Summary Lodging reduces grain yield in cereal crops. Understanding the genetic basis of lodging resistance (LR) benefits LR breeding. In the study, 524 accessions from a rice germplasm collection and 193 recombinant inbred lines were phenotyped for 17 LR‐related traits. Height and culm strength (the magnitude of applied force necessary to break the culm) were two major factors affecting LR. We conducted genome‐wide association study (GWAS) and identified 127 LR‐associated loci. Significant phenotypic correlations between culm‐strength traits and yield‐related traits were observed. To reveal the genetic relationship between them, we conducted GWAS of culm‐strength traits with adding yield‐related trait as a covariate and detected 63 loci linking culm strength and yield. As a proof, a near‐isogenic line for an association locus on chromosome 7 showed enhanced LR and yield. Strikingly, 58 additional loci were identified in the covariate‐added GWAS. Several LR‐associated loci had undergone divergent selection. Linkage analysis supported the GWAS results. We propose that introgression of alleles beneficial for both culm strength and panicle weight without negative effects on panicle number or pyramiding high‐yielding alleles and lodging‐resistant alleles without effects on yield can be employed for the post‐Green‐Revolution breeding.

This paper details the use of objective sizing techniques for a novel design of a residential solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) combined cooling, heat and electrical power (CCHP) for UK market. The aim of the research is to determine the objective sizing of parameters taking into account the aspects of efficiency, economic and environmental impacts by the entropyweighting approach and grey relationship analysis. The combination of these two approaches helps designers objectively maximise efficiency of energy utilization and minimise emissions and costs of the system that is examined. It is envisaged that electrical demand is met by the fuel cell stacks while the most efficient use is made of heat that is generated by the fuel cell through waste heat recovery to satisfy domestic hot water, freezers, space heating and space cooling. The demand of conventional electric freezers is innovatively designed to be fulfilled by heat exchangers and absorption chillers to further increase the efficiency of heat use. Due to the particularity of the energy demand of the domestic sector in the UK, the proposed system structure, sizing values and control strategiessupported by MATLAB R2018a/Simulink-are suited to the residential energy demands of a single household.

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This article presents a novel method of thermite welding. A hand operated portable welding can be conveniently realised using self-made thermite welding pencil without any welding equipments. A butt junction was obtained between two low carbon steel plates. Morphological, microstructure and mechanical analyses of the weld bead were carried out. The results demonstrated that the two steel plates were jointed by fusion bonding with the filler. No defects such as porosity and microcrack were found. The hardness test showed the low hardness of the fusion zone compared with the base material. In addition, the grain growth in HAZ did not affect the hardness of the base material. The average tensile strength of welds was 285?4 MPa, y70% of the average tensile strength of low carbon steel.

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