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Stem mustard, the main raw material for pickled mustard tuber, is widely planted in Chongqing, China, and is an important local cash crop. Under the working conditions of sticky and wet soil in the Chongqing area, conventional furrow seeding has problems such as soil sticking to the furrow opener, poor mulching effect, etc. In this regard, this paper proposes the use of non-contact, soil-based, pneumatic shot seeding, in which seeds are shot into the soil to a predetermined depth by a high-speed air stream. The diameter of stem mustard seeds was found to be 1.33 mm, with a spherical rate of 95.32% using physical and mechanical properties. The high-speed camera test was used to determine the air pressure at the appropriate sowing depth, and the seed entry process was simulated by EDEM 2021 software, which analysed the movement process of the seed after entering the soil, and the structure of the seeder was designed based on the resulting test data. The structural parameters of the shot seeding device were analysed by a hydrodynamic simulation using Fluent 2022 R1 software and the following results were obtained: an outlet pipe diameter DC of 2 mm, mixing zone length H of 10 mm, mixing zone inlet diameter D of 15 mm, and steady-state gas flow rate of 80 m/s. Simulation seeding verification was conducted on the final determined structural parameters of the seeding device, and the simulation results showed that the seed velocity could reach 32.3 m/s. In actual experiments, it was found that when the vertical velocity of the seeds was greater than or equal to 26.59 m/s, the seeds could be completely and stably seeded into the soil. Therefore, the designed seeding device can meet the conditions of actual seeding experiments. In conclusion, this research offers a practical guideline for the rapid and precise sowing of stem mustard.

In response to the practical production challenges posed by the unreliable operation of the V-shaped squeezing soil-covering and -pressing device (VCP) for planters under clay soil conditions in Northeast China, incomplete seed furrow closure, and severe soil adhesion on pressing wheels, this study proposes a device with star-toothed concave discs for soil-covering and -pressing (STCP) with the aim of enhancing the soil-covering quality of planters. The main working principles of STCP were expounded, and its main structural and installation parameters were determined and designed. Based on bionics, with the dung beetle’s protruding head structure as the research object and UHMWPE as the material, an optimized protuberance-type bionic pressing wheel was designed. A Box–Behnken experiment was conducted by taking the width of the compression wheel, the spring deformation, and the installation angle as experimental factors, as well as the weight of the soil adhered to the surface of the pressing wheel (SW) and the soil compactness (SC) as the evaluation indicators. The optimal structural parameters of the pressing device were determined as follows: the width of the pressing wheel was 60.57 mm, the spring deformation was 55.19 mm, and the installation angle was 10.70°. The field comparison tests of soil covering performance showed that the star-tooth concave disc soil-covering device can effectively solve the problem of seed “hanging” and “drying”. The average covered soil weight of the star-tooth concave disc soil-covering device was 241.46 g, and the average covered soil weight of VCP was 223.56 g. Compared with VCP, the average covered soil weight of STCP increased by 8.01%. The variation coefficient of covered soil weight after the operation of the star-tooth concave disc soil-covering device was 3.71%, which was more uniform than VCP. The field comparison tests of soil-covering thickness showed that the uniformity of soil-covering thickness can be significantly improved by adding a star-tooth concave disc soil-covering device to VCP. The comparative tests of soil anti-adhesive showed that the convex hull type pressing wheels optimized by bionics had better soil anti-adhesive performance, and the soil adhesion weight was reduced by 43.68% compared with VCP. The field comparative tests of seedling emergence showed that the seedling emergence rate after STCP operation was 3.9% higher than that of VCP.

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are related to long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons, comprising gene sequences of exogenous retroviruses integrated into the host genome and inherited according to Mendelian law. They are considered to have contributed greatly to the evolution of host genome structure and function. We previously characterized HERV-K HML-9 in the human genome. However, the biological function of this type of element in the genome of the chimpanzee, which is the closest living relative of humans, largely remains elusive. Therefore, the current study aims to characterize HML-9 in the chimpanzee genome and to compare the results with those in the human genome. Firstly, we report the distribution and genetic structural characterization of the 26 proviral elements and 38 solo LTR elements of HML-9 in the chimpanzee genome. The results showed that the distribution of these elements displayed a non-random integration pattern, and only six elements maintained a relatively complete structure. Then, we analyze their phylogeny and reveal that the identified elements all cluster together with HML-9 references and with those identified in the human genome. The HML-9 integration time was estimated based on the 2-LTR approach, and the results showed that HML-9 elements were integrated into the chimpanzee genome between 14 and 36 million years ago and into the human genome between 18 and 49 mya. In addition, conserved motifs, cis-regulatory regions, and enriched PBS sequence features in the chimpanzee genome were predicted based on bioinformatics. The results show that pathways significantly enriched for ERV LTR-regulated genes found in the chimpanzee genome are closely associated with disease development, including neurological and neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders. In summary, the identification, characterization, and genomics of HML-9 presented here not only contribute to our understanding of the role of ERVs in primate evolution but also to our understanding of their biofunctional significance.

Respiratory burst oxidase homologs (RBOHs), also known as NADPH oxidases, contribute significantly to the production of ROS in plants, alongside other major sources such as photosynthesis and electron transport in chloroplasts. It has been shown that plant RBOHs play an active role in plant adversity response and electron transport. However, the phylogenetic analysis and characterization of the SlRBOH gene family in tomatoes have not been systematically studied. This study identified 11 SlRBOH genes in the tomato genome using a genome-wide search approach. The physicochemical properties, chromosomal localization, subcellular localization, secondary structure, conserved motifs, gene structure, phylogenetics, collinear relationships, cis-acting elements, evolutionary selection pressures, tissue expressions, and expression patterns under exogenous phytohormones (ABA and MeJA) and different abiotic stresses were also analyzed. We found that the SlRBOHs are distributed across seven chromosomes, collinearity reflecting their evolutionary relationships with corresponding genes in Arabidopsis thaliana and rice. Additionally, all the SlRBOH members have five conserved domains and 10 conserved motifs and have similar gene structures. In addition, the results of an evolutionary selection pressure analysis showed that SlRBOH family members evolved mainly by purifying selection, making them more structurally stable. Cis-acting element analyses showed that SlRBOHs were responsive to light, hormone, and abiotic stresses. Tissue expression analysis showed that SlRBOH family members were expressed in all tissues of tomato to varying degrees, and most of the SlRBOHs with the strongest expression were found in the roots. In addition, the expressions of tomato SlRBOH genes were changed by ABA, MeJA, dark period extension, NaCl, PEG, UV, cold, heat, and H2O2 treatments. Specifically, SlRBOH4 was highly expressed under NaCl, PEG, heat, and UV treatments, while SlRBOH2 was highly expressed under cold stress. These results provide a basis for further studies on the function of SlRBOHs in tomato.

High thermal conductivity and a high breakdown field make diamond a promising candidate for high-power and high-temperature semiconductor devices. Diamond also has a higher radiation hardness than silicon. Recent studies show that diamond has exceptionally large electron and hole momentum relaxation times, facilitating compact THz and sub-THz plasmonic sources and detectors working at room temperature and elevated temperatures. The plasmonic resonance quality factor in diamond TeraFETs could be larger than unity for the 240–600 GHz atmospheric window, which could make them viable for 6G communications applications. This paper reviews the potential and challenges of diamond technology, showing that diamond might augment silicon for high-power and high-frequency compact devices with special advantages for extreme environments and high-frequency applications.

S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) is a well-known regulator in controlling protein S-nitrosylation modification and nitric oxide (NO) homeostasis. Here, a GSNOR inhibitor N6022 and SlGSNOR silencing were applied to investigate the roles of SlGSNOR in tomato fruit postharvest ripening. We found that the application of N6022 and S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO, a NO donor), and SlGSNOR silencing delayed the transition of fruit skin color by improving total chlorophyll level by 88.57%, 44.78%, and 91.03%, respectively. Meanwhile, total carotenoid and lycopene contents were reduced by these treatments. Concurrently, the activity of chlorophyll biosynthesis enzymes and the expression of related genes were upregulated, and the transcript abundances of total carotenoid bioproduction genes were downregulated, by N6022 and GSNO treatments and SlGSNOR silencing. In addition, fruit softening was postponed by N6022, GSNO, and SlGSNOR silencing, through delaying the decrease of firmness and declining cell wall composition; structure-related enzyme activity; and gene expression levels. Furthermore, N6022, GSNO, and SlGSNOR silencing enhanced the accumulation of titratable acid; ascorbic acid; total phenol; and total flavonoid, but repressed the content of soluble sugar and soluble protein accompanied with the expression pattern changes of nutrition-related genes. In addition, the endogenous NO contents were elevated by 197.55%; 404.59%; and 713.46%, and the endogenous SNOs contents were enhanced by 74.65%; 93.49%; and 94.85%; by N6022 and GSNO treatments and SlGSNOR silencing, respectively. Altogether, these results indicate that SlGSNOR positively promotes tomato postharvest fruit ripening, which may be largely on account of its negative roles in the endogenous NO level.

Fatty acids and their derivatives play a variety of roles in living organisms. Fatty acids not only store energy but also comprise membrane lipids and act as signaling molecules. There are three main proteins involved in the fatty acid β-oxidation pathway in plant peroxisomes, including acyl-CoA oxidase (ACX), multifunctional protein (MFP), and 3-ketolipoyl-CoA thiolase (KAT). However, genome-scale analysis of KAT and MFP has not been systemically investigated in tomatoes. Here, we conducted a bioinformatics analysis of KAT and MFP genes in tomatoes. Their physicochemical properties, protein secondary structure, subcellular localization, gene structure, phylogeny, and collinearity were also analyzed. In addition, a conserved motif analysis, an evolutionary pressure selection analysis, a cis-acting element analysis, tissue expression profiling, and a qRT-PCR analysis were conducted within tomato KAT and MFP family members. There are five KAT and four MFP family members in tomatoes, which are randomly distributed on four chromosomes. By analyzing the conserved motifs of tomato KAT and MFP family members, we found that both KAT and MFP members are highly conserved. In addition, the results of the evolutionary pressure selection analysis indicate that the KAT and MFP family members have evolved mainly from purifying selection, which makes them more structurally stable. The results of the cis-acting element analysis show that SlKAT and SlMFP with respect may respond to light, hormones, and adversity stresses. The tissue expression analysis showed that KAT and MFP family members have important roles in regulating the development of floral organs as well as fruit ripening. The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the expressions of SlKAT and SlMFP genes can be regulated by ABA, MeJA, darkness, NaCl, PEG, UV, cold, heat, and H2O2 treatments. These results provide a basis for the involvement of the SlKAT and SlMFP genes in tomato floral organ development and abiotic stress response, which lay a foundation for future functional study of SlKAT and SlMFP in tomatoes.

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a group of polyhydroxylated steroids for plant growth and development, regulating numerous physiological and biochemical processes and participating in multi-pathway signaling in plants. 24-Epibrassinolide (EBR) is the most commonly used BR for the investigation of the effects of exogenous steroidal phytohormones on plant physiology. Although SlSERK3B is considered a gene involved in the brassinosteroid (BR) signaling pathway, its specific role in plant growth and development has not been reported in detail. In this study, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) seedlings treated with 0.05 μmol L−1 EBR showed a significant increase in plant height, stem diameter, and fresh weight, demonstrating that BR promotes the growth of tomato seedlings. EBR treatment increased the expression of the BR receptor gene SlBRI1, the co-receptor gene SlSERK3A and its homologs SlSERK3B, and SlBZR1. The SlSERK3B gene was silenced by TRV-mediated virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) technology. The results showed that both brassinolide (BL) content and BR synthesis genes were significantly up-regulated in TRV-SlSERK3B-infected seedlings compared to the control seedlings. In contrast, plant height, stem diameter, fresh weight, leaf area and total root length were significantly reduced in silenced plants. These results suggest that silencing SlSERK3B may affect BR synthesis and signaling, thereby affecting the growth of tomato seedlings. Furthermore, the photosynthetic capacity of TRV-SlSERK3B-infected tomato seedlings was reduced, accompanied by decreased photosynthetic pigment content chlorophyll fluorescence, and photosynthesis parameters. The expression levels of chlorophyll-degrading genes were significantly up-regulated, and carotenoid-synthesising genes were significantly down-regulated in TRV-SlSERK3B-infected seedlings. In conclusion, silencing of SlSERK3B inhibited BR signaling and reduced photosynthesis in tomato seedlings, and this correlation suggests that SlSERK3B may be related to BR signaling and photosynthesis enhancement.

Li2MnO3 nanobelts have been synthesized via the molten salt method that used the Na0.44MnO2 nanobelts as both the manganese source and precursor template in LiNO3-LiCl eutectic molten salt. The electrochemical properties of Li2MnO3 reduced via a low-temperature reduction process as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries have been measured and compared. Particularly investigated in this work are the effects of the synthesis conditions, such as reaction temperature, molten salt contents, and reaction time on the morphology and particle size of the synthesized Na0.44MnO2 precursor. Through repeated synthesis characterizations of the Na0.44MnO2 precursor, and comparing the electrochemical properties of the reduced Li2MnO3 nanobelts, the optimum conditions for the best electrochemical performance of the reduced Li2MnO3 are determined to be a molten salt reaction temperature of 850 °C and a molten salt amount of 25 g. When charge–discharged at 0.1 C (1 C = 200 mAh g−1) with a voltage window between 2.0 and 4.8 V, the reduced Li2MnO3 synthesized with reaction temperature of Na0.44MnO2 precursor at 850 °C and molten salt amounts of 25 g exhibits the best rate performance and cycling performance. This work develops a new strategy to prepare manganese-based cathode materials with special morphology.

The FAR1-RELATED SEQUENCE1 (FAR1) and FAR-RED ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL3 (FHY3) gene family plays a crucial role in various physiological and developmental processes, including seed germination, photomorphogenesis, flowering and stress responses. However, genome analysis of FAR1/FHY3 in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) has not been systemically investigated. In this study, 20 FAR1/FHY3 genes in cucumber were identified. The 20 FAR1/FHY3 members are randomly distributed on six chromosomes. The examination of subcellular localization indicated that the nucleus is the primary site where the 20 FAR1/FHY3 members are predominantly found. The analysis of the phylogenetic tree further revealed that the FAR1/FHY3 genes in cucumber are grouped into three distinct categories, exhibiting remarkable resemblance to the corresponding genes in other plant species. The analysis of cis-acting elements showed that most FAR1/FHY3 genes contain a variety of hormones as well as stress-related and light response elements. Through scrutinizing the expression patterns in various tissues, it was discerned that these genes are prominently expressed in roots, stems and leaves, with roots exhibiting the highest level of expression. Additionally, the 20 cucumber FAR1/FHY3 genes are all responsive to jasmonic acid methyl ester (Me-JA) and abscisic acid (ABA). CsFAR6 and CsFAR12 are significantly induced by Me-JA and ABA, respectively. CsFAR13 positively responds to NaCl and PEG6000 stresses. CsFAR11, CsFAR15 and CsFAR13 are significantly induced by the dark. The findings presented in this study establish compelling support for the potential involvement of FAR1/FHY3 genes in the growth, development and stress response of cucumbers. Moreover, these results serve as a solid basis for future investigations into the functional analysis of FAR1/FHY3.

Fasciclin-like arabinogalactan proteins (FLAs), a subclass of arabinogalactan proteins (AGPs), participate in mediating plant growth, development, and response to abiotic stress. However, the characterization and function of FLAs in tomato are currently unknown. In this study, members of the tomato FLA family are characterized and analyzed in relation to their response to phytohormonal and abiotic stresses. The results show that a total of 24 FLA members were characterized in tomato. The structural domain analysis showed that these members have a high protein similarity. The expression profiles of different tissues indicated that the genes of most members of the tomato FLA gene family are highly expressed in roots, but to a lower extent in fruits. qRT-PCR analysis revealed that all 24 tomato FLA genes are responsive to ABA and MeJA. SlFLAs showed a positive response to salt and cold stress. SlFLA1, SlFLA12, and SlFLA14 are significantly induced under darkness. SlFLA1 and SlFLA3 are significantly induced under drought stress. This study provides a basis for a further understanding of the role of tomato FLA homologous genes in plant response to abiotic stress and lays the foundation for further research on the function of FLAs in tomato.

Postharvest ripening of sand pear fruit leads to quality deterioration, including changes in texture, flavor, and fruit color. Salicylic acid (SA), an important defense-related hormone, delays fruit ripening and maintains fruit quality, but the underling mechanism remains unclear. Herein, we evaluated the efficacy of SA in delaying the ripening process of Pyrus pyrifolia cv. ’Hosui’ pear fruit, as evidenced by the reduction in fruit weight loss, inhibition of firmness loss, cell wall degradation and soluble sugars, and retention of total phenols. Based on comparative transcriptomic data, a total of 3837 and 1387 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified during room-temperature storage of control fruit and between SA-treated and control fruit, respectively. Further KEGG analysis revealed that the DEGs were mainly implicated in plant hormone signal transduction, starch and sugar metabolism, and cell wall modification. Moreover, exogenous SA treatment also altered the expression of many transcription factor (TF) families, including those in the ethylene-responsive factor (ERF), NAM, ATAF, CUC (NAC), basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), basic leucine zipper (bZIP), and v-myb avian myeloblastosis viral oncogene homolog (MYB) families. Together, the results offer important insights into the role of SA-responsive genes in controlling fruit ripening in sand pears.

Pine wilt disease (PWD) is a worldwide affliction that poses a significant menace to forest ecosystems. The swift and precise identification of pine trees under infection holds paramount significance in the proficient administration of this ailment. The progression of remote sensing and deep learning methodologies has propelled the utilization of target detection and recognition techniques reliant on remote sensing imagery, emerging as the prevailing strategy for pinpointing affected trees. Although the existing object detection algorithms have achieved remarkable success, virtually all methods solely rely on a Digital Orthophoto Map (DOM), which is not suitable for diseased trees detection, leading to a large false detection rate in the detection of easily confused targets, such as bare land, houses, brown herbs and so on. In order to improve the ability of detecting diseased trees and preventing the spread of the epidemic, we construct a large-scale PWD detection dataset with both DOM and Digital Surface Model (DSM) images and propose a novel detection framework, DDNet, which makes full use of the spectral features and geomorphological spatial features of remote sensing targets. The experimental results show that the proposed joint network achieves an AP50 2.4% higher than the traditional deep learning network.

Watercore is a physiological disorder which often occurs in Rosaceae fruits, and it causes hypoxia stress, promoting fruit decay. γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was reported as being involved in different abiotic stresses, and glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) is the key enzyme of GABA synthesis in plants. Our previous transcriptome analysis found that PpGAD2 was significantly induced in watercore fruit; however, the mechanism through which PpGAD2 regulates watercore-induced hypoxia stress resistance in pears is unclear. The present study found that the fruit pulp ethanol, malondialdehyde (MDA) and H2O2 content was significantly inhibited by exogenous GABA. The transcript abundance of PpGAD2 was significantly higher than that of other PpGADs in watercore fruit or healthy fruit. Tissue expression showed that the content of PpGAD2 in mature fruit was higher than in young fruit. Moreover, subcellular localization showed that PpGAD2 was located in the cytoplasm. Transient overexpression assays suggested that PpGAD2 had a role in GABA synthesis. Several CML (calmodulin–like) genes were also significantly increased in watercore fruit. Moreover, PpWRKY53 was significantly induced in watercore fruit, and the GUS activity assay showed that PpWRKY53 can significantly increase the activity of the PpGAD2 promoter. Taken together, these results demonstrate that PpGAD2 played an important role in GABA synthesis to increase plants’ resistance to hypoxia stress, and its activity may be affected by PpWRKY53 and several watercore-induced CML genes.

Object detection in drone-captured images is a popular task in recent years. As drones always navigate at different altitudes, the object scale varies considerably, which burdens the optimization of models. Moreover, high-speed and low-altitude flight cause motion blur on densely packed objects, which leads to great challenges. To solve the two issues mentioned above, based on YOLOv5, we add an additional prediction head to detect tiny-scale objects and replace CNN-based prediction heads with transformer prediction heads (TPH), constructing the TPH-YOLOv5 model. TPH-YOLOv5++ is proposed to significantly reduce the computational cost and improve the detection speed of TPH-YOLOv5. In TPH-YOLOv5++, cross-layer asymmetric transformer (CA-Trans) is designed to replace the additional prediction head while maintain the knowledge of this head. By using a sparse local attention (SLA) module, the asymmetric information between the additional head and other heads can be captured efficiently, enriching the features of other heads. In the VisDrone Challenge 2021, TPH-YOLOv5 won 4th place and achieved well-matched results with the 1st place model (AP 39.43%). Based on the TPH-YOLOv5 and CA-Trans module, TPH-YOLOv5++ can further increase efficiency while achieving comparable and better results.

Pedestrian and vehicle detection is widely used in intelligent assisted driving, pedestrian counting, drone aerial photography, and other applications. Recently, with the development of gigacameras, gigapixel-level images have emerged. The large field of view and high resolution provide global and local information, which enables object detection in real-world scenarios. Although existing pedestrian and vehicle detection algorithms have achieved remarkable success for standard images, their methods are not suitable for ultra-high-resolution images. In order to improve the performance of existing pedestrian and vehicle detectors in real-world scenarios, we used a sliding window to crop the original images to solve this problem. When fusing the sub-images, we proposed a midline method to reduce the cropped objects that NMS could not eliminate. At the same time, we used varifocal loss to solve the imbalance between positive and negative samples caused by the high resolution. We also found that pedestrians and vehicles were separable in size and comprised more than one target type. As a result, we improved the detector performance with single-class object detection for pedestrians and vehicles, respectively. At the same time, we provided many useful strategies to improve the detector. The experimental results demonstrated that our method could improve the performance of real-world pedestrian and vehicle detection.

Multivalent metal ion (Mg2+, Zn2+, Ca2+, and Al3+) batteries (MMIBs) emerged as promising technologies for large-scale energy storage systems in recent years due to the abundant metal reserves in the Earth’s crust and potentially low cost. However, the lack of high-performance electrode materials is still the main obstacle to the development of MMIBs. As a newly large family of two-dimensional transition metal carbides, nitrides, and carbonitrides, MXenes have attracted growing focus in the energy storage field because of their large specific surface area, excellent conductivity, tunable interlayer spaces, and compositional diversity. In particular, the multifunctional chemistry and superior hydrophilicity enable MXenes to serve not only as electrode materials but also as important functional components for heterojunction composite electrodes. Herein, the advances of MXene-based materials since its discovery for MMIBs are summarized, with an emphasis on the rational design and controllable synthesis of MXenes. More importantly, the fundamental understanding of the relationship between the morphology, structure, and function of MXenes is highlighted. Finally, the existing challenges and future research directions on MXene-based materials toward MMIBs application are critically discussed and prospected.

Experiments and theory have revealed versatile possible phases for adsorbed and confined water on two-dimensional solid surfaces, which are closely related to the aspects of various phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology, and tribology. In this review, we summarize our recent works showing that the different water phases with disordered and ordered structures can greatly affect surface wetting behavior, dielectric properties, and frictions. This includes the ordered phase of water structure that induces an unexpected phenomenon, an “ordered water monolayer that does not completely wet water”, at T = 300 K on the model’s surface and some real, solid material, together with the anomalous low dielectric properties due to ordered water.

Hydrogen gas (H2) is an important molecular messenger in animal and plant cells and is involved in various aspects of plant processes, including root organogenesis induction, stress tolerance and postharvest senescence. This study investigated the effect of H2 fumigation on the quality of Lanzhou lily scales. The results indicated the H2 remarkably declined the color variation and browning degree in Lanzhou lily scales by suppressing the activity of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), peroxidase (POD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO). Moreover, H2 significantly alleviated the degradation of soluble proteins and soluble sugars in Lanzhou lily scales during postharvest storage, mitigating the decline in nutritional quality. This alleviating effect of H2 might be achieved by increasing the endogenous H2 concentration. Collectively, our data provide new insights into the postharvest quality reduction of Lanzhou lily scales mitigated by H2 fumigation.

Discussing the development and shrinkage process of glaciers is of great significance for the in–depth comprehension of regional environmental evolution and predicting global changes. However, there is little understanding of the developmental and retreat processes of mountain glaciers during the Late Quaternary (150 ka) in the East Asian Monsoon region. Using the latest chronological glacial data from eastern China, Taiwan, the Russian Far East, and the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu, which are all regions impacted by the East Asian Monsoon, we screened reliable glacial age data. This study compiled and compared the age sequences of the different mountain glaciations (dating techniques included optically–stimulated luminescence (OSL), thermoluminescence (TL), electron spin resonance (ESR), U–series (U), cosmogenic nuclides (10Be/CRN), carbon–14 (14C) and potassium–argon (K–Ar), etc.). Based on the evolutionary features of the glaciations in these mountains, by comparison with the marine isotope stage (MIS) environment, the influence of monsoonal circulation patterns on the regional development of glaciers was analyzed. This study determined that Japanese mountain glacial stages since 150 ka are the most complete in the East Asian Monsoon region, having developed during MIS 6–1. Taiwanese mountain glaciers developed during MIS 4–1, but glacial stages in continental East Asia were relatively short, with glaciers first developing only during MIS 3b–1. The reason for this this phenomenon is that the tectonic uplift in different subregions was significantly different; on the other hand, it is also related to the difference of precipitation between land and sea in monsoon climate. By comparing the glacial glaciations in the East Asian Monsoon region with western China, we found that there were significant differences between the extent, onset time, and length of glacial periods. Since the Last Glacial Period, precipitation levels have become transitional and concentrated during the summer months, and temperatures have been continuously changing as a result of the many periodic changes in the East Asian Monsoon. From the Early Last Glacial Period (MIS 4) to the Middle Last Glacial Period (MIS 3b) to the Last Glacial Period (MIS 2/LGM–YD), climatic conditions increasingly restricted the development of glaciers; the regional environment continued to warm until glaciers completely disappeared during the Late Holocene.

The development of novel materials is essential for the next generation of electric vehicles and portable devices. Tin oxide (SnO2), with its relatively high theoretical capacity, has been considered as a promising anode material for applications in energy storage devices. However, the SnO2 anode material suffers from poor conductivity and huge volume expansion during charge/discharge cycles. In this study, we evaluated an approach to control the conductivity and volume change of SnO2 through a controllable and effective method by confining different percentages of SnO2 nanoparticles into carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The binder-free confined SnO2 in CNT composite was deposited via an electrostatic spray deposition technique. The morphology of the synthesized and deposited composite was evaluated by scanning electron microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron spectroscopy. The binder-free 20% confined SnO2 in CNT anode delivered a high reversible capacity of 770.6 mAh g−1. The specific capacity of the anode increased to 1069.7 mAh g−1 after 200 cycles, owing to the electrochemical milling effect. The delivered specific capacity after 200 cycles shows that developed novel anode material is suitable for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).

Optimal demodulation band extraction is a significant step in rolling bearing fault analysis. However, existing methods, primarily based on global indexes and neglecting negative local outliers, cannot identify compound faults in intense noise environments. To address this problem, a novel demodulation band extraction method based on weighted geometric cyclic relative entropy (WGCRE) is proposed. WGCRE is defined on the cyclic sub-bands model of the logarithmic envelope spectrum (LES) to fully consider the bearing characteristic frequency of pseudo-cyclostationarity. In detail, local and global thresholds are separately set by the white noise parameter and harmonic-to-noise ratio to exclude the exogenous noise outliers. On this basis, the WGCRE is defined as a geometrically weighted index of several different fault types to avoid harmonic interference and improve the identification of composite faults. WGCRE–gram, similar to fast kurtogram (FK), is then constructed by replacing kurtosis with WGCRE to extract the optimal demodulation band. Compared with FK and another LES-based method, logarithmic-cycligram, the proposed method is more robust for accurately identifying single and compound faults under external noise. The effectiveness of this method is verified through simulations and actual tests. Simulation experiments of different kinds and intensities of exogenous noise interference preliminarily determine the superior robustness of WGCRE in the face of solid noise. The inner ring, outer ring, and composite fault experiments further confirmed the robust adaptability of WGCRE in the face of complex working conditions.

The extent of molecular diversity and differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in transgenic lines provide valuable information to understand the phenotypic performance of transgenic crops compared with their parents. Here, we compared the differences in the phenotypic variation of twelve agronomic and end-use quality traits, the extent of microsatellite diversity, and DEPs of a recurrent parent line with three transgenic rice restorer lines carrying either CRY1C gene on chromosome 11 or CRY2A gene on chromosome 12 or both genes. The three transgenic lines had significantly smaller stem borer infestation than the recurrent parent without showing significant differences among most agronomic traits, yield components, and end-use quality traits. Using 512 microsatellite markers, the three transgenic lines inherited 2.9–4.3% of the Minghui 63 donor genome and 96.3–97.1% of the CH891 recurrent parent genome. As compared with the recurrent parent, the number of upregulated and down-regulated proteins in the three transgenic lines varied from 169 to 239 and from 131 to 199, respectively. Most DEPs were associated with the secondary metabolites biosynthesis transport and catabolism, carbohydrate transport and metabolism, post-translational modification, and signal transduction mechanisms. Although several differentially expressed proteins were observed between transgenic rice and its recurrent parent, the differences may not have been associated with grain yield and most other phenotypic traits in transgenic rice.

The aims of this article were to investigate Bacillus safensis HL3 spore for its capacity to degrade and detoxify indigo carmine and to provide an effective biological agent for the treatment of isatin dye wastewater. Bacillus safensis HL3 spore was found to decolorize indigo carmine by 97% in the presence of acetosyringone within 2 h. Significantly increased activities of spore laccase, intracellular tyrosinase, and lignin peroxidase upon exposure to indigo carmine were observed. The results of RT–qPCR also showed that the expression of laccase gene was significantly increased. The spore has the ability to degrade indigo carmine through oxidization. Furthermore, the pathway by which indigo carmine is degraded was investigated using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis to identify the biodegradation products. A detailed pathway of indigo carmine degradation by bacterial spores was proposed for the first time. Toxicity tests indicated that the biodegradation products of indigo carmine are non-toxic to Nicotiana tabacum seeds and are less hazardous to human erythrocytes than the original dye. Indigo carmine is a typical recalcitrant dye and severely jeopardizes human health. The results demonstrate the utility of the spore from Bacillus safensis HL3 for the degradation of indigo carmine and simultaneous reduction of its toxicity.

Ethylene (ETH), as a key plant hormone, plays critical roles in various processes of plant growth and development. ETH has been reported to induce adventitious rooting. Moreover, our previous studies have shown that exogenous ETH may induce plant adventitious root development in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). However, the key genes involved in this process are still unclear. To explore the key genes in ETH-induced adventitious root development, we employed a transcriptome technique and revealed 1415 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), with 687 DEGs up-regulated and 728 DEGs down-regulated. Using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, we further identified critical pathways that were involved in ETH-induced adventitious root development, including carbon metabolism (starch and sucrose metabolism, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, citrate cycle (TCA cycle), oxidative phosphorylation, fatty acid biosynthesis, and fatty acid degradation), secondary metabolism (phenylalanine metabolism and flavonoid biosynthesis) and plant hormone signal transduction. In carbon metabolism, ETH reduced the content of sucrose, glucose, starch, the activity of sucrose synthase (SS), sucrose–phosphate synthase (SPS) and hexokinase (HK), and the expressions of CsHK2, pyruvate kinase2 (CsPK2), and CsCYP86A1, whereas it enhanced the expressions of β-amylase 1 (CsBAM1) and β-amylase 3 (CsBAM3). In secondary metabolism, the transcript levels of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (CsPAL) and flavonoid 3′-monooxygenase (CsF3′M) were negatively regulated, and that of primary-amine oxidase (CsPAO) was positively regulated by ETH. Additionally, the indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) content and the expressions of auxin and ETH signaling transduction-related genes (auxin transporter-like protein 5 (CsLAX5), CsGH3.17, CsSUAR50, and CsERS) were suppressed, whereas the abscisic acid (ABA) content and the expressions of ABA and BR signaling transduction-related genes (CsPYL1, CsPYL5, CsPYL8, BRI1-associated kinase 1 (CsBAK1), and CsXTH3) were promoted by ETH. Furthermore, the mRNA levels of these genes were confirmed by real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). These results indicate that genes related to carbon metabolism, secondary metabolite biosynthesis, and plant hormone signaling transduction are involved in ETH-induced adventitious root development. This work identified the key pathways and genes in ETH-induced adventitious rooting in cucumber, which may provide new insights into ETH-induced adventitious root development and will be useful for investigating the molecular roles of key genes in this process in further studies.

Sensitive and flexible pressure sensors have invoked considerable interest for a broad range of applications in tactile sensing, physiological sensing, and flexible electronics. The barrier between high sensitivity and low fabrication cost needs to be addressed to commercialize such flexible pressure sensors. A low-cost sacrificial template-assisted method for the capacitive sensor has been reported herein, utilizing a porous Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer and a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composite-based dielectric layer. The sensor shows high sensitivity of 2.42 kPa−1 along with a low limit of detection of 1.46 Pa. The high sensitivity originates from adding MWCNT to PDMS, increasing the composite polymer’s dielectric constant. Besides this, the pressure sensor shows excellent stability at a cyclic loading of 9000 cycles, proving its reliability for long-lasting application in tactile and physiological sensing. The high sensitivity of the sensor is suitable for the detection of small deformations such as pulse waveforms as well as tactile pressure sensing. In addition, the paper demonstrates a simultaneous contact and non-contact sensing capability suitable for dual sensing (pressure and proximity) with a single data readout system. The dual-mode sensing capability may open opportunities for realizing compact systems in robotics, gesture control, contactless applications, and many more. The practicality of the sensor was shown in applications such as tactile sensing, Morse code generator, proximity sensing, and pulse wave sensing.

Cutting is a significant part of agricultural material processing, and the cutting technology determines the quality of agricultural products. Water jet cutting technology is a non-contact and cold cutting technology suitable for cutting agricultural materials. It can realize an environmentally friendly cutting process avoiding such problems as heat generation, sharpening and cleaning blades, and microbial cross-contamination. This paper reviews the current status of water jet cutting of six kinds of agricultural materials, including vegetables, fruits, meats, woods, stems, and soils. By analyzing how to complete different cutting operations, improve cutting ability, or control post-cutting influences, the problems and solutions of water jet cutting of each material are summarized. Then, combined with the application requirements, some suggestions are put forward for developing water jet cutting technology. The results would help researchers determine key information required by cutting agricultural materials and provide a reference for further research on water jet cutting technology in agricultural engineering.

Considering practical application and commercialization, the research of non-toxic and stable halide perovskite and its application in the field of photoelectric detection have received great attention. However, there are relatively few studies on deep ultraviolet photodetectors, and the perovskite films prepared by traditional spin-coating method have disadvantages such as uneven grain size and irregular agglomeration, which limit their device performance. Herein, uniform and ordered Cs3Cu2I5 nanonet arrays are fabricated based on monolayer colloidal crystal (MCC) templates prepared with 1 μm polystyrene (PS) spheres, which enhance light-harvesting ability. Furthermore, the performance of the lateral photodetector (PD) is significantly enhanced when using Cs3Cu2I5 nanonet compared to the pure Cs3Cu2I5 film. Under deep ultraviolet light, the Cs3Cu2I5 nanonet PD exhibits a high light responsivity of 1.66 AW−1 and a high detection up to 2.48 × 1012 Jones. Meanwhile, the unencapsulated PD has almost no response to light above 330 nm and shows remarkable stability. The above results prove that Cs3Cu2I5 nanonet can be a great potential light-absorbing layer for solar-blind deep ultraviolet PD, which can be used as light absorption layer of UV solar cell.

Sucrose non-fermenting 1-related protein kinases (SnRKs) are a kind of plant-specific serine/threonine (Ser/Thr) protein kinase, which play an important role in plant stress resistance. However, the scale analysis of SnRK in the cucumber genome is currently unclear. In the study, a total of 30 CsSnRK genes were identified from genomic data. They were distributed on six chromosomes, including 1 CsSnRK1, 10 CsSnRK2s and 19 CsSnRK3s. According to the analysis of gene structure and motif composition, CsSnRKs showed obvious differences among the three subfamilies. The ratio of synonymous (Ks) and nonsynonymous (Ka) nucleotide substitutions (Ka/Ks) of three paralogues indicates that the CsSnRK gene family undergoes a purifying selection. The analysis of cis-acting elements shows that the promoter region of each CsSnRK gene contained different classes of hormone and stress-related cis-acting elements. Furthermore, based on RNA-sequencing data from the Short Read Archive (SRA) database of NCBI, the expression patterns of CsSnRK genes in six tissues were investigated, indicating that the expression of multiple CsSnRK genes was prevalent in these tissues. Transcription levels of CsSnRK genes after drought, methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and abscisic acid (ABA) treatments were analyzed by quantitative RT-PCR, and the results show that most of the CsSnRK genes responded to these stresses. However, under different treatments, individual genes played a major role. For example, under ABA treatment, CsSnRK2.2 and CsSnRK2.3 played a major role in the response to ABA. These results provide clear evidence that CsSnRKs may be involved in cucumber growth, development and stress response, and provide valuable information for future functional studies of CsSnRKs.

Calmodulin-binding transcription activator (CAMTA) plays an important regulatory role in plant growth, development, and stress response. This study identified the phylogenetic relationships of the CAMTA family in 42 plant species using a genome-wide search approach. Subsequently, the evolutionary relationships, gene structures, and conservative structural domain of CAMTA3/SR1 in different plants were analyzed. Meanwhile, in the promoter region, the cis-acting elements, protein clustering interaction, and tissue-specific expression of CAMTA3/SR1 in tomato were identified. The results show that SlCAMTA3/SR1 genes possess numerous cis-acting elements related to hormones, light response, and stress in the promoter regions. SlCAMTA3 might act together with other Ca2+ signaling components to regulate Ca2+-related biological processes. Then, the expression pattern of SlCAMTA3/SR1 was also investigated by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis. The results show that SlCAMTA3/SR1 might respond positively to various abiotic stresses, especially Cd stress. The expression of SlCAMTA3/SR1 was scarcely detected in tomato leaf at the seedling and flowering stages, whereas SlCAMTA3/SR1 was highly expressed in the root at the seedling stage. In addition, SlCAMTA3/SR1 had the highest expression levels in flowers at the reproductive stage. Here, we provide a basic reference for further studies about the functions of CAMTA3/SR1 proteins in plants.

Wearable flexible piezo-resistive pressure sensors hold a wide-ranging potential in human health monitoring, electronic skin, robotic limbs, and other human–machine interfaces. Out of the most successful recent efforts for arterial pulse monitoring are sensors with micro-patterned conductive elastomers. However, a low-current output signal (typically in the range of nano-amperes) and bulky and expensive measurement equipment for useful signal acquisition inhibits their wearability. Herein, through a finite element analysis we establish the design rules for a highly sensitive piezo-resistive pressure sensor with an output that is high enough to be detectable by simple and inexpensive circuits and therefore ensure wearability. We also show that, out of four frequently reported micro-feature shapes in micro-patterned piezo-resistive sensors, the micro-dome and micro-pyramid yield the highest sensitivity. Furthermore, investigations of different conductivity values of micro-patterned elastomers found that coating the elastomer with a conductive material (usually metallic) leads to higher current response when compared to composited conductive elastomers. Finally, the geometric parameters and spatial configurations of micro-pyramid design of piezo-resistive sensors were optimized. The results show that an enhanced sensitivity and higher current output is achieved by the lower spatial density configuration of three micro-features per millimeter length, a smaller feature size of around 100 μm, and a 60–50 degrees pyramid angle.

Nitric oxide (NO), as a ubiquitous gas signaling molecule, modulates various physiological and biochemical processes and stress responses in plants. In our study, the NO donor nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) significantly promoted tomato seedling growth under NaCl stress, whereas NO scavenger 2-(4-carboxyphenyl)-4, 4, 5, 5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide potassium (cPTIO) treatment reversed the positive effect of NO, indicating that NO plays an essential role in enhancing salt stress resistance. To explore the mechanism of NO-alleviated salt stress, the transcriptome of tomato leaves was analyzed. A total of 739 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified and classified into different metabolic pathways, especially photosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction, and carbon metabolism. Of these, approximately 16 and 9 DEGs involved in plant signal transduction and photosynthesis, respectively, were further studied. We found that GSNO increased the endogenous indoleacetic acid (IAA) and salicylic acid (SA) levels but decreased abscisic acid (ABA) and ethylene (ETH) levels under salt stress conditions. Additionally, GSNO induced increases in photosynthesis pigment content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters under NaCl stress, thereby enhancing the photosynthetic capacity of tomato seedlings. Moreover, the effects of NO mentioned above were reversed by cPTIO. Together, the results of this study revealed that NO regulates the expression of genes related to phytohormone signal transduction and photosynthesis antenna proteins and, therefore, regulates endogenous hormonal equilibrium and enhances photosynthetic capacity, alleviating salt toxicity in tomato seedlings.

The genomic and carbohydrate metabolic features of Pseudoalteromonas agarivorans Hao 2018 (P. agarivorans Hao 2018) were investigated through pan-genomic and transcriptomic analyses, and key enzyme genes that may encode the process involved in its extracellular polysaccharide synthesis were screened. The pan-genome of the P. agarivorans strains consists of a core-genome containing 2331 genes, an accessory-genome containing 956 genes, and a unique-genome containing 1519 genes. Clusters of Orthologous Groups analyses showed that P. agarivorans harbors strain-specifically diverse metabolisms, probably representing high evolutionary genome changes. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and reconstructed carbohydrate metabolic pathways displayed that P. agarivorans strains can utilize a variety of carbohydrates, such as d-glucose, d-fructose, and d-lactose. Analyses of differentially expressed genes showed that compared with the stationary phase (24 h), strain P. agarivorans Hao 2018 had upregulated expression of genes related to the synthesis of extracellular polysaccharides in the logarithmic growth phase (2 h), and that the expression of these genes affected extracellular polysaccharide transport, nucleotide sugar synthesis, and glycosyltransferase synthesis. This is the first investigation of the genomic and metabolic features of P. agarivorans through pan-genomic and transcriptomic analyses, and these intriguing discoveries provide the possibility to produce novel marine drug lead compounds with high biological activity.

In this paper, an improved finite control set model predictive current control (FCS-MPCC) is proposed for a two-phase hybrid stepper motor fed by a three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI). The conventional FCS-MPCC selects an optimal voltage vector (VV) from six active and one null VVs by evaluating a simple cost function and then applies the optimal VV directly to the VSI. Though the implementation is simple, it features a large current ripple and total harmonic distortion (THD). The proposed improved FCS-MPCC builds an extended control set consisting of 37 VVs to replace the original control set with only seven VVs. The increase in the amount of VVs helps to regulate the current more accurately. In each control period, the improved FCS-MPCC takes advantage of deadbeat control to calculate a reference VV, and only the three VVs adjacent to the reference VV are predicted and evaluated, which decrease the computational workload significantly. Build waveform patterns for all VVs in the unbalanced circuit structure to modulate the optimal VV using discrete space vector modulation, which improves the current quality in reducing current ripple and THD. The comparative simulations and experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The electrochemical label-free aptamer-based biosensors (also known as aptasensors) are highly suitable for point-of-care applications. The well-established C-MEMS (carbon microelectromechanical systems) platforms have distinguishing features which are highly suitable for biosensing applications such as low background noise, high capacitance, high stability when exposed to different physical/chemical treatments, biocompatibility, and good electrical conductivity. This study investigates the integration of bipolar exfoliated (BPE) reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with 3D C-MEMS microelectrodes for developing PDGF-BB (platelet-derived growth factor-BB) label-free aptasensors. A simple setup has been used for exfoliation, reduction, and deposition of rGO on the 3D C-MEMS microelectrodes based on the principle of bipolar electrochemistry of graphite in deionized water. The electrochemical bipolar exfoliation of rGO resolves the drawbacks of commonly applied methods for synthesis and deposition of rGO, such as requiring complicated and costly processes, excessive use of harsh chemicals, and complex subsequent deposition procedures. The PDGF-BB affinity aptamers were covalently immobilized by binding amino-tag terminated aptamers and rGO surfaces. The turn-off sensing strategy was implemented by measuring the areal capacitance from CV plots. The aptasensor showed a wide linear range of 1 pM–10 nM, high sensitivity of 3.09 mF cm−2 Logc−1 (unit of c, pM), and a low detection limit of 0.75 pM. This study demonstrated the successful and novel in-situ deposition of BPE-rGO on 3D C-MEMS microelectrodes. Considering the BPE technique’s simplicity and efficiency, along with the high potential of C-MEMS technology, this novel procedure is highly promising for developing high-performance graphene-based viable lab-on-chip and point-of-care cancer diagnosis technologies.

Exopolysaccharides (EPSs) are carbohydrate polymers produced and secreted by microorganisms. In a changing marine environment, EPS secretion can reduce damage from external environmental disturbances to microorganisms. Meanwhile, EPSs have promising application prospects in the fields of food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Changes in external environmental pH have been shown to affect the synthesis of EPSs in microorganisms. In this study, we analyzed the effects of different initial fermentation pHs on the production, monosaccharide composition, and antioxidant activity of the EPSs of Pseudoalteromonas agarivorans Hao 2018. In addition, the transcriptome sequence of P. agarivorans Hao 2018 under different initial fermentation pH levels was determined. GO and KEGG analyses showed that the differentially expressed genes were concentrated in the two-component regulatory system and bacterial chemotaxis pathways. We further identified the expression of key genes involved in EPS synthesis during pH changes. In particular, the expression of genes encoding the glucose/galactose MFS transporter, phosphomannomutase, and mannose-1-phosphate guanylyltransferase was upregulated when the environmental pH increased, thus promoting EPS synthesis. This study not only contributes to elucidating the environmental adaptation mechanisms of P. agarivorans, but also provides important theoretical guidance for the directed development of new products using biologically active polysaccharides.

Due to the harsh working environment of wheeled agricultural vehicles in the field, it is difficult to ensure that all wheels make contact with the ground at the same time, which is easy to unequally distribute the yaw moments of each independent wheel. The commonly used vehicle lateral control methods are mostly controlled by coordinating the individual torque between different wheels. Obviously, this control method is not suitable for agricultural four-wheeled vehicles. The goal of this study was to provide a wheel steering angle control method that uses electric push rods as actuators that can cope with this problem. The design of a four-wheel steering controller generally adopts the linear PID control method, but the research object of this paper is difficult to establish an accurate and linear mathematical model due to the complex working environment. Therefore, fuzzy adjustment is added on the basis of PID control, which can meet the requirements of model difficulty and control accuracy at the same time. In order to verify the feasibility and rationality of the designed wheel steering mechanism, the model dynamics simulation based on ADAMS software and the response analysis of the electric linear actuator thrust were completed. Based on the kinematics model of the controlled object, the rotation angle of the actuator motor is used as the control target, the lateral deviation e and deviation variation ec are taken as input variables and the parameters KP, KI and KD are taken as output variables, thereby establishing a fuzzy PID controller. Then, this controller is constructed in the Matlab/ Simulink simulation environment to analyze the lateral deviation and response stability during the process of vehicle path tracking. From the verification results of the linear path walking test under the fuzzy PID control method, the maximum lateral deviation of vehicle chassis is 2.7 cm when the driving speed is set as 1 m/s, and the deviation adjustment stable time of the system is 0.15 s. It can be seen that the proposed steering control strategy has good response performance and effectively increases the steering stability.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has recently been considered as a crucial gaseous transmitter occupying extensive roles in physiological and biochemical processes throughout the life of plant species. Furthermore, plenty of achievements have been announced regarding H2S working in combination with other signal molecules to mitigate environmental damage, such as nitric oxide (NO), abscisic acid (ABA), calcium ion (Ca2+), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), salicylic acid (SA), ethylene (ETH), jasmonic acid (JA), proline (Pro), and melatonin (MT). This review summarizes the current knowledge within the mechanism of H2S and the above signal compounds in response to abiotic stresses in plants, including maintaining cellular redox homeostasis, exchanging metal ion transport, regulating stomatal aperture, and altering gene expression and enzyme activities. The potential relationship between H2S and other signal transmitters is also proposed and discussed.

Cucumber is the most important vegetable crop in the Cucurbitaceae family. Condon usage bias (CUB) is a valuable character of species evolution. However, there is little research on the CUB of cucumber. Thus, this study analyzes the codon usage patterns of cucumber and its relatives within Cucurbitaceae on the genomic level. The analysis of fundamental indicators of codon characteristics shows that it was slightly GC poor, and there was weak codon usage bias in cucumber. We conduct the analysis of neutrality plot, ENC plot, P2 index, and COA indicates that the nucleotide composition, mutation pressure, and translational selection might play roles in CUB in cucumber and its relatives. Among these factors, nucleotide composition might play the most critical role. Based on these analyses, 30 optimal codons were identified in cucumber, most of them ending with U or A. Meanwhile, based on the RSCU values of species, a cluster tree was constructed, in which the situation of cucumber is consistent with the current taxonomic and evolutionary studies in Cucurbitaceae. This study systematically compared the CUB patterns and shaping factors of cucumber and its relatives, laying a foundation for future research on genetic engineering and evolutionary mechanisms in Cucurbitaceae.

Rice straw-derived cellulose (RSC) with purity of 92 wt.% was successfully extracted from rice straw by a novel and facile strategy, which integrated the C2H5OH/H2O autocatalytic process, dilute alkali treatment and H2O2 bleaching process. Influencing factors of the cellulose extraction were systematically examined, such as ethanol concentration, alkali concentration, H2O2 bleaching process and so on; the optimal extraction conditions of cellulose was determined. A series of rice straw-derived cellulose acetate (RSCA) with different degree of substitution (DS) were prepared by the acetylation reaction; the effects of Ac2O/cellulose ratio, reaction temperature and reaction time on the acetylation reaction were investigated. Results of FTIR and XRD analysis demonstrated that highly purified RSC and RSCA were prepared comparing with the commercial cellulose and cellulose acetate. Solubility analysis of RSCA with different DS indicated as-prepared RSCA with DS of 2.82 possessed the best solubleness, which was suitable for electrospinning. Moreover, the flexible RSCA fibrous membrane was easily fabricated by a facile electrospinning method. Our proposed method provided a strategy for realizing the high-value utilization of waste rice straw resource, as prepared RSC and RSCA can be used as chemical raw material, and electrospun RSCA fibrous membrane has various applications in medical materials, food packaging, water purification and so on.

Bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) or fusion proteins (BsAbFPs) present a promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy. Numerous BsAbs targeting coinhibitory and costimulatory pathways have been developed for retargeting T cells and antigen presenting cells (APCs). It is challenging to assess the potency of BsAb that engages two different signaling pathways simultaneously in a single assay format, especially when the two antigen targets are expressed on different cells. To explore the potency of anti-PD-L1/CD40L BsAbFP, a fusion protein that binds to human CD40 and PD-L1, we engineered CHO cells as surrogate APCs that express T cell receptor activator and PD-L1, Jurkat cells with PD-1 and NFAT-luciferase reporter as effector T cells, and Raji cell with NFkB-luciferase that endogenously expresses CD40 as accessory B cells. A novel reporter gene bioassay was developed using these cell lines that allows anti-PD-L1/CD40L BsAbFP to engages both PD-1/PD-L1 and CD40/CD40L signaling pathways in one assay. As both reporters use firefly luciferase, the effects of activating both signaling pathways is observed as an increase in luminescence, either as a higher upper asymptote, a lower EC50, or both. This dual target reporter gene bioassay system reflects potential mechanism of action and demonstrated the ability of anti-PD-L1/CD40L BsAbFP to synergistically induce biological response compared to the combination of anti-PD-L1 monovalent monoclonal antibody and agonist CD40L fusion protein, or either treatment alone. The results also showed a strong correlation between the drug dose and biological response within the tested potency range with good linearity, accuracy, precision, specificity and stability indicating properties, suggesting that this “three-cell-in-one” dual target reporter gene bioassay is suitable for assessing potency, structure-function and critical quality attributes of anti-PD-L1/CD40L BsAbFP. This approach could be used for developing dual target bioassays for other BsAbs and antibodies used for combination therapy.

Sea temperature structures are important for water stratification and marine ecosystems. In the coastal water of Muping, China, stationary measurements of sea temperature captured temporal temperature changes during two summer storm events. The north component of the wind during the two storms was opposite. The temperature responded differently to wind directions in the two storm events. A well-validated numerical ocean model was used to investigate the mechanism of sea temperature variation of the coast of Muping. The model revealed that the southerly and easterly wind was upwelling-favorable in the study area. They generated the shoreward transport of bottom cold water, which induced bottom water cooling, enhanced stratification, and weakened vertical mixing. On the other hand, the northerly and westerly wind was downwelling-favorable and enhanced turbulent mixing. The alongshore upwelling-favorable wind caused more cross-shore transport than cross-shore upwelling-favorable wind, which resulted in stronger bottom cooling. Similarly, alongshore downwelling-favorable wind generated lower temperature than cross-shore wind. A surface cold-water band was formed in the second storm. Although it was formed during upwelling-favorable wind, the temperature balance analysis indicated that vertical mixing and westward horizontal advection were the two dominant processes compared to upwelling.

Application of biochars in agricultural soils has the potential to reduce groundwater contamination of atrazine, a widely used herbicide in the US, therefore sustaining environmental quality and reducing human health issues. This study was conducted to characterize biochars produced from six feedstocks and investigate their ability to remove and retain atrazine in an organic-rich soil. Australian pine (AP), Brazilian pepper (BP), coconut husk (CH), cypress (Cy), loblolly pine (L), and pecan shell (P) feedstocks were pyrolyzed at 350 °C and 500 °C. Adsorption and desorption behaviors of atrazine were explained using Freundlich isotherms. Higher pyrolysis temperature increased specific surface area (5 times), total pore volume (2.5 times), and aromaticity (1.4 times) of the biochars. CH feedstock produced the most effective biochars (CH350 and CH500), which adsorb 8–12% more atrazine than unamended soils. CH350 biochar performed the best (Kd ads = 13.80, KOC = 153.63, Kd des = 16.98) and had significantly higher (p < 0.05) adsorption than unamended soil, possibly resulting from its highest cation exchange capacity (16.32 cmol kg−1). The Kd des values for atrazine desorption were greater than the Kd ads for adsorption, indicating retention of a considerable amount of atrazine by the biochar-amended soils following desorption.

Stepper motors are widely used in industrial and consumer applications due to low-cost, high reliability, and open-loop control capability. Though open-loop features a simple structure, it bears low step resolution, high torque ripple, and low energy efficiency. To improve the performance without increasing hardware cost, a fuzzy sliding mode observer (SMO)-based new sensorless speed control structure is proposed. Unlike the conventional sensorless speed control, it does not use Park and inverse Park transformations to transform currents between a-b and d-q coordinates. Instead, it uses a new current transformation method to generate reference currents of stator windings, which not only reduces the calculation burden of the controller, but also improves the stability of the system. To reduce the chattering, a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) embedded into the SMO is designed to adjust the observer gain adaptively, without using the conventional method that replaces the discontinuous sign function with the continuous, such as sigmoid or saturation function. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified using MATLAB/Simulink simulation (R2018b, MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA) and experiment by assessing the speed and position tracking abilities.

To study the disparity of river hydrochemical characteristics and water quality in different regions of the city, this paper took the Tuo River in the center of Suzhou, Northern Anhui, China and the Bian River on the edge of the urban area as the research objects, used Piper trigram, Gibbs diagram, and hydrogen and oxygen isotope content characteristics to analyze the geochemical characteristics of surface water in the study area, and then the improved fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was used to evaluate the water quality. The results showed that the hydrochemical types of the two rivers were SO4-Cl-Na type, and the contents of Na+, K+, SO42−, Cl−, Ca2+, total phosphorus (TP) in the Bian River at the edge of the city were much higher than those in the Tuo River at the center of the city (ANOVA, p < 0.001). Gibbs diagram showed that the ion composition of the two rivers was mainly affected by rock weathering. The results of correlation analysis and water quality evaluation showed that Bian River was greatly affected by agricultural non-point source pollution, and its water quality was poor, class IV and class V water account for 95%, while, for Tuo River, due to the strong artificial protection, class II and class III accounted for 40.74% and 59.26%, respectively, and the overall water quality was better than that of Bian River. The evaluation results of irrigation water quality showed that the samples from Tuo River were high in salt and low in alkali, which could be used for irrigation when the soil leaching conditions were good, while Bian River water samples were high in salt and medium in alkali, which was suitable for irrigation of plants with strong salt tolerance.

We propose a flexible, binder-free and free-standing carbonaceous paper fabricated via electrostatic spray deposition using reduced graphene oxide/carbon nanotube (rGO/CNT) as a promising electrode material for flexible sodium-ion batteries (NIBs). The as-prepared rGO/CNT paper exhibits a three-dimensional (3D) layered structure by employing rGO as conductive frameworks to provide sodium-storage active sites and CNT as spacer to increase rGO interlayer distance and benefit the diffusion kinetics of sodium ions. Consequently, the rGO/CNT paper delivers an enhanced sodium ion storage capacity of 166.8 mAh g−1 at 50 mA g−1, retaining an average capacity of 101.4 mAh g−1 when current density sets back 100 mA g−1 after cycling at various current rates. An average capacity of 50 mAh g−1 at 200 mA g−1 was stabilized when cycling up to 300 cycles. The well-maintained electrochemical performance of free-standing rGO/CNT paper is due to the well-established hybrid 3D nanostructures, which demonstrates our carbon based material fabricated by a facile approach can be applied as one of the high-performance and low-cost electrode materials for applications in flexible energy storage devices.

Improving the energy capacity of spinel Li4Ti5O12 (LTO) is very important to utilize it as a high-performance Li-ion battery (LIB) electrode. In this work, LTO/Si composites with different weight ratios were prepared and tested as anodes. The anodic and cathodic peaks from both LTO and silicon were apparent in the composites, indicating that each component was active upon Li+ insertion and extraction. The composites with higher Si contents (LTO:Si = 35:35) exhibited superior specific capacity (1004 mAh·g−1) at lower current densities (0.22 A·g−1) but the capacity deteriorated at higher current densities. On the other hand, the electrodes with moderate Si contents (LTO:Si = 50:20) were able to deliver stable capacity (100 mAh·g−1) with good cycling performance, even at a very high current density of 7 A·g−1. The improvement in specific capacity and rate performance was a direct result of the synergy between LTO and Si; the former can alleviate the stresses from volumetric changes in Si upon cycling, while Si can add to the capacity of the composite. Therefore, it has been demonstrated that the addition of Si and concentration optimization is an easy yet an effective way to produce high performance LTO-based electrodes for lithium-ion batteries.

The enzymatic biofuel cells (EBFCs) are considered as an attractive candidate for powering future implantable medical devices. In this study, a computational model of EBFCs based on three-dimensional (3-D) interdigitated microelectrode arrays was conducted. The main focus of this research is to investigate the effect of different designs and spatial distributions of the microelectrode arrays on mass transport of fuels, enzymatic reaction rate, open circuit output potential and current density. To optimize the performance of the EBFCs, numerical simulations have been performed for cylindrical electrodes with various electrode heights and well widths. Optimized cell performance was obtained when the well width is half of the height of the 3-D electrode. In addition, semi-elliptical shaped electrode is preferred based on the results from current density and resistive heating simulation.

Adventitious root (AR) is a kind of later root, which derives from stems and leaf petioles of plants. Many different kinds of small signaling molecules can transmit information between cells of multicellular organisms. It has been found that small molecules can be involved in many growth and development processes of plants, including stomatal movement, flowering, fruit ripening and developing, and AR formation. Therefore, this review focuses on discussing the functions and mechanisms of small signaling molecules in the adventitious rooting process. These compounds, such as nitric oxide (NO), hydrogen gas (H2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), ethylene (ETH), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), can be involved in the induction of AR formation or development. This review also sums the crosstalk between these compounds. Besides, those signaling molecules can regulate the expressions of some genes during AR development, including cell division genes, auxin-related genes, and adventitious rooting-related genes. We conclude that these small-molecule compounds enhance adventitious rooting by regulating antioxidant, water balance, and photosynthetic systems as well as affecting transportation and distribution of auxin, and these compounds further conduct positive effects on horticultural plants under environmental stresses. Hence, the effect of these molecules in plant AR formation and development is definitely a hot issue to explore in the horticultural study now and in the future.

The non-centrosymmetric bismuth-based oxyborate crystals have been extensively studied for non-linear optical, opto-electric and piezoelectric applications. In this work, single crystal growth and electro-elastic properties of α-BiB3O6 (α-BIBO) and Bi2ZnB2O7 (BZBO) crystals are reported. Centimeter-sized α-BIBO and BZBO crystals were grown by using the Kyropoulos method. High resolution X-ray diffraction tests were performed to assess the crystal quality. The full-width at half-maximum values (FWHM) of the rocking curves were evaluated to be 35.35 arcsec and 47.85 arcsec for α-BIBO and BZBO samples, respectively. Moreover, the electro-elastic properties of α-BIBO and BZBO crystals are discussed and summarized, based on which the radial extensional and the face shear vibration modes were studied for potential acoustic device applications. The radial extensional mode electro-mechanical coupling factors kp were evaluated and found to be 32.0% and 5.5% for α-BIBO and BZBO crystals, respectively. The optimal crystal cuts with face shear mode were designed and found to be (YZt)/−53° (or (YZt)/37° cut) for α-BIBO crystal, and (ZXt)/±45° cut for BZBO crystal, with the largest effective piezoelectric coefficients being in the order of 14.8 pC/N and 8.9 pC/N, respectively.