Spatio-Temporal Variability of Shallow Groundwater Quality in a Hilly Red-Soil Agricultural Catchment in Subtropical Central China

Groundwater quality varies not only in space but also in time. In order to analyze the spatiotemporal variety of ground water quality, the concentration of ammonium nitrogen (NH4N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3N), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) in very shallow groundwater were investigated in a red-soil catchment in subtropical central China, based on a three-dimensional kriging method. The spatio-temporal analysis demonstrated that NH4N, NO3N and TP presented strong spatio-temporal autocorrelation (with a nugget-to-sill ratio of <25%) and that TN presented a moderate spatio-temporal autocorrelation (with a nugget-to-sill ratio between 25% and 75%). According to the Chinese Groundwater Quality Standards, the ratio of areas contaminated by NH4N, NO3N, TN and TP to the whole catchment was 20.05%, 1.46%, 5.07%, 5.98%, respectively. The 3D delineation of continuously dynamic variation of contaminated area indicated that the catchment’s very shallow groundwater had a moderate contamination by NH4N, slight by TN and TP, and almost non by NO3N. Although the contaminated area was very small, only occurring in small dispersed patches, a close attention should be paid to the shallow groundwater quality because local farmers obtain their domestic drinking water directly from this shallow groundwater without any treatment prior to consuming and the potential health hazard is considerable. The findings from this study highlight the importance of surveillance of the contaminated area over time for decision making to protect public health and maintain sustainable development of the catchment.

Absence of FHIT expression is associated with apoptosis inhibition in colorectal cancer

Objective: To investigate the expression of fragile histidine triad (FHIT) protein in normal colorectal tissue, colorectal adenoma and colorectal cancer (CRC), and to study the relationships between the expression of FHIT protein and the clinical pathology, the apoptosis-associated protein (Bcl-2, Bax, Survivin), apoptosis in colorectal cancer. Methods: Tissue microarray (TMA) and immunohistochemistry SP were used to detect the expression of FHIT gene, Bcl-2, Bax and Survivin in 16 cases of the normal colorectal tissue, 16 cases of colorectal adenoma and 80 cases of the colorectal cancer. TUNEL was used to detect the apoptosis index (AI) in 80 cases of the colorectal cancer. Results: (1) The positive rates of FHIT gene expression in normal colorectal tissue, colorectal adenoma and adenocancer were 93.75%, 68.75% and 46.25% respectively. There were no significant differences in the relationships between the FHIT gene expression and histological types, the gender as well as the age (P>0.05). There were significant relationships between FHIT gene expression and lymph node metastasis, histological grades, Duke’s system as well as the 5-year survival rate after operation. (2) The positive rates of Bax, Bcl-2 and Survivin in colorectal adenocancer were 72.50%, 51.25%, 77.50% respectively. The expression of FHIT gene was positively correlated with that of Bcl-2, Bax and Survivin. (3) The mean AI in FHIT negative tumors was significantly lower than that in FHIT positive tumors (P<0.01). Conclusion: FHIT gene may play a role in the oncogenesis and progression of colorectal cancer. The abnormal regulation of apoptosis may play an important role in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer.

SOIL NITROGEN CYCLING AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS IN THE SUBTROPICAL HILLY REGION OF CHINA: EVIDENCE FROM MEASUREMENTS AND MODELING

The subtropical hilly region of China is a region with intensive crop and livestock production,which has resulted in serious N pollution in soil,water and air.This review summarizes the major soil N cycling processes and their influencing factors in rice paddies and uplands in the subtropical hilly region of China.The major N cycling processes include the N fertilizer application in croplands,atmospheric N deposition,biological N fixation,crop N uptake,ammonia volatilization,N_(2)O/NO emissions,nitrogen runoff and leaching losses.The catchment nutrients management model for N cycle modeling and its case studies in the subtropical hilly region were also introduced.Finally,N management practices for improving N use efficiency in cropland,as well as catchment scales are summarized.

Conserved termini and adjacent variable region of Twortlikevirus Staphylococcus phages

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) is an increasing cause of serious infection,both in the community and hospital settings. Despite sophisticated strategies and efforts, the antibiotic options for treating MRSA infection are narrowing because of the limited number of newly developed antimicrobials. Here, four newly-isolated MRSA-virulent phages, IME-SA1, IMESA2, IME-SA118 and IME-SA119, were sequenced and analyzed. Their genome termini were identified using our previously proposed "termini analysis theory". We provide evidence that remarkable conserved terminus sequences are found in IME-SA1/2/118/119, and, moreover, are widespread throughout Twortlikevirus Staphylococcus phage G1 and K species. Results also suggested that each phage of the two species has conserved 5′ terminus while the 3′ terminus is variable. More importantly, a variable region with a specific pattern was found to be present near the conserved terminus of Twortlikevirus S. phage G1 species. The clone with the longest variable region had variable terminus lengths in successive generations, while the clones with the shortest variable region and with the average length variable region maintained the same terminal length as themselves during successive generations. IME-SA1 bacterial infection experiments showed that the variation is not derived from adaptation of the phage to different host strains. This is the first study of the conserved terminus and variable region of Twortlikevirus S. phages.

Side-Channel Leakage Analysis of Inner Product Masking

The Inner Product Masking(IPM)scheme has been shown to provide higher theoretical security guarantees than the BooleanMasking(BM).This scheme aims to increase the algebraic complexity of the coding to achieve a higher level of security.Some previous work unfolds when certain(adversarial and implementation)conditions are met,and we seek to complement these investigations by understanding what happens when these conditions deviate from their expected behaviour.In this paper,we investigate the security characteristics of IPM under different conditions.In adversarial condition,the security properties of first-order IPMs obtained through parametric characterization are preserved in the face of univariate and bivariate attacks.In implementation condition,we construct two new polynomial leakage functions to observe the nonlinear leakage of the IPM and connect the security order amplification to the nonlinear function.We observe that the security of IPMis affected by the degree and the linear component in the leakage function.In addition,the comparison experiments from the coefficients,signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)and the public parameter show that the security properties of the IPM are highly implementation-dependent.

Contribution of atmospheric nitrogen deposition to diffuse pollution in a typical hilly red soil catchment in southern China

Atmospheric nitrogen （hi） deposition is currently high and meanwhile diffuse N pollution is also serious in China. The correlation between N deposition and riverine N export and the contribution of N deposition to riverine N export were investigated in a typical hilly red soil catchment in southern China over a two-year period. N deposition was as high as 26.1 to 55.8 kg N/（ha-yr） across different land uses in the studied catchment, while the riverine N exports ranged from 7.2 to 9.6 kg N/（ha-yr） in the forest sub-catchment and 27.4 to 30.3 kg N/（ha.yr） in the agricultural sub-catchment. The correlations between both wet N deposition and riverine N export and precipitation were highly positive, and so were the correlations between NH-N or NO2-N wet deposition and riverine NH4-N or NO3-N exports except for NH-N in the agricultural sub-catchment, indicating that N deposition contributed to riverine N export. The monthly export coefficients of atmospheric deposited N from land to river in the forest sub-catchment （with a mean of 14%） presented a significant positive correlation With precipitation, while the monthly contributions of atmospheric deposition to riverine N export （with a mean of 18.7% in the agricultural sub-catchment and a mean of 21.0% in the whole catchment） were significantly and negatively correlated with precipitation. The relatively high contribution of N deposition to diffuse N pollution in the catchment suggests that efforts should be done to control anthropogenic reactive N emissions to the atmosphere in hilly red soil regions in southern China.