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Chicoric acid has been widely used in food, medicine, animal husbandry, and other commercial products because of its significant pharmacological activities. However, the shortage of chicoric acid limits its further development and utilization. Currently, Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench serves as the primary natural resource of chicoric acid, while other sources of it are poorly known. Extracting chicoric acid from plants is the most common approach. Meanwhile, chicoric acid levels vary in different plants as well as in the same plant from different areas and different medicinal parts, and different extraction methods. We comprehensively reviewed the information regarding the sources of chicoric acid from plant extracts, its chemical synthesis, biosynthesis, and bioactive effects.

Guangxu Liu,1,2 Jingtao Dou,3,4 Deqiang Zheng,1,2 Jie Zhang,1,2 Meiping Wang,1,2 Wei Li,1,2 Jing Wen,1,2 Juming Lu,3 Linong Ji,5 Yan He1,2 1Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Endocrinology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Endocrinology, Hainan Branch of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Sanya, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yan He; Jingtao Dou Email yanhe1220@126.com; jingtaodou@163.comPurpose: The objective of this study was to investigate the association of abnormal glycemic phenotypes with microvascular complications in type 2 diabetes patients.Participants and Methods: A total of 24,266 participants who were from the multicenter cross-sectional survey of China National HbA1c Surveillance System across China were included in the present study. Diabetes patients with abnormal glucose were divided into three groups according to phenotype: isolated fasting hyperglycemia (IFH), isolated postprandial hyperglycemia (IPH), or combined hyperglycemia (CH). The main outcomes were isolated diabetic retinopathy, isolated diabetic nephropathy, and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the association of abnormal glycemic phenotypes with microvascular complications.Results: The CH phenotype had the highest prevalence of isolated diabetic retinopathy, isolated diabetic nephropathy and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy, followed by IPH. Multivariate analysis showed that the CH phenotype was associated with the highest risk of isolated diabetic retinopathy (OR: 1.20, 95% CI: 1.02– 1.41), isolated diabetic nephropathy (OR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.27– 2.01) and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy (OR: 1.93, 95% CI: 1.44– 2.59). More importantly, participants with IPH phenotype also showed significantly higher risks of isolated diabetic retinopathy (OR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.05– 1.28), isolated diabetic nephropathy (OR: 1.37, 95% CI: 1.09– 1.37) and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy (OR:1.64, 95% CI: 1.21– 2.21) compared to the IFH phenotype. After stratifying by age, sex, diabetes duration and BMI, the higher risks of isolated diabetic retinopathy, isolated diabetic nephropathy and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy were confirmed in IPH phenotype group, compared to the IFH phenotype group.Conclusion: Diabetic patients with IPH phenotype had higher risks of isolated diabetic retinopathy, isolated diabetic nephropathy and combined diabetic retinopathy with nephropathy compared with the participants phenotype of IFH, but lower than the phenotype of CH.Keywords: abnormal glycemic phenotype, diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy, type 2 diabetes mellitus

At present, electric toys belong to high-end consumer electronic toys. Due to the popularity of supercapacitors, the use of supercapacitors as electrical energy storage units is more practical, reliable and convenient than the early nickel-hydrogen rechargeable batteries. Therefore, many toys have adopted the “rechargeable” function, which plays an important role in promoting the grade and quality of toys. However, how to design in the actual charging power management system for toys with “electricity” brings difficulties to toy design engineers. In this paper, three typical designs of constant current charging power supply, constant voltage charging power supply and constant current and constant voltage charging power supply are analyzed, and a more reasonable power management system design of three types of circuits is given based on the application of the current most mainstream new power management chip.

In present paper, Al element was introduced to weaken the basal texture of Mg-8Gd-5Y-2Zn alloy. Due to the addition of Al, the precipitation of Mg 12 Zn(Y, Gd) is significantly depressed, while the precipitation of Mg 3 Zn 3 (Y, Gd) 2 , Al 11 (Y, Gd) 3 , and Al 2 (Y, Gd) is enhanced. The Al 11 (Y, Gd) 3 and Al 2 (Y, Gd), which are located in grain interior, stimulate the dynamic recrystallization due to the particle-stimulated nucleation (PSN) effect in cross-rolling process. This results in a multi-peak characteristic with wider orientation distribution of basal poles. Furthermore, the maximum pole intensity of the as-rolled Mg-8Gd-5Y-2Zn-1Al alloy was significantly weakened.

In-situ TiB 2 /AZ31 composites were prepared by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis reaction assisted with the coupled-field dispersion treatment. The samples of as-cast AZ31 alloy and in-situ TiB 2 /AZ31 composites with and without the coupled-field dispersion treatment were thermal deformed by cross-rolling. The influence of TiB 2 particle distribution on the microstructures and mechanical properties of the composites was investigated. It was found that the as-cast microstructure of AZ31 matrix was refined by TiB 2 particles. The uniform dispersion of the TiB 2 particles is favor of further refinement. All as-rolled samples were composed of recrystallized small grain streams and relatively coarse grains. The improvement of reinforcement dispersion made the grain streams thinner and increased their amount, but had little influence on the texture evolution. The strength and elongation of TiB 2 /AZ31 composites increased simultaneously due to the promotion of particle distribution induced by coupled-field dispersion treatment.

In this paper, microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of as-rolled Mg-5Gd-2.5Y-2Zn- x Al ( x = 0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 wt%) alloys were investigated. It was found that the added Al changed the solidification and precipitation behaviour of the matrix alloy by the formation of the Al-RE (Al 11 (Y, Gd) 3 and Al 2 (Y, Gd)) phases. Edge and surface cracks happened in the as-rolled Mg-5Gd-2.5Y-2Zn alloy disappeared after adding Al. Both the broken W phase and the two Al-RE particles can stimulate nucleation of dynamic recrystallization via particle stimulated nucleation (PSN) mechanism. The content, size and distribution of second phase particles were affinitive with the effect of PSN mechanism, and then affected the texture characteristics, such as intensity and orientation distribution. The elongation of the Mg-5Gd-2.5Y-2Zn alloy was pretty low, just about 4.4%. After the addition of Al, although there was a slight decrease in strength, the ductility was obviously increased. Especially, the elongation of the alloy with 1.0 wt% Al addition was about 16.4% which approached 4 times as high as the Mg-5Gd-2.5Y-2Zn alloy. Besides, Al addition significantly changed the fracture surface of the Mg-5Gd-2.5Y-2Zn alloy. In particular, as 1.0 wt% and 1.5 wt% Al was added, many deep dimples were clearly observed, which showed obvious ductile characteristics.

In recent years, ocean acidification (OA) caused by oceanic absorption of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) has drawn worldwide concern over its physiological and ecological effects on marine organisms. However, the behavioral impacts of OA and especially the underlying physiological mechanisms causing these impacts are still poorly understood in marine species. Therefore, in the present study, the effects of elevated pCO2 on foraging behavior, in vivo contents of two important neurotransmitters, and the expression of genes encoding key modulatory enzymes from the olfactory transduction pathway were investigated in the larval black sea bream. The results showed that larval sea breams (length of 4.71 ± 0.45 cm) reared in pCO2 acidified seawater (pH at 7.8 and 7.4) for 15 days tend to stall longer at their acclimated zone and swim with a significant slower velocity in a more zigzag manner toward food source, thereby taking twice the amount of time than control (pH at 8.1) to reach the food source. These findings indicate that the foraging behavior of the sea bream was significantly impaired by ocean acidification. In addition, compared to a control, significant reductions in the in vivo contents of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and Acetylcholine (ACh) were detected in ocean acidification-treated sea breams. Furthermore, in the acidified experiment groups, the expression of genes encoding positive regulators, the olfaction-specific G protein (Golf) and the G-protein signaling 2 (RGS2) and negative regulators, the G protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK) and arrestin in the olfactory transduction pathway were found to be significantly suppressed and up-regulated, respectively. Changes in neurotransmitter content and expression of olfactory transduction related genes indicate a significant disruptive effect caused by OA on olfactory neural signal transduction, which might reveal the underlying cause of the hampered foraging behavior.

For the application of the Al–Ti–B system in Al-free Mg alloys, yttrium was selected and its effect on microstructure, texture and mechanical properties of Mg–6Zn/TiB 2p composite was studied. The results indicate that the addition of Y could transform the extra Al (which is the by-product of the Al–Ti–B SHS reaction) into Al 2 Y and Al 11 Y 3 phases, and then refined the as-homogenized microstructure of the Mg–6Zn/TiB 2p composite. The Al 2 Y and Al 11 Y 3 particles, as well as the TiB 2 particles, effectively stimulate the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization during the cross-rolling, which contribute to the grain refinement and the formation of a weak double peak texture. That results in the comprehensive improvement of the mechanical properties.

In the present paper, the influences of the addition forms of Sn, such as nanoparticles or ingot, on the microstructure and properties of magnesium alloy matrix were investigated. It was found that the size of as-formed Mg2Sn phases was in nano scale for the sample with Sn nanoparticles addition. While Mg2Sn phases were in macro scale for the sample with Sn ingot addition. The strength and plasticity of the AZ31 alloy matrix were improved because of the Sn additions regardless of nanoparticle or ingot. However, the AZ31 alloy with Sn ingot addition exhibited better mechanical properties than the sample with the nanoparticle addition, which could be owing to the loss of Sn nanoparticles in the processing of smelting and existence of nanoscopic Mg2Sn phase as particle clusters in the matrix.

Numerical investigation of buoyancy effect on forced convective heat transfer to supercritical carbon dioxide flowing in a vertical tube was carried out. When the mass flux is low and wall heat flux high, it shows that the buoyancy effect is obvious, which might redistribute the radial and axial velocity, even M shaped distribution in the radial direction. When the zero-velocity-gradient region corresponding to the M shaped velocity distribution appears in the edge of viscous layer, the production and diffusion of eddy will be weakened, resulting in heat transfer deterioration. According to the extended simulations based on experimental data, reducing the wall heat flux, adding the mass flux or raising the inlet temperature can relieve the deterioration of heat transfer caused by buoyancy effect.

The effects of in-situ TiB2 particle fabricated from Al-Ti-B system via the self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction technology on microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg-Sn-Zn-Al alloy were investigated. The results indicate that the size of the Mg2Sn and α-Mg+Mg32(Al,Zn)49 phase becomes coarser with the increasing content of Al-Ti-B preform, meanwhile the amount of eutectic α-Mg+Mg32(Al,Zn)49 phase increases too. The addition of Al-Ti-B is favorable toward promoting the strength of composites, but deteriorates elongation. The resulting as-extruded composite material with 4 wt.% Al-Ti-B preform exhibits good overall mechanical properties with an ultimate tensile strength of 291 MPa and an elongation over 2 %.