Plant aquaporins:Their roles beyond water transport

Compared to other organisms,plants have evolved a greater number of aquaporins with diverse substrates and functions to adapt to ever-changing environmental and internal stimuli for growth and development.Although aquaporins were initially identified as channels that allow water molecules to cross biological membranes,progress has been made in identifying various novel permeable substrates.Many studies have characterized the versatile physiological and biophysical functions of plant aquaporins.Here,we review the recent reports that highlight aquaporin-facilitated regulation of major physiological processes and stress tolerance throughout plant life cycles as well as the potential prospects and possibilities of applying aquaporins to improve agricultural productivity,food quality,environmental protection,and ecological conservation.

Wild soybean(Glycine soja)transcription factor GsWRKY40 plays positive roles in plant salt tolerance

Wild soybean(Glycine soja),a relative of cultivated soybean,shows high adaptability to adverse environmental conditions.We identified and characterized a wild soybean transcription factor gene,GsWRKY40,that promotes plant salt stress.GsWRKY40 was highly expressed in wild soybean roots and was up-regulated by salt treatment.GsWRKY40 was localized in nucleus and demonstrated DNA-binding activities but without transcriptional activation.Mutation and overexpression of GsWRKY40 altered salt tolerance of Arabidopsis plants.To understand the molecular mechanism of GsWRKY40 in regulating plant salt resistance,we screened a cDNA library and identified a GsWRKY40 interacting protein GsbHLH92 by using yeast two-hybrid approach.The physical interaction of GsWRKY40 and GsbHLH92 was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation(co-IP),GST pull-down,and bimolecular fluorescence complementation(BiFC)techniques.Intriguingly,co-overexpression of GsWRKY40 and GsbHLH92 resulted in higher salt tolerance and lower ROS levels than overexpression of GsWRKY40 or GsbHLH92 in composite soybean plants,suggesting that GsWRKY40 and GsbHLH92 may synergistically regulate plant salt resistance through inhibiting ROS production.qRT-PCR data indicated that the expression level of GmSPOD1 gene encoding peroxidase was cooperatively regulated by GsWRKY40 and GsbHLH92,which was confirmed by using a dual luciferase report system and yeast one-hybrid experiment.Our study reveals a pathway that GsWRKY40 and GsbHLH92 collaboratively up-regulate plant salt resistance through impeding GmSPOD1 expression and reducing ROS levels,providing a novel perspective on the regulatory mechanisms underlying plant tolerance to abiotic stresses.

HQNN-SFOP:Hybrid Quantum Neural Networks with Signal Feature Overlay Projection for Drone Detection Using Radar Return Signals-A Simulation

With the wide application of drone technology,there is an increasing demand for the detection of radar return signals from drones.Existing detection methods mainly rely on time-frequency domain feature extraction and classical machine learning algorithms for image recognition.This method suffers from the problem of large dimensionality of image features,which leads to large input data size and noise affecting learning.Therefore,this paper proposes to extract signal time-domain statistical features for radar return signals from drones and reduce the feature dimension from 512×4 to 16 dimensions.However,the downscaled feature data makes the accuracy of traditional machine learning algorithms decrease,so we propose a new hybrid quantum neural network with signal feature overlay projection(HQNN-SFOP),which reduces the dimensionality of the signal by extracting the statistical features in the time domain of the signal,introduces the signal feature overlay projection to enhance the expression ability of quantum computation on the signal features,and introduces the quantum circuits to improve the neural network’s ability to obtain the inline relationship of features,thus improving the accuracy and migration generalization ability of drone detection.In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method,we experimented with the method using the MM model that combines the real parameters of five commercial drones and random drones parameters to generate data to simulate a realistic environment.The results show that the method based on statistical features in the time domain of the signal is able to extract features at smaller scales and obtain higher accuracy on a dataset with an SNR of 10 dB.On the time-domain feature data set,HQNNSFOP obtains the highest accuracy compared to other conventional methods.In addition,HQNN-SFOP has good migration generalization ability on five commercial drones and random drones data at different SNR conditions.Our method verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of signal detection methods based on quantum computation and experimentally demonstrates that the advantages of quantum computation for information processing are still valid in the field of signal processing,it provides a highly efficient method for the drone detection using radar return signals.

Potential risks of organic contaminated soil after persulfate remediation:Harmful gaseous sulfur release

Persulfate is considered a convenient and efficient remediation agent for organic contaminated soil.However,the potential risk of sulfur into the soil remediation by persulfate remains ignored.In this study,glass bottles with different persulfate dosages and groundwater tables were set up to simulate persulfate remediation of organic pollutants(aniline).The results found sulfate to be the main end-product(83.0%–99.5%)of persulfate remediation after10 days.Moreover,H_(2)S accounted for 93.4%–99.4%of sulfur reduction end-products,suggesting that H_(2)S was the final fate of sulfur.H_(2)S was released rapidly after one to three days at a maximum concentration of 33.0 ppm,which is sufficient to make a person uncomfortable.According to the fitted curve results,H_(2)S concentration decreased to a safe concentration(0.15 ppm)after 20–85 days.Meanwhile,the maximum concentration of methanethiol reached 0.6 ppm.These results indicated that secondary pollution from persulfate remediation could release harmful gases over a long time.Therefore,persulfate should be used more carefully as a remediation agent for soil contamination.

Organo-mineral complexes in soil colloids:Implications for carbon storage in saline-alkaline paddy soils from an eight-year field experiment

The combination of organic carbon(OC) and reactive minerals is a crucial mechanism of soil carbon(C) storage, which is regulated by the formation of organo-mineral complexes on the surface of soil colloids. The effect of organic fertilizer on the storage mechanism of OC in soil colloids was studied through an 8-year field experiment, which included four treatments: i) no fertilization(control, CK), ii) only mineral N, P, and K fertilization(NPK), iii) NPK plus a low level(450 kg C ha^(-1)year^(-1)) of organic fertilization(NPKC1), and iv) NPK plus a high level(900 kg C ha^(-1)year^(-1)) of organic fertilization(NPKC2). The main results indicated that organic fertilizer addition significantly increased the content of aromatic-C, which was 158.7% and 140.0% higher in soil colloids than in bulk soil in the NPKC1 and NPKC2 treatments, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy further demonstrated that the relative proportion of C=C group on the surface of soil colloids was increased by 20.1% and 19.1% in the NPKC1 and NPKC2 treatments, respectively,compared with the CK. In addition, compared with the NPK treatment, the content of reactive minerals(such as Fe and Al oxides) significantly increased with organic fertilization, which was positively correlated with C=C group in soil colloids. This indicates that aromatic-C may be retained by the formation of aromatic-mineral complexes with reactive minerals in soil colloids. Organic fertilization also significantly increased OC storage efficiency(OCSE), which was significantly higher in the NPKC1 treatment than in the NPKC2 treatment. Therefore, a moderate amount of organic fertilizer application is a better agronomic practice to increase OCSE and OC storage in saline-alkaline paddy soils.

An Empirical Research on Metropolitanization and Housing Price Differentiation Based on the Data of 31 Provincial Capitals and Municipalities with Independent Planning Status in China

Under the background of population aggregation in megacities,some adjustments are made to the urbanization strategy,whose focus is shifted to the development of megacities and megacity clusters.Meanwhile,the housing price differentiation among cities tends to become increasingly serious.This paper,from the perspective of population mobility,takes provincial capitals and municipalities with independent planning status(PCs&MIPSs)as research samples to evaluate the level of housing price differentiation within provincial-level administrative divisions of China,and analyze from the perspective of demand side how the metropolitanization effects regarding the population formed due to population aggregation in megacities affect the housing prices of megacities and the housing price difference between megacities and other cities.The research found that:1)The increasing net inflow of population boosts the housing prices and accelerate the housing price differentiation;2)The impact of the increasing net inflow of population on housing price increases and housing price differentiation has regional heterogeneity and city size heterogeneity;3)The income gap strengthens the effect of population inflow upon the housing price differentiation.