► Long term changes in soil quality and crop productivity with fertilizer and tillage. ► Soil Quality Index (SQI) developed using Principal Components Approach. ► Improved soil quality in No-till, ...Reduced Input compared to conventional management. ► Conservation management improves nutrient availability, soil stability and structure. ► Soil quality concord with microbial nitrogen processing, nitrogen use and leaching.
Intensively cropped agricultural production systems should be managed to improve soil quality and ecological processes and ultimately strengthen system capacity for sustained biological productivity. We examined the long-term changes (>20 years) in soil quality and productivity with incorporation of ecological management principles in a set of intensively managed row crop systems of the upper Midwest, USA. Replicated experimental treatments include corn (maize)–soybean–wheat cropping systems under four different management regimes: (a) conventional tillage and fertilizer/chemical inputs (
Conventional), (b) no tillage with conventional fertilizer/chemical inputs (
No-till), (c) conventional tillage with ∼30% of conventional fertilizer/chemical inputs and a leguminous cover crop (
Reduced Input), and (d) conventional tillage with no fertilizer/chemical input and a leguminous cover crop (
Organic). Effects of these treatments on soils were compared by developing a soil quality index (SQI) from 19 selected soil health indicators. An old field community maintained in early succession provided a benchmark for comparison. Reduction in tillage or fertilizer (
No-till,
Reduced Input and
Organic) resulted in increased SQI and improved crop production. The
No-till (SQI
=
1.02) and
Reduced Input (SQI
=
1.01) systems outperformed
Conventional management (SQI
=
0.92) in nitrogen availability and use efficiency, soil stability and structure improvement, and microbial nitrogen processing. Improvements in soil quality corresponded with increased primary production and crop yield in these systems, illustrating the value of an ecologically defined SQI for assessing the long-term effects of fertility and tillage management regimes in agricultural production systems.
•Postharvest sodium nitroprusside (SNP) validated long term storage of pear.•SNP retards respiration rate and regulate ripening.•SNP modulate enzyme activities during pear storage.•SNP maintain pear ...fruit quality under cold storage condition.
Quality loss in pear fruit during storage reduces its marketability for long run. To increase its storability, the efficacy of postharvest dip treatment donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) 0.000, 0.001, 0.002 and 0.003 mol L−1 were investigated on pear fruit cv. Patharnakh under storage conditions (low temperature 0–1 °C and relative humidity (90–95%). SNP effectively lowered fruit mass loss, retained colour and higher firmness, suppressed browning and respiration rate and sustained soluble solids content, titratable acidity, total phenol content and ascorbic acid thus conserved the fruit quality for longer period. SNP treatments suppressed the activity of polyphenol oxidase and increased activity of superoxide dismutase enzyme. Additionally, the SNP treated fruit exhibited lesser activities of fruit softening enzymes like pectin methylesterase, polygalacturonase and cellulase. Among all, 0.002 mol L−1 SNP concentration was superior to lengthen storability and sensory quality of pear up to 60 d under cold storage.
Photoelectron sheath formation and subsequent fine dust levitation over the sunlit lunar regolith have been investigated by consistently accounting for the continuous interaction of the solar wind ...and solar radiation with the Moon. In deriving the photoelectron sheath, the Poisson equation is coupled with the latitude-dependent population density of the Fermionic photoelectrons. The altitude and latitude profiles of the electric potential, electric field, and electron density within the photoelectron sheath have been derived. A larger sheath is predicted near the terminator compared to the subsolar point. Accounting for the sheath features, the charging of levitating particles under the kinetic balance of anisotropic photoelectron flux, solar radiation, and solar wind plasma has been calculated. The dust charge is coupled with a characteristic sheath field to evaluate the altitude profile of the particle size, displaying levitation under its electrostatic equilibrium with the lunar gravity. Our analysis suggests that in equilibrium, the submicron particles may levitate up to a couple of meters above the lunar surface; for instance, at the subsolar point (0° latitude) 200 and 50 nm particles may float up to an altitude of ∼64 and ∼194 cm, respectively, while at 70° latitude near the terminator these particles are estimated to levitate at an altitude of ∼18 and ∼227 cm, respectively. The floating charged submicron dust may electrostatically interact with the functioning of experiments and can significantly affect the instrument operation.
Biosensors are emerging as efficient (sensitive and selective) and affordable analytical diagnostic tools for early-stage disease detection, as required for personalized health wellness management. ...Low-level detection of a targeted disease biomarker (pM level) has emerged extremely useful to evaluate the progression of disease under therapy. Such collected bioinformatics and its multi-aspects-oriented analytics is in demand to explore the effectiveness of a prescribed treatment, optimize therapy, and correlate biomarker level with disease pathogenesis. Owing to nanotechnology-enabled advancements in sensing unit fabrication, device integration, interfacing, packaging, and sensing performance at point-of-care (POC) has rendered diagnostics according to the requirements of disease management and patient disease profile i.e. in a personalized manner. Efforts are continuously being made to promote the state of art biosensing technology as a next-generation non-invasive disease diagnostics methodology. Keeping this in view, this progressive opinion article describes personalized health care management related analytical tools which can provide access to better health for everyone, with overreaching aim to manage healthy tomorrow timely. Considering accomplishments and predictions, such affordable intelligent diagnostics tools are urgently required to manage COVID-19 pandemic, a life-threatening respiratory infectious disease, where a rapid, selective and sensitive detection of human beta severe acute respiratory system coronavirus (SARS-COoV-2) protein is the key factor.
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•Investigated efficient miniaturized nano-enabled sensors are suitable for POC diagnostics.•Smartphone assisted POC diagnostics is making personalized diagnostics possible.•AI is managing bioinformatics and big data analytics to optimize personalized wellness.•AI supported IoT-based diagnostics is emerging for targeted disease management.•AI and IoT assisted POC diagnostics are needed for COVID-19 pandemic management.
Rapid urbanization in cities is crafting major environmental problems, leading to degradation of urban ecosystems and is responsible for creating an imbalance between demand and supply of resources. ...Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is a tool that can be used to assess this imbalance scientifically and determine the sustainability of a particular area. Our study aims to determine the urban sustainability of Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh, a hilly state in North Western Himalayas, India situated in North western Himalayas by using one of the Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) components, the built-up land footprint, as a pragmatic tool for analysis and planning of the urban region. The total built-up land footprint, total biocapacity and total ecological deficit are 18146.095 g ha,15968.564 g ha and 2177.531 g ha respectively whereas built-up land footprint per capita, built-up land biocapacity per capita and ecological deficit per capita are 1.371 g ha, 1.206 g ha, and 0.164 g ha respectively in different urban areas. Consequently, it is concluded that the built-up land results in an ecological deficit, and the system is considered unsustainable because its ecological footprint exceeds its bio capacity. It is suggested that urban sustainability should move and work on ecological principles so that the vision encompassing global goals and agenda 2030 for sustainable development can be achieved.
The study focused on analyzing concentrations of metal(loid)s, their geospatial distribution in groundwater around an industrial hub of northern India. Human health risk posed due to the intake of ...contaminated groundwater was also evaluated. For this, 240 samples were assayed using inductively coupled plasma emission spectrophotometer. For risk assessment, the methodology proposed by US Environmental Protection Agency was adopted. Geometric mean of Al, As, Mo, Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Se, and Zn was 193.13, 27.35, 4.22, 2.85, 92.81, 14.97, 271.78, 25.76, 54.75, 19.50, 16.94, and 1830.27 μg/l, respectively. Levels of Al (84%), As (63%), Ni (63%), Pb (49%), and Se (41%) exceeded the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Principal component analysis is accounted for ~ 88% of the total variance and reflected pollution loads of Al, As, Mo, Cr, Fe, Se, and Pb in the groundwater. Based on it, four sources of metal(loid)s, namely geogenic (34.55%), mixed (industrial and agricultural, 26.76%), waste dumping (15.31%), and industrial (11.25%) were identified. Semi-variogram mapping model demonstrated significant geospatial variations of the metal(loid)s. Hazard index (HI) suggested potential non-carcinogenic risks to the inhabitants due to As, Al, Ni, Se, and Pb, which were the largest contributors. Based on maximum concentrations of metal(loid)s, HI for child and adult was above unity. Arsenic was identified as the most hazardous pollutant that may have chronic carcinogenic health implications. At western side of study area, carcinogenic health risks exceeded critical threshold of 1 × 10
−4
, indicating that As posed health risks to residents by intake of groundwater.
Water use by plant communities across years of varying water availability indicates how terrestrial water balances will respond to climate change and variability as well as to land cover change. ...Perennial biofuel crops, likely grown mainly on marginal lands of limited water availability, provide an example of a potentially extensive future land cover conversion. We measured growing-season evapotranspiration (ET) based on daily changes in soil profile water contents in five perennial systems-switchgrass, miscanthus, native grasses, restored prairie, and hybrid poplar-and in annual maize (corn) in a temperate humid climate (Michigan, USA). Three study years (2010, 2011 and 2013) had normal growing-season rainfall (480-610 mm) whereas 2012 was a drought year (210 mm). Over all four years, mean ( SEM) growing-season ET for perennial systems did not greatly differ from corn (496 21 mm), averaging 559 ( 14), 458 ( 31), 573 ( 37), 519 ( 30), and 492 ( 58) mm for switchgrass, miscanthus, native grasses, prairie, and poplar, respectively. Differences in biomass production largely determined variation in water use efficiency (WUE). Miscanthus had the highest WUE in both normal and drought years (52-67 and 43 kg dry biomass ha−1 mm−1, respectively), followed by maize (40-59 and 29 kg ha−1 mm−1); the native grasses and prairie were lower and poplar was intermediate. That measured water use by perennial systems was similar to maize across normal and drought years contrasts with earlier modeling studies and suggests that rain-fed perennial biomass crops in this climate have little impact on landscape water balances, whether replacing rain-fed maize on arable lands or successional vegetation on marginal lands. Results also suggest that crop ET rates, and thus groundwater recharge, streamflow, and lake levels, may be less sensitive to climate change than has been assumed.
In this work, an extended isogeometric analysis (XIGA) is used for the analysis of through-thickness crack in a homogeneous and isotropic plate. In isogeometric analysis (IGA), non-uniform rational ...B-splines (NURBS) are used as a basis function. The plate kinematics is modelled by Reddy’s higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The C1 continuity requirement of HSDT can be easily fulfilled by the NURBS basis functions. In order to obtain the plate fracture parameters (moment intensity factors), the expressions of crack-tip fields (auxiliary fields) are derived using separation of variables and Eigen-function approach. A new expression for moment intensity factors is developed using auxiliary fields solution (crack-tip fields) and interaction integral approach. Several cracked plate problems are solved by XIGA using HSDT. The results obtained by HSDT based XIGA (HSDT-XIGA) are compared with the FSDT based XIGA (FSDT-XIGA) and literature solutions.
•XIGA is implemented for the analysis of cracked plate using HSDT.•Near crack-tip fields solution is obtained for a homogeneous and isotropic plate.•Stress-resultants (Mrr, Mθθ, Mrθ, Prr, Pθθ and Prθ) exhibit inverse square root singularity near the crack tip.•A new interaction integral is derived for evaluation of moment intensity factors.•Results obtained using HSDT-XIGA are found in good agreement with available literature solution.
Long-term (2009–2012) data from ground-based measurements of aerosol black carbon (BC) from a semi-urban site, Pantnagar (29.0°N, 79.5°E, 231 m amsl), in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) near the ...Himalayan foothills are analyzed to study the regional characterization. Large variations are seen in BC at both diurnal and seasonal scales, associated with the mesoscale and synoptic meteorological processes, and local/regional anthropogenic activities. BC diurnal variations show two peaks (morning and evening) arising from the combined effects of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) dynamics and local emissions. The diurnal amplitudes as well as the rates of diurnal evolution are the highest in winter season, followed by autumn, and the lowest in summer-monsoon. BC exhibits nearly an inverse relation with mixing layer depth in all seasons; being strongest in winter (R2 = 0.89) and weakest (R2 = 0.33) in monsoon (July–August). Unlike BC, co-located aerosol optical depths (AOD) and aerosol absorption are highest in spring over IGP, probably due to the presence of higher abundances of aerosols (including dust) above the ABL (in the free troposphere). AOD (500 nm) showed annual peak (>0.6) in May–June, dominated by coarse mode, while fine mode aerosols dominated in late autumn and early winter. Aerosols profiles from CALIPSO show highest values close to the surface in winter/autumn, similar to the feature seen in surface BC, whereas at altitudes > 2 km, the extinction is maximum in spring/summer. WRF-Chem model is used to simulate BC temporal variations and then compared with observed BC. The model captures most of the important features of the diurnal and seasonal variations but significantly underestimated the observed BC levels, suggesting improvements in diurnal and seasonal varying BC emissions apart from the boundary layer processes.
•A complete seasonal variation of BC from a semi-urban site in the IGP region.•Large diurnal and seasonal variation with maximum amplitude and levels in winter.•Surface BC is maximum in winter, unlike emission estimates showing spring maxima.•Unlike BC, CALIPSO extinctions at higher height and AOD reveal higher values in spring.•WRF-Chem simulated BC shows important features but underestimate observations.
Pancreatic cancer cells are highly resistant to drug therapy; however, underlying causes remain largely unknown. We hypothesised that the activation of CXCL12-CXCR4 signalling confers drug resistance ...to pancreatic cancer cells by potentiating survival. CXCR4 is overexpressed in precancerous/malignant pancreatic lesions and cancer stem cells, and implicated in its pathogenesis.
Effect of CXCR4 activation by CXCL12 on restricting the gemcitabine-induced cytotoxicity and stimulating the survival signalling was examined in pancreatic cancer cells by MTT, DNA laddering, caspase activity, immunoblot, and promoter-reporter assays. Subsequently, we examined the effect of CXCR4 antagonist, AMD3100, in abrogating the rescue effect of activated CXCL12-CXCR4 signalling.
The pancreatic cancer cells treated with gemcitabine exhibited reduced cytotoxicity in the presence of CXCL12 as compared with the cells treated with drug alone. CXCL12 induced the activation of FAK, ERK, and Akt signalling pathways, enhanced transcriptional activities of β-catenin and NF-κB, and expression of survival proteins. AMD3100 arrested the CXCL12-induced pancreatic cancer cell growth and drug resistance.
Our findings demonstrate, for the first time, a role of CXCL12-CXCR4 signalling axis in conferring drug resistance to pancreatic cancer cells and suggest that it could serve as a novel therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer therapy, alone and in combination with the cytotoxic drug.
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