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A comprehensive understanding of the rhizosphere priming effect (RPE) on the decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC) requires an integration of many factors. It is unclear how N form-induced change in soil pH affects the RPE and SOC sequestration. This study compared the change in the RPE under supply of NO3-N and NH4-N. The effect of the RPE on the mineralization of soil N and hence its availability to plant and microbes was also examined using a 15N-labelled N source. The supply of NH4-N decreased rhizosphere pH by 0.16-0.38 units, and resulted in a decreased or negative RPE. In contrast, NO3-N nutrition increased rhizosphere pH by 0.19-0.78 units, and led to a persistently positive RPE. The amounts of rhizosphere-primed C were positively correlated with rhizosphere pH. Rhizosphere pH affected the RPE mainly through influencing microbial biomass, activity and utilization of root exudates, and the availability of SOC to microbes. Furthermore, the amount of rhizosphere primed C correlated negatively with microbial biomass atom% 15N (R2 0.77-0.98, n = 12), suggesting that microbes in the rhizosphere acted as the immediate sink for N released from enhanced SOC decomposition via the RPE. N form was an important factor affecting the magnitude and direction of the RPE via its effect on rhizosphere pH. Rhizosphere pH needs to be considered in SOC and RPE modelling.

A smart device unlocking scheme based on ultrasonic gesture recognition is proposed, allowing users to unlock their devices by customizing the unlock code through gesture movements. This method utilizes ultrasound to detect multiple consecutive gestures, identifying micro-features within these gestures for authentication. To enhance recognition accuracy, an unsupervised segmentation algorithm is employed to accurately segment the gesture feature region and extract the time-frequency domain data of the gestures. Additionally, two-stage data enhancement techniques are applied to generate user-specific data based on a small sample size. Finally, the user-specific model is deployed to mobile devices via transfer learning for on-device, real-time inference. Experimental validation on a commercial smartphone (Redmi K50) demonstrates that the entire authentication pipeline, from signal acquisition to decision, processes 8 types of gestures in a sequence in sequence in approximately 1.2 s, with the core model inference taking less than 50 milliseconds. This ensures that the raw biometric data (ultrasonic echoes) and the recognition results never leave the user’s device during authentication, thereby safeguarding privacy. It is important to note that while model training is performed offline on a server to leverage greater computational resources for personalization, the deployed system operates fully in real time on the edge device. Experimental results demonstrate that our system achieves accurate and robust identity verification, with an average five-fold cross-validation accuracy rate of up to 93.56%, and it shows robustness across different environments.

As a clean energy resource, coalbed methane (CBM) has drawn worldwide attention. However, the CBM reservoir has strong adsorption capacity and low permeability and thus requires stimulation. As a means to stimulate coalbed methane recovery, thermal injection faces geological and economic challenges because it uses conventional conductive heating (CH) to transfer heat. Realized by the conversion of the electromagnetic energy into the thermal energy, microwave heating (MH) may be a sound stimulation method. Although previous research suggested that MH had potential as a stimulation method for coalbed methane recovery, it is not clear if MH is superior to CH for enhancing coalbed methane recovery. This paper compares the effect of MH and CH on methane desorption from coal using purpose-built experimental equipment. To compare the MH and CH experimental results, the desorption temperature for each CH desorption test was set to the maximum temperature reached in the correlative MH desorption test. The results show that although the cumulative desorbed volume (CDV) of methane under MH was less than that desorbed by CH in the initial desorption stage, the final total CDV under MH for the three different power settings was ~ 12% to ~ 21% more than that desorbed by CH at the same temperatures. CH and MH both change the sample’s microstructure but MH enlarges the pores, decreases methane adsorption, promotes methane diffusion, and improves permeability more effectively than CH. Rapid temperature rise and the changes in the coal’s microstructure caused by MH were the main reasons for its superior performance. These findings may provide reference for selecting the most appropriate type of heating for thermal injection assisted coalbed methane recovery.

In human being’s history, both the Iron Age and Silicon Age thrived after a matured massive processing technology was developed. Graphene is the most recent superior material which could potentially initialize another new material Age. However, while being exploited to its full extent, conventional processing methods fail to provide a link to today’s personalization tide. New technology should be ushered in. Three-dimensional (3D) printing fills the missing linkage between graphene materials and the digital mainstream. Their alliance could generate additional stream to push the graphene revolution into a new phase. Here we demonstrate for the first time, a graphene composite, with a graphene loading up to 5.6 wt%, can be 3D printable into computer-designed models. The composite’s linear thermal coefficient is below 75 ppm·°C −1 from room temperature to its glass transition temperature ( T g ), which is crucial to build minute thermal stress during the printing process.

Colistin represents one of the few available drugs for treating infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae . As such, the recent plasmid-mediated spread of the colistin resistance gene mcr-1 poses a significant public health threat, requiring global monitoring and surveillance. Here, we characterize the global distribution of mcr-1 using a data set of 457 mcr-1- positive sequenced isolates. We find mcr-1 in various plasmid types but identify an immediate background common to all mcr-1 sequences. Our analyses establish that all mcr-1 elements in circulation descend from the same initial mobilization of mcr-1 by an IS A pl1 transposon in the mid 2000s (2002–2008; 95% highest posterior density), followed by a marked demographic expansion, which led to its current global distribution. Our results provide the first systematic phylogenetic analysis of the origin and spread of mcr-1 , and emphasize the importance of understanding the movement of antibiotic resistance genes across multiple levels of genomic organization. The recent plasmid-mediated spread of the mobilized colistin resistance gene mcr-1 poses a significant public health threat, requiring worldwide monitoring and surveillance. Here, Wang et al. compile and analyze a data set of 457 mcr-1 -positive sequenced isolates to investigate the origin and global distribution of mcr-1 .

To address the problem of high failure rate and low accuracy in computed tomography (CT) image edge segmentation, we proposed a CT sequence image edge segmentation optimization algorithm using improved convolution neural network. Firstly, the pattern clustering algorithm is applied to cluster the pixels with relationship in the CT sequence image space to extract the edge information of the real CT image; secondly, Euclidean distance is used to calculate similarity and measure similarity, according to the measurement results, convolution neural network (CNN) hierarchical optimization is carried out to improve the convergence ability of CNN; finally, the pixel classification of CT sequence images is carried out, and the edge segmentation of CT sequence images is optimized according to the classification results. The results show that the overall recognition rate of this method is at a high level. The training time is obviously reduced when the training times exceed 12 times, the recall rate is always about 90%, and the accuracy of image segmentation is high, which solves the problem of large failure rate and low accuracy.

The acquisition of exogenous mobile genetic material imposes an adaptive burden on bacteria, whereas the adaptational evolution of virulence plasmids upon entry into carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) and its impact remains unclear. To better understand the virulence in CRKP, we characterize virulence plasmids utilizing a large genomic data containing 1219  K. pneumoniae from our long-term surveillance and publicly accessible databases. Phylogenetic evaluation unveils associations between distinct virulence plasmids and serotypes. The sub-lineage ST11-KL64 CRKP acquires a pK2044-like virulence plasmid from ST23-KL1 hypervirulent K. pneumoniae , with a 2698 bp region deletion in all ST11-KL64. The deletion is observed to regulate methionine metabolism, enhance antioxidant capacity, and further improve survival of hypervirulent CRKP in macrophages. The pK2044-like virulence plasmid discards certain sequences to enhance survival of ST11-KL64, thereby conferring an evolutionary advantage. This work contributes to multifaceted understanding of virulence and provides insight into potential causes behind low fitness costs observed in bacteria. Plasmid acquisition imposes an adaptive burden, which can be ameliorated by host-plasmid coevolution. Here, the authors characterise virulence plasmids of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae , and show the discard of certain sequences to enhance survival, conferring an evolutionary advantage.

Background Urinary incontinence is a common and distressing condition affecting women worldwide. However, urinary incontinence during pregnancy was less studied. The study aims to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of urinary incontinence during pregnancy, its impact on health-related quality of life as well as associated help-seeking behavior. Methods Eligible women were enrolled in the obstetric wards of a tertiary maternity hospital. Urinary incontinence, generic and specific health-related quality of life were assessed using the International Consultation on Incontinence Modular Questionnaire-Urinary Incontinence Short Form (ICIQ-UI SF), the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey version 2 (SF-12v2), Urogenital Distress Inventory short form (UDI-6) and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire short form (IIQ-7), respectively. Multiple logistic regression and multiple linear regression analysis were used to examine risk factors of urinary incontinence during pregnancy and the impact of incontinence on health-related quality of life of pregnant women, respectively. Results A total of 1243 women were enrolled in the study. The prevalence of urinary incontinence during pregnancy was 52.0%. Most women suffered from mild or moderate incontinence. Five risk factors were identified by multiple logistic regression. Urinary incontinence before pregnancy was the strongest predictor for incontinence during pregnancy (OR = 4.178, 95% CI = 2.690–6.490), followed by history of vaginal birth, coffee consumption, childhood enuresis and history of urinary tract infection. Urinary incontinence had significant impact on health-related quality of life during pregnancy. Only 14.8% of pregnant women sought professional help for urinary symptoms. Conclusions Urinary incontinence was highly prevalent in pregnant women, with a broad detrimental effect on health-related quality of life. Five factors were confirmed to be associated with increasing the risk of developing urinary incontinence during pregnancy. The help-seeking behavior during pregnancy was discouraging. Targeted interventions are warranted to facilitate the prevention of urinary incontinence and improvement of health-related quality of life in pregnant women.

An important adaptation during colonization of land by plants is gravitropic growth of roots, which enabled roots to reach water and nutrients, and firmly anchor plants in the ground. Here we provide insights into the evolution of an efficient root gravitropic mechanism in the seed plants. Architectural innovation, with gravity perception constrained in the root tips along with a shootward transport route for the phytohormone auxin, appeared only upon the emergence of seed plants. Interspecies complementation and protein domain swapping revealed functional innovations within the PIN family of auxin transporters leading to the evolution of gravitropism-specific PINs. The unique apical/shootward subcellular localization of PIN proteins is the major evolutionary innovation that connected the anatomically separated sites of gravity perception and growth response via the mobile auxin signal. We conclude that the crucial anatomical and functional components emerged hand-in-hand to facilitate the evolution of fast gravitropic response, which is one of the major adaptations of seed plants to dry land. Root gravitropism anchors land plants to the ground and enables water uptake. Here, Zhang et al. define polar targeting of PIN2-like proteins as a major evolutionary innovation promoting shootward auxin transport and faster gravitropic responses of seed plants compared to basal vascular relatives.

Soil water-holding capacity decreases due to long-term mineral fertilizer application. The objective of this study was to determine how replacing mineral fertilizer with maize straw affected the soil water retention curve, soil water content, soil water availability, and soil equivalent pore size. Replacement treatments in which 25% (S 25 ), 50% (S 50 ), 75% (S 75 ), and 100% (S 100 ) of 225 kg ha −1 nitrogen from mineral fertilizer (CK) was replaced with equivalent nitrogen from maize straw were conducted for five years in the Loess Plateau of China. The Gardner model was used to fit the soil water retention curve and calculate the soil water constant and equivalent pore size distribution. The results indicated that the Gardner model fitted well. Replacing nitrogen from mineral fertilizer with nitrogen from straw increased soil specific water capacity, soil readily available water, soil delayed available water, soil available water, soil capillary porosity, and soil available water porosity over time. S 25 increased field capacity and wilting point from the fourth fertilization year. S 50 enhanced soil readily available water, soil delayed available water, soil available water, and soil available water porosity from the fifth fertilization year, whereas S 25 and S 75 increased these from the third fertilization year or earlier. Soil specific water capacity, soil readily available water, soil delayed available water, soil available water, soil capillary porosity, and soil available water porosity could better reflect soil water-holding capacity and soil water supply capacity compared with field capacity and wilting point.