Chloroplast Genetic Engineering in Higher Plants

Chloroplast genetic engineering, with several advantages over nuclear genetic engineering, is now regarded as an attractive new technology in basic and applied research, including deepening our understanding of plastid genome, engineering plant metabolic system, generating transplastomic plants with higher resistance to insect, disease, drought and herbicide and bioproducing of antibodies and vaccines. In this review, the principle and operating system for chloroplast genetic engineering and its application in higher plants have been discussed.

Advances in Cold Tolerance Genes and Their Application in Genetic Engineering of Plant for Cold Tolerance

Low temperature is one of the main environmental stress factors influenc- ing plant growth and development and crop yield. Cold tolerance genes and progress of their application in genetic engineering of plant for cold tolerance were reviewed comprehensively and systematically from the aspect of genes that are in- volved in biosynthesis of osmotic substances, genes coding fatty acid desaturation enzymes, antifreeze protein genes, genes coding antioxidant enzymes and so on, aiming at laying the foundation for genetic improvement of cold tolerance and breeding of plants.

Phytohormones and their metabolic engineering for abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants

Abiotic stresses including drought,salinity,heat,cold,flooding,and ultraviolet radiation causes crop losses worldwide.In recent times,preventing these crop losses and producing more food and feed to meet the demands of ever-increasing human populations have gained unprecedented importance.However,the proportion of agricultural lands facing multiple abiotic stresses is expected only to rise under a changing global climate fueled by anthropogenic activities.Identifying the mechanisms developed and deployed by plants to counteract abiotic stresses and maintain their growth and survival under harsh conditions thus holds great significance.Recent investigations have shown that phytohormones,including the classical auxins,cytokinins,ethylene,and gibberellins,and newer members including brassinosteroids,jasmonates,and strigolactones may prove to be important metabolic engineering targets for producing abiotic stress-tolerant crop plants.In this review,we summarize and critically assess the roles that phytohormones play in plant growth and development and abiotic stress tolerance,besides their engineering for conferring abiotic stress tolerance in transgenic crops.We also describe recent successes in identifying the roles of phytohormones under stressful conditions.We conclude by describing the recent progress and future prospects including limitations and challenges of phytohormone engineering for inducing abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants.

A Systemic Approach to Integrated E-maintenance of Large Engineering Plants

Large engineering plants （LEPs） have certain unique features that necessitate a maintenance strategy that is a combination of both time and condition based maintenance. Although this requirement is appreciated to varying degrees by asset owners, applied research leading to a systematic development of such a maintenance strategy is the need of the day. Such a strategy should also adopt a wholesome ＂systemic＂ approach so that the realization of the overall objectives of maintenance is maximized. E-maintenance has several potential benefits for large engineering plants. In this paper, a three pronged strategy is suggested for the successful implementation of e-maintenance for LEPs. Firstly, an integrated condition and time based maintenance framework is proposed for LEPs. Secondly, reference is drawn to models for condition and time based maintenance at systemic levels. As a part of the ab initio development of a condition monitoring system for a LEP, one of the characteristics of the condition monitoring system, namely, predictability, is discussed in detail as a sample for a systemic study. Thirdly, emphasis is laid on the information and expertise available in the domain of plant design, operation and maintenance and the same is tapped for incorporation in maintenance decision making.

Crop Resources Ethic in Plant Genetic Engineering and Fortune Transfer Between Generations

The relation between human and crop resources belongs to the ethic of resources exploitation. The purposes of discussing the ethic of crop resources are to protect the ecology and safety of crops, to gain sustainable development, furthermore, to choose and form the production structure that is favorable to saving crop resources and protecting the ecology of crops. Plant genetic engineering is the technology of molecule breeding of rearrangement of inheritance materials at the level of molecule directionally, of improving plant properties and of breeding high quality and yield varieties of crops. The prominent effects of the technology on the crop ecological system are human subjective factors increasing as well as violating the nature and intensifying the conflict between human being and nature. Therefore, in plant genetic engineering, crop resources exploitation should follow certain ethic principles. Under the theory of ethics of natural resources, by the means of biologinal-statistics, the author systematically analyzed the possible model of crop resources transfer between generations as well as the transfer mode of magnitude of real materials and magnitude of value.

Dominant woody plant species recognition with a hierarchical model based on multimodal geospatial data for subtropical forests

Since the launch of the Google Earth Engine(GEE)cloud platform in 2010,it has been widely used,leading to a wealth of valuable information.However,the potential of GEE for forest resource management has not been fully exploited.To extract dominant woody plant species,GEE combined Sen-tinel-1(S1)and Sentinel-2(S2)data with the addition of the National Forest Resources Inventory(NFRI)and topographic data,resulting in a 10 m resolution multimodal geospatial dataset for subtropical forests in southeast China.Spectral and texture features,red-edge bands,and vegetation indices of S1 and S2 data were computed.A hierarchical model obtained information on forest distribution and area and the dominant woody plant species.The results suggest that combining data sources from the S1 winter and S2 yearly ranges enhances accuracy in forest distribution and area extraction compared to using either data source independently.Similarly,for dominant woody species recognition,using S1 winter and S2 data across all four seasons was accurate.Including terrain factors and removing spatial correlation from NFRI sample points further improved the recognition accuracy.The optimal forest extraction achieved an overall accuracy(OA)of 97.4%and a maplevel image classification efficacy(MICE)of 96.7%.OA and MICE were 83.6%and 80.7%for dominant species extraction,respectively.The high accuracy and efficacy values indicate that the hierarchical recognition model based on multimodal remote sensing data performed extremely well for extracting information about dominant woody plant species.Visualizing the results using the GEE application allows for an intuitive display of forest and species distribution,offering significant convenience for forest resource monitoring.

Osmoregulation Mechanism of Drought Stress and Genetic Engineering Strategies for Improving Drought Resistance in Plants

Drought, one of the main adverse environmental factors, obviously affected plant growth and development. Many adaptive strategies have been developed in plants for coping with drought or water stress, among which osmoregulation is one of the important factors of plant drought tolerance. Many substances play important roles in plant osmoregulation for drought resistance, including proline, glycine betaine, Lea proteins and soluble sugars such as levan, trehalose, sucrose, etc. The osmoregulation mechanism and the genetic engineering of plant drought-tolerance are reviewed in this paper.

Development of nuclear power plant real-time engineering simulator

A nuclear power plant real-time engineering simulator was developed based on general-purpose ther- mal-hydraulic system simulation code RELAP5. It mainly consists of three parts:improved thermal-hydraulic system simulation code RELAP5,control and protection system and human-machine interface. A normal transient of CHASHMA nuclear power plant turbine step load change from 100% to 90% of full power,was simulated by the en- gineering simulator as an application example. This paper presents structure and main features of the engineering simulator,and application results are shown and discussed.

Plant Factory Engineering Strategy of Japanese Manufacturer and Agri-Business Innovation

These days, some manufacturing enterprises which are forced to diversify management enter Agri- Business and plant factory business, make an Innovation utilizing high research and development ability and enough capital. As Agri-Business Innovation in Japan, this study examinedNK Agri, a subsidiary company of Noritsu Koki, which is a motion picture producer and machinery maker, based on Industrial Cluster Theory and Diamond Model by Michael E. Porter. The important points to enter Agri-Business of manufacturing enterprises were summed up as below. 1) New coming manufacture enterprises can form Industrial Cluster with farmhouse and foods makers, and enhance productivity and competitiveness. 2) New coming manufacture enterprises can enhance productive efficiency by collaborating with orthodox farmhouses as important partners. 3) Re- search institutions such as universities and local government should support for forming and development of Agri Industrial Cluster by manufacture enterprises. Agri Industrial Cluster by manufacture enterprises can improve local economy, so local government should prepare for the system to expand support as a policy.

Plant Engineering Education for Aircraft Industry in Hong Kong

The rapid growth of air traffic, the numerous largescale infrastructure developments such as the new airport core project, various road tunnels and waste treatment plants, as well as the large number of highrise buildings in Hong Kong have led to increased demands on engineering maintenance services. In order to cope with such plant services it is imperative that a steady supply of young, conscientious and competent plant operation and maintenance engineers be provided. To achieve this aim suitable plant engineering programs are required to meet the needs of various public and private sectors. This paper gives an account of the developments leading to the present situation in Hong Kong. In view of the United Nations forecast growth rate of air traffic in the AsiaPacific region, the development of plant engineering education and training programmes in the aircraft industry would be dealt with in a detailed manner. The role played by the engineering industry and the professional societies are also described.

Brings into Full Play the Important Role of China Research and Education Center of Plant Engineering

This paper mainly discusses the following: 1. China Research and Education Center of Plant Engineering (CRECPE) is the product of economic reform and opening policy in China and its development in the past fourteen years; 2. Under the current situation of economic development, the importance and the new working contents of equipment management; 3. With the development of Chinese industrial modernization, how to develop, undertake new tasks, and bring into full play its superiority at the changing of century.

Training More Key Members of Plant Engineering for Industrial Enterprises

The plant is the material base of modern industry.In order to improve the performance of plants and the quality of products,it is very important that more key members shuld be educated and trained for mastering the maintenance and management of modern equipment.Since the founding of the China Research and Education Center of Plant Engineering(CRECPE)in 1984,the short-time training class has run 102 times,and more than 6 000 people trained during the past twelve years.This paper introduces modern industrial training based at CRECPE:its experiences, its training programs and methods,its new problems,and developments in the future.

International Journal of Plant Engineering and Management Call for Papers

"International Journal of Plant Engineering and Management"is in the charge of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China,and organized by Northwestern Polytechnical University.It is a kind of English academic quarterly publication publicly issued at home and abroad.Plant engineering and management is a comprehensive interdisciplinary subject mainly reporting academic research on the application technology of equipment and industry management.

International Journal of Plant Engineering and Management

Journal Introduction "International Journal of Plant Engineering and Management" is in the charge of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, and organized by Northwestern Polytechnical University. It is a kind of English academic quarterly publication publicly issued at home and abroad. Plant engineering and management is a comprehensive interdisciplinary subject mainly reporting academic research on the application technology of equipment and industry management . It is of the characteristics of reporting both engineering and management while giving more priority to engineering as well as mechanics and electrics while giving priority to mechanics. Its contents involves technology, economy, management etc.