Aim
Variations in plant traits are closely linked to the functional trade-off between resource acquisition and conservation. However, there has been little research on interspecific variations in the ...traits of fine roots with different orders and their associations with leaf traits in semiarid inland dunes.
Methods
We examined the first four root orders and leaves of 12 species (seven herbs and five shrubs), representing a broad range of taxa, co-occurring in a semiarid inland dune and evaluated their root biomass ratio and nine key morphological and chemical traits.
Results
We observed substantial variations in root traits among species and among root orders within species. The root economics spectrum (RES) spanned across the first three orders, representing a resource acquisition and conservation strategy in which specific root length, specific root area and root N concentration decreased and root diameter increased with root order. Most of the fine root and leaf traits were primarily loaded on the first and second axes of the principal component analysis. Herbs and shrubs presented resource acquisitive and conservative strategies, respectively, due to their contrasting leaf and fine root traits. Phylogenetic conservatism was stronger in roots than in leaves.
Conclusions
The leading RES in the fine roots of different orders existed in the semiarid inland dune, emphasizing the importance of interspecific and intraspecific variations in the traits of fine roots of different orders in understanding root structure, function and their coordination. Partial trait integration across leaves and fine roots implies limited support to the plant economics spectrum.
In current study, Ni–AlN nanocoatings were successfully prepared by adopting the jet pulse electrodeposition (JPE) technique with ultrasound. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray ...photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Vickers microhardness test, electrochemical workstation and friction wear tests were utilized to investigate the microstructure, mechanical properties, corrosion degree and wear resistance of the coatings. The results indicated that the Ni–AlN nanocoatings deposited by using ultrasound demonstrated the minimum and most compact surface structure compared to the other coatings. The thicknesses of Ni coating and Ni–AlN nanocoatings were approximately 56µm. The average atomic percent of Al and Ni elements in the Ni–AlN nano-coating prepared by using ultrasound, were approximately 21.4at% and 47.5at%, respectively. The maximum kinetic energy of the jet plating solution was 916m2/s2 during JPE-deposited Ni-AlN nanocoatings including ultrasound. The average micro-hardness value of the nano-coating prepared by using ultrasound equaled 767.9 HV. The Ni–AlN nanocoatings prepared using ultrasound had the minimum Ecorr and Icorr values of − 0.167V and 6.363 × 10−6mA/cm2, respectively. In this case, the demonstrated corrosion resistance was the most efficient. The Ni–AlN nanocoatings prepared using ultrasound sustained the minimum friction coefficients and the average friction coefficient was approximately 0.52. In contrast, the JPE-deposited Ni coating presented the maximum friction coefficient, while the average friction coefficient was approximately 1.43.
•Aridity as a dominant filtering factor affected soil microbial network structure.•Increasing aridity reduced the complexity and stability of soil microbial networks.•Soil heterogeneity enhanced soil ...microbial network complexity and stability.
Soil microbes play vital roles in mediating the functions and services of terrestrial ecosystems in the context of ongoing climate change and human disturbance. There are complex interactions between soil microbial taxa. However, research on the drivers of soil microbial network complexity and stability based on microbial taxa interactions is still in its infancy. We examined network structure and the complexity and stability of soil microbial communities across a large-scale environmental gradient in semi-arid grasslands of northern China by combining network theory and high-throughput sequencing. We found that aridity was the strongest driver of soil microbial network structure. Increasing aridity directly reduced the complexity and stability of soil microbial networks by decreasing the ratio of microbial taxa that participated in network construction and the ratio of potential positive and negative interactions of networks. Soil heterogeneity enhanced microbial network complexity and stability by potentially promoting diverse host plants and mediating uneven distribution of soil resources. These findings suggest that aridity and decreasing soil heterogeneity may have detrimental influences on soil microbial functions and the associated plant performance. This study provides new insights into the controls of climatic and/or edaphic variables in regulating soil microbial networks and highlights the importance of environmental heterogeneity in community assembly mechanisms of soil microbes.
Endometrial cancer (UCEC) is a highly heterogeneous gynecologic malignancy that exhibits variable prognostic outcomes and responses to immunotherapy. The Familial sequence similarity (FAM) gene ...family is known to contribute to the pathogenesis of various malignancies, but the extent of their involvement in UCEC has not been systematically studied. This investigation aimed to develop a robust risk profile based on FAM family genes (FFGs) to predict the prognosis and suitability for immunotherapy in UCEC patients.
Using the TCGA-UCEC cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we obtained expression profiles of FFGs from 552 UCEC and 35 normal samples, and analyzed the expression patterns and prognostic relevance of 363 FAM family genes. The UCEC samples were randomly divided into training and test sets (1:1), and univariate Cox regression analysis and Lasso Cox regression analysis were conducted to identify the differentially expressed genes (FAM13C, FAM110B, and FAM72A) that were significantly associated with prognosis. A prognostic risk scoring system was constructed based on these three gene characteristics using multivariate Cox proportional risk regression. The clinical potential and immune status of FFGs were analyzed using CiberSort, SSGSEA, and tumor immune dysfunction and rejection (TIDE) algorithms. qRT-PCR and IHC for detecting the expression levels of 3-FFGs.
Three FFGs, namely, FAM13C, FAM110B, and FAM72A, were identified as strongly associated with the prognosis of UCEC and effective predictors of UCEC prognosis. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the developed model was an independent predictor of UCEC, and that patients in the low-risk group had better overall survival than those in the high-risk group. The nomogram constructed from clinical characteristics and risk scores exhibited good prognostic power. Patients in the low-risk group exhibited a higher tumor mutational load (TMB) and were more likely to benefit from immunotherapy.
This study successfully developed and validated novel biomarkers based on FFGs for predicting the prognosis and immune status of UCEC patients. The identified FFGs can accurately assess the prognosis of UCEC patients and facilitate the identification of specific subgroups of patients who may benefit from personalized treatment with immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
The global production of farmed Atlantic salmon amounts to over 2 million tons per year. Consumed all over the world, salmon is not only delicious but also nutritious. This paper deals with the ...relationship between moisture content, low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and sensory evaluation in the baking process of salmon. An artificial neural network (ANN) model has been established to simulate the change of moisture content and energy consumed in the baking process. Through the study of LF-NMR, SEM, and sensory evaluation, it was found that the change of sensory indexes was consistent with the results observed by LF-NMR and SEM. With the increase of temperature, muscle fibers contracted, the interstices increased, the rate of water loss increased, and the sensory score decreased. Initial moisture content, baking time, baking temperature, baking humidity, and baking air velocity were employed as the baking control parameters for the ANN. ANN can be used to determine the moisture content and energy consumed of baking salmon. The best network topology occurred with 5 input layer neurons, 17 hidden layer neurons, and 2 output layer neurons, and the MSE was 0.00153, and Rall was 0.99661. According to the experiment, it was demonstrated that the ANN is a reliable software-based method.
Soil microbes play crucial roles in grassland ecosystem functions, such as soil carbon (C) pool and nutrient cycle. Soil microbes in grasslands are susceptible to the degradation mediated by climate ...change and anthropogenic disturbance. However, research on how the degradation influences the diversity and community structure of different soil microbial taxa is relatively scarce. We conducted a large-scale field survey to describe the effects of four degradation levels (PD: potential degradation, LD: light degradation, MD: moderate degradation, and SD: severe degradation) on soil bacterial and fungal community in the semi-arid grasslands of northern China. We found that soil moisture, nutrients, and clay content decreased, but soil sand content increased along the increasing degradation gradient. However, the degradation had no effects on soil pH and the C:N ratio. Grassland degradation had non-significant effect on soil bacterial diversity, but it significantly affected soil bacterial community structure. The degradation decreased soil fungal diversity and had a relatively larger influence on the community structure of soil fungi than that of bacteria. The community composition and structure of soil fungi were mainly affected by soil nutrients and texture, while those of soil bacteria were mainly affected by soil pH. These results indicate that changes in soil properties induced by grassland degradation mainly drive the variation in the soil fungal community and have less effect on the soil bacterial community. This study reveals the sensitivity of soil fungal community to grassland degradation, highlighting the priority of soil fungal community for the management and restoration of degraded grasslands.
In this computerized age, the web unrest reasonably influenced individuals' life. Training, financial aspects, governmental issues and social fields are enormously impacted by the web. The web ...reliance contrarily affects individuals. For Students, the educating and learning have become simpler contrasted with the former times as these days data is readily available. Despites its advantages, web dependence may adversely affect the understudies life, for example, on their enthusiastic development, passionate shakiness, relapse social maladjustment, deterioration and absence of autonomy. Web has been arisen as an incredible asset for correspondence and trade of data from one side of the planet to the other. Web use is conspicuous in every one of the fields of society in the current situation even in the field of instruction. Presently days, the reliance of the understudies on web has expanded so much that the danger of web fixation and its impact over passionate development of understudies can be seen unmistakably.
The New Southern Policy (NSP). one of the core foreign policy initiatives by President Moon Jae-In, was officially launched in 2017, aiming to pursue diplomatic diversification. The policy seeks to ...elevate South Korea's relations with ASEAN member states and India to the same level of its relations with the four major powers (China, the United States, Japan, and Russia). The NSP aims to secure economic growth momentum and seek greater diplomatic autonomy in an increasingly severe international environment. In November 2020, in response to global conditions brought on by the pandemic, Seoul updated the initiative as "NSP Plus" together with a corresponding five-year plan. While continuously emphasizing economic and diplomatic partnership, the NSP Plus identifies collective recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and sustainability as the critical areas for regional cooperation. However, the South Korean government has recently changed its wait-and-see attitude to the Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Strategy while strengthenin
In this study, κ-carrageenan was used as an additive to improve the quality of Hypophthalmichthys molitrix-sea cucumbers (HM-SC) compound surimi gel. The effects of κ-carrageenan on rheological ...properties, gel strength, textural and moisture characteristics, as well as microstructure of the HM-SC surimi gel were investigated, alongside with Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic characterization and SDS-PAGE analyses of the compound materials. Rheological tests showed that addition of κ-carrageenan increased the storage modulus of the HM-SC compound materials in a dosage-dependent way, which led to superior shape-forming and shape-keeping abilities in 3D printed products. The best gel strength of 1236.04 g mm was obtained in samples with κ-carrageenan addition at 1.5% (w/w). The microstructure of the HM-SC compound surimi gel became more compact and denser, with improved connectivity. These samples also had reduced cooking loss and improved water holding capacity, confirmed by changes in water mobility characterized through Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR). Moreover, κ-carrageenan addition did not change protein configuration much, neither was it contributed to the aggregation and degradation of proteins. These results showed that the quality of the HM-SC compound material could be improved with the κ-carrageenan addition, which could make it suitable for 3D printing based novel product development.
•3D printing technology for making HM-SC compound surimi product.•κ-Carrageenan improves the quality of HM-SC compound surimi gel.•κ-Carrageenan improves printability of HM-SC compound material.
The flow properties of original materials directly affect the shape customization of 3D printing. In order to improve the molding quality, the 3D printing equipment was developed, which was ...characterized by a variable pressure and temperature extrusion unit, a numerical control transmission unit, an extrusion refrigeration unit, and a control box. The optimal pretreatment condition of sturgeon skin was 0.015 M phosphoric acid with higher gel strength (739.27 g), which could be a good substitute for commercial gelatin. The 7% gelatin/fish pulp reconstituted system could exhibit optimum printing properties through an improved 3D printer. The reconstituted system displayed a smoother printing process and superior accuracy during the process of 3D printing, and showed higher apparent viscosity and modulus during the process of cooling and molding. Additionally, the network structure of 3D printing products of reconstituted the gelatin/fish pulp was denser, which showed higher water holding capacity (89.03%), higher hardness (775.64 g), and constant elasticity (0.9853).
Display omitted
•The 3D printer with deposition temperature and extrusion pressure was fabricated.•Gelatin prepared from sturgeon skin could be replaced with commercial gelatin.•Fish pulp with 7% gelatin showed accurate 3D printing properties with higher apparent viscosity and modulus.
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