Explore the vast range of titles available.

This paper empirically studies the relationship among inclusive finance, industrial structure upgrading and farmers’ income, using the panel data of 28 provinces in China from 2006 to 2016.The research finds that inclusive finance can significantly promote the increase of farmers’ income. Moreover, the Upgrading of Industry Structure (UIS) is the intermediary mechanism of inclusive finance to promote the increase of farmers’ income, and this intermediary mechanism is heterogeneous among farmers with different income levels. Finally, the promotion effect of the UIS on farmers’ income is affected by the threshold effect of inclusive finance. Compared with the development level of low inclusive finance, the promotion effect of the UIS on farmers’ income is stronger under the development level of high inclusive finance. According to the results of empirical analysis, we suggest that the development strategy of inclusive finance should aim at the industrial development in rural areas, promote the organic connection between farmers and modern agricultural industry, and drive farmers to increase their income through the transformation and upgrading of rural industries.

From the perspective of agricultural industrialization, based on China's provincial data from 2006 to 2022, it studies the impact of financial inclusion on farmers' income. We have found that financial inclusion can effectively promote the growth of farmers' income, and this effect shows the heterogeneity of different income structures, income levels, and regional types. More importantly, agricultural industrialization is an important mechanism for financial inclusion to promote farmers' income growth. However, the interactive effect of financial inclusion and agricultural industrialization has not promoted the growth of farmers' income, indicating that there are certain structural problems in the current development of financial inclusion. We suggest that the development of financial inclusion should aim at the agricultural industrialization based on division of labor and cooperation. It can focus on supporting the development of local leading industries with regional comparative advantages, guide farmers to enter the agricultural industry chain, and improve farmers' opportunities to share economic results.

From the perspective of agricultural industrialization, based on China’s provincial data from 2006 to 2022, it studies the impact of financial inclusion on farmers’ income. We have found that financial inclusion can effectively promote the growth of farmers’ income, and this effect shows the heterogeneity of different income structures, income levels, and regional types. More importantly, agricultural industrialization is an important mechanism for financial inclusion to promote farmers’ income growth. However, the interactive effect of financial inclusion and agricultural industrialization has not promoted the growth of farmers’ income, indicating that there are certain structural problems in the current development of financial inclusion. We suggest that the development of financial inclusion should aim at the agricultural industrialization based on division of labor and cooperation. It can focus on supporting the development of local leading industries with regional comparative advantages, guide farmers to enter the agricultural industry chain, and improve farmers’ opportunities to share economic results.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether Dectin-1 influences the immune-inflammatory response in keratitis by modulating macrophage polarization. 1. The models of 1-day, 3-day, and 5-day of fungal keratitis were established in SPF C57BL/6 mice after stimulation by Dectin-1 agonist (curdlan) and antagonist (laminaran) were injected separately in the mouse subconjunctivae for 1 day in the established mouse model of keratitis; PBS was used as the control. Inflammation of the mouse cornea was observed under a slit lamp to obtain a clinical score. 2. The expression of M1 (TNF-α, INOS, IL-6, IL-12) and M2 (Arg-1, IL-10, Fizz-1, Ym-1) cytokine-encoding mRNAs was quantified by RT-PCR. 3. Changes in the number of macrophages and expression of M1 and M2 macrophages in mouse corneas detected by immunofluorescence and flow cytometry. 4. Pre-treatment of RAW264.7 cells with MAPK cell signaling pathway inhibitors SB203580 (p38 inhibitor, 10µM), U0126 (ERK inhibitor, 20µM), SP600125 (JNK inhibitor, 10µM) and DMSO separately for 2 h, and stimulated by for 12 h. Changes in the mRNA expression of M1 and M2 cytokines in the macrophages were quantified by RT-PCR. 1. With curdlan pre-treatment, mouse corneal inflammation worsened, and the clinical score increased after infection. In contrast, in the laminaran pre-treated group, corneal inflammation was alleviated and the clinical score decreased significantly compared to the PBS group after infection. 2. Compared with the control group, the expression levels of macrophage phenotype-related M1 and M2 cytokine mRNAs increased significantly 1, 3, and 5 days after infected the corneas of mice. 3. With curdlan pre-treatment, the expression of mRNAs encoding M1 cytokines increased, while those encoding M2 cytokines decreased in the cornea compared to the PBS group. In contrast, after infection, mRNA levels for M1 cytokines decreased significantly and those for M2 cytokines increased in the cornea of the laminaran pre-treated group compared to the PBS group. 4. The number of macrophages in the corneal stroma of mice in the curdlan pretreatment group increased significantly compared with the PBS group, while in the laminaran pretreatment group this number decreased significantly. 5. The results of flow cytometry showed that after 3 days of mouse corneal infection, the number of macrophages in the mouse model in the curdlan pretreatment group was increased (10.4%) and the number of macrophages in the mouse model in the laminaran pretreatment group (6.31%), when compared with the AF+FBS group (7.91%). The proportion of M1-type macrophages was increased in the curdlan pretreated group (55.6%) compared to the AF+FBS group (51.2%), the proportion of laminaran pretreatment group had a decreased proportion of M1-type macrophages (46.8%); while M2-type macrophages were the opposite of M1-type: the proportion of M2-type macrophages was 49.2% in the AF+FBS group, the proportion of M2-type macrophages was decreased in the curdlan pretreatment group (44.0%), and the proportion of M2-type macrophages was increased in the laminaran pretreatment group (53.5%). 6. Expression of M1 and M2 cytokine-encoding mRNAs decreased and increased, respectively, after infection, in the RAW264.7 cells pre-treated with MAPK pathway inhibitors, compared to the control. In a mouse model of keratitis, Dectin-1 can affect macrophage recruitment and polarization, may regulate macrophage phenotype-associated factor changes through the MAPK signaling pathway.

This paper empirically studies the relationship among inclusive finance, industrial structure upgrading and farmers’ income, using the panel data of 28 provinces in China from 2006 to 2016.The research finds that inclusive finance can significantly promote the increase of farmers’ income. Moreover, the Upgrading of Industry Structure (UIS) is the intermediary mechanism of inclusive finance to promote the increase of farmers’ income, and this intermediary mechanism is heterogeneous among farmers with different income levels. Finally, the promotion effect of the UIS on farmers’ income is affected by the threshold effect of inclusive finance. Compared with the development level of low inclusive finance, the promotion effect of the UIS on farmers’ income is stronger under the development level of high inclusive finance. According to the results of empirical analysis, we suggest that the development strategy of inclusive finance should aim at the industrial development in rural areas, promote the organic connection between farmers and modern agricultural industry, and drive farmers to increase their income through the transformation and upgrading of rural industries.

Agronomic and quality traits in alfalfa are very important to forage industry. Genomic prediction (GP) based on genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) data could shorten the breeding cycles and accelerate the genetic gains of these complex traits, if they display moderate to high prediction accuracies. The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive potentials of these traits in alfalfa. A total of 322 genotypes from 75 alfalfa accessions were used for GP of the agronomic and quality traits, which were related to yield and nutrition value, respectively, using BayesA, BayesB, and BayesCπ methods. Ten-fold cross validation was used to evaluate the accuracy of GP represented by the correlation between genomic estimated breeding value (GEBV) and estimated breeding value (EBV). The accuracies ranged from 0.0021 to 0.6485 for different traits. For each trait, three GP methods displayed similar prediction accuracies. Among 15 quality traits, mineral element Ca had a moderate and the highest prediction accuracy (0.34). NDF digestibility after 48 h (NDFD 48 h) and 30 h (NDFD 30 h) and mineral element Mg had prediction accuracies varying from 0.20 to 0.25. Other traits, for example, fat and crude protein, showed low prediction accuracies (0.05 to 0.19). Among 10 agronomic traits, however, some displayed relatively high prediction accuracies. Plant height (PH) in fall (FH) had the highest prediction accuracy (0.65), followed by flowering date (FD) and plant regrowth (PR) with accuracies at 0.52 and 0.51, respectively. Leaf to stem ratio (LS), plant branch (PB), and biomass yield (BY) reached to moderate prediction accuracies ranging from 0.25 to 0.32. Our results revealed that a few agronomic traits, such as FH, FD, and PR, had relatively high prediction accuracies, therefore it is feasible to apply genomic selection (GS) for these traits in alfalfa breeding programs. Because of the limitations of population size and density of SNP markers, several traits displayed low accuracies which could be improved by a bigger reference population, higher density of SNP markers, and more powerful statistic tools.

Nitrogen (N) can enhance the biomass and feeding quality of forage crops and advance the growth of the herbivorous livestock industry. Investigating the N fertilizer dynamics in the soil–crop–livestock system is important for resource-use efficiency and environmental safety. By using the 15N-labeled technology and the in vitro incubation technique, an experiment was conducted in the North China Plain (NCP) in 2015–2016 to quantify the migration and distribution of N fertilizer in the soil–forage triticale (X Triticosecale Wittmack)–dairy cow system. The results showed that 34.1–37.3% of the applied N fertilizer was absorbed by forage triticale, in which 35.9–39.6% N accumulated in the stems and 60.4–64.1% accumulated in the leaves. In addition, 36.3–39.1% of the applied N fertilizer remained in the 0–100 cm soil layer, in which 81.8–91.3% was distributed in the 0–40 cm soil layer. The remaining 24.6–26.8% of the applied N fertilizer was lost in various ways and 28.1–31.3% of the N fertilizer could be utilized by dairy cows. When N fertilizer was applied between 0–225 kg N ha−1, the increased application of N fertilizer improved the biomass yield from 14.0 to 17.5 t ha−1 and enhanced the N content of the forage triticale from 1.3% to 1.4%; however, it did not significantly affect the distribution rate of N fertilizer in the soil–forage triticale–dairy cow system. The optimum N fertilizer application rate for forage triticale is less than 225 kg N ha–1 to maintain high-efficient N use in the soil–crop–livestock system and reduce the environmental risks in the NCP. Our results quantified the N fertilizer dynamics in the soil–forage triticale–dairy cow system and provided a significant reference for guiding rational strategies of forage triticale cultivation.

Interseeding silage corn into an alfalfa stand following its spring harvests to produce mixed silage would feasibly break the restriction of alfalfa production during a hot-rainy summer. In this 2-yr experiment, the alfalfa–silage corn intercropping system (AC) with nitrogen (N) fertilization rates of 0, 60, 120, and 180 kg N ha−1 and corn plant densities of 30,000, 45,000, and 60,000 plants ha−1 was compared with the monocultured corn (CK) managed using the local farmers’ practice. Intercropping with alfalfa significantly decreased the dry matter (DM) yield of the corn by 31.5% on average, while increasing the N application rate and corn plant density promoted DM yield and crude protein (CP) accumulation of the intercropped corn, and the intercropping system could achieve the same CP yield as CK—it did in most cases. Although the DM contents, pH values, and NH3-N concentrations were decreased in the mixed silage, its fermentation quality was not reduced and the CP, water soluble carbohydrates, and lactic acid contents were dramatically increased by 16.3%, 17.8%, and 72.9% compared with those of CK, respectively. For the opposite effects of N fertilization and corn density on silage quality, the treatment combination with a medium corn density (45,000 plants ha−1) fertilized at a medium N rate (120 kg N ha−1) was evaluated as the optimum for more balanced system productivity, silage nutritive values and fermentative characteristics during the coexisting period.

Integrating a forage crop into the fallow (F) of the peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) (P) mono-cropping system is a practical approach to provide forage yield and increase the resource use efficiency. However, little information about the comprehensive assessment of water utilization and economic benefits in the crop–livestock system exists for the North China Plain (NCP). This study aims to identify the crop rotation for optimizing water management and enhance economic benefit. The field experiment was performed over three years (2011–2014) to assess production, water utilization, and economic benefits when inserting forage triticale (X Triticosecale Wittmack) (T) into the peanut mono-cropping system. Results showed that replacing the fallow F-P cropping system with forage triticale provided a substantial amount of forage (the average of 9.8 t ha−1 per year) and enhanced the average system productivity by 85.1%. Cultivation of forage triticale during the fallow period decreased the subsequent peanut pod yield by 8.3% due to a 19.3% decline in soil water storage capacity during the sowing stage of peanut. Replacing fallow with forage triticale increased the system net income by 1016.2 US$ ha−1 and the water use efficiency (WUE) by 30.0%, while not affecting the economic efficiency of water use (EEWU), and thus can be recommended as a better option for maintaining relatively high system production, economic benefit, and WUE in NCP.

Purpose. Activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) is induced by various stressors. Here, we investigated the expression of ATF4 in the host inflammatory response to Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus) keratitis. Methods. A. fumigatus keratitis mouse models developed by intrastromal injection as well as corneal epithelium scratching were examined daily with a slit lamp microscope for corneal opacification and ulceration. Subsequent in vitro experimentation was carried out in human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs) as well as THP-1 macrophages infected with A. fumigatus. Inhibitors, including CLI-095, Poly (I), SCH772984, and SP600125, were used to assess the role of proteins like toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), lectin-type oxidized LDL receptor 1 (LOX-1), extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2), and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in ATF4 expression as a response to A. fumigatus infection. This assessment was made in both mouse models and HCECs using western blot. Results. Compared to the controls, ATF4 was increased in corneas from two kinds of A. fumigatus keratitis models at 3 days after infection. ATF4 expression was upregulated with A. fumigatus conidia both in HCECs and THP-1 macrophages 16 hours after stimulation. Furthermore, ATF4 expression in response to A. fumigatus infection was shown to be dependent on TLR4 and LOX-1 expression, and ERK1/2 and JNK contributed to the expression of ATF4 in response to A. fumigatus. Conclusion. Our results clearly indicate that ATF4 was involved in the host antifungal immune response to A. fumigatus keratitis; expression was found to be dependent on TLR4, LOX-1 expression, and MAPKs pathway.