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SiC fibers have very important applications in aerospace. It has been reported that beryllium doping can improve the mechanical properties and high temperature resistance of SiC fibers. The thermodynamic description of the Be-Si-C system is the basis for the development of the beryllium doped SiC fibers. In this work, the Be-C, Be-Si and Be-Si-C systems have been critically reviewed. The isothermal section of the Be-Si-C ternary system at 750 °C and 950 °C were measured by XRD, SEM, EPMA, and DTA measurements. No ternary compounds were detected in the Be-C-Si system. Combined with thermodynamic and experimental data, the thermodynamic optimization of the Be-C-Si ternary system was carried out, and the optimized results are consistent with the experimental data and literature data.

Early and accurate diagnosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is important for reducing mortality. Analyzing intrapapillary capillary loops' (IPCLs) patterns on magnification endoscopy with narrow band imaging (ME-NBI) has been demonstrated effective in the diagnosis of early-stage ESCC. However, even experienced endoscopists may face difficulty in finding and classifying countless IPCLs on ME-NBI.We propose a novel clustering prior embedded detection network: ClusterNet. ClusterNet is capable of analyzing the distribution of IPCLs on ME-NBI automatically and enables endoscopists to overview multiple types of visualization. With ClusterNet assisting, endoscopists may observe ME-NBI images more efficiently, thus they may also predict the pathology and make medical decisions more easily.We propose the first large-scale ME-NBI dataset with fine-grained annotations by consensus of expert endoscopists. The dataset is splitted into a training set and an independent testing set based on patients. With two strategies for embedding, ClusterNet can automatically take the clustering effect into consideration. Prior to this work, none of the existing approaches take the clustering effect, which is rather important in classifying the IPCLs, into account.ClusterNet achieves an average precision of 81.2% and an average recall of 90.0% for the detection of IPCLs patterns on each patient of the independent testing set. We also compare ClusterNet with other state-of-the-art detection approaches. The performance of ClusterNet with embedding strategies is consistently superior to that of other approaches in terms of average precision, recall and F2-Score.Experiments demonstrate that our proposed method is able to detect almost all the IPCLs patterns on ME-NBI and classify them according to the Japanese Endoscopic Society (JES) classification accurately.

Salmonella Typhimurium establishes systemic infection by replicating in host macrophages. Here we show that macrophages infected with S. Typhimurium exhibit upregulated glycolysis and decreased serine synthesis, leading to accumulation of glycolytic intermediates. The effects on serine synthesis are mediated by bacterial protein SopE2, a type III secretion system (T3SS) effector encoded in pathogenicity island SPI-1. The changes in host metabolism promote intracellular replication of S. Typhimurium via two mechanisms: decreased glucose levels lead to upregulated bacterial uptake of 2- and 3-phosphoglycerate and phosphoenolpyruvate (carbon sources), while increased pyruvate and lactate levels induce upregulation of another pathogenicity island, SPI-2, known to encode virulence factors. Pharmacological or genetic inhibition of host glycolysis, activation of host serine synthesis, or deletion of either the bacterial transport or signal sensor systems for those host glycolytic intermediates impairs S. Typhimurium replication or virulence. Salmonella Typhimurium establishes systemic infection by replicating in host macrophages. Here, Jiang et al. show that infected macrophages exhibit upregulated glycolysis and decreased serine synthesis, leading to accumulation of glycolytic intermediates that promote intracellular replication and virulence of S. Typhimurium.

The phase equilibria of the Mg-Gd-Ce system at 500 °C were investigated by means of the electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) on equilibrated alloys. The existence of the so-called normal tetragonal CeMg12(I) and long-range ordered CeMg12(II) was confirmed in the present work. The following five three-phase equilibria were well determined: (1) (Mg) + CeMg12(I) + Ce5Mg41, (2) (Mg) + Ce5Mg41 + GdMg5, (3) Ce5Mg41 + GdMg5 + (Ce,Gd)Mg3, (4) (Ce,Gd)Mg3 + GdMg2 + (Ce,Gd)Mg and (5) (Ce,Gd)Mg + (δCe) + (βCe). The solubility of Ce in GdMg5 and in GdMg2 was measured to be 7.8 and 8.7 at.% Ce, respectively. The solubility of Gd in CeMg12(I), in Ce5Mg41 and in (δCe) were measured to be 1.0, 4.6 and 2.4 at.% Gd, respectively. Two continuous series of solid solutions form between GdMg3 and CeMg3, and between GdMg and CeMg. The overall isothermal section at 500 °C was constructed based on the present data with a few extrapolations.

Filter design is the essential problem in active noise control. In the case of FIR filter design, the whole problem can be formulated as a convex optimization. In practice, limited by computation capability, IIR filters are preferred but more challenging to design. On the one hand, the existence of zeros could cause instablity; on the other hand, the problem can not be formulated as a convex optimization problem. This work introduces a new IIR filter design method, which stablizes the system by modeling the ANC controller as casade parametric biquadratic IIRs and optimizes their cofficients by using machine learning algorithms. A neural network with zero input but learnable bias and network weights is used to generate the filter coefficients; and the loss function consists of a reward term for reducing noise and penalty terms for breaking the constraints. Training the neural network with gradient based machine learning algorithm directly leads to a group of coefficients that achieves good ANC performance and is subject to given constraints. It turned out that no big and deep neurual network is required for this method to perform well and therefore it is computationally efficient. Experiments showed that the proposed method was able to consistently yield good ANC filters for a variety of given acoustical environments.

The adverse effects of heavy metals, such as cadmium, zinc, and copper, occur due to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The use of Caenorhabditis elegans for the purposes of conservation and biomonitoring is of great interest. In the present study, ROS, malondialdehyde (MDA), and citric acid levels and superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities in a model organism were tested to study toxicity. C. elegans was exposed to three different concentrations of cadmium (CdCl2, 5, 10, 50 μM), zinc (ZnSO4, 10, 100, 500 μM), and copper (CuSO4, 10, 100, 500 μM) for 3 days. ROS levels increased by 1.3- to 2.1-fold with increasing metal concentrations. The MDA content increased by approximately 7-, 5-, 2-fold after exposure to high concentrations of cadmium, zinc, and copper, respectively. Furthermore, the citric acid content increased by approximately 3-fold in the cadmium (Cd, 5 μM), zinc (Zn, 10 μM), and copper (Cu, 100 μM) treatment groups compared to that in untreated C. elegans. Therefore, citric acid may play an important role in heavy metal detoxification. Excess citric acid also slightly increased the LC50 by 1.3- to 2.0-fold, basic movements by 1.0- to 1.5-fold, decreased the ROS content by 2.4- to 2.1-fold, the MDA content by 4- to 2-fold, the SOD activity by 9- to 3-fold, the GPx activity by 4.0- to 3.0-fold, and the mRNA expression levels of GPxs by 3.2- to 1.8-fold after metals treatment. And it is most significantly in the alleviation of citric acid to cadmium. This study not only provides information to further understand the effects of heavy metal exposure on ROS, MDA, GPx, SOD, and citric acid in worms but also indicates that supplemental citric acid can protect animals from heavy metal stress and has broad application prospects in decreasing oxidative damage caused by heavy metals.

Background Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EHEC O157) causes bloody diarrhea and hemolytic-uremic syndrome. EHEC O157 encounters varied microenvironments during infection, and can efficiently adapt to these using the two-component system (TCS). Recently, a functional TCS, RstAB, has been implicated in the regulation of virulence of several bacterial pathogens. However, the regulatory function of RstAB in EHEC O157 is poorly understood. This study aimed at providing insights into the global effects of RstA on gene expression in EHEC O157. Results In the present study, we analyzed gene expression differences between the EHEC O157 wild-type strain and a ΔrstA mutant using RNA-seq technology. Genes with differential expression in the ΔrstA mutant compared to that in the wild-type strain were identified and grouped into clusters of orthologous categories. RstA promoted EHEC O157 LEE gene expression, adhesion in vitro, and colonization in vivo by indirect regulation. We also found that RstA could bind directly to the promoter region of hdeA and yeaI to enhance acid tolerance and decrease biofilm formation by modulating the concentration of c-di-GMP. Conclusions In summary, the RstAB TCS in EHEC O157 plays a major role in the regulation of virulence, acid tolerance, and biofilm formation. We clarified the regulatory function of RstA, providing an insight into mechanisms that may be potential drug targets for treatment of EHEC O157-related infections.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Tm) is a major intracellular pathogen that infects humans and animals, and its survival and growth in macrophages is essential for its pathogenicity. More than 50 putative regulatory proteins are encoded by the S. Tm genome, but the functions of these regulatory proteins in mediating S. Tm pathogenicity are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the biological function of the STM0030 gene, which encodes a putative LysR-type transcriptional regulator. We found that STM0030 is upregulated 2.8-5.7-fold during S. Tm growth in macrophages. Further, mutating this gene decreased bacterial growth in macrophages and attenuated virulence in mice. RNA-sequencing to investigate the regulatory function of STM0030 in S. Tm revealed that 447 genes were differentially expressed between the mutant and the wild-type strains; 429 of these genes were downregulated, suggesting that STM0030 mainly acts as a transcriptional activator. Moreover, the expression of gluconate, maltose, and hexose-p transport genes, as well as allantoin utilization genes were downregulated in the STM0030 mutant; this might be associated with the observed decrease in intracellular replication and pathogenicity of the mutant. Our findings suggest that STM0030 is a new pathogenicity-associated regulatory protein that broadens our understanding of the virulence regulatory network of S. Tm.

Based on the thermodynamic descriptions of binary sub-systems as well as the experimental phase equilibria data available in the literature, the Ti-W-B and Ti-W-Si ternary systems have been assessed by the CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagram) method. The solution phases, i.e. liquid and bcc (βTi, W), are described by the substitutional solution model. The binary phases TiB2, TiB, W2B, αWB, W2B5, W2B9, Ti5Si3 and W5Si3 with the solubilities of the third element are modeled using the sublattice models. Two ternary compounds τ with composition of (Ti1-xWx)B and Ti3W2Si10 are described by two sublattice model (Ti,W)1B1 and (Ti,W)1Si2, respectively. A set of self-consistent thermodynamic parameters is finally obtained for each of the two ternary systems. Some representative isothermal and vertical sections as well as liquidus surface projections are calculated. Comparisons between the calculated and measured phase diagrams show that the most of experimental data are satisfactorily reproduced by the present thermodynamic descriptions.

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations including spin polarization were performed to obtain the energies for all end-member configurations of the μ phase, which were used to evaluate the Gibbs energies of the μ phase. The Co–W system was thermodynamically re-assessed in the present work. The present calculated phase diagram fits well with the experimental data. Applying the DFT results was essential for giving a better description of the μ phase.

Based on the thermodynamic descriptions of constitutive binary systems as well as the experimental phase equilibria data available in the literature, the Ti-W-M (M = Zr, Mo, Nb) ternary systems have been thermodynamically evaluated by the CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagram) approach. The solution phases, i.e. liquid and bcc, are described by the substitutional solution model. The binary phase W2Zr with the solubilities of Ti is modeled using the sublattice model. A set of self-consistent thermodynamic parameters is finally obtained for each of these ternary systems. Some representative isothermal and vertical sections are calculated. Comparisons between the calculated and measured phase diagrams show that the most of experimental data are satisfactorily reproduced by the present thermodynamic descriptions.

The phase equilibria in the Be-C system were studied via experiment technique. Eleven key alloys were prepared by powder metallurgy method. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential thermal analysis (DTA) were used to determine phase compositions and phase transition temperatures. For the first time, the entire phase diagram for the Be-C system was obtained in the present work. The present work confirms that there is only one intermediate compound Be2C in this system. One allotropic transformation ((βBe) ↔ (αBe)) and two eutectic reactions (L ↔ (βBe) + Be2C and L ↔ Be2C + (C)) were determined.

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show that it is essential to consider the magnetic contribution to the total energy for the end-members of the σ phase. A more straightforward method to use the DFT results in a CALPHAD (Calculation of phase diagrams) description has been applied in the present work. It was found that only the results from DFT calculations considering spin-polarization are necessary to obtain a reliable description of the σ phase. The benefits of this method are: the DFT calculation work can be reduced and the CALPHAD description of the magnetic contribution is more reliable. A revised thermodynamic description of the Co-Cr system is presented which gives improved agreement with experimental phase boundary data for the σ phase.

The Al-Co-W system and its binary sub-systems Al-Co, Al-W and Co-W were critically reviewed. The thermodynamic description of the Al-Co-W system including all three binaries was developed considering thermodynamic and constitutional data of the systems. Results from density functional theory calculations were employed to improve reliability of the descriptions. The Gibbs energy for the thermal vacancy (GVa) in the BCC_A2 phase is discussed. The revised descriptions obtained for the Al-W and Co-W systems describe the thermodynamic and phase equilibrium data well and are free of undesired artefacts for temperatures below 6000 K. The ordered γ’ phase of the Al-Co-W system is described as a metastable phase in the entire temperature range. The calculated Gibbs energy of the γ’ is only slightly above that of the equilibrium state, which indicates that there is good possibility of stabilizing the γ’ phase with the addition of γ’-stabilizing elements, such as Ti, Ta, Hf, Nb and Ni.

To establish systemic infections, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) requires Salmonella pathogenicity island 2 (SPI-2) to survive and replicate within macrophages. High expression of many SPI-2 genes during the entire intracellular growth period within macrophages is essential, as it contributes to the formation of Salmonella-containing vacuole and bacterial replication. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying the sustained induction of SPI-2 within macrophages are not fully understood. Here, we revealed a time-dependent regulation of SPI-2 expression mediated by a novel regulator PagR (STM2345) in response to the low Mg2+ and low phosphate (Pi ) signals, which ensured the high induction of SPI-2 during the entire intramacrophage growth period. Deletion of pagR results in reduced bacterial replication in macrophages and attenuation of systemic virulence in mice. The effects of pagR on virulence are dependent on upregulating the expression of slyA, a regulator of SPI-2. At the early (0-4 hr) and later (after 4 hr) stage post-infection of macrophages, pagR is induced by the low Pi via PhoB/R two-component systems and low Mg2+ via PhoP/Q systems, respectively. Collectively, our findings revealed that the PagR-mediated regulatory mechanism contributes to the precise and sustained activation of SPI-2 genes within macrophages, which is essential for S. Typhimurium systemic virulence.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a facultative intracellular pathogen that infects humans and animals. Survival and growth in host macrophages represents a crucial step for S. Typhimurium virulence. Many genes that are essential for S. Typhimurium proliferation in macrophages and associated with virulence are highly expressed during the intracellular lifecycle. yaeB, which encodes an RNA methyltransferase, is also upregulated during S. Typhimurium growth in macrophages. However, the involvement of YaeB in S. Typhimurium pathogenicity is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of YaeB in S. Typhimurium virulence. Deletion of yaeB significantly impaired S. Typhimurium growth in macrophages and virulence in mice. The effect of yaeB on pathogenicity was related to its activation of pstSCAB, a phosphate (Pi)-specific transport system that is verified here to be important for bacterial replication and virulence. Moreover, qRT-PCR data showed YaeB was induced by the acidic pH inside macrophages, and the acidic pH passed to YeaB through inhibiting global regulator histone-like nucleoid structuring (H-NS) which confirmed in this study can repress the expression of yaeB. Overall, these findings identified a new virulence regulatory network involving yaeB and provided valuable insights to the mechanisms through which acidic pH and low Pi regulate virulence.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is a facultative intracellular pathogen that infects humans and animals. Survival and growth in host macrophages represents a crucial step for S. Typhimurium virulence. Many genes that are essential for S. Typhimurium proliferation in macrophages and associated with virulence are highly expressed during the intracellular lifecycle. yaeB, which encodes an RNA methyltransferase, is also upregulated during S. Typhimurium growth in macrophages. However, the involvement of YaeB in S. Typhimurium pathogenicity is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of YaeB in S. Typhimurium virulence. Deletion of yaeB significantly impaired S. Typhimurium growth in macrophages and virulence in mice. The effect of yaeB on pathogenicity was related to its activation of pstSCAB, a phosphate (Pi)-specific transport system that is verified here to be important for bacterial replication and virulence. Moreover, qRT-PCR data showed YaeB was induced by the acidic pH inside macrophages, and the acidic pH passed to YeaB through inhibiting global regulator histone-like nucleoid structuring (H-NS) which confirmed in this study can repress the expression of yaeB. Overall, these findings identified a new virulence regulatory network involving yaeB and provided valuable insights to the mechanisms through which acidic pH and low Pi regulate virulence.

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) is an important intracellular pathogen, causing gastroenteritis or severe systemic infection in a variety of hosts. During infection, S. Typhimurium must survive and replicate in host macrophages, which produce abundant oxidative compounds. SoxRS regulon is a well-known regulator that is activated in response to oxidative stress and promotes bacterial tolerance to oxidants in E. coli. However, the global regulatory function of SoxS in S. Typhimurium remains poorly characterized. Here, we used an RNA sequencing-based approach to investigate the role of SoxS in the expression of S. Typhimurium virulence genes. Besides the downregulation of genes related to resistance to oxidative stress, we found that in a soxS deletion mutant the expression of Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-2 genes, which are crucial for replication within macrophages, was significantly repressed. Moreover, immunofluorescence and mice infection experiments showed that soxS deletion inhibited replication in macrophages and decreased virulence upon intraperitoneal inoculation in mice, respectively. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that SoxS is a positive regulator of SPI-2 genes and, therefore, plays a crucial role in S. Typhimurium intracellular replication and virulence.

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Distribution of differentially expressed genes in the EHEC O157 EDL933 genome, Table S1. Transcriptional reads analysis of EHEC O157 WT and the ΔrstA mutant, Table S2. Strains and plasmids used in this study, Table S3. Primers used in this study (5′–3′), Table S4. RstA box analysis in EHEC O157.

The Co-Ta system has been reviewed and the thermodynamic description was re-assessed in the present work. DFT (density functional theory) calculations considering spin polarization were performed to obtain the energies for all end-member configurations of the C14, C15, C36 and μ phases for the evaluation of the Gibbs energies of these phases. The phase diagram calculated with the present description agrees well with the experimental and theoretical data. Considering the DFT results was essential for giving a better description of the μ phase at lower temperatures.

The thermodynamic description of the Co–Cr–Ni, Co–Cr–W and Co–Ni–W systems is the basis of material design for Co-WC cutting tools and superalloys. A common feature of the three ternary systems is that the detrimental topologically close packed (TCP) phases (μ and σ phases) have large ternary extensions, which makes it crucial to provide a reliable description of the TCP phase boundaries. In order to obtain an accurate description of the TCP phase boundary, the effect of magnetism on the Gibbs energy of the TCP phases containing ferromagnetic elements must be considered. In the present work, the effect of magnetism on the Gibbs energy for the Ni-related TCP phases has been discussed. The magnetic related parameters T c N i σ , β N i σ , G o N i d i s _ σ , T c N i μ , β N i μ , G o N i d i s _ μ were evaluated. CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagrams) assessment for the ternary systems has been performed. The present CALPHAD description can well describe the experimental data.

A new inherently consistent temperature function for interaction parameters, L , is proposed. It is designed for the unconstrained application of any optimization software, such as PanOptimizer or PARROT, to avoid artifacts, for example inverted liquid miscibility gaps or re-stabilization of liquid well below solidus. Without introducing additional system-dependent adjustable parameters, the new function automatically excludes both the exaggerated negative values of L at low temperature and the exaggerated positive values of L at high temperature. The viability of the new function is demonstrated by a complete Calphad re-assessment of the Mg–Si system, which is the prime example of the most challenging systems pertinent to both artifacts. For the first time the calculated Mg–Si phase diagram from 0 K to very high temperature is presented. The new assessment also includes the quantitative solidus data of (Si) and other previously not considered original experimental data.

To study the function and mechanism of STM14_3514 gene that encoded in Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-1 of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strain ATCC 14028.We constructed STM14_3514 mutant strain and a complemented strain of the mutant. Through mice experiment, attachment assays, invasion assays, macrophage replication assays, western blot, and Quantitative real-time PCR analysis (qRT-PCR), we compared the virulence of the mutant strain to that of the wild-type 14028.STM14_3514 mutant shows increased virulence to mice, and the bacterial number of STM14_3514 mutant in liver, spleen, and ileum was more abundant than that of the wild-type strain. The increased virulence of STM14_3514 mutant is caused by its elevated invasion ability to epithelial cells (2-fold and P0.05). qRT-PCR and western blot results show that STM14_3514 reduced the expression of HilA and another SPI-1invasion locus. Moreover, the repression of HilA by STM14_3514 is mediated by HilC.STM14_3514 is a negative regulator in SPI-1, which can repress HilA and SPI-1invasion locus through HilC, and possibly contribute to the repression on SPI-1 after bacterial invasion.

Oxygen is always a constituent in “real” titanium alloys including titanium alloy powders used for powder-based additive manufacturing (AM). In addition, oxygen uptake during powder handling and printing is hard to control and, hence, it is important to understand and predict how oxygen is affecting the microstructure. Therefore, oxygen is included in the evaluation of the thermodynamic properties of the titanium-vanadium system employing the CALculation of PHAse Diagrams method and a complete model of the O-Ti-V system is presented. The β-transus temperature is calculated to increase with increasing oxygen content whereas the extension of the α-Ti phase field into the binary is calculated to decrease, which explains the low vanadium solubilities measured in some experimental works. In addition, the critical temperature of the metastable miscibility gap of the β-phase is calculated to increase to above room temperature when oxygen is added. The effects of oxygen additions on phase fractions, martensite and ω formation temperatures are discussed, along with the impacts these changes may have on AM of titanium alloys.

Phase equilibria and thermodynamic data of the Mg–Pr system were assessed using the Calphad-method based on a critical review of the experimental data. A simple subregular solution model for the liquid phase is sufficient for a quantitative thermodynamic description and short-range order need not to be assumed in the Mg–Pr melt. A quantitative description of the phase equilibria in the important Mg-rich side is provided and some aspects on the Pr-rich side are also improved in the present description, compared to previous work, even though simpler models have been used.

The structure formation in peritectic Al-4.5at.%Cu-11at.%Ni ternary alloy with four-phase peritectic reaction was investigated using the quantitative phase-field model of eutectic growth. This model, extended to an arbitrary number of phases, guarantees the stability requirements on individual interfaces. The thermal noise terms disturb the stability and produce the heterogeneous nucleation of secondary phases in accordance to the energetic and concentration conditions. In our recent work it was shown that in differential thermal analysis (DTA) experiments specific microstructure parts in Al-4.5at.%Cu-11at.%Ni alloy with a four-phase peritectic reaction were observed, which cannot be explained by Scheil calculation or simple phase-field modeling. In this work, it was found by numerical experiments that, due to the formation of anisotropic quasi-primary Al3Ni2 crystals and the suppression of the nucleation of (Al) phase, the eutectic-like coupled growth of Al3Ni2 and Al3Ni phases can be observed. In addition, at further cooling the anisotropic shape of quasi-secondary Al3Ni crystals promotes the nucleation of the (Al) phase. The simulated final structure is comparable to the experimental one which is characterized by large Al3Ni2 crystals enveloped by the Al3Ni phase.

The investigation of solidification in ternary Al-Cu-Ni alloys is carried out by means of experiments and phase-field modeling. For three alloys in the Al-rich corner of the phase diagram differential thermal analysis (DTA) is performed. Then the alloys were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis. For the understanding of the general features of the alloy solidification quantitative phase-field simulations are carried out additionally to the theoretical Scheil calculation. It is found that many experimental DTA signals and the microstructure parts cannot be explained by simple Scheil calculation. We apply the multi-phase-field model previously developed for the simulation of peritectic reaction and extended it to three components and four-phases reactions. The main advantage of this model is the application of the equilibrium parameters evaluated from the refined free energies of the phases. It is shown that the simulated microstructure is comparable to the experimental one for two investigated alloys. The final phase fractions in the modeling correspond to the theoretical predictions of Scheil calculation but the time evolution of fractions is more complicated. In particular the kinetics (relation between tangential and normal growth velocities) of the peritectic-like reaction in ternary Al-Cu-Ni alloys shows differences compared to the peritectic reaction in binary Al-Ni alloys.

Thermodynamic and constitutional data of the Li–Si system were critically reviewed and the importance of using original experimental data is highlighted, as opposed to a previous thermodynamic modeling of this system. The C p -functions of all Li–Si compounds were experimentally determined for 2–900 K and those for pure solid Li and Si from 0 to 298 K from experimental literature data. The reliability of solubility data for the dilute solution of Si in liquid Li was assessed by thermodynamic considerations. A consistent thermodynamic description of all solid phases in the Li–Si system from 0 K to high temperature is developed, jointly with that for the liquid phase, using the Calphad method. The first calculated and validated Li–Si phase diagram from 0 K to liquidus temperatures is presented. Experimental liquidus data are found to be inconsistent with well established experimental thermodynamic data and further research is required.

BACKGROUND Root-knot nematodes and soil-borne diseases constrain the rapid development of protected agriculture in China, especially while phasing out methyl bromide (MB). The fumigant sulfuryl fluoride (SF) is currently used as an alternative to MB for the disinfestation of buildings and post-harvest commodities. Our experiments aimed to evaluate a novel application of SF as a soil fumigant in greenhouses in China. RESULTS Dose–response experiments indicated that SF has good efficacy on root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.) and moderate activity against Fusarium spp. and weeds (Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. and Abutilon theophrasti Medicus). The field trials indicates that SF has good efficacy, between 80 and 94%, on Meloidogyne spp., and Fusarium spp. at the rates of 25–50 g m−2 in tomato and cucumber in Beijing and Shandong Province. Marketable yield and plant vigour was not significantly different in SF and MB treatments. SF has lower emissions than MB during the fumigation operation. It is simple to apply, can be used at low temperature, and has a short plant-back time. SF was found to be an economically feasible alternative to MB for nematode control in China. CONCLUSION SF can be used as a soil fumigant to control root-knot nematodes and to reduce the levels of key soil pathogens. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry