Abstract Sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) is a key enzyme catalyzing sucrose metabolism in plants. In this study, we isolated the SPS cDNA from Saccharum spontaneum and designated as SsSPS (GenBank accession no. MF398541). The full-length of SsSPS cDNA was 4153-bp with an opening reading frame (ORF) of 3132 nucleotides, which encoded a 1043-amino acid protein. The nucleotide sequences alignment showed that it had 98%, 97% and 87% homology with S. officinarum, Setaria italica and Lolium perenne, respectively. Moreover, the SsSPS was detected to express in leaf and stem tissues of S. spontaneum and exhibited a predominant expression in the stem tissue. However, there was no significant difference in the expression level of SsSPS between young leaves and mature ones. Additionally, we generated transgenic S. spontaneum using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Our data will provide a valuable foundation for further study of the potential role of SPS in plants.

In this paper, crushability of foundry sand particles was studied. Three kinds of in-service silica sands in foundry enterprises selected as the study object, and foundry sand particles were subjected to mechanical load and thermal load during service were analyzed. A set of methods for simulating mechanical load and thermal load by milling and thermal-cold cycling were designed and researched, which were used to characterize the crushability for silica sand particles, the microstructure was observed by SEM. According to the user’s experience in actual application, the crushability of Sand C was the best and then Sand B, the last Sand A. The results indicated that mechanical load, thermal load and thermal-mechanical load can all be used to characterize the crushability of foundry sand particles. Microscopic appearances can qualitatively characterize the crushability of foundry sand particles to a certain extent, combining with the additions and cracks which are observed on the surface.

An active inerter-based suspension with acceleration feedback control is proposed in this paper, the time delay generated in the controllers and actuators is considered, which constitutes the time-delayed active inerter-based (TDA-IB) suspension. The dynamic equation of the TDA-IB suspension is established and is a neutral type of delay differential equation (NDDE) in which the time delay exists in the highest-order derivative. The stability analysis is conducted by calculating the number of unstable characteristic roots based on the definite integral stability method, the stable and unstable regions are determined. The effect of time delay and feedback gain on the dynamic performance of the TDA-IB suspension under harmonic, random, and shock excitations is studied in detail and compared with the parallel-connected inerter-based (PC-IB) and traditional suspensions. The results show that the TDA-IB suspension is asymptotically stable for smaller feedback gain and time delay, through increasing the feedback gain, the stable regions shrink, and a smaller time delay could cause the system to become unstable. Furthermore, the time delay could regulate the resonance peak around the unsprung mass natural frequency and generate multiple high-frequency resonance peaks. If the time delay is chosen appropriately and falls into the stable range, the TDA-IB suspension could improve the dynamic performance for the suspension stroke and dynamic tire load while having a deterioration for the vehicle body acceleration compared with the PC-IB and traditional suspensions.