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Identifying and statistically analyzing soybean pod types are crucial for seed evaluation and yield estimation. Traditional visual assessment by breeding personnel is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and prone to subjective bias, especially with large datasets. Automatic assessment methods usually struggle with the highly confusing pod types with two and three seeds, affecting the model’s identification accuracy. To address these issues, we propose to improve the standard YOLOv5s object detection model to enhance the differentiation between pod types and to boost the model’s efficiency in prediction. To reduce the number of parameters and the computational load, we propose to introduce the FasterNet Block module in the FasterNet model into the original C3 module, leading to improvements in both detection accuracy and speed. To strengthen the feature extraction and representation for specific targets, the Efficient Multi-Scale Attention (EMA) module is incorporated into the C3 module of the backbone network, improving the identification of similar pod types. The Inner-IoU is combined with the CIoU as the loss function to further enhance detection accuracy and generalization. Experiments comparing FEI-YOLO with the baseline YOLOv5s show that FEI-YOLO achieves an mAP@0.5 of 98.6% and an mAP@0.5:0.95 of 81.1%, with improvements of 1.5% and 1.4%, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of parameters is reduced by 13.2%, and FLOPs decreased by 10.8%, demonstrating the model’s effectiveness and efficiency, enabling rapid and accurate identification of soybean pod types from images.

Macamides are a class of amide alkaloids that are only found in maca and are widely considered to be its bioactive marker compounds. More than thirty macamide monomers have been identified in recent years; however, it is difficult to obtain a single macamide monomer from the maca plant because of their similar structures and characteristics. We used the carbodiimide condensation method (CCM) to efficiently synthesize five typical macamides, including N-benzyl-hexadecanamide (NBH), N-benzyl-9Z,12Z,15Z-octadecenamide, N-(3-methoxybenzyl)-9Z,12Z-octadecenamide, N-benzyl-9Z,12Z-octadecenamide, and N-(3-methoxybenzyl)-9Z,12Z,15Z-octadecadienamide. All the synthesized macamides were purified by a one-step HPLC with a purity of more than 95%. NBH is the most abundant macamide monomer in natural maca, and it was selected to evaluate the anti-fatigue effects of macamides. The results indicated that NBH could enhance the endurance capacity of mice by increasing liver glycogen levels and decreasing blood urea nitrogen, lactate dehydrogenase, blood ammonia, and blood lactic acid levels. Macamides might be the active substances that give maca its anti-fatigue active function.

The rotary vector reducer is the core component of industrial robots, and the transmission efficiency is undoubtedly an important indicator of transmission performance. In addition, the assembly dimensional chain leads to clearance between parts, which can have a certain impact on the transmission efficiency. During previous studies, this effect was often ignored. Firstly, the cycloid tooth profile is a relatively large collection of points. Therefore, a more efficient tooth profile model is employed as the basis for the calculation. Secondly, the contact between the cycloid and the pinion is determined by experimental observation to be a point contact rather than a theoretical line contact. Moreover, the dynamics and friction loss models of the cycloid–pinion system are constructed. Finally, the assembly dimensional chain is introduced into the different structural designs. The clearance results were obtained with the extreme value method. The results show that the addition of the pinion sleeve allows the system to have a smoother drive process and a more efficient transmission; this was verified with ADAMS.

Peptidoglycan recognition proteins (PGRPs) are important components of insect immune systems, in which they play key roles. We cloned and sequenced two full-length PGRP, named OfPGRP-A and OfPGRP-B, from the Asian corn borer, Ostrinia furnacalis. These two genes comprise open reading frames of 658 and 759 bp, encoding proteins of 192 and 218 amino acids, respectively. qPCR showed that OfPGRP-A and OfPGRP-B are prominently expressed in the midgut of O. furnacalis fourth instar larvae. After inoculation with Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus thuringiensis, the expression of OfPGRP-A was significantly upregulated, whereas the expression of OfPGRP-B was enhanced after inoculation with Escherichia coli. This suggests that OfPGRP-A mainly recognizes Gram-positive bacteria and may participate in the Toll signaling pathways, while OfPGRP-B identifies Gram-negative bacteria and may participate in Imd signaling pathways. Our results provide insights into the roles of PGRPs in O. furnacalis immune function and a foundation for using pathogens for the biological control of O. furnacalis.

Maca (Lepidium meyenii) has emerged as a popular functional plant food because of its medicinal properties and nutritional value. Macamides, as the exclusively active ingredients found in maca, are a unique series of non-polar, long-chain fatty acid N-benzylamides with multiple bioactivities such as antifatigue characteristics and improving reproductive health. In this study, a new kind of macamide, N-benzyl eicosapentaenamide (NB-EPA), was identified from maca. We further explore its potential neuroprotective role in hypoxic–ischemic brain injury. Our findings indicated that treatment with biosynthesized NB-EPA significantly alleviates the size of cerebral infarction and improves neurobehavioral disorders after hypoxic–ischemic brain damage in neonatal mice. NB-EPA inhibited the apoptosis of neuronal cells after ischemic challenge. NB-EPA improved neuronal cell survival and proliferation through the activation of phosphorylated AKT signaling. Of note, the protective property of NB-EPA against ischemic neuronal damage was dependent on suppression of the p53–PUMA pathway. Taken together, these findings suggest that NB-EPA may represent a new neuroprotectant for newborns with hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy.

In order to develop efficient lures for soybean pod borer Leguminivora glycinivorella (Matsumura) in China, (E,E)-8,10-dodecadienyl acetate (EE-8,10-12:Ac), the main component of the pheromone of L. glycinivorella, and 12 structurally-related compounds were synthesised in good overall yields, regiospecificities, and stereo-selectivities via coupling reactions catalysed by Li2CuCl4. The effect of different synthetic compounds, alone or in combination with EE-8,10-12:Ac, on numbers of captured L. glycinivorella males was evaluated. EE-8,10-12:Ac, (E)-10-dodecenyl acetate (E-10-12:Ac), (E)-8-dodecenol (E-8-12:OH), tetradecyl acetate (14:Ac), and (Z)-9-tetradecenyl acetate (Z-9-14:Ac) alone displayed different attractiveness to L. glycinivorella males. 14:Ac, E-8-12:OH, E-10-12:Ac, (E,E)-8,10-dodecadienal (EE-8,10-12:Ald), (E)-8-dodecenal (E-8-12:Ald), (E)-10-dodecenal (E-10-12:Ald) and Z-9-14:Ac all showed a synergistic effect to EE-8,10-12:Ac at certain dosages. The binary mixtures of EE-8,10-12:Ac and E-10-12:Ald, Z-9-14:Ac,14:Ac, E-8-12:Ald, EE-8,10-12:Ald, E-8-12:OH, or E-10-12:Ac in suitable ratios give 17.00-, 10.98-, 10.67-, 6.73-, 5.54-, 4.30- and 4.50-fold increases in trap catch, respectively, over the standard pheromone lure, and as novel pheromone blends, demonstrated potential use in pheromone traps to monitor or control L. glycinivorella populations in China.