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Tiller number and effective panicle number are important factors affecting rice yield. In this study, the sequencing data of 331 rice varieties were used to carry out genome‐wide association study (GWAS) of these two factors. A total of 58 candidate genes related to tiller number were identified, and their functions involved energy metabolism and cytoplasmic membrane metabolism pathways. There were 19 candidate genes related to effective panicle number, whose functions involved energy metabolism, cytoplasmic membrane metabolism and signal transduction pathways. A new QTL 'qTNP12', which controls both tiller number and effective panicle number, was identified on chromosome 12. There was specific variation in the 275th amino acid in the coding frame of the candidate gene. Indica rice with multiple tillers had histidine variation, while japonica rice with few tillers and Oryza rufipogon had arginine variation. Evolutionary analysis showed that the multi‐tiller trait of indica rice was developed through artificial selection and domestication. The results of this study provide a foundation for further clarifying the molecular mechanism of qTPN12 regulating tiller and effective panicle, as well as improving rice architecture through molecular marker‐assisted selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: Axially chiral biaryls represent the most important class of atropisomers, and they widely exist in natural products and biologically active molecules. They also constitute a unique scaffold for chiral ligands and catalysts in organic synthesis. The development of synthetic methods to obtain such chiral compounds has received widespread attention, among which catalytically atroposelective ring‐opening of configurationally labile compounds represents one of the most attractive strategies. Various substrates with strained cyclic structures, such as the renowned Bringmann's lactones, can undergo asymmetric transformation into stable atropisomers. Known advancement primarily relies on metal catalyst combined with well‐designed chiral ligands, the approaches utilizing organocatalysis as a critical resolution strategy are notably scarce. In this study, we disclosed a N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC)‐catalyzed asymmetric ring‐opening reaction of biaryl lactams via direct atroposelective nucleophilic activation. The optimized bulky carbene catalyst ensures that the reaction can proceed under mild conditions, affording the desired product with good to excellent yields and atroposelectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has undergone rapid urbanization and internal migration in the past few years, and its up-to-date gridded population datasets are essential for various applications. Existing datasets for China, however, suffer from either outdatedness or failure to incorporate data from the latest Seventh National Population Census of China, conducted in 2020. In this study, we develop a novel population downscaling approach that leverages stacking ensemble learning and big geospatial data to produce up-to-date population grids at a 100 m resolution for China using seventh census data at both county and town levels. The proposed approach employs stacking ensemble learning to integrate the strengths of random forest, XGBoost, and LightGBM through fusing their predictions in a training mechanism, and it delineates the inhabited areas from big geospatial data to enhance the gridded population estimation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach exhibits the best-fit performance compared to individual base models. Meanwhile, the out-of-sample town-level test set indicates that the estimated gridded population dataset (R2=0.8936) is more accurate than existing WorldPop (R2=0.7427) and LandScan (R2=0.7165) products for China in 2020. Furthermore, with the inhabited area enhancement, the spatial distribution of population grids is intuitively more reasonable than the two existing products. Hence, the proposed population downscaling approach provides a valuable option for producing gridded population datasets. The estimated 100 m gridded population dataset of China holds great significance for future applications, and it is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24916140.v1 (Chen et al., 2024b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate polyform modules and introduce the notion of relatively polyform modules over a ring R. Some new characterizations and properties of polyform modules are obtained. For a retractable polyform module M R , it is proved that the maximal right ring of quotients of End R (M) is End R (E ̃ (M)) , where E ̃ (M) is the rational hull of M. Moreover, we characterize nonsingular modules by using the relatively polyform property. In addition, it is proved that the class of all polyform right R -modules is closed under submodules and rational extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, photopolymerization has spanned across all academic and industrial applications due to its appealing features such as energy saving, environmentally‐friendly polymerization conditions, high monomer conversions, rapid polymerization kinetics and so on. Photoinitiator (PI), as a crucial component of the photoinitiating system (PIS) are capable of interacting with light efficiently, enabling to generate initiating species in mono or multicomponent systems. In this work, 13 phenothiazine‐based oxime esters (OXEs) (never reported before) were synthesized and their photoinitiation abilities for the free radical photopolymerization (FRP) of acrylates were examined upon irradiation with LED@405 nm. Parallel to their photochemical reactivities, their abilities to initiate thermal polymerization processes were also investigated. Finally, these OXEs exhibited excellent photo/thermal initiation performances, demonstrating their dual initiation properties. Phenothiazine‐based oxime esters can be used as PIs in 3D printing as well as thermal initiator in the manufacturing of carbon fiber composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking chitosan (CS) and soybean protein isolate (SPI) as composite membrane substrates and natural antioxidants as active substances, an edible active preservative film with inhibitory effect on lipid oxidation was developed. After optimizing the type and concentration of antioxidants through the mechanical properties, microstructure, physical properties, and antioxidant properties of the composite membrane, the preservation effect of the composite membrane on walnut oil was investigated. Results showed that, eight antioxidants significantly improved the oxygen-barrier ability of the composite membranes (P<0.05). Especially, the peroxide value of walnut oil was reduced by about 80% and maintained excellent mechanical properties with the addition of astaxanthin, grape seed extracts and vitamin C. When the addition of astaxanthin was 0.3%, the composite membrane exhibits the best performance, then the tensile strength, elongation at break, DPPH free radical scavenging capacity and water vapor permeability of the composite membrane were 6.546 MPa, 69.962%, 80.1%, 1.21 g⋅mm/m²⋅h⋅kPa, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the surface of the membrane was smooth, regular and uniform. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed that membrane-forming materials were extremely compatible. The differential scanning calorimeter analysis showed that the composite membrane had the highest thermal enthalpy, reaching 233.940 J/g, with the best thermal stability. When the walnut oil was coated with a composite membrane containing astaxanthin, the oil's peroxide value was reduced by 81.8%, conjugated diene by 44.4% and conjugated triene values by 66.4% compared to the control. Chitosan/soybean protein isolate composite membrane with astaxanthin significantly delayed the process of walnut oil oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure on corporate risk‐taking and how this impact is further affected by chief executive officer (CEO) power and incentives within US companies. We find that ESG disclosure decreases corporate risk‐taking based on both accounting‐based and market‐based returns. Further, we find that ESG disclosure is more effective in mitigating market‐based risk‐taking than accounting‐based risk‐taking in a firm with a powerful CEO. In contrast, CEO's ESG‐incentivized engagement bonuses weaken ESG disclosure impacts in reducing both types of risk‐taking. Our analysis helps understanding of different trade‐offs of ESG disclosure in aligning all stakeholders' benefits under different managerial‐related factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize breeding is greatly affected by hybrid vigor, a phenomenon that hybrids exhibit superior performance than parental lines. The immortalized F2 population (IMF2) is ideal for the genetic dissection and prediction of hybrid performance. Here, in this study, we conducted the QTL mapping and genomic prediction of six traits related to plant architecture using an IMF2 population. Broad-sense heritability of these traits ranged from 0.85 to 0.94. Analysis of genetic effects showed that additive variance was the main contributor to phenotypic variations. The mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) revealed 10 to 16 QTLs (including pleiotropic loci and epistatic QTLs) for the six traits. Additionally, we identified 15 fine-tuning QTLs for plant height (PH). For genomic prediction (GP), the model of additive and dominance (AD) exhibited higher prediction accuracy than those fitting general combining ability (GCA) and its combination with special combining ability (SCA) effects for all tested traits. And adding the epistasis (E) effect into the AD model did not significantly increase its prediction accuracy. Moreover, the identified 15 fine-tuning QTLs of PH, which exerted large genomic prediction effects, were verified by the marker effect of GP. Our results not only provide an approach for the fine-mapping of fine-tuning QTLs but also serve as references for GP breeding in crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]