Genome-wide association study for age at puberty and resumption of cyclicity in a crossbred dairy cattle population

Fertility is of primary economic importance in dairy cattle and the most common reason for involuntary culling. However, standard fertility traits have very low heritability that renders genetic selection slow and difficult. In this study, we explored fertility from an endocrine standpoint. A total of 1,163 crossbred Holstein-Normande females in a 3-generation familial design were studied for progesterone level measured every 10 d to determine age at puberty (PUB) and commencement of postpartum luteal activity (CPLA). Genetic parameters were estimated using REML with WOMBAT software. The heritability estimates were 0.38 ± 0.10 and 0.16 ± 0.07 for PUB and CPLA, respectively. Moreover, the 2 traits were genetically correlated (0.45 ± 0.23), suggesting a partially common determinism. Because of the family structure, a linkage disequilibrium and linkage analysis approach was preferred over standard genome-wide association study to map genomic regions associated with these traits. Ten quantitative trait loci (QTL) were detected for PUB on chromosomes 1, 3, 11, 13, 14, 21, and 29, whereas 3 QTL were associated with CPLA on chromosomes 21 and 26. Only the QTL on chromosome 21 was common to both traits. Four functional candidate genes (NCOA2, GAS2, OVOL1, and FOSL1) were identified in the detected regions. These findings will contribute to a clearer understanding of fertility determinism and enhance the value of introducing endocrinological data in fertility studies.     

Uplink PID power control technique for TDMA‐based cellular radio systems

The efficient management of wireless resource is essential to the success of wireless systems. While power control is traditionally considered to be a means to counteract the detrimental effects of channel fading, it is also a flexible mechanism that achieves high link quality, high bandwidth utilization, and low power consumption, which are mainly driven in cellular radio systems. Once the power control algorithm provides a lower outage probability, the SUs experienced adequate link quality need not to competitively increase their transmission power. Spontaneously, the systems with lower power consumption and better bandwidth efficiency are achieved. In this paper, a novel power control based on the proportional‐integration‐derivative (PID) controller is proposed, and its performance with an autonomous closed‐loop uplink power control model under the time division multiple access (TDMA) systems is presented. Computer simulation is used to illustrate the performance of the proposed power control algorithm in a cellular radio system with Rayleigh fading channels. The results show that our proposed power control algorithm is remarkably superior to several previous power control methods, especially in a short power control period. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Single Atomically Sharp Lateral Monolayer p‐n Heterojunction Solar Cells with Extraordinarily High Power Conversion Efficiency

The recent development of 2D monolayer lateral semiconductor has created new paradigm to develop p‐n heterojunctions. Albeit, the growth methods of these heterostructures typically result in alloy structures at the interface, limiting the development for high‐efficiency photovoltaic (PV) devices. Here, the PV properties of sequentially grown alloy‐free 2D monolayer WSe₂‐MoS₂ lateral p‐n heterojunction are explores. The PV devices show an extraordinary power conversion efficiency of 2.56% under AM 1.5G illumination. The large surface active area enables the full exposure of the depletion region, leading to excellent omnidirectional light harvesting characteristic with only 5% reduction of efficiency at incident angles up to 75°. Modeling studies demonstrate the PV devices comply with typical principles, increasing the feasibility for further development. Furthermore, the appropriate electrode‐spacing design can lead to environment‐independent PV properties. These robust PV properties deriving from the atomically sharp lateral p‐n interface can help develop the next‐generation photovoltaics.     

Structurally Deformed MoS2 for Electrochemically Stable,Thermally Resistant,and Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

The emerging molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) offers intriguing possibilities for realizing a transformative new catalyst for driving the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, the trade‐off between catalytic activity and long‐term stability represents a formidable challenge and has not been extensively addressed. This study reports that metastable and temperature‐sensitive chemically exfoliated MoS₂ (ce‐MoS₂) can be made into electrochemically stable (5000 cycles), and thermally robust (300 °C) while maintaining synthetic scalability and excellent catalytic activity through physical‐transformation into 3D structurally deformed nanostructures. The dimensional transition enabled by a high throughput electrohydrodynamic process provides highly accessible, and electrochemically active surface area and facilitates efficient transport across various interfaces. Meanwhile, the hierarchically strained morphology is found to improve electronic coupling between active sites and current collecting substrates without the need for selective engineering the electronically heterogeneous interfaces. Specifically, the synergistic combination of high strain load stemmed from capillarity‐induced‐self‐crumpling and sulfur (S) vacancies intrinsic to chemical exfoliation enables simultaneous modulation of active site density and intrinsic HER activity regardless of continuous operation or elevated temperature. These results provide new insights into how catalytic activity, electrochemical‐, and thermal stability can be concurrently enhanced through the physical transformation that is reminiscent of nature, in which properties of biological materials emerge from evolved dimensional transitions.     

Gate‐Tunable and Multidirection‐Switchable Memristive Phenomena in a Van Der Waals Ferroelectric

Memristive devices have been extensively demonstrated for applications in nonvolatile memory, computer logic, and biological synapses. Precise control of the conducting paths associated with the resistance switching in memristive devices is critical for optimizing their performances including ON/OFF ratios. Here, gate tunability and multidirectional switching can be implemented in memristors for modulating the conducting paths using hexagonal α‐In₂Se₃, a semiconducting van der Waals ferroelectric material. The planar memristor based on in‐plane (IP) polarization of α‐In₂Se₃ exhibits a pronounced switchable photocurrent, as well as gate tunability of the channel conductance, ferroelectric polarization, and resistance‐switching ratio. The integration of vertical α‐In₂Se₃ memristors based on out‐of‐plane (OOP) polarization is demonstrated with a device density of 7.1 × 10⁹ in.^?2 and a resistance‐switching ratio of well over 10³. A multidirectionally operated α‐In₂Se₃ memristor is also proposed, enabling the control of the OOP (or IP) resistance state directly by an IP (or OOP) programming pulse, which has not been achieved in other reported memristors. The remarkable behavior and diverse functionalities of these ferroelectric α‐In₂Se₃ memristors suggest opportunities for future logic circuits and complex neuromorphic computing.     

Genetic algorithms for route discovery.

Packet routing in networks requires knowledge about available paths, which can be either acquired dynamically while the traffic is being forwarded, or statically (in advance) based on prior information of a network's topology. This paper describes an experimental investigation of path discovery using genetic algorithms (GAs). We start with the quality-of-service (QoS)-driven routing protocol called "cognitive packet network" (CPN), which uses smart packets (SPs) to dynamically select routes in a distributed autonomic manner based on a user's QoS requirements. We extend it by introducing a GA at the source routers, which modifies and filters the paths discovered by the CPN. The GA can combine the paths that were previously discovered to create new untested but valid source-to-destination paths, which are then selected on the basis of their "fitness." We present an implementation of this approach, where the GA runs in background mode so as not to overload the ingress routers. Measurements conducted on a network test bed indicate that when the background-traffic load of the network is light to medium, the GA can result in improved QoS. When the background-traffic load is high, it appears that the use of the GA may be detrimental to the QoS experienced by users as compared to CPN routing because the GA uses less timely state information in its decision making.