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Leaf shape is considered to be one of the most significant agronomic traits in crop breeding. However, the molecular basis underlying leaf morphogenesis in cotton is still largely unknown. In this study, through genetic mapping and molecular investigation using a natural cotton mutant cu with leaves curling upward, the causal gene GHCU is successfully identified as the key regulator of leaf flattening. Knockout of GHCU or its homolog in cotton and tobacco using CRISPR results in abnormal leaf shape. It is further discovered that GHCU facilitates the transport of the HD protein KNOTTED1‐like (KNGH1) from the adaxial to the abaxial domain. Loss of GHCU function restricts KNGH1 to the adaxial epidermal region, leading to lower auxin response levels in the adaxial boundary compared to the abaxial. This spatial asymmetry in auxin distribution produces the upward‐curled leaf phenotype of the cu mutant. By analysis of single‐cell RNA sequencing and spatiotemporal transcriptomic data, auxin biosynthesis genes are confirmed to be expressed asymmetrically in the adaxial‐abaxial epidermal cells. Overall, these findings suggest that GHCU plays a crucial role in the regulation of leaf flattening through facilitating cell‐to‐cell trafficking of KNGH1 and hence influencing the auxin response level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is a promising strategy to convert CO2 to carbon‐based fuels and to simultaneously reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In this work, the bismuth subcarbonate nanoflowers (BOC NFs) are facilely prepared through a one‐pot synthesis method for efficient formate electrosynthesis through CO2RR. Benefiting from the crystal structure and sheet‐stacked morphology, the in situ measurements and theoretical calculation results reveal the self‐reinforced CO2 adsorption properties and rapid CO2 adsorption–desorption kinetics on the catalyst surface, which significantly facilitate the CO2RR process. As a result, the desirable Faradaic efficiencies of over 90%, with a maximum value of 98.9%, toward formate formation, are achieved in a wide potential window from −0.8 to −1.4 V in an H‐type cell. Moreover, in a flow cell, the superior intrinsic activity of BOC NFs guarantees the high throughput electrocatalytic performance of CO2RR and the FEformate of over 90% with high current density is achieved in a potential range as wide as 1200 mV, demonstrating the great potential of BOC NFs for practical CO2RR applications. These results underscore the effectiveness of designing electrocatalysts with self‐reinforced CO2 adsorption properties to improve electrocatalytic performance for efficient CO2RR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of society, energy shortage and environmental problems have become more and more outstanding. Solar energy is a clean and sustainable energy resource, potentially driving energy conversion and environmental remediation reactions. Thus, solar‐driven chemistry is an attractive way to solve the two problems. Photothermal chemistry (PTC) is developed to achieve full‐spectral utilization of the solar radiation and drive chemical reactions more efficiently under relatively mild conditions. In this review, the mechanisms of PTC are summarized from the aspects of thermal and non‐thermal effects, and then the interaction and synergy between these two effects are sorted out. In this paper, distinguishing and quantifying these two effects is discussed to understand PTC processes better and to design PTC catalysts more methodically. However, PTC is still a little far away from practical. Herein, several key points, which must be considered when pushing ahead with the engineering application of PTC, are proposed, along with some workable suggestions on the practical application. This review provides a unique perspective on PTC, focusing on the synergistic effects and pointing out a possible direction for practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: The cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) pigment gland is a distinctive structure that functions as the main deposit organ of gossypol and its derivatives. It is also an ideal system in which to study cell differentiation and organogenesis. However, only a few genes that determine the process of gland formation have been reported, including GoPGF, CGP1, and CGFs; the molecular mechanisms underlying gland initiation are still largely unclear. Here, we report the discovery of the novel stem pigment gland‐forming gene GoSPGF by map‐based cloning; annotated as a GRAS transcription factor, this gene is responsible for the glandless trait specifically on the stem. In the stem glandless mutant T582, a point mutation (C to A) was found to create a premature stop codon and truncate the protein. Similarly, virus‐induced gene silencing of GoSPGF resulted in glandless stems and dramatically reduced gossypol content. Comparative transcriptomic data showed that loss of GoSPGF significantly suppressed expression of many genes involved in gossypol biosynthesis and altered expression of genes involved in gibberellic acid signaling/biosynthesis. Overall, these findings provide more insight into the networks regulating glandular structure differentiation and formation in cotton, which will be helpful for understanding other plants bearing special gland structures such as tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana), artemisia annua, mint (Mentha spp.), and rubber (Hevea brasiliensis). Significance Statement: The novel cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) gland‐forming gene GoSPGF, encoding a GRAS transcription factor, regulates the glandless trait specifically on the stem. The findings concerning GoSPGF provide more insight into the networks regulating glandular structure differentiation and formation in cotton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electro‐oxidative organic upgrading, as an ideal alternative to sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance, can effectively decrease energy consumption to boost hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. However, developing highly active electrocatalysts for long‐term durable organic upgrading with high selectivity at large and steady current density remains challenging. Herein, hollow NiSe nanocrystals heterogenized with carbon nanotubes (h‐NiSe/CNTs) are fabricated via a facile one‐pot approach. The highly dispersed h‐NiSe/CNTs 3D network can efficiently facilitate rapid mass/electron diffusion, thus achieving highly active and long‐term stable electrocatalysis for catalyzing methanol to value‐added formate at high and steady current density (≈345 mA cm−2) with high Faradaic efficiency (>95%). This reaction replaces sluggish OER performance to reduce the energy consumption for boosting H2 generation by six times. The critical active species and methanol activation mechanism are systematically studied using X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X‐ray absorption fine structure analysis, in situ Raman, and density functional theory calculations, indicating that the non‐ignorable SeOx collaborated with in situ formed NiOOH species can synergistically modulate the d band center to achieve an optimal adsorption for methanol selective oxidation and suppress the further oxidation to CO2, thus leading to active and stable electrolysis for producing value‐added formate with high selectivity and co‐generating H2 with less energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Squarers are widely used in communication and DSP applications. In this letter, two approximate squarers (ABFS1 and ABFS2) are proposed. Specifically, a novel approximate Booth‐folding encoding is designed to generate approximate partial product arrays. Several approximate compressors with precision recovery circuits are proposed. In the ABFS1, a novel approximate 4‐2 compressor with an accurate compensation circuit is utilized. Moreover, the proposed approximate 4‐2 compressor with constant compensation is used in the ABFS2 to improve the performance of squarer. In addition, this letter presents the logic synthesizing result of the two approximate squarers with the 45 nm technology. The comparison with state‐of‐the‐art approximate squarers demonstrates the proposed designs reduce the 58.1% PDP while maintaining a similar or even better accuracy. Finally, the proposed approximate squarers are verified by the K‐means clustering application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Xinjiang has been the largest and highest yield cotton production region not only in China, but also in the world. Improvements in Upland cotton cultivars in Xinjiang have occurred via pedigree selection and/or crossing of elite alleles from the former Soviet Union and other cotton producing regions of China. But it is unclear how genomic constitutions from foundation parents have been selected and inherited. Here, we deep‐sequenced seven historic foundation parents, comprising four cultivars introduced from the former Soviet Union (108Ф, C1470, 611Б and KK1543) and three from United States and Africa (DPL15, STV2B and UGDM), and re‐sequenced sixty‐nine Xinjiang modern cultivars. Phylogenetic analysis of more than 2 million high‐quality single nucleotide polymorphisms allowed their classification two groups, suggesting that Xinjiang Upland cotton cultivars were not only spawned from 108Ф, C1470, 611Б and KK1543, but also had a close kinship with DPL15, STV2B and UGDM. Notably, identity‐by‐descent (IBD) tracking demonstrated that the former Soviet Union cultivars have made a huge contribution to modern cultivar improvement in Xinjiang. A total of 156 selective sweeps were identified. Among them, apoptosis‐antagonizing transcription factor gene (GhAATF1) and mitochondrial transcription termination factor family protein gene (GhmTERF1) were highly involved in the determination of lint percentage. Additionally, the auxin response factor gene (GhARF3) located in inherited IBD segments from 108Ф and 611Б was highly correlated with fibre quality. These results provide an insight into the genomics of artificial selection for improving cotton production and facilitate next‐generation precision breeding of cotton and other crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photo‐thermochemical cycle (PTC) is a promising method to converting CO2 to solar fuels. To study the mechanism of CO2 reduction based on PTC, sol‐gel synthesized titanium dioxide (ST) and Mn‐doped TiO2 (MT) films were produced and applied to the PTC under simulated solar light irradiation. Commercial P25 (PT) was used as a reference. Experiments show that Mn‐doped TiO2 produced more CO than undoped TiO2 and P25. The average CO production of 1.0 wt% MT by the PTC was 32.19 μmol⋅m−2⋅h−1), 4.36 times than that of ST and 3.63 times that of PT. Various characterization methods were conducted to investigated the effect of Mn ions doping on the photoresponse and charge transfer of samples. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were also performed to verify the analysis and enhance the PTC mechanism. In conclusion, several key factors that Mn ions promote CO2 conversion have been clarified. Combine solar heat and light! To reduce CO2, photo‐thermochemical (PTC) cycle involves both solar light and thermal energy. Photo‐induced oxygen vacancy (VO) is the key to reduce CO2 in thermal step. Introducing Mn to TiO2 significantly broadens its visible light response and decreases the VO formation energy by DFT calculations. Experimental results show that doping TiO2 with Mn significantly enhances CO2 reduction by PTC under simulated solar light irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a facile strategy for conversion of graphene quantum dots (GQDs) into crystalline graphite is of great practical significance and still remains challenging. Herein, rationally assembled crystalline-intercrossed graphite nanocapsules (CI-GNCs) have been realized by a one-step electrochemically induced strategy with the assistance of a soft template, in which the GQDs act as the initial building blocks. The as-prepared CI-GNCs exhibit highly crystalline graphitic nanostructures. Moreover, they possess promising electrocatalytic activity for the oxygen reaction reduction (ORR) in alkaline medium. This simple fabrication technology presents a great advance for synthesizing CI-GNCs composite catalysts, which have potential as new metal-free catalysts for efficient ORR applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of new promising metal-free catalysts is of great significance for the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Herein, a rationally assembled three-dimensional (3D) architecture of 1D graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanoribbons with 2D graphene sheets has been developed by a one-step hydrothermal method. Because of the multipathway of charge and mass transport, the hierarchically structured g-C3N4 nanoribbon-graphene hybrids lead to a high electrocatalytic ability for HER with a Tafel slope of 54 mV decade−1, a low onset overpotential of 80 mV and overpotential of 207 mV to approach a current of 10 mA cm−2, superior to those non-metal materials and well-developed metallic catalysts reported previously. This work presents a great advance for designing and developing highly efficient metal-free catalyst for hydrogen evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Hepatitis E virus ( HEV) infection has become relevant to blood transfusion practice because isolated cases of blood transmission have been reported and because HEV has been found to cause chronic infection and severe liver disease in immunocompromised patients. Study Design and Methods We tested for immunoglobulin ( Ig) G and IgM antibodies to the HEV and for HEV RNA in 1939 unselected volunteer US blood donors. Subsequently, we tested the same variables in pre- and serial posttransfusion samples from 362 prospectively followed blood recipients to assess transfusion risk. Results IgG anti- HEV seroprevalence in the total 1939 donations was 18.8%: 916 of these donations were made in 2006 at which time the seroprevalence was 21.8% and the remaining 1023 donations were in 2012 when the seroprevalence had decreased to 16.0% (p < 0.01). A significant (p < 0.001) stepwise increase in anti- HEV seroprevalence was seen with increasing age. Eight of 1939 donations (0.4%) tested anti- HEV IgM positive; no donation was HEV RNA positive. Two recipients had an apparent anti- HEV seroconversion, but temporal relationships and linked donor testing showed that these were not transfusion-transmitted HEV infections. Conclusion No transfusion-transmitted HEV infections were observed in 362 prospectively followed blood recipients despite an anti- HEV seroprevalence among donations exceeding 16%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]