Elucidating the structure-activity relationship of Cu-Ag bimetallic catalysts for electrochemical CO_(2) reduction

Developing bimetallic catalysts is an effective strategy for enhancing the activity and selectivity of electrochemical CO_(2) reduction reactions,where understanding the structure-activity relationship is essential for catalyst design.Herein,we prepared two Cu-Ag bimetallic catalysts with Ag nanoparticles attached to the top or the bottom of Cu nanowires.When tested in a flow cell,the Cu-Ag catalyst with Ag nanoparticles on the bottom achieved a faradaic efficiency of 54%for ethylene production,much higher than the catalyst with Ag nanoparticles on the top.The catalysts were further studied in the H-cell and zero-gap MEA cell.It was found that placing the two metals in the intensified reaction zone is crucial to triggering the tandem reaction of bimetallic catalysts.Our work elucidates the structure-activity relationship of bimetallic catalysts for CO_(2) reduction and demonstrates the importance of considering both catalyst structures and cell characteristics to achieve high activity and selectivity.

Mining favorable alleles for five agronomic traits from the elite rapeseed cultivar Zhongshuang 11 by QTL mapping and integration

Zhongshuang 11(ZS11) is an elite inbred rapeseed(Brassica napus L.) cultivar widely planted in the Yangtze River basin for its favorable characteristics including high seed oil content(SOC), low seed glucosinolate content(SGC), long siliques, and stable yield. To transfer the ideal traits from ZS11 into 195-14 A, a Polima(pol)-type cytoplasmic male sterile line with high general combining ability, a doubled haploid population derived from the cross of ZS11 and 195-14 A was developed. Based on this population,a high-density genetic linkage map covering 2553 c M with an average marker interval of 0.81 c M, was constructed using the Brassica 60 K SNP array and simple sequence repeats. In seven environments, 64,29, 35, 37, and 33 QTL were identified for silique length, seeds per silique, seed density per silique,SOC, and SGC, respectively. Most favorable alleles were from ZS11. Seventy-one consensus QTL were identified by a QTL meta-analysis, eight of which(cqSL–A9–2, cqSL–C7, cqSGC–C2, cqSOC–A5–2, cqSOC–A5–3, cqSPS–A6–2, cqSPS–A7–2, and cqSDPS–A9–2) were assigned as major QTL. Comparative genomics and expression analysis predicted 72 candidate genes underlying the 21 consensus QTL for the five traits.These findings suggest the genetic basis of the superior performance of ZS11 and suggest favorable alleles for development of cultivars with improved yield and quality. These results will assist in cloning these promising alleles in the future.

Composite Minimization Problems in Hadamard Spaces

In this paper, we prove some Δ-convergence and strong convergence results for the sequence generated by a new algorithm to a minimizer of two convex functions and a common fixed point for quasi-pseudo-contractive mappings in Hadamard spaces. Our theorems improve and generalize some recent results in the literature.

Multiplicity of Solutions for Fractional Hamiltonian Systems under Local Conditions

Under some local superquadratic conditions on W (t, u) with respect to u, the existence of infinitely many solutions is obtained for the nonperiodic fractional Hamiltonian systems, where L (t) is unnecessarily coercive.

Safety assessment method of performance-based navigation airspace planning

The paper introduces a computational model of airspace conflict risk in the hierarchy of performance-based navigation （PBN） airspace operation and combines it with air traffic controller （ATC） workload to propose a method for safety assessment of PBN airspace operational planning. Capacity probability distribution is employed to depict airspace capacity in uncertain weather, errors of deviating from nominal PBN track are taken into consideration, and the stochastic process based on Gaussian distribution is used to depict random aircraft motion according to airspace PBN specification, so as to build an airspace conflict risk computational model in corresponding capacity scenario. Guangzhou No. 15 sector is chosen for simulation validation. The analysis results suggest that 60% of ATC workload is corresponding to sector traffic flow of 31 aircraft/h and airspace risk of 0.018 conflict/h, while 70% of ATC workload is corresponding to sector traffic flow of 35 aircraft/h and airspace risk of 0.03 conflict/h. As air traffic flow increases, both airspace conflict risk value and ATC workload will increase, resulting in reduction of airspace safety, though their increasing magnitudes differ with different capacity scenarios. The safety assessment method enables effective quantization of safety with regard to airspace operational plan- ning strategy, and benefits the development of optimal operational scheme that balances risk with capacity demand.

A 2.833-kb Insertion in BnFLC.A2 and Its Homeologous Exchange with BnFLC.C2 during Breeding Selection Generated Early-Flowering Rapeseed

Dear Editor,Rapeseed （Brassica napus） was formed on the Mediterranean coast approximately 7500 years ago （Chalhoub et al., 2014）. Natural variations and artificial selections in flowering time have greatly promoted its spread to subtropical and temperate regions, making B. napus a major source of both vegetable oil and animal feed worldwide. Many studies have been conducted over the past two decades toward understanding the genetic architecture of flowering time in B. napus. However, largely restricted by the complicated allotetraploid genome, molecular basis of flowering time variation remains poorly understood in rapeseed.