 wt% PEG2000 are the best. N–SiC particles can effectively reduce the width of edge breakage and the surface roughness of polysilicon wafers. The width of edge breakage and the surface roughness reach the lowest value when the N–SiC content in the cutting fluid is 0.2 wt%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing evidence shows that systemic inflammation is an embedded mechanism of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). However, the specific systemic inflammatory factors involved in this process remained obscure. The study aimed to identify the upstream and downstream systemic regulators of PDR by using Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses., Methods: We performed a bidirectional two-sample MR analysis implementing the results from genome-wide association studies for 41 serum cytokines from 8,293 Finnish individuals, and PDR from FinnGen consortium (2,025 cases vs. 284,826 controls) and eight cohorts of European ancestry (398 cases vs. 2,848 controls), respectively. The inverse-variance-weighted method was adopted as the main MR method, and four additional MR methods (MR-Egger, weighted-median, MR-pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO), and MR-Steiger filtering methods) were used for the sensitivity analyses. Results from FinnGen and eight cohorts were pooled into a meta-analysis., Results: Our results showed that genetically predicted higher stem cell growth factor-β (SCGFb) and interleukin-8 were positively associated with an elevated risk of PDR, with a combined effect of one standard deviation (SD) increase in SCGFb and interleukin-8 causing 11.8% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.6%, 24.2%]) and 21.4% [95% CI: 3.8%, 41.9%]) higher risk of PDR, respectively. In contrast, genetically predisposition to PDR showed a positive association with the increased levels of growth-regulated oncogene-α (GROa), stromal cell-derived factor-1 alpha (SDF1a), monocyte chemotactic protein-3 (MCP3), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (GCSF), interleukin-12p70, and interleukin-2 receptor subunit alpha (IL-2ra)., Conclusions: Our MR study identified two upstream regulators and six downstream effectors of PDR, providing opportunities for new therapeutic exploitation of PDR onset. Nonetheless, these nominal associations of systemic inflammatory regulators and PDR require validation in larger cohorts., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Shi, Wang, Wang, Lu and Wang.)

Insect-proof net cultivation (IPN), rice-duck farming (RD), and organic matter return (OM) are important methods to realize sustainable development of rice production. A split-plot field experiment was performed to study the effects of IPN, RD, and OM on the rice yield, dry matter accumulation and N utilization. Results showed that compared to inorganic N fertilizer (IN), wheat straw return, and biogas residue return increased the rice yield by 2.11-4.28 and 4.78-7.67%, respectively, and also improved dry matter and N accumulation after the elongation stage (EG), dry matter and N translocation, and N recovery efficiency (NRE). These results attributed to an increase in leaf SPAD values and net photosynthetic rate ( Pn) after the EG. Compared to conventional rice farming (CR), RD promoted the rice yield by 1.52-3.74%, and contributed to higher the leaf photosynthesis, dry matter and N accumulation, dry matter and N translocation, and NRE. IPN decreased the intensity of sun radiation in the nets due to the coverage of the insect-proof nets, which declined the leaf Pn , dry matter accumulation and translocation, N absorption and translocation, and NRE compared to open field cultivation (OFC). The rice yield of IPN were 2.48-4.98% lower than that of OFC. Compared to the interaction between CR and IN, the interaction between RD and OM improved the rice yield by 5.26-9.33%, and increased dry matter and N accumulation after the EG, dry matter and N translocation, and NRE. These results indicated that OM, RD and the interaction between RD and OM could promote dry matter accumulation and N utilization, which was beneficial to improve the rice yield.