City of Leaf Collaborative Drinking Water Emergency Response Serious Game

The City of Leaf serious game is a five-party role-playing game designed to simulate a response to a drinking water contamination crisis. The game involves five roles: chemical manufacturer, local resident, water treatment plant, environmental agency, and health department, each with distinct knowledge, responsibilities, capabilities, and objectives. Participants assume one of these roles and exchange information, strategize responses, and work towards a solution that satisfies all parties involved throughout the game. This game aims to deepen participants\u27 understanding of the complexities involved in managing a drinking water emergency, with a particular focus on emphasizing the critical role of inter-organizational communication and collaboration. The teaching packet provides all necessary materials for conducting the simulation, including teaching notes, general and confidential instructions for players, and facilitator instructions

Design of a Broadband Inverted Conical Quadrifilar Helix Antenna

This paper introduces the design of a broadband inverted conical circularly polarized quadrifilar helix antenna (QHA). The antenna has many good characteristics, including wide beam and broad bandwidth, which are achieved by utilizing inverted conical geometry and adjusting the dimensions of the inverted conical support. The antenna is fed by a wideband network to provide 90° phase difference between the four arms with constant amplitude. The antenna impedance and axial ratio bandwidth values are more than 39% and 31.5%, respectively. The measured results coincide well with the simulated ones, which verified the effectiveness of the proposed design

The Osmotin-Like Protein Gene PdOLP1 Is Involved in Secondary Cell Wall Biosynthesis during Wood Formation in Poplar

Osmotin-like proteins (OLPs) mediate defenses against abiotic and biotic stresses and fungal pathogens in plants. However, no OLPs have been functionally elucidated in poplar. Here, we report an osmotin-like protein designated PdOLP1 from Populus deltoides (Marsh.). Expression analysis showed that PdOLP1 transcripts were mainly present in immature xylem and immature phloem during vascular tissue development in P. deltoides. We conducted phenotypic, anatomical, and molecular analyses of PdOLP1-overexpressing lines and the PdOLP1-downregulated hybrid poplar 84K (Populus alba × Populus glandulosa) (Hybrid poplar 84K PagOLP1, PagOLP2, PagOLP3 and PagOLP4 are highly homologous to PdOLP1, and are downregulated in PdOLP1-downregulated hybrid poplar 84K). The overexpression of PdOLP1 led to a reduction in the radial width and cell layer number in the xylem and phloem zones, in expression of genes involved in lignin biosynthesis, and in the fibers and vessels of xylem cell walls in the overexpressing lines. Additionally, the xylem vessels and fibers of PdOLP1-downregulated poplar exhibited increased secondary cell wall thickness. Elevated expression of secondary wall biosynthetic genes was accompanied by increases in lignin content, dry weight biomass, and carbon storage in PdOLP1-downregulated lines. A PdOLP1 coexpression network was constructed and showed that PdOLP1 was coexpressed with a large number of genes involved in secondary cell wall biosynthesis and wood development in poplar. Moreover, based on transcriptional activation assays, PtobZIP5 and PtobHLH7 activated the PdOLP1 promoter, whereas PtoBLH8 and PtoWRKY40 repressed it. A yeast one-hybrid (Y1H) assay confirmed interaction of PtoBLH8, PtoMYB3, and PtoWRKY40 with the PdOLP1 promoter in vivo. Together, our results suggest that PdOLP1 is a negative regulator of secondary wall biosynthesis and may be valuable for manipulating secondary cell wall deposition to improve carbon fixation efficiency in tree species