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Abstract Background The excessive application of chemical fertilizers in the cultivation of Astragalus mongholicus Bunge results in a reduction in the quality of the medicinal plant and compromises the sustainable productivity of the soil. PGPB inoculant is a hot topic in ecological agriculture research. In the cultivation of Astragalus mongholicus, the screened nitrogen-fixing bacteria can promote plant growth, however, whether it can promote the accumulation of main bioactive components remains unknown. In this study, mixed inoculants containing 5 strains of growth promoting bacteria (Rhizobium T16 , Sinorhizobium T21 , Bacillus J1 , Bacillus G4 and Arthrobacter J2) were used in the field experiment. The metabolic substances in the root tissues of Astragalus mongholicus were identified during the harvest period by non-targeted metabolomics method, and the differential metabolites between groups were identified by statistical analysis. Meanwhile, high-throughput sequencing was performed to analyze the changes of rhizosphere soil and endophytic microbial community structure after mixed microbial treatment. Results The results of non-targeted metabolism indicated a significant increase in the levels of 26 metabolites after treatment including 13 flavonoids, 3 saponins and 10 other components. The contents of three plant hormones (abscisic acid, salicylic acid and spermidine) also increased after treatment, which presumed to play an important role in regulating plant growth and metabolism. Studies on endosphere and rhizosphere bacterial communities showed that Rhzobiaceae, Micromonosporaceae, and Hypomicrobiaceae in endophytic, and Oxalobactereae in rhizosphere were significantly increased after treatment. These findings suggest their potential importance in plant growth promotion and secondary metabolism regulation. Conclusions This finding provides a basis for developing nitrogen-fixing bacteria fertilizer and improving the ecological planting efficiency of Astragalus mongholicus.

It is common that marketers design and position pretty products more to female consumers than to male consumers, suggesting that they generally believe that females have a stronger preference than males for product form over function and apply this belief to their marketing practices. However, this research demonstrates that this belief is often inconsistent with actual preferences. Across seven studies and four follow-up studies, involving both hypothetical and field settings, we demonstrate that both marketers and consumers hold such a belief about gender difference and overpredict females' preference for form-superior (vs. function-superior) products relative to males. Specifically, people tend to choose form-superior (vs. function-superior) products for female (vs. male) others, but female consumers do not choose form-superior (vs. function-superior) products for themselves more than male consumers do. We further provide convergent evidence for the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions by showing that (1) people's choices for others and themselves are more in line with the lay belief about gender difference when they hold a stronger belief and (2) people's choices for distant (vs. close) others are more in line with this lay belief. We further assess the effectiveness of several debiasing interventions and show that this lay belief is quite robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facilitating inspirational experiences for customers is an emerging topic in the field of tourism and hospitality. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response paradigm, we proposed novel effects that substantive servicescape has a positive effect on inspiration, which has a positive downstream effect on satisfaction. The present research, including a field survey with customers from 10 three- to four-star hotels (N 1 = 644) and three experimental studies (N 2 = 133, N 3 = 115, N 4 = 227), examined the effects of substantive and communicative servicescape on inspiration, the downstream effect of inspiration on satisfaction, and the moderating roles of openness to experience and prior experience. The results supported our proposed effects. Furthermore, openness to experience and prior experience moderated the effects of substantive servicescape on inspiration and inspiration on satisfaction, respectively. This research contributes to the extant literature by offering a more nuanced understanding of the drivers of customer inspiration and the boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, gas–liquid discharge plasma excited by nanosecond pulsed voltage is used to efficiently remove tiamulin (TIA) from water. The discharge produces a large number of reactive species (H2O2, OH radicals, NO3−, etc.) that can attack the TIA molecules. The effects of peak pulse voltage, initial TIA concentration, gas composition, and the addition of ferrous sulfate and persulfate on TIA removal were mainly investigated. The results showed that the oxygen plasma could approach 100% removal within 30 min of treatment time. The addition of the catalyst increased the TIA removal efficiency by approximately 15% during the 10‐min discharge treatment time. The toxicity of 12 intermediates was analyzed and the degradation mechanism of TIA was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beneficial fungi of the genus Trichoderma are among the most widespread biocontrol agents that induce a plant's defense response against pathogens. Fusarium solani is one of the main pathogens that can negatively affect Astragalus mongholicus production and quality. To investigate the impact of Trichoderma harzianum on Astragalus mongholicus defense responses to Fusarium solani, A. mongholicus roots under T. harzianum + F. solani (T + F) treatment and F. solani (F) treatment were sampled and subjected to transcriptomic analysis. A differential expression analysis revealed that 6361 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) responded to T. harzianum induction. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of the 6361 DEGs revealed that the genes significantly clustered into resistance-related pathways, such as the plant–pathogen interaction pathway, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway, flavonoid biosynthesis pathway, isoflavonoid biosynthesis pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway, and plant hormone signal transduction pathway. Pathway analysis revealed that the PR1, formononetin biosynthesis, biochanin A biosynthesis, and CHIB, ROS production, and HSP90 may be upregulated by T. harzianum and play important roles in disease resistance. Our study further revealed that the H2O2 content was significantly increased by T. harzianum induction. Formononetin and biochanin A had the potential to suppress F. solani. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) revealed one module, including 58 DEGs associated with T. harzianum induction. One core hub gene, RPS25, was found to be upregulated by T. harzianum, SA (salicylic acid) and ETH (ethephon). Overall, our data indicate that T. harzianum can induce induced systemic resistance (ISR) and systemic acquired resistance (SAR) in A. mongholicus. The results of this study lay a foundation for a further understanding of the molecular mechanism by which T. harzianum induces resistance in A. mongholicus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, clopidogrel is the standard therapeutic drugs for antiplatelet therapy. Variants in the CYP2C19 gene influence the clinical response of clopidogrel. Thus, the US Food and Drug Administration suggested CYP2C19 genotyping needs to identify before taking medicine. Due to high cost, time consuming, and sophisticated instruments, current single nucleotide polymorphism detection methods are limited in clinical application. In the present study, we established a genotyping method for CYP2C19, which combines amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS)-PCR with a lateral flow assay used gold magnetic nanoparticles (GMNPs) named as PCR-gold magnetic lateral flow assay system (PCR-GoldMag LFA). The PCR products with specific genotype can be explained within 5 minutes, either through visual or by a magnetic reader automatically according to the captured GMNPs probes on the test lines of the LFA strips. The limit of detection of this method is 5 ng of genomic DNA. The PCR-GoldMag LFA system was applied in a clinical trial with 1356 samples of Han Chinese. The concordance rate between the LFA system and sequencing is 99.93%. The allele frequency of CYP2C19*2 and CYP2C19*3 are 30.38 and 7.08% in Han Chinese, respectively. This method provides a new way in the clinical application of CYP2C19 genotyping to guide the clopidogrel medication.

Understanding the relationships between momentary episodes and overall evaluation is integral to creating tourist experiences because service providers strive to maximize positive outcomes and minimize negative ones. Past work has shown that the end experience outweighs other episodes (e.g., the start experience) when forming retrospective judgments, referred to as "the end effect." Although researchers have paid considerable attention to the end effect in tourist experience evaluation, their findings are mixed and need to be further clarified. This research reconciles the inconsistency by examining the moderating role of cultural mindsets on the weight of end experience in overall evaluation. Across three experiments, this research reveals that the end experience is heavily weighted for tourists with an individualistic mindset but less so for those with a collective mindset. These findings help to explain the inconsistency in the literature and provide practical implications for destination marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a case of pneumonia caused by coinfection with Chlamydia psittaci and the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron XBB.1 variant, confirmed using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). C. psittaci and SARS-CoV-2 were detected in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid using mNGS. Additionally, mNGS detected C. psittaci in blood and nasopharyngeal specimens and was more sensitive than qPCR. The patient recovered after treatment with moxifloxacin. This report highlights the use of coinfections of C. psittaci and SARS-CoV-2, as mNGS has already been recognized to be a diagnostic tool for identifying coinfections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study the high temperature performance of LM-S modified asphalt mixture and SBS modified asphalt mixture, repeated loading creep test was used to study the influence of temperature and deviatoric stress on the axial permanent deformation of the two kinds of asphalt mixture. At the same time, Permanent deformation, ε@5000, flow number FN and creep rate were select to evaluation of high temperature performance from different directions. The results show that the ε@5000 and creep rate are failed in the condition of high temperature and large deviatoric stress, so it hast widely practicable. The flow number FN is also limited by the conditions, which leads to the distortion of the flow number at lower temperature and smaller deviatoric stress so it is not easy to direct used as the evaluation index. Axial permanent deformation can reflect the permanent deformation in different cycles which is an excellent index to evaluate the high temperature performance of the two kinds of asphalt mixture, it is recommended to use axial permanent deformation to compare the LM-S modified asphalt mixture and SBS modified asphalt mixture The experimental results show that the axial permanent deformation of the LM-S modified asphalt mixture is always less than that of SBS modified asphalt mixture,it indicating that the high temperature rutting resistance of the LM-S modified asphalt mixture is better than that of SBS modified asphalt mixture.

Atmospheric pressure gas–liquid discharge plasma has garnered considerable attention for its efficacy in wastewater contaminant removal. This study utilized atmospheric oxygen gas–liquid discharge plasma for the treatment of ammonia nitrogen wastewater. The effect of applied voltage on the treatment of ammonia nitrogen wastewater by gas–liquid discharge plasma was discussed, and the potential reaction mechanism was elucidated. As the applied voltage increased from 9 kV to 17 kV, the ammonia nitrogen removal efficiency rose from 49.45% to 99.04%, with an N2 selectivity of 87.72%. The mechanism of ammonia nitrogen degradation by gas–liquid discharge plasma under different applied voltages was deduced through electrical characteristic analysis, emission spectrum diagnosis, and further measurement of the concentration of active species in the gas–liquid two-phase system. The degradation of ammonia nitrogen by gas–liquid discharge plasma primarily relies on the generation of active species in the liquid phase after plasma–gas interactions, rather than direct plasma effects. Increasing the applied voltage leads to changes in discharge morphology, higher energy input, elevated electron excitation temperatures, enhanced collisions, a decrease in plasma electron density, and an increase in rotational temperatures. The change in the plasma state enhances the gas–liquid transfer process and increases the concentration of H2O2, O3, and, ⋅ O H in the liquid phase. Ultimately, the efficient removal of ammonia nitrogen from wastewater is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]