Search Results (8,999)

Straw and no-tillage management, as important practices in conservation agriculture, have the potential to improve soil structure. However, their effects on the aggregate stability of soil and on active organic carbon pools in paddy fields are unclear. To investigate how different tillage and straw management practices affect soil properties, this study drew on a 15-year long-term experiment conducted in a double-cropped rice region in South China. It systematically compared four treatments: no-tillage (NT), conventional tillage (CT), conventional tillage with incorporated straw (CT-SR), and no-tillage with straw mulch (NT-SMR)—in terms of their effects on the distribution and stability of mechanical and water-stable aggregates, as well as the distribution of particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) across various aggregate size fractions. The results showed that: (1) Relative to the CT, NT, and CT-SR treatments, NT-SMR significantly enhanced soil structure, as evidenced by a higher percentage of large aggregates (>0.25 mm) and improved aggregate stability. (2) NT-SMR consistently increased soil organic carbon pools, raising SOC, POC, and MAOC contents by 2.0–14.2%, 5.7–24.3%, and 1.0–11.9%, respectively, compared to other treatments. (3) In this study, stability of soil aggregates parameters (R_>0.25, MWD and GMD) increased combined with higher levels of bulk SOC and >0.053 mm MAOC, but decreased with higher fractal dimension, indicating a direct causal link between organic carbon accumulation and the betterment of soil structure. Overall, NT-SMR promotes aggregate stability through an optimized particle-size distribution and increased SOC, particularly in the >0.053 mm MAOC fraction. This practice is a sustainable long-term strategy for enhancing SOC sequestration and structural stability in paddy. Full article

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are vital for nutrient cycling, but how lithology across bulk soil and the rock–soil interface influence AMF communities remains poorly understood. We investigated the effects of karst (dolomite, limestone) and non-karst (clastic rock) lithologies across bulk soil and the rock–soil interface on AMF diversity, community composition, and co-occurrence networks in southwest China. AMF diversity did not differ among lithologies or between bulk soil and rock–soil interface, whereas community composition showed significant differences across lithology. The relative abundance of Glomus was lower in karst than in non-karst, whereas Paraglomus showed the opposite pattern. Co-occurrence network analysis revealed that karst soils exhibited higher numbers of nodes and edges but lower network density, transitivity, betweenness centrality, and average path length compared to non-karst soils. Within the same dolomite and limestone, network properties were similar between the rock–soil interface and bulk soil. Soil pH, exchangeable Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺, total nitrogen, and nitrate nitrogen were negatively correlated with Glomus and network properties (e.g., number of nodes and edges), while ammonium nitrogen showed positive correlations. Our results indicate that lithology exerts a stronger influence than soil compartment on AMF community composition and interspecific interactions, emphasizing the key role of lithological substrates in regulating AMF communities. Full article

Severe heavy metal contamination affects the karst landscapes of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, which are highly polluted and complex. However, integrated assessments of heavy metal sources, distribution, ecological risks, and speciation in karst agricultural soils remain limited. Additionally, there is a gap regarding the interactions between cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), and selenium (Se) in natural rice fields. This study employed the pollution load index (PLI), ecological risk index (RI), and Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) models to evaluate the sources and characteristics of heavy metal contamination in farmland soils. The results showed significant pollution in agricultural soils of Guangxi karst due to Cd, chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), and nickel (Ni). Among these, Cd poses the highest ecological risk. Heavy metal accumulation in the surface soil far exceeds that in deeper layers, and the main sources of Cd were contributed from soil parent material and agricultural activities. Speciation analysis revealed the high bioavailability of Cd, while Zn and Se existed in more stable forms. Despite elevated soil Cd levels, rice grains remained within the safety limits. Using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Cd was primarily detected in the cell walls of rice stems and husks, which was attributed to Zn’s competitive uptake, reducing Cd absorption and Se forming complexes with Cd to enhance its fixation. Statistical correlations revealed positive associations between Cd in soil and rice. Cd also demonstrated a positive correlation with Se, but a negative correlation with Zn, suggesting a synergistic mechanism between Zn and Se that acts to mitigate the absorption of Cd. This study provides practical guidance for managing farmland soil heavy metal contamination and protecting agricultural soil resources in the karst areas. Full article

The river buffalo is an economically important livestock species supplying milk and meat. However, a multi-tissue transcriptomic atlas for the key dairy river buffalo breeds, Murrah and Nili-Ravi, has not yet been established, and the lack of stable reference genes has hindered in-depth studies of their biological functions and the molecular mechanisms underlying key economic traits such as lactation. We established a multi-tissue gene expression atlas across 20 tissues and identified 717 housekeeping genes (HKGs), and RPL37A and EEF2 were further shown to be stable candidate reference genes under the conditions tested. We found 8368 tissue-specific genes (TSGs), predominantly enriched in the reproductive system. Exploratory analysis of mammary tissue (dry-period vs. public lactating samples, confounded by batch effects) revealed mammary-enriched hub genes including LALBA; these findings are preliminary and require validation. Dynamic analysis across lactation stages (early, peak, mid-, late) identified candidate genes including SEC14L2 and ACSM3. Phenotypic data showed strong negative correlations between milk yield and protein/fat content, and a positive correlation with lactose content. However, causal or regulatory roles were not inferred due to lack of paired individual-level data. Cross-dataset comparisons are descriptive only, and are not key conclusions. In summary, this study lays the foundation for advancing research in lactation trait genetics and functional genomics in river buffalo, with novel reference genes and lactation stage-specific transcriptional dynamics as its main contributions. Full article

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a primary metabolic disorder that threatens adolescent health globally, with no effective therapeutic agents currently available. Bellamya purificata is a traditional Chinese medicine categorized as "medicinal food", and polysaccharides are among its active components. However, its physicochemical structure remains poorly characterized, and no study has evaluated its effects on NAFLD. In this study, a homogeneous neutral polysaccharide, α-D-glucan (Mw = 6,412.704 kDa), was isolated from B. purificata. The structure of the polysaccharide was characterized using monosaccharide composition analysis, methylation analysis, NMR spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The backbone structure of the polysaccharide comprises →4)-α-D-Glcp-(1→ and →4,6)-α-D-Glcp-(1→, with side chains of α-D-Glcp-(1→ attached to the O-6 position of the 1→4,6)-α-D-Glcp-(1→ sugar residues. Additionally, QSPS-1D effectively reduced weight gain, hepatic lipid accumulation (TC and TG), and inflammatory responses (tnf-α and il-1β) in NAFLD zebrafish. Moreover, QSPS-1D alleviated dysbiosis by inhibiting harmful bacteria (e.g., Stenotrophomonas, Agrobacterium, and Chryseobacterium) and promoting beneficial microbiota (e.g., Rothia), which restored the Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio. In parallel, it enhanced the expression of tight junction proteins (zo-1 and claudin-1), leading to the repair of the intestinal mucosal barrier. These findings suggest that B. purificata polysaccharides may be a potential functional food for early NAFLD intervention, with effects potentially associated with the modulation of the gut microbiota. Full article

Organic fertilizer substitution is increasingly used to reduce chemical nitrogen input in rice production, but the agronomic effects may vary with fertilizer source. This study compared chemical fertilizer alone with seven organic substitution treatments based on rapeseed cake, peanut bran, mushroom residue fertilizer, cattle manure, chicken manure, goat manure, and pig manure under the same nitrogen substitution ratio. Rice yield, grain quality, post-harvest soil physicochemical properties, and integrated performance were evaluated in the 2025 final-year dataset after two consecutive years of continuous fertilization. Responses differed clearly among fertilizer sources. Chicken manure and cattle manure produced the highest grain yields, mainly through stronger effects on grains per panicle, seed-setting rate, and grain filling. Grain quality showed more selective responses: mushroom residue fertilizer resulted in the highest head rice rate, peanut bran increased chalkiness-related traits, and mushroom residue fertilizer and goat manure were associated with higher grain protein content. In contrast to the yield pattern, plant-derived fertilizers, especially rapeseed cake and mushroom residue fertilizer, showed stronger advantages in post-harvest soil improvement. Rapeseed cake produced the highest soil quality index, whereas mushroom residue fertilizer showed the most balanced overall performance across yield, grain quality, and soil variables. These results indicate that the effects of organic fertilizer substitution in rice are strongly source-dependent. Animal-derived fertilizers were more favorable for short-term yield improvement, rapeseed cake was more effective for soil fertility enhancement, and mushroom residue fertilizer provided the best overall balance among productivity, grain quality, and soil improvement. Full article

Amid escalating global crises, tourism sustainability is threatened by heightened industry vulnerability, yet the intrinsic coupling of tourism industry vulnerability (TIV) and resilience (TIR) remains underexplored via systemic theoretical frameworks. This study aimed to define TIV/TIR as industry-specific constructs and develop an integrated analytical model grounded in dissipative structure theory to characterize tourism systems’ crisis responses. We selected Southwest China’s ethnic minority regions (Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan) as cases, using 2015–2024 prefecture-level panel data to explores the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of TIV/TIR. Results revealed severe COVID-19-induced TIV surges in 2020–2021, followed by rapid TIR rebounds; TIV and TIR exhibited a significant negative correlation with regional heterogeneity. Most cities showed high TIV–low TIR, with Guizhou displaying negative TIV-TIR spatial autocorrelation and Guangxi–Yunnan showing TIR clustering; inter-city TIV disparities widened while TIR levels converged, leading to a low-vulnerability, balanced-resilience tourism system by 2024. This research introduces the novel sensitivity-adaptive capacity-recovery (SACR) framework, advancing understanding of TIV-TIR dynamics and providing targeted empirical insights for tourism resilience building and sustainable development in resource-dependent destinations. Full article

Nowadays, the application of insect sex pheromones in pest control technology has reached a relatively advanced technological maturity stage. However, the traditional research and development of sex pheromones requires a “one pest, one strategy” approach, which has drawbacks such as being time-consuming and focused on a single control target. The insect sex pheromone synthesis pathway involves multiple molecular components that work together to promote the synthesis and release of sex pheromone from the pheromone gland. Elucidating the mechanisms underlying pheromone biosynthesis offers the potential to uncover universal strategies for pheromone development, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of pest management. This study arranged knowledge of the upstream regulatory pathways and summarized the structure and function of the molecular components involved. We also investigated the divergence of neuropeptides and their receptors that regulate pheromone biosynthesis among different insect species from an evolutionary perspective. Future research should integrate multi-omics, bioinformatics, structural biology, and artificial intelligence technologies to elucidate the synthesis and regulatory processes of insect semiochemicals, develop specific dsRNA and small molecule inhibitors, and accelerate the transformation and application of related molecular targets into highly effective and green pesticides. Full article

In the context of global digital transformation, scientifically examining the spatio-temporal evolution patterns and transition mechanisms of the digital economy at the municipal level is crucial for promoting coordinated regional development. This study takes 281 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2023 as its research units. Exploratory Spatio-Temporal Data Analysis (ESTDA) is employed to analyze its spatio-temporal dynamics, while a panel quantile regression model nested with spatio-temporal transition types is used to reveal the driving mechanisms. The findings indicate that (1) the overall development level of China’s municipal digital economy has steadily increased, yet significant regional heterogeneity persists, characterized by a pattern of “eastern leading, central fastest-growing, and western lagging,” with considerable room for overall improvement. (2) The digital economy exhibits a significant positive spatial correlation. High–high agglomeration areas remain stable in the southeastern coast, whereas low–low agglomeration areas are concentrated in the central-western and northeastern regions. The spatial pattern demonstrates strong stability and path dependence. (3) LISA time paths reveal drastic changes in local spatial structures in provinces such as Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hubei, Guangdong, and Guangxi, while East and Central China remain relatively stable. Tortuosity analysis indicates that spatial linkages in the western region are becoming active yet unstable. (4) The quantile regression nested with transition types identifies four mechanisms: “Economic development-Technological innovation” serves as the fundamental driving mechanism across all regions. Low-quantile areas face a complex situation with dual suppression from “opening-up and urbanization” coexisting with drivers from “human capital, government intervention, and industrial structure.” High-quantile areas are synergistically driven by “urbanization, human capital, government intervention, and advanced industrial structure.” This study provides a decision-making reference for overcoming the dilemma of “low-level club convergence” in digital economy development and formulating differentiated regional policies. Full article

To address the challenges of inefficient depolymerization and undesirable condensation side reactions of lignin in lignocellulosic biomass, this study employed an ethanolamine pyruvate protic ionic liquid (EAP) pretreatment system to achieve selective separation of lignin from eucalyptus while simultaneously enabling its in situ structural activation. Under optimized conditions (pyruvate-to-ethanolamine mole ratio of 1:3, 120 °C, 40 min), the EAP system afforded a lignin separation yield of 79.0 ± 0.6%, with dissolution yields of cellulose and hemicellulose of 9.6 ± 0.3% and 11.2 ± 0.4%, respectively. According to 2D-HSQC NMR and ³¹P NMR analyses, the relative content of β-O-4 ether linkages in the isolated lignin decreased from 18.4 ± 0.4% to 14.2 ± 0.3% after EAP treatment. The total phenolic hydroxyl content reached 2.26 ± 0.08 mmol/g, and the syringyl-to-guaiacyl (S/G) ratio declined from 1.72 ± 0.04 to 0.71 ± 0.03. Based on these observations, it is proposed that the ethanolamine component facilitates the dissociation of the lignin network through hydrogen bonding and stabilizes reactive intermediates, while the pyruvate component participates in the cleavage of β-O-4 ether linkages and the removal of methoxy groups via proton catalysis and nucleophilic attack. Compared with the ethanolamine and ethanolamine acetate systems, EAP pretreatment yielded lignin of higher purity (98.4 ± 0.3%) under milder conditions, and the isolated lignin exhibited stronger antioxidant activity (IC₅₀ = 0.17 ± 0.02 mg/mL). This work offers insights into the development of pretreatment systems that combine efficient separation with structural preservation of lignin. Full article

Camera-based 3D occupancy prediction commonly relies on bird’s-eye-view (BEV) representations, yet two limitations remain: optimization instability when inserting new modules into pre-trained BEV encoders, and height-agnostic BEV-to-voxel lifting that fails to preserve elevation-aware scene structure. We propose GSH-Occ (Gradient-Shielded and Height-Aware BEV Occupancy Network), a framework that tackles both issues through two complementary mechanisms. Gradient-Shielded Residual Dual Attention (GS-RDA) introduces a zero-initialized residual gate that preserves the identity mapping at initialization, allowing new attention modules to be grafted onto pre-trained encoders without disturbing learned features. Height-Aware Adaptive Lift (HAL) replaces naive channel replication with per-voxel adaptive fusion of BEV features and learnable height embeddings, followed by 3D convolutional refinement to capture vertical structure. On the Occ3D-nuScenes validation benchmark, GSH-Occ achieves 46.92 mIoU, outperforming FlashOcc by $+3.40$ mIoU. Ablation studies confirm that GS-RDA and HAL target distinct failure modes and yield complementary improvements. Full article

High-entropy perovskite oxides attract considerable attention due to their outstanding properties and extensive applications. In this work, the lattice distortion and the mechanical, thermal and electronic structure properties of high-entropy (Ca_0.2Sr_0.2Ba_0.2La_0.2Pb_0.2)TiO₃ (CSBLPT) are investigated through first-principles calculations. The results suggest that the influence of O atoms on lattice distortion is predominant, and the effect of overall A-site atoms plays a distinctly greater role than that of the B-site atoms. The mechanical results show that the high-entropy CSBLPT has a lower Young’s modulus and higher fracture toughness than ternary SrTiO₃. The Debye temperature also indirectly indicates that the thermal expansion coefficient of the studied high-entropy perovskite is greater than that of SrTiO₃. As for thermal conductivity, the obtained result of CSBLPT is also appreciably lower than that of SrTiO₃, and the lowest thermal conductivity is along the [100] direction. The Fermi level of high-entropy CSBLPT is transferred to the conduction band, exhibiting a degenerate n-type semiconductor behavior with metallic-like characteristics, and the Bader charge values are also related to the local lattice distortion, which may cause differences in thermomechanical properties between high-entropy CSBLPT and SrTiO₃. Above all, high-entropy CSBLPT is a preferable TBC material with excellent performance under working conditions compared to SrTiO₃. Full article

In future active distribution networks with high penetrations of renewable energy, flexible loads are expected to play an increasingly important role as reserve resources to support the sustainable and reliable operation of power grids. Accurate evaluation of flexible load reserve capacity is therefore essential for reliable reserve scheduling. Existing research mainly focuses on the operational characteristics and physical constraints of flexible loads, while insufficiently accounting for user response willingness and the uncertainty of user decision-making behavior, which may lead to biased reserve capacity assessments and impair the sustainability of reserve supply in actual grid operation. To address this issue, this paper proposes a results-oriented reserve capacity evaluation method for flexible loads that explicitly incorporates user response willingness. Specifically, a fuzzy logic system is developed to quantitatively characterize the response willingness of electric vehicle (EV) and air-conditioning (AC) users under multiple influencing factors. Then, a probabilistic modeling approach for user decision-making behavior is established using the theory of planned behavior, enabling explicit representation of behavioral uncertainty. Furthermore, a comprehensive reserve capacity evaluation framework for flexible loads is constructed by integrating user willingness states, sustainable response duration, and operational power constraints. Finally, the case studies demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively improve the objectivity of flexible load reserve capacity assessments while maintaining high user participation willingness, thus supporting the long-term sustainable application of flexible loads as grid reserve resources. Full article

Vehicle detection is a fundamental perception task in intelligent transportation systems and autonomous driving. Although state-of-the-art detectors achieve competitive performance under normal conditions, their robustness degrades substantially under adverse conditions such as rain, fog, low illumination, and sensor noise. To address this challenge, we propose RD-DETR, a vehicle detector that incorporates reaction–diffusion mechanisms into deep feature learning. The RDNet backbone adopts a pyramid-based enhancement strategy in which shallow layers preserve fine-grained texture details while deep layers employ reaction–diffusion-inspired dynamics to suppress noise and enhance target representations. The Phase-Guided Spatial Attention (PGSA) module leverages phase-related structural cues that are relatively less sensitive to global illumination and contrast variations, helping recover vehicle boundaries when appearance cues become unreliable under adverse imaging conditions. The Content-Aware Adaptive Fusion Module (CA-AFM) dynamically aggregates multi-scale features according to scene complexity, improving detection across diverse traffic scenarios. Experiments on BDD100K and DAWN show that RD-DETR yields mAP@0.5 improvements of 3.2 and 4.0 percentage points over RT-DETR, respectively, while reducing model parameters by 27.6%, indicating a favorable balance between accuracy and efficiency under the evaluated settings. Full article

Resolving the dichotomy between wide detection ranges and low mechanical hysteresis remains a critical challenge in flexible electronics, largely governed by the intrinsic viscoelastic creep of polymeric dielectrics. Drawing inspiration from the distinctive load-bearing mechanisms of traditional Chinese Sparrow Brace architecture, we report a mechanically optimized tilted micro-architecture designed to enhance structural resilience. Unlike conventional soft elastomeric pillars that easily succumb to mechanical failure, this BOPS-based tilted geometry provides excellent load-bearing capacity, effectively preventing premature failure. Finite element analysis (FEA) confirms that this tilted geometry forces a fundamental shift from conventional bulk compression to structural bending. Because this bending-dominated architecture drives rapid elastic recovery, it significantly mitigates the severe effects of the polymer’s viscoelastic creep under the tested loading conditions, achieving reliable signal reversibility with low hysteresis. We fabricated this specific architecture via programmable femtosecond laser direct writing (FsLDW) on biaxially oriented polystyrene (BOPS) films, harnessing the material’s entropy-driven self-growth kinetics. By merging this localized growth mechanism with the architectural design, we effectively bypassed the complexities of traditional molding, achieving mask-free, in situ growth of large-scale, highly uniform dielectric micro-arrays. The resulting sensor delivers a remarkably broad working range (up to ~2.28 MPa) coupled with a negligible recovery error (~1.3%), an agile dynamic response (~70/80 ms), and consistent operational durability. Ultimately, this work combines architecture-inspired structural design with advanced femtosecond laser surface microengineering, providing a conceptually novel and scalable pathway for next-generation flexible sensing. Full article