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As a typical microdroplet, double emulsion droplet, has received much attention and been widely used in recent years. For a simplified double-cross-shaped microchannel, the process of preparing double emulsion droplets is numerically simulated in this paper. The mechanism of droplet forming was analyzed, and the effects of the angles of the inner-, middle-, and outer-phase channels of the microchip, length of the focusing hole, and expansion angle on the process and quality of the double emulsion droplet formation were investigated. The variation in angles between each inlet channel affects the droplet area; the change in expansion angle affects the flow pattern of droplets; the change in each geometric parameter affects the monodispersity of droplets. The droplet area is fitted to the microchannel geometric parameters and the functional expressions that represent their relationship are derived. The work in this paper provides a reference for the practical production and research of double emulsion droplets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Desertification, as one of the most severe socio-economic, environmental and ecological problems, has attracted widespread attention. In this study, the severity of desertification in the southeastern edge of the Mu Us sandy land of China was classified into five stages using the space-for-time method. A field experiment was conducted in July 2015 to investigate the dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) concentrations and stocks. The results show that SOC and TN concentrations and stocks decreased significantly with the severity of desertification, reducing SOC and TN concentrations by 55.5% and 55.1% in 0-30 cm depth, SOC and TN stocks decreasing by 54.4% and 54.0%, respectively. The losses of SOC and TN stocks indicate that the impacts of desertification were more evident in upper soil, because the losses in them were higher than those in other layers, and early stages are vital to the restoration of desertification for more losses of SOC and TN stocks. SOC (4.25 x 108 kg) and TN (0.71 x 108 kg) accumulated from 2003 to 2015 indicate that desertification was reversed. Overall, key stages of combating desertification were identified, and the feasibility of integrating field experiment data and temporal-spatial data to evaluate the dynamics of desertification was verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To uncover the potential function of LINC00628 in influencing the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC) and its underlying mechanism. PATIENTS AND METHODS: R elative l evels of LINC00628 and p57 in CRC tissues and cell lines were determined by quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). Regulatory effects of LINC00628 and p57 on proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis of SW480 and SW620 cells were assessed. Subcellular distribution of LINC00628 in CRC cells was analyzed. Moreover, the interaction between LINC00628 and enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) was evaluated by the RNA Binding Protein Immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay. RESULTS: LINC00628 was downregulated in CRC tissues and cell lines. CRC patients expressing a low level of LINC00628 suffered worse prognosis. The. knockdown of LINC00628 enhanced proliferative ability, prolonged S phase in cell cycle progression, and inhibited apoptosis in SW480 and SW620 cells. LINC00628 was mainly distributed in the nucleus. The RIP assay demonstrated that LINC00628 could bind to EZH2 to upregulate the p57 level. Rescue experiments verified that the overexpression of p57 could reverse regulatory effects of downregulated LINC00628 on proliferative and apoptotic abilities of CRC. CONCLUSIONS: LINC00628 is downregulated in CRC. It aggravates the progression of CRC by binding to EZH2 to further inhibit the p57 level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Recent research has proved that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in tumorigenesis. In this research, lncRNA ROR1-AS1 was explored to identify its role in the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Real Time-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) was utilized to measure ROR1-AS1 expression of CRC tissues. Besides, function assays including wound healing assay and transwell assay were conducted to detect the effect of ROR1-AS1 on the metastasis of CRC. Furthermore, Luciferase assays and RNA immunoprecipitation assay (RIP) were used to explore the underlying mechanism. RESULTS: By comparison with ROR1-AS1 expression in adjacent tissues, the ROR1-AS1 expression level was significantly higher in CRC samples. Moreover, loss of ROR1-AS1 inhibited cell migration and cell invasion of CRC cells. Besides, gain of ROR1-AS1 enhanced cell migration and cell invasion of CRC cells. Furthermore, it was found that ROR1-AS1 acted as a competing endogenous RNA via sponging miR-375 in CRC. CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggests that ROR1-AS1 could promote cell migration and invasion of CRC by sponging miR-375, which may offer a potential therapeutic target in CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A developed and verified thermodynamic model based on the atom and molecule coexistence theory (AMCT) is employed to predict activities relative to pure liquids in standard state in Mg-Al, Mg-Zn, Al-Zn and Mg-Al-Zn melts through the calculated mass action concentrations of structural units, i.e., Ni. According to AMCT, Nt can be extrapolated and calculated by the chemical equilibrium constant of a structural molecule, i.e., K, in the Mg-Al-Zn ternary system and binary subsystems. In this paper, the standard Gibbs free energy function, for reported activities and mixing thermodynamic properties in Mg-Al, Mg-Zn and Al-Zn melts, was regressed and optimized. The results showed that Kt and Ni were deduced by Gibbs free energy function at the studied temperature. The results of calculating thermodynamic properties in the full composition range for liquid Mg-Al-Zn from 880 to 1100 K, as well as Mg-Al from 923 to 1073 K, Mg-Zn from 880 to 973 K and Al-Zn from 1000 to 1073 K, are presented in the paper by coupling with Nt and AMCT. An excellent agreement is noticed between the calculated values of this study and measured thermodynamic data from the references, suggesting that the AMCT can be well applied to describe and predict the activities of the Mg-Al-Zn system and its subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the effects of melatonin on soybean photosynthesis and seed growth at different developmental stages under drought stress induced by polyethylene glycol in the growth medium. Experimental groups were supplied with a normal nutrient solution after seven days of continuous treatment; overall, five treatments were completed when the early maturity stage was reached. Under normal water supply, melatonin supplementation had no significant effect on the photosynthetic characteristics or soybean seed growth. However, drought stress reduced leaf relative water content, chlorophyll content, and relative photosynthetic gas-exchange parameters, while it increased a leaf content of osmoregulatory substances, antioxidant-related enzyme activities, and seed growth-related indicators. Compared to the drought-stressed group, the melatonin treatment under drought stress improved the above indicators; specifically, melatonin effectively increased the photosynthetic rate, 100-seed mass, and total seed mass per plant. All the effects were most significant during the first seven days after the early seed-filling stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Application of artificial neural network (ANN)-based method to perform engine condition monitoring and fault diagnosis is evaluated. Back-propagation, feedforward neural nets are employed for constructing engine diagnostic networks. Noise-contained training and testing data are generated using an influence coefficient matrix and the data scatters. The results indicate that under high-level noise conditions ANN fault diagnosis can only achieve a 50-60 percent success rate. For situations where sensor scatters are comparable to those of the normal engine operation, the success rates for both four-input and eight-input ANN diagnoses achieve high scores which satisfy the minimum 90 percent requirement. It is surprising to find that the success rate of the four-input diagnosis is almost as good as that of the eight-input. Although the ANN-based method possesses certain capability in resisting the influence of input noise, it is found that a preprocessor that can perform sensor data validation is of paramount importance. Autoassociative neural network (AANN) is introduced to reduce the noise level contained. It is shown that the noise can be greatly filtered to result in a higher success rate of diagnosis. This AANN data validation preprocessor can also serve as an instant trend detector which greatly improves the current smoothing methods in trend detection. It is concluded that ANN-based fault diagnostic method is of great potential for future use. However, further investigations using actual engine data have to be done to validate the present findings. [DOI: 10.1115/1.1362667] Keywords: Engine Condition Monitoring, Fault Isolation, Artificial Neural Networks

E. T. KANG [*] Surface modification of Ar plasma-pretreated high density polyethylene (HDPE) film via UV-induced graft copolymerization with glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and 2-hydroxyethylacrylate (HEA) was carried out to improve [...]

The ribbons with different thicknesses of Fe83Ga17 alloy were prepared by melt spun. The maximum magnetostriction of -2100 ppm has been obtained in the ribbon with the thickness of 75 μm. The microstructures of the ribbons were determined by x-ray diffraction. It was found that DO3 structure emerges in those ribbons melt spun at a higher cooling rate. This special DO3 structure is favorable to the enhancement of magnetostriction. It is considered that more short-range ordering of Ga atoms appeared when liquid alloy was solidified with a certain extreme cooling rate. Such short-range ordering of Ga atoms brings a local stress and results in the giant magnetostriction. The large demagnetizing magnetic energy in the normal direction of the ribbons causes the magnetic moments parallel to the ribbon plane. When an applied magnetic field is perpendicular to the ribbon plane, the magnetic moments turn 90° and generate giant magnetostriction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phase evolution and magnetic properties of melt-spun Nd[sub 8]Fe[sub 86]B[sub 6-χ]C[sub χ] (χ = 0, 2, 4, 5, 6) alloy ribbons have been investigated. Increasing the C content was found to decrease the glass-forming tendency of as-spun ribbons. For samples with low C content (χ ≤ 4), the best magnetic properties were achieved by directly quenching at an optimum roll speed, by which a uniform exchange coupled nanocomposite Nd[sub 2]Fe[sub 14](BC)/α-Fe structure was developed. Moreover, within this composition range, C substitution did not significantly affect the microstructure of the optimally quenched ribbons. However, for the samples with higher C content (χ > 4), the composite 2:14:l/α-Fe structure can only be obtained by a phase transformation from the mixture of 2:17: C[sub χ] + 2:14:1 + α-Fe phases during annealing treatment. Moreover, the resultant 2:14:1/α-Fe composite structure was irregular, with a coarse grain size, which strongly degraded the exchange interaction between hard and soft magnetic phases. For optimally processed samples, replacement of up to 4 at. % of B by C significantly increased the coercivity with only nominal reduction in remanence, in contrast to the alloys with χ > 4, for which drastic deterioration of both coercivity and remanence occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen (N) supply is essential for achieving high grain yield in maize production, but excessive N application can lead to lodging risks and potential yield loss. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of ethephon application under different N fertilizer rates in reducing maize lodging. Field experiments were conducted to determine the interactive effects of ethephon (0 and 180 g/ha) and N rate (0, 75, 150 and 225 kg N/ha) on the morphological and chemical characteristics of basal internode and yield across two summer maize-growing seasons (2011/12) in Wuqiao of the North China Plain. Findings showed that ethephon significantly increased the maximum diameter of the 7th to 14th internodes, and decreased the internode lengths, which led to a decrease in plant and ear heights under different N rates. Significant ethephon × N interaction effects were observed on the diameter and length of internode, dry weight per unit internode length and breaking resistance. Ethephon significantly increased N, cellulose and hemicellulose contents of the basal internode, but cellulose and hemicellulose contents decreased as the rate of N application increased. Internode diameter, dry weight per unit internode length, and N content of the basal internode were significantly positively correlated with breaking resistance. Ethephon significantly increased grain yield and harvest index in 2011, but not in 2012. Grain yield and above-ground biomass were increased with increasing N application in both growing seasons, showing linear and quadratic responses. These results suggested that ethephon could increase stalk strength by improving the morphological and chemical characteristics of the basal internode, and maintain high yield and biomass under high N rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]