Effects of CO_2 enrichment and spikelet removal on rice quality under open-air field conditions

The increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide（CO_2） concentration adversely affect several quality traits of rice grains, but the biochemical mechanism remains unclear. The objectives of this study were to determine how changes in the source-sink relationship affected rice quality. Source-sink manipulation was achieved by free-air CO_2 enrichment from tillering to maturity and partial removal of spikelet at anthesis using a japonica rice cultivar Wuyunjing 23. Enrichment with CO_2 decreased the head rice percentage and protein concentration of milled rice, but increased the grain chalkiness. In contrast, spikelet removal resulted in a dramatic increase in the head rice percentage and protein concentration, and much less grain chalkiness. Neither CO_2 enrichment nor spikelet removal affected the starch content, but the distribution of starch granule size showed distinct treatment effects. O n average, spikelet removal decreased the percentage of starch granules of diameter 〉10 and 5–10 μm by 23.6 and 5.6%, respectively, and increased those with a diameter of 2–5 and 〈2 μm by 4.6 and 3.3%, respectively. In contrast, CO_2 elevation showed an opposite response： increasing the proportion of large starch granules（〉5 μm） and decreasing that of 〈5 μm. The starch pasting properties were affected by spikelet removal much more than by CO_2 elevation. These results indicated that the protein concentration and starch granule size played a role in chalkiness formation under these experimental conditions.

LSL1 controls cell death and grain production by stabilizing chloroplast in rice

Lesion mutants can be valuable tools to reveal the interactions between genetic factors and environmental signals and to improve grain production.Here we identified a rice(Oryza sativa)mutant,lesion spotleaf1(lsl1),which produces necrotic leaf lesions throughout its life cycle.LSL1 encodes a protein of unknown function and belongs to a grass-specific clade.The lesion phenotype of the lsl1 mutant was sharply induced by shading,and its detached leaves incubated in 6-benzylamino purine similarly formed lesions in the dark.In addition,the lsl1 mutant exhibited reactive oxygen species accumulation and cell death.The terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase d UTP nick end-labeling(TUNEL)and comet assays revealed that the lsl1 mutant contained severe DNA damage,resulting in reduced grain yield and quality.RNA sequencing,gene expression,and protein activity analyses indicate that LSL1 is required for chloroplast function.Furthermore,LSL1 interacts with Psa D and PAP10 to form a regulatory module that functions in chlorophyll synthesis and chloroplast development to maintain redox balance.Our results reveal that LSL1 maintains chloroplast structure,redox homeostasis,and DNA stability,and plays important roles in the interaction between genetic factors and environmental signals and in regulating grain size and quality.

Research on uncertainty in measurement assisted alignment in aircraft assembly

Operations in assembling and joining large size aircraft components are changed to novel digital and flexible ways by digital measurement assisted alignment.Positions and orientations（P＆O）of aligned components are critical characters which assure geometrical positions and relationships of those components.Therefore,evaluating the P＆O of a component is considered necessary and critical for ensuring accuracy in aircraft assembly.Uncertainty of position and orientation（U-P＆O）,as a part of the evaluating result of P＆O,needs to be given for ensuring the integrity and credibility of the result;furthermore,U-P＆O is necessary for error tracing and quality evaluating of measurement assisted aircraft assembly.However,current research mainly focuses on the process integration of measurement with assembly,and usually ignores the uncertainty of measured result and its influence on quality evaluation.This paper focuses on the expression,analysis,and application of U-P＆O in measurement assisted alignment.The geometrical and algebraical connotations of U-P＆O are presented.Then,an analytical algorithm for evaluating the multi-dimensional U-P＆O is given,and the effect factors and characteristics of U-P＆O are discussed.Finally,U-P＆O is used to evaluate alignment in aircraft assembly for quality evaluating and improving.Cases are introduced with the methodology.

Effect of traffic restriction on atmospheric particle concentrations and their size distributions in urban Lanzhou, Northwestern China

During the 2012 Lanzhou International Marathon, the local government made a significant effort to improve traffic conditions and air quality by implementing traffic restriction measures. To evaluate the direct effect of these measures on urban air quality, especially particle concentrations and their size distributions, atmospheric particle size distributions （0.5-20μm） obtained using an aerodynamic particle sizer （model 3321, TSI, USA） in June 2012 were analyzed. It was found that the particle number, surface area and volume concentrations for size range 0.5-10 μm were （15.0±2.1） cm-3, （11.8±2.6） μm2/cm3 and （1.9±0.6） μm2/cm3, respectively, on the traffic-restricted day （Sunday）, which is 63.2%, 53.0% and 47.2% lower than those on a normal Sunday. For number and surface area concentrations, the most affected size range was 0.5-0.7 and 0.5-0.8 μm, respectively, while for volume concentration, the most affected size ranges were 0.5-0.8, 1.7-2.0 and 5.0-5.4 μm. Number and volume concentrations of particles in size range 0.5-1.0μm correlated well with the number of non-CNG （Compressed Natural Gas） powered vehicles, while their correlation with the number of CNG-powered vehicles was very low, suggesting that reasonable urban traffic controls along with vehicle technology improvements could play an important role in improving urban air quality.