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Background and Objectives: Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play a crucial role in individual plant capability and whole ecosystem sustainability. Chinese fir, one of the most widely planted tree species in southern China, forms associations with AMF. However, it is still unclear what impacts thinning management applied to Chinese fir plantations has on the structure and diversity of soil AMF communities. This research attempts to bridge this knowledge gap. Materials and Methods: A thinning experiment was designed on different slope positions in Chinese fir plantations to examine the impacts of slope position and thinning intensity on colonization, diversity, and community composition of AMF. Results: Our research showed that the altitudinal slope position had significant effects on colonization, diversity, and community composition of AMF in Chinese fir plantations. In addition, the interaction between slope position and thinning intensity had significant effects on AMF diversity. Colonization by AMF on the lower slope position was significantly higher than on the upper slope position, while AMF diversity on the upper slope position was higher than on the middle and lower slope positions. Glomus was the most abundant genus in all slope positions, especially on the middle and lower slope positions. The relative abundance of Diversispora was significantly different among slope positions with absolute dominance on the upper slope position. Scutellospora was uniquely found on the upper slope position. Furthermore, soil Mg and Mn contents and soil temperature positively affected AMF community composition at the operational taxonomic unit (OTU) level. Conclusions: These findings suggested that slope position should be considered in the management of Chinese fir plantations. Furthermore, both chemical fertilization and AMF augmentation should be undertaken on upper hill slope positions as part of sustainable management practices for Chinese fir plantations.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi play an important role in plant-fungi communities. It remains a central question of how the AM fungal community changes as plants grow. To establish an understanding of AM fungal community dynamics associated with Chinese fir, Chinese fir with five different growth stages were studied and 60 root samples were collected at the Jiangle National Forestry Farm, Fujian Province. A total of 76 AM fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified by high-throughput sequencing on an Illumina Miseq platform. The genera covered by OTUs were Glomus , Archaeospora , Acaulospora , Gigaspora and Diversispora. Glomus dominated the community in the whole stage. The number and composition of OTUs varied along with the host plant growth. The number of OTUs showed an inverted V-shaped change with the host plant age, and the maximum occurred in 23-year. Overall, the basic species diversity and richness in this study were stable. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (NMDS) analysis based on bray-curtis distance revealed that there were remarkable differentiations between the 9-year and other stages. Besides, AM fungal community in 32-year had a significant difference with that of 23-year, while no significant difference with that of 45-year, suggesting that 32-year may be a steady stage for AM fungi associated with Chinese fir. The cutting age in 32-year may be the most favorable for microbial community. The pH, total N, total P, total K, available N, available P, available K, organic matter and Mg varied as the Chinese fir grows. According to Mantel test and redundancy analysis, available N, available P, K and Mg could exert significant influence on AM fungal communities, and these variables explained 31% of variance in the composition of AM fungal communities.

Background Voice training has been proposed as an intervention to improve swallowing function in patients with dysphagia. However, little is known about the effects of voice training on swallowing physiology. Objectives This systematic review investigates the effect of voice training on the swallowing function of patients with oropharyngeal dysphagia and provides the theoretical basis for improving the swallowing function and life quality of patients with oropharyngeal dysphagia. Data sources A systematic review using a narrative synthesis approach of all published studies was sought with no date restrictions. Five electronic databases (EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and The Cochrane Library) were searched from inception to April 2022. Study selection Eight studies were included. Two researchers screened the literature according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, and carried out quality control according to the Cochrane handbook5.1.0. Data were analyzed narratively and descriptively. Conclusions In general, statistically significant positive therapy effects were found. Voice training improves the oral and pharyngeal stages of swallowing in patients with neurological causes of dysphagia, such as stroke, and in patients with non-neurological causes of dysphagia, such as head and neck cancer. However, the current literature is limited and further primary research is required to provide more evidence to support voice training intervention in dysphagia.  Future studies could  further refine the content of voice training interventions, increase the number of patients enrolled, assess the long-term effects of voice training interventions and add associated assessments of the quality of life after treatment.

Based on the KKSO model [1], phase field and solute field are coupled to simulate the growth of lamellar pearlite in eutectoid transformation of Fe-C binary alloy. The influence of interface energy and diffusion coefficient on the microstructure and growth morphology of lamellar pearlite is studied. The results show that eutectoid lamellar morphology changed from regular symmetry to low symmetry and small amplitude oscillation, the growth rate of lamellar pearlite microstructure decreases and the morphology of ferrit phase interface frontier is changed from horizontal to convex with the increase of interfacial energy. With the increase of diffusion coefficient, the growth rate of lamellar pearlite microstructure increases and the morphology of pearlite interface frontier has no obvious change.

Inverted perovskite solar cells have attracted increasing attention because they have achieved long operating lifetimes. However, they have exhibited significantly inferior power conversion efficiencies compared to regular perovskite solar cells. Here we reduce this efficiency gap using a trace amount of surface-anchoring alkylamine ligands (AALs) with different chain lengths as grain and interface modifiers. We show that long-chain AALs added to the precursor solution suppress nonradiative carrier recombination and improve the optoelectronic properties of mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite films. The resulting AAL surface-modified films exhibit a prominent (100) orientation and lower trap-state density as well as enhanced carrier mobilities and diffusion lengths. These translate into a certified stabilized power conversion efficiency of 22.3% (23.0% power conversion efficiency for lab-measured champion devices). The devices operate for over 1,000 h at the maximum power point under simulated AM1.5 illumination, without loss of efficiency. While perovskite solar cells with an inverted architecture hold great promise for operation stability, their power conversion efficiency lags behind that of conventional cells. Here, Zheng et al. achieve a certified 22.34% efficiency, exploiting alkylamine ligands as grain and interface modifiers.

This study was designed to evaluate ERK5 expression in lung cancer and malignant melanoma progression and to ascertain the involvement of ERK5 signaling in lung cancer and melanoma. We show that ERK5 expression is abundant in human lung cancer samples, and elevated ERK5 expression in lung cancer was linked to the acquisition of increased metastatic and invasive potential. Importantly, we observed a significant correlation between ERK5 activity and FAK expression and its phosphorylation at the Ser910 site. Mechanistically, ERK5 increased the expression of the transcription factor USF1, which could transcriptionally upregulate FAK expression, resulting in FAK signaling activation to promote cell migration. We also provided evidence that the phosphorylation of FAK at Ser910 was due to ERK5 but not ERK1/2, and we then suggested a role for Ser910 in the control of cell motility. In addition, ERK5 had targets in addition to FAK that regulate epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and cell motility in cancer cells. Taken together, our findings uncover a cancer metastasis-promoting role for ERK5 and provide the rationale for targeting ERK5 as a potential therapeutic approach.

Reduced-dimensional perovskites are attractive light-emitting materials due to their efficient luminescence, color purity, tunable bandgap, and structural diversity. A major limitation in perovskite light-emitting diodes is their limited operational stability. Here we demonstrate that rapid photodegradation arises from edge-initiated photooxidation, wherein oxidative attack is powered by photogenerated and electrically-injected carriers that diffuse to the nanoplatelet edges and produce superoxide. We report an edge-stabilization strategy wherein phosphine oxides passivate unsaturated lead sites during perovskite crystallization. With this approach, we synthesize reduced-dimensional perovskites that exhibit 97 ± 3% photoluminescence quantum yields and stabilities that exceed 300 h upon continuous illumination in an air ambient. We achieve green-emitting devices with a peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 14% at 1000 cd m −2 ; their maximum luminance is 4.5 × 10 4  cd m −2 (corresponding to an EQE of 5%); and, at 4000 cd m −2 , they achieve an operational half-lifetime of 3.5 h. Reduced-dimensional halide perovskites are promising for light-emitting diodes but suffer from photo-degradation. Here Quan et al. identify the edge of the perovskite nanoplatelets as the degradation channels and use phosphine oxides to passivate the edges and boost device performance and lifetime.

Hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) is now widely considered the third endogenous gasotransmitter and plays critical roles in cancer biological processes. In this study, we demonstrate that 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione (ADT-OH), the most widely used moiety for synthesising slow-releasing H 2 S donors, induces melanoma cell death in vitro and in vivo. Consistent with previous reports, ADT-OH inhibited IκBɑ degradation, resulting in reduced NF-κB activation and subsequent downregulation of the NF-κB-targeted anti-apoptotic proteins XIAP and Bcl-2. More importantly, we found that ADT-OH suppressed the ubiquitin-induced degradation of FADD by downregulating the expression of MKRN1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase of FADD. In addition, ADT-OH had no significant therapeutic effect on FADD-knockout B16F0 cells or FADD-knockdown A375 cells. Based on these findings, we evaluated the combined effects of ADT-OH treatment and FADD overexpression on melanoma cell death in vivo using a mouse xenograft model. As expected, tumour-specific delivery of FADD through a recombinant Salmonella strain, VNP-FADD, combined with low-dose ADT-OH treatment significantly inhibited tumour growth and induced cancer cell apoptosis. Taken together, our data suggest that ADT-OH is a promising cancer therapeutic drug that warrants further investigation into its potential clinical applications.

Commissural neurons in the mammalian dorsal spinal cord send axons ventrally toward the floor plate, where they cross the midline and turn anteriorly toward the brain; a gradient of chemoattractant(s) inside the spinal cord controls this turning. In rodents, several Wnt proteins stimulate the extension of commissural axons after midline crossing (postcrossing). We found that Wnt4 messenger RNA is expressed in a decreasing anterior-to-posterior gradient in the floor plate, and that a directed source of Wnt4 protein attracted postcrossing commissural axons. Commissural axons in mice lacking the Wnt receptor Frizzled3 displayed anterior-posterior guidance defects after midline crossing. Thus, Wnt-Frizzled signaling guides commissural axons along the anterior-posterior axis of the spinal cord.

This study explored the application of shape memory alloy (SMA) springs in a multilayer protective fabric assembly for intelligent insulation that responded to thermal environment changes. Once the SMA spring was actuated, clothing layers were separated, creating an adjustable air gap between the adjacent fabric layers. The impacts of six different SMA arrangement modes and two different spring sizes on thermal protection against either a radiant heat exposure (12 kW/m2) or a hot surface exposure (400 °C) were investigated. The findings showed that the incorporation of SMA springs into the fabric assembly improved the thermal protection, but the extent to which the springs provided thermal protection was dependent on the arrangement mode and spring size. The effectiveness of reinforcing the protective performance using SMA springs depended on the ability of clothing layers to expand an air layer. The regression models were established to quantitatively assess the relationship between the air gap formed by SMA spring and the thermal protective performance of clothing. This study demonstrated the potential of SMA spring as a suitable material for the development of intelligent garments to provide additional thermal protection and thus reduce the number of clothing layers for transitional thermal protective clothing.