Exogenous Melatonin Improves Cold Tolerance of Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) through Modulation of DREB/CBF-COR Pathway and Antioxidant Defense System

The strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is an important fruit crop cultivated worldwide for its unique taste and nutritional properties. One of the major risks associated with strawberry production is cold damage. Recently, melatonin has emerged as a multifunctional signaling molecule that influences plant growth and development and reduces adverse consequences of cold stress. The present study was conducted to investigate the defensive role of melatonin and its potential interrelation with abscisic acid (ABA) in strawberry plants under cold stress. The results demonstrate that melatonin application conferred improved cold tolerance on strawberry seedlings by reducing malondialdehyde and hydrogen peroxide contents under cold stress. Conversely, pretreatment of strawberry plants with 100 μM melatonin increased soluble sugar contents and different antioxidant enzyme activities (ascorbate peroxidase, catalase, and peroxidase) and non-enzymatic antioxidant (ascorbate and glutathione) activities under cold stress. Furthermore, exogenous melatonin treatment stimulated the expression of the DREB/CBF—COR pathways’ downstream genes. Interestingly, ABA treatment did not change the expression of the DREB/CBF—COR pathway. These findings imply that the DREB/CBF-COR pathway confers cold tolerance on strawberry seedlings through exogenous melatonin application. Taken together, our results reveal that melatonin (100 μM) pretreatment protects strawberry plants from the damages induced by cold stress through enhanced antioxidant defense potential and modulating the DREB/CBF—COR pathway. View Full-Tex

Study on the Association between Ambient Air Pollution and Daily Cardiovascular and Respiratory Mortality in an Urban District of Beijing

The association between daily cardiovascular/respiratory mortality and air pollution in an urban district of Beijing was investigated over a 6-year period (January 2003 to December 2008). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative importance of the major air pollutants [particulate matter (PM), SO2, NO2] as predictors of daily cardiovascular/respiratory mortality. The time-series studied comprises years with lower level interventions to control air pollution (2003–2006) and years with high level interventions in preparation for and during the Olympics/Paralympics (2007–2008). Concentrations of PM10, SO2, and NO2, were measured daily during the study period. A generalized additive model was used to evaluate daily numbers of cardiovascular/respiratory deaths in relation to each air pollutant, controlling for time trends and meteorological influences such as temperature and relative humidity. The results show that the daily cardiovascular/respiratory death rates were significantly associated with the concentration air pollutants, especially deaths related to cardiovascular disease. The current day effects of PM10 and NO2 were higher than that of single lags (distributed lags) and moving average lags for respiratory disease mortality. The largest RR of SO2 for respiratory disease mortality was in Lag02. For cardiovascular disease mortality, the largest RR was in Lag01 for PM10, and in current day (Lag0) for SO2 and NO2. NO2 was associated with the largest RRs for deaths from both cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease

Ecological Land Adaptive Planning in Macroscale, Mesoscale, and Microscale of Shanghai

The urban ecosystems in China have been compromised during the process of urbanization. The declining services of ecological lands have hindered the sustainable development of cities and the current ecological land management (regulations, rules, and laws) in China cannot meet the demand of future development. In this paper, a new multiscale systematic adaptive ecological land planning method is proposed. Shanghai, a typical mega-city in China, was chosen as the research area. To scientifically and adaptively manage ecological land, downscale management was used and macroscales (city), mesoscales (town), and microscales (community) were chosen. In different scales, different indicators were chosen as evaluation criteria to evaluate the services of the lands. At the mesoscale, habitat quality, carbon sequestration, water conservation, and soil fertility maintenance were chosen. At the mesoscale, habitat quality, carbon sequestration capacity, water production service and food supply were chosen as the evaluation criteria. These indicators are used to evaluate the importance levels of corresponding areas. Based on the importance levels of macroscales and mesoscales, three different scenarios with different targets of Changtian Community were proposed. All three scenarios were judged by stakeholders (residents and managers) of the community and a final scenario was proposed to meet all the requirements. This research not only provides theoretical reference and technical support for ecological land management in different scales of Shanghai, but also provides a new method of adaptive ecological land planning in megacities

Biharmonic volumetric mapping using fundamental solutions

We propose a biharmonic model for cross-object volumetric mapping. This new computational model aims to facilitate the mapping of solid models with complicated geometry or heterogeneous inner structures. In order to solve cross-shape mapping between such models through divide and conquer, solid models can be decomposed into subparts upon which mappings is computed individually. The biharmonic volumetric mapping can be performed in each subregion separately. Unlike the widely used harmonic mapping which only allows (C0) continuity along the segmentation boundary interfaces, this biharmonic model can provide (C1) smoothness. We demonstrate the efficacy of our mapping framework on various geometric models with complex geometry (which are decomposed into subparts with simpler and solvable geometry) or heterogeneous interior structures (whose different material layers can be segmented and processed separately). © 1995-2012 IEEE