Can high-yielding maize system decrease greenhouse gas emissions largely while simultaneously enhancing economic and ecosystem benefits through the "Rhizobiont" concept? Evidence from field.

Ensuring high grain yields while minimizing environmental costs is a pressing imperative aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In this study, we sought to establish a high-yielding maize system (HYMS) by implementing the innovative "Rhizobiont" concept for nutrient management, while substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A 2-yr field study was conducted in a station of China Agriculture University (Wuqiao) with six treatments. The HYMS was established to achieve a harmonious equilibrium among genetic factors, environmental conditions, and management practices. HYMS demonstrated a significant boost in grain yield, averaging 12,706.6 kg ha-1 in 2021 and 13,676.4 kg ha-1 in 2022. These represented substantial increases of 25.6 % and 25.5 %, respectively, when compared to the current farmers practices (CP). More importantly, the N rate in HYMS was optimized to 148.2 kg ha-1 in 2021 and 138.0 kg ha-1 in 2022 with the implementation of the "Rhizobiont" concept. This represented a remarkable reduction of 35.5 % to 39.9 % in N application compared to CP. As a direct consequence, the measured cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, N2O, and CH4 in HYMS were notably decreased, showing reductions of 24.1 %, 36.0 %, and 7.0 %, respectively, compared to CP. Furthermore, the carbon intensity in HYMS was significantly reduced by 43.7 %. These considerable reductions in fertilizer use translated into tangible economic benefits (EB) and ecosystem economic benefit (EEB) in HYMS. EB was found to be 90.9 % higher, while EEB was 117.9 % higher than CP. These findings underscore the vast potential of HYMS and the "Rhizobiont" concept in promoting sustainable agriculture, with far-reaching implications for global food security and the well-being of smallholder farmers.

Comprehensive nursing intervention improves quality of life and reduces hospitalization time and expense in elderly patients with severe heart failure undergoing rh-BNP treatment.

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to explore the efficacy of comprehensive nursing intervention in elderly patients with severe heart failure (SHF) treated by recombinant human brain natriuretic peptide (rh-BNP). METHODS: A retrospective analysis was made on 131 patients with SHF treated with rh-BNP in Wuhan Asia Cardiology Hospital from May 2019 to May 2022. Of them, 71 patients who received routine nursing care between May 2019 and December 2021 were assigned to the control group, and 60 patients who received comprehensive nursing between January 2022 and May 2022 were assigned to the observation group. The changes in quality of life (QoL) before and after nursing and the occurrence of adverse events after nursing were counted and compared between the two groups. The two groups were compared reagarding changes in anxiety and depression scores before and after nursing, as well as hospitalization expenses and hospitalization time. The left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) of patients were determined. The nursing satisfaction of the two groups was evaluated. Additionally, logistic regression was carried out to analyze the risk factors for adverse events. RESULTS: The control group had lower QoL scores than the observation group after nursing (P < 0.0001). The control group got significantly higher self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) scores than the observation group (P < 0.0001). The control group showed lower levels of LVEDV and LVEF than the observation group (P < 0.0001). The control group experienced greatly longer hospitalization time than the observation group, and also had a higher hospitalization expense than the observation group (P < 0.001). The observation group expressed much higher nursing satisfaction than the control group (P=0.007). Additionally, according to multivariate logistic regression analysis, age, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus were independent risk factors for adverse events (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: For elderly SHF patients treated by rh-BNP, comprehensive nursing intervention can contribute to higher QoL, shorter hospitalization time, lower hospitalization expense, and milder negative emotions, but did not correlate with short-term adverse cardiovascular events.

Role of Up-Regulated Transmembrane Channel-Like Protein 5 in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is a malignant tumor responsible for a heavy disease burden. Previously, only one pan-cancer study of Transmembrane channel-like protein 5 (TMC5) showed that TMC5 was highly expressed in PAAD, but the results lacked comprehensive verification, and the mechanism of TMC5 in PAAD was still unclear. METHODS: For exploring the expression and clinical value of TMC5 in PAAD better, we adopted a comprehensive evaluation method, using internal immunohistochemistry (IHC) data combined with microarray and RNA-sequencing data collected from public databases. The single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data were exploited to explore the TMC5 expression in cell populations and intercellular communication. The potential mechanism of TMC5 in PAAD was analyzed from the aspects of immune infiltration, transcriptional regulation, function and pathway enrichment. RESULTS: Our IHC data includes 148 PAAD samples and 19 non-PAAD samples, along with the available microarray and RNA-sequencing data (1166 PAAD samples, 704 non-PAAD samples). The comprehensive evaluation results showed that TMC5 was evidently up-regulated in PAAD (SMD = 1.17). Further analysis showed that TMC5 was over-expressed in cancerous epithelial cells. Furthermore, TMC5 was up-regulated in more advanced tumor T and N stages. Interestingly, we found that STAT3 as an immune marker of Th17 cells was not only positively correlated with TMC5 and up-regulated in PAAD tissues, but also the major predicted TMC5 transcription regulator. Moreover, STAT3 was involved in cancer pathway of PAAD. CONCLUSION: Up-regulated TMC5 indicates advanced tumor stage in PAAD patients, and its role in promoting PAAD development may be regulated by STAT3.

Macroeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We estimate the economic impacts of COVID-19 in the U.S. using a disaster economic consequence analysis framework implemented by a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. This facilitates identification of relative influences of several causal factors as "shocks" to the model, including mandatory business closures, disease spread trajectories, behavioral responses, resilience, pent-up demand, and government stimulus packages. The analysis is grounded in primary data on avoidance behavior and healthcare parameters. The decomposition of the influence of various causal factors will help policymakers offset the negative influences and reinforce the positive ones during the remainder of this pandemic and future ones.

Highly digestible nitrogen-enriched straw upgraded by ozone-urea pretreatment: Digestibility metrics and energy-economic analysis.

Ozone is a powerful oxidative gas widely used as a green pretreatment to enhance the delignification of cereal straws. Urea pretreatment can enrich straws with nitrogen to make them more accessible to anaerobic microorganisms. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ozone-urea pretreatment on the digestibility of wheat straw (i.e., physicochemical, nitrogen enrichment, gas production, nutritional value, and surface chemistry). The results of ozone-urea pretreatment were compared with non-pretreated, ozone-pretreated, and urea-pretreated samples. This pretreatment method outperformed the other methods in terms of digestibility metrics. The ozone-urea pretreatment resulted in a 50% reduction in lignin, a 4.2 times increase in crude protein, a 22.5% increase in bonded organic-N, a 2 times increase in 24 h-gas production, and a 43.67% increase in total digestible nutrients compared to the non-pretreated sample. Based on the total digestible nutrients index, one-tonne ozone-urea-pretreated straw would be 70.6 USD cheaper than the non-pretreated one.

Spatial transmission of the economic impacts of COVID-19 through international trade.

While most of the attention to COVID-19 is being focused on the physical transmission of the virus across country borders, there is also an analogous spatial transmission of economic impacts through international trade and global supply chains. This paper presents an analysis of the extent to which the economic shocks of mandatory closures to mitigate the pandemic ripple through the world economy. We utilize a state-of-the-art computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze these interconnections through international trade. We compare estimates of the impacts on US GDP in isolation and then examine the impacts taking into account US trade with China and the rest of the world (ROW). Our analysis indicates that these international trade linkage impacts are generally negative and range from near zero to very large overall, depending on the region, and that own- and cross-country impacts differ by region as well. At the same time, we find that China is able to capitalize on the situation by actually being able to increase its exports through international trade following mandatory closures in other regions. We also confirm that the US economy was relatively insulated from trade linkages with the rest of the world. Sectoral impacts provide further insight into the results.

The Impacts of the Coronavirus on the Economy of the United States.

We present a formal analysis of the macroeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., China and the rest of the world. Given the uncertainty regarding the severity and time-path of the infections and related conditions, we examine three scenarios, ranging from a relatively moderate event to a disaster. The study considers a comprehensive list of causal factors affecting the impacts, including: mandatory closures and the gradual re-opening process; decline in workforce due to morbidity, mortality and avoidance behavior; increased demand for health care; decreased demand for public transportation and leisure activities; potential resilience through telework; increased demand for communication services; and increased pent-up demand. We apply a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, a state-of-the-art economy-wide modeling technique. It traces the broader economic ramifications of individual responses of producers and consumers through supply chains both within and across countries. We project that the net U.S. GDP losses from COVID-19 would range from $3.2 trillion (14.8%) to $4.8 trillion (23.0%) in a 2-year period for the three scenarios. U.S. impacts are estimated to be higher than those for China and the ROW in percentage terms. The major factor affecting the results in all three scenarios is the combination of Mandatory Closures and Partial Reopenings of businesses. These alone would have resulted in a 22.3% to 60.6% decrease in U.S. GDP across the scenarios. Pent-up Demand, generated from the inability to spend during the Closures/Reopenings, is the second most influential factor, significantly offsetting the overall negative impacts.

Impacts of the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program on the economy of California.

The Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Program is an innovative financing approach to meeting environmental goals. PACE financing is structured as an assessment to the property and paid along with the property tax bill. In addition to the direct environmental benefits, it also yields co-benefits of enhanced economic output and employment. This paper estimates the economic impacts of PACE in California by one of its major financing companies. These impacts include direct spending on structural improvements, reduction in spending on centralized power and water services, reallocation of spending from energy and water bills savings, and solar investment tax credits, among others. It also includes general equilibrium effects of these various factors. Our results indicate PACE financing yields sizable economic benefits. At the same time, the increased economic activity results in increased energy and water use that partially offsets some of the direct environmental gains. Furthermore, PACE has been subject to criticism because it gives financing companies the first lien on mortgages and because of anecdotal examples of some customers being lured by unscrupulous contractors. The direct environmental benefits and economic co-benefits of PACE should be factored into the policy debate over whether the Program should be further expanded or regulated.

Effects of aeration rates on the structural changes in humic substance during co-composting of digestates and chicken manure.

High humidity and potential threat of pathogen of anaerobic digestates are unfavorable to the environment by direct utilization. To achieve the sustainable utilization of digestates, composting might be a good choice. Meanwhile, the aeration rate of composting has been optimized. Co-composting of digestates and chicken manure was performed under different aeration conditions (0.05, 0.1 and 0.15 L·min-1·kg-1·organic matter (OM)). During composting, internal transformation of humic substance (HS) has been studied for obtaining the potential application value of the co-composting products. Results suggested that the HS concentration was increased by 21.1%, 26.4% and 22.4% with the aeration rates were 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15 L·min-1·kg-1·OM, respectively. The aeration rate of 0.15 L·min-1·kg-1·OM was more conducive to germination. Parallel factor analysis and dimensional correlation spectra (2DCOS) have been combined to reveal the conversion relationships of HS components for understanding the compost application pattern. Hetero-2DCOS indicated that aeration of 0.05 min-1·kg-1·OM and 0.1 L·min-1·kg-1·OM contributed to the formation of complex compounds at long wavelength, and aeration of 0.15 L·min-1·kg-1·OM was beneficial for labile compounds formation at short wavelength. In views of the aeration of 0.1 L·min-1·kg-1·OM was more beneficial to improve HS concentration than 0.05 L·min-1·kg-1·OM, 0.1 L·min-1·kg-1·OM and 0.15 L·min-1·kg-1·OM were consider as the most important aeration rate to conduct digestates composting. Overall, the aeration affected the HS composition which, in turn, might affect the application ways of composting products. This study could provide a reference for industrial composting production and applications.

Metabolomic Assessment of Acute Cholestatic Injuries Induced by Thioacetamide and by Bile Duct Ligation, and the Protective Effects of Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Decoction.

Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Decoction, a traditional Chinese formula, has been reported to protect liver from various injuries. Two cholestasis models of rats induced by thioacetamide and by bile duct ligation were established and treated with Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Decoction. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance-based urinary metabolic profiles were analyzed by orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis and univariate analysis to excavate differential metabolites associated with the injuries of the two models and the treatment effects of Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Decoction. The two cholestatic models shared common metabolic features of excessive fatty acid oxidation, insufficient glutathione regeneration and disturbed gut flora, with specific characteristics of inhibited urea cycle and DNA damage in thioacetamide-intoxicated model, and perturbed Kreb's cycle and inhibited branched chain amino acid oxidation in bile duct ligation model. With good treatment effects, Huang-Lian-Jie-Du-Decoction could regain the balance of the disturbed metabolic status common in the two cholestasis injuries, e.g., unbalanced redox system and disturbed gut flora; and perturbed urea cycle in thioacetamide-intoxicated model and energy crisis (disturbed Kreb's cycle and oxidation of branched chain amino acid) in bile duct ligation model, respectively.

Total Economic Consequences of an Influenza Outbreak in the United States.

Pandemic influenza represents a serious threat not only to the population of the United States, but also to its economy. In this study, we analyze the total economic consequences of potential influenza outbreaks in the United States for four cases based on the distinctions between disease severity and the presence/absence of vaccinations. The analysis is based on data and parameters on influenza obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and the general literature. A state-of-the-art economic impact modeling approach, computable general equilibrium, is applied to analyze a wide range of potential impacts stemming from the outbreaks. This study examines the economic impacts from changes in medical expenditures and workforce participation, and also takes into consideration different types of avoidance behavior and resilience actions not previously fully studied. Our results indicate that, in the absence of avoidance and resilience effects, a pandemic influenza outbreak could result in a loss in U.S. GDP of $25.4 billion, but that vaccination could reduce the losses to $19.9 billion. When behavioral and resilience factors are taken into account, a pandemic influenza outbreak could result in GDP losses of $45.3 billion without vaccination and $34.4 billion with vaccination. These results indicate the importance of including a broader set of causal factors to achieve more accurate estimates of the total economic impacts of not just pandemic influenza but biothreats in general. The results also highlight a number of actionable items that government policymakers and public health officials can use to help reduce potential economic losses from the outbreaks.