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Previously published meta-epidemiological studies focused on Western medicine have identified some trial characteristics that impact the treatment effect of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Nevertheless, it remains unclear if similar associations exist in RCTs on Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). Further, Chinese medicine-related characteristics have not been explored yet.

Medium-Mn steel (MMnS) is a promising candidate of the third generation of advanced high strength steels (AHSS), which can provide superior tensile properties. To consider the edge crack issues, the local formability, as an indicator of fracture resistance, of the MMnS needs to be quantitatively evaluated for their potential application to industries. Thus, the local formability of two different MMnS is evaluated by the forming limits at fracture using the damage mechanics approaches and compared with a DP1000 steel in this study. Despite the superior tensile properties, the local formability of the investigated MMnS is worse than the DP1000, which is characterized by the fracture strain under different stress states. Therefore, for the assessment of their potential application in automotive industries, it is recommended that more attention should be paid to the local formability and fracture resistance of these advanced high strength steels.

The crystal plasticity (CP) model is widely used in many applications to link microstructure and mechanical properties. There are varying CP constitutive laws with phenomenological or physical-based formulation to cover a large range of loading conditions. In order to predict the deformation behavior of an Al alloy during the sheet metal forming process with either linear or non-linear strain path, both phenomenological and physical-based CP constitutive laws have been chosen, and the prediction performance of both models is compared. For the linear loading condition, the uniaxial tensile tests are performed on the smooth-dog-bone (SDB) specimens along rolling and transverse directions (RD/TD). The non-linear strain path is achieved by the Marciniak testing followed by uniaxial tension. In the first stage, the Marciniak testing is performed under the stress states of RD-uniaxial, plane strain, and biaxial tension. After being loaded to a certain strain level, mini-SDB specimens are cut along RD and TD from the uniform deformation region and reloaded under RD-uniaxial tension. The digital image correlation (DIC) technique is employed to measure the strain during testing. The electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique is used to characterize the initial microstructure as well as the microstructure evolution of the specimens after the first stage loading in the non-linear strain path. A phenomenological power law and a dislocation-density-based hardening law have been employed in this study. The parameters are calibrated based on the flow curve of the RD uniaxial tension. The model performance is validated by stress–strain response under all the rest loading conditions including the non-linear loading path.

Collision avoidance is one of the core problems in designing a multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system. It is to ensure each UAV can reach its target without colliding with any moving or static obstacles. With increasing usage of UAVs in many application areas, research on collision avoidance algorithm has become a hot topic. Several approaches on collision avoidance have been reported. In this paper, we design a three-dimensional collision avoidance on multi-UAV systems based on the original three-dimensional velocity obstacle method.

In order to investigate the in vitrobiocompatibility of a novel polyurethane (PU) membrane modified by incorporation of superfine silk-fibroin powder (SFP), which was prepared for small-diameter vascular grafts, with the cultivation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), PU and SFP were mixed with the ratios of 9:1, 7:3, 5:5, 3:7 (PU:SFP) to make four composite materials. Unmodified PU and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) were added as control groups. CCK-8 assay was used to evaluate the cytotoxicity of these biomaterials. Data were processed using SPSS, and P< 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Adherence and spreading of HUVECs on the surface of specimens was observed using direct contact cultivation. The toxicity ratings of the novel composites were grade 0–1, which is in the acceptable range. In all the experimental groups except control, SFP/PU with ratio of 1:9 had the least cytotoxicity property, and more content of SFP in the composite showed no improvement of the biocompatibility. HUVECs strongly attached to and grew on the surface of the biomaterials, and proliferated rapidly. The proliferation ability increased with increased proportion of SFP; however the cell quantity on the surface of the materials decreased when the proportion of SFP was equal to or larger than that of PU in the composite. It is concluded that this novel material has excellent cellular affinity with no cytotoxicity to HUVECs. Adding SFP gives PU better biocompatibility, while further research on optimum blend ratios is still needed.

AbstractVaccination is the most effective and cost-effective way to treat hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Collective data suggest that helminth infections affect immune responses to some vaccines. Therefore, it is important to reveal the effects of helminth infections on the efficacy of protective vaccines in countries with highly prevalent helminth infections. In the present work, effects of Trichinella spiralisinfection on the protective efficacy of HBV vaccine in a mouse model were investigated. This study demonstrated that the enteric stage of T. spiralisinfection could inhibit the proliferative response of spleen lymphocytes to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and lead to lower levels of anti-HBsAg antibodies, interferon-γ, and interleukin (IL)-2, along with higher levels of IL-4 and IL-5. However, these immunological differences are absent in the muscle stage of T. spiralisinfection. The results suggest that the muscle stage of T. spiralisinfection does not affect the immune response to HBV vaccination, while the enteric-stage infection results in a reduced immune response to HBsAg.

The crystallographic, magnetic and electronic structures of the magnetic shape memory alloys Ni2XIn (X=Mn, Fe and Co) are systematically investigated by means of the ab initio calculations within the framework of density functional theory. The equilibrium lattice parameters and the bulk modulus of the austenitic phase in Ni2XIn are systematically calculated. The formation energy of the L21 phase of the Ni2XIn is estimated, and displays a destabilization tendency if Mn atom is substituted by Fe or Co. Furthermore, the magnetic properties of the Ni2XIn have been investigated, and the essence of the variation in the magnetic properties with the X atomic number has been illustrated from the view of the electronic density of states.

Machine learning is a kind of reliable technology for automated subcellular localization of viral proteins within a host cell or virus-infected cell. One challenge is that the viral protein samples are not only with multiple location sites, but also class-imbalanced. The imbalanced dataset often decreases the prediction performance. In order to accomplish this challenge, this paper proposes a novel approach named imbalance-weighted multi-label K-nearest neighbor to predict viral protein subcellular location with multiple sites. The experimental results by jackknife test indicate that the presented algorithm achieves a better performance than the existing methods and has great potentials in protein science.

Selenium inserts into the zinc carbon bond of aryl zinc halides to form the corresponding zinc selenoates; these react in THF-HMPA with diaryliodonium salts to afford unsymmetrical diaryl selenides in good yields.

The Pd‐catalyzed coupling of a wide range of aryl halides with alkenes proceeds smoothly in the presence of Bu4NBr.

The Heck cross‐coupling reaction between aryl halides and alkenes is improved by PdCl2combined with Bu4NF (TBAF) under solvent‐free conditions.

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A traditional assumption is that schistosome cercariae lose their tails at the onset of penetration. It has, however, recently been demonstrated that, for Schistosoma mansoni, cercarial tails were not invariably being shed as penetration took place and a high proportion of tails entered human skin under experimental conditions. This phenomenon was termed delayed tail loss (DTL). In this paper, we report that DTL also happens with S. japonicum cercariae during penetration of mouse skin. It occurred at all cercarial densities tested, from as few as 10 cercariae/2·25 cm2 of mouse skin up to 200 cercariae. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that there was a density-dependent increase in DTL as cercarial densities increased. No such density-dependent enhancement was shown for percentage attachment over the same cercarial density range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]