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The cell wall (CW) of plant-interacting fungi, as the direct interface with host plants, plays a crucial role in fungal development. A number of secreted proteins are directly associated with the fungal CW, either through covalent or non-covalent interactions, and serve a range of important functions. In the context of plant–fungal interactions many are important for fungal development in the host environment and may therefore be considered fungal CW-associated effectors (CWAEs). Key CWAE functions include integrating chemical/physical signals to direct hyphal growth, interfering with plant immunity, and providing protection against plant defenses. In recent years, a diverse range of mechanisms have been reported that underpin their roles, with some CWAEs harboring conserved motifs or functional domains, while others are reported to have novel features. As such, the current understanding regarding fungal CWAEs is systematically presented here from the perspective of their biological functions in plant–fungal interactions. An overview of the fungal CW architecture and the mechanisms by which proteins are secreted, modified, and incorporated into the CW is first presented to provide context for their biological roles. Some CWAE functions are reported across a broad range of pathosystems or symbiotic/mutualistic associations. Prominent are the chitin interacting-effectors that facilitate fungal CW modification, protection, or suppression of host immune responses. However, several alternative functions are now reported and are presented and discussed. CWAEs can play diverse roles, some possibly unique to fungal lineages and others conserved across a broad range of plant-interacting fungi. [Graphic: see text] Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY 4.0 International license.

In this paper, a numerical and experimental investigation of geometrical parameters of the blade for plastic bottle shredder was performed based on the Taguchi method in combination with a response surface method (RSM). Nowadays, plastic waste has become a major threat to the environment. Shredding, in which plastic waste is shredded into small bits, ready for transportation and further processing, is a crucial step in plastic recycling. Although many studies on plastic shredders were performed, there was still a need for more researches on the optimization of shredder blades. Hence, a numerical analysis was carried out to study the influences of the relevant geometrical parameters. Next, a two-step optimization process combining the Taguchi method and the RSM was utilized to define optimal parameters. The simulation results clearly confirmed that the current technique can triumph over the limitation of the Taguchi method, originated from a discrete optimization nature. The optimal blade was then fabricated and experimented, showing lower wear via measurement by an ICamScope® microscope. Hence, it can be clearly inferred from this investigation that the current optimization method is a simple, sufficient tool to be applied in such a traditional process without using any complicated algorithms or expensive software.

Today, most of the essential energy needs of humans and production are met by fossil fuels that are expected to be exhausted in the next century. Furthermore, fossil fuels are not renewable and sensitive to the environment. In particular, there is growing concerned about the negative impact of internal combustion engine emissions on climate change and global environmental pollution. Fuel and alcohol-based additives are being considered as good candidates for sustainable alternative fuels used on compression ignition engines. In this review, the different key production pathways and properties of each of the five alcohol additive candidates were discussed. Besides, their effects on the emission characteristics of diesel engines when alcohol additives are added to diesel fuel are also carefully considered. Five candidates including methanol, ethanol, propanol, butanol, and pentanol have been shown to control pollutants from combustion engines while using alcohol-based additives. This is of great significance in the strategy of coping with the threats of pollution and climate change caused by the operation of transport vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The type of technology used to strengthen the surface structure of machine parts, typically by carbon-permeation, hasmade a great contribution to the mechanical engineering industry because of its outstanding advantages in corrosion resistance and enhanced mechanical and physical properties. Furthermore, carbon permeation is considered as an optimal method of heat treatment through the diffusion of carbon atoms into the surface of alloy steel. This study presented research results on the thermodynamic calculation and simulation of the carbon permeability process. Applying Fick's law, the paper calculated the distribution of carbon concentration in the alloy steel after it is absorbed from the surface into the internal of the sample. Using the SYSWELD software, an analysis was performed on the carbon permeability process to determine the distribution of carbon concentrations in 20CrMo steel that was then followed by a detailed analysis of the microstructure of the sample post the carburizing process. According to the calculation results, the surface carbon content was 0.9% and steadily decreased into the core. After 3 hours, the depth of the absorbent layer was measured at 0.5 mm for both the cylindrical and cubic samples. By analyzing the phase, the distribution of martensite phases such as ferrite/pearlite and residual austenite was also determined after the carburizing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the 65Mn steel is quenched mainly by oil media. Even though the lower cooling rate of oil compared to water reduces the hardness of steel post quenching, the deforming and cracking of parts are often minimized. On the other hand, the oil media also has the disadvantage of being flammable, creating smoke that adversely affects the media. The poly alkylene glycol (PAG) polymer quenchant is commonly used for quenching a variety of steels based on its advantages such as non-flammability and flexible cooling rate subjected to varying concentration and stirring speed. This article examines the effect of PAG polymer quenching solution (with concentrations of 10% and 20%) on deformation, hardness, and microstructure of C-ring samples made of 65Mn steel. Furthermore, the performance of PAG polymer quenchant is also compared with those of two common quenching solutions: Water and oil. When cooling in water, the C-ring samples had the largest deformation and 2 times higher than the results obtained when a 10% PAG solution was used. In particular, similar levels of deformation on the C-ring samples were observed in both cases of 20%PAGsolution and oil as the primary quenching media. Furthermore, the hardness level measured between the sampled parts quenched in the 20% PAG solution appeared to be more uniform than that obtained from the oil-quenched sample. The study of the microscopic structure of steel by optical microscopy combined with X-ray diffraction showed that the water hardened sample exhibited cracks and comprised of two phases, martensite and retained austenite. According to the results of Electron Back Scattering Diffraction (EBSD) analysis and backscattering electronic image (BSE), the content of austenite residue in the sample when the sample was cooled in PAG 10 and 20% solution was 3.21% and 4.73%, respectively and smaller than the measurements obtained from oil quenching solution. Thus, the 65Mn steel is cooled in 20% PAG solution for high hardness and more evenly distributed than when it is quenched in oil while still ensuring a small level of deformation. Therefore, the PAG 20% solution can completely replace oil as the main media used to quench the 65Mn steel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clearly known that support vector machine (SVM) parameters have significant effects on the accurate rate of classification result. Adjusting the SVM parameters improves its effectiveness and accuracy, which is always a challenge. On the other font, the Backtracking Search Optimization Algorithm (BSOA), an evolutionary algorithm for solving optimization problems, is proposed and proven to be effective through various benchmark problems. This paper proposes an optimization method for the SVM parameters based on BSOA. For convenience, the proposed method has been named BSOA-SVM. This method is tested with some real-world benchmark data sets to verify its robustness and effectiveness. Then, BSOA-SVM is applied for diagnosing roller bearing fault, which is a real world problem. In this diagnosing process, the original acceleration vibration signals are first decomposed into product function (PFs) by using the local mean decomposition (LMD) method. Next, initial feature matrices are extracted from PFs by singular value decomposition (SVD) techniques to give single values. Finally, these values serve as input vectors for the BSOA-SVM classifier. The results from the problem show that the combination of the BSOA-SVM classifiers obtains higher classification accuracy with a lower cost time compared to other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]