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The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda , is native to the tropical and subtropical areas of the American continent and is one of the world's most destructive insect pests and invaded Africa and spread to most of Asia in two years. Glycerol is generally used as a cryoprotectant for overwintering insects in cold areas. In many studies, the increase in glycerol as a main rapid cold hardening (RCH) factor and enhancing the supercooling point was revealed at low temperatures. There are two genes, including glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH) and glycerol kinase (GK), that were identified as being associated with the glycerol synthesis pathway. In this study, one GPDH and two GK sequences (GK1 and GK2) were extracted from FAW transcriptome analysis. RNA interference (RNAi) specific to GPDH or GK1 and GK2 exhibited a significant down-regulation at the mRNA level as well as a reduction in survival rate when the RNAi-treated of FAW larvae post a RCH treatment. Following a cold period, an increase in glycerol accumulation was detected utilizing high-pressure liquid chromatography and colorimetric analysis of glycerol quantity in RCH treated hemolymph of FAW larvae. This research suggests that GPDH and GK isozymes are linked to the production of a high quantity of glycerol as an RCH factor, and glycerol as main cryoprotectant plays an important role in survival throughout the cold period in this quarantine pest studied.

The suction cups found in octopus tentacles are the inspiration for a synthetic adhesive that functions well in dry and wet conditions and is resistant to chemical contamination. Octopus-inspired sticky patch Adhesives fall broadly into two categories, working either through chemical bonding or attraction at the interface, or through mechanical interlocking to ensure that surfaces stick together. Finding an adhesive in either of these categories that works under dry conditions and when immersed in liquids, and isn't readily contaminated, is an ongoing challenge. Changhyun Pang and colleagues have taken inspiration from the shape of octopus suckers to develop and fabricate a textured polymer patch that adheres through mechanical deformation. The patch displays good adhesive properties in various media, yet is resistant to chemical contamination. Adhesion strategies that rely on mechanical interlocking or molecular attractions between surfaces can suffer when coming into contact with liquids 1 , 2 . Thus far, artificial wet and dry adhesives have included hierarchical mushroom-shaped or porous structures that allow suction or capillarity 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , supramolecular structures comprising nanoparticles 7 , and chemistry-based attractants that use various protein polyelectrolytes 8 , 9 , 10 . However, it is challenging to develop adhesives that are simple to make and also perform well—and repeatedly—under both wet and dry conditions, while avoiding non-chemical contamination on the adhered surfaces 11 . Here we present an artificial, biologically inspired, reversible wet/dry adhesion system that is based on the dome-like protuberances found in the suction cups of octopi. To mimic the architecture of these protuberances 12 , 13 , 14 , we use a simple, solution-based, air-trap technique that involves fabricating a patterned structure as a polymeric master, and using it to produce a reversed architecture, without any sophisticated chemical syntheses or surface modifications. The micrometre-scale domes in our artificial adhesive enhance the suction stress. This octopus-inspired system exhibits strong, reversible, highly repeatable adhesion to silicon wafers, glass, and rough skin surfaces under various conditions (dry, moist, under water and under oil). To demonstrate a potential application, we also used our adhesive to transport a large silicon wafer in air and under water without any resulting surface contamination.

In L’Immanence des vérités, Alain Badiou rewrites the Platonic allegory of the cave. As the book’s structure reveals, Badiou’s central claim is that truths are absolute, for they are constituted by the dialectic between finitude and infinity, the consequence of which lies in the creation of the œuvre. Although love is often affected by individual difference, family, money, and social norms, philosophy calls for a rupture with these instances of finitude, awakening us to the truth that love is open to the possibility of infinity embodied by contingent encounter, amorous declaration, and the faithful construction of the Two. Badiou calls for subjectivization of this possibility in the form of the amorous œuvre, through and beyond the Lacanian impasse of the sexual non-relationship. This article supplements Badiouian love with Lacanian psychoanalysis by developing five points. First, the binary framework “Lacanian finitude vs Badiouian infinity” can be misleading. Second, Badiou himself regards the unconscious and the analytic discourse as inscribed by the dialectic between finitude and infinity. Third, Lacan allows us to recognize that the œuvre and the waste are not opposed, but rather supplementary to each other. Fourth, for both Lacan and Badiou, love constitutes the interlacing of the non-relationship and the Two. Fifth, the Badiouian amorous absolute must deal with the real of the absolute as the fusional One and thus, can be supplemented by the Lacanian problematic of the sexual relationship in its fantasmatic form of the One. Based on these points, this article elaborates such concepts as the amorous labor, the dialectic between œuvre and waste, and the artisan of love.

Conventional active noise control (ANC) systems in enclosed spaces are not easy to implement experimentally because they require a large number of microphones to measure sound pressure in global areas. Even if such systems are possible, if there are any changes in the locations of noise sources or surrounding objects, or if ANC system moves to another enclosed space, an expensive and time-consuming experimental calibration is again required. Implementation of global ANC in enclosed spaces is thus difficult. Therefore, we designed a global ANC system that can be used in various acoustic environments. The main idea involves suboptimal open-loop controller design in the free field. By using an open-loop controller, a controller calibrated once can be used in various acoustic environments. A controller designed in the free field derive a suboptimal solution without bias toward a specific acoustic environment. For controller design in the free field, we propose an experimental calibration approach in which the arrangement and the number of control speakers and microphones are determined by the frequency range and radiation pattern of the noise source. We conducted simulations and experiments to show that the designed controller in the free field is sufficiently effective in other enclosed spaces.

A circular active noise barrier using a theoretically calculated control filter without real-time adaptation was proposed for noise reduction in a specific outdoor space. A compact circular barrier is used for the movable system to cope with changes in the location of the workspace, and noise in a wide frequency band can be reduced by conducting active noise control through control speakers arranged around a barrier. However, there was a significant performance gap compared with the maximum performance achieved by using the experimental fixed filter due to an extremely simplified theoretical model which ignores the interaction between the control speakers and the barrier. Therefore, this study tried to minimize the performance degradation when applying the theoretically calculated control filter. Another theoretical model is introduced to improve the noise reduction performance by considering the interaction between the control speaker and the barrier. Through experiment, it is confirmed that noise reduction performance is improved by about 2.6 dB in the frequency of interest.

A multiple-actuator fault isolation approach for overactuated electric vehicles (EVs) is designed with a minimal ℓ1-norm solution. As the numbers of driving motors and steering actuators increase beyond the number of controlled variables, an EV becomes an overactuated system, which exhibits actuator redundancy and enables the possibility of fault-tolerant control (FTC). On the other hand, an increase in the number of actuators also increases the possibility of simultaneously occurring multiple faults. To ensure EV reliability while driving, exact and fast fault isolation is required; however, the existing fault isolation methods demand high computational power or complicated procedures because the overactuated systems have many actuators, and the number of simultaneous fault occurrences is increased. The method proposed in this paper exploits the concept of sparsity. The underdetermined linear system is defined from the parity equation, and fault isolation is achieved by obtaining the sparsest nonzero component of the residuals from the minimal ℓ1-norm solution. Therefore, the locations of the faults can be obtained in a sequence, and only a consistently low computational load is required regardless of the isolated number of faults. The experimental results obtained with a scaled-down overactuated EV support the effectiveness of the proposed method, and a quantitative index of the sparsity condition for the target EV is discussed with a CarSim-connected MATLAB/Simulink simulation.

The fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda is a cold-sensitive species that overwinters in temperate climates without diapause. Overwintering in insects involves rapid cold hardening (RCH), supported by trehalose (TRE), which serves as an intermediate between glycogen (GLY) and glucose (GLU). However, both GLU and TRE help maintain homeostasis under stress. TRE is hydrolyzed by the enzyme trehalase (Treh) into GLU. This study retrieved Sf-Treh1a , Sf-Treh1b , and Sf-Treh2 from the FAW transcriptome analysis. RNA interference (RNAi) targeting these three Treh genes resulted in significant downregulation of mRNA levels and altered survival rates in RNAi-treated FAW larvae following RCH treatment. High-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) quantification of TRE and GLU in treated groups suggests that GLU is an essential component of the hemolymph for survival adaptation to cold conditions in S. frugiperda . This study reveals limited cold adaptability of FAW, as evidenced by lower glucose concentration levels. We found that FAW requires alternative molecules, in conjunction with glucose and trehalose for freeze tolerance and survivability. Our study aims to discover the molecular mechanisms that contribute to freeze tolerance in FAW by exploring the roles of trehalose, glucose, and glycogen.

Oral toxicity of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) specific to integrin β1 subunit (SeINT) was known in a polyphagous insect pest, Spodoptera exigua. For an application of the dsRNA to control the insect pest, this study prepared a transformed Escherichia coli expressing dsRNA specific to SeINT. The dsRNA expression was driven by T7 RNA polymerase overexpressed by an inducer in the transformed E. coli. The produced dsRNA amount was proportional to the number of the cultured bacteria. The transformed bacteria gave a significant oral toxicity to S. exigua larvae with a significant reduction of the SeINT expression. The resulting insect mortality increased with the fed number of the bacteria. Pretreatment with an ultra-sonication to disrupt bacterial cell wall/membrane significantly increased the insecticidal activity of the transformed bacteria. The larvae treated with the transformed bacteria suffered tissue damage in the midgut epithelium, which exhibited a marked loss of cell-cell contacts and underwent a remarkable cell death. Moreover, these treated larvae became significantly susceptible to a Cry toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). This study provides a novel and highly efficient application technique to use dsRNA specific to an integrin gene by mixing with a biopesticide, Bt.

This paper presents a geometric difficulty analysis framework for Formula 1 racing lines based on telemetry data from the 2024 season. To ensure geometric consistency across multiple laps, a representative racing line is identified using the discrete Fréchet distance, and corner segments are modeled using biarc approximation to estimate stable curvature. Based on the resulting geometric representation, we introduce three curvature-based difficulty metrics—the Curvature Exposure Index (CEI), Maximum Curvature Severity (MCS), and Curvature Variation Index (CVI)—to quantify both local and global track characteristics. This approach establishes a strictly geometric definition of difficulty based on the planar projection of the trajectory, purposely decoupling structural complexity from 3D terrain features, vehicle dynamics, and race context. Experimental results across 24 tracks demonstrate that these metrics effectively capture distinct track characteristics: CEI ranged from 1.97 rad/km (Italian) to 8.44 rad/km (Monaco), MCS from 230.54 km−1 (Spanish) to 1689.54 km−1 (Monaco), and CVI from 7.60 (British) to 9.33 (Monaco and Qatar). Although this framework focuses on planar geometry, it provides a compact, extensible foundation for geometric analysis and future applications incorporating elevation profiles and dynamic variables.

We present a straightforward approach for reconstructing 3D celadon models from a single 2D image. The celadon is a historical example of the surface of revolution. Our approach uses a surface of revolution technique to generate the basic shape of the celadon and then applies texture mapping to create a realistic appearance. The process involves detecting the contour and corners of the celadon image, determining an axis of revolution, generating a profile curve, and finally constructing a 3D celadon model. Additionally, we create models as triangular meshes at multiple resolutions, employing a B-spline curve as the profile curve. It enhances the adaptability of the models for various purposes. We render various scenes using a path tracer to assess the suitability of the generated 3D celadon models and generate a VR celadon museum with the models. Overall, our approach offers a simple and efficient solution for reconstructing a 3D celadon model, generating VR content, and demonstrating extensive applicability across numerous disciplines.