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An epoxy resin/powder curing agent crack-repair material (EPCRM) was developed to overcome the limitations of the existing materials used to seal asphalt pavement cracks. The EPCRM was prepared by ...

Wet clutches are widely used in vehicle transmission systems to start and shift. The temperature field of the wet clutch components is influenced by friction and is closely related to the vehicle p...

Purpose Ferulic acid (FA) is a natural compound which is used to treat insomnia. However, its use is limited because of its poor oral bioavailability caused by extremely rapid elimination. The current study aimed to develop a self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS) to improve the oral delivery of FA and to enhance its hypnotic efficacy. Methods FA-SMEDDS was prepared, and its morphology and storage stability were characterized. The formulation was also subjected to pharmacokinetic and tissue distribution studies in rats. The hypnotic efficacy of FA-SMEDDS was evaluated in p-chlorophenylalanine-induced insomnia mice. Results FA-loaded SMEDDS exhibited a small droplet size (15.24 nm) and good stability. Oral administration of FA-SMEDDS yielded relative bioavailability of 185.96%. In the kidney, SMEDDS decreased the distribution percentage of FA from 76.1% to 59.4% and significantly reduced its metabolic conversion, indicating a reduction in renal elimination. Interestingly, FA-SMEDDS showed a higher distribution in the brain and enhanced serotonin levels in the brain, which extended the sleep time by 2-fold in insomnia mice. Conclusion This is the first study to show that FA-loaded SMEDDS decreased renal elimination, enhanced oral bioavailability, increased brain distribution, and improved hypnotic efficacy. Thus, we have demonstrated that SMEDDS is a promising carrier which can be employed to improve the oral delivery of FA and facilitate product development for the therapy of insomnia.

Considering the spline friction, the dynamic model of a multidisc clutch is established that permits the calculation of the contact pressure and friction torque acting at each friction surface; the...

This study developed discrete element models to simulate the dynamic repetitive load test using precision unbound material analyzer (PUMA). The simulated aggregate was created with the clump method...

The outer circlip constraint is a typical way for a wet multidisc clutch to limit the axial displacement of friction components. The pressure transmission mechanism in a clutch, excited by the conc...

Phage display technology in combination with next-generation sequencing (NGS) currently is a state-of-the-art method for the enrichment and isolation of monoclonal antibodies from diverse libraries. However, the current NGS methods employed for sequencing phage display libraries are limited by the short contiguous read lengths associated with second-generation sequencing platforms. Consequently, the identification of antibody sequences has conventionally been restricted to individual antibody domains or to the analysis of single domain binding moieties such as camelid VHH or cartilaginous fish IgNAR antibodies. In this study, we report the application of third-generation sequencing to address this limitation. We used single molecule real time (SMRT) sequencing coupled with hairpin adaptor loop ligation to facilitate the accurate interrogation of full-length single-chain Fv (scFv) libraries. Our method facilitated the rapid isolation and testing of scFv antibodies enriched from phage display libraries within days following panning. Two libraries against CD160 and CD123 were panned and monitored by NGS. Analysis of NGS antibody data sets led to the isolation of several functional scFv antibodies that were not identified by conventional panning and screening strategies. Our approach, which combines phage display selection of immune libraries with the full-length interrogation of scFv fragments, is an easy method to discover functional antibodies, with a range of affinities and biophysical characteristics.

When studying the tribological behaviors of a Cu-based friction pair in different lubrication regimes, calculation of the real contact area of asperity contacts is crucial but difficult. In...

The buckling deformation model of annular disks subjected to thermal stresses caused by a radial temperature gradient is established, and the leading thermal stresses for buckling are studied. Mult...

In this paper, the microstructural evolution and deformation mechanism of the cryorolled Fe–36%Ni alloy was investigated. Deformation twinning was confirmed to be activated at the early stage of cryorolling (CR) and subsequently suppressed due to microstructure refinement. The existence of and peaks revealed that the (α′-M) phase transformation was induced during the CR process. The stress-assisted martensite and strain-induced martensite were detected to be transformed at the grain boundary and intersection of deformation twins, respectively. Owing to the co-effect of the temperature raise and mechanical stabilisation, the α′-M phase transformation was suppressed during the CR process. Therefore, the amount of the α′-M was limited in the tested alloy.

The transient thermal and thermoelastic analysis of an automotive multidisc clutch is performed to investigate the thermal deformation and the contact pressure distribution of the friction surfaces. An alternating finite volume method (FVM) and finite element method (FEM) for temperature distribution and contact pressure distribution, including the coupling between temperature, displacement, and contact pressure, is employed in MATLAB. A penalty function method is used to impose the constraints on the contact boundary. The computational results indicate that the contact pressure distributions on the surfaces near the pressure plate are more uniform than those near the opposite plate, and the nonuniformity is enlarged with the temperature rise. The contact pressure and temperature distributions on the two friction surfaces of the separate plate are dissimilar and asymmetric, which is in good agreement with the test results. The results further show that the contact pressure peaks diminish and the n...

The influence of Mn content on flow behaviour and constitutive equations of Fe–(20/27)Mn–4Al–0.3C austenitic steels was investigated by uniaxial hot compression tests. The recrystallisation fraction was also measured using electron backscattered diffraction. Although dynamic recrystallisation is slightly delayed by the increased Mn content, the peak stress still has a pronounced decline especially during the deformation at relatively low temperature. The reason should be ascribed to the enhanced stacking fault energy, by which workhardening rate before the onset of dynamic recrystallisation is diminished significantly with the reinforced cross-slip process. The hot deformation activation energy is decreased under the condition of higher Mn addition, while the strain rate sensitivity of flow stress almost remains unchanged.

Settlement and non-uniform deformation of frozen soil subgrade introduce fatal cracks on semi-rigid base asphalt pavements. This research aims to use reinforced wire mesh to reduce serious cracks on semi-rigid asphalt pavements in frozen regions. Three impact factors, diameter and interval as well as two types of wire mesh have been analysed by loading tests. Results have shown that after setting the reinforced wire mesh: (a) failure load and displacement of the cement-stabilised crushed gravel samples have been improved; (b) diameter and interval of the wire mesh have interactive impacts on reinforced sample load capacity; (c) the reinforced wire mesh can limit cracks by redistributing stress in the specimen; and (d) the multiple linear regression model well reflects the variation of loading properties; the results make sense from the statistics view as well. Results also represent that the strengthened wire mesh can help spread out the applied load, and increase the overall loading capacity of cement-st...

Road temperature-adjustment material (RTM) was studied in this research to adjust the working temperature for asphalt mixture. The RTM is constituted from the solid–liquid phase change material (PCM) as the main component of unsaturated organic acid and the polypropylene carrier. The effect of RTM on the working temperature of asphalt mixture was analysed by monotonic cooling test, cooling–heating cycle test and field simulation cycle test. Results of monotonic cooling and cooling–heating cycle tests indicated that RTM mixed into asphalt mixture helped to reduce the amplitude of temperature variation in the cooling and heating process, and also postponed the extreme temperature appearance time. Results of field simulation test showed that RTM helped to decrease the highest temperature during the heating process and increase the lowest temperature during the cooling process, which reduced the temperature adverse impact on asphalt mixture. Test results indicated that asphalt mixture with RTM actively adjust...

Snake venom contains bioactive materials for drug development, diagnosis, and treatment. After separating and purifying the kallikrein-like enzyme (AHP-Ka) from Agkistrodon halys pallas venom for the first time, a monoclonal antibody against AHP-Ka was prepared and characterized. An indirect sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on the monoclonal antibody was developed and validated for the pharmacokinetic analysis of AHP-Ka in rat plasma. The method was calibrated using rat plasma and 1:100 dilution of plasma was selected to prepare a calibration curve to validate the precision, accuracy, and stability of the ELISA method. A good linear relationship was obtained in a working range from 3.9 ng/mL to 62.5 ng/mL with a limit of detection of 2.94 ng/mL. Intra- and inter-batch precision were less than 10%. The average recovery ranged from 94.6% to 104.4% in rat plasma at the concentrations of 5 ng/mL, 15 ng/mL, and 45 ng/mL, respectively. The ELISA method was successfully used for the pharm...

The Lupu Bridge is a steel box tied arch bridge with a main span of 550 m, which held the world record of the longest arch span on its completion in 2003. This bridge has been the subject of contro...

The Xupu Bridge is the third cable-stayed bridge to be constructed in the greater Shanghai area in recent years. When completed, it will form an important part of Shanghai Outer Ring Road. The two ...