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Rheological behaviour of the mushy zone is dependent on the microstructure and related to parameters such as temperature, shear rate and shear strain/time. However, constitutive modelling of the rheological behaviour is difficult due to the diversity of the parameters. This study focuses on the influence of the microstructure and the above parameters on the rheological behaviour of partially solidified A356 alloy and establishing a constitutive model accordingly. During solidification, the evolution of α-Al phase leads to the changes of the apparent viscosity of mushy zone. Steady-state viscosity and peak viscosity measured by rotational rheometry reveal the thixotropy of the mushy zone. The thixotropic strength is found to increase with increasing shear rate and decreasing temperature. The peak viscosity, as well as the steady-state viscosity, is found to obey a power law model and is modelled using the power law model with the coupling of temperature and shear rate. Furthermore, a constitutive model with temperature, shear rate, shear tress and shear strain/time as parameters which describes the rheological behaviour of the mushy zone of partially solidified A356 alloy accurately and completely is established. Comparing with previously reported experimental results, the FEM simulation employing the constitutive model works well in enabling visualization of the viscoelastic filling process of A356 alloy in mushy zone. The constitutive model provides a solution for characterizing the forming behaviour of other mushy zone/semi-solid aluminium alloys with corresponding rheological parameters.

The development of multifunctional heterogeneous catalysts with high porosity and remarkable catalytic activity still remains a challenge. Herein, four highly porous metalloporphyrin covalent ionic frameworks (CIFs) were synthesized by coupling 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-nitrophenyl)porphyrin (TNPP) with 3,8-diamino-6-phenylphenanithridine (NPPN) or 5,5'-diamino-2,2'-bipyridine (NBPy) followed by ionization with bromoethane (C2 H5 Br) or dibromoethane (C2 H4 Br2 ) and then metalization with Zn or Co. The resulting CIFs showed high efficiency in catalyzing the cycloaddition of propylene oxide (PO) with CO2 to form propylene carbonate (PC). All of the Zn-containing CIF catalysts were able to catalyze the cycloaddition reaction with a PC yield greater than 97 %. The TNPP/NBPy (CIF2) catalyst ionized with C2 H4 Br2 and metalized with Zn (Zn-CIF2-C2 H4 ) exhibited the highest catalytic activity among the synthesized catalysts. The high catalytic performance of Zn-CIF2-C2 H4 is related to its high porosity (577 m2 g-1 ), high Br:metal ratio (1:3.89), and excellent synergistic action between the Lewis acidic Zn sites and the nucleophilic Br- ions. Zn-CIF2-C2 H4 is sufficiently stable that greater than 94 % PC yield could be obtained even after six cycles. In addition, Zn-CIF2-C2 H4 could catalyze the cycloaddition of several other epoxides with CO2 . These highly porous materials are promising multifunctional and efficient catalysts for industrially relevant reactions.

Optoelectronic tweezers (OET) system is a novel platform, by changing the projection pattern it can achieve the real-time precise control of the micro-objects. Due to its outstanding biocompatibility to cells and other biological materials, such as no damage, less heat generation, no contact and other characteristics, it has attracted wide attention in the field of micro-nano robots and micro-operation. Here we present a low power, high precision operation control method which can achieve a large operating range. Firstly, the properties of dielectrophoresis (DEP) force were calculated by using polarization theory and Maxwell stress tensor (MST) method, and the precise control of the single particle of polystyrene beads was completed by transforming and upgrading the projection light path and observation light path and using visual feedback control method. In addition, a custom-designed pattern scheme was used to achieve the rapid aggregation of polystyrene beads in a short time according to the image model and the classification of different particle sizes. This study provides a very effective technical method for precise single particle operation and large-scale parallel operation at micro-nano scale.

A new kind of grain refiner Al-5Nb-RE-B master alloy with uniform microstructure was prepared by melt reaction method. The effect of Al-5Nb-RE-B inoculation on grain refinement of A356 aluminum alloy was studied. The results show that the Al-5Nb-RE-B master alloy consists of α-Al phase, Al3RE, Nb2Al20RE, and NbB2 phases. When the prepared Al-5Nb-RE-B master alloy was added in an amount of 1.0 wt%, the grain size of the A356 alloy was reduced from 800 μm to 200 μm. Analysis of the A356 alloy solidified at a wide range of cooling rates indicate that 1.0 wt% Al-5Nb-RE-B inoculation exhibits the lowest sensitivity to cooling rate.

Oral submucous fibrosis (OSF) is a chronic, insidious disease. The presence of autoantibodies in sera of OSF patients is the most characteristic and direct evidence of OSF being an autoimmune disease. To identify the specific autoantigens which could contribute to antibody production, the Human Proteome Microarrays composed of 19000 full-length unique proteins were employed. 45 proteins correlated with OSF were identified. To validate these results, we used ELISA to validate 28 OSF-associated autoantigens in extended samples. 8 autoantigens were positive in OSF serum with high frequency compared to the healthy controls. Moreover, the mRNA expression of 8 candidates was up-regulated in OSF oral submucous tissues; among them, the protein level of PTMA, the one with the highest positive frequency, was also increased. Through searching the Bioinformatics Public Database and performing the Spearman's rank correlation analysis, we observed that PTMA was positively correlated with fibrosis-related TGFβ1 and SMAD4, the downstream gene of TGFβ1. In TGFβ1-induced fibrosis model of primary human oral submucous fibroblast, PTMA knockdown reversed TGFβ1-induced fibrosis process through inhibiting the cell viability and proliferation of fibroblast, reducing the protein levels of PTMA, Collagen I, α-SMA and MMP9 and increasing the protein levels of SMAD4. In contrast, PTMA overexpression enhanced TGFβ1-induced fibrosis process. Taken together, PTMA is involved in TGFβ1-induced fibrosis in the primary human submucous fibroblast by regulating the expression of ECM-related markers and the downstream genes of TGFβ1. In conclusion, PTMA presents an essential autoantigen during OSF process; targeting PTMA might be a promising strategy for OSF treatment.

Additional file 7: Supplementary Table 1. The IC50 values and RI values of NSCLC parental cells and CDDP resistant cells for 72 h. Supplementary Table 2 Antibody information. Supplementary Table 3 Primer Sequences

A new construction reaction for the absolute asymmetric synthesis of a sanguinarine derivative was realized by crystal–solution interactions. A stochastic outcome with high enantiomeric excess (ee%) values (up to 100%) was observed under cooling crystallization, while preferential chiral amplification was observed with Viedma ripening.

A comprehensive solid-state screening experiment was performed for icariin (ICA), an active substance in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) which has long been used to treat osteroporosis. Two new polymorphs in their pure forms and ten different solvate modifications were obtained and the single crystal structures were successfully determined. The isostructural phenomenon was readily observed among various organic solvates. Notably, the single crystal structure of the marketed hydrate form H1 was determined for the first time through a single crystal–single crystal transformation (SCSCT) process. The physicochemical properties of various solid forms were further studied. The results show that the newly discovered pure form α presents better thermal stability, lower hygroscopicity and higher solubility compared to the currently marketed form. The superior physicochemical properties render a better drug development ability for this widely applied TCM.

To obtain a homogenous and optimizing microstructure, non-equilibrium directionally solidified (DS) samples at high withdrawal rate were heat treated (HT). The heat treatments were carried out at 1500 °C for 3–100 h. The DS and HT samples consisted of Nb SS , α-Nb 5 Si 3 and γ-Nb 5 Si 3 , and the DS morphology altered significantly after heat treatment. The well developed Nb SS dendrites were compromised and the size decreased from more than 100 μm to less than 60 μm when the heat treated time was 6 h. On the other hand, the Nb SS in eutectic interconnected and meanwhile connected with the dendrites, and the frequency of small size got lower with the heat treated time increasing. When heat treated for 100 h, the size of Nb SS was comparatively uniform and concentrate in the region of 5–20 μm with a value of 63% for Ostwald ripening. The dendric and eutectic morphologies exited in the DS sample disappeared, turning into a net-work structure. The components of primary Nbss dendrites and Nbss in the intercellular regions were homogenized after heat treated for 3 h. However the enrichment of Ti, Cr and Hf in γ-Nb 5 Si 3 compared to α-Nb 5 Si 3 could not be eliminated by homogenizing treatment even for 100 h.

The traditional library can’t provide the service of personalized recommendation for users. This paper used Clementine to solve this problem. Firstly, model of K-means clustering analyze the initial data to delete the redundant data. It can avoid scanning the database repeatedly and producing a large number of false rules. Secondly, the paper used clustering results to perform association rule mining. It can obtain valuable information and achieve the service of intelligent recommendation.

The effects of cooling rate and pouring temperature on microstructure and fracture toughness of the induction melted Nb -16 Si -22 Ti -2 Hf -2 Cr -2 Al alloy were extensively investigated. The results revealed that with the decrease of cooling rates, the Nbss exhibits the dendrite-like morphology, the primary Nb 5 Si 3 blocks form and the mean sizes of Nb 5 Si 3, Nbss and eutectic colonies increase; with the increase of the pouring temperature, the microstructure shows columnar structure and the particles of Nb 5 Si 3 or Nbss become long and thin. Pouring temperature and cooling rate had little influence on the volume fractions of Nbss and Nb 5 Si 3 and their compositions. The Nb 3 Si phase eliminated in the case of high pouring temperature and slow cooling rate. Fracture toughness of the alloy prepared by induction melting is on the order of 13.7 to 15.3 MPa·m1/2. Similar fracture toughness value of each slab may be ascribes to the same volume fraction of the Nbss .