Proteome quantification of cotton xylem sap suggests the mechanisms of potassium-deficiency-induced changes in plant resistance to environmental stresses

Proteomics was employed to investigate the molecular mechanisms of apoplastic response to potassium(K)-deficiency in cotton. Low K (LK) treatment significantly decreased the K and protein contents of xylem sap. Totally, 258 peptides were qualitatively identified in the xylem sap of cotton seedlings, of which, 90.31% were secreted proteins. Compared to the normal K (NK), LK significantly decreased the expression of most environmental-stress-related proteins and resulted in a lack of protein isoforms in the characterized proteins. For example, the contents of 21 Class Ш peroxidase isoforms under the LK were 6 to 44% of those under the NK and 11 its isoforms were lacking under the LK treatment; the contents of 3 chitinase isoforms under LK were 11–27% of those under the NK and 2 its isoforms were absent under LK. In addition, stress signaling and recognizing proteins were significantly down-regulated or disappeared under the LK. In contrast, the LK resulted in at least 2-fold increases of only one peroxidase, one protease inhibitor, one non-specific lipid-transfer protein and histone H4 and in the appearance of H2A. Therefore, K deficiency decreased plant tolerance to environmental stresses, probably due to the significant and pronounced decrease or disappearance of a myriad of stress-related proteins

A Novel Group Decision-Making Method Based on Generalized Distance Measures of PLTSs on E-Commerce Shopping

In multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM), due to quantity, fuzziness, and complexity of evaluation linguistic information on commodities, traditional distance measures need to be extended to the integration of evaluation information under a multigranular probabilistic linguistic environment. A more reasonable method is proposed to deal with the missing value in the evaluation information. On the basis of the generalized distance measures and filling in the missing evaluation information, some novel distance measures between two multigranular probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) are presented in this paper. Based on these distance measures, three extended decision-making (DM) algorithms based on TOPSIS, the extended TOPSIS, and VIKOR are proposed, which are MGPL-TOPSIS, MGPL-ETOPSIS, and MGPL-VIKOR, respectively. The case analyses on purchasing a car are provided to illustrate the application of the extended multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM) algorithms. Then, sensitivity analyses based on PT are proposed as well. In particular, the extended TOPSIS method is presented. These results demonstrate the novelty, feasibility, and rationality of the distance measures between two multigranular PLTSs proposed in this paper

Intelligent Monitoring Network Construction based on the utilization of the Internet of things (IoT) in the Metallurgical Coking Process

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), a new and important research direction is possible using IoT to solve the problems of information and intelligence in the metallurgical industry. This paper proposes an intelligent monitoring network based on networking technology and uses the coking process as the research object. The construction of a coking process intelligence monitoring network should focus on the formation of a perception layer network and build on a ZigBee mesh clustered network. Moreover, it also puts forward a network routing establishment and data transmission mechanism. This study provides an effective reference for the wide application of the IoT in the intelligent management and monitoring of the metallurgical process

Effect of Alkali Metal Atoms Doping on Structural and Nonlinear Optical Properties of the Gold-Germanium Bimetallic Clusters

A new series of alkali-based complexes, AM@GenAu (AM = Li, Na, and K), have been theoretically designed and investigated by means of the density functional theory calculations. The geometric structures and electronic properties of the species are systematically analyzed. The adsorption of alkali metals maintains the structural framework of the gold-germanium bimetallic clusters, and the alkali metals prefer energetically to be attached on clusters’ surfaces or edges. The high chemical stability of Li@Ge12Au is revealed by the spherical aromaticity, the hybridization between the Ge atoms and Au-4d states, and delocalized multi-center bonds, as well as large binding energies. The static first hyperpolarizability (βtot) is related to the cluster size and geometric structure, and the AM@GenAu (AM = Na and K) clusters exhibit the much larger βtot values up to 13050 a.u., which are considerable to establish their strong nonlinear optical (NLO) behaviors. We hope that this study will promote further application of alkali metals-adsorbed germanium-based semiconductor materials, serving for the design of remarkable and tunable NLO materials

Plant heights, numbers of fruiting branches, and numbers of fruiting positions for four cotton genotypes that were subjected to mechanical stress caused by hanging labels from the petioles (HLFP) of every white flower in the field.

<p>For each genotype, values (mean±SD) in the same column that are followed by different lower case letters differ significantly at the <i>p</i><0.05 level. n = 40 plants in all cases.</p