Silicon and Nitric Oxide-Mediated Regulation of Growth Attributes, Metabolites and Antioxidant Defense System of Radish (Raphanus sativus L.) under Arsenic Stress

Arsenic(As)contaminated food chains have emerged as a serious public concern for humans and animals and are known to affect the cultivation of edible crops throughout the world.Therefore,the present study was designed to investigate the individual as well as the combined effects of exogenous silicon(Si)and sodium nitroprusside(SNP),a nitric oxide(NO)donor,on plant growth,metabolites,and antioxidant defense systems of radish(Raphanus sativus L.)plants under three different concentrations of As stress,i.e.,0.3,0.5,and 0.7 mM in a pot experiment.The results showed that As stress reduced the growth parameters of radish plants by increasing the level of oxidative stress markers,i.e.,malondialdehyde and hydrogen peroxide.However,foliar application of Si(2 mM)and pretreatment with SNP(100μM)alone as well as in combination with Si improved the plant growth parameters,i.e.,root length,fresh and dry weight of plants under As stress.Furthermore,As stress also reduced protein,and metabolites contents(flavonoids,phenolic and anthocyanin).Activities of antioxidative enzymes such as catalase(CAT),ascorbate peroxidase(APX),guaiacol peroxidase(POD),and polyphenol oxidase(PPO),as well as the content of non-enzymatic antioxidants(glutathione and ascorbic acid)decreased under As stress.In most of the parameters in radish,As III concentration showed maximum reduction,as compared to As I and II concentrations.However,the individual and combined application of Si and NO significantly alleviated the As-mediated oxidative stress in radish plants by increasing the protein,and metabolites content.Enhancement in the activities of CAT,APX,POD and PPO enzymes were recorded.Contents of glutathione and ascorbic acid were also enhanced in response to co-application of Si and NO under As stress.Results obtained were more pronounced when Si and NO were applied in combination under As stress,as compared to their individual application.In short,the current study highlights that Si and NO synergistically regulate plant growth through lowering the As-mediated oxidative stress by upregulating the metabolites content,activity of antioxidative enzymes and non-enzymatic antioxidants in radish plants.

Ripple-effect analysis for operational architecture of air defense systems with supernetwork modeling

In order to solve the problem that the ripple-effect analy- sis for the operational architecture of air defense systems （OAADS） is hardly described in quantity with previous modeling approaches, a supernetwork modeling approach for the OAADS is put for- ward by extending granular computing. Based on that operational units and links are equal to different information granularities, the supernetwork framework of the OAADS is constructed as a “four- network within two-layer” structure by forming dynamic operating coalitions, and measuring indexes of the ripple-effect analysis for the OAADS are given combining with Laplace spectral radius. In this framework, via analyzing multidimensional attributes which inherit relations between operational units in different granular scales, an extended granular computing is put forward integrating with a topological structure. Then the operation process within the supernetwork framework, including transformation relations be- tween two layers in the vertical view and mapping relations among functional networks in the horizontal view, is studied in quantity. As the application case shows, comparing with previous modeling approaches, the supernetwork model can validate and analyze the operation mechanism in the air defense architecture, and the ripple-effect analysis can be used to confirm the key operational unit with micro and macro viewpoints.

Toxic effects of crude-oil-contaminated soil in aquatic environment on Carassius auratus and their hepatic antioxidant defense system

Under the indoor simulant conditions, toxic effects of crude-oil-contaminated soil which was put into aquatic environment on the young fishes Carassius auratus and their hepatic antioxidant system after a 20-d exposure were investigated. Results showed that the relationship between the mortality of C. auratus and the exposed doses could be divided into 3 phases： fishes exposed to the low dose groups （0.5-5.0 g/L） were dead due to the ingestion of crude-oil-contaminated soils in aquatic environment; at the medium dose groups （5.0-25.0 g/L） fishes were dead due to the penetration of toxic substances; at the high dose groups （25.0-50.0 g/L） fishes were dead due to environmental stress. The highest mortality and death speed were found in the 1.0 g/L dose group, and the death speed was sharply increased in the 50.0 g/L dose group in the late phase of exposure. The activities of superoxide dismutase （SOD）, catalase （CAT） and glutathione S-transferase （GST） and the content of malaondialdehyde （MDA） in the hepatic tissues of C. auratus were induced significantly. The activity of SOD was increased and then decreased. It was significantly inhibited in the 50.0 g/L dose group. The activity of CAT was highly induced, and restored to a level which is little more than the control when the exposed doses exceeded 10.0 g/L. The activity of GST was the most sensitive, it was significantly induced in all dose groups, and the highest elevation was up to 6 times in the 0.5 g/L dose group comparing with the control. The MDA content was significantly elevated in the 50.0 g/L dose group, and the changes of the MDA content were opposite with the changes of GST activity.

Fire Distribution of Integrated Missile-gun Air Defense System Based on Earlier Damage Criterion

The fire distribution can be divided into weapon assignment and firing time scheduling. The criterion of weapon allocation is that a target with greater threat has higher priority. And the criterion of firing time scheduling is that a target can be damaged with the expected probability before a specific time. A fire distribution scheme and a program for the integrated missile-gun air defense system based on a criterion of earlier damage were presented. An example was taken to illustrate its effectiveness.

Automated integration of real-time and non-real-time defense systems

Various application domains require the integration of distributed real-time or near-real-time systems with non-real-time systems.Smart cities,smart homes,ambient intelligent systems,or network-centric defense systems are among these application domains.Data Distribution Service(DDS)is a communication mechanism based on Data-Centric Publish-Subscribe(DCPS)model.It is used for distributed systems with real-time operational constraints.Java Message Service(JMS)is a messaging standard for enterprise systems using Service Oriented Architecture(SOA)for non-real-time operations.JMS allows Java programs to exchange messages in a loosely coupled fashion.JMS also supports sending and receiving messages using a messaging queue and a publish-subscribe interface.In this article,we propose an architecture enabling the automated integration of distributed real-time and non-real-time systems.We test our proposed architecture using a distributed Command,Control,Communications,Computers,and Intelligence(C4I)system.The system has DDS-based real-time Combat Management System components deployed to naval warships,and SOA-based non-real-time Command and Control components used at headquarters.The proposed solution enables the exchange of data between these two systems efficiently.We compare the proposed solution with a similar study.Our solution is superior in terms of automation support,ease of implementation,scalability,and performance.

Response of antioxidant defense system in copepod Calanus sinicus Brodsky exposed to CO_2-acidified seawater

Marine zooplankton responds sensitively to elevated seawater CO_2 concentration. However, the underlying physiological mechanisms have not been studied well. We therefore investigated the effects of elevated CO_2concentration（0.08%, 0.20%, 0.50% and 1.00%） on antioxidant defense components, as well as two detoxification enzymes of Calanus sinicus（copepod）. The results showed that glutathione peroxidase（GPx） activity exposed to CO_2-acidified seawater was significantly stimulated while other antioxidant components, including glutathione-Stransferase（GST） activity, superoxide dismutase（SOD） activity decreased significantly with reduced glutathione（GSH） level and GSH/oxidized glutathione（GSSG） value. CO_2-acidified seawater exhibited stimulatory effects on adenosine triphosphatase（ATPase） activity and acetylcholinesterase（Ach E） activity was inhibited. Moreover, the results of principal component analysis indicated that 75.93% of the overall variance was explained by the first two principal components. The elevated CO_2 concentration may affect the metabolism and survivals of copepods through impacts these enzymes activities. Further studies are needed to focus on the synergistic effects of elevated CO_2 concentration and other environmental factors on copepods.

Intelligent Immunity Based Security Defense System for Multi-Access Edge Computing Network

In this paper,the security problem for the multi-access edge computing(MEC)network is researched,and an intelligent immunity-based security defense system is proposed to identify the unauthorized mobile users and to protect the security of whole system.In the proposed security defense system,the security is protected by the intelligent immunity through three functions,identification function,learning function,and regulation function,respectively.Meanwhile,a three process-based intelligent algorithm is proposed for the intelligent immunity system.Numerical simulations are given to prove the effeteness of the proposed approach.

Optimal index shooting policy for layered missile defense system

In order to cope with the increasing threat of the ballistic missile(BM)in a shorter reaction time,the shooting policy of the layered defense system needs to be optimized.The main decisionmaking problem of shooting optimization is how to choose the next BM which needs to be shot according to the previous engagements and results,thus maximizing the expected return of BMs killed or minimizing the cost of BMs penetration.Motivated by this,this study aims to determine an optimal shooting policy for a two-layer missile defense(TLMD)system.This paper considers a scenario in which the TLMD system wishes to shoot at a collection of BMs one at a time,and to maximize the return obtained from BMs killed before the system demise.To provide a policy analysis tool,this paper develops a general model for shooting decision-making,the shooting engagements can be described as a discounted reward Markov decision process.The index shooting policy is a strategy that can effectively balance the shooting returns and the risk that the defense mission fails,and the goal is to maximize the return obtained from BMs killed before the system demise.The numerical results show that the index policy is better than a range of competitors,especially the mean returns and the mean killing BM number.

Changes in Growth,Photosynthetic Pigments,Cell Viability,Lipid Peroxidation and Antioxidant Defense System in Two Varieties of Chickpea(Cicer arietinum L.)Subjected to Salinity Stress

Salinity is one of the most severe abiotic stresses for crop production.The present study investigates the salinityinduced modulation in growth indicators,morphology and movement of stomata,photosynthetic pigments,activity of carbonic anhydrase as well as nitrate reductase,and antioxidant systems in two varieties of chickpea(Pusa-BG5023,and Pusa-BGD72).On 20^(th) day of sowing,plants were treated with varying levels of NaCl(0,50,100,150 and 200 mM)followed by sampling on 45 days of sowing.Recorded observations on both the varieties reveal that salt stress leads to a significant decline in growth,dry biomass,leaf area,photosynthetic pigments,protein content,stomatal behavior,cell viability,activity of nitrate reductase and carbonic anhydrase with the rise in the concentration of salt.However,quantitatively these changes were less in Pusa-BG5023 as compared to Pusa-BGD72.Furthermore,salinity-induced oxidative stress enhanced malondialdehyde content,superoxide radicals,foliar proline content,and the enzymatic activities of superoxide dismutase,catalase,and peroxidase.The variety Pusa-BGD72 was found more sensitive than Pusa-BG5023 to salt stress.Out of different graded concentrations(50,100,150 and 200 mM)of sodium chloride,50 mM was least toxic,and 200 mM was most damaging.The differential behavior of these two varieties measured in terms of stomatal behavior,cell viability,photosynthetic pigments,and antioxidant defense system can be used as prospective indicators for selection of chickpea plants for salt tolerance and sensitivity.

Efficient Autonomous Defense System Using Machine Learning on Edge Device

As a large amount of data needs to be processed and speed needs to be improved,edge computing with ultra-low latency and ultra-connectivity is emerging as a new paradigm.These changes can lead to new cyber risks,and should therefore be considered for a security threat model.To this end,we constructed an edge system to study security in two directions,hardware and software.First,on the hardware side,we want to autonomically defend against hardware attacks such as side channel attacks by configuring field programmable gate array(FPGA)which is suitable for edge computing and identifying communication status to control the communication method according to priority.In addition,on the software side,data collected on the server performs end-to-end encryption via symmetric encryption keys.Also,we modeled autonomous defense systems on the server by using machine learning which targets to incoming and outgoing logs.Server log utilizes existing intrusion detection datasets that should be used in real-world environments.Server log was used to detect intrusion early by modeling an intrusion prevention system to identify behaviors that violate security policy,and to utilize the existing intrusion detection data set that should be used in a real environment.Through this,we designed an efficient autonomous defense system that can provide a stable system by detecting abnormal signals from the device and converting them to an effective method to control edge computing,and to detect and control abnormal intrusions on the server side.

Optimization of Air Defense System Deployment Against Reconnaissance Drone Swarms

Due to their advantages in flexibility,scalability,survivability,and cost-effectiveness,drone swarms have been increasingly used for reconnaissance tasks and have posed great challenges to their opponents on modern battlefields.This paper studies an optimization problem for deploying air defense systems against reconnaissance drone swarms.Given a set of available air defense systems,the problem determines the location of each air defense system in a predetermined region,such that the cost for enemy drones to pass through the region would be maximized.The cost is calculated based on a counterpart drone path planning problem.To solve this adversarial problem,we first propose an exact iterative search algorithm for small-size problem instances,and then propose an evolutionary framework that uses a specific encoding-decoding scheme for large-size problem instances.We implement the evolutionary framework with six popular evolutionary algorithms.Computational experiments on a set of different test instances validate the effectiveness of our approach for defending against reconnaissance drone swarms.

Attacks Against Cross-Chain Systems and Defense Approaches:A Contemporary Survey

The blockchain cross-chain is a significant technology for inter-chain interconnection and value transfer among different blockchain networks.Cross-chain overcomes the“information island”problem of the closed blockchain network and is increasingly applied to multiple critical areas such as finance and the internet of things(IoT).Blockchain can be divided into three main categories of blockchain networks:public blockchains,private blockchains,and consortium blockchains.However,there are differences in block structures,consensus mechanisms,and complex working mechanisms among heterogeneous blockchains.The fragility of the cross-chain system itself makes the cross-chain system face some potential security and privacy threats.This paper discusses security defects on the cross-chain implementation mechanism,and discusses the impact of the structural features of blockchain networks on cross-chain security.In terms of cross-chain intercommunication,a cross-chain attack can be divided into a multi-chain combination attack,native chain attack,and inter-chain attack diffusion.Then various security threats and attack paths faced by the cross-chain system are analyzed.At last,the corresponding security defense methods of cross-chain security threats and future research directions for cross-chain applications are put forward.

A shield of defense:Developing ballistic composite panels with effective electromagnetic interference shielding absorption

The primary goal of this study is to develop cost-effective shield materials that offer effective protection against high-velocity ballistic impact and electromagnetic interference(EMI)shielding capabilities through absorption.Six fiber-reinforced epoxy composite panels,each with a different fabric material and stacking sequence,have been fabricated using a hand-layup vacuum bagging process.Two panels made of Kevlar and glass fibers,referred to as(K-NIJ)and(G-NIJ),have been tested according to the National Institute of Justice ballistic resistance protective materials test NIJ 0108.01 Standard-Level IIIA(9 mm×19 mm FMJ 124 g)test.Three panels,namely,a hybrid of Kevlar and glass(H-S),glass with ceramic particles(C-S),and glass with recycled rubber(R-S)have been impacted by the bullet at the center,while the fourth panel made of glass fiber(G-S)has been impacted at the side.EMI shielding properties have been measured in the X-band frequency range via the reflection-transmission method.Results indicate that four panels(K-NIJ,G-NIJ,H-S,and G-S)are capable of withstanding high-velocity impact by stopping the bullet from penetrating through the panels while maintaining their structural integrity.However,under such conditions,these panels may experience localized delamination with variable severity.The EMI measurements reveal that the highest absorptivity observed is 88% for the KNIJ panel at 10.8 GHz,while all panels maintain an average absorptivity above 65%.All panels act as a lossy medium with a peak absorptivity at different frequencies,with K-NIJ and H-S panels demonstrating the highest absorptivity.In summary,the study results in the development of a novel,costeffective,multifunctional glass fiber epoxy composite that combines ballistic and electromagnetic interference shielding properties.The material has been developed using a simple manufacturing method and exhibits remarkable ballistic protection that outperforms Kevlar in terms of shielding efficiency;no bullet penetration or back face signature is observed,and it also demonstrates high EMI shielding absorption.Overall,the materials developed show great promise for various applications,including the military and defense.

An Active Deception Defense Model Based on Address Mutation and Fingerprint Camouflage

The static and predictable characteristics of cyber systems give attackers an asymmetric advantage in gathering useful information and launching attacks.To reverse this asymmetric advantage,a new defense idea,called Moving Target Defense(MTD),has been proposed to provide additional selectable measures to complement traditional defense.However,MTD is unable to defeat the sophisticated attacker with fingerprint tracking ability.To overcome this limitation,we go one step beyond and show that the combination of MTD and Deception-based Cyber Defense(DCD)can achieve higher performance than either of them.In particular,we first introduce and formalize a novel attacker model named Scan and Foothold Attack(SFA)based on cyber kill chain.Afterwards,we develop probabilistic models for SFA defenses to provide a deeper analysis of the theoretical effect under different defense strategies.These models quantify attack success probability and the probability that the attacker will be deceived under various conditions,such as the size of address space,and the number of hosts,attack analysis time.Finally,the experimental results show that the actual defense effect of each strategy almost perfectly follows its probabilistic model.Also,the defense strategy of combining address mutation and fingerprint camouflage can achieve a better defense effect than the single address mutation.

Two intestinal microbiota-derived metabolites, deoxycholic acid and butyrate, synergize to enhance host defense peptide synthesis and alleviate necrotic enteritis

Background Necrotic enteritis(NE)is a major enteric disease in poultry,yet effective mitigation strategies remain elusive.Deoxycholic acid(DCA)and butyrate,two major metabolites derived from the intestinal microbiota,have independently been shown to induce host defense peptide(HDP)synthesis.However,the potential synergy between these two compounds remains unexplored.Methods To investigate the possible synergistic effect between DCA and butyrate in regulating HDP synthesis and barrier function,we treated chicken HD11 macrophage cells and jejunal explants with DCA and sodium butyrate(NaB),either individually or in combination,for 24 h.Subsequently,we performed RNA isolation and reverse transcrip-tion-quantitative PCR to analyze HDP genes as well as the major genes associated with barrier function.To further determine the synergy between DCA and NaB in enhancing NE resistance,we conducted two independent trials with Cobb broiler chicks.In each trial,the diet was supplemented with DCA or NaB on the day-of-hatch,followed by NE induction through sequential challenges with Eimeria maxima and Clostridium perfringens on d 10 and 14,respectively.We recorded animal mortality after infection and assessed intestinal lesions on d 17.The impact of DCA and NaB on the microbiota in the ileum and cecum was evaluated through bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequencing.Results We found that the combination of DCA and NaB synergistically induced multiple HDP genes in both chicken HD11 cells and jejunal explants.Additionally,the gene for claudin-1,a major tight junction protein,also exhibited synergistic induction in response to DCA and NaB.Furthermore,dietary supplementation with a combination of 0.75 g/kg DCA and 1 g/kg NaB led to a significant improvement in animal survival and a reduction in intestinal lesions compared to either compound alone in a chicken model of NE.Notably,the cecal microbiota of NE-infected chickens showed a marked decrease in SCFA-producing bacteria such as Bacteroides,Faecalibacterium,and Cuneatibacter,with lactobacilli becoming the most dominant species.However,supplementation with DCA and NaB largely restored the intestinal microbiota to healthy levels.Conclusions DCA synergizes with NaB to induce HDP and claudin-1 expression and enhance NE resistance,with potential for further development as cost-effective antibiotic alternatives.

ATSSC:An Attack Tolerant System in Serverless Computing

Serverless computing is a promising paradigm in cloud computing that greatly simplifies cloud programming.With serverless computing,developers only provide function code to serverless platform,and these functions are invoked by its driven events.Nonetheless,security threats in serverless computing such as vulnerability-based security threats have become the pain point hindering its wide adoption.The ideas in proactive defense such as redundancy,diversity and dynamic provide promising approaches to protect against cyberattacks.However,these security technologies are mostly applied to serverless platform based on“stacked”mode,as they are designed independent with serverless computing.The lack of security consideration in the initial design makes it especially challenging to achieve the all life cycle protection for serverless application with limited cost.In this paper,we present ATSSC,a proactive defense enabled attack tolerant serverless platform.ATSSC integrates the characteristic of redundancy,diversity and dynamic into serverless seamless to achieve high-level security and efficiency.Specifically,ATSSC constructs multiple diverse function replicas to process the driven events and performs cross-validation to verify the results.In order to create diverse function replicas,both software diversity and environment diversity are adopted.Furthermore,a dynamic function refresh strategy is proposed to keep the clean state of serverless functions.We implement ATSSC based on Kubernetes and Knative.Analysis and experimental results demonstrate that ATSSC can effectively protect serverless computing against cyberattacks with acceptable costs.

Seasonal increase in nest defense,but not egg rejection,in a cuckoo host

The interactions between avian brood parasites and their hosts provide an informative and easy-to-handle system for studying coevolution.Avian brood parasitism reduces the reproductive success of hosts,and thus,hosts have evolved anti-parasitic strategies,such as rejecting parasitic eggs and adopting aggressive nest defense strategies,to avoid the cost brought on by brood parasitism.To test whether host anti-parasitic strategies are adjusted with the risk of being parasitized when the breeding seasons of brood parasites and hosts are not synchronous,we conducted a field experiment assessing nest defense and egg recognition behaviors of the Isabelline Shrike(Lanius isabellinus),a host of the Common Cuckoo(Cuculus canorus).In the local area,the host Isabelline Shrike begins to breed in April,whereas the summer migratory Common Cuckoo migrates to the local area in May and begins to lay parasitic eggs.Results showed that nest defense behaviors of the Isabelline Shrike increases significantly after cuckoo arrival,showing higher aggressiveness to cuckoo dummies,with no significant difference in attack rates among cuckoo,sparrowhawk and dove dummies,but their egg rejection did not change significantly.These results imply that Isabelline Shrikes may adjust their nest defense behavior,but not egg rejection behavior,with seasonality.

Machine Learning Security Defense Algorithms Based on Metadata Correlation Features

With the popularization of the Internet and the development of technology,cyber threats are increasing day by day.Threats such as malware,hacking,and data breaches have had a serious impact on cybersecurity.The network security environment in the era of big data presents the characteristics of large amounts of data,high diversity,and high real-time requirements.Traditional security defense methods and tools have been unable to cope with the complex and changing network security threats.This paper proposes a machine-learning security defense algorithm based on metadata association features.Emphasize control over unauthorized users through privacy,integrity,and availability.The user model is established and the mapping between the user model and the metadata of the data source is generated.By analyzing the user model and its corresponding mapping relationship,the query of the user model can be decomposed into the query of various heterogeneous data sources,and the integration of heterogeneous data sources based on the metadata association characteristics can be realized.Define and classify customer information,automatically identify and perceive sensitive data,build a behavior audit and analysis platform,analyze user behavior trajectories,and complete the construction of a machine learning customer information security defense system.The experimental results show that when the data volume is 5×103 bit,the data storage integrity of the proposed method is 92%.The data accuracy is 98%,and the success rate of data intrusion is only 2.6%.It can be concluded that the data storage method in this paper is safe,the data accuracy is always at a high level,and the data disaster recovery performance is good.This method can effectively resist data intrusion and has high air traffic control security.It can not only detect all viruses in user data storage,but also realize integrated virus processing,and further optimize the security defense effect of user big data.

Intelligent Dynamic Heterogeneous Redundancy Architecture for IoT Systems

The conventional dynamic heterogeneous redundancy(DHR)architecture suffers from the security threats caused by the stability differences and similar vulnerabilities among the executors.To overcome these challenges,we propose an intelligent DHR architecture,which is more feasible by intelligently combining the random distribution based dynamic scheduling algorithm(RD-DS)and information weight and heterogeneity based arbitrament(IWHA)algorithm.In the proposed architecture,the random distribution function and information weight are employed to achieve the optimal selection of executors in the process of RD-DS,which avoids the case that some executors fail to be selected due to their stability difference in the conventional DHR architecture.Then,through introducing the heterogeneity to restrict the information weights in the procedure of the IWHA,the proposed architecture solves the common mode escape issue caused by the existence of multiple identical error output results of similar vulnerabilities.The experimental results characterize that the proposed architecture outperforms in heterogeneity,scheduling times,security,and stability over the conventional DHR architecture under the same conditions.

Plant Chemical Defenses against Insect Herbivores—Using theWild Tobacco as a Model

The Nicotiana genus, commonly known as tobacco, holds significant importance as a crucial economic crop. Confrontedwith an abundance of herbivorous insects that pose a substantial threat to yield, tobacco has developed adiverse and sophisticated array of mechanisms, establishing itself as a model of plant ecological defense. Thisreview provides a concise overview of the current understanding of tobacco’s defense strategies against herbivores.Direct defenses, exemplified by its well-known tactic of secreting the alkaloid nicotine, serve as a potent toxinagainst a broad spectrum of herbivorous pests. Moreover, in response to herbivore attacks, tobacco enhancesthe discharge of volatile compounds, harnessing an indirect strategy that attracts the predators of the herbivores.The delicate balance between defense and growth leads to the initiation of most defense strategies only after aherbivore attack. Among plant hormones, notably jasmonic acid (JA), play central roles in coordinating thesedefense processes. JA signaling interacts with other plant hormone signaling pathways to facilitate the extensivetranscriptional and metabolic adjustments in plants following herbivore assault. By shedding light on these ecologicaldefense strategies, this review emphasizes not only tobacco’s remarkable adaptability in its natural habitatbut also offers insights beneficial for enhancing the resilience of current crops.