Search Results (16)

Rice is an important food crop, acting as the staple food for more than 50% of the global population. We selected seedlings (two sterile male lines: WA803A and JW803A) that had different cytoplasmic but the same nuclear composition and were heterogeneous. The maintainer line 803B was also used. We aimed to study their nitrogen uptake rate in different concentrations of NH₄⁺ and NO₃⁻ and explore the differences in nitrogen uptake efficiency between different cytoplasmic genes. The results showed a significant difference in the nitrogen uptake rate for different seedlings. With ammonium nutrition, the nitrogen uptake efficiency of the JW cytoplasm was significantly higher than that of the WA cytoplasm. In low concentrations of ammonium nitrogen, the JW cytoplasm had an additive effect to the nuclear gene regulation of ammonium uptake. The JW cytoplasm’s ammonium nitrogen absorption effect on nuclear gene regulation was higher than that of the WA cytoplasm. The effect of the WA and JW cytoplasms on the nitrate uptake rate was not significant, and the nuclear gene regulation of both cytoplasms was reduced by absorbing nitrate. Under nitrogen deficiency conditions, the material output and conversion rate of the JW-type cytoplasmic hybrid rice combination was relatively high, significantly higher than those of other cytoplasmic combinations. Under medium nitrogen conditions, the material output and conversion rate of the (N2) W-type hybrid rice combination were significantly higher than those of the other cytoplasmic combinations. The yield of JW-type rice first increased and then decreased with the increase in the nitrogen application rate and was highest, 8195.55 kg/hm², under the N2 treatment. Full article

In order to study the effects of combined application of compound fertilizer and branch fertilizer on the growth and yield of machine-transplanted rice, four hybrid rice varieties were used as experimental materials, and four fertilization treatments were set up by completely random design: compound fertilizer (T0), compound fertilizer + conventional branch fertilizer (T1), compound fertilizer + (branch fertilizer − 20%) (T2), compound fertilizer + (branch fertilizer + 20%) (T3). The results showed that the branch fertilizer could effectively promote the early growth and rapid development of tillers, and increase the agronomic traits such as chlorophyll content, LAI and dry matter accumulation. Among the four varieties, the yield of the V4 variety was the highest under T3 treatment, which was 11,471.15 kg·hm⁻², which was 37.34% higher than that of the control, and the yield increase effect was the most significant. The correlations showed that dry matter accumulation and LAI were significantly or highly significantly positively correlated with the number of effective spikes and yield, and the number of effective spikes was highly significantly positively correlated with the yield. In general, the application of pitchfork fertiliser increased the effective number of spikes and the number of grains per spike of each variety to different degrees, which effectively promoted the improvement of the rice yield. Full article

Straw is an agricultural byproduct that results from the production of many crops, such as cereals, yet it is often considered a waste product. However, straw has both historical precedent and future potential as an agricultural resource. In this study, we aimed to determine the effects of returning straw to the soil on rice cultivation. To this end, we used the hybrid rice variety Luliangyou Jingling as the test material to study the effect of straw return under four different nitrogen application levels (0 kg N (N1), 120 kg N/hm² (N2), 150 kg N/hm² (N3), and 180 kg N/hm² (N4)) on rice tillering dynamics, leaf area index (LAI), dry matter accumulation, and yield. We found that rice under straw return had a higher number of effective panicles, along with a higher number of grains per panicle, compared to those without straw return. Additionally, the tiller number, LAI, total dry matter, and yield of rice in each main growth period under straw return were higher than those without straw return, and these values increased with an increase in nitrogen application rate. The yield was the highest at 9520.63 kg/hm² without straw return, while the highest yield with straw return was achieved at 10,738.26 kg/hm². Our results revealed the optimal nitrogen application level for high yield of two-line direct-seeded rice under straw return, which provides a theoretical reference for the precise reduction of fertilizer application in rice cultivation. Full article

Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) enable lightweight, strong, and durable structures for many engineering applications including aerospace, automotive, biomedical, and others. High-modulus (HM) CFRPs enable the most significant improvement in mechanical stiffness at a lower weight, allowing for extremely lightweight aircraft structures. However, low fiber-direction compressive strength has been a major weakness of HM CFRPs, prohibiting their implementation in the primary structures. Microstructural tailoring may provide an innovative means for breaking through the fiber-direction compressive strength barrier. This has been implemented by hybridizing intermediate-modulus (IM) and HM carbon fibers in HM CFRP toughened with nanosilica particles. The new material solution almost doubles the compressive strength of the HM CFRPs, achieving that of the advanced IM CFRPs currently used in airframes and rotor components, but with a much higher axial modulus. The major focus of this work has been understanding the fiber–matrix interface properties governing the fiber-direction compressive strength improvement of the hybrid HM CFRPs. In particular, differences in the surface topology may cause much higher interface friction for IM carbon fibers compared to the HM fibers, which is responsible for the interface strength improvement. In situ Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)-based experiments were developed to measure interface friction. Such experiments reveal an approximately 48% higher maximum shear traction due to interface friction for IM carbon fibers compared to the HM fibers. Full article

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is a common thermoplastic polymer that has been widely employed in the manufacturing industry due to its impact resistance, tensile strength, and rigidity. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a promising manufacturing technique being used to manufacture products with complex geometries, but it is a slow process producing mechanically inferior products when compared to traditional production processes like injection molding (IM). Thus, our hybrid manufacturing (HM) process combining materials extrusion AM and IM to create a single article was investigated in this study, in which eleven batches of specimens were made and extensively tested. These include the AM, IM, and hybrid manufactured (HYM) samples, in which the HYM samples were made by inserting AM substrates into the IM tool and were varied in infill density of AM preforms and geometries. The HYM samples outperformed AM parts in terms of mechanical performance while retaining customizability dependent on the HYM processing parameters, and the best mechanical performance for HYM samples was found to be comparable to that of IM samples, implying that the overmolding process in HM had primarily improved the mechanical performance of AM products. This work leads to a deeper knowledge of applications to confirm the optimal component fabrication in high design flexibility and mass production. Full article

In the last decades, development of hybrid materials, especially inorganic–organic materials, coordination polymers, conducting polymers, carbon materials, and many more, has produced breakthroughs in diverse applications. Various advance materials have been reported in the literature using metal organic frameworks (MOFs), which compensate for the limitations of sensors. Diverse combinations of HMs not only offer excellent features, but also give a ray of hope for unprecedented advances in materials in different research areas, such as sensing, energy storage, catalysis, non-linear optics, drug-delivery systems, gas storage, etc. Chemiresistor sensors are a core enabling sensor technology and have led to much progress in the field of material science. Here, we have reviewed the recent progress in chemiresistive sensors based on HMs for nitroaromatic compounds, which could be beneficial for researchers that explore this field further. We have put emphasis on sensing mechanisms and the performance of diverse HMs for nitroaromatic sensing applications including pesticides, pollutants, explosives, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). In the end, we explored opportunities, challenges, and future perspectives in this emerging field. Full article

Achieving fast and accurate recognition of garlic clove bud orientation is necessary for high-speed garlic seed righting operation and precision sowing. However, disturbances from actual field sowing conditions, such as garlic skin, vibration, and rapid movement of garlic seeds, can affect the accuracy of recognition. Meanwhile, garlic precision planters need to realize a recognition algorithm with low-delay calculation under the condition of limited computing power, which is a challenge for embedded computing platforms. Existing solutions suffer from low recognition rate and high algorithm complexity. Therefore, a high-speed method for recognizing garlic clove bud direction based on deep learning is proposed, which uses an auxiliary device to obtain the garlic clove contours as the basis for bud orientation classification. First, hybrid garlic breeds with the largest variation in shape were selected randomly and used as research materials, and a binary image dataset of garlic seed contours was created through image sampling and various data enhancement methods to ensure the generalization of the model that had been trained on the data. Second, three lightweight deep-learning classifiers, transfer learning based on MobileNetV3, a naive convolutional neural network model, and a contour resampling-based fully connected network, were utilized to realize accurate and high-speed orientation recognition of garlic clove buds. Third, after the optimization of the model’s structure and hyper-parameters, recognition models suitable for different levels of embedded hardware performance were trained and tested on the low-cost embedded platform. The experimental results showed that the MobileNetV3 model based on transfer learning, the naive convolutional neural network model, and the fully connected model achieved accuracy of 98.71, 98.21, and 98.16%, respectively. The recognition speed of the three including auxiliary programs was 19.35, 97.39, and 151.40 FPS, respectively. Theoretically, the processing speed of 151 seeds per second achieves a 1.3 hm²/h planting speed with single-row operation, which outperforms state-of-the-art methods in garlic-clove-bud-orientation recognition and could meet the needs of high-speed precise seeding. Full article

Due to the obstruction and heterogeneity of the blood-brain barrier, the clinical treatment of glioma has been extremely difficult. Isoliquiritigenin (ISL) exhibits antitumor effects, but its low solubility and bioavailability limit its application potential. Herein, we established a nanoscale hybrid membrane-derived system composed of erythrocytes and tumor cells. By encapsulating ISL in hybrid membrane nanoparticles, ISL is expected to be enhanced for the targeting and long-circulation in gliomas therapy. We fused erythrocytes with human glioma cells U251 and extracted the fusion membrane via hypotension, termed as hybrid membrane (HM). HM-camouflaged ISL nanoparticles (ISL@HM NPs) were prepared and featured with FT-IR, SEM, TEM, and DLS particle analysis. As the results concluded, the ISL active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) were successfully encapsulated with HM membranes, and the NPs loading efficiency was 38.9 ± 2.99% under maximum entrapment efficiency. By comparing the IC50 of free ISL and NPs, we verified that the solubility and antitumor effect of NPs was markedly enhanced. We also investigated the mechanism of the antitumor effect of ISL@HM NPs, which revealed a marked inhibition of tumor cell proliferation and promotion of senescence and apoptosis of tumor cells of the formulation. In addition, the FSC and WB results examined the effects of different concentrations of ISL@HM NPs on tumor cell disruption and apoptotic protein expression. Finally, it can be concluded that hybridized membrane-derived nanoparticles could prominently increase the solubility of insoluble materials (as ISL), and also enhance its targeting and antitumor effect. Full article

To reduce plastic waste generation from failed product batches during industrial injection molding, the sustainable production of representative prototypes is essential. Interesting is the more recent hybrid injection molding (HM) technique, in which a polymeric mold core and cavity are produced via additive manufacturing (AM) and are both placed in an overall metal housing for the final polymeric part production. HM requires less material waste and energy compared to conventional subtractive injection molding, at least if its process parameters are properly tuned. In the present work, several options of AM insert production are compared with full metal/steel mold inserts, selecting isotactic polypropylene as the injected polymer. These options are defined by both the AM method and the material considered and are evaluated with respect to the insert mechanical and conductive properties, also considering Moldex3D simulations. These simulations are conducted with inputted measured temperature-dependent AM material properties to identify in silico indicators for wear and to perform cooling cycle time minimization. It is shown that PolyJetted Digital acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) polymer and Multi jet fusioned (MJF) polyamide 11 (PA11) are the most promising. The former option has the best durability for thinner injection molded parts, and the latter option the best cooling cycle times at any thickness, highlighting the need to further develop AM options. Full article

A laboratory technology for a new ultra-low background hybrid material (HM) which meets the requirements for neutron absorption with simultaneous neutron detection has been developed. The technology and hybrid material can be useful for future low background underground detectors designed to directly search for dark matter with liquid noble gases. The HM is based on a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) polymer matrix in which gadolinium nuclei are homogeneously distributed up to 1.5 wt% concentration in polymer slabs of 5 cm thickness. To determine the 65 impurity elements by the inductively coupled plasma mass-spectrometry (ICP-MS) technique in the Gd-based preparations in 100–0.01 ppb range, the corresponding method has been developed. Limits of determination (LD) of 0.011 ppb for uranium, and 0.016 ppb for thorium were achieved. An analysis of Gd raw materials showed that the lowest contents of U and Th (1.2–0.2 ppb) were detected in commercial Gd-based preparations. They were manufactured either from secondary raw materials (extraction phosphoric acid) or from mineral raw materials formed in sedimentary rocks (phosphogypsum). To produce the Gd-doped HM the commercial GdCl₃ was purified and used for synthesis of low-background coordination compound, namely, acetylacetonate gadolinium (Gd(acac)₃) with U/Th contents less than LD. When dissolving Gd(acac)₃ in methylmethacrylate, the true solution was obtained and its further thermal polymerization allowed fabrication of the Gd-doped PMMA with ultra-low background. Full article

Metal oxide thin films show promising resistive switching properties, making them materials of reference for the development of memristive devices. TiO₂ is probably one of the most studied materials and is being synthesized using various techniques, each of them having specific optimizable characteristics. In this paper, we report on an innovative approach by combining the sol–gel and the pulsed microplasma cluster source (PMCS) methods, exploiting the low temperature and low cost of the former process and precise control over nanocristallinity of the latter. We show that this approach overcomes the reported limitations that each technique shows in fabricating memristive devices when independently used. A side-by-side comparison of the TiO₂ thin films produced by the PMCS, sol–gel, and PMCS/sol–gel hybrid methods (HM) demonstrates an improvement of the memristive properties and a reduction of the electrical shorts in the TiO₂ based devices. Full article

In this article, organic–inorganic hybrid materials with different functional groups were used to form organic–inorganic hybrid dense membranes for selective separation of mono/divalent ions by blending these materials and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) in dimethylacetamide with HCl as the catalyst. The membranes prepared by 3-(ureido benzene) propyltriethoxysilane (H1), 3-(ureido-4-methoxyphenyl) propyltriethoxysilane (H2), 3-(ureido-3-chloro-4-methoxyphenyl) propyltriethoxysilane (H3), 3-(ureidoindazolyl) propyltrieth-oxysilane (H4), or 3-(ureidopentanol) propyltriethoxysilane (H5) were labeled as HM1–HM5, respectively. The transport properties of different chlorides were tested. The effects of different anions on sodium cation transport were also tested. The results showed that HM1–HM4 could transport monovalent Li⁺, Na⁺, and K⁺ except Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺, and the permeability of Li⁺, Na⁺, and K⁺ through the hybrid membranes followed the order of P_Na+ > P_K+ > P_Li+. Moreover, membranes with different H2 content were also prepared due to HM2 having the best ion transport performance. The ion transport performance increased accordingly with the mass ratio of H2 to PVDF, and the permeability of Na⁺ was twice that of Li⁺ and K⁺ when the mass ratio was 15/10. Under this condition, it was also proved that NH₄⁺ could not transport through the hybrid membrane with various selectivity for different anions as Cl⁻ > NO₃⁻ > HCO₃⁻ > SO₄²⁻. Full article

Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plants and a key limiting factor of crop production. However, excessive application of N fertilizers and the low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) have brought in severe damage to the environment. Therefore, improving NUE is urgent and critical for the reductions of N fertilizer pollution and production cost. In the present study, we investigated the effects of N nutrition on the growth and yield of the two rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars, conventional rice Huanghuazhan and indica hybrid rice Quanliangyou 681, which were grown at three levels of N fertilizer (including 135, 180 and 225 kg/hm², labeled as N9, N12, N15, respectively). Then, a proteomic approach was employed in the roots of the two rice cultivars treated with N fertilizer at the level of N15. A total of 6728 proteins were identified, among which 6093 proteins were quantified, and 511 differentially expressed proteins were found in the two rice cultivars after N fertilizer treatment. These differentially expressed proteins were mainly involved in ammonium assimilation, amino acid metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism, signal transduction, energy production/regulation, material transport, and stress/defense response. Together, this study provides new insights into the regulatory mechanism of nitrogen fertilization in cereal crops. Full article

Data-driven or machine learning approaches are increasingly being used in material science and research. Specifically, machine learning has been implemented in the fields of materials discovery, prediction of phase diagrams and material modelling. In this work, the application of machine learning to the traditional phenomenological flow stress modelling of the titanium aluminide (TiAl) alloy TNM-B1 (Ti-43.5Al-4Nb-1Mo-0.1B) is investigated. Three model types were developed, analyzed and compared; a physics-based phenomenological model (PM) originally developed for steel by Cingara and McQueen, a purely data-driven machine learning model (MLM), and a hybrid model (HM), which uses characteristic points predicted by a learning algorithm as input for the phenomenological model. The same amount of data was used to both fit the PM and train the MLM and HM. The models were analyzed and compared based on the accuracy of their predictions, development and computing time, and their ability to predict on interpolated and extrapolated inputs. The results revealed that for the same amount of experimental data, the MLM was more accurate than the PM. In addition, the MLM was better able to capture the characteristic peak stress in the TNM-B1 the flow curves, and could be developed and computed faster. Furthermore, the MLM was able to make realistic predictions for inputs outside the experimental data used for training. The HM showed comparable accuracy to the PM for the experimental conditions. However, the HM was able to produce a better fit for input conditions outside the training data. Full article

Ab-initio calculations are performed to examine the electronic structures and magnetic properties of spin-polarized Ga_1−xMn_xP (x = 0.03, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75) ternary alloys. In order to perceive viable half-metallic (HM) states and unprecedented diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMSs) such as spintronic materials, the full potential linearized augmented plane wave method is utilized within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). In order to tackle the correlation effects on 3d states of Mn atoms, we also employ the Hubbard U (GGA + U) technique to compute the magnetic properties of an Mn-doped GaP compound. We discuss the emerged global magnetic moments and the robustness of half-metallicity by varying the Mn composition in the GaP compound. Using GGA + U, the results of the density of states demonstrate that the incorporation of Mn develops a half-metallic state in the GaP compound with an engendered band gap at the Fermi level (E_F) in the spin–down state. Accordingly, the half-metallic feature is produced through the hybridization of Mn-d and P-p orbitals. However, the half-metallic character is present at a low x composition with the GGA procedure. The produced magnetic state occurs in these materials, which is a consequence of the exchange interactions between the Mn-element and the host GaP system. For the considered alloys, we estimated the X-ray absorption spectra at the K edge of Mn. A thorough clarification of the pre-edge peaks is provided via the results of the theoretical absorption spectra. It is inferred that the valence state of Mn in Ga_1−xMn_xP alloys is +3. The predicted theoretical determinations surmise that the Mn-incorporated GaP semiconductor could inevitably be employed in spintronic devices. Full article