Nitrogen (N) deposition significantly affects the soil carbon (C) cycle process of forests. However, the influence of different types of N on it still remained unclear. In this work, ammonium nitrate was selected as an inorganic N (IN) source, while urea and glycine were chosen as organic N (ON) sources. Different ratios of IN to ON (1 : 4, 2 : 3, 3 : 2, 4 : 1, and 5 : 0) were mixed with equal total amounts and then used to fertilize temperate forest soils for 2 years. Results showed that IN deposition inhibited soil C cycle processes, such as soil respiration, soil organic C decomposition, and enzymatic activities, and induced the accumulation of recalcitrant organic C. By contrast, ON deposition promoted these processes. Addition of ON also resulted in accelerated transformation of recalcitrant compounds into labile compounds and increased CO2 efflux. Meanwhile, greater ON deposition may convert C sequestration in forest soils into C source. These results indicated the importance of the IN to ON ratio in controlling the soil C cycle, which can consequently change the ecological effect of N deposition.

Sheep is an important livestock in the world providing meat, milk and wool for human beings. With increasing human population, the worldwide needs of production of sheep have elevated. To meet the needs, the assistant reproductive technology including ovine in vitro embryo production (ovine IVP) is urgently required to enhance the effective production of sheep in the world. To learn the status of ovine IVP, we collected some publications related to ovine IVP through PubMed and analyzed the progress in ovine IVP made in the last five years (2012–2017). We made comparisons of these data and found that the recent advances in ovine IVP has been made slowly comparable to that of ovine IVP two decades ago. Therefore, we suggested two strategies or approaches to tackle the main problems in ovine IVP and expect that the efficiency of ovine IVP could be improved significantly when the approaches would be implemented.

Two novel approaches for patterned growth of ZnO nanowires (NWs) based on the selective deposition of zinc acetate (ZA) solution precursors are presented and compared. The first is using the topographical confinement within a photoresist pattern on Si/SiO 2 substrates (type I), and the second is using preferential chemisorption on self-assembled monolayer modified Au electrodes on Si/SiO 2 substrates (type II). In both approaches, the ZnO seeds from the ZA solution form crystallites without severe defects over a large area via annealing at 350°C. These seed layers were used to grow ZnO NWs via a catalyst-free vapor-phase deposition method using temperatures of up to 900°C. The presented method is effective for realizing NW growth on both Si and Au electrodes by preserving the electrode configuration even at such high temperatures used for NW growth, which is a novelty and crucial for future sensor applications. As a result NWs connected through metal contact pads or electrodes have been realized in very simple and effective way. As a test of principle the resulting configurations were used to demonstrate a highly sensitive room temperature CO sensor. A CO concentration as low as 120 ppb was detected using both types of sensors. The type II sensor exhibited enhanced sensing properties compared to that of type I.

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