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Rice serves as a vital staple food, but its accumulation of cadmium (Cd) has sparked widespread concerns regarding food safety and ecosystem security. Here, we conducted a seven-year systematic field experiment in the Xiangjiang River Basin of China, where an integrated governance framework (IGF) was established to ensure rice safety. The IGF, tailored to geographical zoning and pollution gradation, includes targeted soil treatments, crop management strategies, and stakeholder engagement. The quality of both the soil and the crop was improved, with a reduction in soil Cd availability of 36%, and a decrease in Cd in rice grain of 57-78%. This framework not only addresses multiple challenges but also supports sustainable development goals (SDGs 2, 3, 6, 9) by fostering comprehensive synergies among science, policy, and local community participation. Our findings provide empirical guidance for safe rice production in Cd-contaminated areas and provide solid scientific-driven decision support globally. The study introduces an Integrated Governance Framework combining with a 7-year comprehensive assessment of the efficacy for large-scale cadmium-contaminated soils management.

Agricultural ammonia (NH3) emissions (including farmland, livestock and poultry) are China’s main sources of NH3 emissions. China’s government has proposed a national strategic goal to reduce NH3 emissions. Excessive protein feeds, unreasonable manure treatments and agricultural fertilizer applications result in large emissions of NH3. Agricultural activities such as the breeding of livestock and fertilization in farmlands are the main sources of atmospheric NH3 emissions. This article discussed the progress and characteristics of typical NH3 emission inventory, calculated the nationwide NH3 emissions and analyzed the NH3 emission control strategy in the past 40 years in China. There was also an integration analysis of national documents on emission reduction technologies (including government reports) in China. The results showed that there existed single calculation methods and insufficient localization of emission factors in the estimation of domestic NH3 emissions. NH3 emission inventories varied greatly influenced by meteorology, planting structure and breeding pattern. The control strategy of NH3 emission in China has transformed from emission standards to technical guidelines to national strategic control, and it involves the coordination and cooperation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs departments. Current domestic NH3 emission management strategy needs scientific emission verification specification, multi-department and inter-provincial regional coordination mechanisms, and suggestions for further improvement have been put forward. It is urgent to evaluate precise NH3 emission inventories at different regional scales, followed by intensive NH3 emission controls in the key regions (such as North China). Government, agriculture, and breeding industries should vigorously promote low-protein feeds, large-scale livestock farming (including poultry), and pilot projects on closed negative pressure farming. Also, agriculture-related NH3 emission reduction measures should be fully implemented by providing technical support for NH3 emission control in domestic agricultural farms.

The black soil area in Northeast China serves as a “ballast” to ensure China’s food security. Unreasonable development and utilization lead to serious black soil degradation in some areas and affect regional food production and economic and social development. In the context of the intensification of the contradiction between food supply and demand worldwide, we should pay more attention to the overall situation of regional sustainable development and seek for systematic, scientific, and economic solutions. This study establishes a regional all-for-one customization model of black soil granary on the basis of the regional system of human—land relationship, customized and accurate management, agricultural system theory, and agricultural informatization with the guidance of integrated geography concept. The aim of this regional all-for-one customization model is to systematically diagnose the key problems and leading factors of black soil degradation and determine a solution that combines the commonness and individuality of black soil protection from the perspective of multiscale linkage, multifactor coupling, and multitechnology cooperation. The regional all-for-one customization model of black soil granary integrates the two perspectives of “regional” and “customization” into the protection and comprehensive utilization of black soil for the first time. It adopts zoning, grading, and classification as the main strategy and big data and artificial intelligence as the main technical approaches. This model constructs three strategies of different scales by combining the “satellite—air—ground—network” 3D monitoring system and the all-for-one customization platform driven by big data and artificial intelligence. First, the “implementing strategies by regions” are implemented at the regional scale to formulate the regional agricultural resource allocation scheme and agricultural zoning, which can provide strategies to protect and utilize black soil effectively. Second, the “determining strategies in accordance with villages” are implemented at the village scale to formulate a black soil protection and utilization model for different categories of villages, which can promote the organic integration of black soil protection and rural revitalization. Third, a “one strategy for one field” concept is applied at the field scale to provide accurate strategies for soil restoration and yield improvement in a fixed, quantitative, and regular manner. Multiscale integrated demonstration and scheme verification of the regional all-for-one customization model of black soil granary are conducted in Qiqihar City at three scales, namely, region, village, and field, to solve the key issues in black soil protection and utilization and form a replicable and popularized system solution, thereby providing a model for the sustainable development of Chinese and global black soil agriculture. The proposed regional all-for-one customization model of black soil granary has important theoretical and practical value in promoting the high-quality development of regional agriculture and rural revitalization, and provides a demonstration model of land protection and utilization for the black soil area in China and the whole world.

It is a commonplace that some people may adopt a controlling style, which brings about autonomy frustration to others. Existing studies on autonomy frustration mainly examined its effect in the primary thwarting context, ignoring its potential spillover to subsequent activities. In this study, we examined whether prior autonomy frustration would have a sustaining negative impact on one's motivation in another autonomy-supportive activity that follows. In this electrophysiological study, participants worked on two irrelevant tasks organized by two different experimenters. We adopted a between-group design and manipulated participants' autonomy frustration by providing varied audio instructions during Session 1. In Session 2, all participants were instructed to complete a moderately difficult task that is autonomy-supportive instead, and we observed a less pronounced reward positivity (RewP) difference wave and a smaller P300 in the autonomy-frustration group compared with the control group. These findings suggested that the negative influence of autonomy frustration is longstanding and that it can undermine one's motivation and attention in a following activity that is autonomy-supportive itself. Thus, our findings provided original neutral evidence for the adverse intertemporal effect of autonomy frustration, and suggested important practical implications.

IntroductionDrought stress is a major environmental factor limiting plant growth and ecosystem stability in arid and semi-arid regions. Hemerocallis minor Mill., a perennial herb with strong drought tolerance, has potential applications in ecological restoration and marginal land utilization. However, the coordinated relationships among morphological, physiological, and metabolic responses, as well as the response characteristics under different intensities of drought stress, remain poorly understood.MethodsIn this study, a 12-week gradient drought stress experiment was conducted. An integrated multi-parameter approach was applied to systematically evaluate the responses of H. minor to varying drought intensities at the levels of growth morphology, physiological traits, and root metabolism.ResultsMorphologically, drought stress induced changes such as root thickening, whereas severe and extreme drought significantly inhibited plant height, root growth, and adventitious root formation. Physiologically, plants under moderate drought maintained relatively stable leaf water content and some physiological traits, while severe drought caused pronounced membrane damage and oxidative stress responses. Metabolically, drought stress substantially remodeled root metabolic networks, with numerous differential metabolites detected across comparison groups, primarily involving amino acids, flavonoids, and coumarins. Among them, 23 differential metabolites were annotated to the isoflavonoid biosynthesis pathway. Correlation analysis indicated significant associations between root morphological traits, physiological indicators, and key metabolites: proline, malondialdehyde (MDA), and peroxidase (POD) activity were negatively correlated with certain growth parameters, whereas some isoflavone glycosides and isoflavonoid metabolites were positively correlated.DiscussionThis study provides a comprehensive “morphology-physiology -metabolism” perspective on the responses of H. minor to drought stress. Results indicate that under mild to moderate drought, plants maintain relatively stable growth and physiological status, whereas severe drought induces pronounced stress responses and metabolic adjustments. These response patterns likely contribute to the adaptation of H. minor to drought environments. The findings offer references for the selection and application of drought-tolerant plants in ecological restoration and marginal land utilization, while further validation of the underlying response mechanisms and ecological significance is warranted through anatomical, molecular, targeted metabolomic, and field studies.

According to the Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan released in May 2016, the soil quality of 666 666.7 ha of agricultural soil requires remediation before 2020. Despite the survey on the environmental quality of soil in China released in 2014, detailed data on current pollutant concentrations remain unavailable. To date, reports on soil environmental quality on the national scale are few. The current research aimed to gain a detailed understanding of soil pollution in China through literature study and data analysis. Data for eight potentially toxic elements (i.e., arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), and lead (Pb)) and two organic pollutants (i.e., hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs)) were collected from 367 areas involving 163 prefecture-level cities. Principal component analysis and clustering analysis were conducted to understand the relationships among pollutants. Results indicated that organic pollution was less severe than inorganic pollution. In terms of land-use types, garden soil showed the heaviest pollution, followed by arable land and woodland. Regarding geographic distribution, the south central and southwest areas displayed heavy pollution. Principal component and clustering analyses revealed that As, Hg, HCH, and DDTs were mainly contributed by anthropogenic sources; Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn were primarily caused by natural background; and Cd and Pb were contributed by both sources. The soil pollution status varied among land-use types and geographic areas. The implementation of proper remediation strategies requires detailed investigations on soil environmental quality.

The high concentration of trace elements in Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is an important research topic for quality control. This study investigated the total concentration of trace elements in three herbs used as both medicine and supplementary food, including Astragalus membranaceus, Glycyrrhiza, and Isatidis. Further, the effects of different preparation ways, such as decoct, granule, and oral liquid, on the bioaccessibility of trace elements in CHM were disclosed. Results indicated that the total concentrations of trace elements in these three herbs were lower than the medical standards, but the concentrations of As and Pb in CHMs were higher than the standards for supplementary food. Different preparations ways affect bioaccessibility. Powder and oral liquid show a high bioaccessibility possibly because of the grinding process and the repeated extraction with ethanol. Among the three different CHMs, Isatidis showed higher bioaccessibility of As, which may be related to the sulfur fumigation process of this CHM. The three investigated CHMs were found to be safe as medicine but presented risks as supplementary food. The apparent influence of preparation procedures on the bioaccessibility of trace elements indicated that it is necessary to appropriately regulate preparation processes for CHMs.

Cell-like P systems with channel states, which are a variant of tissue P systems in membrane computing, can be viewed as highly parallel computing devices based on the nested structure of cells, where communication rules are classified as symport rules and antiport rules. In this work, we remove the antiport rules and construct a novel variant, namely, cell-like P systems with channel states and symport rules, where one rule is only allowed to be nondeterministically applied once per channel. To explore the computational efficiency of the variant, we solve the SAT problem and obtain a uniform solution in polynomial time with the maximal length of rules 1. The results of our work are reflected in the following two aspects: first, communication rules are restricted to only one type, namely, symport rules; second, the maximal length of rules is decreased from 2 to 1. Our work indicates that the constructed variant with fewer rule types can still solve the SAT problem and obtain better results in terms of computational complexity. Hence, in terms of computational efficiency, our work is a notable improvement.

Agricultural soil affected by metal(loid) contaminants not only endangers food safety but also causes environmental pollution and soil health degradation. Unlike degradable organic pollutants, metal(loid)s, including arsenic (As), are non-degradable and only shift between environments. The Earth’s As amount remains constant, raising the question of whether we should dilute or concentrate it. To address this, we examined real-world soil remediation outcomes for insights. We have collected data from ~30 agricultural soil remediation projects in the world, with the longest operation time being 15 years. Based on their effect on As distribution, the As-contaminated soil remediation technologies were divided into three categories: concentration, dilution, and no change. Impacts of these three scenarios on food safety, soil As concentration, and bioavailability were analyzed. Post-remediation, the agricultural produce derived from these soils consistently meets the pertinent national standards. Scenario simulation was made at the regional scale, comparing the outcomes of soil remediation technologies, specially focusing on the distribution of As. Taking into account the results from different scales, we propose that dilution could be a viable alternative to concentration or no-change approaches for remediating low-As-contaminated agricultural soils.

A novel model of image segmentation based on watershed method is proposed in this work. To prevent the over segmentation of traditional watershed, our proposed algorithm has five stages. Firstly, the morphological reconstruction is applied to smooth the flat area and preserve the edge of the image. Secondly, multiscale morphological gradient is used to avoid the thickening and merging of the edges. Thirdly, for contrast enhancement the top/bottom hat transformation is used. Fourthly, the morphological gradient of an image is modified by imposing regional minima at the location of both the internal and the external markers. Finally, a weighted function is used to combine the top/bottom hat transformation algorithm and the markers algorithm to get the algorithm. The experimental results show the superiority of the new algorithm in terms of suppression over segmentation.