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With rapid industrialization and urbanization, the contradiction between the human exploitation of land production and living functions and natural ecosystem service functions has intensified. The issues of how to coordinate the exploitation and conservation functions of land and guide the rational distribution of human activities have become important for global sustainable development, especially considering the realization that multifunctional land use is an effective way to relieve land pressure and improve land use efficiency, that land multifunction has significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity, and that there is a mutual promotion and stress relationship between multifunctional land use. However, few existing studies have discussed the decoupling relationship among land use functions. In this study, a system of 10 sub-functions and 25 indicators was established based on the production function (PDF), living function (LVF), and ecological function (ELF) for 59 cities in the Yellow River Basin (YRB). There are both subjective and objective procedures employed to determine the weights, while an exploratory spatial data analysis is used to analyze the time-based and territorial changes in various functions of land use in the study area from 2000 to 2020. The decoupling relationship between the three functions is detected utilizing the theoretical foundation of the decoupling analysis. The results show that land use is multifunctional, LUFs develop unevenly, and their spatial distribution varies substantially. The results of the decoupling analysis demonstrate that the predominant types of correlations among the land use ELF and PDF and LVF over the research period are strong decoupling and strong negative decoupling correlations, with the former being a dilemma and the latter being a sustainable type of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fusarium crown rot (FCR) in wheat is a prevalent soil-borne disease worldwide and poses a significant threat to the production of wheat (Triticum aestivum) in China, with F. pseudograminearum being the dominant pathogen. Currently, there is a shortage of biocontrol resources to control FCR induced by F. pseudograminearum, along with biocontrol mechanisms. In this study, we have identified 37 strains of biocontrol bacteria displaying antagonistic effects against F. pseudograminearum from over 8000 single colonies isolated from soil samples with a high incidence of FCR. Among them, QY43 exhibited remarkable efficacy in controlling FCR. Further analysis identified the isolate QY43 as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, based on its colony morphology and molecular biology. In vitro, QY43 significantly inhibited the growth, conidial germination, and the pathogenicity of F. pseudograminearum. In addition, QY43 exhibited a broad spectrum of antagonistic activities against several plant pathogens. The genomics analysis revealed that there are genes encoding potential biocontrol factors in the genome of QY43. The experimental results confirmed that QY43 secretes biocontrol factor siderophores and pyocyanin. In summary, QY43 exhibits a broad spectrum of antagonistic activities and the capacity to produce diverse biocontrol factors, thereby showing substantial potential for biocontrol applications to plant disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Soybean is one of the most economically important crops worldwide and an important source of unsaturated fatty acids and protein for the human diet. Consumer demand for healthy fats and oils is increasing, and the global demand for vegetable oil is expected to double by 2050. Identification of key genes that regulate seed fatty acid content can facilitate molecular breeding of high‐quality soybean varieties with enhanced fatty acid profiles. Here, we analysed the genetic architecture underlying variations in soybean seed fatty acid content using 547 accessions, including mainly landraces and cultivars from northeastern China. Through fatty acid profiling, genome re‐sequencing, population genomics analyses, and GWAS, we identified a SEIPIN homologue at the FA9 locus as an important contributor to seed fatty acid content. Transgenic and multiomics analyses confirmed that FA9 was a key regulator of seed fatty acid content with pleiotropic effects on seed protein and seed size. We identified two major FA9 haplotypes in 1295 resequenced soybean accessions and assessed their phenotypic effects in a field planting of 424 accessions. Soybean accessions carrying FA9H2 had significantly higher total fatty acid contents and lower protein contents than those carrying FA9H1. FA9H2 was absent in wild soybeans but present in 13% of landraces and 26% of cultivars, suggesting that it may have been selected during soybean post‐domestication improvement. FA9 therefore represents a useful genetic resource for molecular breeding of high‐quality soybean varieties with specific seed storage profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate prediction of water quality contributes to the intelligent management of water resources. Water quality indices have time series characteristics and nonlinearity, but the existing models only focus on the forward time series when long short-term memory (LSTM) is introduced and do not consider the parallel computation on the model. Owing to this, a new neural network called LSTM-multihead attention (LMA) was constructed to predict water quality, using long short-term memory to process time series data and multihead attention for parallel computing and extracting feature information. Additionally, water quality indices have the issues of multiple data types and complex data correlations, as well as missing data and abnormal data problems in water quality data. In order to solve these problems, this study proposes a water quality prediction model called GRA-LMA-based linear interpolation, gray relational analysis and LMA. Two experiments are carried out to verify the predictive performance of the GRA-LMA with the water quality data of the Huaihe River Basin as a case study sample. The first experiment focuses on data processing, including the processing of missing data and abnormal data of water quality data, and the correlation analysis of water quality indices. Linear interpolation is adapted to process the missing data, while a combination of boxplot and histogram is adopted to analyze and eliminate the abnormal data, which is then repaired the abnormal data with linear interpolation. The gray relational analysis is adopted to calculate the correlation between different water quality indices, and water quality indices with high correlation are retained to determine the input variables of the water quality prediction model. The data processing results demonstrate that repairs can be made using linear interpolation without altering the pattern of data change and the model by using the gray relational analysis to reduce the quantity of data it needs as input. In the second experiment, the predictive capacity of GRA-LMA and existing models such as backpropagation neural network (BP), recurrent neural network (RNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), and gate recurrent unit (GRU) was evaluated and compared using different numerical and graphical performance evaluation metrics. Comparative experimental results show that the mean square error of pH, dissolved oxygen, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, electrical conductivity, turbidity, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen of GRA-LMA is reduced to 0.05890, 0.40196, 0.32454, 0.04368, 14.71003, 8.13252, 0.01558, and 0.14345. The results indicate that GRA-LMA has superior adaptability for predicting various water quality indices and can significantly lower the induced prediction error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The local land use carbon budget (LUCB) balance is an important factor in achieving regional carbon neutrality. As the basic unit of China's economic development and social governance, the county level is an important part of the realization of the "double carbon" goal. This paper focuses on 1069 county units within the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). It utilizes data on land use, nighttime light, energy consumption, and social and economic factors to construct carbon emission models. The spatiotemporal characteristics of LUCB in these county units are analyzed using standard deviational ellipse (SDE) and spatial autocorrelation methods. Additionally, a zoning study is conducted by examining the economic contribution coefficient (ECC) of carbon emissions, the ecological support coefficient (ESC), and their coupling relationship. The results show that (1) the total land use carbon emissions (LUCE) increased significantly during the research period, and the total carbon sink was relatively stable. (2) The LUCB is spatially high in the east and low in the west, with the center of gravity moving to the southwest as a whole. (3) The LUCB shows positive spatial autocorrelation and has significant spatial agglomeration characteristics, which are mainly high–high and low–low regional agglomeration types. (4) The ECC is high in the east and low in the west, the ESC is high in the west and low in the east, and the coordination and coupling degrees of the two are low. (5) According to the ECC and ESC, the county unit is divided into a low-carbon conservation area, an economic development area, a carbon sink development area, and a comprehensive optimization area. This study is helpful in promoting the sustainable development of carbon neutrality and low carbon in the YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To analyze the effect of sex on the short-time prognosis in two different age subgroups (≤55 years old and >55 years old). Methods: From January 2009 to 2019, 1522 patients with DeBakey I acute aortic dissection (AAD) underwent frozen elephant trunk and total arch replacement at a Tertiary Center in China were divided into female group (n = 324) and male group (n = 1198). The demographic characteristics, clinical presentation, management, short-term outcomes were described in the different sex groups. The risk factors of 30-days mortality for females and males were identified by univariate and multivariable logistic regression analysis. Then, random Forest regression was used to analyze the association between age and 30-days mortality in the different sexes groups. The cut-off age for 30-days mortality in females was then identified as 55 years. The patients were divided into two subgroups: young patients (≤55 years old) and elderly patients (>55 years old). Clinical prognosis between different sex groups was further compared in the age subgroups. Results: Approximately four-fifths of the patients were males. Males with DeBakey I AAD were younger than females (47 vs 52 years; p < 0.01). The proportion of males gradually declined with age. The cut-off age for 30-days mortality in females and males was identified as 55 years old and 63 years old, respectively. In young patients (≤55 years old), the 30-days mortality rate for females was lower than males (hazard ratio [HR, 2.02, p < 0.05). Following adjustment using the multivariable Cox regression analysis, females were identified as an independent protective factor for 30-days mortality (HR, 2.24, p = 0.03). Conclusions: Our study showed that females present with DeBakey I AAD less frequently than males and they tend to present with DeBakey AAD later in life. In young patients, females had better early outcomes despite similar time for symptom onset to diagnosis and surgical technique than males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flowering time and active accumulated temperature (AAT) are two key factors that limit the expanded production especially for soybean across different regions. Wild soybean provides an important germplasm for functional genomics study in cultivar soybean. However, the studies on genetic basis underlying flowering time in response to AAT especially in wild soybean were rarely reported. In this study, we used 294 wild soybean accessions derived from major soybean production region characterized by different AAT in Northeast of China. Based on genome-wide association study (GWAS), we identified 96 SNPs corresponded to 342 candidate genes that significantly associated with flowering time recorded in two-year experiments. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis suggests that the pathways of photosynthesis light reaction and actin filament binding were significantly enriched. We found three lead SNPs with -log10(p-value) > 32 across the two-year experiments, i.e., Chr02:9490318, Chr04:8545910 and Chr09:49553555. Linkage disequilibrium block analysis shows 28 candidate genes within the genomic region centered on the lead SNPs. Among them, expression levels of three genes (aspartic peptidase 1, serine/threonine-protein kinase and protein SCAR2-like) were significantly differed between two subgroups possessing contrasting flowering time distributed at chromosome 2, 4 and 9, respectively. There are 6, 7 and 3 haplotypes classified on the coding regions of the three genes, respectively. Collectively, accessions with late flowering time phenotype are typically derived from AAT zone 1, which is associated with the haplotypic distribution and expression levels of the three genes. This study provides an insight into a potential mechanism responsible for flowering time in response to AAT in wild soybean, which could promote the understanding of genetic basis for other major crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Previous studies on initial public offerings (IPOs) in mature stock markets have documented that high‐reputation underwriters primarily work with high‐quality firms and vice versa—that is, they are paired through a quality‐matching mechanism. We propose that in a nascent stock market, a pricing mechanism may also play a role, through which pricing (the underwriting fee) sets the pairing. We examine these two mechanisms in the context of China's ChiNext stock exchange, which was launched in 2009 and experienced dramatic regulatory improvements in 2012–2013. With data on IPOs in 2009–2017, we find evidence to support the pricing mechanism's effect before the regulatory improvements and the quality‐matching mechanism's effect after the improvements. We contribute to the literature by developing an evolutionary view on the pairing mechanisms between important capital market participants. Managerial Summary: In a mature stock market, underwriter reputation signals the underlying quality of initial public offering (IPO) firms to external investors because high‐reputation underwriters primarily work with high‐quality IPO firms and vice versa. We find that in a nascent stock market before the market experiences regulatory improvements, underwriters and IPO firms are paired through a pricing mechanism. That is, underwriters with higher reputation charge higher underwriting fees, and IPO firms with lower quality pay higher fees. Since the pricing mechanism rather than the quality‐matching mechanism sets the pairing, underwriter reputation does not have a signaling effect. Instead, we find that higher underwriting fees signal lower quality of IPO firms. Our findings shed important insights on how market participants are paired in other nascent markets, nascent technology fields and industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is having a dramatic effect on the mental health of healthcare workers (HCWs). Upon the emergence of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the Chinese government dispatched about 42 000 HCWs to Wuhan City and Hubei Province to fight this pandemic. This study briefly examines front‐line nurses who experienced burnout, with the main objective of investigating the mediating roles of positive and negative affect in the relationship between resilience and burnout in Wuhan hospitals at the peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic. A total of 180 front‐line nurses voluntarily participated via a social media group. They completed the online questionnaires, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory‐General Survey (MBI‐GS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD‐RISC), demographics, and work‐related characteristics. Structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was used to examine the mediating effect of positive and negative affect on the relationship between resilience and burnout. The total prevalence of burnout was 51.7%, of which 15.0% were severe burnout. These preliminary results revealed that positive and negative affect fully mediated the effects of resilience on burnout, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment of front‐line nurses. It is necessary to know the impact of resilience on HCWs with burnout through the positive and negative affect of individual backgrounds and situations, and how policymakers can deploy resilience interventions to support front‐line HCWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The contribution of oyster reefs characteristics to the omnivorous fish intestinal microbiota was distinct. • Microbial communities in the oyster reefs and fish intestines showed various predictive functions and unique core indicators. • The microbial diversity in sediments were significantly higher than that in intestines. The habitats of oyster reefs had played various ecological services functions, as an important means of marine ecological restoration and fishery resources conservation, which had been widely used worldwide. And the characteristics of microbial communities would be inevitably affected by habitat of oyster reefs. The aim of this study was to reveal the relationship between oyster reefs and the intestinal microbiota of fish (Takifugu ocellatus , Acanthopagrus latus , Clupanodon thrissa , and Mugil cephalus). Here, based on 16S rRNA sequencing, this research analyzed the microbial communities of fishes gut in the oyster reefs from the most crucial estuary economic zone in Southern China. It was significantly lower that the bacterial alpha-diversity in the fish intestines than in the sediments of oyster reefs. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) results showed that intestines microbiota of T. ocellatus and A. latus were more homologous to sediments microbiota, but intestines microbiota of C. thrissa and M. cephalus were more similar to the water microbiota. There were obvious differences in the contribution of oyster reefs habitat to intestinal microorganisms of four fishes. Source tracking analysis as well reached the similar conclusion. For instance, contribution of water to T. ocellatus and A. latus was lesser than sediments, which was related to their benthic habits. Based on the differences in microbial community compositions, the functional prediction analysis had demonstrated that special functional pathways and independent core indicators had been formed separately from oyster reefs and fish intestines. Overall, these findings highlighted the characteristics of microbial diversity and functions from the omnivorous fish living in oyster reefs habitats. This research proposed new insights into the function of oyster reefs habitats, which have enriched the ecological service value of oyster reefs from microbial ecology and provided a reference for the application of oyster reefs habitats in other estuaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A multi-dimensional functional space was built to visualize the functional structure. • The functional structure and trait composition of fish in the PRE vary seasonally. • The CWM traits were mainly affected by temperature, DO, chlorophyll-a, and depth. Estuaries are one of the most important ecosystems with high biological productivity. They connect freshwater and marine ecosystems, and the fish community assemblages face intense environmental changes, so estuarine fish communities have unique ecological characteristics. With the increase of human activities and the discharge of pollutants, the pressure on the ecosystem of the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) is intensifying, and its ecosystem functions and services are inevitably affected. To better understand the functional structure of the fish community in the PRE and its response to environmental changes, we analyzed the trait composition of the community and its relationships to environmental factors based on 10 functional traits of 130 fish species collected in the PRE during the summer and winter of 2020–2021. In addition, we built a multi-dimensional functional space to visualize the overall functional structure of the PRE and explore the seasonal variation of the selected traits in the functional space. Our findings suggest that the functional traits of the fish communities in the PRE were mainly affected by temperature, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a, and depth. Among them, the effects of dissolved oxygen, temperature, and chlorophyll-a on CWM traits were reflected in seasonal differences, while the effects of depth were reflected in spatial differences. We also found the main trait categories that occupied the most functional space and contributed the most to the seasonal differences in functional space. The results of this study are significant for understanding the seasonal variation of the functional structure in the PRE and how environmental gradients drive the functional traits of fish communities, and also provide insights for effective ecosystem-based management in the PRE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precise rainfall forecasting modeling assumes a pivotal role in water resource planning and management. Conducting a comprehensive analysis of the rainfall time series and making appropriate adjustments to the forecast model settings based on the characterization results of the rainfall series significantly enhance the accuracy of the forecast model. This paper employed the Mann-Kendall and sliding T mutation tests to identify the mutational components in rainfall between 1961 and 2013 at four meteorological stations located in Henan Province. Wavelet analysis was utilized to determine the periodicity of the precipitation series. The model parameters were adjusted based on the mutation and periodicity findings, and appropriate training and test sets were selected accordingly. Rainfall simulation in Henan Province, China, was conducted using a combination of complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (CEEMD) and bi-directional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) networks. The integrated approach aimed at predicting rainfall in the region. The findings of this study demonstrate that the CEEMD-BiLSTM model, coupled with feature analysis, yielded favorable results in terms of prediction accuracy. The model achieved a mean MAE (mean absolute error) of 131.210, a mean MRE (mean relative error) of 0.637, a mean RMSE (root mean square error) of 187.776, and an NSE (Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency) above 0.910. The data processed according to the feature analysis results and then predicted; Zhengzhou, Anyang, Lushi, and Xinyang stations improved by 39.548%, 14.478%, 11.548%, and 19.037% respectively compared with the original prediction model., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Smart water co-governance (SWCG) is a fundamental driving force to reduce the water crisis and promote the sustainable development of water resources. To explore the applicability and development of SWCG in different regions, the authors of this paper took 31 provinces of China (with the exception Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) as research districts and used the three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to measure and compare the efficiency of smart water governance (SWG) in the government-enterprise-public (G-E-P) mode and without public participation in the government-enterprise (G-E) mode in 2019. Then, the Malmquist model was used to measure the spatio-temporal evolution of the G-E-P mode from 2010 to 2019, focusing on the analysis of the top ten provinces of the China Internet Development Index in 2019. According to the empirical analysis, the following results were obtained: (1) the efficiency of SWCG in the G-E-P mode was significantly higher than that in G-E model, as 13 provinces showed a significant decline and 10 provinces had a small change. In addition, SWCG in the G-E-P mode showed a good development trend in the eastern and southern regions. (2) The governance efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency showed upward trends, but the technological progress index and total factor productivity were still low. Therefore, SWG should vigorously promote public participation and the independent implementation of enterprises under the guidance and restriction of the government. Meanwhile, the construction of an SWG infrastructure and the level of science and technology should be strengthened. In addition, each province should adjust the input-output structure according to its redundancy or deficiency, weigh the suitability of the input level and scale, and strengthen the matching and support of the ability of multi-subjects and factors to ensure that an appropriate input-output scale level is reached and the efficiency of SWCG is improved.