At the beginning of the 21st century, with the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization, production factors such as population, capital, and land between urban and rural areas in China have gradually shifted to non-agricultural fields, the structure and function of rural territorial systems have been reconstructed and transformed therewith. In response to the relatively declining villages, the Chinese government proposed rural revitalization strategy. Taking the human–land relationship as the theoretical basis and functional changes of rural region as the main line, the study analyzes the characteristics of rural reconstruction, interprets the rural transformation mechanism and deconstructs paths of rural revitalization by using the rural reconstruction index, the model of rural transformation measurement and rural spatial transformation effect. The case study shows that: (1) Rural reconstruction in Jianghan Plain is characterized by temporal continuity and spatial imbalance. The periodical changes presents from social-reconstruction-dominated, economic-reconstruction-dominated to spatial reconstruction -dominated. The distribution of high values varied from the U-type to O-type along the main transportation routes, while that of low values alternated between points (hinterlands of the Plain) and lines from spatial viewpoint. (2) The driving mechanism of rural transformation was the coupling effect of the exogenous drivers and endogenous responses. The standardized regression coefficient between the drivers and the changes to rural regional functions is 0.766. The endogenous response is mainly manifested as the negative effect of the rural spatial reconstruction on the territorial agriculture-oriented function. (3) The key path of rural revitalization facilitated the optimization of regional functions through reorganization of the rural elements in Jianghan Plain. It is the strategic choice of rural areas to implement regional function zoning and realize the balance of spatial function. The research results can provide inspiration for theoretical research on rural geography, and provide policy and method support for rural revitalization in case areas.

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This paper intends to investigate the urban spatial patterns of Hubei Province and its evolution from three different perspectives: urban nodes, urban connections and urban clusters. The research adopts nighttime light imagery of cities in Hubei Province, the viewpoint of ′point-axis-area′ in the ′point-axis system′ theory, and employs light index model, gravity model and social network analysis. The findings are as follows: 1) In terms of urban nodes, the urbanization process of Hubei has been carried out mainly on the basis of external expansion rather than internal increasing. The polarization trend of urban connection network is strengthening. 2) As for urban connections, the estimation of urban connections using light index model is capable of containing various actual flow, and the connections are getting increasingly closer. 3) In regard to urban groups, seven urban groups of varying sizes have formed. On that basis, three stable and relatively independent urban groups as the centers, namely Wuchang, Yichang and Xiangyang emerge as well. But the structures of ′Wuhan Metropolitan Area′, ′Yichang-Jingzhou-Jingmen City Group′ and ′Xiangyang-Shiyen-Suizhou City Group′, which are defined by local development strategy in Hubei Province, are different from the above three urban groups.

The plant hormone auxin regulates many aspects of the plant life cycle through a series of transcriptional responses mediated by Auxin Response Factors (ARFs). However, thus far, it has not been possible to identify in vivo DNA binding sites for most of ARFs leading to a major gap in our understanding of these master regulatory transcription factors. Here we identify the DNA binding profiles for several ARFs as well as Aux/IAA proteins (IAAs), repressors of the response to auxin that heterodimerize with ARFs, using ChIP-seq. As expected, the common target genes of all tested ARFs are highly enriched in known auxin-responsive genes, each containing the motif K(T/G)GTCBB(T/G/C) with a core GTC and a non-A flanking sequence. Unexpectedly, genome-wide ARF binding sites are strongly associated with Aux/IAA ChIP-seq peaks, providing evidence that the Aux/IAA-ARF complex may control auxin transcriptional responses directly on the promoters of hormone-responsive genes. Additionally, we find that ABA response genes are also primary targets of an ARF10-IAA19 module and that a putative repressor ARF(ARF10) binds the same set of targets as activator ARFs. Finally, although ARFs have previously been reported to have strict spacing between their motifs when assayed in vitro, we observe that conservation of the spacing of ARF binding motifs is less rigid when assayed in planta.