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Abstract Nonlinear optical processing of ambient natural light is highly desired for computational imaging and sensing. Strong optical nonlinear response under weak broadband incoherent light is essential for this purpose. By merging 2D transparent phototransistors (TPTs) with liquid crystal (LC) modulators, we create an optoelectronic neuron array that allows self-amplitude modulation of spatially incoherent light, achieving a large nonlinear contrast over a broad spectrum at orders-of-magnitude lower intensity than achievable in most optical nonlinear materials. We fabricated a 10,000-pixel array of optoelectronic neurons, and experimentally demonstrated an intelligent imaging system that instantly attenuates intense glares while retaining the weaker-intensity objects captured by a cellphone camera. This intelligent glare-reduction is important for various imaging applications, including autonomous driving, machine vision, and security cameras. The rapid nonlinear processing of incoherent broadband light might also find applications in optical computing, where nonlinear activation functions for ambient light conditions are highly sought.

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.

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.IMPACT STATEMENT 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.

THz imaging and spectroscopy always request even more efficient components. Here the authors, thanks to a modified photoconductive switch that includes a graphene layer, demonstrate a high-speed photoconductive switch without sacrificing the generated power.

Miniaturized infrared spectrometers are required for imaging and remote sensing applications, but they are usually characterized by a cm-scale footprint. Here, the authors report the realization of near-infrared spectrometers based on Au-atom-intercalated ReS2/WSe2 heterostructures with an active footprint < 10 μm and electrically tunable photoresponse.

Hail, known as an agricultural meteorological disaster, can substantially constrain the growth of the apple industry. Presently, apple orchards use a variety of colored (photo-selective) hail nets as a preventative measure. However, it is unclear which color proves most effective for apple orchards. This study provides a systematic investigation of the impact of four photo-selective colored hail nets (white, blue, black, and green; with white being the control) on the microenvironment of apple orchards, fruit tree development, fruit quality, and yield over a two-year period (2020–2021). Different photo-selective nets do not evidently alter the intensity of light, although the nets’ shading effects decrease in the order from black to green to blue. Among them, blue nets increased the proportion of blue light, while green nets enhanced the proportion of green light. On the other hand, black, green, and blue nets diminished the proportion of red and far-red light. Such photo-selective nets effectively lowered soil temperature but did not have an impact on relative humidity and air temperature. Encasing apple trees with blue nets promoted growth, increasing shoot length, thickness, leaf area, and water content, while simultaneously decreasing leaf thickness. Black nets had comparable effects, although the impacts of green nets were inconsistent. Different photo-selective nets did not significantly influence the leaf shape index or overall chlorophyll content. However, black and green nets reduced the chlorophyll a/b ratio, while blue nets slightly boosted this ratio. Additionally, blue nets proved beneficial for apple trees’ photosynthesis. With the employment of a principal component analysis and comprehensive evaluation, this study concludes that blue nets offer the most favorable environmental conditions for apple growth while protecting apple orchards against hail, compared to black, white, and green nets.

In the context of globalization in the mining industry, assessing the production feasibility of mining projects by smart technology is crucial for the improvement of mining development efficiency. However, evaluating the feasibility of such projects faces significant challenges due to incomplete data and complex variables. In recent years, the development of big data technology has offered new possibilities for rapidly evaluating mining projects. This study conducts an intelligent evaluation of gold mines based on global mineral resources data to estimate whether a gold mine project can be put into production. A technical workflow is constructed, including data filling, evaluation model construction, and production feasibility evaluation. Based on the workflow, the missing data is filled in by the Miceforest imputation algorithm first. The evaluation model is established based on the Random Forest model to quantitatively predict the feasibility of the mining project being put into production, and important features of the model are extracted using Shapley Additive explanation(SHAP). This workflow may enhance the efficiency and accuracy of quantitative production feasibility evaluation for mining projects, with an accuracy rate increased from 93.80% to 95.99%. Results suggest that the features of estimated mine life and gold ore grade have the most significant impact on production feasibility.

Abstract Background Histone lysine methylation plays an important role in plant development and stress responses by activating or repressing gene expression. Histone lysine methylation is catalyzed by a class of SET-domain group proteins (SDGs). Although an increasing number of studies have shown that SDGs play important regulatory roles in development and stress responses, the functions of SDGs in apple remain unclear. Results A total of 67 SDG members were identified in the Malus×domestica genome. Syntenic analysis revealed that most of the MdSDG duplicated gene pairs were associated with a recent genome-wide duplication event of the apple genome. These 67 MdSDG members were grouped into six classes based on sequence similarity and the findings of previous studies. The domain organization of each MdSDG class was characterized by specific patterns, which was consistent with the classification results. The tissue-specific expression patterns of MdSDGs among the 72 apple tissues in the different apple developmental stages were characterized to provide insight into their potential functions in development. The expression profiles of MdSDGs were also investigated in fruit development, the breaking of bud dormancy, and responses to abiotic and biotic stress; the results indicated that MdSDGs might play a regulatory role in development and stress responses. The subcellular localization and putative interaction network of MdSDG proteins were also analyzed. Conclusions This work presents a fundamental comprehensive analysis of SDG histone methyltransferases in apple and provides a basis for future studies of MdSDGs involved in apple development and stress responses.

Transparent photodetectors based on graphene stacked vertically along the optical axis have shown promising potential for light field reconstruction. Here, the authors develop transparent photodetector arrays and implement a neural network for real-time 3D optical imaging and object tracking.

Abstract The world-class Shizhuyuan W–Sn–Mo–Bi deposit is spatially related to the Qianlishan granite complex (QGC) in Hunan Province, China. However, the age and classification of the QGC are still debated, and a better understanding of the temporal genetic relationship between the QGC and the Shizhuyuan deposit is essential. Here, we present chemical compositions the intrusive phases of the QGC and the results of detailed zircon U–Pb dating and muscovite Ar–Ar dating of a mineralized greisen vein. Our new zircon laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry U–Pb age data constrain the emplacement of the QGC to 155–151.7 Ma. According to petrological, geochemical and geochronological data and the inferred redox conditions, the QGC can be classified into four phases: P1, porphyritic biotite granites; P2, porphyritic biotite granites; P3, equigranular biotite granite; and P4, granite porphyry dikes. All phases, and especially P1-P3, have elevated concentrations of ore-forming metals and heat-producing elements (U, Th, K; volume heat-producing rate of 5.89–14.03 μWm−3), supplying the metal and heat for the metalogic process of the Shizhuyuan deposit. The Ar–Ar muscovite age (154.0 ± 1.6 Ma) of the mineralized greisen vein in the Shizhuyuan deposit is consistent with the emplacement time of the QGC, suggesting their temporal genetic relationship.

Aiming at the problems of poor diversity and slow convergence of ant colony algorithm, dynamic multi-role adaptive collaborative ant colony optimization (MRCACO) is proposed in this paper, and it applies to robot path planning. Firstly, an adaptive dynamic complementary algorithm is proposed to form a heterogeneous multi-colony together with ACS and MMAS, which complement each other in performance. Secondly, a multi-role adaptive cooperation mechanism is proposed to realize the exchange and sharing of information. The mechanism includes two strategies: one is an elite attribute learning strategy, which highlights the role of elite attribute and improves the comprehensive performance of ACS and MMAS; The second is the pheromone balancing strategy, which is executed when the algorithm is stagnant to make the algorithm jump out of the local optimal. Further, the effectiveness and superiority in the algorithm are demonstrated by the experimental analysis of multiple TSP instances. Finally, the algorithm presented in this paper is applied to the path planning of the robot, two different deadlock rollback strategies are proposed to solve the deadlock problem and improve the efficiency of the algorithm. The results of a practical application show that the algorithm is feasible to solve the path planning problem.

This research describes an advanced workflow of an object-based geochemical graph learning approach, termed OGE, which includes five key steps: (1) conduct the mean removal operation on the multi-elemental geochemical data and then normalize them; (2) data gridding and multiresolution segmentation; (3) calculate the Moran’s I value and construct the geochemical topology graph; (4) unsupervised deep graph learning; (5) the within-object statistical analysis. The final product of OGE is an object-based anomaly score map. The performance of OGE was demonstrated by a case study involving eighteen ore-forming elements (Cu, Pb, Zn, W, Sn, Mo, F, Au, Fe2O3, etc.) in stream sediment samples in the Bayantala-Mingantu district, North China. The results showed that the OGE analysis performed at lower levels of scale greatly improved the quality of anomaly recognition: more than 80% of the known ore spots, no matter what their scales and mineral species, were predicted in less than 45% of the study area, and most of the ore spots falling outside the delineated anomalous regions occur nearby them. OGE can extract both the spatial features and compositional relationships of geochemical variables collected at irregularly distributed centroids in irregularly shaped image objects, and it outperforms other convolutional autoencoder models such as GAUGE in anomaly detection.

Ant Colony Optimization has achieved good results in solving Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), it has a tendency to fall into local optima and the convergence speed is limited. To address this problem, multi-colony ant colony optimization based on the generalized Jaccard similarity recommendation strategy (JCACO) is proposed. Firstly, two classical ant populations, Ant Colony System and Max-Min Ant System are selected to form heterogeneous multi-colony. Secondly, attribute-based collaborative filtering recommendation mechanism is proposed to balance the diversity and convergence of the algorithm, three strategies have been implemented under this recommendation mechanism: The attribute cross-learning strategy is used to highlight the effect of excellent attributes and improve the attribute comprehensive performance; According to the diversity results of the population measured by information entropy, the attribute recommendation learning strategy is used to enrich the diversity of the population adaptively; The pheromone reward strategy is implemented on the public path to accelerate the convergence speed; Among which, according to the generalized Jaccard similarity coefficient, the most suitable communication object is recommended in order to achieve the best learning efficiency. Finally, when the algorithm stagnates, the elite reverse learning mechanism is used to jump out of the local optimum. Experimental results show that JCACO has good performance and high stability in TSP instances, especially in large-scale TSP instances.

Gabbro–granite complexes formed in active continental margins provide critical constraints on magmatic processes, crust–mantle interactions, and tectonic evolution. The petrogenesis and tectonic setting of the Early Permian igneous rocks in the southeastern Central Asian Orogenic Belt have been a subject of dispute for a long time. This contribution presents an integrated study on the field occurrence, petrology, petrography, zircon U–Pb ages, in situ zircon Hf isotopes, whole-rock geochemistry, and Sr–Nd isotopes of the Early Permian Yiheshaorong gabbro–granite complex, Xi Ujimqin Banner, central Inner Mongolia. Lithologically, the Yiheshaorong complex consists predominantly of gabbro, pyroxene diorite, and alkali feldspar granite. Results of LA–ICP–MS zircon U–Pb dating suggest that crystallization ages of the gabbro, pyroxene diorite, and alkali feldspar granite are 281–280, 278, and 281–280 Ma, respectively. Silica (SiO2) content varies from 41.26 to 79.64 wt% and exhibits a gap between 56.84 and 75.45 wt%, displaying a good bimodal geochemical distribution. Geochemically, the gabbros and pyroxene diorites are characterized by enrichment of large ion lithophile elements (LILEs; e.g., Ba and K) and depletion of high field strength elements (HFSEs; e.g., Nb, Ti, and P). These rocks show similar homogeneous zircon Hf isotopic (positive εHf (t) values from +7.8 to +10.1) and whole-rock Sr–Nd isotopic (low initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios from 0.7044 to 0.7051, positive εNd (t) values from +3.7 to +4.7) compositions. The gabbros and pyroxene diorites originated from partial melting of depleted asthenospheric mantle metasomatized by subduction slab fluids; and they experienced various degrees of crystallization differentiation during ascension. The alkali feldspar granites are ferroan, alkali-calcic–calc-alkalic series rocks marked by high SiO2, K2O + Na2O, and FeOT/MgO; and low Al2O3, CaO, and MgO contents. Their trace elements are marked by enrichment of LILEs (such as K and Rb); depletion of HFSEs (such as Nb and Ti), Ba, Sr, and P; and strongly negative Eu anomalies (Eu/Eu* = 0.17–0.57), with coincident distribution patterns forming a seagull-type distribution form, showing an A-type granite affinity. The alkali feldspar granites are characterized by positive εHf (t) values (+8.6 to +10.3, young TDM2 ages, 645–758 Ma) and εNd (t) values (+3.5 to +3.8 as well as young TDM2 ages, 667–687 Ma). All these geochemical characteristics indicate that the alkali feldspar granites originated from the partial melting of juvenile crust under high temperature and low pressure condition. The Yiheshaorong complex was most likely formed in a back-arc spreading basin. Such an extensional regime can likely be attributed to the upwelling of asthenospheric mantle caused by the rollback and break-off of a subducted Paleo-Asian Ocean slab in the Early Permian, which induced large-scale extension and magmatism in the study area.

Ultra-thin polymeric dielectrics are of great interest for the ever-increasing development of high-performance novel electronics. Up to date, the fabrication of polymer layers as thin as few nanometers is still an extremely demanding process. Here, we report a facile method to fabricate molecularly thin (4 nm–5 nm) plasma-hardened photoresist (PHPR) layers by applying O2 plasma to treat the surface of the photoresist (SPR 220) to cross-link the constituent novolac resin. It is found that such ultra-thin PHPR layers also possess molecular-scale smoothness, superior chemical resistance, and thermal endurance. Furthermore, we develop an in situ transfer technique that is compatible with the planar process to stabilize the patterning of the PHPR layers. By using PHPR layers as the gate dielectric and tunneling barrier (breakdown strength up to 500 kV/mm), a graphene-PHPR-graphene (G-PHPR-G) sandwich-like structure is demonstrated, exhibiting a high photo-responsivity (>13 A/W) under low operating voltages (

Wolframite is the main ore mineral at the vein-type tungsten deposits in the Nanling Range, which is a world-class tungsten province. It is disputed how wolframite is precipitated at these deposits and no one has yet studied the links of the mechanical processes to fluid flow and mineralization. Finite element-based numerical experiments are used to investigate the influences of a hydraulic fracturing process on fluid flow and solubility of CO2 and quartz. The fluids are aqueous NaCl solutions and fluid pressure is the only variable controlling solubility of CO2 and quartz in the numerical experiments. Significant fluctuations of fluid pressure and high-velocity hydrothermal pulse are found once rock is fractured by high-pressure fluids. The fluid pressure drop induced by hydraulic fracturing could cause a 9% decrease of quartz solubility. This amount of quartz deposition may not cause a significant decrease in rock permeability. The fluid pressure decrease after hydraulic fracturing also reduces solubility of CO2 by 36% and increases pH. Because an increase in pH would cause a major decrease in solubility of tungsten, the fluid pressure drop accompanying a hydraulic fracturing process facilitates wolframite precipitation. Our numerical experiments provide insight into the mechanisms precipitating wolframite at the tungsten deposits in the Nanling Range as well as other metals whose solubility is strongly dependent on pH.

Salidroside and its aglycone p-tyrosol are two major phenols in the genus Rhodiola and have been confirmed to possess various pharmacological properties. In our present study, p-tyrosol was identified as the deglycosylation metabolite of salidroside after intravenous (i.v.) administration to rats at a dose of 50 mg/kg, but was not detectable after intragastric gavage (i.g.) administration through HPLC-photodiode array detection (PDA) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. Next, an accurate and precise LC-MS/MS method was developed to quantitatively determine salidroside and p-tyrosol in rat plasma samples. Samples were analyzed by LC-MS/MS on a reverse-phase xTerra MS C18 column which was equilibrated and eluted with an isocratic mixture of acetonitrile-water (1:9, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. The analytes were monitored by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) under the negative electrospray ionization mode. The precursor/product transitions (m/z) were 299.0→118.8 for salidroside, 137.0→118.9 for p-tyrosol and 150.1→106.9 for the internal standard (IS), paracetamol, respectively. The calibration curve was linear over the concentration ranges of 50–2,000 ng/mL for salidroside and 20–200 ng/mL for p-tyrosol. The inter- and intra-day accuracy and precision were within ±15%. The method has been successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study and the oral bioavailability was calculated.