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Boron carbide (B4C) has excellent high-temperature oxidation resistance, high hardness, low density, high melting point and excellent abrasive resistance, which is widely used in fields such as refractories, wear-resistant materials and lightweight protective materials. The research progress and the application of B4C materials in China and at abroad in recent years were summarized. The influences of sintering processes (pressureless sintering, hot pressing sintering, hot isostatic pressing sintering, spark plasma sintering and microwave sintering) and sintering additives (simple substances, oxides and carbides) on the B4C densification were analyzed. The development of B4C materials was prospected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease (PD), with decreased dopamine in the striatum as one of the major lesions, may be accompanied by retinopathy. By analyzing and comparing the gene expression patterns in the mouse striatum and retina at the transcriptome level, the potential molecular basis of PD-related retinopathy was explored. From normal adult C57BL/6 mice striatum and retinaribonucleic acid, library was constructed using ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) depletion, and sequenced on the Illumina Hiseq 4000 platform. After bioinformatic analysis of sequencing data, the expression profiles of the striatum and retina were compared, and differentially expressed genes were identified, followed by gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of gene and genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis. Andgene networks were constructed from the differentially expressed genes. Results showed that a total of 2 478 genes had significantly different expressions, among which 1 579 and 899 genes were highly expressed in the striatum and retina respectively. GO and KEGG analysis showed that genes highly expressed in the striatum were mainly enriched in signal transduction and membrane transport, while those highly expressed in the retina were associated with transcription and phototransduction. 11 genes in the PD pathway among the highly expressed genes in the striatum, showed significantly lower expression in the retina, while most of the other genes in the pathway had similar expression patterns between the two tissues. Our studythus demonstrated the similarities and differences in gene expression profiles between the mouse striatum and retina, and provided useful evidence tobetter understand the molecular basis of retinopathy in PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]