The purpose of this study is to identify the high-risk areas of children's lead poisoning in Syracuse, NY, USA, using spatial modeling techniques. The relationships between the number of children's lead poisoning cases and three socio-economic and environmental factors (i.e., building year and town taxable value of houses, and soil lead concentration) were investigated.
The long-term application of excessive chemical fertilizers has resulted in the degeneration of soil quality parameters such as soil microbial biomass, communities, and nutrient content, which in turn affects crop health, productivity, and soil sustainable productivity. The objective of this study was to develop a rapid and efficient solution for rehabilitating degraded cropland soils by precisely quantifying soil quality parameters through the application of manure compost and bacteria fertilizers or its combination during maize growth. We investigated dynamic impacts on soil microbial count, biomass, basal respiration, community structure diversity, and enzyme activity using six different treatments [no fertilizer (CK), N fertilizer (N), N fertilizer + bacterial fertilizer (NB), manure compost (M), manure compost + bacterial fertilizer (MB), and bacterial fertilizer (B)] in the plowed layer (0–20 cm) of potted soil during various maize growth stages in a temperate cropland of eastern China. Denaturing gradient electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprinting analysis showed that the structure and composition of bacterial and fungi communities in the six fertilizer treatments varied at different levels. The Shannon index of bacterial and fungi communities displayed the highest value in the MB treatments and the lowest in the N treatment at the maize mature stage. Changes in soil microorganism community structure and diversity after different fertilizer treatments resulted in different microbial properties. Adding manure compost significantly increased the amount of cultivable microorganisms and microbial biomass, thus enhancing soil respiration and enzyme activities (p<0.01), whereas N treatment showed the opposite results (p<0.01). However, B and NB treatments minimally increased the amount of cultivable microorganisms and microbial biomass, with no obvious influence on community structure and soil enzymes. Our findings indicate that the application of manure compost plus bacterial fertilizers can immediately improve the microbial community structure and diversity of degraded cropland soils.
Despite extensive research on the effects of stress on the brain and behaviors, there is a debate whether stress promotes prosocial behaviors, especially acute stress due to intricate costly punishment in the ultimatum game. Therefore, the present study introduced an irrelevant third party to examine how acute stress and the triggered cortisol influence third parties' punishing and helping behaviors as more convincing altruistic behaviors. The 65 participants were exposed to a psychosocial stressor (n = 33) or a control condition (n = 32). Afterwards, two third-party intervention tasks (a token allocation task and criminal scenario judgment task) were completed, during which the participants, as an "irrelevant" third party, could choose whether to sacrifice their own interests to help the victim or punish the transgressor. Participants' affective states, heart rate, and salivary cortisol were repeatedly measured throughout the experiment. Results showed that acute stress can lead to more third-party helping behaviors but not more punishing behaviors. Specifically, participants under stress tended to transfer more monetary units to the victim in the token allocation task than the control-group participants, and they tended to help the victim in the scenario task. In contrast, there was no significant difference in punishing behavior between the stressed and control participants. These findings reveal that acute psychosocial stress triggers the "tend and befriend" response, which might reflect the prosocial intuition under acute stress.
The variation law of motor vibration with load under saturation of magnetic circuit is one of the focus of motor vibration research. T-type equivalent circuit method is shown to be a suitable engineering analysis way. In this paper, the variation of magnetic flux density under saturation state was analyzed by using a small induction motor, and a physical model of magnetic saturation and motor vibration was established by the way of T-shaped equivalent circuit. Based on the physical model, the vibration mechanism of the motor under the saturated magnetic circuit was analyzed and the motor vibration simulation with different load conditions was carried out by the finite element method. Finally, a vibration test rig for motor under load was built and the simulation results were verified by experiments. The results show that when the motor load is less than the rated load, the amplitudes of the electromagnetic force in the middle and high frequency band change little. When the load is close to or higher than the rated value, the harmonic components of electromagnetic force in the middle and high frequency bands increase, and the amplitudes gradually increases due to the saturation of the magnetic circuit. Therefore, in the low-noise motor design, motor torque performance and vibration noise performance should be considered to optimize the saturation control of the magnetic circuit.
The right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) is thought to be closely related to theory of mind (ToM) and cognitive empathy. In the present study, we investigated whether these socio-cognitive abilities could be modulated with non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of the rTPJ. Participants received anodal (excitatory), cathodal (inhibitory), or sham stimulation before performing a social cognitive task which included inferring other's intention (the ToM condition) and inferring other's emotion (the cognitive empathy condition). Our results showed that the accuracy of both ToM and cognitive empathy decreased after receiving the cathodal stimulation, suggesting that altering the cortical excitability in the rTPJ could influence human's socio-cognitive abilities. The results of this study emphasize the critical role of the rTPJ in ToM and cognitive empathy and demonstrate that these socio-cognitive abilities could be modulated by the tDCS.
Earthworms can expedite di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) degradation in soils, but limited information is available on the key DEHP-degradation pathways and related genes during the vermicomposting process. In this study, DEHP degradation, degradation-related genes and bacterial communities were investigated by metagenomic analysis. DEHP degradation efficiency was significantly and 65.69% higher in vermicomposting treatment than natural soils. Earthworm supplement remarkably increased the contents of humic acid, humus and fulvic acid in soils. Both humic acid and earthworms gut positively stimulated soil microbes potentially responsible for DEHP degradation. Betaprotebacteria, Acidobacteria, Variovorax, Hydrogenophaga, Limnobacter, Ramlibacter, Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Paracoccus and Achromobacter significantly contributed to DEHP degradation pathways. From functional gene analysis, there were remarkable difference in dominant DEHP degradation pathways between soils (catechol pathway), earthworm cast (protocatechuate pathway), and earthworm gut (protocatechuate and catechol pathways). Our findings proposed two possible mechanisms of earthworms in accelerating DEHP degradation, stimulating the activities of indigenous degraders to augment the catechol pathway in soils and providing an extra protocatechuate pathway in earthworm gut. This study, for the first time, offers new insights into the impacts of vermicomposting on DEHP degradation genes and pathways, providing valuable scientific evidence for improving DEHP bioremediation in contaminated agricultural soils.
To explore the association between laryngopharyngeal reflux disease (LPRD)-related symptoms and the Eustachian tube (ET) function in adult patients with otitis media with effusion (OME).A total of 105 adult patients with OME were retrospectively studied. All these patients had undergone tubomanometry (TMM) test for the affected ears before treatments. The LPRD-related symptoms were all assessed by the Reflux Symptom Index (RSI) scale.Among the 105 included patients, the numbers of subjects with only one and both two ears affected were 65 (57.1%) and 40 (42.9%), respectively. Therefore, a total of 145 affected ears were studied. For these affected ears, a linear regression analysis that included sex, age, BMI, smoking history, drinking history, RSI value, and the condition of the contralateral ear suggested that only RSI value was significantly associated with TMM value (P < 0.001), with the correlation coefficient of -0.112. Among the 9 symptoms in RSI scale, affected ears with the following symptoms (vs. affected ears without) showed significantly lower TMM values: excess throat mucus or postnasal drip, difficulty swallowing food, liquids, or pills, and sensations of something stuck in your throat or a lump in your throat (all P < 0.05).LPRD may disrupt ET function in adult OME patients. A higher RSI score is independently predictive for a bad ET patency in such patients and is indicative for an additional anti-reflux therapy.
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