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Understanding soil phosphorus (P) distribution and its key drivers is fundamental for sustainable P management. In this study, a 21-year fertilization experiment on black soil was carried out, setting up five fertilization treatments: unfertilized control (CK), nitrogen and potassium (NK), nitrogen, P and potassium (NPK), NPK plus straw (NPKS), and NPK plus manure (NPKM). The distribution and effecting factors of P pools within soil aggregates were investigated. Compared to CK, the NK and NPK treatments decreased calcium-associated P concentration in all aggregate fractions. Meanwhile, the NPK treatment significantly increased the organic P extracted from NaOH in unaggregated particles (<0.053 mm). This was mainly due to the reduction in soil pH. The NPKS and NPKM treatments increased almost all P forms in aggregates, especially Ca-P. For the NPKM treatment, inorganic P extracted from resin, NaHCO3, and NaOH increased as aggregate size increased. This was mainly because straw or manure addition promoted soil organic carbon (SOC) storage in aggregates, creating more sorption sites via association with amorphous metallic minerals, and, thus, facilitating P accumulation. In conclusion, decreasing soil pH by chemical fertilizers is an effective strategy for mobilizing soil P, whereas increasing SOC by straw or manure facilitates P accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant NAPDH oxidase (NOX) gene family members are critical producers of ROS and play crucial roles in plant signaling, development, and stress responses. Opisthopappus taihangensis is a pivotal wild genetic resource in Asteraceae. To date, little knowledge exists about the functions of NOXs in O. taihangensis. In this study, seven typical NOXs and seven ferric reduction oxidases (FROs) were identified in O. taihangensis. Dispersed duplication might play a critical role in the expansion of the NOX/FRO gene family in O. taihangensis, and most of the NOX/FRO homologous pairs have undergone purifying selection. Although the results of the collinearity analysis show that these genes were relatively conserved, the gain and loss of members in this gene family occurred frequently during the evolution of Asteraceae. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the FROs are relatively ancient, and the earliest diverged branch was revealed by the maximum likelihood (ML) tree. The Asteraceae NOXs were divided into six subgroups according to their relationship with Arabidopsis and rice members. The transcriptome profile unveiled tissue-specific expression patterns and complex response modes under drought and salt stresses. OtNOX6 and OtNOX7 could be recognized as important candidates to respond to drought and salt stress. Our results provide clues and references for further in-depth exploration of NOX/FRO function in O. taihangensis and other horticulture plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phosphorus (P) leaching from excessive P application is the primary pathway of P losses in agricultural soils. Different P fertilizer practices have mixed effects on P leaching. We conducted a meta-analysis of the relevant literature regarding the response of crop yields, soil-available P (AP), and total P (TP) leaching to reduced P input (RP) and an inorganic-organic combination fertilizer (NPKM) for different agricultural land-use types. Compared to conventional P application (CP), RP (10~90% reduction) did not reduce crop yields in vegetable fields (experiments were 1~4 years) but significantly reduced cereal yields by 4.57%. Compared to chemical fertilizer (NPK), NPKM significantly increased cereal yields by 12.73%. Compared to CP, RP significantly reduced AP at 0~60 cm in vegetable and cereal fields. The greatest reduction occurred at 20~40 cm in vegetable fields (40.29%) and 0~20 cm in cereal fields (34.45%). Compared to NPK, NPKM significantly increased the AP at 0~60 cm in vegetable fields, with the greatest increase (52.44%) at 20~40 cm. The AP at 0~40 cm in cereal fields significantly increased under the NPKM treatment, with the greatest increase at 0~20 cm (76.72%). Compared to CP, RP significantly decreased TP leaching by 16.02% and 31.50% in vegetable and cereal fields, respectively. Compared to NPK, NPKM significantly increased TP leaching in vegetable fields (30.43%); no significant difference in leaching occurred in cereal fields. P leaching, in response to RP, was influenced by the P amounts applied (34.49%); soil organic matter (14.49%); and TP (12.12%). P leaching in response to NPKM was influenced by multiple factors: rainfall (16.05%); soil organic matter (12.37%); soil bulk density (12.07%); TP (11.65%); pH (11.41%). NPKM was more beneficial for improving yields in cereal fields with low soil fertility and lower P-leaching risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In coastal areas, biofilms are often subject to disturbance by hydrodynamic forcing, bioturbation and human activities. These factors affect the influences biofilms have on the sediment. To reveal these effects, we studied laboratory‐incubated and field‐collected biotic sediments reworked by disturbances, and examined their stabilities and three‐dimensional microstructures using laboratory annular flume tests and a wet‐staining X‐ray microcomputed tomography method. We find that, when subject to disturbance, biofilms do not always establish mat‐like matrices that firmly armor the seabed and bio‐stabilize sediments, but instead, have a range of effects on sediment stability, including both bio‐stabilization and destabilization. Disturbance considerably alters microbial influences on sediment stability, but is not the only control. Given equal disturbance, whether or not sediments are bio‐stabilized largely depends on the state of bio‐sediment formation. At a relatively well‐developed state, an organic‐rich, adhesive polymer network tightly interconnects large amounts of sediment particles into aggregates, forms complex internal structures, and enhances sediment stability. By contrast, some bio‐sediment formations only ever reach a less well‐developed state, where scattered organic patches bind relatively few particles into aggregates and reduce sediment stability. Microbial growth likely has two opposing effects on sediment stability, by enhancing either weight/friction or lift/drag on aggregated particles. The former has the positive effect of enhancing sediment stability, whereas the latter can result in greater flow resistance and so have the opposite effect. A conceptual framework is put forward to characterize the different states of bio‐sediment formation and their distinct effects on sediment stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims To evaluate the protective effect of intestinal supplementation with Lacticaseibacillus casei CNRZ1874 on the inflammatory response induced by Mycoplasma pneumoniae in C57BL/6 J mice, and provide a potential strategy for alleviating M. pneumoniae pneumonia. Methods and results C57BL/6 J mice were gavaged with L. casei CNRZ1874 or PBS for 7 consecutive days, and then infected with M. pneumoniae on day 8. Treatment with L. casei CNRZ1874 significantly reduced M. pneumoniae loads in the lungs and alleviated the lung inflammation on day 3 and 10 after pathogen infection. Importantly, oral administration with L. casei CNRZ1874 promoted M1 alveolar macrophages activation as evidenced by increased expression of iNOS, TNF-α, and CXCL1, while inhibited M2 alveolar macrophages activation as the expression of Arg1 and Chi3l3 were significantly decreased. In consistent with the M1 alveolar macrophages activation and enhanced mycoplasma clearance, the level of TNF-α was increased while the level of IL-4 was decreased in lung tissue from the L. casei CNRZ1874 group compared with the control group. However, oral administration with L. casei CNRZ1874 may not influence adaptive immunity induced by M. pneumoniae as evaluated by M. pneumoniae specific antibodies and T cells responses in spleen. Conclusions Intestinal supplementation with L. casei CNRZ1874 can promote M1 alveolar macrophages activation, which contributes to the clearance of M. pneumoniae and attenuation of M.pneumoniae pneumonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the effects of a fertilization regime on the long-term accumulation and transformation of soil phosphorus (P) is essential for promoting the development of sustainable management of soil P. Based on a 29-year field experiment in Mollisol, the compositions and changes of P forms using a modified Hedley sequential extraction method, solution 31P-NMR and P K-edge XANES and soil properties were investigated under continuous mono maize with and without manure (NPKM and NPK). Results showed a stronger positive related coefficient between soil total P and labile P, and mid-labile P fraction was found in NPKM than in NPK treatment. It indicated NPKM could improve the availability of soil accumulated P and reduce its transformation to stable P. Accumulated inorganic P (Pi) was dominated by aluminum phosphate (Al-P) and monobasic calcium phosphate monohydrate (MCP) for NPK treatment, Al-P, MCP, and tricalcium phosphate for NPKM treatment with XANES analysis, which contributed to the P availability in Mollisol. Moreover, the proportion of IHP with XANES and ratio of orthophosphate diesters to monoesters in NPK compared to NPKM indicated the higher Po lability with NPK treatment. Pi, especially NaHCO3-Pi and NaOH-Pi, were the potential sources of resin-Pi. Soil organic matter (SOM), organic-bound iron, and alumina oxide (Fep + Alp) showed significant influence on the transformation of P forms. Our research suggested that due to the rise in SOM and Fep + Alp, the fertilization regime significantly increased most highly active soil P fractions, especially in NPKM treatment. This work gives new insight into sustainable P management, which benefits the reduction in soil P accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An elucidation of how the selection pressures caused by habitat environments affect plant plastid genomes and lead to the adaptive evolution of plants, is a very intense area of research in evolutionary biology. The genus Paphiopedilum is a predominant group of orchids that includes over 66 species with high horticultural and ornamental value. However, owing to the destructive exploitation and habitat deterioration of wild germplasm resources of Paphiopedilum, it needs more molecular genetic resources and studies on this genus. The chloroplast is cytoplasmically inherited and often used in evolutionary studies. Thus, for this study, we newly sequenced, assembled and annotated five chloroplast genomes of the Paphiopedilum species. The size of these genomes ranged from 155,886 bp (P. henryanum) to 160,503 bp (P. 'GZSLKY' Youyou) and they contained 121–122 genes, which consisted of 76 protein coding genes, eight ribosomal RNAs, and 37–38 transfer RNAs. Combined with the other 14 Paphiopedilum species, the characteristics of the repeat sequences, divergent hotspot regions, and the condo usage bias were evaluated and identified, respectively. The gene transfer analysis showed that some fragments of the ndh and ycf gene families were shared by both the chloroplast and nucleus. Although the genomic structure and gene content was conserved, there was a significant boundary shift caused by the inverted repeat (IR) expansion and small single copy (SSC) contraction. The lower GC content and loss of ndh genes could be the result of adaptive evolutionary responses to its unique habitats. The genes under positive selection, including accD, matK, psbM, rpl20, rps12, ycf1, and ycf2 might be regarded as potential candidate genes for further study, which significantly contribute to the adaptive evolution of Paphiopedilum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semiotic studies in South Korea have a relatively short history; nevertheless, they enjoy a rapid development from a high starting point, so their research scale and insightful perspectives should not be underestimated. The introduction of "structuralist theory" in the late 1960s paved the way for Korean semiotics to enter the academic arena ideologically and theoretically. In the process of following the international trend of semiotic research, Korean semiotics has also formed its own characteristics. After over 40 years of development, it has become an important part of the world's semiotic studies. It has experienced three historical stages, namely, the budding period (1974–1983), the steady development period (1984–1993), and the comprehensive advancement period (1994–present). The current Korean semiotics presents obvious new trends as follows: conducting cross-regional integration research, highlighting the national characteristic culture, and focusing on the current application of research. First, Korean scholars switched their focus to East Asia, and emphasized the presentness and application of related research while focusing on the combination of semiotics with traditional cultural classics and cultural heritage. Second, in terms of the field of study, Korean semiotics has expanded across multiple fields such as linguistics, literature, aesthetics, philosophy, communication and traditional culture, music, dance, film, architecture, design, and so forth. Finally, in terms of studying the application of semiotics, it has already reached a considerable scale and depth. Although semiotic research in Korea still needs continuous efforts in enhancing theoretical depth and rigor, it has created a wide development space and displayed unlimited potential in terms of innovation of research perspectives and novelty of ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative permeability is one of the important parameters for reservoir interpretation and productivity prediction. The main methods used to obtain the relative permeability in the laboratory are the steady-state method and unsteady-state method, but both of these are relatively expensive and require long preparation times. Many researchers try to infer the relative permeability curve from other petrophysical parameters. The most representative one is the method used to calculate the relative permeability of the wetting and non-wetting phases according to the resistivity index I. In previous studies, the existing I-Kr models, such as the Li model and Ma model, have been generally effective in sandstone reservoir, yet not as effective in shaly sandstone reservoirs. In this study, in order to solve the problem of low productivity prediction accuracy caused by the complex oil-water relationship in the shaly sandstone reservoirs in the Xujiaweizi area of Daqing, it is necessary to establish a suitable I-Kr model for the shaly sandstone reservoirs in this area. Based on the improved W-S model, the resistivity index I* and its calculation equation are established to eliminate the influence of the additional conductivity of shale. This resistivity index I* is able to more accurately reflect the conductivity of the shaly sandstone reservoirs; thus a new I*-Kr* model of shaly sandstone reservoirs is successfully established by introducing the modification term of wetting phase relative permeability. In addition, for the shaly sandstone reservoirs, a working process is also proposed, which could be applied to wells in the study area. In order to verify the new model, the productivity prediction and reservoir evaluation were carried out for two sections of a well in this area. The comparison between the productivity calculation results and the actual oil test results proves the accuracy and applicability of the I*-Kr* model in this paper, which effectively improved the accuracy of shaly sandstone reservoir interpretation and productivity prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a parallel computation model for the self-organizing map (SOM) neural network applied to Euclidean traveling salesman problems (TSP). This model is intended for implementation on the graphics processing unit (GPU) platform. The Euclidean plane is partitioned into an appropriate number of cellular units, called cells, and each cell is responsible of a certain part of the data and network. Compared to existing GPU implementations of optimization metaheuristics, which are often based on data duplication or mixed sequential/parallel solving, the advantage of the proposed model is that it is decentralized and based on data decomposition. Designed for handling large-scale problems in a massively parallel way, the required computing resources grow linearly along the problem size. Experiments are conducted on 52 publicly available Euclidean TSP instances with up to 85,900 cities for the largest TSPLIB instance and 71,009 cities for the largest National TSP instance. Experimental results show that our GPU implementations of the proposed model run significantly faster than the currently best-performing neural network approaches, to obtain results of similar quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of structured mesh is to generate a compressed representation of the 3D surface, where near objects are provided with more details than objects far from the camera, according to the disparity map. The solution is based on the Kohonens Self-Organizing Map algorithm for the benefits of its ability to generate a topological map according to a probability distribution and its potential to be a natural massive parallel algorithm. The disparity map, which stands for a density distribution that reflects the proximity of objects to the camera, is partitioned into an appropriate number of cell units, in such a way that each cell is associated to a processing unit and responsible of a certain area of the plane. The advantage of the proposed model is that it is decentralized and based on data decomposition. The required processing units and memory are with linearly increasing relationship to the problem size. Experimental results show that our GPU implementation is able to provide near real-time performance with small size disparity maps and the running time increases in a linear way with a very weak increasing coefficient. The proposed method is suitable to deal with large scale problems in a massively parallel way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Respiratory diseases cause a high incidence and mortality worldwide. As a natural immunobiotic, Lactobacillus has excellent immunomodulatory ability. Administration of some Lactobacillus species can alleviate the symptoms of respiratory diseases such as respiratory tract infections, asthma, lung cancer and cystic fibrosis in animal studies and clinical trials. The beneficial effect of Lactobacillus on the respiratory tract is strain dependent. Moreover, the efficacy of Lactobacillus may be affected by many factors, such as bacteria dose, timing and host background. Here, we summarized the beneficial effect of administered Lactobacillus on common respiratory diseases with a focus on the mechanism and safety of Lactobacillus in regulating respiratory immunity., 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 © 2022 Du, Lei, Zhang and Zhu.)