Heihe University

Cuticular waxes form a crucial hydrophobic barrier on the surface of aboveground organs in terrestrial plants. It strongly influences crop stress tolerance and yield stability, making them important target traits in modern crop breeding. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in how cuticular waxes contribute to crop stress tolerance and yield formation. It covers the chemical composition of cuticular waxes, key pathways and regulatory networks, and the physiological and biochemical mechanisms. In addition, this review highlights the role of cuticle waxes in maintaining crop yield and quality by regulating essential physiological processes, including photosynthetic metabolism and water-use efficiency. Current research indicates that cuticular wax accumulation shows strong crop-specific patterns and is dynamically regulated by environmental factors. Breakthrough studies in major crops have clarified the regulatory mechanisms of several core genes and demonstrated that cuticular waxes enhance stress resistance by strengthening physical barriers, improving water-use efficiency, and protecting photosynthetic structures. A deeper understanding of cuticular wax regulatory mechanisms will help reveal the molecular basis of crop stress resistance and provide both theoretical support and practical guidance for breeding crop varieties with enhanced stress tolerance and stable yields.

The deepening of commercial operation of the power system has put forward higher requirements for the accuracy, timeliness, and safety of electricity bill settlement, which is a key power engineering issue to ensure the economic benefits of power grid enterprises and the stable operation of the electricity market. The traditional manual review method is no longer able to cope with the constantly emerging risks and challenges. This article aims to address the key challenge of transitioning from “identification” to “closed-loop governance” of electricity bill settlement risks. Starting from the actual needs of power engineering, we propose an innovative governance framework that integrates multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) and process intelligent agents. This framework utilizes multimodal AI to identify anomalies from diverse data sources (text contracts, bills, electricity meter images), and employs software agents to automatically assign disposal tasks, track rectification processes, and verify risk mitigation, thus forming a complete governance loop. A practical case in a city in Zhejiang Province shows that this scheme can significantly improve the accuracy and efficiency of risk identification and disposal, achieve closed-loop management of risks throughout the entire process, and provide a practical and scalable intelligent solution for risk management in power engineering.

Soybean–maize rotation is an effective strategy for addressing the challenges associated with continuous soybean cropping. However, the effects of maize frequency in cropping sequences on soil fungal functions and their associations with soybean yields remain unclear. Through a 12-year field study comparing continuous soybean (CS), maize–soybean (MS), and maize–maize–soybean (MMS) systems, fungal community functions, system-specific taxa, and bacterial–fungal inter-kingdom co-occurrence patterns were analyzed. In contrast to conventional assumptions, CS enriched symbiotic fungi and suppressed pathogens, suggesting adaptive disease resilience. Integrating maize into soybean cropping systems increased the complexity of bacterial–fungal cross-kingdom co-occurrence networks. While the MS system increased the relative abundances of plant pathogens and saprotrophs, the MMS system stabilized fungal functions and inhibited plant pathogen accumulation. The system-specific taxa identified in the CS and MMS systems included potential plant growth-promoting microbes and were associated with the relative abundances of pathogens and saprotrophic fungi as well as soybean yield. This relationship may represent a critical link between fungal function and soybean production. These findings indicate that integrating maize into soybean rotations, especially in the MMS system, can stabilize fungal functions and mitigate pathogen accumulation, ultimately increasing soybean yield. These results underscore the importance of tailored crop rotation practices to optimize soil microbial communities for sustainable agricultural production.

Background/Objectives: This study characterized the endogenous peptide profile of human milk from a Chinese multicenter cohort (n = 200 mothers) using the Orbitrap Fusion Lumos LC-MS/MS. Methods: Samples were collected across different lactation stages (2 and 6 months postpartum) and seven geographic regions (Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Jinhua, Lanzhou, Weihai, and Zhengzhou). Results: In total, 6960 peptides derived from 621 proteins were identified. Peptides from the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (PIGR) were more abundant in the 2nd month than the 6th month, providing a high antimicrobial activity and immune functions for the infants. Moreover, region-specific variations were observed, with milk from Lanzhou exhibiting significantly higher levels of β-casein (CASB) and butyrophilin subfamily 1 member A1 (BTN1A1) peptides compared to other cities. Conclusions: Furthermore, maternal dietary intake of oils and total fat correlated positively with the intensity of specific antimicrobial peptides, including CASB_199-216, CASB_200-226, and CASB_201-226. Infant growth parameters were inversely correlated with several antimicrobial peptides, although CASB_200-225 demonstrated positive associations. These findings offer novel insights into the dynamics of endogenous peptides in human milk and may guide breastfeeding recommendations and infant formula design.

ABSTRACT A 350 MW down-fired boiler unit in a power plant, originally designed for anthracite combustion, is proposed to co-fire with low-ash-fusion Shenhua bituminous coal. In order to systematically investigate the impact of high-proportion co-firing of low ash fusibility bituminous coal on the combustion and slagging characteristics of the down-fired boiler, and to achieve the optimization of slagging prevention, this paper carries out a numerical simulation study based on the gas-solid two-phase combustion model coupled with the slagging model. The results show that the risk of slagging at the bottom of the platen superheater and at each wall of the front and rear walls of the lower hearth is low when the design coal type anthracite is burned purely under turbine heat acceptance (THA) operating conditions. As the proportion of blended bituminous coal increases from 0% to 100%, the temperature level of the main combustion zone in the furnace decreases, and the proportion of local high-temperature zone area decreases; the concentration of CO generation increases gradually, and the concentration of NO x emission decreases gradually; the burnout rate of the furnace outlet does not change much, but the burnout rate of the condition of purely combusted bituminous coal is lower; the slagging risk of the water-cooled walls at the bottom of the platen superheater and the front and back walls of the lower hearth is increasing. Considering the velocity field, temperature field, atmosphere field, furnace outlet parameters and the slagging situation of the water-cooled walls in the front and rear walls of the lower hearth, it is recommended that the proportion of low ash melting point bituminous coal blended in the THA working condition is about 30%.

The abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathway depends largely on ABRE-binding factors (ABFs), a distinct subfamily of plant bZIP transcription factors. Here, we carried out a genome-wide analysis of the ABF gene family in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) and investigated the function and regulatory mechanisms of GmABF1 in the plant's response to salt stress. A total of 20 GmABF genes were identified in the soybean genome, distributed across various chromosomes. The gene expression profiles of GmABF genes across diverse tissues and developmental stages in soybean indicate in regulating abiotic stress responses and plant hormone signaling. Among these genes, GmABF1 emerged as a key regulator of salt-stress tolerance. Functional assays showed that GmABF1 overexpression limited Na+ accumulation, reduced membrane damage, lowered reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, and up-regulated ROS-scavenging enzymes, collectively alleviating oxidative stress and enhancing the plant's resilience to salinity. Additionally, three polymorphic sites in the promoter region of GmABF1 were identified, and their variation was closely associated with salt tolerance in soybean. These findings highlight the regulatory role of GmABF1 in salt stress responses and its potential for improving soybean stress tolerance.