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The magnetic and electronic transport properties of the lightly doped SrRu1-x Fex O3 (x ≤ 0.15) have been studied. All the samples show a paramagnetic-ferromagnetic phase transition and hysteresis effect. With the increase of Fe, the temperature of magnetic phase transition decreases but coercive field increases indicting the existence of antiferromagnetic interaction and magnetic-crystalline anisotropy. In low temperature, all the doping samples exhibit an insulating behavior while metal feature appears only at x ≤ 0.10 samples. The induced disorder suppresses the itinerant property of Ru 4d electron due to Fe random occupation. As a result, the ferromagnetism is weakened and metal-insulator transition is suppressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Ni layer was first electroplated on the surface of Ti-6Al-4V (TC4) to enhance surface hardness and reduce the negative impact of a powder addition, and then, the preplated TC4 was surface remelted by a high energy electron beam. The associated Ti-Ni composite coating, heat affected zone and substrate were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and nanoindentation. The results showed that the surface integrity of the coating increased, the surface hardness improved, and new intermetallic phases of Ti 2 Ni and TiNi were distributed in the remelted surface area. The coating grains were refined to a nanocrystalline structure with a distorted lattice, which was rich in dislocations or stacking faults. The maximum hardness of the modified coating was 7.03 GPa. Through first-principles calculations, the related properties of the Ti-Ni binary compounds of Ti 2 Ni, TiNi and TiNi 3 were obtained, including crystal structure, mechanical properties and electronic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a simplified algorithm, VIAAVG, which is independent on DIR and requires only AVG CT as input. • Accuracy and efficiency are evaluated for 50 patients, which is the largest cohort as far as we know. • VIAAVG shows nearly substantial similarity with gold standard, VISPECT, which is higher than other proposed algorithms. • VIAAVG takes much less time to compute CTVI than other algorithms proposed before. • VIAAVG is more convenient for clinical use, since structures, dose, lung function are all defined on the same AVG CT. It is still not conclusive which four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT)-based ventilation imaging algorithm is most accurate and efficient. In this study, we proposed a simplified algorithm (VIAAVG) which only requires the average computed tomography (AVG CT) as input, and quantitatively compared its accuracy and efficiency with three other popular algorithms. Fifty patients with lung or esophageal cancer who underwent radiotherapy were enrolled. Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) ventilation images (VI-SPECT) and 4DCT were acquired 1–3 days before the first treatment session. The end of exhalation and the end of inhalation CT were registered to derive deformable vector field (DVF) using MIMvista. 4DCT-based ventilation images (CTVI) were first calculated respectively by means of four algorithms (VIAJAC, VIAHU, VIAPRO and VIAAVG). The computation times were compared using paired t -test. The corresponding CTVIs (CTVIJAC, CTVIHU, CTVIPRO and CTVIAVG) and VI-SPECT were segmented into three equal sub-volumes (high, medium and low function lung, respectively) after smoothing and normalization. The Dice Similarity Coefficients (DSCs) were calculated for each sub-volume between each CTVI and VI-SPECT. The average DSCs for high, medium and low function lung in different CTVIs for each patient were compared using paired t -test. The mean DSCs for CTVIJAC, CTVIHU, CTVIPRO and CTVIAVG were 0.3255, 0.4465, 0.5865 and 0.5958, respectively. The average computation times for CTVIJAC, CTVIHU, CTVIPRO and CTVIAVG were 18.3 s, 24.2 s, 144.8 s and 15.0 s. VIAAVG is available for clinical use because of its high accuracy, improved efficiency and less input requirement compared to the other algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Sweet sorghum accumulates large amounts of soluble sugar in its stem. However, a system‐based understanding of this carbohydrate allocation process is lacking. Here, we compared the dynamic transcriptome and metabolome between the conversion line R9188 and its two parents, sweet sorghum RIO and grain sorghum BTx406 that have contrasting sugar‐accumulating phenotypes. We identified two features of sucrose metabolism, stable concentrations of sugar phosphates in RIO and opposite trend of trehalose‐6‐phosphate (T6P) between RIO vs R9188/BTx406. Integration of transcriptome and metabolome revealed R9188 is partially active in starch metabolism together with medium sucrose level, whereas sweet sorghum had the highest sucrose concentration and remained highly active in sucrose, starch, and cell wall metabolism post‐anthesis. Similar expression pattern of genes involved in sucrose degradation decreased the pool of sugar phosphates for precursors of starch and cell wall synthesis in R9188 and BTx406. Differential T6P signal between RIO vs R9188/BTx406 is associated with introgression of T6P regulators from BTx406 into R9188, including C‐group bZIP and trehalose 6‐phosphate phosphatase (TPP). The inverted T6P signalling in R9188 appears to down‐regulate sucrose and starch metabolism partly through transcriptome reprogramming, whereas introgressed metabolic genes could be related to reduced cell wall metabolism. Our results show that coordinated primary metabolic pathways lead to high sucrose demand and accumulation in sweet sorghum, providing us with targets for genetic improvements of carbohydrate allocation in bioenergy crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fabricating practical multitasking materials integrating efficient oil-water separation ability and excellent catalytic performance is significant for water remediation but challenging for substrates and subsequent surface modification causing high cost, high power consumption, and poor reusability. Herein, a multitasking sponge was designed for water purification by successively modifying the biomass pomelo peel (PP) with polypyrrole (PPy), Au nanoparticles (NPs), and polydopamine (PDA). The cost-effective and renewable PP substrates, facile surface decoration of PP with PPy coating, in-situ spontaneous growth of Au NPs, and the protection of the outermost PDA coating endowed the as-obtained PP/PPy-Au/PDA sponges high sewage treatment efficiency and the potential for large-scale preparation. The PP/PPy-Au/PDA sponges exhibited high catalytic reduction activity for 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) and excellent reusability without remarkable decline in catalytic activity even after 10 recycles due to the synergistic effect among PPy, Au NPs and PDA. In addition, this sponge also displayed superior separation efficiency and high filtration flux towards both immiscible oil-water mixtures and O/W emulsions due to its underwater superoleophobicity. Integrating above properties, the PP/PPy-Au/PDA sponge could perform catalytic degradation of organic molecules and meanwhile separation of oil-water mixtures. [Display omitted] • A multitasking sponge derived from pomelo peel biowaste was designed. • The sponge integrated the underwater superoleophobicity and catalytic ability. • The sponge exhibited high catalytic activity and oil-water separation efficiency. • Cleanup of oils and degradation of organic molecules could be achieved simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper proposes a novel nonfragile robust asynchronous control scheme for master‐slave uncertain chaotic Lurie network systems with randomly occurring time‐varying parameter uncertainties and controller gain fluctuation. The asynchronous phenomenon occurs between the system modes and the controller modes. In order to consider a more realistic situation in designing a reliable proportional‐derivative controller, Bernoulli stochastic process and memory feedback are introduced to the concept of nonlinear control system. First, by taking full advantage of the additional derivative state term and variable multiple integral terms, a newly augmented Lyapunov‐Krasovskii functional is constructed via an adjustable parameter. Second, based on new integral inequalities including almost all of the existing integral inequalities, which can produce more accurate bounds with more orthogonal polynomials considered, less conservative synchronization criteria are obtained. Third, a desired nonfragile estimator controller is achieved under the aforementioned methods. Finally, 4 numerical simulation examples of Chua's circuit and 3‐cell cellular neural network with multiscroll chaotic attractors are presented to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Starch is the most abundant storage carbohydrate in maize kernel. The content of amylose and amylopectin confers unique properties in food processing and industrial application. Thus, the resurgent interest has been switched to the study of individual amylose or amylopectin rather than total starch, whereas the enzymatic machinery for amylose synthesis remains elusive. We took advantage of the phenotype of amylose content and the genotype of 9,007,194 single nucleotide polymorphisms from 464 inbred maize lines. The genome‐wide association study identified 27 associated loci involving 39 candidate genes that were linked to amylose content including transcription factors, glycosyltransferases, glycosidases, as well as hydrolases. Except the waxy gene that encodes the granule‐bound starch synthase, the remaining candidate genes were located in the upstream pathway of amylose synthesis, while the downstream members were already known from prior studies. The linked candidate genes could be transferred to manipulate amylose content and thus add value to maize kernel in the breeding programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a double-layer Ti (C, N) film was successfully prepared on Ti-6Al-4V alloy by a series of YAG laser irradiation in nitrogen atmosphere, aiming at improving the wear resistance. The effects of laser irradiation pass upon surface chemical composition, microstructures and hardness were investigated. The results showed that the surface chemicals were independent from laser irradiation pass, which the up layer of film was a mixture of TiN and TiC 0.3 N 0.7 , and the down layer was nitrogen-rich α-Ti. Both the surface roughness and hardness increased as raising the irradiation passes. However, surface deformation and cracks happened in the case above 3 passes’ irradiation. The wear resistance of laser modified sample by 3 passes was improved approximately by 37 times compared to the as received substrate. Moreover, the cytotoxic V ion released from laser modified sample was less than that of as received Ti-6Al-4V alloy in SBF, suggesting the potentiality of a new try to modify the sliding part of Ti-based hard tissue implants in future biomedical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant genomes generated by Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) have provided insight into species diversity and evolution. However, Sanger sequencing is limited in its applications due to high cost, labor intensity, and low throughput, while NGS reads are too short to resolve abundant repeats and polyploidy, leading to incomplete or ambiguous assemblies. The advent and improvement of long-read sequencing by Third Generation Sequencing (TGS) methods such as PacBio and Nanopore have shown promise in producing high-quality assemblies for complex genomes. Here, we review the development of sequencing, introducing the application as well as considerations of experimental design in TGS of plant genomes. We also introduce recent revolutionary scaffolding technologies including BioNano, Hi-C, and 10× Genomics. We expect that the informative guidance for genome sequencing and assembly by long reads will benefit the initiation of scientists' projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, in-situ synthesized stellate Mo 2 C reinforced WC/amorphous composite coatings have been prepared by resistance seam welding (RSW). The effects of WC-12Co amounts (0–30 wt%) on the microstructure, hardness, and wear properties of the composite coatings were performed using XRD, SEM-EDS, micro and nanoindentation techniques. The stellate Mo 2 C precipitates with a dispersion distribution were formed by the reaction between the carbon decomposed from WC-12Co and the Mo-rich region in the amorphous powder. The wear resistance of the C30 coating was 20.57 times that of the substrate respectively. The improved wear resistance was due to the metallurgical bonding between the uniformly distributed stellate Mo 2 C precipitates and the matrix, which weakened the adverse effects of WC peeling. [Display omitted] • The stellate Mo 2 C precipitates were in-situ synthesized in the coating during RSW. • The WC-12Co was beneficial to the precipitation of stellate Mo 2 C. • The wear resistance of C30 coating was 20.57 times that of the substrate. • The WC was mechanically bound to the matrix; the WC debris aggravated the wear. • The uniformly distributed stellate Mo 2 C precipitates improved the wear resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]