Effectiveness of a novel composite filler to enhance phosphorus removal in constructed wetlands.

Improving the adsorption performance of wetland fillers is of great significance for enhancing pollutant removal in constructed wetlands. Currently, limited by complex preparation processes and high costs, large numbers of high adsorption fillers studied in lab are difficult to be applied in practical engineering. In this study, a newly low-cost and efficient phosphorus removal composite wetland filler (CFB) is prepared by using industrial and agriculture waste (steel slag and oyster shells) and natural ore (volcanic rock) as raw materials. The results show that phosphorus removal efficiency was largely enhanced by synergistic effects of steel slag, oyster shells, and volcanic rock, and it was mainly influenced by the proportion of each component of CFB. Based on the fitting of the classical isothermal equation, the adsorption capacity of CFB is 18.339 mg/g. The adsorption of phosphorus by CFB is endothermic and spontaneous, and there are heterogeneous surfaces and multi-layer adsorption processes, as well as pH value and temperature, are free from the influence on CFB phosphorus removal. During the practical wastewater application experiments, the phosphorus removal rate of the CFB-filled constructed wetland apparatus (CW-A) can reach 94.89% and is free from the influence on the removal of other pollutants (COD, TN, and NH3-N) by the system. Overall, the prepared CFB is of excellent decontamination effect, an extremely simple preparation process, low cost, and sound practical engineering application potential, providing new ideas and approaches for enhancing the phosphorus removal capacity and waste resource utilization of constructed wetland systems.

Native forests transformed into cash crops reduced soil multi-functionality by modifying the microbial community composition and keystone species' abundance in the Jianghuai Hilly Region.

Conversion of native forest to cash crops is the predominant form of land use change in the Jianghuai Hilly Region. However, how plantations with different cash crops affect the soil multi-functionality is not well documented. In this study, we collected three kinds of cash crops soils (vegetable, orchard, and tea) and forest soil, to systematically review the relationship between soil microbial communities and soil multi-functionality. Soil multi-functionality had decreased in vegetable and orchard as compared to native forest, whereas tea plantation had no significant effects on soil multi-functionality. The results also showed that cash crop plantations decreased soil multi-functionality by shifting keystone species' abundance, for forest, vegetable, and orchard, the keystone species that were classified as module hubs in the bacterial co-occurrence network significantly negatively contributed to soil multi-functionality, but the keystone species categorized as module hubs in fungal co-occurrence network positively affected soil multi-functionality. Multiple soil properties were the drivers of the soil microbial community; thus, indicating that the altered soil properties under cash crop plantations were vital in determining microbial composition and biological processes. These results identified that sustainable management strategy in cash crop plantation needed to be developed for improving soil multi-functionality.

Effects of whole-plant corn and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) mixture on silage quality and microbial communities.

OBJECTIVE: Hairy vetch is considered to improve the nutritional value of corn because of its high protein and mineral levels. To better understand the mechanism underlying hairy vetch regulated whole-plant corn silage fermentation, this experiment investigated the fermentation quality and bacterial community of whole-plant corn and hairy vetch mixture. METHODS: Whole-plant corn and hairy vetch were mixed at ratios of 10:0 (Mix 10:0), 8:2 (Mix 8:2), 6:4 (Mix 6:4), 4:6 (Mix 4:6), 2:8 (Mix 2:8), and 0:10 (Mix 0:10) on a fresh weight basis. After ensiling 60 days, samples were collected to examine the fermentation dynamics, ensiling characteristics, and bacterial communities. RESULTS: Mix 0:10, Mix 2:8, and Mix 4:6 showed poor fermentation characteristics. Mix 8:2 and Mix 6:4 silages showed high quality, based on the low pH, acetic acid, and ammonia nitrogen levels and the high lactic acid, crude protein, and crude fat contents. The bacterial diversity was affected by the mixing ratio of the two forage species. The genus Lactobacillus dominated the bacterial community in Mix 10:0 silage, whereas with the addition of hairy vetch, the relative abundance of unclassified-Enterobacter increased from 7.67% to 41.84%, and the abundance of Lactobacillus decreased from 50.66% to 13.76%. CONCLUSION: The silage quality of whole-plant corn can be improved with inclusion levels of hairy vetch from 20% to 40%.

The brain-inspired decoder for natural visual image reconstruction.

The visual system provides a valuable model for studying the working mechanisms of sensory processing and high-level consciousness. A significant challenge in this field is the reconstruction of images from decoded neural activity, which could not only test the accuracy of our understanding of the visual system but also provide a practical tool for solving real-world problems. Although recent advances in deep learning have improved the decoding of neural spike trains, little attention has been paid to the underlying mechanisms of the visual system. To address this issue, we propose a deep learning neural network architecture that incorporates the biological properties of the visual system, such as receptive fields, to reconstruct visual images from spike trains. Our model outperforms current models and has been evaluated on different datasets from both retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and the primary visual cortex (V1) neural spikes. Our model demonstrated the great potential of brain-inspired algorithms to solve a challenge that our brain solves.

Comparative Proteomic Analysis by Isobaric Tags for the Relative and Absolute Quantification Reveals the Responses of Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) Roots to Different Soil Types.

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) root affects the yield and quality of tobacco leaves. To gain insight into the responses of the tobacco root system to different soil types, we integrated morphological characteristics, the physiological index, the metabolic pathways of the root system, and the aboveground biomass of tobacco cultivated in limestone soil (LS), paddy soil (PS), and red soil (RS). Compared with plants growing in LS and PS, the chemical composition of tobacco leaves in RS tended to be coordinated. Red soil facilitated the accumulation of aboveground and belowground biomass of flue-cured tobacco and had the most significant effect on the dry matter quality of the roots. In addition, it promoted an increased root length, root surface area (RSA), root volume, and a higher number of root forks and improved root vigor and nitrate reductase (NR) activity; however, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) were decreased. We studied differentially the abundant proteins (DAPs) of the flue-cured tobacco roots cultivated in different soil types by isobaric tags for the relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) of the proteomic profiles of cultivar. In total, 699, 650, and 569 differentially abundant proteins (DAPs) were identified from limestone soil (LS) vs. PS, LS vs. RS, and PS vs. RS, respectively, including 412/287, 291/359, and 323/246 up-/downregulated proteins, respectively. These DAPs were mainly involved in starch and sucrose metabolism, phenylalanine metabolism, the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, microbial metabolism in different environments, and ribosomes. The parallel reaction monitoring (PRM) and quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis showed that the results of the iTRAQ proteomics were reliable. Overall, our study facilitates a new understanding of the responses of tobacco roots to different soil types at the protein level.

The physiological response of different tobacco varieties to chilling stress during the vigorous growing period.

Tobacco is be sensitively affected by chilling injury in the vigorous growth period, which can easily lead to tobacco leaf browning during flue-curing and quality loss, however, the physiological response of tobacco in the prosperous period under low temperature stress is unclear. The physiological response parameters of two tobacco varieties to low temperature stress were determined. The main results were as follows: ① For tobacco in the vigorous growing period subjected to low-temperature stress at 4-16 °C, the tissue structure of chloroplast changed and photosynthetic pigments significantly decreased compared with each control with the increase of intensity of low-temperature stress. ② For tobacco in the vigorous growing period at 10-16 °C, antioxidant capacity of the protective enzyme system, osmotic adjustment capacity of the osmotic adjusting system and polyphenol metabolism in plants gradually increased due to induction of low temperature with the increase of intensity of low-temperature stress. ③ Under low-temperature stress at 4 °C, the protective enzyme system, osmotic adjusting system and polyphenol metabolism of the plants played an insignificant role in stress tolerance, which cannot be constantly enhanced based on low-temperature resistance at 10 °C. This study confirmed that under the temperature stress of 10-16 °C, the self-regulation ability of tobacco will be enhanced with the deepening of low temperature stress, but there is a critical temperature between 4 and 10 °C. The self-regulation ability of plants under low temperature stress will be inhibited.

The Tribo-Fatigue Damage Transition and Mapping for Wheel Material under Rolling-Sliding Contact Condition.

The purpose of this work is to construct a tribo-fatigue damage map of high-speed railway wheel material under different tangential forces and contact pressure conditions through JD-1 testing equipment. The results indicate that the wear rate of the wheel material varies with tangential force and contact pressure. The wear mapping of the wheel material is constructed and divided into three regions: slight wear, severe wear, and destructive wear, based on the wear rate under each test condition. With an increase in tangential force and contact pressure, the maximum crack length and average crack length of the wheel material increases. According to the surface damage morphologies and corresponding statistical results of average crack length of wheel material under each experiment condition, a tribo-fatigue damage map is constructed and divided into three regions: slight fatigue damage region, fatigue damage region, and severe fatigue damage region. Fatigue cracks initiate on the wheel specimen surface. Some cracks may propagate into material and fracture under cyclic rolling contact; some cracks may grow into inner material with a certain depth, and then turn toward the surface to form material flaking; some cracks may always propagate parallel to the wheel roller surface.

[Genetic diversity analysis of alfalfa floral properties.].

Genetic mutations of alfalfa floral properties,including calyx diameter, coronary length, flower number per raceme, raceme number per twig, flower number per unit area, percentage of flicked flowers, excreted nectar volume, sugar concentration in nectar and contents of sucrose, fructose and glucose in nectar,have been studied with both morphological markers and RAPD markers. The results showed that the genetic variation of floral properties is from 0.80% to 92.30%, of which the content of glucose was the most significant one with the variation from 0.01 to 0.53 mumol/L (p0.05), and the sugar concentration was the most insignificant one (P>0.05). RAPD analysis showed that variances of genetic distances was from 0.21 to 0.35, among which the most significant one was WL323 and Shanbei, and the most insignificant one was Derby and Prime. Thus it can be seen that genetic diversity of floral properties among these varieties of alfalfas is abundant.