Nutritive value of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is limited by indigestible cell wall constituents, especially lignin. Commercially released genetically engineered alfalfa cultivars with reduced lignin (RL) concentration were developed recently by downregulation of the caffeoyl CoA 3‐O‐methyltransferase (CCoAOMT) enzyme in the lignin pathway. This research compared forage nutritive value and dry matter yield of a RL cultivar (‘HarvXtra‐008’) with non‐RL cultivars (‘54R02’ and ‘WL355RR’) across six states in the northern United States. A randomized complete block design with a split‐plot restriction on treatment randomization was used, where harvest intervals (28, 33, and 38 d) were assigned to whole plots and cultivars were the subplots. Harvest interval and cultivar effects were significant (P < 0.001) for all variables, and cultivars responded similarly across harvest intervals in that forage yield increased and nutritive value declined with increasing harvest interval. HarvXtra‐008 was consistently greater in forage nutritive value than non‐RL cultivars averaged across harvest intervals: it was 8.4% lower in acid detergent lignin, 3.5 to 7.5% lower in amylase‐treated neutral detergent fiber, and 5.3 to 7.7% greater in neutral detergent fiber digestibility, but 4.8 to 7.0% lower in dry matter yield. HarvXtra‐008 was slightly higher or similar in nutritive value and had similar or greater dry matter yield compared with non‐RL cultivars harvested on a harvest schedule 5 to 10 d earlier and more frequent. Thus, RL alfalfa can extend the time interval when it is possible to harvest forage with adequate fiber digestibility for animals with high energy requirements.

Genetically engineered alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cultivars with reduced lignin (RL) concentration are commercially available but their change in nutritive value as the crop matures within a growth cycle has not been thoroughly documented and might differ from non-RL cultivars. This research documents changes in forage nutritive value of a RL cultivar (HarvXtra-008) and two non-RL cultivars (54R02 and WL355RR) within five growth cycles across 2 yr in six states in the United States. A randomized complete block design with a split-plot arrangement of treatment randomization was used, with harvest growth cycles assigned to whole plots and cultivars to subplots in field trials. Cultivars were sampled on 3-to 4-d intervals between day 20 and 37 of regrowth. HarvXtra-008 was consistently lower (P ≤ .05) in acid detergent lignin (ADL) by 7-10% and amylase-treated neutral detergent fiber (aNDF) by 2-10% and 4-9% greater (P ≤ .05) in neutral detergent fiber digestibility (NDFD) than non-RL cultivars across all sampling dates. Cultivar × regrowth duration interactions (P ≤ .05) were found only for ADL and aNDF in two of the five growth cycles sampled, when regression coefficients were always smaller for HarvXtra-008 than 54R02. We calculated that the interval between harvests can be extended on average from 8 to 11 d for HarvXtra-008 compared with non-RL cultivars while maintaining adequate fiber digestibility for animals with high nutritional requirements; however, Abbreviations: ADL, acid detergent lignin; aNDF, amylase-treated neutral detergent fiber; CP, crude protein; MSC, mean stage count; NDFD, in vitro amylase-treated neutral detergent fiber digestibility; RL, reduced lignin; uNDF48, in vitro undigested amylase-treated neutral detergent fiber at 48 h. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Objectives: The current demographic information from China reports that 10%-19% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were diabetic. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) are considered firstline agents in patients with diabetes because of their nephroprotective effects, but administration of these drugs leads to upregulation of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which is responsible for the viral entry of severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Data are lacking to determine what pulmonary effects ACEIs or ARBs may have in patients with diabetes, which could be relevant in the management of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. This study aims to assess the prevalence of pulmonary adverse drug effects (ADEs) in patients with diabetes who were taking ACEI or ARBs to provide guidance as to how these medications could affect outcomes in acute respiratory illnesses such as SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: 1DATA, a unique data platform resulting from collaboration across veterinary and human health care, used an intelligent medicine recommender system (1DrugAssist) developed using several national and international databases to evaluate all ADEs reported to the Food and Drug Administration for patients with diabetes taking ACEIs or ARBs. Results: Mining of this data elucidated the proportion of a cluster of pulmonary ADEs associated with specific medications in these classes, which may aid health care professionals in understanding how these medications could worsen or predispose patients with diabetes to infections affecting the respiratory system, specifically COVID-19. Based on this data mining process, captopril was found to have a statistically significantly higher incidence of pulmonary ADEs compared with other ACEIs (P ¼ 0.005) as well as ARBs (P ¼ 0.012), though other specific drugs also had important pulmonary ADEs associated with their use. Conclusion: These analyses suggest that pharmacists and clinicians will need to consider the specific medication's adverse event profile, particularly captopril, on how it may affect infections and other acute disease states that alter pulmonary function, such as COVID-19.

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This study presents a new way to investigate comprehensive trends in cancer nanotechnology research in different countries, institutions, and journals providing critical insights to prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. This paper applied the qualitative method of bibliometric analysis on cancer nanotechnology using the PubMed database during the years 2000–2021. Inspired by hybrid medical models and content-based and bibliometric features for machine learning models, our results show cancer nanotechnology studies have expanded exponentially since 2010. The highest production of articles in cancer nanotechnology is mainly from US institutions, with several countries, notably the USA, China, the UK, India, and Iran as concentrated focal points as centers of cancer nanotechnology research, especially in the last five years. The analysis shows the greatest overlap between nanotechnology and DNA, RNA, iron oxide or mesoporous silica, breast cancer, and cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. Moreover, more than 50% of the information related to the keywords, authors, institutions, journals, and countries are considerably investigated in the form of publications from the top 100 journals. This study has the potential to provide past and current lines of research that can unmask comprehensive trends in cancer nanotechnology, key research topics, or the most productive countries and authors in the field.

Water scarcity and imbalances in irrigation and drainage are the main factors leading to soil salinization in arid areas. There is a recognized need for effective drainage measures to prevent and improve saline−alkali land. The principal objective of this project was to investigate the effects of drainage measures on soil desalination and farmland drainage in the process of improving saline–alkali soils; these measures included subsurface pipe drainage (SPD) and open ditch drainage (ODD). The results of the tests, conducted over two years, revealed that the soil desalination rate in the SPD test area was between 25.8% and 35.2%, the cotton emergence rate was 36.7%, and a 3.8 t hm−2 seed cotton yield could be obtained. The soil electrolytic conductivity (EC) decreased step by step over time, and the average annual decrease reached 10 dS m−1. The degree of soil salinization was reduced from a moderately saline soil level (8−15 dS m−1) to a weakly saline soil level (4–8 dS m−1). Thus, the phased goal of improving saline–alkali land was achieved. The soil desalination rate in the ODD test area was only 1/10 of the SPD area; high soil EC (9−12 dS m−1) and groundwater level (2–3 m) were the most limiting factors affecting cotton growth in the ODD test area. The current results show that the critical depth of groundwater level affecting farmland secondary salinization is 4 m. In order to improve the salt discharge standard, SPD technology should be used on the basis of ODD. For salt that has accumulated in the soil for a long time, the technical mode of drip irrigation and leaching, followed by SPD drainage, in combination with the current irrigation system can achieve the goal of sustainable agriculture development.

Hypertension is a recognized comorbidity for COVID-19. The association of antihypertensive medications with outcomes in patients with hypertension is not fully described. However, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), responsible for host entry of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) leading to COVID-19, is postulated to be upregulated in patients taking angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). Here, we evaluated the occurrence of pulmonary adverse drug events (ADEs) in patients with hypertension receiving ACEIs/ARBs to determine if disparities exist between individual drugs within the respective classes using data from the FDA Spontaneous Reporting Systems. For this purpose, we proposed the proportional reporting ratio to provide a statistical summary for the commonality of an ADE for a specific drug as compared to the entire database for drugs in the same or other classes. In addition, a statistical procedure, multiple logistic regression analysis, was employed to correct hidden confounders when causative covariates are underreported or untrusted to correct analyses of drug-ADE combinations. To date, analyses have been focused on drug classes rather than individual drugs which may have different ADE profiles depending on the underlying diseases present. A retrospective analysis of thirteen pulmonary ADEs showed significant differences associated with quinapril and trandolapril, compared to other ACEIs and ARBs. Specifically, quinapril and trandolapril were found to have a statistically significantly higher incidence of pulmonary ADEs compared with other ACEIs as well as ARBs (P < 0.0001) for group comparison (i.e., ACEIs vs. ARBs vs. quinapril vs. trandolapril) and (P ≤ 0.0007) for pairwise comparison (i.e., ACEIs vs. quinapril, ACEIs vs. trandolapril, ARBs vs. quinapril, or ARBs vs. trandolapril). This study suggests that specific members of the ACEI antihypertensive class (quinapril and trandolapril) have a significantly higher cluster of pulmonary ADEs.

Under the four-cut system, low-lignin alfalfa ( Medicago sativa L.) may extend harvesting intervals improving harvest management flexibility and producing forage products with higher nutritive values. The objective of this study was to compare forage yield and nutritive values of low-lignin and conventional alfalfa varieties when applied to six different harvest schedules in the first (2016) and second (2017) production years. There were 12 treatments of two alfalfa varieties as whole plots and six harvest schedules as subplots. Across harvest schedules, there were four cuttings in two production years. Three harvest intervals including “Standard” (high quality, HQ), “Standard+5-day” (medium quality, MQ), and “Standard+10-day” (high yield, HY) were chosen for the first cutting, and 30-day (HQ) and 35-day (HY) for the second cuttings. The third and fourth cuttings in 2016 were timed near final harvest date and in 2017 occurred at 35-day (MQ) and 40-day (HY). Variety by harvest schedule interaction was not significant, but the whole plot and sub-plot effects were significant. Hi-Gest 360 was consistently higher in nutritive value and with a similar yield as Gunner. Harvest schedules did not consistently differ in forage yield and nutritive values. HS-1 (“Standard” + 35-day + Medium Quality + High Yield) with shorter first two cutting intervals provided lower acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), higher relative feed value (RFV), and similar forage yield compared to other schedules. HS-1 had the highest economic incomes when considering RFV and yield among the six different harvest schedules.