The military application of artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing far faster than global governance, with AI-assisted targeting, reconnaissance, and autonomous systems already deployed in active conflicts such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East. It not only restructures the tempo and scale of warfare but also brings profound ethical and operational risks, including algorithmic opacity and the excessive dilution of meaningful human control over lethal military decisions. Existing international humanitarian law and voluntary corporate commitments are insufficient to address these challenges. Drawing on lessons from historical arms control regimes, this article calls for an urgent global binding convention to regulate AI warfare, with scientists and international mechanisms like the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) playing key roles in promoting rule-making.

Grain storage plays a crucial role in safeguarding food security and maintaining market stability, and it has therefore attracted growing attention from both academia and industry. The primary objective of storage technologies is to minimize post-harvest losses caused by pests, mold, and mechanical damage. However, conventional storage management methods, which rely heavily on manual labor, are often inefficient and costly. With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), various approaches, such as convolutional neural network (CNN)-based models, Transformer-based frameworks, and emerging Mamba architectures, have been introduced into the field of grain storage. This paper presents a comprehensive review of artificial intelligence methodologies applied across multiple stages of the grain storage process. From four complementary perspectives, including application significance, existing AI techniques, comparative analysis, and future development trends, the review systematically summarizes current progress in pest monitoring, unsound kernel detection, and intelligent aeration. It critically examines their respective advantages and limitations, while outlining key challenges and future research directions. The review aims to offer a global perspective on the integration of AI technologies in grain storage and to foster interdisciplinary collaboration toward the development of intelligent, efficient, and sustainable storage systems.

China has emerged as the world’s largest producer of scientific publications and a dominant force across high-impact research indicators. Yet, this extraordinary expansion has not translated into Nobel-level breakthroughs. This commentary examines the structural, institutional, and cultural factors underpinning this “Nobel paradox.” China’s research ecosystem is optimized for rapid scaling, publication productivity, and alignment with national policy cycles, but these strengths also generate incentives that discourage high-risk, conceptually disruptive inquiry. Comparative analysis with Japan and the United States reveals that environments producing Nobel-winning discoveries typically feature long-term stability, investigator autonomy, tolerance for failure, and mechanisms that empower early-career scientists. In China, hierarchical authorship norms, metric-driven evaluations, and risk-averse grant structures hinder the emergence of transformative ideas, despite the abundance of talent and resources. The commentary outlines reforms, such as decoupling assessment from publication metrics, creating safe harbors for high-risk research, and strengthening career pathways, that could enable China to convert its scientific capacity into world-changing discovery.

The global “PhD glut” has emerged as a critical issue with the rapid expansion of doctoral education. This oversupply has caused challenges such as intense competition for academic positions and a decline in the perceived value of doctoral degrees. To address these issues, a shift in the definition of the PhD is needed, moving towards a more versatile qualification that meets the evolving needs of society and the labor market. In the field of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ABE), a “Solution-Driven PhD” model is proposed, integrating doctoral training with agricultural engineering enterprises and modern agricultural industry clusters. This paper explores the multifaceted challenges of the PhD glut, the need for redefining doctoral education, and the specific opportunities and strategies for transforming ABE doctoral programs to better align with global demands and future development needs.

While Hen’s egg is nutritious and has versatile functional properties, liquid eggs are gradually becoming an alternative to shelled eggs due to the fragility of shelled eggs, its difficulty of transportation and storage, and safety problems such as foodborne microorganisms vehicled by shelled eggs. Currently, thermal pasteurization is mainly used to enhance the overall safety and extend the shelf life of liquid eggs. However, the thermal susceptibility of egg proteins leads to inadequate sterilization using traditional thermal treatments; for instance, sterilized egg proteins can be stored for only 14–21 days at 4 ℃. Additionally, the functional properties of liquid eggs can be negatively impacted, which is manifested by reduced emulsifying, foaming and gelation properties. This significantly hinders the advancement of the liquid egg industry. In view of the current situation, this article systematically examines recent advances in the effects of emerging thermal processing techniques, physical and biochemical non-thermal processing techniques and storage methods, singly and in combination, on enhancing the sterilization of liquid eggs and on maintaining and enhancing its functional properties, with a focus on the underlying mechanisms. Moreover, the potential of these techniques for industrial application is discussed. It is hoped that this review will provide theoretical guidance for processing technology innovation, product quality improvement and industrial production and application of liquid eggs.

Drying temperature, air velocity and humidity of drying medium are the three important parameters during hot air drying of fruits and vegetables. Among them, drying temperature and air velocity are positively related to drying efficiency. Relative humidity (RH) is usually used to reflect the size of the humidity or humidity content of the medium at the constant drying temperature and total pressure. However, it is still unclear on the influence mechanism of RH on drying. The manual regulation of relative humidity cannot fully meet the large-scale production, due to the low quality, drying efficiency, and high energy consumption. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the influence and control mechanism of RH on the heat and mass transfer during hot air drying of fruits and vegetables, in order to reduce the emission and loss for energy saving with high efficiency. The drying quality was optimized in the control of RH in four aspects. The low RH was used to increase the mass transfer coefficient and the evaporation of water on the surface of the material. While the high RH was to increase the convective heat transfer coefficient and the heating rate of the material. In the high RH, there was the increase in the temperature rise rate of the material, and the internal water migration, but there was the low evaporation of surface water. In the low RH, there was a low heating rate of the material and the internal water migration, but there was a high evaporation of surface water. As such, there was the coupled influence of RH on the heat and mass transfer. High RH was mainly reflected in the heat transfer, whereas, low RH was in the mass transfer. High RH was used to avoid crust formation on the surface of the material, in order to improve the rehydration for the less shrinkage rate. The honeycomb porous structure was formed and maintained on the surface of the material under the step-down dehumidification and multi-stage dehumidification drying, leading to high drying efficiency and quality. An optimal RH control was achieved using material temperature. The stage dehumidification and drying were attributed to: the relative magnitude of thermal resistance to heat transfer and internal heat conduction, and the relative magnitude of mass transfer resistance and internal mass transfer resistance during drying. The heat and mass transfer resistance depended mainly on the drying conditions, types and thicknesses of materials. The stage dehumidification and drying were suitable for the drying of this material at Bi_h>1 and Bi_m>0.1. The influence mechanism was given on the relative humidity during hot air drying of fruits and vegetables. The finding can also provide the theoretical basis and technical support to the influence and control mode of RH in the hot air drying of fruits and vegetables.

Step-down relative humidity (RH) means that the RH is gradually reduced to improve the drying efficiency and quality in hot air drying. The hot air drying with step-down RH has been successfully applied to the yam slices, Dahongpao pepper, and papaya slices drying. This study aims to regulate the step-down RH in the period of dehumidification, in order to improve the efficiency and quality. Three stages of dehumidification were two-, multi-stage dehumidification drying and RH control, according to the material temperature. The internal moisture migration and surface moisture were also selected to represent the changes in RH. Specifically, there was an increase in the surface moisture evaporation, when the RH shared an upward trend. Once the RH showed a downward trend, the internal water moisture increased much more than the surface water evaporation. As such, the RH control regime was as follows, according to the RH changes. In the early drying, the evaporation of the material itself caused the RH rise. The middle drying then reached, after the RH was stable. If the RH shared a downward trend, the dehumidification was closed to improve the RH, in order to reduce the surface water evaporation (E) and improve the internal water migration (D). If the RH was rising, the dehumidification was opened to reduce the RH for the high E. If the moisture evaporation on the surface was not enough to increase the RH, or the temperature of the material approached the drying medium temperature, the drying was transferred to the later stage. At the same time, the dehumidification was also opened to reduce the RH for the high E value. The drying end point was reached when the change rate of RH was less than the critical range. Under a drying temperature of 60 ℃ and air velocity of 3.0 m/s, the drying test of the carrot showed that 0-8 min was the early drying, and the RH change rate was less than 0.5% at 8 min. Afterward, the carrot entered the middle drying. The duration of the RH decreasing trend was gradually shortened in the drying period from 8 to 131 min. Whereas, there was the extended in the duration of RH rising trend. Within 137-143 min, there was no rising trend of RH in the period of late drying. At 370 min, the RH change rate was less than 1%/min, indicating that the drying process ended. The RH control mode was used to increase the D and decrease the E value. Consequently, the D and E values remained basically equal within 0.2-2.3 h. Meanwhile, the material temperature presented a step-rising trend correspondingly. Within 0-0.2 h, the accumulation of water (Q) raised rapidly in the material, where the layer of water film was formed to wrap, particularly without the outstanding crust. Within 0.2-2.3 h, the Q value fluctuated up and down at the zero point. The drying rate decreased gradually to produce three zero points in total. The water migrating to the surface was immediately evaporated on the surface without accumulation, indicating the delaying time of crust occurrence to remove a large amount of water. Furthermore, the Q value was gradually less than 0, where the surface of the material produced the outstanding crust to gradually thicken after 2.3 h. After that, the rehydration ratio and shrinkage rate were (4.41±0.02) g/g and (27.32±1.51) %, respectively, at the drying time of 6.1 h. The drying time was shortened by 24.6%, compared with the constant 20%RH. More water migration channels were retained to realize the automatic control of RH. The finding can also provide the theoretical basis and technical support for the RH control during hot air drying of fruits and vegetables.