A tomato HD-Zip homeobox protein, LeHB-1, plays an important role in floral organogenesis and ripening

Ethylene is required for climacteric fruit ripening. Inhibition of ethylene biosynthesis genes, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) synthase and ACC oxidase, prevents or delays ripening, but it is not known how these genes are modulated during normal development. LeHB-1, a previously uncharacterized tomato homeobox protein, was shown by gel retardation assay to interact with the promoter of LeACO1, an ACC oxidase gene expressed during ripening. Inhibition of LeHB-1 mRNA accumulation in tomato fruit, using virus-induced gene silencing, greatly reduced LeACO1 mRNA levels, and inhibited ripening. Conversely, ectopic overexpression of LeHB-1 by viral delivery to developing flowers elsewhere on injected plants triggered altered floral organ morphology, including production of multiple flowers within one sepal whorl, fusion of sepals and petals, and conversion of sepals into carpel-like structures that grew into fruits and ripened. Our findings suggest that LeHB-1 is not only involved in the control of ripening but also plays a critical role in floral organogenesis

Baichuan 2: Open Large-scale Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance on a variety of natural language tasks based on just a few examples of natural language instructions, reducing the need for extensive feature engineering. However, most powerful LLMs are closed-source or limited in their capability for languages other than English. In this technical report, we present Baichuan 2, a series of large-scale multilingual language models containing 7 billion and 13 billion parameters, trained from scratch, on 2.6 trillion tokens. Baichuan 2 matches or outperforms other open-source models of similar size on public benchmarks like MMLU, CMMLU, GSM8K, and HumanEval. Furthermore, Baichuan 2 excels in vertical domains such as medicine and law. We will release all pre-training model checkpoints to benefit the research community in better understanding the training dynamics of Baichuan 2.Comment: Baichuan 2 technical report. Github: https://github.com/baichuan-inc/Baichuan

Synthesis and Evaluation of Terpolymers Consist of Methacrylates with Maleic Anhydride and Methacrylic Morpholine and Their Amine Compound as Pour Point Depressants in Diesel Fuels

Long-chain alkyl (i.e., tetradecyl, hexadecyl, and octodecyl) methacrylate (MC), maleic anhydride (MA), and methylamidemorpholine (MCNR₂) were used in this study to prepare a series of MC–MA–MCNR₂ terpolymers and their amine compounds (MC–MA–MCNR₂–a) to obtain efficient pour point depressants (PPDs) for diesel fuel. The MC–MA–MCNR₂ and MC–MA–MCNR₂–a terpolymers were successfully synthesized and then characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The effects of the addition of the PPDs on the solid point (SP) and cold filter plugging point (CFPP) of diesel fuel were also investigated. Furthermore, the interactions between the additives and wax crystals were elucidated through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarizing optical microscopy (POM), and rheological mechanics. Results indicate that all of the terpolymer PPDs significantly improved the performance of 0^# diesel fuel samples at low temperature. PPDC2 displayed the best performance in decreasing the SP and CFPP of diesel fuel by 19 and 11 °C, respectively. In addition, DSC analysis showed that the terpolymer PPDs reduced the temperature of paraffin precipitation of diesel fuel. However, POM analysis showed that addition of the PPDs did not prevent wax precipitation completely but merely shifted the precipitation toward a lower temperature. Moreover, the addition of the terpolymer PPDs remarkably decreased the viscosity of diesel fuel

Melatonin Alleviates Drought Stress by a Non-Enzymatic and Enzymatic Antioxidative System in Kiwifruit Seedlings

Although melatonin was affirmed to alleviate drought stress in various plant species, the mechanism in kiwifruit remains to be elucidated. In this study, the transcriptomes of kiwifruit leaves under control (CK), DR (drought stress), and MTDR (drought plus melatonin) treatments were evaluated. After comparisons of the gene expression between DR and MTDR, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses indicated three significant pathways, which were mainly involved in the glutathione metabolism, ascorbate and aldarate metabolism, and carotenoid metabolism. Therefore, the content and metabolic gene expression level of ascorbic acid (AsA), glutathione, and carotenoid were higher in the MTDR treatment than that in others. Furthermore, the activity and mRNA expression level of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and peroxidase (POD) were also promoted in the MTDR group. Combined with these results of important secondary metabolites and protective enzymes measured in the seedlings in different treatments, it could be concluded that exogenous melatonin induced the ascorbic acid-glutathione (AsA-GSH) cycle, carotenoid biosynthesis, and protective enzyme system to improve seedling growth. Our results contribute to the development of a practical method for kiwifruit against drought stress

Additional file 1: of Attitudes towards suicide in urban and rural China: a population based, cross-sectional study

Appendix 1. Scale of Public Attitudes about Suicide (SPAS) (translated from the original Chinese). (DOCX 16 Kb