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A considerable chunk of population in China live in rural areas. To create a suitable living environment in winter, many of them resort to additional solar house to improve the indoor thermal environment. Most of the previous studies focus on how the additional solar house changes the environment, but few try to optimize the size of that house. Therefore, this paper carries out field measurement and numerical simulation to evaluate the indoor thermal environment of a traditional building of Danihe Village, an important residential settlement in Xi’an, northwestern China’s Shaanxi Province, and explores the most suitable size of the additional solar house for improving the indoor thermal environment of the building in winter. The results show that the width of the additional solar house should be controlled within the range of 600–2400 mm, which provides the residents indoor with the best thermal environment. The research results offer a guide for improving indoor thermal environment and reducing indoor energy cost in future.

Apples (cv. Golden Delicious) were used as the materials to investigate methyl jasmonate (MeJA) dipping on quality parameters, organic acids metabolism and GABA shunt during storage at 21 ± 1 °C and 75 ± 5 % relative humidity. Results demonstrated that MeJA treatment reduced mass loss, respiratory intensity and ethylene release, and maintained higher flesh firmness and soluble solid content of apples. MeJA also decreased malic acid content, increased succinic and tartaric acids contents, and inhibited cytoplasmic aconitase (Cyt-ACO), NADP-malate (NADP-ME), phosphoenolpyruvate dehydrogenase (PEPC), mitochondrial citrate synthase (Mit-CS), glutamate dehydrogenase (GAD), and GABA transferase (GABA-T) activities in apples. NADP-isocitrate dehydrogenase (NADP-IDH), mitochondrial cis-aconitase (Mit-ACO), and cytoplasmic NAD-malate dehydrogenase (CytNAD-MDH) activities in apples were also enhanced by MeJA dipping. Moreover, MeJA dipping enhanced MdCytNAD-MDH and MdNADP-IDH expressions, and down-regulated MdGAD, MdGABA-T, MdNADP-ME, MdPEPC, MdCyt-ACO and MdMit-CS expressions in apples. These results suggest that MeJA dipping can maintain storage quality of "Golden Delicious" apples by regulating organic acids metabolism and GABA shunt.

Background Platelet activation is implicated in secondary brain injury following traumatic brain injury (TBI). C-type lectin-like receptor 2 (CLEC-2) is extensively expressed on platelets and participates in platelet activation. We investigate dthe prognostic significance of plasma CLEC-2 in TBI patients. Methods One hundred and six patients with isolated severe blunt TBI and 106 healthy controls were prospectively investigated. Plasma CLEC-2 concentrations were detected and Glasgow coma scale (GCS) scores were recorded. The relationship between plasma CLEC-2 concentrations and 30-day mortality in addition to overall survival was determined using multivariate models. Results Patients exhibited a substantially higher concentration of plasma CLEC-2 than healthy controls. Among patients, plasma CLEC-2 concentrations were remarkably increased in the GCS scores- and Rotterdam computerized tomography classification- dependent manner. As compared with survivors within posttraumatic 30 days, plasma CLEC-2 concentrations were remarkably raised in non-survivors. Rising plasma CLEC-2 concentration was independently associated with an enhanced risk of 30-day mortality and short overall survival time. Plasma CLEC-2 concentrations had a significantly high area under receiver operating characteristic curve for predicting 30-day mortality. Conclusions Incremental plasma CLEC-2 concentrations are intimately related to increasing trauma severity, in close association with increased 30-day death, indicating the prognostic role of plasma CLEC-2 in TBI.

In this paper, we explore the effect of aspiration on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial multigame. In detail, the whole populations were classified into two types. For players of type A, they play prisoner’s dilemma game, and for players of type B, they play snowdrift game. Once someone who are unsatisfied his performance, he is going to another type, otherwise, he will keep his current type constant. Through numerical simulation, we find that cooperation can be enhanced and even dominate the whole networks for moderate aspiration level. Besides, when the aspiration level is too large, cooperation level would be restrained. For these observations, we give an explanation from the points of evolutionary snapshots.

Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine-like 1 (SPARCL1) regulates synaptic stability with upregulation throughout axonal regeneration. Our study aims to determine the correlation of serum SPARCL1 concentrations with the severity and in-hospital mortality of severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI).A total of 102 consecutively recruited patients admitted for sTBI and 102 randomly selected healthy controls were included in this observational prospective study. Serum SPARCL1 concentrations were measured and correlated with Glasgow coma scale (GCS) scores and in-hospital mortality using multivariate analysis.Compared with controls (median, 0.22 ng/ml; interquartile range, 0.19-0.41 ng/ml), patients had significantly higher SPARCL1 concentrations (median, 3.29 ng/ml; interquartile range, 1.88-4.37; P 0.001). There was an independently correlation between SPARCL1 concentrations and GCS scores (t = -7.011, P 0.001). We found a high area under receiver operating curve (AUC) of serum SPARCL1 concentrations to predict in-hospital mortality (AUC, 0.822; 95% confidence interval, 0.734-0.891). In the multiple logistic regression analysis, serum SPARCL1 concentrations3.29 ng/ml was independently associated with in-hospital mortality (odds ratio = 10.052, 95% confidence interval = 1.918-52.686, P = 0.006).The novel findings of our study are that sTBI patients had an increase of serum SPARCL1 concentrations, and that there is an association between high serum SPARCL1 concentrations and sTBI mortality or trauma severity.

This study was conducted to explore the changes of quality indicators and ascorbate-glutathione (AsA-GSH) cycle in 'Docteur Jules Guyot' pears after acibenzolar-S-methyl (ASM) dipping. Results demonstrated that ASM delayed the yellowing and flesh firmness decline, decreased the ethylene release and titratable acidity, and increased soluble solid content in pears. Additionally, ASM enhanced the hydrogen peroxide, ascorbic acid, and reduced glutathione contents, improved the activities of ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, monodehydroascorbate reductase, and dehydroascorbate reductase in the exocarp and mesocarp of pears. However, enzymes activities and hydrogen peroxide content in the exocarp were higher than that in the mesocarp after dipping with ASM. These results suggest that postharvest application of ASM could modulate the AsA-GSH cycle to delay senescence of pears, and the exocarp responded more rapidly than the mesocarp.

High internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) have recently been investigated for applications in food areas: plant proteins, polysaccharides, and commercial surfactants have been used as emulsifiers, but meat proteins have rarely been reported as emulsifiers for HIPEs. In this report, we describe an outstanding HIPE stabilized solely by meat protein particles. The natural stabilizer was prepared by a one-pot centrifugation process (3000×g, 20 min), and the HIPEs were fabricated by a simple one-pot homogenization process (5000 rpm/min, 1 min). The meat proteins could form homogeneous and stable HIPEs in the continuous phase over a wide pH range of 3–11. In this state, the HIPEs exhibited excellent stability in three conditions: heat, freeze-thaw, and storage (60 days). Interestingly, these natural stabilizers were also perfect combinations of soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, and n-hexane, and they exhibit the potential to act as nutrition delivery systems, animal fat replacements, partially hydrogenated oils, and other functional materials.

Adiponectin plays an important role in the regulation of tissue inflammation. There is a paucity of data on circulating plasma adiponectin concentrations in human traumatic brain injury. This study is designed to investigate the potential associations between plasma adiponectin levels and clinical outcomes after traumatic brain injury.Plasma adiponectin levels of 86 patients with severe traumatic brain injury and 86 healthy subjects were determined. Clinical outcomes included in-hospital mortality, 6-month mortality and 6-month unfavorable outcome (Glasgow Outcome Scale score of 1-3).Plasma adiponectin levels were significantly higher in patients compared to controls (20.5±5.9 vs. 7.7±2.0μg/ml; P0.001) and emerged as an independent predictor of in-hospital mortality [odds ratio (OR), 1.318; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.049-1.629; P=0.008], 6-month mortality (OR, 1.328; 95% CI, 1.082-1.657; P=0.007) and 6-month unfavorable outcome (OR, 1.240; 95% CI, 1.066-1.443; P=0.005) in a multivariate analysis. For predicting these clinical outcomes, areas under receiver operating characteristic curve of plasma adiponectin level were similar to those of Glasgow Coma scale scores (all P0.05). However, adiponectin did not improve predictive values of Glasgow Coma scale scores (all P0.05).Plasma adiponectin level may represent a novel biomarker for predicting clinical outcomes of traumatic brain injury.

A mathematical model for the estimation of oxygen-ion conductivity of doped ZrO2 and CeO2 electrolytes was established based on the assumptions that the electronic conduction and defect association can be neglected. A linear regression method was employed to determine the parameters in the model. This model was confirmed by the published conductivity data of the doped ZrO2 and CeO2 electrolytes. In addition, a series of compositions in Ce0.8Gd02-xMxO1.9-δ system (M) is the co-dopant) was prepared, their high temperature conductivity were measured. The model was further validated by the measured conductivity data.