: Florpyrauxifen-benzyl (FPB) is an important postemergence rice herbicide. This study tested the potential for seed production in an FPB-resistant barnyardgrass population. A barnyardgrass population (NL) collected from a rice field in eastern China was highly resistant to FPB with a GR50 dose (the FPB dose causing a 50% reduction in fresh weight of aboveground parts) of 50.2 g ai ha−1. No significant differences in the percentages of surviving seedlings after treatment with different doses of the herbicide were found between F1 lines collected from F0 plants surviving a 36 g ai ha−1 FPB treatment and those collected from non-treated control F0 plants. Additionally, no significant differences were found in the rate of surviving seedlings after treatment with varying doses of FPB among the F2 lines collected from F1 plants that survived varying doses of FPB. At a constant temperature of 30 C, seeds from different F1 and F2 lines showed germination percentages of 85%‒92.0% and 68.3%‒89.0%, respectively. In the absence of competition, plants from the NL population surviving 0–144 g ai ha−1 FPB showed no significant differences in plant height, dry weight of aboveground parts, effective accumulated temperature (EAT) from sowing to seed maturation, seed production per plant, or 1000-seed weight. In the susceptible population (HJ), plants surviving 18 g ai ha−1 FPB showed no significant differences compared to the non-treated control plants of the same population for the above variables. This is the first report of FPB-resistant barnyardgrass in China. Barnyardgrass seedlings that survived FPB application showed a higher potential for accumulating in the soil seedbank and negatively affecting rice.

Compliant interaction between robots and the environment is crucial for completing contact-rich tasks. However, obtaining and implementing optimal interaction behavior in complex unknown environments remains a challenge. This article develops a hybrid impedance and admittance control (HIAC) scheme for robots subjected to the second-order unknown environment. To obtain the second-order target impedance model that represents the optimal interaction behavior without the accurate environment dynamics and acceleration feedback, an impedance adaptation method with virtual inertia is proposed. Since impedance control and admittance control have complementary structures and result in unsatisfactory performance in a wide range of environmental stiffness due to their fixed causality, a hybrid system framework suitable for the second-order environment is proposed to generate a series of intermediate controllers which interpolate between the responses of impedance and admittance controls by using a switching controller and adjusting its switching duty cycle. In addition, the optimal intermediate controller is selected using a mapping of the optimal duty cycle to provide the optimal implementation performance for the target impedance model. The proposed HIAC scheme can achieve the desired interaction and impedance implementation performance while ensuring system stability. Simulation and experimental studies are performed to verify the effectiveness of our scheme with a 2-DOF manipulator and a 7-DOF Franka EMIKA panda robot, respectively.

This work studies the three-dimensional flow dynamics around a rotating circular cylinder of finite length, whose axis is positioned perpendicular to the streamwise direction. Direct numerical simulations and global stability analyses are performed within a parameter range of Reynolds number $Re=DU_\infty /\nu <500$ (based on cylinder diameter $D$, uniform incoming flow velocity $U_\infty$), length-to-diameter ratio ${\small \text{AR}}=L/D\leq 2$ and dimensionless rotation rate $\alpha =D\varOmega /2U_\infty \leq 2$ (where $\varOmega$ is rotation rate). By solving Navier–Stokes equations, we investigated the wake patterns and explored the phase diagrams of the lift and drag coefficients. For a cylinder with ${\small \text{AR}}=1$, we found that when the rotation effect is weak ($0\leq \alpha \lesssim 0.3$), the wake pattern is similar to the unsteady wake past the non-rotating finite-length cylinder, but with a new linear unstable mode competing to dominate the saturation state of the wake. The flow becomes stable for $0.3\lesssim \alpha \lesssim 0.9$ when $Re<360$. When the rotation effect is strong ($\alpha \gtrsim 0.9$), new low-frequency wake patterns with stronger oscillations emerge. Generally, the rotation effect first slightly decreases and then sharply increases the $Re$ threshold of the flow instability when $\alpha$ is relatively small, but significantly decreases the threshold at high $\alpha$ ($0.9<\alpha \leq 2$). Furthermore, the stability analyses based on the time-averaged flows and on the steady solutions demonstrate the existence of multiple unstable modes undergoing Hopf bifurcation, greatly influenced by the rotation effect. The shapes of these global eigenmodes are presented and compared, as well as their structural sensitivity, visualising the flow region important for the disturbance development with rotation. This research contributes to our understanding of the complex bluff-body wake dynamics past this critical configuration.

Sichuan cuisine was previously fitted into the Chinese Heart-Healthy Diet (CHH) trial to verify the antihypertensive effect. Whether the modified Sichuan diet lessens cardiovascular disease (CVD) is not fully explored. We aimed to estimate the effects of the Sichuan version of CHH diet (CHH diet-SC) on the 10-year risk of CVD and vascular age. A single-blinded randomised controlled feeding trial was conducted. General CVD prediction model was used in manners of intention-to-treat and per-protocol set. After a 7-d run-in period, fifty-three participants with pre- and grade I hypertension from local communities were randomised and provided with either CHH diet-SC (n 27) or a control diet (n 26) for 4 weeks. Mean absolute and relative estimated CVD risks were reduced by 4·5 % and 27·9 % in the CHH diet-SC group, and the between-group relative risk reduction was 19·5 % (P < 0·001) using linear mixed-effects models. The sensitivity analysis with datasets and models showed consistent results, and pre-specified factors were not associated with the intervention effects. The vascular age of CHH-SC group was theoretically 4·4 years younger than that of the control group after intervention. Compared with a typical diet, adopting the CHH diet-SC over 1 month significantly reduced 10-year CVD risks and vascular ages among local adults with mild hypertension.

A multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based model is presented in this study to reconstruct flow fields from noisy data. A combination of reinforcement learning with pixel-wise rewards, physical constraints represented by the momentum equation and the pressure Poisson equation, and the known boundary conditions is used to build a physics-constrained deep reinforcement learning (PCDRL) model that can be trained without the target training data. In the PCDRL model, each agent corresponds to a point in the flow field and learns an optimal strategy for choosing pre-defined actions. The proposed model is efficient considering the visualisation of the action map and the interpretation of the model operation. The performance of the model is tested by using direct numerical simulation-based synthetic noisy data and experimental data obtained by particle image velocimetry. Qualitative and quantitative results show that the model can reconstruct the flow fields and reproduce the statistics and the spectral content with commendable accuracy. Furthermore, the dominant coherent structures of the flow fields can be recovered by the flow fields obtained from the model when they are analysed using proper orthogonal decomposition and dynamic mode decomposition. This study demonstrates that the combination of DRL-based models and the known physics of the flow fields can potentially help solve complex flow reconstruction problems, which can result in a remarkable reduction in the experimental and computational costs.

The lack of excellent wheat germplasm resources on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has led to a gradual decrease in genetic diversity and an increasingly narrow genetic background in wheat grown in this region. Rational use of excellent genes from wheat relatives is important to increase genetic diversity, broaden the genetic base and achieve high yield and quality in common wheat. The objective of this study was to use principal component and cluster analyses of 13 important agronomic traits of 44 Polish wheat varieties over 3 years and comprehensively evaluate them to screen for excellent germplasm resources, thus providing the basic material for broadening the genetic base of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau wheat germplasm resources.

This study presents a novel 4-DOF two-limb gripper mechanism with a simple design that offers high adaptability for different objects. The mechanism integrates a three-finger end effector and employs a 2-DOF driving system in both serial kinematic chains mounted on the base, addressing performance problems caused by moving actuators. First, the architecture of the gripper mechanism is described, and its mobility is verified. Next, the inverse and forward kinematic problems are solved, and the Jacobian matrix is derived to analyze the singularity conditions. The inverse and forward singularity surfaces are plotted. The workspace is investigated using a search method, and two indices, manipulability and dexterity, are studied. The proposed manipulator’s parameters are optimized for improved dexterity. The novel gripper mechanism has high potential for grasping different types of parts within a large workspace, making it a valuable addition to the field of robotics.

Kazal-type serine protease inhibitors (KaSPI) play important roles in insect growth, development, digestion, metabolism and immune defence. In this study, based on the transcriptome of Mythimna separata, the cDNA sequence of MsKaSPI with Kazal domain was uploaded to GenBank (MN931651). Spatial and temporal expression analysis showed that MsKaSPI was expressed at different developmental stages and different tissues, and it was induced by 20-hydroxyecdysone in third-instar larvae of M. separata. After 24 h infection by Beauveria bassiana, the expression level of MsKaSPI and the corresponding MsKaSPI content were significantly up-regulated, being 6.42-fold and 1.91-fold to the control group, respectively, while the activities of serine protease, trypsin and chymotrypsin were inhibited. After RNA interference interfered with MsKaSPI for 6 h, the expression decreased by 73.44%, the corresponding content of MsKaSPI protein decreased by 55.66% after 12 h, and the activities of serine protease and trypsin were significantly enhanced. Meanwhile, both the larval and pupal stages of M. separata were prolonged, the weights were reduced and the number of eggs per female decreased by 181. Beauveria bassiana infection also increased the mortality of MsKaSPI-silenced M. separata by 18.96%. These prove MsKaSPI can not only result in slow growth and low fecundity of M. separata by regulating the activity of related protease, but also participate in the resistance to pathogenic fungi by regulating the serine protease inhibitor content and the activities of related serine protease.

The association between early reproductive events and health status in later life has always been of interest across disciplines. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was an association between the number of children born in the early years of elderly women and their depression in later life based on a sample of older women aged 65 years and above with at least one child in rural China. Data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey in 2018, this study used the ordinary least square method to conduct empirical research. This study has found a significant correlation between an increase in the number of children and depression in older rural women. When considering the sex of the child, the number of daughters had a greater and more significant impact on depression. Number of children may exacerbate depression of older women through declining self-rated health and reduced social activity, while increased inter-generational support alleviated depression. The association between number of children born and depression also existed in urban older women, though not significant. Therefore, it is suggested to accelerate the improvement of supporting policies related to childbirth, developing a healthy and scientific fertility culture, and improving rural maternal and child health services. Women should be assisted in balancing their roles in the family and in society, and in particular in sharing the burden of caring for children. Targeted efforts to increase old-age protection for older people.