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The effects of cooling rate on isothermal spheroidizing annealing (SA) of hot-rolled GCr15 bearing steel have been investigated. The results show that controlling the cooling rate between austenitizing and secondary annealing within a specific range is crucial to prevent the formation of lamellar carbide (LC). With a suitable cooling rate, more uniform carbide distribution, lower dislocation density and hardness can be achieved. An increase in the cooling rate results in a decrease in Ar1 and an increase in undercooling. However, an excessively high cooling rate suppresses the divorced eutectoid transformation (DET), leading to an increase in the amount of LC, dislocation density and hardness in rapidly cooled samples. Conversely, in the sample cooled too slowly, the appearance of LC may be attributed to the sufficient precipitation and coarsening of carbides, resulting in a high density of carbides before phase transformation. LCs can be eliminated by extending the secondary annealing time appropriately. This work demonstrates that for isothermal SA, using an appropriate cooling rate can effectively reduce the secondary annealing time, which provides a new idea for the rapid and complete spheroidization of carbides in GCr15 bearing steel.

This study aimed to evaluate the osteotoxicity of polychlorinated biphenyls in murine osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells, and to explore the underlying mechanism focused on oxidative stress. The cells were exposed to Aroclor 1254 at concentrations of 2.5-20 µmol/L, and then cell viability, oxidative stress, intracellular calcium concentration, osteocalcin content, and calcium nodules formation were measured. Aroclor 1254 reduced cell viability and induced overproduction of intracellular reactive oxygen species in a dose-dependent manner. Activity of superoxide dismutase was decreased, and malondialdehyde content was promoted after exposure. Moreover, inhibitory effects of Aroclor 1254 on calcium metabolism and mineralization of osteoblasts were observed, as indicated by reduction of the intracellular calcium concentration, osteocalcin content, and modules formation rate. The decreased expression of osteocalcin, alkaline phosphatase, bone sialoprotein, and transient receptor potential vanilloid 6 further confirmed the impairment of Aroclor 1254 on calcium homeostasis and osteoblast differentiation. Addition of the antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine partially restored the inhibitory effects on calcium metabolism and mineralization. In general, Aroclor 1254 exposure reduces calcium homeostasis, osteoblast differentiation and bone formation, and oxidative stress plays a vital role in the underlying molecular mechanism of osteotoxicity.

Histone 3 Lys 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3) mediates epigenetic silencing of gene expression. Here, Zhang et al. show that in Arabidopsis, the BAH-domain H3K27me3-reader protein AIPP3 forms a complex with PHD proteins and CPL2, a plant-specific Pol II phosphatase, to inhibit Pol II activity by dephosphorylation.

Oxy-fuel combustion is one of the clean coal combustion technologies for CO2 capture. However, post-combustion capture is studied as a challenged technology against oxy-fuel combustion. This paper presented the life cycle assessment (LCA) of these two CO2 capture technologies used in the 300 MW coal fired power plant. The purpose was to identify and quantify the energy demand and the environmental impacts of oxy-fuel combustion throughout its whole life cycle and compared the results with post-combustion capture by an amine (MEA) absorbent. The results showed an increase in cumulative energy demand in oxy-fuel combustion compared with post-combustion capture. Total life cycle energy consumption of oxy-fuel combustion system was more 0.065 MJ than post-combustion capture system. However, oxy-fuel combustion can reduce 0.00047 mPET2000 of global warming, 0.04084 mPET2000 of acidification, 0.04486 mPET2000 of eutrophication, 0.001 mPET2000 of photochemical ozone formation and 0.35082 mPET2000 of slag and ashes compared with post-combustion capture. The total environmental impact loading (EIL) of oxy-fuel combustion to produce 1 kWh of electric energy was 9.06382 mPET2000, which was less than that of post-combustion capture (9.50181 mPET2000), indicating that the oxy-fuel combustion can play a relatively important role in reducing environmental impacts.

Background: Stroke is the second leading cause of death in human life health, but current treatment strategies are limited to thrombolytic therapy, and because of the tight time window, many contraindications, and only a very small number of people can benefit from it, new therapeutic strategies are needed to solve this problem. As a physical barrier between the central nervous system and blood, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) maintains the homeostasis of the central nervous system. Maintaining the integrity of the BBB may emerge as a new therapeutic strategy. Liquiritin (LQ) is a flavonoid isolated from the medicinal plant Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. ex DC. (Fabaceae), and this study aims to investigate the protective effects of LQ on brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs), to provide a new therapeutic strategy for stroke treatment, and also to provide research ideas for the development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).Methods: The protective effects of LQ on HBMECs under the treatment of hypoxia reoxygenation (H/R) were investigated from different aspects by establishing a model of H/R injury to mimic ischemia-reperfusion in vivo while administrating different concentrations of LQ, which includes: cell proliferation, migration, angiogenesis, mitochondrial membrane potential as well as apoptosis. Meanwhile, the mechanism of LQ to protect the integrity of BBB by antioxidation and inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress was also investigated. Finally, to search for possible targets of LQ, a proteomic analysis approach was employed.Results: LQ can promote cell proliferation, migration as well as angiogenesis and reduce mitochondrial membrane potential damage and apoptosis. Meanwhile, LQ can also reduce the expression of related adhesion molecules, and decrease the production of reactive oxygen species. In terms of mechanism study, we demonstrated that LQ could activate Keap1/Nrf2 antioxidant pathway, inhibit ER stress, and maintain the integrity of BBB. Through differential protein analysis, 5 disease associated proteins were found.Conclusions: Studies have shown that LQ can promote cell proliferation, migration as well as angiogenesis, and reduce cell apoptosis, which may be related to its inhibition of oxidative and ER stress, and then maintain the integrity of BBB. Given that five differential proteins were found by protein analysis, future studies will revolve around the five differential proteins.

Based on the deep foundation pit project of Laoguancun station of Wuhan rail transit line 16 and according to the engineering characteristics of the construction conditions and the site surrounding the environment, the method of combining field monitoring and finite element numerical simulation is adopted to analyze the law of stress and deformation of the deep foundation pit during excavation and support construction; it includes the horizontal displacement of the underground diaphragm wall, supporting axial force, and the ground surface settlement, which can be compared with measured data. Finally, some suggestions for monitoring and construction of the deep foundation pit in the subway station have been put forward and have certain reference value and practical guiding significance for the design and construction of similar engineering projects. The deformation monitoring of the retaining structure at the middle of the long side of the foundation pit should be strengthened during the construction process.

For a long time, spatial structures have been widely used. However, compared with the high strength of their material, their stability is weak, and especially sensitive to damage and defects. This feature has increased the engineering industry’s high requirements for their stability analysis. As we all know, this problem is more prominent for the reticulated shell structure, which is a classic representative of the spatial structure. However, in the current analysis methods for the stability of reticulated shells, the deterministic analysis method cannot consider the random characteristics of defects. Other random methods, such as the random defect modal method, and many improved methods, require more samples and calculation time. This unfavorable situation makes its engineering application greatly restricted. In addition, the random modal superposition method and derivation method based on Monte Carlo has not fundamentally changed this limitation. In order to fundamentally overcome this traditional shortcoming, this paper comprehensively studies the advantages of the high accuracy of the random defect modal method and the improved method, and at the same time, investigates the speed advantage of the response surface method, and then creates a new stochastic analysis method based on the response surface method. Finally, the analysis results of the calculation examples in this paper prove that it successfully balances and satisfies the dual requirements of accuracy and speed required for calculating the stability of the reticulated shell structure. Moreover, it has universal applicability to different forms of reticulated shells, such as classic 6-point flat domes, traditional reticulated shell structures, and bionic reticulated shell structures, and even other types of spatial structures.

A novel lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) signal amplification strategy for the detection of Cry1Ab based on amplification via a polylysine (PL) chain and biotin-streptavidin system (BSAS) is described. In this system, multiple fluorescence dyes (FL) were directly coated on the surface of PL and conjugated with antibody via the BSAS for construction of novel signal amplification (FLPL-BSAS-mAb1) conjugates, in which FL, PL and BSAS were employed to improve the sensitivity of LFIA. Compared with conventional LFIA, the sensitivity of FLPL-BSAS-mAb1-based LFIA was increased by approximately 100-fold. Quantified linearity was achieved in the value range of 0–1,000 pg/mL. The limit of detection (LOD) was reached 10 pg/mL after optimization of reaction conditions. To our knowledge, this represents one of the most sensitive LFIA for Cry1Ab yet reported. Furthermore, the detection time for this method was about 10 min. Therefore, it should be an attractive alternative compared to conventional immunoassays in routine control for Cry1Ab.