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The distribution of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) derived from compost in soil–plant systems is a serious issue. One possible remedy is the application of biochar-containing compost. In this study, cucumber quality and the abundance of ARGs in soil–cucumber systems under different compost treatments, namely, traditional pig manure and corn straw compost (PC); pig manure, corn straw, and large particle size biochar (5–10 mm) compost (PCLB); and pig manure, corn straw, and small particle size biochar (

The aim of this study is to demonstrate an adaptive method that is robust toward environmental fluctuations and provides a real-time measure of plant growth by measuring COThe proposed method was used to measure the photosynthetic rate induced by photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and to evaluate plant growth under continuous and pulsed light in arugula plants. The PPFD-dependent change in photosynthetic rate was measured. And in the condition range of 200-10,000 μs pulse period and 50% duty ratio of pulsed light, there was no change in the growth rate of plants assuming the same PPFD as continuous light. These experiments showed the validity of the adaptive method in removing environmental fluctuations without precise control of temperature and humidity.

Reliable seed screening that can speedily detect qualities such as dormancy and seed germination can be of great significance in improving plant growth, crop yield, and quality. On the other hand, Optical Coherent Tomography (OCT) has been extensively used as a potential tool in visualizing structures of biological objects, especially the retina. However, its role in visualizing temporal changes that accompany these structures as speckle noise remains relatively underexplored. The present study of biospeckle OCT or bOCT demonstrates the potential of speckles in plant physiological studies. In this paper, the potential of bOCT in speedily investigating the positive and negative phenotyping of increasing Zn concentrations on lentil seed (Lens culinaris) germination and seedling growth were demonstrated. Lentil seeds were exposed to three different Zn concentrations of 0 (control), 5, 10, and 100 mg/L for 24 h, and the structural OCT images were acquired to calculate the temporal fluctuations in the image as a quantity called the average speckle contrast (γ). The average speckle contrast was calculated after 6 h, 12 h, and 24 h of exposure to different concentrations. Statistically significant differences were observed even within 12 h of exposure under all the Zn treatments compared to control. In comparison, the conventional measurements of germination rate, root and shoot lengths, and fresh and dry weights of seedlings took nearly 48 h to observe significant changes. Furthermore, the Zn uptake measurements were significant for all the tested concentrations after seven days of exposure. Further, bOCT results showed a clear concentration dependent effect with 5, 10 mg/L producing positive effects, while a high concentration of 100 mg/L showing a detrimental effect on seed germination and seedling growth. Thus, the current study results imply that bOCT can be used to investigate the positive and negative effects of increasing Zn concentrations on seed germination and seedling growth at an early stage before germination.

In recent years, it is becoming clearer that plant growth and its yield are affected by sound with certain sounds, such as seedling of corn directing itself toward the sound source and its ability to distinguish stuttering of larvae from other sounds. However, methods investigating the effects of sound on plants either take a long time or are destructive. Here, we propose using laser biospeckle, a non-destructive and non-contact technique, to investigate the activities of an arugula plant for sounds of different frequencies, namely, 0 Hz or control, 100 Hz, 1 kHz, 10 kHz, including rock and classical music. Laser biospeckles are generated when scattered light from biological tissues interfere, and the intensities of such speckles change in time, and these changes reflect changes in the scattering structures within the biological tissue. A leaf was illuminated by light from a laser light of wavelength 635 nm, and the biospeckles were recorded as a movie by a CMOS camera for 20 sec at 15 frames per second (fps). The temporal correlation between the frames was characterized by a parameter called biospeckle activity (BA)under the exposure to different sound stimuli of classical and rock music and single-frequency sound stimuli for 1min. There was a clear difference in BA between the control and other frequencies with BA for 100 Hz being closer to control, while at higher frequencies, BA was much lower, indicating a dependence of the activity on the frequency. As BA is related to changes from both the surface as well as from the internal structures of the leaf, LSM (laser scanning microscope) observations conducted to confirm the change in the internal structure revealed more than 5% transient change in stomatal size following exposure to one minute to high frequency sound of 10kHz that reverted within ten minutes. Our results demonstrate the potential of laser biospeckle to speedily monitor in vivo response of plants to sound stimuli and thus could be a possible screening tool for selecting appropriate frequency sounds to enhance or delay the activity of plants. (337 words)

In the study, we have combined speckle metrology and deep learning tools in discriminating supermicroplastics (SMPs) sizes and concentrations. Polystyrene spheres used as SMPs were introduced in the container filled with salt water. The particles were illuminated with the 635 nm laser, and the scattered light was recorded with the CMOS camera. For the simulation studies, different sized particles (2 µm, 20 µm, and 200 µm) and concentrations were used. Speckles were analyzed using a deep learning algorithm to distinguish particles sizes and concentrations. It was demonstrated that the convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained with speckles could distinguish feeble differences in speckle patterns depending on particle sizes and concentrations. Deep learning was found to be capable of distinguishing different particle sizes and concentrations from the speckle patterns. We suggest our combined technique could be effectively used in investigating MPs in the ocean where it remains challenging to conduct in situ surveys and obtain the SMP distribution in deeper regions of the ocean.

Widespread use of plastics and mishandling has resulted in severe environmental issues affecting seed germination and seedling growth. This study investigates the effect of polyethylene microplastics (740-4990 nm PEMPs) on lentil (Lens culinaris) seed germination and seedling growth using Biospeckle Optical Coherence Tomography (bOCT), a technique that we successfully demonstrated earlier in visualizing the internal activity of plants. Lentil seeds were exposed to PEMPs bioassay for seven days with 10, 50, and 100 mg L

Objective The aim of this study is to demonstrate the potential of applying the contrast of the speckles obtained as noise in optical coherence tomography (OCT) images to monitor short term activity changes during foliar application of phytohormones to a plant leaf. Plant growth hormone, gibberellic acid (GA3) was sprayed onto the leaf of Chinese chives and after 60 min, OCT images (1 frame: 512 × 2048 pixels) were recorded at ten frames per second for a few tens of seconds. Results Contrast across the temporal axis was calculated for each pixel of the structural images and biospeckle OCT contrast images were obtained under the conditions of before and after application of GA3 for different concentrations 0, 40, and 100 μM. Application of 40 μM GA3 failed to show any differences in the OCT structural images. However, bOCT contrast image was clearly different. Changes were found to be statistically significant. Although the mechanism for the contrast difference is not clear, it can be said there is a large change across the temporal scale with the application of GA3. Demonstration of OCT utilizing the speckle contrast is believed to have the potential as a promising tool in plant physiology.

In recent years, it has been found that sound also has effect on plant growth and its yield with certain sound directing the seedling of corn toward the sound source and its ability in distinguishing stuttering of larvae from other sounds. However, methods investigating the effects of sound either take a long time or destructive. Here, we have used laser biospeckle, a non-destructive and non-contact technique to investigate the activities of an arugula plant (2-4 weeks old) under sounds of different frequencies of 0 Hz or control, 100 Hz, 1 kHz, 10 kHz. Laser biospeckle has been proved to be valid for investigating the aging of fruits, believed to be due to the movement of water, organelles etc.. Biospeckle activities were recorded for 20 sec at 15 fps following exposure to sounds for 1min. The correlation parameter (r) of biospeckle activity was used to characterize the activity of the plant with r being 1 for highly active and 0 for reduced plant activity. Sound level of 100 dB was the same for all frequencies. There was a clear difference in r between the control and other frequencies and r was lower than that of control indicating a reduction in the activity. Moreover, r for 100 Hz was found to be closer to control while at higher frequencies, r was much lower indicating a dependence of the activity on the frequency.

Recently, neuromarketing has attracted attention as it is a marketing technique analyze consumer’s emotion using biological signal, which could genuinely understand consumers. From recent studies using the observation of brain wave (EEG), there are changes in emotional patterns (among the four emotions: Happy, Angry, Sad, Relax) according to the satisfaction on taste. In this work, we investigate the biological signals (EEG and ECG) under the stimulation of basic tastes: sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness and savory taste (umami), while taking into account individual preference in the evaluation. In the experiment, all subjects were test cognitive detection threshold before proceeding to the main experiment. The level of concentration that yields a just-noticeable threshold taste was used as the cognitive threshold for each subject for EEG and ECG data collection. The biological signals were used to classify emotion and compare with subjective evaluation. The experiment results proved that human emotion is effected by the taste stimuli.

The presence of supermicroplastic (SMP) of less than 350 µm is on the rise in oceans, and it is often difficult to discriminate the SMPs from zooplanktons in real-time. In this study, we propose a laser speckle method in differentiating SMPs from brine shrimps, a generally used model zooplankton, and at the same time in distinguishing varied sized SMPs too. The pilot system consisting of a laser diode source of wavelength 635 nm mounted in a submersible glass sphere that has the potential of surveying in deep-sea environments illuminated a cuvette containing either polystyrene microspheres alone or mixed with brine shrimp to produce laser speckles. Such speckles recorded by a CMOS camera at 15 frames/sec for 20sec were analyzed to calculate a parameter of maximum difference between recorded frames. The results clearly differentiated the microplastics and the microplastics from the brine shrimps, thus demonstrating the possible use of the laser speckle method as a potential tool in discriminating planktons from SMPs and has implications for reaching deep-sea environments.

This paper investigates how action research can be used to develop genre-approaches to teaching using a case study of teaching research article (RA) abstract writing on a course in Japan for science and technology students. This study involved two pedagogies placed within genre-awareness approaches, with moves being taught at different stages for each classroom. In addition to the teacher’s observations and a questionnaire to evaluate students’ perceptions, written drafts from both groups were analysed at two stages. Our analysis reveals that earlier intervention in teaching moves helped students to better construct their abstracts and that language-based activities played a role in improving students’ abstract writing without moves-based instruction. Moreover, the exercise of conducting this study in an action research framework highlighted the advantages of using a cyclic framework which allows for timely intervention based on teacher observation and critical evaluation of the teaching and learning context as the task progresses.

In laser treatments, the difference in patient's degree of skin pigmentation is an important factor that can lead to medical accidents. However, the conventional heat transfer model is not available to analyze the effect of degree of pigmentation on the laser treatments. Therefore, we propose a new microscopic radiation heat transfer model that takes into account the point heat sources for the laser treatments. In the proposed model, skin considered as a bulk medium consisting of two layers, namely normal and pigmentation layers with the latter containing a larger number of melanosomes having a specific volume fraction (fv,mel) as the degree of pigmentation. Using the proposed model, it was found that the distribution of the absorbed laser energy and temperature rise of the skin tissue is affected by the degree of pigmentation. When fv,mel is high, the absorbed energy per single melanosome and thus the temperature rise of the pigmentation layer is lower than that in the deeper skin tissue. It was also shown that depending on fv,mel, the distance between melanosomes decreases. When fv,mel is high, the temperature of skin tissue between melanosomes increases.

Plant growth apart from being a complex and highly dynamic is dependent on its immediate environment. Leaf expansion measurements using Statistical Interferometry Technique, a sensitive interferometric technique at nanometric accuracy and at sub-second levels revealed the presence of characteristic nanometric intrinsic fluctuations [Plant Biotechnology 31, 195 (2014)]. In this paper, we demonstrate that the nanometric intrinsic fluctuations are sensitive enough that they change under exposure of heavy metals, essential micronutrient zinc and non-essential element cadmium, at relatively low concentrations in the leaves of Chinese chive (Allium tuberosum). The nanometric intrinsic fluctuations of leaves were observed for 4h under three cadmium concentrations or two zinc concentrations. Results showed significant reduction of nanometric intrinsic fluctuations for all cadmium concentrations, and in contrast significant increase of nanometric intrinsic fluctuations for all zinc concentrations. There was significant reduction of nanometric intrinsic fluctuations for cadmium exposure of concentrations of 0.001mM for even an hour, and significant increment of nanometric intrinsic fluctuations under 0.75mM zinc from 1hr exposure. For comparison, antioxidative enzymes and metal uptake were also measured under 4hr exposure of cadmium or zinc. However, no significant changes could be seen in antioxidative enzymes within 4h under the smaller concentration of 0.001mM cadmium as seen for nanometric intrinsic fluctuations. The results imply that nanometric intrinsic fluctuations can be not only used as a measure for heavy metal stress but also it can be more sensitive to detect the toxic as well as positive effects of smaller amounts of heavy metal on plants at an early stage.

Orientation tuning is a canonical neuronal response property of six-layer visual cortex that is encoded in pinwheel structures with center orientation singularities. Optical imaging of intrinsic signals enables us to map these surface two-dimensional (2D) structures, whereas lack of appropriate techniques has not allowed us to visualize depth structures of orientation coding. In the present study, we performed functional optical coherence tomography (fOCT), a technique capable of acquiring a 3D map of the intrinsic signals, to study the topology of orientation coding inside the cat visual cortex. With this technique, for the first time, we visualized columnar assemblies in orientation coding that had been predicted from electrophysiological recordings. In addition, we found that the columnar structures were largely distorted around pinwheel centers: center singularities were not rigid straight lines running perpendicularly to the cortical surface but formed twisted string-like structures inside the cortex that turned and extended horizontally through the cortex. Looping singularities were observed with their respective termini accessing the same cortical surface via clockwise and counterclockwise orientation pinwheels. These results suggest that a 3D topology of orientation coding cannot be fully anticipated from 2D surface measurements. Moreover, the findings demonstrate the utility of fOCT as an in vivo mesoscale imaging method for mapping functional response properties of cortex in the depth axis. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We used functional optical coherence tomography (fOCT) to visualize three-dimensional structure of the orientation columns with millimeter range and micrometer spatial resolution. We validated vertically elongated columnar structure in iso-orientation domains. The columnar structure was distorted around pinwheel centers. An orientation singularity formed a string with tortuous trajectories inside the cortex and connected clockwise and counterclockwise pinwheel centers in the surface orientation map. The results were confirmed by comparisons with conventional optical imaging and electrophysiological recordings.

Instantaneous growth related changes of leaves of Radish, Soybean and rice plants were investigated with a highspeed and ultra-high accuracy optical interferometer. The interferometer, called statistical interferometer, SIT (Statistical Interferometric Technique) is a real-time, non-contact, and robust one and has a subnanometric accuracy and can measure leaf elongation changes every 500 ms. SIT revealed the existence of nanometric fluctuations in the elongation of leaves. Control experiments with dead and mature leaves did indeed establish the existence of null or smaller standard deviations in the fluctuations in contrast to the large deviations obtained for young and healthier leaves. Moreover, the standard deviations of the fluctuations were found to be sensitive to environment of ozone(O3), a secondary atmospheric pollutant. Long term O3 exposure with Radish and Soybean leaves led to a decrease in the standard deviations of nanometric fluctuations with increase in O3 concentrations which correlated with a decrease of gas exchange measures. Under short term O3 exposures for 3 h with two Japanese rice cultivars, cv. Koshihikari and cv. Fusaotome that are known to have varying O3 tolerance made the nanometric fluctuations to decrease in comparison to gas exchange measures which showed no variation. The fluctuations could also differentiate the cultivar’s sensitivity to O3 with cv. Koshihikari showing a drastic reduction in comparison to cv. Fusaotome. The results suggest that the nanometric fluctuations may possibly relate to the life maintaining physiological state of the plant and thus may act as an indicator of the vitality of the plant.

Research abstract is a text of foremost importance to students of science and engineering. However, explicit teaching of it tends to be missing in EGP and EGAP curricula of general Japanese English education. This paper reports the evaluation of abstracts written by 3rd-year students in an undergraduate ESP course at a Japanese university of science and engineering. At first, students were taught the required generic moves for a research abstract (RA). Next, students were asked to practice deconstructing abstracts into moves within the classroom as well as with abstracts collected by themselves. Finally, students constructed their own abstracts. Here, in order to construct one's own abstract, each student was asked to select an experiment done towards his or her disciplinary curriculum and use the experimental procedure, results and implications in writing the moves of the abstract. A total of twenty abstracts were analyzed for the presence of the required moves and the sequence of the generic moves. Difficulties in students' abstract writings were evaluated using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a framework for the analysis. SFL as a theory of language views language as a resource for making meaning and does linguistic analysis paying attention to different lexico-grammatical structures in constructing meanings and also the context. Students' abstracts were analyzed for different SFL features namely, ideational, interpersonal and textual modes. In particular, the focus was given to the usage of hedges and modality as research abstracts contain modality and hedges. In addition, a clause by clause analysis of students' abstracts revealed common errors such as, singular-plural mismatch, referencing, missing and wrong preposition, improper use of lexis and mistake in verbal group. In the talk, identified errors and the pedagogical ramifications in teaching abstracts will be discussed.

Science and technology students require the specialized skill of making poster and the explicit teaching of which is lacking in the curricula of general Japanese English tertiary education. This paper considers posters as an expanded form of abstracts and reports teaching of posters to 20 third-year students of an undergraduate ESP course at a Japanese university of science and engineering. First, students were taught to write an abstract using genre theory which required teaching of the generic moves of an abstract of a research article (RA). Teaching of the abstract involved the explicit teaching of the basic moves of background, purpose, methods, results and summary that are needed to construct RA abstract. Following that, students deconstructed abstracts taken from authentic research articles selected by both the teacher and the student themselves into moves. Having understood the moves, a democratic choice of several topics from the experiments done as part of the subject curriculum was chosen for constructing abstracts. The abstract drafts were peer evaluated with checklists, followed by teacher's comments based on which the students submitted a final draft. Next, with the final draft, the students expanded the abstract to construct a poster. This task involved writing the contents of each of the moves in the abstract to detailed content expanding each of the sections, Introduction, Methods, Results and Summary. Contents of all the sections except for the Results were prepared in groups of three or four with each member being responsible for each section. Although group members constructed the contents through discussion, poster making and presentation were done individually. Though there were some overlaps in the contents, the current project was found to empower the students with the required poster making and presentation skills which was also shown from the post survey.

We have examined whether blood volume changes induced by neural activation are controlled precisely enough for us to visualize the submillimeter-scale functional structure in anesthetized and awake cat visual cortex. To activate the submillimeter-scale functional structures such as iso-orientation domains in the cortex, visual stimuli (gratings) were presented to the cats. Two methods were used to examine the spatial precision of blood volume changes including changes in total hemoglobin content and changes in plasma volume: (i) intrinsic signal imaging at the wavelength of hemoglobin's isosbestic point (569 nm) and (ii) imaging of absorption changes of an intravenously injected dye. Both measurements showed that the visual stimuli elicited stimulus-nonspecific and stimulus-specific blood volume changes in the cortex. The former was not spatially localized, while the latter was confined to iso-orientation domains. From the measurement of spatial separation of the iso-orientation domains, we estimated the spatial resolution of stimulus-specific blood volume changes to be as high as 0.6 mm. The changes in stimulus-nonspecific and -specific blood volume were not linearly correlated. These results suggest the existence of fine blood volume control mechanisms in the capillary bed in addition to global control mechanisms in arteries.

We review the application of Optical coherence tomography (OCT) for visualizing a depth resolved functional structure of cat brain in vivo. The OCT system is based on the known fact that neural activation induces structural changes such as capillary dilation and cellular swelling. Detecting these changes as an amplitude change of the scattered light, an OCT signal reflecting neural activity i.e., fOCT (functional OCT) could be obtained. Experiments have been done to obtain a depth resolved stimulus-specific profile of activation in cat visual cortex.

In this study, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) was used to investigate the effect of short term ozone exposure on both front and back surfaces of the leaves of Allium tuberosum plant. Plant leaves were subjected to treat with 240ppb level of ozone, and imaging data were acquired from back and front surfaces of the leaves. Variations of the biological activations were monitored based on the biospeckles. Standard deviations (SD) of OCT temporal signal at each point were calculated and used to visualize the effect of ozone exposure. Leaf back surface showed higher SDs in biospeckle OCT signal in comparison to these of the front surface. These observations prove that the short term ozone stress on plant can be investigated successively with biospeckle OCT imaging technique.

Using statistical interferometry technique (SIT), a highly sensitive interferometry technique developed in our laboratory, we reported about the existence of nanometric intrinsic fluctuations (NIF) in a variety of plants. SIT permits noncontact, noninvasive, and fast detection of plant growth fluctuations in subnanometer scale. We propose the application of NIF to investigate the effect of heavy metal, cadmium, on growth dynamics of Chinese chive (Allium tuberosum). NIFs of leaves were observed for 3 days under four different concentrations of CdCl2: 0, 0.001, 0.01, and 0.1 mM. Results showed significant reduction of NIFs within 4 h for all Cd concentrations, and there was a further decrease with the exposure time of Cd under 0.1 and 0.01 mM. In addition, under 0.001 mM, a significant recovery could be observed after a rapid reduction in the first 4 h. As a comparison, measured antioxidative enzymes increased with increasing Cd concentration. However, no significant increase could be seen within the initial 4 h under a smaller concentration of 0.001 mM as seen for NIFs. The results imply that NIF can be used as an indicator for heavy metal stress on plants as well as it can be more sensitive to detect the influence of smaller Cd amounts on plants at an early stage.

Visualization of changes in reflected light from in vivo brain tissues reveals spatial patterns of neural activity. An important factor which influences the degree of light reflected includes the change in light scattering elicited by neural activation. Microstructures of neural tissues generally cause light scattering, and neural activities are associated with some changes in the microstructures. Here, we show that the optical properties unique to light scattering enable us to visualize spatial patterns of retinal activity non-invasively (FRG: functional retinography), and resolve functional structures in depth (fOCT: functional optical coherence tomography).

Visualization of changes in reflected light from in vivo brain tissues reveals spatial patterns of neural activity. An important factor which influences the degree of light reflected includes the change in light scattering elicited by neural activation. Microstructures of neural tissues generally cause light scattering, and neural activities are associated with some changes in the microstructures. Here, we show that the optical properties unique to light scattering enable us to visualize spatial patterns of retinal activity non-invasively (FRG: functional retinography), and resolve functional structures in depth (fOCT: functional optical coherence tomography).

Surface neural activity has been widely visualized using optical intrinsic signal imaging (OISI) from various cortical sensory areas. OISI of the cortical surface with a CCD camera gives integrated information across a depth of a few hundred micrometers. We visualize depth-resolved activation patterns of cat primary visual cortex by functional optical coherence tomography (fOCT). A comparison of the depth-integrated results of fOCT maps with the optical intrinsic signal profiles shows fairly good agreement. Our results reveal layer-specific activation patterns and indicate that the activation was not homogeneous.

In this study, response of leaves of Chinese chives (Allium tuberosum) to ozone stress was investigated using functional optical coherence tomography (fOCT) based on biospeckle. The biospeckles arising out of dynamic motion of organelles can reflect the biological activities of plant. The fOCT biospeckle image was obtained by calculating the standard deviation (SD) of the fOCT temporal signal (biospeckle signal) at each and every point from the successively acquired OCT images. Plant leaves were subjected to treatment under different concentrations of O3, and imaging data were acquired from back and front surfaces of the leaves. The internal cell structure within the Chinese chives leaves could be clearly visualized in the functional OCT biospeckle image, which was not clearly visible in conventional OCT cross-sectional image. The SDs were found to be increasing significantly, especially in the surface layers of both front and back sides of the leaf with ozone exposure. Thus, the fOCT based on biospeckle is found to be suitable for fast, non-destructive monitoring environmental stresses on plants, which can potentially lead to significant time saving, for which conventional techniques require a few days to a few weeks time.

We report the application of Optical coherence tomography (OCT) for visualizing a one dimensional depth resolved functional structure of cat brain in vivo. The OCT system is based on the known fact that neural activation induces structural changes such as capillary dilation and cellular swelling. Detecting these changes as an amplitude change of the scattered light, an OCT signal reflecting neural activity i.e., fOCT (functional OCT) could be obtained. Experiments have been done to obtain a depth resolved stimulus-specific profile of activation in cat visual cortex. Our results in one dimension indicate that indeed an orientation dependent functional signal could be obtained. Further, we show that this depth resolved fOCT signal is well correlated with the stimulus dependent column determined by OISI. Based on the results, the smallest functional unit in depth, resolved by the proposed system is around 40 micrometers . We are extending our system to perform two dimensional functional imaging.