Effect of Different Cover Crop Species on Crop Production and Soil Health

Integration of cover crops (CCs) can provide several benefits to row crop production systems. Comprehensive studies to understand the effectiveness of a mixture of CCs versus single or double species CCs are limited. In this study, we evaluated the effect of single and double species CCs, and the soil health mix (SHM, a combination of five species recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture) on soil quality attributes and crop production in western Tennessee. The results showed an increase in soybean yield after 3-years of SHM treatment, which corresponded with significantly higher soil moisture content and soil inorganic nitrogen content compared to less diverse CC treatments and no-cover control. Overall the multi-species SHM showed potential for enhancing soil quality and crop yield. The Haney’s soil health test is a new approach to quantify the soil health status with heavy emphasis on soil biological properties. It introduced a new extractant for determining soil available nutrients, H3A; a new method of soil respiration measurement using Solvita gel system; and two new soil bioavailability parameters: water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) and water extractable organic nitrogen (WEON). The final Haney soil health score is calculated from the Solvita respiration, WEOC and WEON. In this study, components in Haney’s soil health test were evaluated to test their effectiveness in Tennessee soils. The H3A extractant showed significant but weak correlation with the traditional extractants such as Mehlich-1 and Mehlich-3. The Solvita test did not provide a reliable estimation of potential mineralizable nitrogen, however, it correlated with many soil properties including soil carbon and nitrogen pools as well as the WEOC and WEON. Although the soil health score showed some extent of sensitivity to long-term cover crop treatments, it did not capture the variation in soil health status after 4 years of cover cropping with different species of cover crops. This study is a first step towards simultaneous suitability evaluation of a suite of CCs for improving the sustainability of the agricultural belt of Tennessee. More similar studies are needed to help farmers make informed decisions of CC species selection for their cropping systems

Conserved molecular interactions in centriole-to-centrosome conversion.

Centrioles are required to assemble centrosomes for cell division and cilia for motility and signalling. New centrioles assemble perpendicularly to pre-existing ones in G1-S and elongate throughout S and G2. Fully elongated daughter centrioles are converted into centrosomes during mitosis to be able to duplicate and organize pericentriolar material in the next cell cycle. Here we show that centriole-to-centrosome conversion requires sequential loading of Cep135, Ana1 (Cep295) and Asterless (Cep152) onto daughter centrioles during mitotic progression in both Drosophila melanogaster and human. This generates a molecular network spanning from the inner- to outermost parts of the centriole. Ana1 forms a molecular strut within the network, and its essential role can be substituted by an engineered fragment providing an alternative linkage between Asterless and Cep135. This conserved architectural framework is essential for loading Asterless or Cep152, the partner of the master regulator of centriole duplication, Plk4. Our study thus uncovers the molecular basis for centriole-to-centrosome conversion that renders daughter centrioles competent for motherhood.J.F., Z.L., S.S. and N.S.D. are supported from Programme Grant to D.M.G. from Cancer Research UK. H.R. is supported from MRC Programme Grant to D.M.G. J.F. thank the British Academy and the Royal Society for Newton International Fellowship and Z.L. thanks the Federation of European Biochemical Societies for the Long-Term postdoctoral Fellowship. The authors thank Nicola Lawrence and Alex Sossick for assistance with 3D-SIM.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncb327

Patient-Reported Outcomes and Socioeconomic Status as Predictors of Clinical Outcomes after Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Study from the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network 0902 Trial

This secondary analysis of a large, multi-center Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMT CTN) randomized trial assessed whether patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and socioeconomic status (SES) before hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) are associated with each other and predictive of clinical outcomes including time to hematopoietic recovery, acute graft-versus-host disease, hospitalization days, and overall survival (OS) among 646 allogeneic and autologous HCT recipients. Pre-transplant Cancer and Treatment Distress (CTXD), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and mental and physical component scores (MCS and PCS) of the SF-36 were correlated with each other and with SES variables. PROs and SES variables were further evaluated as predictors of clinical outcomes, with the PSQI and CTXD evaluated as OS predictors (p<.01 considered significant given multiple testing). Lower attained education was associated with increased distress (p=.002); lower income was related to worse physical functioning (p=.005) and increased distress (p=.008); lack of employment pre-transplant was associated with worse physical functioning (p<.01); unmarried status was associated with worse sleep (p=.003). In this large heterogeneous cohort of HCT recipients, while PROs and SES variables were correlated at baseline, they were not associated with any clinical outcomes. Future research should focus on HCT recipients at greater psychosocial disadvantage

Effects of maternal antibodies in infants on the immunogenicity and safety of inactivated polio vaccine in infants

The presence of maternal poliovirus antibodies may interfere with the immune response to inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), and its influence on the safety of vaccination is not yet understood. A total of 1146 eligible infants were randomly assigned (1:1) to the IPV and Sabin IPV (SIPV) groups to compare and analyze the efficacy of the two vaccines in preventing poliovirus infection. We pooled the SIPV and IPV groups and reclassified them into the maternal poliovirus antibody-positive group (MAPG; ≥1: 8) and the maternal poliovirus antibody-negative group (MANG; <1: 8). We evaluated the impact of maternal poliovirus antibodies by comparing the geometric mean titer (GMT), seroconversion rate, and geometric mean increase (GMI) of types I–III poliovirus neutralizing antibodies post-vaccination, and incidence rates of adverse reactions following vaccination between the MAPG and MANG. Respective seroconversion rates in the MAPG and MANG were 94% and 100%, 79.27% and 100%, and 93.26% and 100% (all serotypes, P < .01) for types I—III poliovirus, respectively. The GMT of all types of poliovirus antibodies in the MAPG (1319.13, 219.91, 764.11, respectively) were significantly lower than those in the MANG (1584.92, 286.73, 899.59, respectively) (P < .05). The GMI in the MAPG was significantly lower than that in the MANG (P < .05). No statistically significant difference in the incidence of local and systemic adverse reactions was observed between the MAPG and MANG. Thus, the presence of maternal poliovirus antibodies does not affect the safety of IPV but can negatively impact the immune responses in infants after IPV vaccination

Ground semi-physical simulation experiment study of one-dimensional drag-free control

Drag-free control is one of the key technologies for the verification of Taiji-1 satellite. In the direction of sensitive axis, the drag-free controller receives the measurement signal from the high-precision gravitational reference sensor on the satellite, and instructs the micro-thruster system to counteract the disturbance force acting on the sensitive axis, so that the microgravity level in the sensing axis direction of the satellite can reach the order of 10(-9) m/s(2) in the measurement band. In order to fully verify the drag-free control system, a ground one-dimensional drag-free semi-physical simulation system is built to simulate the performance of various payloads in the drag-free control loop, and to verify the performance and technical targets that the drag-free control system can achieve in the ground control loop. Through the small angle approximation, the equivalent relationship between the rotation of the experimental model and the translational motion of the experimental satellite in the direction of drag-free is demonstrated. In the condition of neglecting the stiffness and damping of the suspended pendulum, the parameters of the suspended pendulum are designed according to the principle of equal acceleration, and their effectiveness is verified by numerical simulation. According to the operation mode of on orbit drag-free control, the ground drag-free experimental scheme and drag-free controller are designed, and the experimental research and verification are carried out. The results show that the controller can effectively control the displacement and acceleration of the experimental model, and also can effectively suppress the disturbance of certain amplitude and frequency

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Entropy in EEGS during Music Stimulation of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients with Different Degrees of Dementia

Music has become a common adjunctive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in recent years. Because Alzheimer’s disease can be classified into different degrees of dementia according to its severity (mild, moderate, severe), this study is to investigate whether there are differences in brain response to music stimulation in AD patients with different degrees of dementia. Seventeen patients with mild-to-moderate dementia, sixteen patients with severe dementia, and sixteen healthy elderly participants were selected as experimental subjects. The nonlinear characteristics of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were extracted from 64-channel EEG signals acquired before, during, and after music stimulation. The results showed the following. (1) At the temporal level, both at the whole brain area and sub-brain area levels, the EEG responses of the mild-to-moderate patients showed statistical differences from those of the severe patients (p p < 0.05), showing that as the degree of dementia progressed, fewer pairs of EEG characteristic showed significant differences among brain regions under music stimulation. In this paper, we found that AD patients with different degrees of dementia had different EEG responses to music stimulation. Our study provides a possible explanation for this discrepancy in terms of the pathological progression of AD and music cognitive hierarchy theory. Our study has adjunctive implications for clinical music therapy in AD., potentially allowing for more targeted treatment. Meanwhile, the variations in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients in response to music stimulation might be a model for investigating the neural mechanism of music perception

Effect of Multispecies Cover Crop Mixture on Soil Properties and Crop Yield

Multispecies cover cropping has become popular in recent years because of the multiple ecosystem benefits compared with single- or double- species cover cropping. However, scientific studies on the effects of multispecies cover cropping—especially in the southern United States—are limited. A field study was initiated in 2013 at the University of Tennessee’s Research and Education Center in Milan, TN, to assess the agronomic and soil responses from single-, double-, and multispecies cover cropping in corn ( L.)–soybean [ (L.) Merr.] systems. After 3 yr, we found that a multispecies mixture of legumes, grasses, and spp. significantly increased soybean yield, gravimetric soil water content, and soil inorganic nitrogen as compared to the less-diverse treatments and a no-cover control. However, after 3 yr, cover cropping did not increase soil organic carbon. Although multispecies cover cropping exhibited a positive effect on yield and some soil properties after 3 yr, we plan to continue collecting multiple years of data from this field trial

A possible link between seamount sector collapse and manganese nodule occurrence in the abyssal plains, NW Pacific Ocean

Manganese nodules are a potential source of critical metals such as Cu, Ni, and Co and are widely distributed on the abyssal plains of the global oceans. A polymetallic nodule metallogenic belt with a heterogeneous and spatially clustered nodule distribution was recently discovered in NW Pacific inter-seamount basin (NPIB) areas. However, the geological processes that regulate the nodule occurrence in that region are unresolved. Here, we report on the characteristics of a high-density field of manganese nodules in the abyssal plain north of Suda Seamount. Ship-borne multibeam bathymetric data reveal a typical seamount sector-collapse topography characterized by radial lineaments of debris channels and ridges formed by rapid debris-avalanche flow. Backscatter data linked with underwater observation indicate that manganese nodules are more concentrated (50%–80% areal coverage) along the main body of the debris apron compared to adjacent neighboring areas (<30%). The extremely high concentrations (~80% areal coverage) characterized by overlapping nodules are apparently associated with downslope movement, possibly triggered by block movement along the fault slip plane or by gravity processes. Our results indicate that seamount sector collapse may have provided sufficient nucleus material for nodule growth and contributed to high nodule concentrations locally. The destruction of submarine volcanic edifices is universal, and the debris aprons and plains around such seamounts are potential prospecting areas for manganese nodule resources throughout the NPIB