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Background The Poaceae is one of the world’s most ecologically and economically important plant families, encompassing major food crops and forage grasses. Despite its agricultural significance, systematic analyses of chloroplast genome evolution across this diverse family remain limited. To understand adaptive evolution in Poaceae species and their phylogenetic relationships, analysis of codon usage and evolutionary pressure in chloroplast genomes is essential. We conducted a comprehensive comparative analysis of 48 Poaceae chloroplast genomes to elucidate codon usage mechanisms and phylogenetic relationships. Results Our analysis revealed consistent codon usage bias across all species. Notably, 93.1% of preferred codons are A/U-ending, indicating the presence of strong compositional constraints. Chloroplast genomes ranged from 129,095 bp to 148,617 bp, with GC content ranging between 38.16% and 39.04%. The average GC content was 38.5%, with GC 3 content (30.51%) significantly lower than GC 1 (47.34%) and GC 2 (39.64%) contents. ENC-GC3s plots, PR2 analysis, and neutrality plot analyses consistently demonstrated that natural selection, rather than mutational pressure, predominantly drives codon usage patterns. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) analysis showed non-random distribution, with the highest density in intergenic regions (52.6%), followed by introns (28.2%) and coding sequences (19.2%). Mononucleotide and octanucleotide repeats constituted the predominant SSR types. Ka/Ks analysis revealed that 94.67% of chloroplast genes undergo purifying selection (Ka/Ks < 0.5), with photosystem and ribosomal protein genes under the most stringent constraints. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed robust evolutionary relationships, with genome synteny strongly correlating with taxonomic classification. Conclusion This study provides the most comprehensive analysis of Poaceae chloroplast genome evolution to date, revealing selection-driven codon optimization that balances functional conservation with adaptive flexibility. The predominance of purifying selection reflects the critical importance of chloroplast gene function, while SSR distribution patterns suggest roles in genome plasticity and regulatory functions. These findings deepen our understanding of grass evolution and provide valuable resources for molecular marker development, phylogenetic studies, and crop improvement programs addressing global food security challenges.

Electrospinning technology has demonstrated extensive applications in biomedical engineering, energy storage, and environmental remediation. However, its utilization in the cosmetic industry remains relatively underexplored. To address the challenges associated with skin damage caused by preservatives and thickeners used for extending the shelf life of conventional products, a soothing lavender-scented electrospun fibrous eye mask with coaxial layers was developed using the electrospinning technique. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) served as the hydrophilic outer sheath, while polycaprolactone (PCL) constituted the hydrophobic core, with lavender oil (LO) encapsulated within. The structural and physicochemical properties of the samples were characterized using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and contact angle measurements. Upon hydration, the fibrous membrane exhibited strong adhesion properties, notable antioxidant activity, and a degree of antibacterial efficacy, demonstrating its potential for safe and effective use in skincare and eye mask applications. These findings suggest that the developed electrospun material offers promising functional properties and functional properties for integration into cosmetic formulations.

Pepper ( spp.) is a vegetable that is cultivated globally and has undergone extensive domestication, leading to a significant diversification in its agronomic traits. With the advancement of genomics in pepper and the reduction in sequencing costs, the high-throughput detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small insertions-deletions (indels) has become increasingly critical for analyzing pepper germplasms and improving breeding programs. As a result, there is a pressing need for a cost-effective, high-throughput, and versatile technique suitable for both foreground and background selection in pepper breeding. In the present study, Python-based web scraping scripts were utilized to systematically extract data from published literatures and relevant sequence databases focusing on pepper genomes. Subsequent to data extraction, SNPs and indels were meticulously identified and filtered. This process culminated in the delineation of core polymorphic sites, which were instrumental in the development of specific probes. Following this, comprehensive phenotypic and genotypic analyses were conducted on a diverse collection of 420 pepper germplasms. Concurrently, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted to elucidate the genetic determinants of helical fruit shape in peppers. In this study, a 45K pepper Genotyping-By-Target-Sequencing (GBTS) liquid-phase gene chip was developed on the GenoBaits platform. This chip is composed of 45,389 probes, of which 42,535 are derived from core polymorphic sites (CPS) in the background genetic landscape, while 2,854 are associated with foreground agronomic traits, spanning across 43 traits. The CPS probes are spaced at an average interval of 68 Kb. We have assessed the performance of this chip on 420 pepper germplasms, with successful capture of target DNA fragments by 45,387 probes. Furthermore, the probe capture ratio surpassed 70% in 410 of the 420 germplasms tested. Using this chip, we have efficiently genotyped 273 germplasms for spiciness levels and elucidated the genetic relationships among 410 pepper germplasms. Our results allowed for precise clustering of sister lines and germplasms. In addition, through a GWAS for helical fruit shape, we identified three quantitative trait loci (QTLs): and Within the QTL, a gene encoding the tubulin alpha chain was identified, suggesting its potential role in the helical growth pattern of pepper fruits. In summary, the 45K pepper GBTS liquid-phase gene chip offers robust detection of polymorphic sites and is a promising tool for advancing research into pepper germplasm and the breeding of new pepper varieties.

As essential components for communication, network protocol programs are highly security-critical, making it crucial to identify their vulnerabilities. Fuzzing is one of the most popular software vulnerability discovery techniques, being highly efficient and having low false-positive rates. However, current network protocol fuzzing is hindered by the coarse-grained and missing state annotations in programs. The current solutions primarily rely on the manual modification of programs, which is inefficient and prone to omissions. In this paper, we propose StatePre, a novel state-handling method for stateful network protocol programs, which leverages large language model (LLM) code- and text-understanding capabilities to analyze request for comments (RFC)-defined state knowledge and optimize the state handling of programs for fuzzing. StatePre automatically refines coarse-grained state annotations and complements missing state annotations in programs to ensure precise state tracking and fuzzing effectiveness. We implement a prototype of StatePre. The evaluation shows that programs modified with StatePre, with fine-grained and comprehensive state annotations, achieve better fuzzing efficiency, higher code coverage, and improved crash detection compared to those not modified with StatePre. Moreover, StatePre demonstrates good scalability, thus is applicable to various network protocol programs.

Of the infants born to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive mothers globally, 42.1% who did not receive hepatitis B virus (HBV) passive-active immunoprophylaxis and 2.9% of infants who received the immunoprophylaxis acquired HBV infection perinatally. Moreover, perinatal infection occurred in 84.2% (18.8%-100%) and 8.7% (0.0-21.0%) of infants born to hepatitis B e-antigen (HBeAg)-positive mothers who did not and did receive immunoprophylaxis, respectively; by contrast, the infection rates were 6.7% (0.0-15.4%) and 0.4% (0.0-2.5%) for infants born to HBeAg-negative-carrier mothers, respectively. The chronicity rates of HBV infection acquired perinatally were 28.2% (17.4%-33.9%) in infants born to HBeAg-negative mothers and 64.5% (53.5%-100%) in infants born to HBeAg-positive mothers. HBV mother-to-child transmission was more frequent in East Asia relative to other areas. In addition to differences in the endemic HBV genotype, the interchange of allelic dominance in genetic polymorphisms in HLA class II and NF-κB between the Chinese and European populations may explain why chronic HBV infection frequently affects the Chinese. The risk of progressing into chronic infection was inversely related to the age of children at the time of horizontal transmission. To further diminish HBV chronic infection, it is necessary to enforce antiviral treatment after the 28th week of gestation for HBeAg-positive mothers and to improve the health habits of carrier mothers and household sanitary conditions. Emerging Microbes & Infections (2015) 4, e30; doi: 10.1038/emi.2015.30 ; published online 20 May 2015

Seed size and shape are not only critical for plant reproduction and dispersal, but also important agronomic traits. Tomato fruit shape loci sun , ovate and fs8.1 regulate the morphology of fruit, flower, leaf and stem, and recently their functions in seed morphogenesis have also been noticed. However, mechanism underlying seed morphology variation has not been systematically investigated yet. Thus, using the near isogenic lines (NILs) harboring one, two or three of the fruit shape loci, histological, physiological and transcriptional bases of seed morphology change have been studied. sun and ovate showed potential abilities in decreasing seed size, whereas, fs8.1 had a potential ability in increasing this parameter. Interactions between two loci and the interaction among three loci all led to significant decrease of seed size. All the loci significantly down-regulated seed shape index (SSI), except for sun/fs8.1 double NIL, which resulted in the reductions in both seed length and width and finally led to a decreased trend of SSI. Histologically, seed morphological changes were mainly attributed to the cell number variations. Transcriptional and physiological analyses discovered that phytohormone-, cytoskeleton- as well as sugar transportation- and degradation-related genes were involved in the regulation of seed morphology by the fruit shape loci.

Identifying network protocol vulnerabilities is critical for cyberspace security. Generation-based black-box protocol fuzzing is widely used but faces challenges: over-reliance on manual protocol analysis and script writing, single-threaded fuzzing, and lack of dynamic fuzzing strategy optimization. To address these, we propose LLM-Boofuzz, a generation-based black-box protocol fuzzing framework via Large Language Models (LLMs). It leverages LLMs to parse real traffic to extract protocol information, guides LLMs to generate executable scripts with a repair mechanism, and enables multi-script iterative fuzzing via an LLM-based agent. Experiments show that LLM-Boofuzz outperforms state-of-the-art tools: it triggers all 15 test vulnerabilities (vs. 8/7/7 for Boofuzz/Snipuzz/AFLNet) and achieves an average 53.4% code line coverage on two protocol programs (vs. 30.65%/31.95%/41.65%), providing an efficient solution for network protocol fuzzing.

Pepper ( Capsicum spp.) has a long domestication history and has accumulated diverse fruit shape variations. The illustration of the mechanisms underlying different fruit shape is not only important for clarifying the regulation of pepper fruit development but also critical for fully understanding the plant organ morphogenesis. Thus, in this study, morphological, histological and transcriptional investigations have been performed on pepper accessions bearing fruits with five types of shapes. From the results it can be presumed that pepper fruit shape was determined during the developmental processes before and after anthesis, and the anthesis was a critical developmental stage for fruit shape determination. Ovary shape index variations of the studied accessions were mainly due to cell number alterations, while, fruit shape index variations were mainly attributed to the cell division and cell expansion variations. As to the ovary wall thickness and pericarp thickness, they were regulated by both cell division in the abaxial-adaxial direction and cell expansion in the proximal-distal and medio-lateral directions. Transcriptional analysis discovered that the OFP-TRM and IQD-CaM pathways may be involved in the regulation of the slender fruit shape and the largest ovary wall cell number in the blocky-shaped accession can be attributed to the higher expression of CYP735A1 , which may lead to an increased cytokinin level. Genes related to development, cell proliferation/division, cytoskeleton, and cell wall may also contribute to the regulation of helical growth in pepper. The insights gained from this study are valuable for further investigations into pepper fruit shape development.

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a severe subtype of stroke caused by the rupturing of blood vessels in the brain. The ability to accurately assess the degree of bleeding in an SAH model is crucial for understanding the brain‐damage mechanisms and developing therapeutic strategies. However, current methods are unable to monitor microbleeding owing to their limited sensitivities. Herein, a new bleeding assessment system using a bioprobe TTVP with aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) characteristics is demonstrated. TTVP is a water‐soluble, small‐molecule probe that specifically interacts with blood. Taking advantage of its AIE characteristics, cell membranes affinity, and albumin‐targeting ability, TTVP fluoresces in bleeding areas and detects the presence of blood with a high signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratio. The degree of SAH bleeding in an endovascular perforation model is clearly evaluated based on the intensity of the fluorescence observed in the brain, which enables the ultrasensitive detection of mirco‐bleeding in the SAH model in a manner that outperforms the current imaging strategies. This method serves as a promising tool for the sensitive analysis of the degree of bleeding in SAHs and other hemorrhagic diseases. An ultrasensitive blood‐responsive probe with unique features for detecting blood and assessing bleeding in a mouse model of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is presented. By exploiting its aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) characteristics, cell membrane affinity, and albumin‐targeting ability, the bleeding degree of SAH can be sensitively evaluated from the intensity of the fluorescence observed in the brain.

Research on the surrounding rock stability and its control during gob-side entry driving with a narrow pillar (GSED-NP) is of critical importance for ensuring safe mining operations and efficient production in underground coal mines. This work proposed a thick anchored dual-layer locking (TADL) supporting technology by analyzing the big and small voussoir beam (BSVB) weighting characteristics in GSED-NP as well as engineering implementation and on-site validation. First, field surveys and numerical simulation show that the 9.60 m and 10.65 m thick medium grained sandstone in the overlying strata were fractured in the coal body of the next face, and formed BSVB structure after rotation, subsidence, and re-hinging. Under the effect of stress transfer of BSVB structure, the lateral abutment pressure distribution is characterized by internal and external stress field (IESF) distribution. Second, numerical calculation was carried out according to the above characteristics. Third, a supporting technical scheme was formulated and implemented, and the field monitoring data proved the ideal outcome. Finally, the influence of the critical fracture location of the main roof on the stress distribution was discussed, and it is thought that the stress distribution is mainly related to the main roof fracture location which has a critical range on the stress transfer. This research can provide a reference for the surrounding roadway control under similar conditions.