Promoting Effect of Choline-Phosphate Cytidylyltransferase Gene (pcyt-1) on Departure of Pinewood Nematode from Monochamus alternatus

In order to study the key gene in internal causes of pinewood nematode (PWN), Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, a departure from its vector beetle, Monochamus alternatus, we collected PWNs extracted from newly emerged M. alternatus and beetles 7 days after emergence. The total RNAs of the two groups of PWNs were extracted, transcriptomes sequencing was performed, and gene expression differences between the two groups of PWN were analyzed. It was found that the expression of the choline-phosphate cytidylyltransferase gene (pcyt-1) was markedly up-regulated. After inhibition of pcyt-1 expression by RNA interference, the rate of lipid degradation in PWN decreased significantly, and the motility of PWN also decreased significantly. The analysis identified that phosphatidylcholine could promote the emulsification and degradation of neutral lipid granules in PWN, which provides sufficient energy for PWN departure from M. alternatus. The up-regulation of the gene pcyt-1 is an important internal factor for PWN departure from its vector.

Foodborne Pathogen Inactivation by Cold Plasma Reactive Species

Cold plasma is implemented in the food industry for protecting the agricultural product from foodborne pathogens. In this case, dielectric barrier discharge cold plasma pen (DBD-CP) was applied to study its efficiency in inactivation of bacterial on oyster mushroom. The surface of the fresh oyster mushroom was treated with 5 kV of AC voltage with variable of treatment times (0-4 min). Data showed sufficient energy by DBD-CPP has inactivated the existence of bacterial on the oyster mushroom surface with undetectable of bacteria colony. The reactive species generated by cold plasma undoubtedly irreversibly damage the deoxyribonucleic acid, ribonucleic acid, and enzymes of gram bacterial, which eventually causes cell death. Above all, an understanding of the microorganism cell structure, the food surface types, and roughness is an essential in manipulating cold plasma processing parameters to achieve the maximum rate of microbial inactivation.

Realization of Efficient Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Devices Using Exciplex-Type Co-Host

High-performance phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices with an exciplex-type co-host were fabricated. The co-host is constituted by 1,3,5-tris(N-phenylbenzimidazol-2-yl) benzene, and 4,4,4-tris (N-carbazolyl) triphenylamine, and has obvious virtues in constructing efficient devices because of the thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) resulting from a reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) process. The highest external quantum efficiency and luminance are 14.60% and 100,900 cd/m2 for the optimal co-host device. For comparison, 9.22% and 25,450 cd/m2 are obtained for a device employing 4,4,4-tris (N-carbazolyl) triphenylamine as a single-host. Moreover, the efficiency roll-off is notably alleviated for the co-host device, indicated by much higher critical current density of 327.8 mA/cm2, compared to 120.8 mA/cm2 for the single-host device. The alleviation of excitons quenching resulting from the captured holes and electrons, together with highly sufficient energy transfer between the co-host and phosphorescent dopant account for the obvious boost in device performances.

An Alternate Approach to Military Rations for Optimal Health and Performance

ABSTRACT Introduction Operational ration packs are the sole source of nutrition when military personnel cannot access fresh food and field kitchens due to deployment and training in remote and hostile locations. They should be light, durable, nutrient rich, and contain sufficient energy to ensure that the personnel can carry out the expected duties. The macronutrient composition of rations has remained relatively unchanged despite escalating concerns related to the health and operational readiness of personnel globally. Currently, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) provides the personnel with a 24-hour ration pack. The aims of this study were to (1) analyse the nutrient content, cost, and weight of the NZDF-supplied ration pack and (2) develop and analyse an alternate ration pack. The alternate ration pack was designed with the intention of improving overall quality and macronutrient distribution ratio, to align with optimal health and performance outcomes. Materials and Methods Nutrient and weight analyses of the NZDF and alternate ration packs were conducted using nutrition analysis software Foodworks V. 10 (Xyris software). The ration packs were costed using information from the NZDF and from commercial online shopping websites (particularly Countdown supermarket and an online shop, iHerb). Data from nutrition panels were entered into Foodworks V. 10 (Xyris software). The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author. Results The NZDF-supplied ration pack cost 37.00 NZD and contained an excessive amount of sugar (636 g or 46% total energy) and marginally insufficient protein (118.7 g or 9% total energy) to sustain physically active military personnel. Comparatively, the alternate ration pack was more costly (63.55 NZD) and contained significantly less sugar (74.6 g or 7.2% total energy) and exceeded protein (263.1 g or 26% total energy) requirements for physically active military personnel. Furthermore, the alternate ration pack was significantly lighter (0.71 kg) than the NZDF ration pack (1.4 kg). In summary, the alternate ration was nutritionally superior and lighter when compared to the currently supplied NZDF ration, but more expensive when purchased as a one-off. Conclusions This work highlights the shortcomings of currently supplied military rations packs (i.e., excessive sugar and marginally inadequate protein) and proposes a novel alternate approach to ration pack formulation. This approach would significantly reduce sugar and increase protein and fat content in military rations. Although this work indicates that the alternate approach (which would produce lighter and nutritionally superior rations) is more costly, this cost could be reduced significantly through bulk purchasing and purpose-built rations and food items. Considering these findings, field user-testing of the alternate ration pack is recommended and subsequent reformulation of guidelines for ration pack development, as appropriate.

Halo-independent analysis of direct dark matter detection through electron scattering

Sub-GeV mass dark matter particles whose collisions with nuclei would not deposit sufficient energy to be detected, could instead be revealed through their interaction with electrons. Analyses of data from direct detection experiments usually require assuming a local dark matter halo velocity distribution. In the halo-independent analysis method, properties of this distribution are instead inferred from direct dark matter detection data, which allows then to compare different data without making any assumption on the uncertain local dark halo characteristics. This method has so far been developed for and applied to dark matter scattering off nuclei. Here we demonstrate how this analysis can be applied to scattering off electrons.

Photoassisted Electrodeposition of Cuprous Oxide Thin Films

Well-defined cuprous oxide (Cu2O) thin films can be electrodeposited from an electrolyte containing copper (II) sulfate, lactic acid and sodium hydroxide. As Cu2O is a p-type semiconductor, it is possible to accelerate the process through illumination with light of sufficient energy (>2.1eV). Cyclic voltammetry and transient potentiostatic measurements were performed in a three-electrode setup with copper metalized wafers as a working electrode. Illumination was performed through the electrolyte, therefore absorption of light by the electrolyte had to be taken into consideration. Potentiostatic measurements with a blue LED as a light source have shown an tenfold increase in layer thickness in comparison to depositions without additional illumination. The deposited films were investigated with SEM analysis.

High-Resolution Distributed Radiation Detector System Assisted by Intelligent Image Recognition

With the development of machine learning and image recognition technology, the detector system tends to be standardized and intelligent. However, large numbers of distributed radiation detectors connected to the power grid will bring huge uncertainty to the operation of the power grid and even cause certain interference. The monitoring system of the distributed radiation detectors can control the running status of the distributed photoelectric detection system in real-time and guarantee the safe and stable operation of the detector system. This article proposes an improved genetic detector system to avoid “blind spots” in the radiation detector monitoring based on the characteristics of photovoltaic (PV) arrays, which are considered as individual pixels, and then the reliability of the monitoring is ensured by the monitoring coverage of these pixels by the detector nodes. The performance of the radiation detector monitoring is restored by activating those spare nodes with sufficient energy to replace those that fail, ensuring that the distributed detection system can be monitored in a timely and efficient manner at all times. The simulation results confirm the reasonable validity of the algorithm.

Spoofing Attack Detection Using Machine Learning in Cross-Technology Communication

Cross-technology communication (CTC) technique can realize direct communication among heterogeneous wireless devices (e.g., WiFi, ZigBee, and Bluetooth in the 2.4 G ISM band) without gateway equipment for forwarding, which makes heterogeneous wireless communication more convenient and greatly reduces communication costs. However, compared with the traditional homogeneous network model, CTC technique also makes it easier to implement spoofing attacks in heterogeneous networks. WiFi devices with long communication distances and sufficient energy supply can directly launch spoofing attacks against ZigBee devices, which brings severe security concerns for heterogeneous wireless communications. In this paper, we focus on the CTC spoofing attack, especially spoofing attacks from WiFi to ZigBee and propose a machine learning-based method to detect spoofing attacks for heterogeneous wireless networks by using physical-layer information. First, we model the received signal strength (RSS) data of legitimate ZigBee devices to construct a one-class support vector machine (OSVM) classifier for detecting CTC spoofing attacks depending on the obtained training samples. Then, we simulated CTC spoofing attacks in a live testbed and evaluated the performance of our detection method. Results show that our approach is highly effective in spoofing detection. Even if the distance between the legitimate ZigBee device and WiFi attacker is near each other (i.e., less than 2 m) and does not require a large number of samples, the detection rate and precision of our method are both over 90%. Finally, we employ the OSVM classifier to obtain samples of spoofing attacks and then explore using SVM to further improve the performance of the classifier.

Editorial Strategic Planning for Energy and the Environment: Theories, Practice and the Future

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the importance of strategic planning in general and its application in energy and the environment in particular. In the contemporary world, planning is so common that we cannot even manage everyday life without plan. Strategic planning is a formalized, structured, planned way to manage planning from formulation to implementation, evaluation, and control. When we talk about energy, we mostly talk about the various forms (physical) of energy such as nuclear, thermal, chemical, electrical, or other forms which create and transform energy. The sources of energy can be solar, wind, water, nuclear, electromagnetism or related to fossil – coal, gas, petroleum etc. The world rarely has sufficient energy therefore, strategic planning for energy is essential to sustain and maintain the energy supply and demand. The environment is our entire surroundings including the land, air, water, or the combination of all biotic and abiotic factors of the planet. We have ample evidence that anthropogenic disturbances have already destroyed the balance of nature, as a result the global climatic pattern is changed, and there has been unprecedented damage to our ecosystem. Such severe impacts due to global environmental change mean that it is extremely urgent that we formulate a strategic plan (or plans) to protect the environment. There are as yet no alternatives for Planet Earth, therefore we need planned strategies to minimize the environmental problems. This review outlines why strategic planning is so important for the future of energy and the environment since they go hand in hand.

Self-Powered Sensors: New Opportunities and Challenges from Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials have gained considerable attention over the last decade, finding applications in emerging fields such as wearable sensors, biomedical care, and implantable electronics. However, these applications require miniaturization operating with extremely low power levels to conveniently sense various signals anytime, anywhere, and show the information in various ways. From this perspective, a crucial field is technologies that can harvest energy from the environment as sustainable, self-sufficient, self-powered sensors. Here we revisit recent advances in various self-powered sensors: optical, chemical, biological, medical, and gas. A timely overview is provided of unconventional nanomaterial sensors operated by self-sufficient energy, focusing on the energy source classification and comparisons of studies including self-powered photovoltaic, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and thermoelectric technology. Integration of these self-operating systems and new applications for neuromorphic sensors are also reviewed. Furthermore, this review discusses opportunities and challenges from self-powered nanomaterial sensors with respect to their energy harvesting principles and sensing applications.