Search Results (1,893)

Tea plants (Camellia sinensis) suffer growth limitations under cold stress. Jasmonic acid (JA) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in stress responses, yet how lncRNAs regulate JA-mediated cold tolerance remains unclear. Here, we identified an lncRNA, lnc015013, whose silencing compromised cold tolerance in tea plants, a phenotype rescued by exogenous methyl jasmonate (MeJA). Silencing lnc015013 down-regulated CsMYB30 and CsJAZ4/6, while its overexpression had opposite effects. Heterologous expression in Arabidopsis thaliana showed that CsMYB30 enhanced cold resistance, whereas CsJAZ4/6 suppressed it. Mechanistically, CsMYB30 repressed CsJAZ4/6 promoter activity and physically interacted with CsJAZ4/6, with MeJA attenuating this interaction. These findings reveal that the lnc015013-CsMYB30-CsJAZ4/6 module regulates JA biosynthesis within the JA signaling pathway, providing a novel mechanism for cold adaptation in tea plants and a theoretical basis for molecular breeding. Full article

Climate change is reshaping yield formation and water use in cold-region rice production through rising air temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. However, the responses of yield, crop evapotranspiration (ET_c), and water use efficiency (WUE) to climate forcing and elevated CO₂ remain insufficiently quantified for cold-region rice systems in Northeast China. This study simulated changes in rice yield, ET_c and WUE during the 2030s–2090s relative to the 2000–2020 baseline period under the SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios at 10 agro-meteorological stations in Heilongjiang Province. Simulations were conducted using the AquaCrop model driven by CMIP6 multi-model climate data, and the contribution of elevated CO₂ was quantified by comparing the rising-CO₂ and fixed-CO₂ treatments. The results showed that under SSP5-8.5, the maximum air temperature in the 2090s is projected to increase by 5~6 °C relative to the baseline period, while precipitation is projected to range from −10% to 20%. Compared with the fixed-CO₂ treatment, rice yield under the rising-CO₂ treatment is projected to increase by 18.70%. Although ET_c showed an overall increasing trend, rising CO₂ attenuated its increase. Under SSP5-8.5 in the 2090s, ET_c increased by only 2.70% under rising-CO₂ treatment, compared with 11.61% fixed CO₂. As a result of increased yield and ET_c, the WUE improved by 15.42% and 14.28% under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, respectively, in the 2090s, whereas it remained below the baseline level under the scenarios without CO₂ effects. These findings indicate that rising CO₂ may enhance yield and moderate ET_c increases, thereby providing useful information for regional grain-yield assessment, agricultural water-resource evaluation, and climate-change adaptation planning. Full article

Aiming at the challenging issue of nonlinear coupling control between cooling intensity and solidification rate in the secondary cooling zone of round billet continuous casting, this study proposes an efficient 3D temperature field modeling method that integrates hybrid coordinate systems with equal-area meshing. The model is applicable to the temperature range of 800–1520 °C during the continuous casting process. With the modeling strategies of constructing an r-θ-z hybrid coordinate system and designing a dynamic equal-area meshing method, and combined with a topological structure optimization algorithm, the geometric adaptability and numerical stability of the model are significantly improved. Based on this, an explicit-semi-implicit dual-mode finite difference solution model is developed, where the explicit scheme meets real-time online calculation requirements, and the semi-implicit scheme combined with preconditioned Gauss–Seidel iteration enables high-precision offline simulation. Furthermore, a boundary condition model incorporating adaptive mold heat flux correction and multi-mechanism heat transfer in the secondary cooling zone is established. Based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 (Version 16.11) C++ development, SIMD vectorization and temperature gradient threshold optimization technologies are employed, resulting in a 35% improvement in computational efficiency. Industrial validation results show that, taking 42CrMo steel with a casting speed of 0.24 m/min and a cross-section of φ600 mm as an example, the deviation between the calculated surface temperature (887 °C) and the measured value (876 °C) of the round billet in the straightening zone is only 11 °C, and the calculation error of the cold billet diameter is only 0.325% (with a calculated value of 597.548 mm and a measured average value of 599.5 mm), both meeting the accuracy requirements for engineering applications. The model breaks through the limitations of traditional empirical formulas and provides theoretical support for digital control of continuous casting processes and quality optimization of high-alloy steels. Full article

The ecological restoration of degraded sandy land in the Yarlung Zangbo River Valley is constrained by the metabolic functions of soil microorganisms. This study investigates the dynamic mechanisms of microbial elemental use efficiency in walnut plantations, with a focus on seasonal variations in soil chemical stoichiometry, extracellular enzyme activity, and microbial nutrient efficiency in rhizosphere and bulk soils. This paper explores the effects of conventional organic fertilizer (CF) and organic–inorganic compound fertilizer (OIF) on microbial nutrient use strategies and their seasonal dynamics. The results showed significant seasonal fluctuations in soil active nutrients and microbial biomass, while the total nutrient content remained stable. OIF enhanced microbial chemical stoichiometric homeostasis but simultaneously triggered a “carbon–phosphorus metabolic trade-off”, leading to a restraint of microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) during the growing season. Microbial elemental use efficiency (EUE) exhibited clear seasonal differentiation: CUE was higher in summer, promoting biomass accumulation, whereas NUE and PUE increased in winter and spring, reflecting a nutrient conservation strategy. The EUE pathways were decoupled between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere microenvironments. The rhizosphere was more directly driven by soil chemical stoichiometry and microbial biomass, while the non-rhizosphere was influenced by nutrient limitation states, represented by vector characteristics. This study provides insights into the seasonal adaptability and microenvironmental heterogeneity of microbial metabolism during the restoration of cold sandy land. It is suggested that future ecological management should focus on N-P balanced fertilization and consider the differential responses between rhizosphere and non-rhizosphere zones to enhance ecosystem productivity and soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus sequestration potential. Full article

To address the mismatch between spatial form and wind environment of residential districts in cold-region valley-type cities, which leads to poor thermal comfort, low ventilation efficiency and high building energy consumption, this study takes Hongyun Runyuan, a typical large-scale residential district in Lanzhou, as the research case. Using orthogonal experimental design, nine spatial schemes were developed with three core morphological parameters (building orientation, spacing coefficient, enclosure degree), each set with three levels. CFD simulations via PHOENICS were performed to analyze the influence weight of each parameter on the winter wind environment at 1.5 m pedestrian height. Results show that building orientation exerts an extremely significant effect on the winter wind environment (p = 0.006), while the spacing coefficient and enclosure degree have no significant independent effects (all p > 0.05). The optimal scheme, featuring 10° east of south orientation, 1.1 spacing coefficient and 0.3 enclosure degree, can effectively meet the winter wind protection demand. The quantitative optimization strategies proposed in this study provide scientific support for wind-friendly residential planning and building energy efficiency improvement in cold-region valley-type cities. Full article

Inspired by the hovering, diving, and cooperative hunting behaviors of the pied kingfisher, the Pied Kingfisher Optimizer (PKO) has demonstrated competitive performance in optimization tasks. However, it exhibits several phase-specific limitations, including uneven population distribution caused by random initialization, insufficient use of historical information during exploration, over-reliance on the global best during exploitation, and weakly guided perturbation in the symbiosis phase. To address these issues, this study proposes an Improved Pied Kingfisher Optimizer (IPKO), which incorporates biologically inspired adaptive strategies. Drawing inspiration from the kingfisher’s diverse perching, gaze adjustment during hovering, evasive diving after failed strikes, and territory shifting based on flock position, four mechanisms are developed. Specifically, sine chaotic opposition-based initialization enhances population diversity; adaptive directional search regulates the exploration–exploitation balance; stochastic perturbation-based information fusion improves the ability to escape local optima; and centroid-based adaptive boundary handling strengthens constraint adaptability. The performance of IPKO is evaluated on the CEC2017 benchmark suite (10, 30, 50, and 100 dimensions) and two real-world engineering problems. Experimental results show that IPKO achieves superior overall performance compared with eleven state-of-the-art algorithms, with statistical significance confirmed by the Friedman test and Holm’s post-hoc procedure. Ablation studies further verify the contribution of each strategy. In engineering applications such as cold chain logistics and dynamic multi-UAV cooperative path planning, the IPKO algorithm demonstrates superior solution quality, robustness, and constraint-handling capability compared with competing algorithms. These results demonstrate that IPKO is a robust and effective bio-inspired optimization approach for solving complex, high-dimensional constrained engineering problems. Full article

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) production faces persistent threats from various infectious diseases. Planting healthy varieties with robust botanical defense networks is critical for minimizing future costs. Non-expressor of pathogenesis-related (NPR) regulators are involved in immune activation and act as key targets for deeper stress adaptation, and are thus promising targets for genetic enhancement. In this study, we characterized the peanut NPR4B protein and demonstrated its local subcellular binding to the nucleus. Ectopic overexpression of AhNPR4B in Arabidopsis thaliana significantly enhanced resistance to the necrotrophic pathogen Botrytis cinerea and enhanced cold tolerance, as supported by quantitative and statistical analyses (p < 0.05). As regards underlying molecular events, Y2H (Yeast 2-Hybrid) analysis revealed a binding in vitro physical relation of AhPR2-like to AhNPR4B. This binding was demonstrated in vivo through BiFC (Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation). These results suggest that the AhNPR4B-AhPR2-like complex may act as a key regulatory module associated with biotic and abiotic stress signaling, potentially contributing to broad-spectrum stress resistance. These findings provide foundational insights into the functional roles of AhNPR4B and its interaction with AhPR2-like in regulating stress resistance and support its potential as a candidate target for future genetic improvements to enhance stress resilience in peanuts. Full article

The construction sector accounts for approximately 36% of global final energy consumption and close to 40% of total CO₂ emissions, making it a primary target of international climate policy. Despite this growing attention, the indigenous building traditions of the Ecuadorian Andes remain virtually absent from the international scientific literature on vernacular sustainability. This study presents a systematic field documentation and bioclimatic assessment of vernacular bahareque dwellings in the Kichwa-Saraguro community of Ilincho, canton of Saraguro, province of Loja, Ecuador (2700 m a.s.l.). A field survey of 30 dwellings identified five morphological typologies—I-1P, I-2P, 2B, L, and C—with typology C, a compact C-shaped block with a three-sided portal, accounting for 53.3% of the sample. A structured multi-criteria framework of 48 bioclimatic indicators distributed across eight categories, adapted to the cold-temperate mountain climate of the study area, was applied to quantify each typology’s bioclimatic performance. All typologies exceeded 75% overall compliance on the global Bioclimatic Performance Index (BPI), with typology C achieving the highest value (88.5%). Categories F (Materials and construction) and H (Cultural and social aspects) scored 100% across all typologies, reflecting system-level properties of the bahareque constructive system rather than morphological differences between typological variants; a supplementary morphological BPI restricted to Categories A–E and G is reported. An exploratory, uncalibrated energy simulation of typology C provided indicative evidence consistent with the expected thermal behavior of a high-thermal-mass bahareque envelope, with simulated minimum temperatures in the sleeping area within the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 55-2013 comfort range (T-min 18.80 °C). Collectively, these findings contribute quantified bioclimatic documentation of vernacular bahareque architecture in Ilincho, identifying attributes—encompassing solar control, spatial compactness, high-thermal-mass envelope performance, and use of locally sourced low-embodied-energy materials—that may inform sustainable rural housing discussions in the Ecuadorian Andes and comparable high-altitude mountain contexts. Its documentation in the indexed scientific literature constitutes a step toward recognizing this constructive heritage as a practical resource for low-carbon building policy. Full article

RNA N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) is a prevalent epitranscriptomic modification that governs plant growth, development, and environmental adaptation. This review synthesizes recent advances in understanding the molecular mechanisms and biological functions of m⁶A in plants. The m⁶A landscape is dynamically regulated by methyltransferases (writers), demethylases (erasers), and m⁶A-binding proteins (readers), which collectively influence mRNA stability, translation efficiency, alternative polyadenylation (APA), and chromatin crosstalk. Functionally, m⁶A integrates diverse developmental processes—including embryogenesis, organogenesis, flowering, fruit ripening, and leaf senescence—with abiotic stress responses such as salt, drought, cold, and heat. Notably, m⁶A modification exhibits remarkable species-, cultivar-, and tissue-specific plasticity, enabling precise spatiotemporal gene regulation. Recent breakthroughs have revealed bidirectional crosstalk between m⁶A and histone modifications, forming a multi-layered regulatory network, while emerging concepts including phase separation, RNA structure dynamics, and stress memory further expand the functional repertoire of m⁶A. Despite significant progress, plant epitranscriptomics remains mechanistically underexplored, with critical gaps persisting in our understanding of translation initiation mechanisms, upstream regulatory signals controlling writers/erasers activities, and the functional significance of individual m⁶A sites. This review provided systematic insights into the complexity and specificity of m⁶A regulation in plants, offering a theoretical foundation for future efforts to decipher and ultimately manipulate this epitranscriptional layer for crop improvement. Full article

Skin temperature measurement is a complex issue. Skin tissue is one of the main thermoregulatory organs and takes major responsibility for heat exchange in the organism. Accurate skin temperature measurement may contribute to better estimation of deep core temperature, which is why enhancing possibilities of skin temperature measurement is considered substantial. However, the real value of the skin temperature can be influenced by many biological and non-biological factors. Some of the external factors such as extensive wind or extreme ambient temperature may significantly influence the raw value of the skin temperature regardless of the choice of the measuring point. Despite that, abnormal thermoregulatory behaviour can occur due to internal body stresses and reactions. Whilst internal influence is even more difficult to track than external factors, it is crucial to monitor and identify the thermal stresses in a correct way. The paper proposes a wrist temperature measurement system. The system consists of a sensory part placed in a housing adapted to the shape of the wrist. The sensory component enables contact measurement of wrist skin temperature under the assumed experimental conditions. The housing is designed to provide stable positioning of the sensory component relative to the wrist while simultaneously isolating it from external conditions. The paper presents the results of a case study concerning human thermoregulation, quantifying the thermal response of the hand under low-temperature exposure in temperature chamber and during the subsequent rewarming phase after removal. During the experiment, temperature measurements of both hands were recorded. One of the co-authors participated in this case experiment. The temperature measurement results were compared between the hand subjected to thermal stress and the hand not exposed to low temperatures. Differences in the participant response to repeated thermal stress are demonstrated. The results highlight the complexity of the human body’s thermoregulation process in extremely cold environments. Full article

Prostate cancer (PCa) is immunologically “cold” and resistant to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), yet bulk analyses show low, non-prognostic PD-L1 expression. We hypothesised that this paradox reflects two overlooked dimensions: basal heterogeneity (static engine) and IFN-$\gamma$-driven adaptive resistance (adaptive engine). Using TCGA-PRAD data ($n=554$) to parameterise an agent-based model, we simulated clonal selection and extended it to a hybrid discrete-continuum framework with reaction-diffusion IFN-$\gamma$. Bulk PD-L1 was low (median 1.48 TPM) and non-prognostic (HR $=1.15$, $p=0.621$). The static engine alone produced weak immunoediting (1.10-fold enrichment), whereas the adaptive engine drove a 2.95-fold enrichment of PD-L1-high clones via protective sanctuary formation, without increasing final tumour burden. Induction knockout ($P_{max}=0$) abrogated this advantage, while diffusion knockout ($D=0$) had no effect. The cold tumour paradox is resolved by a hierarchical twin engine: rare genomic outliers permit initial persistence, but local IFN-$\gamma$/PD-L1 feedback dominates resistance, identifying induction capacity as the primary therapeutic target for JAK/STAT inhibition combined with ICB. Full article

Following a loss-of-coolant accident, the reactor safety injection system is activated, and a large amount of coolant is injected into the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). This induces cold plume phenomena and temperature nonuniformity inside the vessel, which may threaten the structural integrity of the RPV. Transient numerical simulations are performed to investigate the complex cold plumes that arise inside the pressure vessel of a small mobile reactor under safety-injection conditions. By evaluating the flow-field evolution under different injection paths and flow rates, and by innovatively adapting classical plume entrainment theory to define an equivalent coefficient for the nuclear engineering context, this study systematically analyzes the formation and development of the cold plumes and their entrainment–mixing mechanisms. The results indicate that, in such compact RPVs, the entrainment and mixing intensity of the cold plumes is relatively weak, resulting in ineffective thermal mixing during the development stage. Although increasing the injection flow rate enhances heat transfer and reduces thermal gradients, the improvement exhibits diminishing returns. A comparison of different injection paths reveals that a dual-line injection scheme leverages plume–plume interaction to effectively strengthen radial mixing, accelerate temperature-field homogenization, and enlarge the wall-cooling region, thereby alleviating local pressurized thermal shock (PTS). Full article

The use of lactic acid bacteria for the management of hyperuricemia has attracted growing interest, whereas the specific emphasis on cold-adapted uric acid-degrading probiotics in the fermentation of traditional foods remains underexplored. In this study, Lacticaseibacillus paracasei NEFU-6 was isolated from Northeastern Chinese Kimchi and efficiently degraded uric acid (UA) at a temperature relevant to food fermentation (15 °C) and under simulated physiological conditions (37 °C). The results showed that strain NEFU-6 degraded 25.48% of UA in 6 days at 15 °C, and 40.55% after 72 h at 37 °C in 0.84 g/L of uric acid. All probiotic and safety-related properties were evaluated at 37 °C to simulate human physiological conditions. In vitro probiotic characterization revealed that strain NEFU-6 exhibits non-hemolytic activity, strong free radical-scavenging capacity, significant surface hydrophobicity, and an auto-aggregation rate of 52.65% after 24 h. The strain NEFU-6 also demonstrated robust survival under simulated gastrointestinal conditions, with tolerance rates of 70.7% in 0.3% bile salts, 51.02% in gastric juice at pH 1.5, and 62.61% after 4 h of exposure to artificial intestinal fluid, indicating strong adaptability. Furthermore, the application of strain NEFU-6 in kimchi fermentation improved product quality, confirming its potential for the development of low-temperature functional foods. Full article

Snow cover plays an important role in ecological stability and seasonal water regulation in the western Greater Khingan Mountains of Inner Mongolia, a cold-region transitional zone where climate warming may intensify environmental vulnerability and sustainability challenges. Using long-term remote sensing, meteorological, and topographic datasets, this study examined the spatiotemporal changes in snow cover and assessed the relative influences of climatic and geographic factors. The results showed pronounced spatial heterogeneity, with greater snow depth and longer snow cover duration occurring in the northeastern, high-altitude, gentle-slope, and north-facing areas. Snow depth showed a slight but marginally significant declining trend during 1982–2024 at a rate of 0.026 cm a⁻¹, while snow cover days decreased by 0.39 d a⁻¹ during 1982–2020. Snow cover onset exhibited a slight but significant delay, whereas snowmelt timing showed strong interannual variability. Compared with precipitation, temperature showed stronger and more persistent associations with snow cover variations, and climatic factors explained a larger proportion of snow-depth variability than geographic factors. Overall, the results suggest that regional warming has played a leading role in recent snow cover decline. These findings improve understanding of climate-sensitive snow dynamics and provide useful evidence for ecological conservation, seasonal water-resource adaptation, and sustainable regional management in cold-region landscapes of northern China. Full article

Qilian sheep are an important indigenous Tibetan sheep breed adapted to cold and hypoxic environments. To explore hepatic nutrient metabolism in Qilian sheep, this study compared liver transcriptomic profiles between Qilian sheep and Oula sheep raised under similar natural grazing and management conditions. Six 10-month-old ewes from each breed were selected, and three high-quality liver RNA samples from each group were used for transcriptome sequencing. A total of 1640 differentially expressed genes were identified using the thresholds of |log2FoldChange| > 1 and false discovery rate < 0.05, including 922 upregulated and 718 downregulated genes in Qilian sheep compared with Oula sheep. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that these genes were mainly associated with lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism, the PPAR signaling pathway, fatty acid biosynthesis, and fatty acid β-oxidation. qRT-PCR validation confirmed the differential expression of 11 candidate genes, including RGN, LPGAT1, BHMT2, SDS, GK, PC, MIOX, HMGCS2, PNPLA3, ACAA2, and HADHA. These results suggest that Qilian sheep and Oula sheep differ in hepatic gene expression patterns related to lipid utilization, amino acid metabolism, and energy regulation, providing candidate genes and pathways for understanding breed-associated hepatic metabolic characteristics. Full article