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Apple leaf spot is one of the most devastating diseases in the apple industry, caused by Alternaria alternata f. sp mali (A. alternata). SET‐domain group (SDG) proteins function as the histone methyltransferases and participate in plant development and stress responses. However, whether SDG proteins are associated with A. alternata resistance is largely unclear. Here, we describe the pathogen‐inducible MdSDG26 gene in apple (Malus × domestica). MdSDG26 has two transcript variants that function similarly in catalyzing histone methylation and A. alternata resistance. Transient overexpression of MdSDG26 increased the global levels of H3K4me3 and H3K36me3, whereas knockdown of MdSDG26 only reduced the H3K36me3 level. Transcriptome analysis revealed that MdSDG26 affected the genome‐wide transcriptome changes in response to A. alternata infection. ChIP‐qPCR analysis demonstrated that MdSDG26 modulates the levels of H3K36me3 and H3K4me3 at both the promoter and exon regions of MdNTL9. As a negative regulator of A. alternata resistance in apples, MdNTL9 plays a pivotal role in MdSDG26‐mediated resistance to A. alternata. Therefore, our findings provide compelling evidence for the regulatory function of MdSDG26 in histone methylation and its molecular role in conferring resistance to A. alternata. Summary statement: The pathogen‐inducible MdSDG26 gene in apple plays a critical role in Alternaria alternata resistance and regulates histone H3K4 and H3K36 trimethylation. RNA‐seq showed MdSDG26 regulate the disease‐related genes in response to A. alternate infection, and MdNTL9 as the key gene in MdSDG26‐mediated A. alternata resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible thermoelectric generators (TEGs) have been considered as a promising power source for rapidly developing wearable microelectronic devices, but how to integrate high‐performance materials and device design to prepare an available wearable TEGs is still challenging. In this study, n‐type silver selenide (Ag2Se) and p‐type copper selenide (Cu2Se) films are prepared by in situ full metal selenization strategy combined with screen‐printing technique, avoiding a high‐temperature process and expensive equipments. Further, a 3D structured thermoelectric module with 42 thermoelectric p‐n leg pairs is designed and configured by vertically embedding Ag₂Se and Cu₂Se thin films into a 4 mm‐thick silicone layer that provides insulation and structural support. The device consistently delivers power, achieving the maximum open‐circuit voltage of 113 mV at a temperature difference of 60 K, with a maximum power density of 234.3 µW cm−2. Under bending stress, the flexible TEG still has 81% retention rate of initial power density after 1500 bending cycles, indicating the good bending property. It can also generate a voltage of 3.6 and 7 mV, respectively, when worn on an arm with or without a fan expanding temperature difference. The work highlights a simple method to obtain efficient selenide thermoelectric films for cost‐effective flexible 3D structured TE devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulk γ‐InSe has a direct bandgap of 1.24 eV, which corresponds to near infrared wavelengths (λ = 1.0 µm) useful in optoelectronic applications from biometric detectors to silicon photonics. However, its potential for optoelectronic applications is largely untapped due in part to the lack of quantitative studies of its optical properties. Here, the unusually low absorptance and high photoluminescence quantum efficiency of single‐crystalline InSe flakes with thickness in the hundreds of nanometers are studied. InSe emits brightly at room temperature from its direct bandgap with a peak photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 20%, despite displaying indirect bandgap like low absorption coefficient due to the symmetry of its crystal structure. By performing pump‐dependent PLQY measurements, the radiative and nonradiative recombination coefficients are extracted, including the Shockley‐Read‐Hall and Auger coefficients. Finally, a proof‐of‐concept alternating current electroluminescent device at low temperature is demonstrated to show the promise of InSe in optoelectronic technology such as highly transparent, bright NIR light sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the problems that the ant colony algorithm is easy to fall into local optimum and the convergence speed is slow in traveling salesman problem (TSP), dynamic grouping ant colony algorithm combined with cat swarm optimization is proposed. Firstly, the ants are distributed manually in different cities evenly when the population is initialized. Secondly, based on the division of labor in the cat swarm optimization, a dynamic grouping mechanism is introduced into the ant colony system to classify the ants into two types: search ants and tracking ants. Search ants increase the algorithm??s diversity in the early stage by improving the path construction rules, tracking ants use pheromone diffusion mechanism to adaptively update local pheromone to highlight the role of superior sub-paths, and avoid the algorithm falling into local optimum. Finally, the convergence speed is accelerated by the pheromone global update mechanism. Simulation experiments are carried out on multiple sets of instances in TSPLIB through Matlab. The simulation results show that the improved algorithm balances the diversity and conver-gence speed, and effectively imporves the quality of the solutions.

The color of an apple is an important index of its appearance quality, which affects the fruit's marketability and value. The green variety "Granny Smith" remains green when ripe, and the pigment in the peel is mainly chlorophyll. The chlorophyll in the peel of the yellow variety "Golden Delicious" degrades as the fruit ripens. To explore the different mechanisms of chlorophyll degradation in the "Golden Delicious" and "Granny Smith" varieties, transcriptomic analysis was performed on the mature peels of both cultivars. High-quality sequences totaling 48,206,940 and 48,796,646 raw bases, as well as 9632 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), were identified. A total of 1206 DEGs were classified in 118 KEGG metabolic pathways. Additionally, 3258 transcription factors from 428 gene families were predicted, and DEGs associated with chlorophyll degradation, including MdSGR2, MdNYC1 and MdHCAR, were identified. Subsequently, the MdSGR2 gene was isolated from the mature peel of "Granny Smith" apples. Subsequent subcellular localization analysis confirmed that MdSGR2 specifically targets chloroplasts. The transient overexpression of MdSGR2 was found to negatively regulate chlorophyll degradation, leading to the inhibition or deceleration of chlorophyll breakdown, thereby maintaining green coloration in the leaves and peel. Conversely, silencing MdSGR2 positively regulated chlorophyll degradation, resulting in chlorosis in the leaves and peel. These findings offer valuable insights into the regulatory mechanism governing apple fruit coloration and lays a solid foundation for further investigation in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large and super large copper deposits worldwide are mainly distributed in the Pacific Rim and Gondwana metallogenic domains, and they are highly coupled with the spatial location of seismically active zones. Major copper-producing countries such as Chile are located in areas with high seismic activity. Earthquakes often cause copper mines to shut down, copper prices to soar, and even mining disasters, affecting the stable supply of global copper. In order to study the impact of earthquakes on the global copper ore supply, information on resource endowments, production, and earthquake data from the past 30 years are collected. This article mainly analyzes (1) the spatial correlation between earthquakes and copper mine projects, and the spatial characteristics of earthquakes' impact on copper mine production, using correlation analysis and geographically weighted regression (GWR); (2) the impact of sudden earthquake events on the export volume and price of copper mines from the perspective of time, using the earthquake index constructed based on the magnitude of the earthquake, the depth of the epicenter, and the distance from the copper mine. The results indicate that the regions with high spatial correlation between copper mine projects and earthquakes are mainly located along the Pacific coast of South and North Americas. Earthquakes can lead to an increase in copper prices, but they will fall significantly in the short term. The impact of earthquakes on export volume generally has a delay period of 1–2 months, resulting in a short-term decrease in export volume. This article quantitatively evaluates the impact of earthquake risk on the supply chain from both spatial and temporal dimensions, providing reference for supply chain risk monitoring, risk impact assessment, and prediction. On the basis of the research results of this article, mineral resource management departments can quantitatively evaluate the spatiotemporal impact of natural risks such as earthquakes on the supply chain, adjust management policies in a timely manner, and improve the level of refined management of supply chain risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a dual-drive multi-mineral-species anomaly detection system which involves the combined use of Bayesian maximum entropy, a spectral separable module, high-order factor analysis, a geologically constrained loss function, as well as a mixed Gaussian distribution-based thresholding algorithm, attaching to a deep convolutional autoencoder. We have achieved several firsts rarely considered in the existing literature, for example: previous works focus mainly on separating single-mineral-species rather than multi-elemental anomalies, while we have attempted to recognize multi-mineral-species anomalies; previous works pay more attention to data, while we suggest how to discover the ore-related correlations hidden within the input data; previous works fail to integrate soft data in a quantitative fashion, while we have achieved that by capitalizing on Bayesian maximum entropy and the stratigraphic combination entropy. A series of comparative experiments have demonstrated the advantages over other state-of-the-art approaches. Finally, we obtained a mineral-occurrence identification rate (δ) ranging from 36.87 to 61.46% v. the anomaly area ranging from 33.75 to 55.38% for each metalliferous anomaly division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conductive hydrogels have great potential for application in the field of flexible wearable devices due to their excellent stretchability and biocompatibility. In this work, double-network hydrogels were prepared by ion crosslinking and chemical crosslinking, and the resulting hydrogel sensors exhibited excellent performance in terms of stretchability and sensitivity. Specifically, the elongation at break reached 900%, with a fast response time (157 ms), high conductivity (1.47 S m−1), high sensitivity (gauge factor = 5.42, strain of 900%), and high fatigue resistance (1800 cycles of testing). Based on these excellent properties, the hydrogels were assembled into strain sensors, successfully detecting signal changes in human motion states, and recognizing different gestures. Therefore, the prepared hydrogels can be used as soft sensors for motion monitoring, electronic skin, and other fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the role of LncRNA HOTAIR knockdown in the biological impacts on cervical cancer cells. The HOTAIR gene in two human cervical cancer cell lines was silenced with small interfering (si) RNA siHOTAIR. Proliferation, apoptosis, migration and invasion of cells were assessed following the knockdown. The expressions of Notch1, EpCAM, E-cadherin, vimentin and STAT3 were assessed using qRT-PCR and Western blotting analysis. Compared with controls, HOTAIR levels were reduced significantly, the OD values of cells were significantly decreased in proliferation assays, cell apoptosis was significantly increased, cell migration and invasion were significantly reduced after HOTAIR knockdown. Molecular analysis showed that Notch1, EpCAM, vimentin and STAT3 expressions were decreased significantly, while the expression of E-cadherin was significantly increased after HOTAIR knockdown. Rescue experiments further confirmed that Notch1 and STAT3 were involved in siHOTAIR-mediated reduction of migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells. What is already known on this subject? Long non-coding RNAs including HOTAIR, is implicated in occurrence and development of cancer and have been explored to develop new therapeutic options for cancer. What do the results of this study add? HOTAIR silencing significantly reduces the viability and migration ability of cells and induces cell apoptosis, adding experimental data supporting the potential use of HOTAIR specific-siRNA as a therapeutic avenue for the cancer. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? The finding from this study would help develop clinically applicable therapeutic avenues for the cancer and identify new treatment targets in the relevant pathways leading to new drugs or treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]