Integrated effects of microbial decomposing inoculant on greenhouse gas emissions, grain yield and economic profit from paddy fields under different water regimes.

Few studies have comprehensively evaluated the impacts of microbial decomposing inoculants on greenhouse gas emissions and economic profit from paddy fields under different water regimes. Here, this study evaluated the effects of microbial decomposing inoculant treatments (straw returning without or with microbial decomposing inoculants (S and SMD)) on rice yield, CH4 and N2O emissions, economic profit and net ecosystem economic profit (NEEP) from paddy fields under different water regimes (continuous flooding (CF) and alternate wetting and drying irrigation (AWD)) in central China with a two-year field experiment. Compared with S treatment, SMD treatment significantly increased the rice yield and crop water productivity by 6.6-7.2% and 5.6-7.9%, respectively. AWD treatment significantly enhanced the crop water productivity by 56.9-73.7% while did not affect rice yield relative to CF treatment. Regardless of water regimes, SMD treatment did not affect N2O emissions, but significantly increased CH4 emissions by 13.8-39.6% relative to S treatment, resulting in a remarkable enhancement of global warming potential by 13.5-32.5%. Compared with S treatment, SMD treatment improved the economic profit and NEEP. By contrast, AWD treatment significantly increased N2O emissions by 19.1-64.8% compared with CF treatment, but significantly reduced CH4 emissions by 35.3-79.1%. Accordingly, AWD treatment significantly decreased the global warming potential by 33.4-73.9% compared with CF treatment. In addition, AWD treatment resulted in 39.9-96.4% higher economic profit and 48.0-124.4% higher NEEP relative to CF treatment. In summary, AWD treatment is a sustainable water regime that can maintain rice yield, mitigate global warming potential, and increase economic income. However, regardless of water regimes, SMD treatment led to higher rice yield and economic profit, as well as higher global warming potential than S treatment, suggesting that other appropriate treatments of crop straw are needed to mitigate CH4 emissions while improving economic profit for rice sustainable production.

[Clinical Trials for Observing the Influence of Acupuncture Needle-stimulation Induced Sharp Pain on Curative Effect in Primary Dysmenorrhea Patients].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the influence of acupuncture needle stimulation-induced sharp pain on the curative effect of acupuncture therapy for primary dysmenorrhea (PD) patients with cold damp stagnation syndrome (CDSS). METHODS: A total of 87 PD patients with CDSS experiencing abdominal pain (> or =40 mm in visual analogue scale, VAS) were randomly asigned to deqi-expectation group and no-deqi-expectation group which were further divided into deqi-expectation + sharp pain (n = 31), deqi-expectation + no-sharp pain (n = 12), no-deqi-expectation + sharp pain (n = 17), no-deqi-expectation + no- sharp pain (n =27) groups. On the first day of abdominal pain attack, bilateral Sanyinjiao (SP 6) were punctured respectively with thicker needles with deeper insertion for deqi-expectation patients and thin filiform needles with shallow insertion for no-deqi-expectation patients. The needles were manipulated for 30 s with uniform reinforcing-reducing method for all the deqi-expectation patients, which was repeated once again every 10 min during 30 min of needle retention. The VAS was used to evaluate the patients' abdominal pain severity before treatment and 0, 10 min after acupuncture needle withdrawal. RESULTS: Following acupuncture stimulation of SP 6, the VAS scores of menstrual pain at both 0 min and 10 min after withdrawing acupuncture needles were significantly decreased in the deqi-expectation + sharp pain group, deqi-expectation + no-sharp pain group, no-deqi-expectation+sharp pain group and no-deqi-expectation + no-sharp pain group (P<0. 05), and that of 10 min post-needle withdrawal was markedly lower than that of 0 min in the deqi-expectation + sharp pain group ( P<0. 05). No significant differences were found in the VAS difference values at different time-points between deqi-expectation plus sharp pain and deqi- expectation + no-sharp pain groups, and between no-deqi-expectation + sharp pain and no-deqi-expectation + no-sharp pain groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Acupuncture stimulation of SP 6 has an immediate analgesic effect in PD women with cold damp stagnation syndrome, which was not affected by needling-induced sharp pain, deqi-expectation, and thicker or thinner needle with shallow and deeper insertion.