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Since China's reform and opening up in 1978, the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization in China had led to dramatic changes in the pattern of urban-rural land use. In this paper, we focused on the rural industrialized areas in central China (Xinxiang County and Changyuan City of Henan Province). We used the average nearest neighbor index, spatial statistical analysis, and a structural equation model to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of urban-rural construction land based on multi-source spatial data and survey data. The results showed that: 1) from 1975 to 2019, the spatial distribution of urban-rural construction land in rural industrialized areas had evolved from homogeneous distribution to local agglomeration. In terms of comparative analysis of cases, the spatial distribution of urban-rural construction land in Changyuan City had shown a trend from diffusion to agglomeration, and Xinxiang County had overall shown a spatial change from homogenization to agglomeration and then to regional integration development. 2) The hot spots with increased urban-rural construction land significantly expanded, and they had a high degree of spatial overlap with industrial development. Among them, Xinxiang County was concentrated in central and marginal areas, and Changyuan was mainly concentrated in central urban areas. 3) From the evolution of spatial proximity of urban-rural construction land, rural industrialized areas generally decline, showing the characteristics of internal differentiation in the rate of change. 4) Industrial development, social economy, the policy environment, and urban development played a positive role in promoting the expansion of urban-rural construction land in rural industrialized areas. To promote the optimal use of regional land and the integrated development of urban-rural areas, we should combine the advantages of regional endowment, formulate development strategies according to local conditions, and adjust the way that land is used in a timely manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the tremendous contribution of irrigated agriculture in addressing global food security, there is still confusion for farmers and governments about the choice of irrigation mode owing to the drastic environmental impacts of irrigation, including water shortage, energy crisis, and global warming. Exploring the agricultural water-energy‑carbon (WEC) nexus under different irrigation modes helps to accomplish the multi-objective of water & energy saving and carbon emission reduction. In this paper, a conceptual framework was nominated to evaluate the water & energy consumption and carbon emissions for winter wheat irrigation at township level and quantitatively discuss the complex interaction by the coupling coordination degree (CCD) of the WEC system under different irrigation modes in Henan Province, China. We discovered that irrigation modes profoundly affect water and energy consumption and carbon emissions in agriculture, as well as the spatial distribution of CCD from WEC system. Townships under irrigation mode with diversion and irrigation projects as the primary method (WDI) clustered together in the north and east with highest water consumption and carbon emissions, while townships under irrigation mode with rain-fed agriculture as the primary method (PI) accumulated in the west and south with lower water consumption and carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the CCD of the WEC nexus system was in basic coordination (0.40) and showed an unbalanced spatial distribution pattern with high in the southeast and low in the northwest. By comparing four irrigation modes, the coupling level of the WEC nexus system under irrigation mode with groundwater irrigation as the primary method (GI) was better and PI mode was the least ideal. This study helps to further understand agricultural WEC nexus under different irrigation modes and provide references for local governments in selecting appropriate irrigation modes to realize water-energy saving and carbon emission reduction in agricultural activities., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Scorpion venom contains a large variety of biologically active peptides. However, most of these peptides have not been identified and characterized. Peptides with three disulfide bridges, existing in the scorpion venom, have not been studied in detail and have been poorly characterized until now. Here, we report the recombinant expression and functional characterization of two kinds of venom peptides (BmKBTx and BmNaL-3SS2) with three disulfide bridges. This study adopted an effective Escherichia coli system. The genes for BmKBTx and BmNaL-3SS2 were obtained by polymerase chain reaction and cloned to the pSYPU-1b vector. After expression and purification, the two recombinant proteins were subjected to an analgesic activity assay in mice and whole-cell patchclamp recording of hNav1.7-CHO cell lines. Functional tests showed that BmKBTx and BmNaL- 3SS2 have analgesic activity in mice and can interact with the hNav1.7 subtype of the voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC). Scorpion venom is rich in bioactive proteins, but most of their functions are unknown to us. This study has increased our knowledge of these novel disulfide-bridged peptides (DBPs) and their biological activities., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.)