Aluminum adsorption and antimonite oxidation dominantly regulate antimony solubility in soils.

Soil antimony (Sb) contamination occurs globally due to natural processes and human activities. Total Sb concentration in soils fails to assess its ecological risk, while determined by the concentration of available Sb, which is readily for biological uptake. Available Sb in different soils varied significantly according to soil properties.

How different nitrogen fertilizers affect arsenic mobility in paddy soil after straw incorporation?

In straw return fields, nitrogen-fertilizers are added to mitigate microbial competition for nitrogen with plants. However, in arsenic (As)-contaminated paddy fields, the specific effects of different nitrogen fertilizers on As mobility after straw incorporation and the interactions among iron(Fe)/carbon(C)/nitrogen(N)/As are not well understood. In the reported microcosm experiment we monitored As-mobility as a function of different dosages of KNO, NHCl and rice straw incorporation.

Object Detection With Deep Learning: A Review.

Due to object detection's close relationship with video analysis and image understanding, it has attracted much research attention in recent years. Traditional object detection methods are built on handcrafted features and shallow trainable architectures. Their performance easily stagnates by constructing complex ensembles that combine multiple low-level image features with high-level context from object detectors and scene classifiers.

[Effects of CaCO Application on Soil Microbial Nitrogen Cycle in an Acid Soil].

Soil nitrification and denitrification are important steps in closing the nitrogen cycle. Understanding the effects of CaCO application on the physicochemical properties and nitrogen cycle in acid soil would provide some theoretical and technical information for stable and sustainable utilization of this agricultural soil. In this study, a field trial was conducted in Xiangtan city, Hunan province.

Facilitation of TRPV4 by TRPV1 is required for itch transmission in some sensory neuron populations.

The transient receptor potential channels (TRPs) respond to chemical irritants and temperature. TRPV1 responds to the itch-inducing endogenous signal histamine, and TRPA1 responds to the itch-inducing chemical chloroquine. We showed that, in sensory neurons, TRPV4 is important for both chloroquine- and histamine-induced itch and that TRPV1 has a role in chloroquine-induced itch.

Inverse-Free Extreme Learning Machine With Optimal Information Updating.

The extreme learning machine (ELM) has drawn insensitive research attentions due to its effectiveness in solving many machine learning problems. However, the matrix inversion operation involved in the algorithm is computational prohibitive and limits the wide applications of ELM in many scenarios. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we propose an inverse-free ELM to incrementally increase the number of hidden nodes, and update the connection weights progressively and optimally.

Descending control of itch transmission by the serotonergic system via 5-HT1A-facilitated GRP-GRPR signaling.

Central serotonin (5-hydroxytryptophan, 5-HT) modulates somatosensory transduction, but how it achieves sensory modality-specific modulation remains unclear. Here we report that enhancing serotonergic tone via administration of 5-HT potentiates itch sensation, whereas mice lacking 5-HT or serotonergic neurons in the brainstem exhibit markedly reduced scratching behavior. Through pharmacological and behavioral screening, we identified 5-HT1A as a key receptor in facilitating gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP)-dependent scratching behavior.

Cross-inhibition of NMBR and GRPR signaling maintains normal histaminergic itch transmission.

We previously showed that gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) in the spinal cord is important for mediating nonhistaminergic itch. Neuromedin B receptor (NMBR), the second member of the mammalian bombesin receptor family, is expressed in a largely nonoverlapping pattern with GRPR in the superficial spinal cord, and its role in itch transmission remains unclear. Here, we report that Nmbr knock-out (KO) mice exhibited normal scratching behavior in response to intradermal injection of pruritogens.

Postnatal maintenance of the 5-Ht1a-Pet1 autoregulatory loop by serotonin in the raphe nuclei of the brainstem.

Background: Despite the importance of 5-HT1A as a major target for the action of several anxiolytics/antidepressant drugs, little is known about its regulation in central serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) neurons.

Results: We report that expression of 5-HT1A and the transcription factor Pet1 was impaired in the rostral raphe nuclei of mice lacking tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2) after birth. The downregulation of Pet1 was recapitulated in 5-Ht1a-/- mice.

B-type natriuretic peptide is neither itch-specific nor functions upstream of the GRP-GRPR signaling pathway.

Background: A recent study by Mishra and Hoon identified B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) as an important peptide for itch transmission and proposed that BNP activates spinal natriuretic peptide receptor-A (NPRA) expressing neurons, which release gastrin releasing peptide (GRP) to activate GRP receptor (GRPR) expressing neurons to relay itch information from the periphery to the brain (Science 340:968-971, 2013). A central premise for the validity of this novel pathway is the absence of GRP in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. To this end, they showed that Grp mRNA in DRG neurons is either absent or barely detectable and claimed that BNP but not GRP is a major neurotransmitter for itch in pruriceptors.

Chronic itch development in sensory neurons requires BRAF signaling pathways.

Chronic itch, or pruritus, is associated with a wide range of skin abnormalities. The mechanisms responsible for chronic itch induction and persistence remain unclear. We developed a mouse model in which a constitutively active form of the serine/threonine kinase BRAF was expressed in neurons gated by the sodium channel Nav1.

Cooperative sparse representation in two opposite directions for semi-supervised image annotation.

Recent studies have shown that sparse representation (SR) can deal well with many computer vision problems, and its kernel version has powerful classification capability. In this paper, we address the application of a cooperative SR in semi-supervised image annotation which can increase the amount of labeled images for further use in training image classifiers. Given a set of labeled (training) images and a set of unlabeled (test) images, the usual SR method, which we call forward SR, is used to represent each unlabeled image with several labeled ones, and then to annotate the unlabeled image according to the annotations of these labeled ones.

Cellular basis of itch sensation.

Itch and pain are two distinct sensations. Although our previous study suggested that gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) is an itch-specific gene in the spinal cord, a long-standing question of whether there are separate neuronal pathways for itch and pain remains unsettled. We selectively ablated lamina I neurons expressing GRPR in the spinal cord of mice.

Involvement of P311 in the affective, but not in the sensory component of pain.

Pain is comprised of the sensory and affective components. Compared to the well-investigated mechanisms of the sensory pain, much less is known about the mechanisms underlying the affective pain. In recent years, accumulating evidence suggests that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a key structure for pain affection.

Central serotonergic neurons are differentially required for opioid analgesia but not for morphine tolerance or morphine reward.

Opioids remain the most effective analgesics despite their potential adverse effects such as tolerance and addiction. Mechanisms underlying these opiate-mediated processes remain the subject of much debate. Here we describe opioid-induced behaviors of Lmx1b conditional knockout mice (Lmx1bf/f/p), which lack central serotonergic neurons, and we report that opioid analgesia is differentially dependent on the central serotonergic system.

Mice lacking central serotonergic neurons show enhanced inflammatory pain and an impaired analgesic response to antidepressant drugs.

A large body of literature has implicated serotonin [5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)] in descending modulation of nociceptive transmission. Here, we have studied the pain behavior of Lmx1b conditional knock-out mice (Lmx1b(f/f/p)), which lack 5-HT neurons in the CNS. Lmx1b(f/f/p) mutant mice showed normal thermal and visceral pain responses but were less sensitive to mechanical stimuli and exhibited enhanced inflammatory pain compared with their littermate control mice.

Lmx1b is required for maintenance of central serotonergic neurons and mice lacking central serotonergic system exhibit normal locomotor activity.

Central serotonergic neurons have been implicated in numerous animal behaviors and psychiatric disorders, but the molecular mechanisms underlying their development are not well understood. Here we generated Lmx1b (LIM homeobox transcription factor 1 beta) conditional knock-out mice (Lmx1b(f/f/p)) in which Lmx1b was only deleted in Pet1 (pheochromocytoma 12 ETS factor-1)-expressing 5-HT neurons. In Lmx1b(f/f/p) mice, the initial generation of central 5-HT neurons appeared normal.

Expression of heme oxygenase-1 protein and messenger RNA in permanent cerebral ischemia in rats.

Background: Carbon monoxide has been regarded as a gaseous molecular messenger like nitric oxide.

Purpose: To clarify the role of heme oxygenase-1 in the permanent cerebral ischemia at the protein and mRNA level.

Methods: The expression of heme oxygenase-1 protein and messenger RNA was investigated at different time points following MCAO using immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, RT-PCR, and Northern blotting.

Changes of plasma membrane AtPase activity, membrane potential and transmembrane proton gradient in Kandelia candel and Avicennia marina seedlings with various salinities.

The salt-secreting mangrove, Avicennia marina, and non-salt-secreting mangrove, Kandelia candel were cultivated in sand with various salinities(0 per thousand, 10 per thousand, 20 per thousand, 30 per thousand, 40 per thousand) for 60 d. Plasma membrane vesicles of high-purity in leaves and roots of A. marina and K.

Focal adhesion kinase in netrin-1 signaling.

Netrins are a family of secreted molecules that are important for axonal outgrowth and guidance in the developing nervous system. However, the signaling mechanisms that lie immediately downstream of netrin receptors remain poorly understood. Here we report that the netrin receptor DCC (deleted in colorectal cancer) interacts with the focal adhesion kinase (FAK), a kinase implicated in regulating cell adhesion and migration.

Lmx1b controls the differentiation and migration of the superficial dorsal horn neurons of the spinal cord.

The differentiation and migration of superficial dorsal horn neurons and subsequent ingrowth of cutaneous afferents are crucial events in the formation of somatosensory circuitry in the dorsal spinal cord. We report that the differentiation and migration of the superficial dorsal horn neurons are regulated by the LIM homeobox gene Lmx1b, and its downstream targets Rnx and Drg11, two transcription factors implicated in the development of dorsal horn circuitry. An analysis of Lmx1b mutants shows that Lmx1b normally acts to maintain the expression of the Ebf genes and to repress the Zic genes.

Effects of forms and rates of potassium fertilizers on cadmium uptake by two cultivars of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.).

A greenhouse pot experiment was conducted to study the influence of potassium fertilizers in different forms and rates on cadmium (Cd) uptake by two cultivars of spring wheat (Triticum aestivum, L.): Brookton and Krichauff. Potassium fertilizers were added to soil at four levels: 0, 55, 110 and 166 mg K kg(-1) soil as KNO(3) (N), KCl (C) or K(2)SO(4) (S).