Phytoremediation is an effective means to improve degraded soil nutrients and soil structure. Here, we investigated the remediation effects of Leymus chinensis on the physicochemical properties and structure of degraded soil after 3 years of cultivation and explored the bacterial and fungal drivers in root exudates by metabolomics and high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that root exudates increased soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and soil aggregates, and organic acids in root exudates reduced pH and activated insoluble nutrients into forms that are available to plants, such as available nitrogen (NH4+-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3−-N), and available phosphorus (AP). The cultivation of L. chinensis restored the diversity and richness of soil microorganisms and recruited potential beneficial bacteria and fungi to resist degraded soil stress, and L. chinensis also regulated the abundances of organic acids, amino acids and fatty acids in root exudates to remediate degraded soils. Spearman correlation analysis indicated that glutaric acid, 3-hydroxybutyric acid and 4-methylcatechol in root exudates attracted Haliangium, Nitrospira and Mortierella to the rhizosphere and dispersed the relative abundance of the harmful microorganisms Fusicolla and Fusarium. Our results demonstrate that L. chinensis enhances soil fertility, improves soil structure, promotes microbial diversity and abundance, and recruits potentially beneficial microorganisms by modulating root exudate components.

During their breeding season, estrogen induces vitellogenin (VTG) production in the liver of teleost fish through estrogen receptors (ERs) that support oocyte vitellogenesis. There are at least three ER subtypes in teleost fish, but their roles in mediating E2-induced VTG expression have yet to be ascertained. In this study, we investigated the expression of vtgs and ers in the liver of orange-spotted groupers (Epinephelus coioides). Their expression levels were significantly increased in the breeding season and were upregulated by an estradiol (E2) injection in female fish, except for the expression of erβ1. The upregulation of vtgs, erα and erβ2 by E2 was also observed in primary hepatocytes, but these stimulatory effects could be abolished by ER antagonist ICI182780 treatment. Subsequent studies showed that ERβ antagonist Cyclofenil downregulated the E2-induced expression of vtg, erα, and erβ2, while the ERβ agonist DPN simulated their expression. Knockdown of erβ2 by siRNA further confirmed that ERβ2 mediated the E2-induced expression of vtgs and erα. To reveal the mechanism of ERβ2 in the regulation of erα expression, the erα promoter was cloned, and its activity was examined in cells. E2 treatment simulated the activity of the erα promoter in the presence of ERβ2. Deletions and site-directed mutations showed that the E2 up-regulated transcriptional activity of erα occurs through a classical half-estrogen response element- (ERE) dependent pathway. This study reveals the roles of ER subtypes in VTG expression in orange-spotted groupers and provides a possible explanation for the rapid and efficient VTG production in this species during the breeding season.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the dynamic behaviour of post-tensioned concrete flat slabs with different geometries and damping ratios. Four groups of models with different lengths, widths, thicknesses and damping ratios designed according to the AS3600 standard. These were used to determine the influence of each parameter on the vibration serviceability by comparing the control variable method with the reference model. The vibration assessment parameters were used as natural frequency, peak acceleration, and response factor. Both the SCI/CSTR43 standard theoretical calculations method and the Strand7 finite element analysis (FEA) method are used to determine the effect of different geometries and damping ratios on vibration. The feasibility of the Strand7 FEA method for vibration analysis is also assessed by calculating the errors of the two methods. The paper concludes that the Strand7 FEA method is highly accurate and feasible. The span in both directions has a large effect on the natural frequency, and increasing both the slab thickness and the damping ratio are effective methods to improve the vibration serviceability. Based on the research in this paper, recommendations are provided for future vibration design of post-tensioned concrete slabs.

This paper aims to leverage symbolic knowledge to improve the performance and interpretability of the Visual Relationship Detection (VRD) models. Existing VRD methods based on deep learning suffer from the problems of poor performance on insufficient labeled examples and lack of interpretability. To overcome the aforementioned weaknesses, we integrate symbolic knowledge into deep learning models and propose a bi-level probabilistic graphical reasoning framework called BPGR. Specifically, in the highlevel structure, we take the objects and relationships detected by the VRD model as hidden variables (reasoning results); In the low-level structure of BPGR, we use Markov Logic Networks (MLNs) to project First-Order Logic (FOL) as observed variables (symbolic knowledge) to correct error reasoning results. We adopt a variational EM algorithm for optimization. Experiments results show that our BPGR improves the performance of the VRD models. In particular, BPGR can also provide easy-to-understand insights for reasoning results to show interpretability.