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Abstract Nickel oxide (NiOx)‐based inverted perovskite solar cells stand as promising candidates for advancing perovskite photovoltaics towards commercialization, leveraging their remarkable stability, scalability, and cost‐effectiveness. However, the interfacial redox reaction between high‐valence Ni4+ and perovskite, alongside the facile conversion of iodide in perovskite into I2, significantly deteriorates the performance and reproducibility of NiOx‐based perovskite photovoltaics. Here, potassium borohydride (KBH4) is introduced as a dual‐action reductant, which effectively avoids the Ni4+/perovskite interface reaction and mitigates the iodide‐to‐I2 oxidation within perovskite film. This synergistic redox modulation significantly suppresses nonradiative recombination and increases the carrier lifetime. As a result, an impressive power conversion efficiency of 24.17% for NiOx‐based perovskite solar cells is achieved, and a record efficiency of 20.2% for NiOx‐based perovskite solar modules fabricated under ambient conditions. Notably, when evaluated using the ISOS‐L‐2 standard protocol, the module retains 94% of its initial efficiency after 2000 h of continuous illumination under maximum power point at 65 °C in ambient air.

The challenge of water level control in steam generators, particularly at low power levels, has always been a critical aspect of nuclear power plant operation. To address this issue, this paper introduces an IHA controller. This controller employs a CPI controller as the primary controller for direct water level control, coupled with an agent-based controller optimized through a DRL algorithm. The agent dynamically optimizes the parameters of the CPI controller in real-time based on the system’s state, resulting in improved control performance. Firstly, a new observer information is obtained to get the accurate state of the system, and a new reward function is constructed to evaluate the status of the system and guide the agent’s learning process. Secondly, a deep ResNet with good generalization performance is used as the approximator of action value function and policy function. Then, the DDPG algorithm is used to train the agent-based controller, and an advanced controller with good performance is obtained after training. Finally, the popular UTSG model is used to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm. The results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves rise times of 73.9 s, 13.6 s, and 16.4 s at low, medium, and high power levels, respectively. Particularly, at low power levels, the IHA controller can restore the water level to its normal state within 200 s. These performances surpass those of the comparative methods, indicating that the proposed method excels not only in water level tracking but also in anti-interference capabilities. In essence, the IHA controller can autonomously learn the control strategy and reduce its reliance on the expert system, achieving true autonomous control and delivering excellent control performance.

Salary satisfaction (SS) perception by employees can be affected by psychological impacts from the workplace setting. Landscape attributes of green and blue spaces (GBS) may account for this effect, but relevant evidence is rarely verified. In this study, a total of 56 Chinese industrial parks were chosen as study sites, where employee satisfaction was assessed by rating facial expression scores (happy, sad, and neutral emotions) in photos obtained from social networks (Sina Weibo and Douyin). The structures of the GBSs were characterized remotely by largeness of size, height, and visible ratio of green view (GVI) in a 2 km radius buffer area around the workplace. Street view images from Baidu map were selected for estimating GVI using a pre-trained deep learning model and botanical experts evaluating woody plants’ diversity. The results indicated that SS can be estimated with the maximum likelihood analysis model against the happy score, which ranged within 8.37–18.38 (average: 13.30 ± 2.32) thousand RMB. A regression model indicated SS was lowered by a larger green space area in agreement with a reduced happy score. Further, sad scores in highland areas with tall plants and a strong depression on the happy score was associated with a greater plant diversity. Interesting from this study, the designed apparent size of green space should be considered in green space construction near a workplace to prevent perceptional decline towards SS, while blue space is irrelevant in this relationship. Similarly, the diversity of woody plants should be planned to control its negative impact on the perception of positive emotions, with plant diversity beyond a comfortable level perhaps further decreasing SS.

Metamifop (MET) is a widely used herbicide. It is likely for it to enter water environment when utilized, thus potential impacts may be produced on aquatic animals. Little information is available about its effects on the endocrine system of fish to date. In the current study, female rice field eels (Monopterus albus) were exposed to different MET concentrations (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 mg L −1) for 96 h to examine the effect of MET on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and sexual reversal. The results showed that high concentrations of MET exposure increased vitellogenin (VTG) levels in liver and plasma, but plasma sex hormone levels were not affected by MET exposure. MET exposure increased the expression of CYP19A1b and CYP17 that regulate sex hormone production in the brain, but the expression of genes (CYP19A1a, CYP17, FSHR, LHCGR, hsd11b2, 3β-HSD) associated with sex hormone secretion in the ovary and the estrogen receptor genes (esr1, esr2a, esr2b) in the liver were all suppressed. In addition, the expression of sex-related gene (Dmrt1) was suppressed. This study revealed for the first time that MET has estrogen-like effects and has a strong interference with the expression of HPG axis genes. MET did not show the ability to promote the sexual reversal in M. albus, on the contrary, the genes expression showed that the occurrence of male pathway was inhibited.

Background WRKY (WRKY DNA-binding domain) transcription factors an important gene family that widely regulates plant resistance to biological and abiotic stresses, such as drought, salt and ion stresses. However, research on the WRKY family in almond has not yet been reported. Almond is an economically important fruit tree in Xinjiang that have strong resistance to various stresses. Results A total of 62 PdWRKY genes were identified (including six pairs of homologous genes), and the phylogenetic tree was divided into three groups according to the WRKY domain and zinc finger motifs. The members of each group had a significant number of conserved motifs and exons/introns distributed unevenly across eight chromosomes, as well as 24 pairs of fragment duplicates and nine pairs of tandem duplicates. Moreover, the synteny and Ka/Ks analyses of the WRKY genes among almond and distinct species provided more detailed evidence for PdWRKY genes evolution. The examination of different tissue expression patterns showed that PdWRKY genes have tissue-specific expression characteristics. The qRT–PCR results showed that PdWRKY genes participate in the resistance of almond to the effects of low-temperature, drought and salt stress and that the expression levels of these genes change over time, exhibiting spatiotemporal expression characteristics. It is worth noting that many genes play a significant role in low-temperature stress resistance. In addition, based on the conserved WRKY motif, 321 candidate target genes were identified as having functions in multiple pathways. Conclusions We conducted systematic bioinformatics analysis and abiotic stress research on the WRKY gene family in almond, laying the foundation for future PdWRKY genes research and improvements to almond production and breeding.

Polyploidy, or whole-genome duplication (WGD), often induces dramatic changes in gene expression due to “transcriptome shock. ” However, questions remain about how allopolyploidy (the merging of multiple nuclear genomes in the same nucleus) affects gene expression within and across multiple tissues and developmental stages during the initial foundation of allopolyploid plants. Here, we systematically investigated the immediate effect of allopolyploidy on gene expression variation in an artificial allopolyploidy system consisting of a constructed allotetraploid wheat (AADD genome, accession AT2) and its diploid progenitors Triticum urartu and Aegilops tauschii. We performed comprehensive RNA sequencing of 81 samples from different genotypes, tissues, and developmental stages. First, we found that intrinsic interspecific differences between the diploid parents played a major role in establishing the expression architecture of the allopolyploid. Nonetheless, allopolyploidy per se also induced dramatic and asymmetric patterns of differential gene expression between the subgenomes, and genes from the D subgenome exhibited a more drastic response. Second, analysis of homoeolog expression bias (HEB) revealed that the D subgenome exhibited significant expression bias and that de novo-generated HEB was attributed mainly to asymmetrical differential gene expression. Homoeolog-specific expression (HSE) analyses showed that the cis-only regulatory pattern was predominant in AT2, reflecting significant divergence between the parents. Co-expression network analysis revealed that homoeolog expression connectivity (HEC) was significantly correlated with sequence divergence in cis elements between subgenomes. Interestingly, allopolyploidy-induced reconstruction of network modules was also associated with different HSE patterns. Finally, a transcriptome atlas of spike development demonstrated that the phenotypic similarity of AT2 to T. urartu may be attributed to the combination of relatively stable expression of A-subgenome genes and drastic downregulation of their D-subgenome homoeologs. These findings provide a broad, multidimensional characterization of allopolyploidy-induced transcriptomic responses and suggest that allopolyploidy can have immediate and complex regulatory effects on the expression of nuclear genes.

The AP2/ERF transcription factor family is one of the largest transcription factor families in plants and plays an important role in regulating plant growth and development and the response to biotic and abiotic stresses. However, there is no report on the AP2/ERF gene family in almond (Prunus dulcis). In this study, a total of 136 PdAP2/ERF genes were identified from the almond genome, and their protein physicochemical properties were analyzed. The PdAP2/ERF members were divided into five subgroups: AP2, RAV, ERF, DREB, and Soloist. The PdAP2/ERF members in each subgroup had conserved motif types and exon/intron numbers. PdAP2/ERFS members are distributed on eight chromosomes, with 22 pairs of segmental duplications and 28 pairs of tandem duplications. We further explored the colinear relationship between almond and Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa, Malus domestica, and Prunus persicaAP2/ERF genes and their evolution. The results of cis-acting elements showed that PdAP2/ERF members are widely involved in various processes, such as growth and development, hormone regulation, and stress response. The results based on transcriptome expression patterns showed that PdAP2/ERF genes had significant tissue-specific expression characteristics and were involved in the response of annual dormant branches of almond to low-temperature freezing stress. In addition, the fluorescence quantitative relative expression results of 13 representative PdAP2/ERF genes in four tissues of ‘Wanfeng’ almond and under six low-temperature freezing treatments of annual dormant branches were consistent with the transcriptome results. It is worth noting that the fluorescence quantitative expression level showed that the PdERF24 gene was extremely significant at −30 °C, suggesting that this gene may play an important role in the response of almond dormancy to ultralow temperature freezing stress. Finally, we identified 7424 and 6971 target genes based on AP2 and ERF/DREB DNA-binding sites, respectively. The GO and KEGG enrichment results showed that these target genes play important roles in protein function and multiple pathways. In summary, we conducted bioinformatics and expression pattern studies on PdAP2/ERF genes, including 13 PdAP2/ERF genes, and performed fluorescence quantitative analysis of annual dormant shoots under different low-temperature freezing stress treatments to understand the tolerance of almond dormancy to freezing stress and suggest future improvements.

Objective: To analyze the acupoint selection rules for cheek acupuncture in the treatment of chronic abdominal pain by data mining technology. Methods: The chronic abdominal pain medical records of Professor Ouyang Bowen in the outpatient clinic of Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2019 to December 2022 were used as the data source. The medical record data (basic information, Western medicine diagnosis, Chinese medicine diagnosis, Chinese medicine syndrome type, physical examination target, acupoint prescription, VAS score results) were entered into Excel2019 software to establish a database and standardize the processing. The frequency of acupoint use was descriptively analyzed by Excel 2019; the SPSS Modeler 18.0 Apriori algorithm was used to analyze the association rules of the prescriptions and mine the frequent item sets of acupoints; the SPSS 26.0 software was used to cluster the high-frequency acupoints, draw the pedigree diagram, and mine the clustering relationship between acupoints. Results: After strict screening according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 133 medical records, 133 prescriptions, 21 acupoints involved, and a total frequency of 863 times were obtained. The top five acupoints in terms of frequency of use are back acupoints, cervical acupoints, lumbar acupoints, sacral acupoints, and abdominal plexus acupoints. Among the acupoint combinations, cervical acupoints, lumbar acupoints, and back acupoints have the strongest correlation; acupoints used more than 10 times can be divided into three effective clusters. Conclusion: Professor Ouyang Bowen treats chronic abdominal pain by regulating the autonomic nerves, focusing on the referred pain caused by visceral nerve sensitivity, and mainly uses spinal acupoints such as cervical acupoints, back acupoints, lumbar acupoints, and sacral acupoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCo) has long been studied from many perspectives. As a multisubunit (large subunits [LSUs] and small subunits[SSUs]) protein encoded by genes residing in the chloroplast (rbcL) and nuclear (rbcS) genomes, RuBisCo also is a model for cytonuclear coevolution following allopolyploid speciation in plants. Here, we studied the genomic and transcriptional cytonuclear coordination of auxiliary chaperonin and chaperones that facilitate RuBisCo biogenesis across multiple natural and artificially synthesized plant allopolyploids. We found similar genomic and transcriptional cytonuclear responses, including respective paternal-to-maternal conversions and maternal homeologous biased expression, in chaperonin/chaperon-assisted folding and assembly of RuBisCo in different allopolyploids. One observation is about the temporally attenuated genomic and transcriptional cytonuclear evolutionary responses during early folding and later assembly process of RuBisCo biogenesis, which were established by long-term evolution and immediate onset of allopolyploidy, respectively. Our study not only points to the potential widespread and hitherto unrecognized features of cytonuclear evolution but also bears implications for the structural interaction interface between LSU and Cpn60 chaperonin and the functioning stage of the Raf2 chaperone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recombination between homeologous chromosomes, also known as homeologous exchange (HE), plays a significant role in shaping genome structure and gene expression in interspecific hybrids and allopolyploids of several plant species. However, the molecular mechanisms that govern HEs are not well understood. Here, we studied HE events in the progeny of a nascent allotetraploid (genome AADD) derived from two diploid progenitors of hexaploid bread wheat using cytological and whole-genome sequence analyses. In total, 37 HEs were identified and HE junctions were mapped precisely. HEs exhibit typical patterns of homologous recombination hotspots, being biased toward low-copy, subtelomeric regions of chromosome arms and showing association with known recombination hotspot motifs. But, strikingly, while homologous recombination preferentially takes place upstream and downstream of coding regions, HEs are highly enriched within gene bodies, giving rise to novel recombinant transcripts, which in turn are predicted to generate new protein fusion variants. To test whether this is a widespread phenomenon, a dataset of highresolution HE junctions was analyzed for allopolyploid Brassica, rice, Arabidopsis suecica, banana, and peanut. Intragenic recombination and formation of chimeric genes was detected in HEs of all species and was prominent in most of them. HE thus provides a mechanism for evolutionary novelty in transcript and protein sequences in nascent allopolyploids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary frequency regulation capability of the wind turbine generators is an appealing topic in order to consider safe increasing of the wind power integration into power grids. This study introduces improvements in the primary frequency contribution of the grid-connected variable speed wind turbine generators, which operate under de-loaded conditions. A new dynamic droop control approach based on the fuzzy logic system is proposed. In this control approach, the droop setting is continuously adjusted in response to the de-loaded rotor speed, the frequency deviation, and the rate of change of frequency. In addition, a new dynamic de-loading technique based on the Sugeno-Fuzzy inference system is proposed where the de-loading percentage of the wind turbine generator is decided continuously according to the frequency deviation. The effectiveness of the proposed dynamic de-loading and dynamic droop control approaches is verified through extensive comparative studies. The simulation results confirmed that the proposed control approaches have the ability to provide transient and steady-state powersharing and improve effectively the frequency stabilisation of the power system within the stable and secure limits of the wind turbine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Older people are a group susceptible to hypertension, and among whom hypertension prevalence is increasing as population aging aggravates. Early prevention, diagnosis and treatment of hypertension in the elderly are very important, which can be enhanced by an important way, namely developing high-quality clinical practice guidelines. Objective To perform an analysis of the guidelines regarding the diagnosis and management of hypertension in the elderly, and to assess their methodological quality. Methods In December 2021, we searched for clinical guidelines for hypertension in the elderly in databases of CNKI, CQVIP, WanFang Data, SinoMed, PubMed, EmBase and Medlive, as well as in the official websites of the National Guideline Clearing house, the Guidelines International Network and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence from inception to December 2021. Two reviewers independently conducted literature screening and data extraction. Four reviewers independently evaluated the methodological quality of included guidelines using the AGREEⅡ. Recommendations from each guideline were retrieved. Results A total of 11 guidelines were included: seven are Chinese guidelines, two are US guidelines and the other two are European guidelines. The mean standardized domains scores of the AGREEⅡinstrument in assessing the overall guideline quality were as follows: 50.13% for scope and purpose, 24.24% for stakeholder involvement, 18.51% for rigour of development, 54.03% for clarity of presentation, 11.36% for applicability and 30.30% for editorial independence. The recommendation level was B for five guidelines, and was C for the remaining six guidelines. The main recommendations involve three aspects: pharmacological intervention, non-pharmacological intervention, and continuing health management. Conclusion The overall methodological quality of included guidelines is unsatisfactory. To improve the quality of such guidelines developed in the future to better guide clinical practice, it is suggested to give more attention and priority to domains of stakeholder involvement, rigour of development, and applicability.