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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative joint disorder that leads to disability and affects more than 500 million population worldwide. OA was believed to be caused by the wearing and tearing of articular cartilage, but it is now more commonly referred to as a chronic whole-joint disorder that is initiated with biochemical and cellular alterations in the synovial joint tissues, which leads to the histological and structural changes of the joint and ends up with the whole tissue dysfunction. Currently, there is no cure for OA, partly due to a lack of comprehensive understanding of the pathological mechanism of the initiation and progression of the disease. Therefore, a better understanding of pathological signaling pathways and key molecules involved in OA pathogenesis is crucial for therapeutic target design and drug development. In this review, we first summarize the epidemiology of OA, including its prevalence, incidence and burdens, and OA risk factors. We then focus on the roles and regulation of the pathological signaling pathways, such as Wnt/β-catenin, NF-κB, focal adhesion, HIFs, TGFβ/ΒΜP and FGF signaling pathways, and key regulators AMPK, mTOR, and RUNX2 in the onset and development of OA. In addition, the roles of factors associated with OA, including MMPs, ADAMTS/ADAMs, and PRG4, are discussed in detail. Finally, we provide updates on the current clinical therapies and clinical trials of biological treatments and drugs for OA. Research advances in basic knowledge of articular cartilage biology and OA pathogenesis will have a significant impact and translational value in developing OA therapeutic strategies.

Nowadays, most of the manufacturing industries rely on effective shop floor schedules to improve productivity and to optimize the makespan, production cost, tardiness, etc., which are usually considered in traditional scheduling problems. Recently, in response to the global initiatives for sustainability in manufacturing industries, an increasing number of shop floor schedules have taken energy consumption into account. However, few research works have considered traditional objectives, energy consumption, and other sustainability factors simultaneously in a shop floor schedule. In this paper, a many-objective optimization model for a flexible job shop scheduling problem considering makespan, total energy consumption, and three other indicators is formulated. Then, an improved electromagnetism-like mechanism algorithm is proposed to find the optimal or near-optimal solutions. Finally, a real-life case study is conducted to evaluate the proposed model and the algorithm. The results show that the many-objective model is effective for reducing energy consumption and improving sustainability in the shop floor.

Weeding is a key link in agricultural production. Intelligent mechanical weeding is recognized as environmentally friendly, and it profoundly alleviates labor intensity compared with manual hand weeding. While intelligent mechanical weeding can be implemented only when a large number of disciplines are intersected and integrated. This article reviewed two important aspects of intelligent mechanical weeding. The first one was detection technology for crops and weeds. The contact sensors, non-contact sensors and machine vision play pivotal roles in supporting crop detection, which are used for guiding the movements of mechanical weeding executive parts. The second one was mechanical weeding executive part, which include hoes, spring teeth, fingers, brushes, swing and rotational executive parts, these parts were created to adapt to different soil conditions and crop agronomy. It is a fact that intelligent mechanical weeding is not widely applied yet, this review also analyzed the related reasons. We found that compared with the biochemical sprayer, intelligent mechanical weeding has two inevitable limitations: The higher technology cost and lower working efficiency. And some conclusions were commented objectively in the end.

The interfacial morphology of crystalline silicon/hydrogenated amorphous silicon (c-Si/a-Si:H) is a key success factor to approach the theoretical efficiency of Si-based solar cells, especially Si heterojunction technology. The unexpected crystalline silicon epitaxial growth and interfacial nanotwins formation remain a challenging issue for silicon heterojunction technology. Here, we design a hybrid interface by tuning pyramid apex-angle to improve c-Si/a-Si:H interfacial morphology in silicon solar cells. The pyramid apex-angle (slightly smaller than 70.53°) consists of hybrid (111) 0.9 /(011) 0.1 c-Si planes, rather than pure (111) planes in conventional texture pyramid. Employing microsecond-long low-temperature (500 K) molecular dynamic simulations, the hybrid (111)/(011) plane prevents from both c-Si epitaxial growth and nanotwin formation. More importantly, given there is not any additional industrial preparation process, the hybrid c-Si plane could improve c-Si/a-Si:H interfacial morphology for a-Si passivated contacts technique, and wide-applied for all silicon-based solar cells as well. The unexpected crystalline silicon epitaxial growth and interfacial nanotwins formation remain a challenging issue for silicon heterojunction technology. Here, the authors design a hybrid interface by tuning pyramid apex-angle to improve c-Si/a-Si:H interfacial morphology in silicon solar cells.

Hemarthria compressa is a high-quality forage resource in China. In recent years, waterlogging has frequently occurred, adversely affecting the growth and development of H. compressa . In order to investigate the physiological and molecular response mechanisms of H. compressa under waterlogging stress and identify hub genes involved in waterlogging tolerance, H. compressa roots from the GY (waterlogging-tolerant) and N1291 (waterlogging-sensitive) cultivars were selected as experimental materials in this study. The physiological indexes of H. compressa were measured, and transcriptome sequencing was carried out after 8 h and 24 h of waterlogging stress, with 0 h used as the control group. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) activities were significantly increased in both GY and N1291 under waterlogging stress ( P  < 0.05). Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identified a total of four modules significantly associated with waterlogging stress ( r >|0.9|, P  < 0.05). Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) enrichment results showed that differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mainly enriched in the Starch and sucrose metabolism, Plant hormone signal transduction, Ribosome and Glutathione metabolism pathways. Seven hub genes were also retrieved, including Cluster-38255.67514 and Cluster-38255.80127 , potentially associated with waterlogging tolerance. It is related to the Ribosome pathway and participates in the process of anti-waterlogging regulation. The results of this experiment provide new insights into the response mechanisms of H. compressa to waterlogging stress and a theoretical framework for the effective selection and breeding of waterlogging-tolerant cultivars.

The phosphorous deficiency in arable land limits crop production globally. Plants developed a set of coordinated biochemical and developmental responses to cope with Pi deficiency during evolution. One of typical developmental responses to Pi deficiency is the induction of leaf erectness, which reduced the light capture ability and inhibited photosynthesis to conserve Pi in rice. It has been revealed that Pi deficiency induced leaf inclination by regulating the expression of BR pathway genes. However, how canonic BR signaling coordinates Pi deficiency responses in rice lamina joint development was not clear. Understanding mechanism underlying Pi-deficiency-induced leaf inclination enable us to breed new rice cultivars with increased Pi efficiency. Here we reported the molecular mechanism underlying the interaction of phosphorous deficiency-induced and BR-induced leaf inclination. We showed that BR deficiency can attenuate the leaf inclination by compromising Pi deficiency-induced BU1 expression and that constitutively activated or repressed BR signaling resulted in the insensitivity of Pi deficiency-induced leaf inclination. Furthermore, we compared expression profile of WT and BR signaling constitutively activated or repressed transgenic plants under normal and deficient phosphorous conditions by RNA-seq analysis. Our work revealed the complexity of Pi deficiency stress-induced and BR induced leaf inclinations in rice.

The interface of high-quality crystalline silicon/hydrogenated amorphous silicon (c-Si/a-Si:H) is indispensable for achieving the ideal conversion efficiency of Si heterojunction solar cells. Therefore, it is extremely desirable to characterize and control the interface at the atomic scale. Here, we employ spherical aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy to investigate the atomic structure of the c-Si/a-Si:H interface in high-efficiency Si heterojunction solar cells. Their structural evolution during in situ annealing is visualized at the atomic scale. High-density embedded nanotwins, detrimental to the device performance, are identified in the thin epitaxial layer between c-Si and a-Si:H. The nucleation and formation of these nanotwins are revealed via ex situ and in situ high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Si heterojunction solar cells with low-density nanotwins are fabricated by introducing an ultra-thin intrinsic a-Si:H buffer layer and show better performance, indicating that the strategy to restrain embedded nanotwins can further enhance the conversion efficiency of Si heterojunction solar cells. Silicon heterojunction solar cells are expected to increase their market share in the near future. Qu et al. identify an embedded nanotwin structure at the crystalline silicon/hydrogenated amorphous silicon interface of silicon heterojunction cells that limits the device performance and devise an approach to suppress its formation.

In this work, we investigated the influence of MoS2 functioning as an electron transport layer (ETL) on the inverted flexible organic photovoltaics (FOPVs). Three ETLs, including MoS2, lithium quinolate (Liq), and a MoS2/Liq bilayer, were evaporated onto ITO-integrated polyethylene terephthalate substrates (PET-ITO), and the properties of transmittance, water contact angle, and reflectivity of the films were analyzed. The results revealed that MoS2 was helpful to improve the lipophilicity of the surface of the ETL, which was conducive to the deposition of the active layer. In addition, the reflectivity of MoS2 to the light ranging from 400 to 600 nm was the largest among the pristine PET-ITO substrate and the PET-ITO coated with three ETLs, which promoted the efficient use of the light. The efficiency of the FOPV with MoS2/Liq ETL was 73% higher than that of the pristine device. This was attributed to the nearly two-fold amplification of the MoS2 array to the light field, which promoted the FOPV to absorb more light. Moreover, the efficiency of the FOPV with MoS2 was maintained under different illumination angles and bending angles. The results demonstrate the promising applications of MoS2 in the fabrication of FOPVs.

Substrate temperature during intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (i-a-Si:H) passivation layer deposition by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) is found to be crucial for reaching high conversion efficiency (Eff) in a silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cell. Measurements from Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and minority carrier lifetimes show that the good passivation properties of a-Si:H film deposited at lower substrate temperatures are achieved. The correlations between the optical and electrical properties of thin films and the performance of SHJ cells have been analyzed. Finally, a SHJ solar cell with an area of 242.5 cm2 was prepared at 210 °C, yielding a maximum cell conversion efficiency up to 23.3% with VOC of 741 mV, JSC of 38.49 mA/cm2 and FF of 82.0%.

Siberian kale ( Brassica napus subsp. pabularia , AACC, 2n = 38) is a distinct subspecies of B. napus , characterized by its deeply lobed leaves and primarily cultivated as a nutritious leafy vegetable. Here, we present a chromosome-level genome of Beta, a Siberian kale variety, integrating Illumina short reads, PacBio HiFi long reads, and Hi-C data. The final assembly size is 1,078.8 Mb, with a scaffold N50 of 57.5 Mb and a genome BUSCO completeness of 99.7%. 954.0 Mb (88.4%) of sequences were successfully anchored to 19 pseudo-chromosomes. The configuration of Beta genome chromosomes is consistent with the distribution of ten A subgenome and nine C subgenome chromosomes in rapeseed. In total, 98,882 protein-coding genes were predicted ab initio in the Beta genome, with an average gene length of 1,997 bp, and 90,415 (91.44%) genes were functionally annotated. Overall, the high-quality genome provides a valuable resource for bridging current knowledge gaps and offers key genetic insights into deeply lobed leaf formation and improvement of Brassica crops.