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White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is a fatal pathogen threatening global crustacean industry with no commercially available drugs to control. Herbal medicines have been widely used to treat a number of viral infections, which could offer a rich reserve for antiviral drug discovery. Here, we evaluated the inhibition activities of 30 herbal medicines against WSSV in Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis. A WSSV infection model in E. sinensis was firstly established in order to determine the antiviral effects of the plant extracts and to explore the potential action mechanisms. Results showed that the highest anti-WSSV activity was obtained by the treatment of Ophiopogon japonicus extract (93.03%, 100 mg/kg). O. japonicus treatment decreased viral loads in a dose-dependent manner and significantly improved the survival of WSSV-challenged crabs. O. japonicus reduced the expression of vital genes in viral life cycle in vivo, particularly for the immediate-early stage gene ie1. Further results indicated that O. japonicus could repress the JAK-STAT signaling pathway to block ie1 transcription. Moreover, O. japonicus could modulate certain immune genes such as the myosin, toll-like receptor, crustin, and prophenoloxidase in the interactions between WSSV and crabs. The up-regulated expression of pro-autophagic factors (Gabarap and Atg7) and elevated levels of antioxidant enzymes (SOD, CAT and GSH) suggested that O. japonicus may induce autophagy and attenuate WSSV-induced oxidative stress. Taken together, O. japonicus could inhibit WSSV proliferation and improve the survival of WSSV-challenged crabs. Thus, O. japonicus may have the potential to be developed as a preventive or therapeutic agent against WSSV, and its effective compounds merit further isolation and identification.

The outbreak of white spot syndrome (WSS) is a looming challenge, due to dramatic losses to the crustacean aquaculture industry. However, at present, there are no prophylactic or therapeutic means to control this infectious viral disease. Here, we screened fifteen medicinal plants for their inhibitory activity on the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), using red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) as a model species. The results showed that the crude extracts of Pinellia ternata (Thunb.) Breit. had the highest inhibitory effect (91.59%, 100 mg/kg) on WSSV proliferation, and its main component, beta-sitosterol, showed a much higher activity (95.79%, 50 mg/kg). Further, beta-sitosterol potently reduced (p < 0.01) viral loads and viral gene transcription levels in a concentration-dependent fashion, and significantly promoted the survival rate of WSSV-challenged crayfish (57.14%, 50 mg/kg). The co-incubation assay indicated that beta-sitosterol did not influence the infectivity of WSSV particles. Both pre- and post-treatment of beta-sitosterol exerted a significant inhibitory effect (p < 0.01) on the viral load in vivo. Mechanistically, beta-sitosterol not only interfered with the expression of viral genes (immediate early gene 1, ie1; DNA polymerase, DNApol) that are important in initiating WSSV transcription, but it also attenuated the hijacking of innate immune signaling pathways (Toll, IMD, and JAK/STAT pathways) by viral genes to block WSSV replication. Moreover, the expression of several antiviral immune, antioxidant, pro-inflammatory, and apoptosis-related genes changed significantly in beta-sitosterol-treated crayfish. Beta-sitosterol is a potent WSSV inhibitor and has the potential to be developed as an effective anti-WSSV agent against a WSS outbreak in crustacean aquaculture.

Phase stability and its effect on tensile properties of MAR-M247 alloy have been investigated during thermal exposure at 800–900 °C for up to 10,000 h. Detailed investigations reveal that the larger secondary γ′ phase has no obvious growth, but the smaller tertiary γ′ phase obviously coarsens and the coalescence occurs during thermal exposure at 850 °C and below. γ′ coarsening behavior is consistent with the description of Ostwald ripening theory before γ′ coalescence. Hf-rich blocky MC carbide shows excellent thermal stability, but Ta-rich script-type MC carbide gradually degenerates via reaction, MC + γ → M23C6 + γ′ and finally forms γ׳ film around MC and M23C6 carbides. With increasing thermal exposure time, the tensile strength decreases. The ductility first increases and then decreases during exposure at 800 °C, but it decreases continuously at 900 °C. In addition, the ductility keeps almost constant when the exposure time is longer than 5000 h.

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Embracing the deep learning techniques for representation learning in clustering research has attracted broad attention in recent years, yielding a newly developed clustering paradigm, viz. the deep clustering (DC). Typically, the DC models capitalize on autoencoders to learn the intrinsic features which facilitate the clustering process in consequence. Nowadays, a generative model named variational autoencoder (VAE) has got wide acceptance in DC studies. Nevertheless, the plain VAE is insufficient to perceive the comprehensive latent features, leading to the deteriorative clustering performance. In this paper, a novel DC method is proposed to address this issue. Specifically, the generative adversarial network and VAE are coalesced into a new autoencoder called fusion autoencoder (FAE) for discerning more discriminative representation that benefits the downstream clustering task. Besides, the FAE is implemented with the deep residual network architecture which further enhances the representation learning ability. Finally, the latent space of the FAE is transformed to an embedding space shaped by a deep dense neural network for pulling away different clusters from each other and collapsing data points within individual clusters. Experiment conducted on several image datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DC model against the baseline methods., Comment: Added the highlights section, corresponding author info, and the acknowledgments

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The development of quadruped robot platforms is a relatively active area of scientific research. Taking into account the intuitiveness and high efficiency of the robot development process, the robot development method based on ROS(Robot Operating System) is adopted. First, the kinematics modeling of the quadruped robot is carried out, and the robot kinematics is solved. Secondly, the basic principles of walking gait planning for quadruped robots are introduced. The trajectory planning method based on Cartesian space is used to plan the trajectory of the quadruped robot's foot, and it is simulated and verified by Matlab. Finally, the quadruped robot model file is imported into ROS, and the gait planning control program of the quadruped robot is written through the user's API for motion planning simulation. At the same time, RViz can visualize the robot movement process, and obtain other relevant data during the movement process, indicating the correctness of the trajectory planning. The results show that the development method of quadruped robot based on ROS is feasible.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the identification of competent and incompetent lower-extremity perforating veins. Patients with chronic venous insufficiency who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled. All patients underwent pre-operative CEUS and color Doppler ultrasound (CDU) and accepted subfascial endoscopic perforator surgery. We compared the numbers of perforator veins identified by CEUS and CDU with the endoscopy result, which was considered the gold standard. Fifty cases (56 lower extremities) were enrolled. CEUS detected 132 perforating veins, and CDU detected 104 perforating veins. Endoscopy detected 148 perforating veins. The sensitivity and specificity of CDU in predicting the site of perforating veins in our study were 70.2% and 100%, respectively, and the sensitivity and specificity of CEUS were 89.2% and 100%, respectively (p 0.05). CEUS could be used to detect perforating veins, including incompetent and competent veins of the lower extremity, because it was more sensitive than CDU, with intra-operative endoscopy as the control standard.

The relationship between the tensile properties and δ (delta) phase precipitation in cast alloy IN625 was investigated in this paper. Although the influences of δ phase on the mechanical properties have been pointed out in our previous work, the relationship is still not directly determined due to the coexistence of γ″ (gamma double prime) and δ precipitates. In order to exclude the effect from γ″ phase, various fractions of δ precipitates with few γ″ precipitates were obtained by a set of experimental alloys aging at 750 °C, and tensile tests were conducted in parallel. The results showed that both yield strength and ultimate tensile strength increased nearly in linear with increasing δ phase fraction, while the elongation was relatively and limitedly affected by δ precipitation when the area fraction of δ phase was above 10%.

Although PtAl2 is a promising high-temperature alloy, the improvement of its strength is still a big challenge. To solve this problem, we apply first-principles calculations to study the influence of alloying elements on the structural stability, elastic properties and brittle-or-ductile behavior of PtAl2. The results show that alloying elements prefer to occupy the Al site in comparison to the Pt site. Importantly, the calculated bulk modulus of doped PtAl2 is much larger than that of the parent PtAl2 due to the formation of TM-Pt and TM-Al bonds. In addition, alloying elements effectively improve the ductility of PtAl2. Finally, our work can provide new information to improve the mechanical properties of Pt-Al high-temperature materials.

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is a fatal pathogen threatening global crustacean industry with no commercially available drugs to control WSSV. To address the urgent need for finding effective antiviral agents against WSSV, we examined the anti-WSSV activities of 11 common antiviral agents in crayfish Procambarus clarkia. The results showed that acyclovir displayed the highest inhibition on WSSV replication in vivo (92.59%, 50 mg/kg). Acyclovir repressed WSSV proliferation followed a dose-dependent fashion and pre- or post-treatment of acyclovir exerted strong inhibition on the viral loads. Further, we observed a markedly reduced expression levels of WSSV genes (immediate-early IE gene ie1, DNA polymerase gene DNApol and envelope protein gene Vp28) that are crucial in viral life cycle with the acyclovir treatment during the early infection. Meantime, we also found a significantly increased expressions of anti-oxidative as well as apoptosis related genes, suggesting that acyclovir could effectively suppress WSSV replication in vivo. Finally, acyclovir treatment could significantly improve the survival rate of WSSV-challenged crayfish by 56%. Taken together, acyclovir has the potential to be developed as a promising preventive or therapeutic agent against WSSV infection, and this finding may provide a reference for rapid discovery anti-WSSV agent in crustacean aquaculture.

Background: Contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is an effective way to evaluate the distribution of micro vessels in organs with little invasiveness. The qualitative evaluation and differential diagnosis of lymph node is essential for a number of clinical situations, including appropriate examination selection, oncologic staging, therapy and prognosis beyond diagnosis itself. The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of characterization of cervical lymphadenopathies on CEUS as an indication for lymph node puncture biopsy. Methods: Records of 157 lymph nodes from 103 patients who had undergone CEUS examination were studied retrospectively, and enhancement patterns and characteristics were evaluated. The diagnoses obtained by means of core-needle biopsy examination or surgical removal, or patients were closely followed-up for at least 6 months. Of the lymph nodes examined, 94 were benign (48 lymphadenitis and 46 tuberculosis) and 63 were malignant (55 metastases and 8 lymphomas). The vascular characterization of lymph nodes was compared with results obtained by pathologic examination. Results: The study using CEUS showed 55 (54.5%) cases of “peripheral” enhancement in group A and 47 (83.9%) cases of “hilar normal or activated” in group B. Inhomogeneous “spotted or cycle-like” enhancement in the equilibrium phase was seen in 80 (79.2%) cases of group A and only 11 (19.6%) cases of group B. The specificity, sensitivity and accuracy of CEUS examination result as an indication for puncture biopsy were 80.4%, 81.2% and 80.9%, respectively. Conclusions: Centripetal perfusion in the early arterial phase or inhomogeneous spotted or cycle-like enhancement in the equilibrium phase of the cervical lymph nodes during CEUS can be used as an indication for core-needle biopsy with a high degree of accuracy. Conversely, for lymph nodes with more variable appearances, surgical removal or closely followed-up of nodes may be more appropriate.

Previous 6T SRAMs commonly employ a wordline voltage underdrive (WLUD) scheme to suppress half-select (HS) disturbs in read and write cycles, at the expense of reduced cell read current ( $I_{\mathrm {CELL}}$ ) and degraded write margin (WM). This paper proposes the dual-split-control (DSC) scheme, including split WLs and split cell VSS (CVSS), for 6T SRAM to maintain a compact cell area and improve HS cell stability during the read and write cycles without degrading $I_{\mathrm {CELL}}$ and WM. A segmented CVSS-strapping scheme is developed to suppress the ground bounce on the split-CVSS lines. The CVSS voltage for S6T can be generated by either a constant voltage source or a charge-sharing-based CVSS generation scheme. A 28-nm 256-kb DSC6T SRAM macro was fabricated and achieves a 280-mV lower VDDmin than a conventional 6T SRAM.

An oxide semiconductor (OS) display system built with normally-off devices, nonvolatile OS LSI and an OS display, is proposed. The power consumption of the system is reduced by the nonvolatile OS LSI performing power gating without vanishing setting data when the OS display is in an idling stop (IDS) mode.

Low-power embedded memory and an ARM Cortex-M0 core that operate at 30 MHz were fabricated in combination with a 60-nm c-axis aligned crystalline indium–gallium–zinc oxide FET and a 65-nm Si CMOS. The embedded memory adopted a structure wherein oxide semiconductor-based 1T1C cells are stacked on Si sense amplifiers. This memory achieved a standby power of 3 nW while retaining data and an active power of 11.7 $\mu \text{W}$ /MHz by making each bitline as short as each sense amplifier. The Cortex-M0 core adopted a flip-flop (FF) in which an oxide semiconductor-based 3T1C cell is stacked on the Si scan FF cell without area overhead, and achieved a standby power of 6 nW while retaining data. This combination of embedded memory and Cortex-M0 core can provide high-performance as well as low-power operation, which is essential for Internet of Things devices.

A novel approach for the determination of N-glycans in glycoproteins has been developed based on a combination of deglycosylation, chemoenzymatic labeling, and high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC/ESI-MS). Glycoproteins were digested with PNGase F and then the released N-glycans were enriched and separated from the digesting solution using ultrafiltration units according to the molecular mass differences. The N-glycans were analyzed by HPLC/ESI-MS after chemoenzymatic labeling with Endo-M N175Q an Endo-M mutant. We have shown that the Endo-M N175Q demonstrates a noticeable transglycosidase-like activity for natural N-glycans. The productivity of Endo-M N175Q is estimated to be 2.0-fold higher than that of Endo-M. The experimental strategy was validated using glycoproteins with known glycan structures such as ovalbumin and ribonuclease B. The proposed method offers a promising advance for determining N-glycans in glycoproteins.

The thermal decomposition kinetics of bezafibrate in a nitrogen atmosphere has been investigated by analyzer DTG-60. The thermal behavior of bezafibrate at the different heating rates 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 °C min−1 displays two-stage decomposition processes among 500–650 K. The activation energy (E) and pre-exponential factor (A) were calculated to be 128.72 kJ mol−1 and 3.56 × 1010 min−1 by Flynn–Wall–Ozawa, Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose, Doyle, Kissinger and Satava–Sestak methods for the second-stage decomposition process. The results show that the non-isothermal thermal decomposition mechanism of bezafibrate is classified as three-dimensional diffusion model, and the integral and differential equations are $$g(\alpha ) = [1 - (1 - \alpha )^{1/3} ]^{2}$$ and $$f(\alpha ) = \frac{3}{2}\left( {1 - \alpha } \right)^{{{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$2$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {2 3}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$3$}}}} \left[ {1 - \left( {1 - \alpha } \right)^{{{\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 3}}\right.\kern-0pt} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$3$}}}} } \right]^{ - 1}{.}$$ The enthalpy (ΔH ≠), entropy (ΔS ≠) and Gibbs free energy (ΔG ≠) were calculated to be 123.74 kJ mol−1, −91.07 J mol−1 K−1 and 178.29 kJ mol−1, respectively.

Gamma prime (γ′) stability and its influence on tensile behavior of a newly developed wrought superalloy with various Fe contents was studied both experimentally and thermodynamically. The results show that the γ′-solvus temperature is higher and γ–γ′ lattice mismatch is bigger in the alloy with the lower Fe content. During long-term thermal exposure at 650–750 °C, the coarsening behavior of γ′ precipitates follows Ostwald ripening kinetics and the lower Fe content can decrease the coarsening rate of γ′ precipitates due to the increase of the activation energy for γ′ coarsening. Moreover, the lower Fe content can retard the transformation from γ′ to η phase. The tensile properties of the alloys with different Fe contents are almost same after standard heat treatment. However, after thermal exposure, the decrease of tensile strength in the alloy with lower Fe content is less than that of the alloys with higher Fe content due to the improvement of γ′ stability.

Human visual experience is formed through concurrent bottom-up and top-down processes, this close relationship between the two processes makes it hard to investigate their isolated effects. Visual phenomena formed by the top-down processes without direct retinal stimulation have been defined as phantom vision. The current thesis used an objective measurement, binocular rivalry, to quantify the functional effects of different forms of phantom vision induced by top-down processes. In Chapter 2, it is shown that imagined visual motion primes the stimuli of the same direction in subsequent motion rivalry perception, and this effect can be attenuated by concurrent non-directional perceptual motion. Perceived motion stimuli also bias rivalry perception, and the direction of the bias depends on the contrast of prior motion. Chapter 3 investigates the functional effects of colour experience induced by the neon colour spreading illusion. Results show that neon phantom colour has a suppressive effect on subsequent colour rivalry perception, and the suppression effect can be attenuated by concurrently presented uniform luminance and strengthened by longer presentation durations. Significant correlation and functional interaction between neon phantom colour and voluntarily generated colour imagery are reported. We further show individual differences for the interaction. Phantom colour can be induced by other process, such as the McCollough effect, in which individuals experience colour while observing horizontal or vertical achromatic gratings after adapting to orthogonal gratings in complementary colours. Using the binocular rivalry method, we show that phantom colour induced by the McCollough effect has suppressive effects on colour rivalry perception, and can be attenuated by the uniform luminance. The strength of McCollough effect induced colour experience is influenced by the contrast of grating inducers. The correlation between colour imagery and neon phantom colour is replicated, but McCollough effect did not correlate with either. In Chapter 5, we report that participants can have subjective colour experience when viewing achromatic object images, but this experience of colour does not have a significant effect on subsequent binocular rivalry. Together, these results demonstrate that the visual experience generated by top-down process has similar nature and properties as bottom-up retinal vision.

The microstructure and mechanical properties of a Co-Cr-W-Mo superalloy used for the driving mechanism of nuclear power station were investigated. This alloy was strengthened by W and Mo elements and carbides for high hardness, and an excellent wear resistance was achieved by the high content of carbides. Also, this alloy was of excellent hot-corrosion resistance due to the addition of 29 wt. % Cr. The as-cast alloy was equiaxed, and consisted mainly of γ-Co solid solution, γ/M7C3 eutectics and Cr-rich M7C3 carbides. The Rockwell hardness was up to 37 - 40. The alloy presented high tensile strength, and the fractography of tensile ruptured specimens was characterized obviously by the interdendritic fracture.

GH984G is a new Ni-Fe-based alloy which has been designed for use as superheater, reheater, and header materials for boilers in 700°C advanced ultra-supercritical (A-USC) coal-fired power plants. In this paper, the tensile properties and microstructure evolutions of GH984G were investigated during long-term thermal exposure at 700 and 750°C up to 15000h. The results show that the major precipitates were MC, M23C6 and γ ́, and no detrimental TCP or GCP phase appeared during long-term thermal exposure. The morphology of γ ́ was spherical and had no obvious change, but the size increases. After thermal exposure at 700°C for 15000h, the 700°C yield strength slightly increased, but the yield strength decreased after thermal exposure at 750°C for 15000h. The variation of strength is attributed to the coarsening of γ ́ precipitation. The deformation mechanism is the moving dislocations shear γ ́ precipitates and the stacking faults form in γ ́ precipitates at room temperature and 700°C. At 750°C, the deformation mechanism is characterized by the formation of dislocation loops and tangles.

GH984 is an economic alloy due to the elimination of Co and its containing more than 20% Fe. As a major constituent of GH984 alloy, the Fe reduces the cost, but promotes the precipitation of TCP phase. In order to get an optimum alloy with desired balance among structural stability, mechanical properties and cost, the influence of Fe content on microstructure and mechanical properties of GH984 alloy was investigated in this paper. The results showed that the Fe content had no obvious influence on the major precipitates which were spherical γ′, blocky MC and discrete M23C6 at grain boundary after standard heat treatment, except the γ/γ ́ misfit. However, during long-term thermal exposure at 750°C, the decrease of the Fe content retarded the precipitation of η phase and enhanced the structural stability. The Fe content had no obvious influence on the tensile strength and ductility. At condition of 700°C/400MPa, the rupture life had not evident change, but the elongation decreased, the fractural model exhibited mix-fracture model and the characteristics of intergranular fracture became obvious with increasing the Fe content. It can be concluded that the decrease of Fe content can improve the structural stability and ductility.

The worldwide first 100MHz dynamic oxide semiconductor RAM (DOSRAM) is successfully demonstrated using a new high-mobility crystalline In-Ga-Zn-O (IGZO) material. The new IGZO exhibits around two times carrier mobility of conventional IGZO, while still achieving an extremely low off-state leakage (I off ) at ∼10−21A (zA) level. Attributed to DOSRAM performance improvement, 100MHz normally-off (Noff) CPU is successfully demonstrated with drastically reduced power consumption (∼94% power reduction for ARM Cortex-M0 and ∼70% power reduction for memory), making it a promising candidate for IoT application. In addition, an OS-FPGA is successfully fabricated by integration of 65nm SiFET and 60nm oxide semiconductor FET (OSFET) with an operation frequency of 360MHz. The application of the OSFET in analog circuits will also be discussed in this paper.

An embedded 1 Mbit 2T1C gain-cell memory macro using indium-gallium-zinc oxide semiconductor FETs (OSFETs) with an extremely low off-state current of less than 1 zA (10−21 A) was fabricated. In the 2T1C gain cell, an OSFET for the write operation was stacked over a SiFET for the read operation. The 1 Mbit macro was fabricated using a combination of 60-nm OSFET and 65-nm CMOS processes. It achieves a 140 MHz operation and data retention of more than 1 h. Its static power in the standby state and active power are 31 μW and 64 μW/MHz, respectively. The macro with long-term data retention can reduce the static power by power gating. 2T1C OSFET-based embedded memory is applicable to devices requiring high performance as well as low power.

90 degree optical hybrid is the key part of space coherent optical communication and the high efficient mixing technology is an effective means to achieve great detect sensitivity. Most of optical components in optical hybrid are sensitive to polarization state, therefore, the polarization state of incident light will affect the function of hybrid. Through an theoretical analysis and simulation of the performance of hybrid whose incident light is linearly or elliptically polarized light, the result shows that the heterodyne efficiency of hybrid reaches its maximum when incident light is 45°linearly, and the change of polarization orientation can decrease the optical power entering I branch, making the heterodyne efficiency declines. Degree of polarization will increase phase difference of both branch which is orthometric in hybrid, causing the process of phase locking more difficult. Moreover, the effect of deviation of directivity of wave plate on hybrid performance is studied, for 1/4 wave plate, its deviation will change the power allegation and phase error of IandQ branch, but for 1/2 wave plate, phase error cannot be brought in, but it will change the direct current(DC) component of branch. The above polarization state changes will not bring additional phase error in I branch, ensuring the normal functioning of hybrid. This study gives a theoretical foundation to the design of space optical hybrid.

This paper examines the effect of banking and currency crises on long-run growth. Our data cover 130 economies from 1800 to 2010, some dating from 1800 with the rest beginning in later years. The data include banking crises, currency crises, output per worker, growth rate of population and regional dummies. We found that both the frequency of banking crises and the frequency of currency crises have a negative and statistically significant effect on growth in the short run and a positive effect on growth, though statistically insignificant, in the longer run. While the frequency of currency crisis has a more negative impact on growth in the short to medium run (10 decades) than does the frequency of banking crisis, the effects of both become insignificantly positive in the longer run. More specifically, we show that the frequency of banking crisis is statistically significantly correlated to growth for the time windows of 1 decade and 2 decades, this negative relationship becoming increasingly more statistically insignificant overall for time windows from 3 decades to 10 decades before finally becoming positive, though statistically insignificant, for the time windows of 13 decades and longer for our sample. The frequency of currency crisis is statistically significantly negatively associated with growth overall for the time windows of 1 decade to 10 decades, before becoming insignificantly positive for time windows of 13 decades and longer for our sample.

The extraction of interesting information from enormous and irregular datasets has always been a significant research topic. For the datasets with irregular distribution and self-similarity, multifractal theory is the most appreciated approach and has been successfully applied in many fields, such as financial analysis, image processing, medical diagnosis, earthquake study, etc. In this paper, we make a detailed analysis and summary on three main functions, namely multifractal structure diagnosis, tendency and singularity analysis. Finally, some experiments based on oil prices data and spatial physical data are carried out to validate its performance effectively.

This paper studied the coordination behavior of azaarylpyrazole carboxylic acids for the first time. Hydrothermal reaction of 5-(pyridine-3-yl)pyrazole-3-carboxylic acid (H2L1) or 5-(pyrazine-2-yl)pyrazole-3-carboxylic acid (H2L2) with CdI2 afforded crystalline {[CdI(HL1)]}n (1) or {[CdI(HL2)(H2O)]·H2O}n (2), respectively. The X-ray diffraction analyses reveal that the different properties of the pyrazolecarboxylate, the iodide, and the cadmium atoms give rise to different crystal structures. The two complexes show covalently bonded two-dimensional metal-organic frameworks with different topology. The two-dimensional layers are further linked to form three-dimensional supramolecular networks through I⋯π halogen bonds or hydrogen bonds. Both complexes show luminescence enhancement compared to the corresponding ligands.

A low cost Ni-Fe-based wrought superalloy for 700 advance ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants was developed. The stability of microstructure and mechanical properties of this alloy during long-term thermal exposure was investigated by SEM,TEM and tensile tests. The experimental results showed that the major precipitates in the alloy were spherical γ, MC and discrete M23C6 distributing along grain boundary after the long-term exposure at 700 and 750 and no harmful phases, such as σ phase and η phase, were found. However, after exposure at 800 up to 3000 h, small amount of lath-like η phase precipitated at grain boundary by consuming the surrounding γ. The η phase exhibited a fixed orientation relationship with the γ matrix. During thermal exposure γ coarsened with increasing the exposure time and exposure temperature. In addition, all major phases and their stability temperature ranges were calculated by JMatPro and these results were confirmed by the experimental results. The 700 tensile tests revealed that the alloy after exposure at 700 and 750 for 3000 h exhibited excellent ductility and strength. Therefore, the GH984G alloy possessed excellent stability of microstructure and mechanical properties between 700 and 750 up to 3000 h, and it is a promising material for 700 advance ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants.

Low-power embedded memory and an ARM Cortex-M0 core that operate at 30 MHz were fabricated in combination with a 60-nm c-axis aligned crystalline indium-gallium-zinc oxide FET and a 65-nm Si CMOS. The embedded memory adopted a structure in which oxide semiconductor-based 1T1C cells are stacked on Si sense amplifiers. This memory achieved a standby power of 3 nW while retaining data and an active power of 11.7 µW/MHz by making each bitline as short as each sense amplifier. The M0 core adopted the flip-flop in which an oxide semiconductor-based 3T1C cell is stacked on the Si scan flip-flop cell without area overhead and achieved a standby power of 6 nW while retaining data. The combination of the embedded memory and the M0 core provided high-performance, low-power Internet of Things devices operating with a broad range of active standby power ratios.

For the first time, laboratory 60 nm c-axis aligned crystalline In-Ga-Zn-O (CAAC-IGZO) oxide semiconductor FET (OSFET) was successfully integrated with industrial 65 nm Si MOSFET (SiFET). By this hybrid process, OSFET with extremely low off-state leakage level ∼zA (1×10−21A) was fabricated, while traditional Si device can only reach 1×10−12A leakage level. For IoT (Internet of Things) applications, normally-off CPU (Noff CPU) fabricated by this hybrid process achieved 86% reduction of power consumption. The hybrid process can be extended to other applications like eDRAM, image sensor and FPGA.

Casing damage is a very severe problem in steam-injection well due to thermal stress. In this paper, the computational model of casing-cement-formation coupling system is established. Considering strength degradation of casing, the temperature field and stress field are coupled to calculate casing stress. Related factors, such as concentric casing, cement thickness, casing specification and internal pressure, are considered to analyze casing safety. The results show that yield strength of N80 casing reduces as a linear function with temperature variation. There is little effect of cement thickness and casing specification on the thermal stress. Von Mises stress decreases with increase of steam injection pressure in wellbore as the casing doesn't yield. Based on the results, some measures against casing damage are presented.

Xiang-qi-tang (XQT) is a Chinese herbal formula containing rhizoma Cyperi, Andrographis paniculata and Astragalus membranaceus. The present study investigated the effects of XQT on the mortality and inflammatory mediators in a chicken model challenged with avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC). To detect the effect of XQT, the chickens were pretreated with the formula 12 h before being challenged with 10(8) colony forming unit (CFU) of APEC. The results showed that 0.6 g/kg XQT significantly elevated the survival rate of infected chickens. To further investigate the mechanism of decreasing mortality of XQT, we examined plasma inflammatory mediator levels. The levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-1 (IL-1) and soluble endothelial protein C receptor (sEPCR) were significantly increased in chickens challenged with APEC alone, whereas chickens pretreated with 0.6 g/kg XQT showed marked decrease of these inflammatory mediator levels during the death peak. Taken together, this study demonstrates that XQT has protective effects in APEC-treated chickens. The action mechanisms of XQT involve anti-inflammation and antithrombotic activity. These findings may contribute to future research on the action mechanisms of this formula, as well as prevention of or therapy for avian colibacillosis.

Cast alloy IN625 is a candidate Ni-base alloy for advanced ultra-supercritical (A-USC) power plants. The aim of this study was to investigate the influences of Nb on δ phase precipitation and the tensile properties in this alloy. The results show that the δ phase is easy to precipitate after long-term aging at 700 °C (the service temperature of A-USC power plants) and it is strongly affected by the content of Nb in the alloy. The strength of alloys after aging at 700 °C for 10,000 h increases with the increasing Nb content and also increases sharply when compared to that of as-heat-treated alloys. The increase in strength is found to be primarily associated with the precipitation of the δ phase.

Based on the first-principles of the density functional theory, the Gibbs free energies (△GH0) of the hydrogen adsorption on the 2H-phase molybdenum diselenide monolayer (MoSe2) with different active sites and hydrogen coverage rates are calculated. The calculated results reveal that several ideal adsorbed rates and sites are very close to those at thermoneutral state (△GH0~0). To compare their catalytic ability in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the exchange current density (i0) as a function of △GH0 is calculated as a volcano curve. Two sites located at the top of volcano curve present higher exchange current densities than that of Pt catalyst. The charge transfers and the bonding details of the two edge-hydrogen-adsorptions (Mo edge and Se edge) are analyzed by the charge density difference and electronegativity as the associated structures and relative △GH0 are further explained. It is found that the localized charge transfer distributed uniformly between the hydrogen atoms and the adsorption sites can facilitate the catalytic ability of HER. For this reason, the catalytic ability of HER for the Se edge is more stable than that of Mo edge with less sensitivity to the absorption sites and hydrogen coverage rates. Based on the first-principles molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, finally, the influences of the thermal motion on the two kinds of structures of hydrogen adsorption at the higher temperature are explored, with the critical temperature for the hydrogen desorption as well as the atomistic dynamics discovered. It is worth mentioning that during the structure optimization and MD simulation, the edge deformation and reconstruction are discovered, respectively, which indicates that the ideal edge of MoSe2 may not be the most stable structure, which will change with the external conditions. This theoretic study reveals the atomistic mechanisms of the hydrogen adsorption and desorption of the single-layer 2H-phase MoSe2 at different temperatures, with the edge lattice deformation and reconstruction discovered, which can deepen our insights into the HER mechanisms near the edges of the 2H-phase MoSe2 at different temperatures and provide theoretic guidelines for designing the high-efficient and low-cost catalyst in the HER through tuning the MoSe2 edges.