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Typically, through monitoring, collecting, integrating, and analyzing the sport scores of individuals, we can know about the sport physique of the individuals in a real-time manner, so as to further guarantee a high-quality health level of people. However, in the abovementioned sport scores-based sport physique monitoring scenario, two major challenges are raised. First, the collected sport scores for sport physique monitoring are often multi-dimensional, which makes it hard to evaluate the sport physique of individuals fairly and reasonably. Moreover, the multiple dimensions of sport scores are often of different weights or significances, which raise a challenging task to objectively evaluate the sport physique of an individual. Considering these challenges, a novel multi-dimensional sport physique evaluation and ranking method, named MSPER, is proposed in this research work for better healthcare for individuals, which is based on the TOPSIS theory. At last, a case study is presented to show the concrete procedure of MSPER method.

Sports matches are very popular all over the world. The prediction of a sports match is helpful to grasp the team's state in time and adjust the strategy in the process of the match. It's a challenging effort to predict the sports match. Therefore, a method is proposed to predict the result of the next match by using teams' historical match data. We combined the long short-term memory (LSTM) model with the attention mechanism and put forward an AS-LSTM model for predicting match results. Furthermore, to ensure the timeliness of the prediction, we add the time sliding window to make the prediction have better timeliness. Taking the football match as an example, we carried out a case study and proposed the feasibility of this method.

Clinically, the in-hospital mortality rate of cardiogenic shock (CS) is approximately 50%. In CS, metabolic pathways in the body undergo “embryonal transformation,” in which metabolic processes transform free fatty acids (FFAs) to glucose. Shenfu injection (SFI) treatment has exhibited a positive effect on cardiogenic shock, and ginsenoside Rg5 (G-Rg5) is the anticardiogenic shock component of SFI. In this study, we aimed to investigate the myocardial protective effect and mechanism of G-Rg5 in myocardial energy metabolism, especially from the perspective of FFA β-oxidation, one of the most crucial lipid metabolism pathways. Cardiomyocytes were exposed to hypoxia-reoxygenation (H/R) and treated with G-Rg5. MTT analysis was used to determine the viability of H9c2 cardiomyocytes under different interventions with G-Rg5. The levels of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and FFA were detected using ELISA, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) was determined using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Furthermore, the expression of NR4A1 was determined by RT-qPCR, and the levels of AMPKα, p-AMPKα, and GPX4 were detected by western blotting to explore the underlying mechanism. We observed that G-Rg5-protected H9c2 cardiomyocytes exhibited better FFA β-oxidation regulation, thereby producing an increased abundance of ATP. G-Rg5 may correct FFA β-oxidation by regulating the levels of NR4A1, AMPKα, p-AMPKα, and GPX4. Therefore, G-Rg5 is a promising drug for CS treatment.

In this brief, a novel compact single circular patch dual-band (DB) filtering power divider (FPD) is proposed for the first time. In this design, the modified TM01 resonance mode (i.e., TM01’ mode) is developed by introducing a metallic via in the center of the patch, while four additional same metallic vias are placed in the patch to control the generated TM01’ mode and the TM21 mode. In addition, vertical slot perturbations are investigated to control the TM11 mode and the TM31 mode, while the transversal slot perturbation loaded with three resistors is exploited to achieve good isolation. In this context, with elaborate exploitation of these resonant modes, two passbands can be attained, correspondingly. The lower passband is formed by TM01’ and TM11 modes, while the upper passband is constituted by TM21 and TM31 modes, respectively. For validation, a prototype is implemented. Results exhibit relative compact size, wider bandwidths, nice return losses, as well as decent isolation.

The gradual prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless communication technologies has enabled the wide adoption of various smart devices (e.g., smart watches) in provisioning the healthcare services to massive users. Besides monitoring the real-time health signals or conditions of users, smart devices can also record a series of sport-related user information such as user location information at a certain time point. The location sequence information is valuable to cluster the users who share the similar sport preferences or habits and therefore, is also playing a key role in providing wireless healthcare services to these users. However, the user location information is often sensitive to certain wireless users as they decline to reveal their daily sport behavior patterns to others. In this situation, a natural challenge is raised in securing the sensitive user location information while mining the users’ daily sport behavior patterns and provisioning better healthcare services to the users. Considering this challenge, we take advantage of the well-known SimHash technique to protect users’ location privacy while clustering the users who share similar sport preferences or habits for better healthcare services. At last, we validate the feasibility of the proposal through a set of simulated experiments conducted on a real-world dataset. Reported results demonstrate that our solution performs better than the other two competitive ones while securing user location information.

Currently, the government proposes various public sports resource allocation strategies to promote the construction of public sports in the local. Thus, searching for the document database becomes an economic and efficient way for government officials to understand the contents of various public sports resource allocation strategies. As the government officials lack background knowledge of public sports resource allocation, the government officials are hard to retrieve appropriate documents. What’s more, the document database is generally unwilling to share all text document information with the government official as some documents contain sensitive data information. Considering the above drawbacks, we put forward a fuzzy keywords-driven public sports resource allocation strategies retrieval approach based on the Simhash (named $PSRAS_{\mathrm {k}+\mathrm {S}}$ ) in the paper. The retrieval approach can accurately recommend appropriate documents to the government officials, by using the text description mining of documents and the fuzzy keywords search technology. Furthermore, the retrieval process is not revealing the sensitive data information of the irrelevant public sports resource allocation strategy document to the government officials, so the retrieval process can achieve local information protection mechanism. Finally, a case study explains the feasibility and effectiveness of our retrieval approach step by step.

Constitution refers to the comprehensive and relatively stable characteristics of the genetic or acquired morphological structure, physiological function, and psychological state in the process of human individual life. A special metabolomics data processing method is established to find the unique m/z value of each constitution. Combined with the random forest decision tree algorithm, the discrimination model of 9 constitutions in traditional Chinese medicine is constructed, and the model is verified and tested. The test results show that the classification accuracy of each constitution is higher than 80%, indicating that the model can well identify nine constitutions of traditional Chinese medicine. The classification accuracy is related to the difficulty of distinguishing between constitutions. In a word, this study provides a fast and accurate method to distinguish the constitution of traditional Chinese medicine, provides an objective representation for the classification and judgment of clinical constitution of traditional Chinese medicine, and provides a scientific basis for the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine.

This Letter presents a new design of balanced-to-unbalanced (B2U) filtering magic-T based on circular patch resonator. Without additional circuit, the prescribed in-phase and out-of-phase specifications of the magic-T are achieved by elaborately studying and exploring the electric field distributions of the degenerate resonant modes in the circular patch resonators. Meanwhile, the desired filtering responses are attained by virtue of the coupling extent between the two designed patch resonators in the back-to-back form. In the proposed design, a pair of TM 11 modes at first make up passband. Meanwhile, nice common-mode suppression can be achieved at the balanced ports, and high isolation is achieved at the single-end ports, respectively. For demonstration, a prototype B2U filtering magic-T working at 4.3 GHz with 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 16.3% is implemented. Measured results coincide well with simulated ones, verifying the proposed design concept.

Huang-Lian Jie-Du decoction (HLJDD) has been used to treat cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease for many years in China. Currently, the determination of effect components in HLJDD is focusing either on the formula or on the extract, while quantification of that in biological samples is scarce, especially simultaneous determination of multicomponent. In this paper, a rapid, specific, and sensitive ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed and fully validated for the simultaneous determination of seven main active constituents, i.e., baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside, wogonin, berberine, palmatine, jatrorrhizine in rat plasma. The method was also successfully applied to a quantitative study after oral administration of HLJDD at different doses of 1.5, 3, and 6 g/kg body weight to high fat-induced atherosclerosis rats. The analytes were detected by ESI source and multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) using positive scanning mode. The blood was collected from the abdominal aorta of rats at predetermined time and preprepared with icariin and tetrahydropalmatine as internal standards (IS). Sample preparation was achieved by protein precipitation (PPT). The validation parameters (linearity, sensitivity, intra-/interday precision and accuracy, extraction recovery, and matrix effect) were within acceptable ranges, and biological extracts were stable during the entire storing and preparing process. And the result of determination of HLJDD-containing plasma, baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside, and wogonin could be highly detected in a dose-dependent manner while berberine, jatrorrhizine, and palmatine were determined in a very low level and in a dose-independent mode. Thus, the established method was sensitive enough and successfully applied to the determination of seven effective components in plasma taken from 24 high fat-induced atherosclerosis rats after oral administration of three dosages of HLJDD.

Shenling Baizhu San, a traditional formula, has a long history of treating spleen asthenic diarrhea by invigorating the spleen and dispelling dampness in China. A rapid and accurate UHPLC-MS/MS method was developed and fully validated for the simultaneous determination of ten active constituents in rat plasma: panaxadiol, ginsenoside Rg1, atractylenolide I, atractylenolide III, pachymic acid, neferine, nuciferine, diosgenin, platycodin D, and isoliquiritigenin. The plasma samples were pretreated by the protein precipitation method with acetonitrile. The analytes and puerarin (internal standard) were determined with high selectivity and sensitivity (LLOQ, 0.31–0.68 ng·mL−1) within 10 minutes. The validation parameters, including intra-/interday precisions, accuracy, recovery, matrix effect, and stability, were within acceptable ranges. The validated method was successfully applied to the pharmacokinetics study of ten components in normal and two rat models of ulcerative colitis (i.e., spleen deficiency with dampness retention-ulcerative colitis (SDDR-UC) rats and pure-ulcerative colitis (P-UC) rats). The pharmacokinetic parameters were significantly different among the three groups of rats. Overall, the absorption of the components was shown as follows: normal group > SDDR-UC group > P-UC group. The study could provide a scientific basis for further studies on pharmacokinetics and clinical differential application of SDDR-UC and P-UC patients.

Gegen Qinlian decoction (GGQLD) has a definite effect on T2DM in clinic, and it has the effect of lowering blood sugar, improving insulin resistance, and improving the blood lipid level of rats with dyslipidemia, but the intervention mechanism of GGQLD on dyslipidemia has not been clarified. The changes in endogenous metabolites in the plasma of high-fat diet-induced dyslipidemia rats treated with Ge Gen Qin Lian Decoction (GGQLD) were studied to elucidate the therapeutic effects and mechanism of action of GGQLD in dyslipidemia. Based on ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS), the metabolic profiles of rat serum samples were collected. The rat model of dyslipidemia was induced by a 60% fat-fed high-fat diet. After feeding the rats with a high-fat diet for 4 weeks, dyslipidemia appeared. After 5 weeks of GGQLD (14.85 g kg−1) administration, the metabonomics of rats’ plasma samples in the normal group, model group, and administration group were analyzed. Mass profiler professional (MPP), SIMCA-P 14.1, and Graphpad prism 6.0 software were used combined with METLIN biological database and human metabolite database HMDB to screen and identify endogenous biomarkers. Metaboanalyst 4.0 software was used by combining with HMDB and KEGG databases; the enrichment and metabolic pathway of biomarkers were analyzed to explore the metabolic mechanism of dyslipidemia rats induced by high-fat diet and the intervention mechanism of Gegen Qinlian decoction. After 5 weeks of administration of GGQLD, the levels of serum TC and TG were significantly decreased ( P < 0.05 , P < 0.01 ), while HDL-C and LDL-C were not significantly affected. After administration, the food intake of rats in the administration group decreased gradually, and the change trend of body weight gradually slowed down. The metabonomics of rat plasma samples results showed that 23 potential biomarkers including α-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, and lysophosphatidylcholine were significantly changed in positive ion mode. Studies have shown that GGQLD has a significant lipid-lowering effect on dyslipidemia rats induced by a high-fat diet, and its preventive mechanism is related to tryptophan metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, α-linolenic acid metabolism, arachidonic acid, and glycerophosphatidyl metabolism pathway.

Background: Gegen Qinlian decoction(GGQLD) has a definite effect on T2DM in clinic, and it has the effect of lowering blood sugar, improving insulin resistance, and improve the blood lipid level of rats with dyslipidemia, but the intervention mechanism of GGQLD on dyslipidemia has not been clarified. Methods: Based on ultra high performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS), the metabolic profiles of rat serum samples were collected. The rat model of dyslipidemia was induced by 60% fat-fed high-fat diet. After feeding the rats with high-fat diet for 4 weeks, the dyslipidemia appeared. After 5 weeks of GGQLD(14.85g•kg-1) administration, the metabonomics of rats plasma samples in normal group, model group and administration group were analyzed. Mass profiler professional (MPP), SIMCA-P 14.1 and Graphpad prism 6.0 software were used combined with METLIN biological database and human metabolite database HMDB to screen and identify endogenous biomarkers. Metaboanalyst 4.0 software was used by combining with HMDB and KEGG databases, the enrichment and metabolic pathway of biomarkers were analyzed to explore the metabolic mechanism of dyslipidemia rats induced by high-fat diet and the intervention mechanism of Gegen Qinlian decoction.Results: After 5 weeks of administration of GGQLD, the levels of serum TC and TG were significantly decreased (P < 0.05, P < 0.01), while HDL-C and LDL-C were not significantly affected. After administration, the food intake of rats in administration group decreased gradually, and the change trend of body weight gradually slowed down. The metabonomics of rat plasma samples results showed that 23 potential biomarkers including α - linolenic acid, arachidonic acid and lysophosphatidylcholine were significantly changed in positive ion mode.Conclusion: Studies have shown that GGQLD has significant lipid-lowering effect on dyslipidemia rats induced by high-fat diet, and its preventive mechanism is related to tryptophan metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, α - linolenic acid metabolism, arachidonic acid, glycerophosphatidyl metabolism pathway.

This study developed a facile approach for the fabrication of dual MgO-loaded carbon foam (DMCF) via carbonization of a cured MgO/cyanate ester resin mixture, which underwent self-foaming of the resin followed by the carbothermal reduction of MgO. The features of the prepared DMCF prepared were characterized by FESEM, TEM, XRD, FTIR, XPS and so on, and the effects of adsorption conditions, adsorption isotherms, kinetics, and thermodynamics on malachite green (MG) removal using the DMCF as adsorbents were investigated through batch adsorption experiments. Results demonstrate that the DMCF possesses a unique dual loading of MgO particles which are not only loaded onto its foam walls but also filled within the walls with a graphene-wrapped core-shell structure. The experimental maximum adsorption capacity of MG reaches up to 1874.18 mg/g with a partition coefficient of 10.87 mg/g/μM. The adsorption process can be better described with Langmuir, pseudo-second-order, and intraparticle diffusion models. Moreover, the DMCF exhibits a removal percentage of 84.85% after five reuses, indicating that it is an efficient and promising adsorbent for MG adsorption.

This work developed novel surface-modified carbon foams (SMCFs) with high heteroatom contents and a certain amount of iron oxide particles via the carbothermal reduction reaction between iron oxide and the cyanate resin-based carbon foam. The effects of carbothermal reduction of iron oxide on microstructures and electrochemical properties of the carbon foams have been studied systematically using TG, XRD, FESEM, BET, and XPS. Results show that the carbothermal reduction greatly influences the microstructures of carbon foams when the temperature is higher than 600 °C. The generated iron oxide particles were embedded into the surface of carbon foams. With the increase of temperature, the surface became porous and rough with a certain graphitic structure. When the temperature arrives at 1000 °C, the as-prepared SMCF-1000 has a highest specific capacitance of 212.42 F g−1 at 1 A g−1, and the specific capacitance maintains 107% of the initial value after 10,000 charge-discharge cycles. In addition, the SMCF-1000 exhibits a maximum compressive strength of 2.52 MPa, which is expected to be a novel three-dimensional self-supporting electrode material.

A novel method was developed for production of carbon foam with two-level cell structure, which possesses two kinds of cell sizes of about 1 μm and 300 μm. Results show a carbothermal reduction occurs between the pore wall of first-level foam and the nano-MgO at high temperatures, which results in further bubbling and forming the second-level foam. The carbon foam prepared exhibits a characteristic of pseudoplastic deformation with a relatively compressive strength of 1.72 MPa, and possesses a low bulk density of 0.11 g/cm3 and a high porosity of 94.2%.

With the adoption of RFID in library, many technical and management problems occur, such as the unmet needs of library due to insufficient RFID device function, the standards to be unified, the invasion of privacy, the lack of supervision on book damage and the mis-shelving. This paper puts forward new methods to promote the application of RFID in library based on the analysis of the management service mode of library.

A stiff zinc oxide/carbon foam (ZnO/CF) composite as a desirable adsorbent for heavy metal ions was innovatively designed and fabricated by loading ZnO particles into a carbon foam with capsule-like second-level macropores. The features of the resulting composite were characterized by FESEM, XRD, BET, FTIR, and XPS. The effects of adsorption parameters on the Pb(II), Cr(III), and Cu(II) ions removal were studied through batch experiments. Results show that the ZnO/CF composite possesses a second-level macroporous structure filled ZnO particles, which has both mesoporous structure and Zn–O–C bond with the strongly synergistic effect. And meanwhile, it has a relatively high compression strength of 2.18 MPa at a density of 0.18 g cm−3. The experimental maximum adsorption capacities for Pb(II), Cr(III), and Cu(II) ions reach 170.85 mg g−1, 168.74 mg g−1, and 104.61 mg g−1 with relatively high partition coefficients of 5.803 mg g−1 μM−1, 1.169 mg g−1 μM−1, and 0.648 mg g−1 μM−1, respectively. The experimental data are in accordance with Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Moreover, the composite still exhibits a good adsorption performance even after five cycles.

A novel hierarchical stiff carbon foam (HSCF) was successfully prepared via a carbothermal reduction between the carbon foam with two-level pore structure and the Al2O3 from aluminum sulfate, and used as a bulk adsorbent for removing malachite green (MG) dye. The structures of the HSCF were characterized using SEM, XRD, FTIR, BET, and XPS, and the effects of adsorption condition on the MG removal were studied through batch adsorption experiments. Results show that large-sized and complex-shaped HSCF can be easily fabricated with a high compression strength of 1.58 MPa at a low bulk density (0.10 g cm−3). The HSCF possesses a fluffy graphene-like nanosheet surface with a mesoporous structure and meanwhile exhibits good hydrophilicity loaded with aluminum hydroxide. The experimental maximum adsorption capacity for MG reaches 425.2 mg g−1 with a relatively high partition coefficient of 9.38 mg g−1 μM−1 at the optimal condition. The experimental data are in good agreement with Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and meanwhile, the adsorption of MG onto the HSCF is a spontaneous and endothermic process. Also, the HSCF still exhibits good adsorption ability and stability after seven regeneration cycles.

Decoction is one of the oldest forms of traditional Chinese medicine and it is widely used in clinical practice. However, the quality evaluation and control of traditional decoction is a challenge due to the characteristics of complicated constituents, water as solvent, and temporary preparation. ShenFu Prescription Decoction (SFPD) is a classical prescription for preventing and treating many types of cardiovascular disease. In this article, a comprehensive and rapid method for quality evaluation and control of SFPD was developed, via qualitative and quantitative analysis of the major components by integrating ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography equipped with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and ultra-fast-performance liquid chromatography equipped with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry. Consequently, a total of 39 constituents were tentatively identified in qualitative analysis, of which 21 compounds were unambiguously confirmed by comparing with reference substances. We determined 13 important constituents within 7 min by multiple reaction monitoring. The validated method was applied for determining five different proportion SFPDs. It was found that different proportions generated great influence on the dissolution of constituents. This may be one of the mechanisms for which different proportions play different synergistic effects. Therefore, the developed method is a fast and useful approach for quality evaluation of SFPD.

With the advantages of unicellular eukaryotic structure and easy manipulation, yeast becomes a popular tool for biochemical, genetic and medicinal studies. In order to construct an efficient anti-inflammatory drug screening platform, we engineered yeast as a double-molecule carrier, of which an inserted domain (I domain) of lymphocyte function-associated antigen 1 was displayed on yeast surface and a green fluorescent protein (GFP) was expressed inside cytosol. The I domain specifically targeted a surface marker of mammalian cells, intercellular adhesion molecule 1, whose number is correlated with the level of cellular inflammation. Examination of GFP intensity enables swift quantification of the yeast-mammalian cell binding and thus it reflects inflammatory potency, herein the inflammatory index, of a chemical imposed to cells. The inflammatory potency of a total of 1340 chemicals was indexed. Among them, 1 inflammation-inducing and 1 inflammation-reducing compounds were verified both in vitro and in vivo. Our method demonstrated a swift, facile and high-throughput screening platform at the protein level for inflammation and related diseases drug discovery without using sophisticated instruments.

Ganoderma lucidum is a legendary Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) over a few thousands of years and one kind of its major active components are Ganoderic acids (GAs). GAs are largely produced in the mushroom primordium and fruiting body but much less in mycelium stage. However, little is known on the underlying regulatory mechanism. As a saprophytic fungus, G. lucidum solely obtains nutrients by wood decaying. Wood in general contains sophisticated chemical components with diverse structural units. To explore a strategy that extensively leads to GAs induction in the submerged liquid fermentation, all chemical components that might be possibly from the wood decaying were tested individually as GAs inducers. It was found that GAs production increased 85.96% by 1.5% microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and 63.90% by 0.5% D-galactose. The transcription level of a few rate-limiting or chemically diverting enzymes responsible for GAs biosynthesis was greatly induced by MCC and D-galactose. The concentration and time-course titration study indicated that these two chemicals might not be utilized as carbon sources but they played a comprehensive role in the secondary metabolites synthesis. Our data indicated that MCC and D-galactose might be further industrialized for higher GAs production in G. lucidum in submerged fermentation.

Background: Anemone flaccida Fr. Shmidt (Ranunculaceae), commonly known as ‘Di Wu’ in China, is a perennial herb with limited distribution. The rhizome of A. flaccida has long been used to treat arthritis as a tradition in China. Studies disclosed that the plant contains a rich source of triterpenoid saponins. However, little is known about triterpenoid saponins biosynthesis in A. flaccida. Results: In this study, we conducted the tandem transcriptome and proteome profiling of a non-model medicinal plant, A. flaccida. Using Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencing and iTRAQ technique, a total of 46,962 high-quality unigenes were obtained with an average sequence length of 1,310 bp, along with 1473 unique proteins from A. flaccida. Among the A. flaccida transcripts, 36,617 (77.97%) showed significant similarity (E-value < 1e-5) to the known proteins in the public database. Of the total 46,962 unigenes, 36,617 open reading frame (ORFs) were predicted. By the fragments per kilobases per million reads (FPKM) statistics, 14,004 isoforms/unigenes were found to be upregulated, and 14,090 isoforms/unigenes were down-regulated in the rhizomes as compared to those in the leaves. Based on the bioinformatics analysis, all possible enzymes involved in the triterpenoid saponins biosynthetic pathway of A. flaccida were identified, including cytosolic mevalonate pathway (MVA) and the plastidial methylerythritol pathway (MEP). Additionally, a total of 126 putative cytochrome P450 (CYP450) and 32 putative UDP glycosyltransferases were selected as the candidates of triterpenoid saponins modifiers. Among them, four of them were annotated as the gene of CYP716A subfamily, the key enzyme in the oleanane-type triterpenoid saponins biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, based on RNA-Seq and proteome analysis, as well as quantitative RT-PCR verification, the expression level of gene and protein committed to triterpenoids biosynthesis in the leaf versus the rhizome was compared. Conclusion: A combination of the de novo transcriptome and proteome profiling based on the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencing platform and iTRAQ technique was shown to be a powerful method for the discovery of candidate genes, which encoded enzymes that were responsible for the biosynthesis of novel secondary metabolites in a non-model plant. The transcriptome data of our study provides a very important resource for the understanding of the triterpenoid saponins biosynthesis of A. flaccida.

Atractylodes lancea (Thunb.) DC., named "Cangzhu" in China, which belongs to the Asteraceae family. In some countries of Southeast Asia (China, Thailand, Korea, Japan etc.) its rhizome, commonly called rhizoma atractylodis, is used to treat many diseases as it contains a variety of sesquiterpenoids and other components of medicinal importance. Despite its medicinal value, the information of the sesquiterpenoid biosynthesis is largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the transcriptome analysis of different tissues of non-model plant A. lancea by using short read sequencing technology (Illumina). We found 62,352 high quality unigenes with an average sequence length of 913 bp in the transcripts of A. Lancea. Among these, 43,049 (69.04%), 30,264 (48.53%), 26,233 (42.07%), 17,881 (28.67%) and 29,057(46.60%) unigenes showed significant similarity (E-value

For developing a new aluminum brazing flux, the liquidus in the ternary system AlF3–KF–CsF was determined by DTA and visual polythermal methods. The results indicated that the region around E4 (located in AlF3 43 mol%, CsF 18 mol%, KF 39 mol%) and E5 (AlF3 45 mol%, CsF 18 mol%, KF 37 mol%), at which the melting temperatures are lower than 500°C, appears to be the best compositions for using as a modified Nocolok flux. The lower temperature region near CsAlF4 may be another candidate composition.

Questioning or being questioned is a necessity in communicative activities. The tag question plays an important role in everyday communication. In the tag mechanism of those questions, the tags are not formed in accordance with the general forming rules. So, learners often commit errors. This paper studies the types and causes of errors of the tag question. By analyzing these error sources, the learner can avoid and benefit from errors. Thus, they can understand tag questions better.

The letter “A” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, has rich symbolic meanings. This paper intends to reveal the mysterious mechanism working behind the development of the different symbolic meanings of “A” on Hester’s. In other words, this paper intends to explore the mastery of how the letter “A” acquires different symbolic meanings by applying a cognitive approach. From the perspective of category, the letter “A” carried by Hester undergoes an evolution from the derogatory category Adultery to the transitional category such as Agony, and then to the final commendatory category such as Angel. During the process of evolution, the symbolic meaning of “A” changes from Adultery to Alone, Agony to Art, Amazon, Able, Admirable, and Angel. Two linguistic theories are required to reveal the semantic evolution of the letter “A”, that is, the prototype theory and the conceptual blending theory. There are two major factors contributing to the semantic evolution of “A”, one is the characteristics of the letter “A” itself, the other is Hester herself.

The system KF–AlF3 was reinvestigated precisely by differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffractometry, and visual observation. All of the samples for the present investigation were prepared by solution synthesis. The results verified the existence of 2KF·AlF3 (K2AlF5) and KF·4AlF3 in the phase diagram; both compounds were orthorhombic. The cell parameters of the compounds were, respectively, a= 10.87 ± 0.03 A, b= 10.36 ± 0.01 A, c= 7.83 ± 0.03 A, and a= 7.89 ± 0.01 A, b= 7.57 ± 0.01 A, c= 6.94 ± 0.01 A. KAlF4 was confirmed to melt congruently at 575°± 2°C by careful examination.

Metaphor is viewed in a broad sense in this paper, which is no longer a mere rhetorical device but a mode of thinking. This violation against the traditional concept of metaphor will definitely result in great changes in both the cognition and translation of metaphor. Firstly, this paper aims at casting off the conventional idea of metaphor and widening the cognition scope of it. Secondly, this paper focuses on the selection of metaphor translation methods to preserve the image contained in metaphor for carrying out significant cross-cultural communication.