Generation of selectable marker-free soft transgenic rice with transparent kernels by downregulation of SSSⅡ-2

The amylose content(AC) of rice endosperm starch varies from 0 to 35%,and is associated with rice cooking and eating quality.Soft rice has low AC,generally between 6% and 15%,and its eating quality is high whether it is consumed hot or cold.However,the appearance quality of current soft rice cultivars needs to be improved,especially opaque endosperm.Conventional genetic engineering has improved some agronomic traits of soft rice varieties,but not endosperm appearance.In the present study,a RNAi construct of the soluble starch synthase Ⅱ-2(SSSⅡ-2) and the hygromycin phosphotransferase(HPT) gene were introduced into an elite japonica rice variety,Kangtiaowuyunjing(KWY8) by co-transformation.Several selectable marker-free(SMF) transgenic lines were obtained,and SSSⅡ-2 expression was significantly downregulated in selected transgenic lines,resulting in lower AC of the endosperm.The physicochemical properties of the transgenic rice kernels,including gel consistency(GC) and rapid visco analyzer(RVA) profile,differed significantly from those of wild-type rice and were similar to those of a soft rice variety,Nanjing 46(NJ46).These findings indicate that the cooking,eating,and processing qualities of transgenic rice are comparable to those of NJ46.However,the transgenic rice endosperm retained a transparent appearance under low-moisture conditions.Thus,SMF SSSⅡ-2 RNAi rice provides a resource for breeding soft rice with transparent endosperm.

A master-slave generalized predictive synchronization control for preheating process of multi-cavity hot runner system

As a key component of injection molding,multi-cavity hot runner(MCHR)system faces the crucial problem of polymer melt filling imbalance among the cavities.The thermal imbalance in the system has been considered as the leading cause.Hence,the solution may rest with the synchronization of those heating processes in MCHR system.This paper proposes a’Master-Slave’generalized predictive synchronization control(MS-GPSC)method with’Mr.Slowest’strategy for preheating stage of MCHR system.The core of the proposed method is choosing the heating process with slowest dynamics as the’Master’to track the setpoint,while the other heating processes are treated as‘Slaves’tracking the output of’Master’.This proposed method is shown to have the good ability of temperature synchronization.The corresponding analysis is conducted on parameters tuning and stability,simulations and experiments show the strategy is effective.

A New Method of Assessing Environmental Flows in Channelized Urban Rivers

Assessing environmental flows （e-flows） for urban rivers is important for water resources planning and river protection, Many e-flow assessment methods have been established based on species＇ habitat pro- vision requirements and pollutant dilution requirements, To avoid flood risk, however, many urban rivers have been transformed into straight, trapezoidal-profiled concrete channels, leading to the disappearance of valuable species, With the construction of water pollution-control projects, pollutant inputs into rivers have been effectively controlled in some urban rivers, For these rivers, the e-flows determined by tradi- tional methods will be very small, and will consequently lead to a low priority being given to river pro- tection in future water resources allocation and management, To more effectively assess the e-flows of channelized urban rivers, we propose three e-flow degrees, according to longitudinal hydrological con- nectivity （high, medium, and low）, in addition to the pollutant dilution water requirement determined by the mass-balance equation, In the high connectivity scenario, the intent is for the e-flows to maintain flow velocity, which can ensure the self-purification of rivers and reduce algal blooms; in the medium connectivity scenario, the intent is for the e-flows to permanently maintain the longitudinal hydrological connectivity of rivers that are isolated into several ponds by means of weirs, in order to ensure the exchange of material, energy, and information in rivers; and in the low connectivity scenario, the intent is for the e-flows to intermittently connect isolated ponds every few days （which is designed to further reduce e-flows）, The proposed methods have been used in Shiwuli River, China, to demonstrate their effectiveness, The new methods can offer more precise and realistic e-flow results and can effectively direct the construction and management of e-flow supply projects,

Screen-printed soft triboelectric nanogenerator with porous PDMS and stretchable PEDOT:PSS electrode

The recent development on wearable and stretchable electronics calls for skin conformable power sources that are beyond current battery technologies.Among the many novel energy devices being explored,triboelectric nanogenerator(TENG)made from intrinsically stretchable materials has a great potential to meet the above requirement as being both soft and efficient.In this paper,we present a lithography-free and low-cost TENG device comprising a porous-structured PDMS layer and a stretchable PEDOT:PSS electrode.The porous PDMS structure is formed by using self-assembled polystyrene beads as the sacrificial template and it is highly ordered with great uniformity and high structural stability under compression force.Moreover,the porous PDMS TENG exhibits improved output voltage and current of 1.65 V and 0.54 nA compared to its counterpart with non-porous PDMS with 0.66 V and 0.34 nA.The effect of different loading force and frequency on the output response of the TENG device has also been studied.This work could shed light on diverse structural modification methods for improving the performance of PDMS-based TENG and the development of intrinsically stretchable TENG for wearable device applications.

Anisotropic photoresponse of layered rhenium disulfide synaptic transistors

Layered ReS_(2) with direct bandgap and strong in-plane anisotropy shows great potential to develop high-performance angle-resolved photodetectors and optoelectronic devices.However,systematic characterizations of the angle-dependent photoresponse of ReS_(2) are still very limited.Here,we studied the anisotropic photoresponse of layered ReS_(2) phototransistors in depth.Angel-resolved Raman spectrum and field-effect mobility are tested to confirm the inconsistency between its electrical and optical anisotropies,which are along 120°and 90°,respectively.We further measured the angle-resolved photoresponse of a ReS_(2) transistor with 6 diagonally paired electrodes.The maximum photoresponsivity exceeds 0.515 A·W^(-1) along b-axis,which is around 3.8 times larger than that along the direction perpendicular to b axis,which is consistent with the optical anisotropic directions.The incident wavelength-and power-dependent photoresponse measurement along two anisotropic axes further demonstrates that b axis has stronger light-ReS_(2) interaction,which explains the anisotropic photoresponse.We also observed angle-dependent photoresistive switching behavior of the ReS_(2) transistor,which leads to the formation of angle-resolved phototransistor memory.It has simplified structure to create dynamic optoelectronic resistive random access memory controlled spatially through polarized light.This capability has great potential for real-time pattern recognition and photoconfiguration of artificial neural networks(ANN)in a wide spectral range of sensitivity provided by polarized light.

Dynamical Evolution of an Effective Two-Level System with PT Symmetry

We investigate the dynamics of parity-and time-reversal（PT） symmetric two-energy-level atoms in the presence of two optical and one radio-frequency fields. The strength and relative phase of fields can drive the system from the unbroken to the broken PT symmetric regions. Compared with the Hermitian model, Rabi-type oscillation is still observed, and the oscillation characteristics are also adjusted by the strength and relative phase in the region of the unbroken symmetry. At the exception point, the oscillation breaks down. To better understand the underlying properties we study the effective Bloch dynamics and find that the emergence of the PT components of the fixed points is the feature of the PT symmetry breaking and the projections in the x–y plane can be controlled with high flexibility compared with the standard two-level system with the PT symmetry. It helps to study the dynamic behavior of the complex PT symmetric model.

A test method for analyzing the deformation of landslide model

In order to study the overall deformation of geotechnical model conveniently,the worksite of landslide bridge foundation reinforced by the front and rear row anti-slide piles in Chenglan railway was taken as an example.On the basis of shaking tabe test of a 1/40 reduced scale model,the landslide deformation caused by vibration waves was monitored through burying self-made phosphor bronze strips in soil.Combined with the horizontal and vertical coordinates of the bending strain points on the phosphor bronze strips,the digital matrix was converted by applying Renka Cline random matrix generation method,and the two-dimensional contour plots were drawn based on it.The results showed that the two-dimensional contour plots reflected the basic law of landslide deformation reasonably,and it revealed the evolution process of landslide deformation and failure.The research conclusions were consistent with the test phenomenon,which met the basic requirements of overall deformation analysis of landslide model.This proposed method can monitor multiple cross sections and was practical for model test.

Photonic neuromorphic architecture for tens-of-task lifelong learning

Scalable,high-capacity,and low-power computing architecture is the primary assurance for increasingly manifold and large-scale machine learning tasks.Traditional electronic artificial agents by conventional power-hungry processors have faced the issues of energy and scaling walls,hindering them from the sustainable performance improvement and iterative multi-task learning.Referring to another modality of light,photonic computing has been progressively applied in high-efficient neuromorphic systems.Here,we innovate a reconfigurable lifelong-learning optical neural network(L2 ONN),for highly-integrated tens-of-task machine intelligence with elaborated algorithm-hardware codesign.Benefiting from the inherent sparsity and parallelism in massive photonic connections,L2 ONN learns each single task by adaptively activating sparse photonic neuron connections in the coherent light field,while incrementally acquiring expertise on various tasks by gradually enlarging the activation.The multi-task optical features are parallelly processed by multi-spectrum representations allocated with different wavelengths.Extensive evaluations on freespace and on-chip architectures confirm that for the first time,L2 ONN avoided the catastrophic forgetting issue of photonic computing,owning versatile skills on challenging tens-of-tasks(vision classification,voice recognition,medical diagnosis,etc.)with a single model.Particularly,L2 ONN achieves more than an order of magnitude higher efficiency than the representative electronic artificial neural networks,and 14×larger capacity than existing optical neural networks while maintaining competitive performance on each individual task.The proposed photonic neuromorphic architecture points out a new form of lifelong learning scheme,permitting terminal/edge AI systems with light-speed efficiency and unprecedented scalability.

Effects of sea level rise on storm surge and waves within the Yangtze River Estuary

Sea level rise (SLR) can cause water depth increase (WDI) and coastal inundation (CI).By applying the coupled FVCOM + SWAN model,this study investigates the potential impacts of WDI and CI,induced by a 1.0 m SLR,on storm surge and waves within the Yangtze River Estuary.A 1.0 m WDI decreases the maximum storm surge by 0.15 m and increases the maximum significant wave height by 0.35 m.The CI effect size is smaller when compared with WDI.CI decreases the maximum storm surge and significant wave height by 0.04 and 0.07 m,respectively.In the near-shore area,WDI significantly alters the local hydrodynamic environment,thereby stimulating changes in maximum storm surges and wave heights.Low-lying regions are negatively impacted by CI.Conversely,in deep-water areas,the relative change in water depth is minimal and the effect of CI is gradually enhanced.The combined effect of WDI and CI decreases the maximum surge by 0.31 m and increases the maximum significant wave height by 0.21 m.As a result,CI may be neglected when designing deep-water infrastructures.Nonetheless,the complex interactions between adoption and neglect of CI should be simulated to achieve the best seawall flood control standards and design parameters.

Corrosion mechanism of Mg alloys involving elongated long-period stacking ordered phase and intragranular lamellar structure

It is a long-term challenge to further improve the corrosion resistance while ensuring the strength of magnesium(Mg)alloys.Revealing the effect of potential fluctuation on the micro-galvanic corrosion and the subsequent film formation is important for understanding the corrosion mechanism of Mg alloys with multiple strengthening phases/structures.Here,we prepared the high-strength Mg-14.4Er-1.44Zn-0.3Zr(wt.%)alloys containing hybrid structures,i.e.,elongated long-period stacking ordered(LPSO)blocks+intragranular stacking faults(SFs)/LPSO lamellae.The Mg alloy with elongated LPSO blocks and intragranular LPSO lamellae(EZ-500 alloy)obtains good corrosion resistance(2.2 mm y^(–1)),while the Mg alloy containing elongated LPSO blocks and intragranular SFs(EZ-400 alloy)shows a significantly higher corrosion rate(6.9 mm y^(–1)).The results of scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy(SKPFM)show the elongated LPSO blocks act as cathode phase(87 mV in EZ-400 alloy),and the SFs serve as the weak anode(30 mV in EZ-400 alloy),resulting in high potential fluctuation in EZ-400 alloy.On the contrary,both elongated blocks and intragranular lamellae are cathodic LPSO phase(67–69 mV)in EZ-500 alloy,leading to a lower potential fluctuation.Quasi in-situ atomic force microscope(AFM)observation indicates that high potential fluctuation would cause strong micro-galvanic corrosion,and subsequently leads to the failure in rapid formation of corrosion film,finally forming a loose and porous film,while relatively low potential fluctuation could result in more uniform corrosion mode and facilitate the rapid formation of protective film.Therefore,we propose that it is an effective way to develop high-strength corrosionresistant Mg alloys by controlling the potential fluctuation to form a“uniform potential”strengthening microstructure。

A multichannel optical computing architecture for advanced machine vision

Endowed with the superior computing speed and energy efficiency,optical neural networks(ONNs)have attracted ever-growing attention in recent years.Existing optical computing architectures are mainly single-channel due to the lack of advanced optical connection and interaction operators,solving simple tasks such as hand-written digit classification,saliency detection,etc.The limited computing capacity and scalability of single-channel ONNs restrict the optical implementation of advanced machine vision.Herein,we develop Monet:a multichannel optical neural network architecture for a universal multiple-input multiple-channel optical computing based on a novel projection-interference-prediction framework where the inter-and intra-channel connections are mapped to optical interference and diffraction.In our Monet,optical interference patterns are generated by projecting and interfering the multichannel inputs in a shared domain.These patterns encoding the correspondences together with feature embeddings are iteratively produced through the projection-interference process to predict the final output optically.For the first time,Monet validates that multichannel processing properties can be optically implemented with high-efficiency,enabling real-world intelligent multichannel-processing tasks solved via optical computing,including 3D/motion detections.Extensive experiments on different scenarios demonstrate the effectiveness of Monet in handling advanced machine vision tasks with comparative accuracy as the electronic counterparts yet achieving a ten-fold improvement in computing efficiency.For intelligent computing,the trends of dealing with real-world advanced tasks are irreversible.Breaking the capacity and scalability limitations of single-channel ONN and further exploring the multichannel processing potential of wave optics,we anticipate that the proposed technique will accelerate the development of more powerful optical Al as critical support for modern advanced machine vision.

Osteopontin Promotes Macrophage M1 Polarization by Activation of the JAK1/STAT1/HMGB1 Signaling Pathway in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Background and Aims:Osteopontin(OPN)is reported to be associated with the pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease(NAFLD).However,the function of OPN in NAFLD is still inconclusive.Therefore,our aim in this study was to evaluate the role of OPN in NAFLD and clarify the involved mechanisms.Methods:We analyzed the expression change of OPN in NAFLD by bioinformatic analysis,qRT-PCR,western blotting and immunofluorescence staining.To clarify the role of OPN in NAFLD,the effect of OPN from HepG2 cells on macrophage polarization and the involved mechanisms were examined by FACS and western blotting.Results:OPN was significantly upregulated in NAFLD patients compared with normal volunteers by microarray data,and the high expression of OPN was related with disease stage and progression.OPN level was also significantly increased in liver tissue samples of NAFLD from human and mouse,and in HepG2 cells treated with oleic acid(OA).Furthermore,the supernatants of OPN-treated HepG2 cells promoted the macrophage M1 polarization.Mechanistically,OPN activated the janus kinase 1(JAK1)/signal transducers and activators of transcription 1(STAT1)signaling pathway in HepG2 cells,and consequently HepG2 cells secreted more high-mobility group box 1(HMGB1),thereby promoting macrophage M1 polarization.Conclusions:OPN promoted macrophage M1 polarization by increasing JAK1/STAT1-induced HMGB1 secretion in hepatocytes.