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Pure water splitting by charged semiconductors and solar photons to concurrently generate H2 and O2 molecules has gained notable attention due to worldwide clean energy generation and storage. Despite significant advancements, challenges facing severe carrier recombination and sluggish electron transport continue to hinder the intrinsic efficiency of water splitting. Here, we fabricate two-dimensional graphitic carbon nitride-hybridized sulfur thionic polymorphs (CN/S100/S010 junctions) by incorporating photoactive semiconductors within lateral nanosheets. As a result, the charge rectification effect within the coplanar graphitic carbon nitride/S100/S010 junctions is induced by well-designed driving forces: favorable band offsets and cascade polarized surface work functions. During the water splitting process, the photogenerated electrons are sequentially transferred from graphitic carbon nitride to element semiconductor sulfur {100} and subsequently oriented to sulfur {010} facets. This unique behavior of charge migration within CN/S100/S010 photocatalysts contributes to impressive rates of H2 and O2 production, reaching 740 and 363 µmol g−1·h−1, respectively, nearly 13-fold higher than that of the parent carbon nitride. Comprehensive spectroscopic and theoretical analyses confirm the formation of CN/S100/S010 hierarchies with long-lived charge carriers during hydrogen energy production. This work introduces novel avenues for automatically orienting photogenerated carriers and holds promising prospects for clean energy production.

There is an urgent need to explore climate-resilient alternative agriculture production systems that focus on resilience, resource efficiency, and disease management. Hydroponics, a soilless cultivation system, gaining interest as it reduces the dependency on agricultural land, and pesticides, and can be implemented in areas with poor soil quality, thus mitigating the negative effects of extreme weather events. Potato is an essential dietary staple crop grown throughout the world and is a major source of food security in underdeveloped countries. However, due to the climatic changes, it is predicted that a significant loss in the suitability of land for potato production would occur, thus leading to potato yield loss. Recently, many case studies have emerged to highlight the advancement of agricultural hydroponic systems that provide a promising solution to the massive production of potato mini tuber at high efficiency. This review paper evaluates popular hydroponic methods and demonstrates how hydroponic has emerged as the go-to, long-term, sustainable answer to the perennial problem of insufficient access to high-quality potato seed stock. The paper discusses the research and innovation possibilities (such as artificial intelligence, nanoparticles, and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) that potentially increase tuber production per plant under optimal hydroponic growth circumstances. These approaches are examined considering new scientific discoveries and practical applications. Furthermore, it emphasizes that by enduring significant reforms in soilless food production systems (particularly for potatoes), the food supply of a rapidly growing population can be addressed. Since hydroponics systems are productive and easily automated without soil and optimal environmental conditions, future hydroponics farming is promising. In conclusion, the hydroponics system provides better yield and crop productivity by saving water, energy, and space. Henceforth, it can be the alternate choice for modern sustainable agriculture.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has resulted in extensive health challenges globally. While SARS-CoV-2 primarily targets the respiratory system, clinical studies have revealed that it could also affect multiple organs, including the heart, kidneys, liver, and brain, leading to severe complications. To unravel the intricate molecular interactions between the virus and host tissues, we performed an integrated transcriptomic analysis to investigate the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on various organs, with a particular focus on the relationship between renal failure and COVID-19. A comparative analysis showed that SARS-CoV-2 triggers a systemic immune response in the brain, heart, and kidney tissues, characterized by significant upregulation of cytokine and chemokine secretion, along with enhanced migration of lymphocytes and leukocytes. A weighted gene co-expression network analysis demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 could also induce tissue-specific transcriptional profiling. More importantly, single-cell sequencing revealed that COVID-19 patients with renal failure exhibited lower metabolic activity in lung epithelial and B cells, with reduced ligand–receptor interactions, especially CD226 and ICAM, suggesting a compromised immune response. A trajectory analysis revealed that COVID-19 patients with renal failure exhibited less mature alveolar type 1 cells. Furthermore, these patients showed potential fibrosis in the hearts, liver, and lung increased extracellular matrix remodeling activities. However, there was no significant metabolic dysregulation in the liver of COVID-19 patients with renal failure. Candidate drugs prediction by Drug Signatures database and LINCS L1000 Antibody Perturbations Database underscored the importance of considering multi-organ effects in COVID-19 management and highlight potential therapeutic strategies, including targeting viral entry and replication, controlling tissue fibrosis, and alleviating inflammation.

With the increase in population and the progress of industrialization, the rational use of energy in heating systems has become a research topic for many scholars. The accurate prediction of heat load in heating systems provides us with a scientific solution. Due to the complexity and difficulty of heat load forecasting in heating systems, this paper proposes a short-term heat load forecasting method based on a Bayesian algorithm-optimized long- and short-term memory network (BO-LSTM). The moving average data smoothing method is used to eliminate noise from the data. Pearson’s correlation analysis is used to determine the inputs to the model. Finally, the outdoor temperature and heat load of the previous period are selected as inputs to the model. The root mean square error (RMSE) is used as the main evaluation index, and the mean absolute error (MAE), mean bias error (MBE), and coefficient of determination (R2) are used as auxiliary evaluation indexes. It was found that the RMSE of the asynchronous length model decreased, proving the general practicability of the method. In conclusion, the proposed prediction method is simple and universal.

The accuracy of correlation modeling for multiple wind farms will directly affect the assessment results of absorption capacity in electric utilities. Due to the rapid increase in installed capacity of wind power in recent years, there are often multiple wind farms with complex correlations in a region, and traditional correlation models are inaccurate and highly computational. In order to enhance the accuracy of correlation modeling for multiple wind farms, this paper combines the piecewise cloud representation and regular vine (R-vine) copulas for classification modeling purposes. The piecewise cloud representation is used to divide the multiple wind farms’ data into different categories, and the correlation models of different categories are established based on the R-vine copulas. A case of the SCADA system record data of 6 wind farms in Northwest China has been adopted to evaluate the effectiveness compared with its competitors. Case studies have demonstrated that the proposed method not only has good performances on modeling the correlation better than the traditional method but also has strong robustness, especially in the case that the correlation of different wind farms is inconsistent. Most importantly, this model is able to extract the correlations of different features in multiple wind farms’ data and then targeted modeling.

Remodelling of the actin cytoskeleton occurs during plant immune responses to pathogens. Here Lu et al. show that this process requires the calcium-dependent kinase CPK3 which phosphorylates actin depolymerizing factor 4 and is required for both PAMP and effector-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis.

With the wide deployment of renewable energies, future power grids become more vulnerable to extreme environments. This paper investigates enhancing the resilience of power systems with high penetrations of renewable energies under emergencies. The resilience enhancement firstly is defined as maintaining as much electric energy to critical loads in a fixed number of post-disaster periods by properly coordinating the available resources. Then, an optimal decision-making method is proposed to maximize the power supply of critical loads and to minimize the instability risks due to the randomness of the output power of renewable energies. The power consumption of loads, charging/discharging power of power storage plants, power generation of generators, and spinning reserve ratios of the renewable energy at each period are taken as decision variables. Constraints include spinning reserve, power flow constraints, and power consumption/generation limits. The interior-point algorithm is used to solve the formulated optimization problem. Numerical simulations verified the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed optimization method in boosting grid resilience after disasters. It is also found that a balance should be sought between decreasing stability risks and increasing the power supply benefit in extreme environments.

The randomness and volatility of large-scale clean energy output represented by wind power and photovoltaic lead to difficulties in grid connection. The problems of abandoned wind, light, and water become increasingly prominent. The adjustment capacity of traditional thermal power is limited and it is difficult to ensure the consumption of high proportion clean energy. On this basis, the marginal benefit hedging rule in economics is introduced into the hydropower and photovoltaic joint operation system in this paper. A two-stage spatio-temporal hedging strategy is designed to solve the spatio-temporal conflict problem in the hydropower and photovoltaic joint system. The multi-objective joint dispatching model of hydropower and photovoltaic system considering system benefits, risks, and stability is established, which can be solved by a MOEA/D-GABS algorithm with selection strategy. The joint system scheduling schemes under different schemes are analyzed by case. The results demonstrate that, compared with the traditional multi-objective decision-making scheme, the flood control risk in each period of the reservoir in the proposed method is controlled to be no more than 1.63 × 10−3 (the flood control standard corresponding to the 50-year flood control risk is 0.006); the flood limit water level of the reservoir is increased from 583.00 m to 583.70 m, which improves the benefit of the reservoir; and the water utilization rate is effectively improved. On the other hand, compared with the traditional scheme, the proposed method reduces the peak valley difference of the combined system by 50.67% and 59.68% in typical sunny and cloudy scenarios, respectively, which greatly reduces the uncertainty of photovoltaic output, and the stability of the combined system is improved. It is shown that the proposed method can be used to guide the economic dispatch of a complementary system with hydropower as the regulating energy.

In Arabidopsis, basic helix–loop–helix transcription factors (TFs) MYC2, MYC3, and MYC4 are involved in many biological processes, such as defense against insects. We found that despite functional redundancy, MYC-related mutants displayed different resistance to cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera). To screen out the most likely genes involved in defense against insects, we analyzed the correlation of gene expression with cotton bollworm resistance in wild-type (WT) and MYC-related mutants. In total, the expression of 94 genes in untreated plants and 545 genes in wounded plants were strongly correlated with insect resistance, and these genes were defined as MGAIs (MYC-related genes against insects). MYC3 had the greatest impact on the total expression of MGAIs. Gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed that besides the biosynthesis pathway of glucosinolates (GLSs), MGAIs, which are well-known defense compounds, were also enriched in flavonoid biosynthesis. Moreover, MYC3 dominantly affected the gene expression of flavonoid biosynthesis. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) revealed that AAE18, which is involved in activating auxin precursor 2,4-dichlorophenoxybutyric acid (2,4-DB) and two other auxin response genes, was highly co-expressed with flavonoid biosynthesis genes. With wounding treatment, the WT plants exhibited better growth performance than chalcone synthase (CHS), which was defective in flavonoid biosynthesis. The data demonstrated dominant contributions of MYC3 to cotton bollworm resistance and imply that flavonoids might alleviate the growth inhibition caused by wounding in Arabidopsis.

Heterostructures such as heterojunctions, quantum wells, and superlattices are core components of advanced optoelectronic devices. Herein, we attempted the first investigations on the band alignment of nonpolar m-plane oriented ZnO1−xSx/Mg0.4Zn0.6O heterojunctions by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. All the heterojunctions were revealed to show a type-I band alignment, and the valence band offset (VBO; ΔEV) increased significantly, while the conduction band offset (ΔEC) decreased insignificantly with increasing S content in the ZnO1−xSx layer. Specifically, for the ZnO1−xSx/Mg0.4Zn0.6O heterojunctions with x = 0, 0.13, and 0.22, ΔEV (ΔEC) was determined to be 0.24 (0.22), 0.61 (0.17), and 0.79 (0.11) eV, respectively. The VBOs of ZnOS/MgZnO heterojunctions are significantly larger than those of heterojunctions involving only cation-substituted alloys (ZnO/MgZnO or ZnO/CdZnO) due to the opposite shift in the VB maximum of ZnOS and MgZnO with respect to ZnO. Knowing band alignment parameters of the ZnOS/MgZnO interface can provide a better understanding of the carrier transport mechanism and rational design of ZnO-based optoelectronic devices.

Tunnel-landslide systems often cause slope deformation due to tunnel excavation along the slip surface. Based on the three-dimensional numerical calculation, the point safety factor of the interface (slip surface) of the tunnel-landslide system is defined as the ratio of the shear strength of the node to the sliding force. Taking an oblique tunnel-landslide system along the BAOJI-LANZHOU Passenger Dedicated Line as the main study objectives, the author determines the deformation mechanism of tunnel-landslide systems through the analysis of the distribution characteristics of the point safety factor of the interface. In this study, the conditions during excavation, conditions after construction, the interaction stability, deformation laws and possible failure modes, etc. of the tunnel-landslide system are seriously investigated. Our research indicates that the point safety factor of the interface can be taken as a quantitative assessment index of the tunnel-landslide system’s stability.

Abstract Background The conserved Notch signaling pathway regulates cell fate decisions and maintains stem cells in multicellular organisms. Up-regulation of Notch signaling is observed in several types of cancer and is causally involved in proliferation and survival of cancer cells. Thus, it is of great interest to look for anti-Notch reagents for therapeutic purposes. In model animal Drosophila, Notch signaling restricts selection of sensory organ precursors (SOPs) during external sensory (ES) organ development. To look for novel genes that can suppress Notch signaling, we performed a gain-of-function modifier screen to look for genes that enhance the phenotype of ectopic ES organs induced by overexpression of phyllopod, a gene required for SOP specification. Results From the gain-of-function screen, we discovered that overexpression of polished rice/tarsal-less (pri/tal) increases the numbers of ES organs as well as SOPs. pri/tal is a polycistronic gene that contains four short open reading frames encoding three 11-amino acid and one 32-amino acid peptides. Ectopic expression of the 11 amino-acid peptides recapitulates the pri/tal misexpression phenotype in ectopic ES organ formation. In situ hybridization experiment reveals that pri/tal mRNA is expressed in the SOPs of the chemosensory organs and the stretch-sensing chordotonal organs. In Drosophila wing development, the Notch signaling pathway mediates the formation of the dorsal-ventral (DV) compartmental boundary and the restriction of the vein width from the primordial veins, the proveins. We also found that pri/tal mRNA is expressed in the DV boundary and the longitudinal proveins, and overexpression of Pri/Tal peptides disrupts the DV boundary formation and helps to expand the width of the wing vein. Genetic analyses further show that a Notch loss-of-function allele strongly enhances these two phenotypes. Cut and E(spl)mβ are target genes of the Notch pathway in DV boundary formation and vein specification, respectively. We also found that overexpression of Pri/Tal peptides abolishes Cut expression and co-expression of Pri/Tal peptides with phyl strongly reduces E(spl)mβ expression. Conclusions We show for the first time that the overexpression of Pri/Tal 11-amino acid peptides disrupts multiple Notch-mediated processes and reduces Notch target gene expression in Drosophila, suggesting that these peptides have novel antagonistic activity to the Notch pathway. Thus, our discovery might provide insights into designing new therapeutic reagents for Notch-related diseases.

Abstract Background We observed previously that cisplatin-resistant HeLa cells were cross-resistant to UV light due to accumulation of DDB2, a protein implicated in DNA repair. More recently, we found that cFLIP, which represents an anti-apoptotic protein whose level is induced by DDB2, was implicated in preventing apoptosis induced by death-receptor signaling. In the present study, we investigated whether DDB2 has a protective role against UV irradiation and whether cFLIP is also involved in this process. Methods We explored the role of DDB2 in mediating UV resistance in both human cells and Drosophila. To do so, DDB2 was overexpressed by using a full-length open reading frame cDNA. Conversely, DDB2 and cFLIP were suppressed by using antisense oligonucleotides. Cell survival was measured using a colony forming assay. Apoptosis was monitored by examination of nuclear morphology, as well as by flow cytometry and Western blot analyses. A transcription reporter assay was also used to assess transcription of cFLIP. Results We first observed that the cFLIP protein was upregulated in UV-resistant HeLa cells. In addition, the cFLIP protein could be induced by stable expression of DDB2 in these cells. Notably, the anti-apoptotic effect of DDB2 against UV irradiation was largely attenuated by knockdown of cFLIP with antisense oligonucleotides in HeLa cells. Moreover, overexpression of DDB2 did not protect against UV in VA13 and XP-A cell lines which both lack cFLIP. Interestingly, ectopic expression of human DDB2 in Drosophila dramatically inhibited UV-induced fly death compared to control GFP expression. On the other hand, expression of DDB2 failed to rescue a different type of apoptosis induced by the genes Reaper or eiger. Conclusion Our results show that DDB2 protects against UV stress in a cFLIP-dependent manner. In addition, the protective role of DDB2 against UV irradiation was found to be conserved in divergent living organisms such as human and Drosophila. In addition, UV irradiation may activate a cFLIP-regulated apoptotic pathway in certain cells.

Abstract Interferons (IFNs) are key regulators for both innate and adaptive immune responses. By screening ENU-mutagenized mice, we identified a pedigree- P117 which displayed impaired response to type I, but not type II, IFNs. Through inheritance test, genetic mapping and sequencing, we found a T to A point mutation in the 5' splice site of STAT2 intron 4–5, leading to cryptic splicing and frame shifting. As a result, the expression of STAT2 protein was greatly diminished in the mutant mice. Nonetheless, a trace amount of functional STAT2 protein was still detectable and was capable of inducing, though to a lesser extent, IFNα-downstream gene expressions, suggesting that P117 is a STAT2 hypomorphic mutant. The restoration of mouse or human STAT2 gene in P117 MEFs rescued the response to IFNα, suggesting that the mutation in STAT2 is most likely the cause of the phenotypes seen in the pedigree. Development of different subsets of lymphocytes appeared to be normal in the mutant mice except that the percentage and basal expression of CD86 in splenic pDC and cDC were reduced. In addition, in vitro Flt3L-dependent DC development and TLR ligand-mediated DC differentiation were also defective in mutant cells. These results suggest that STAT2 positively regulates DC development and differentiation. Interestingly, a severe impairment of antiviral state and increased susceptibility to EMCV infection were observed in the mutant MEFs and mice, respectively, suggesting that the remaining STAT2 is not sufficient to confer antiviral response. In sum, the new allele of STAT2 mutant reported here reveals a role of STAT2 for DC development and a threshold requirement for full functions of type I IFNs.