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Gd and Yb elements have high chemical stability, which can stabilize the solid solution in ZrO2. Gd2O3 and Yb2O3 have high melting points, and good oxidation resistance in extreme environments, stable chemical properties. Therefore, Gd2O3 and Yb2O3 were added to ZrO2 to stabilize oxides, improve the high temperature stability, and effectively decrease the thermal conductivity at high temperature. In this work, 5 wt% Yb2O3 and 5 wt%, 10 wt%, 15 wt% Gd2O3 were doped into 8 wt% Y2O3 stabilized ZrO2 (8YSZ) powders as thermal barrier coating materials, and sintered at 1650 °C for 6 h, 12 h, 24 h. The effects of Gd2O3 addition on the microstructure, density, thermal conductivity, hardness, and fracture toughness of Gd2O3-Yb2O3-Y2O3-ZrO2 (GYYZO) bulk composite ceramics were investigated. It was found that the densification of the 8YSZ bulk and GYYZO bulk with 15 wt% Gd2O3 reached 96.89% and 96.22% sintered at 1650 °C for 24 h. With the increase of Gd2O3 addition, the hardness, elastic modulus and fracture toughness of the GYYZO bulk increased and the thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient of the GYYZO bulk decreased. GYYZO bulk with 15 wt% Gd2O3 sintered at 1650 °C for 24h had the highest hardness, elastic modulus and fracture toughness of 15.61 GPa, 306.88 GPa, 7.822 MPa·m0.5, and the lowest thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient of 1.04 W/(m·k) and 7.89 × 10−6/°C at 1100 °C, respectively. The addition of Gd2O3 into YSZ could not only effectively reduce the thermal conductivity but also improve the mechanical properties, which would improve the thermal barrier coatings’ performances further.

High entropy alloy attracts great attention for its high thermal stability and corrosion resistance. A CoCrFeNiMn high-entropy alloy coating was deposited on grey cast iron through plasma transfer arc cladding. It formed fine acicular martensite near the grey cast iron, with columnar grains perpendicular to the interface between the grey cast iron substrate and the cladding layer as well as dendrite in the middle part of the coatings. Simple FCC solid solutions present in the coatings which were similar to the powder’s structure. The coating had a microhardness of 300 ± 21.5 HV0.2 when the cladding current was 80 A for the solid solution strengthening. The HEA coating had the highest corrosion potential of −0.253 V when the plasma current was 60 A, which was much higher than the grey cast iron’s corrosion potential of −0.708 V. Meanwhile, the coating had a much lower corrosion current density of 9.075 × 10−7 mA/cm2 than the grey cast iron’s 2.4825 × 10−6 mA/cm2, which reflected that the CoCrFeNiMn HEA coating had much better corrosion resistance and lower corrosion rate than the grey cast iron for single FCC solid solution phase and a relatively higher concentration of Cr in the grain boundaries than in the grains and this could lead to corrosion protection effects.

Thermal barrier coatings with multi-sized porous structure at micro and nano scales were prepared with hollow spherical YSZ powders and polypropylene powders through atmospheric plasma spraying. The thermal conductivities of the multi-sized thermal barrier coatings after a long-term serving at high temperature were tested through laser flash heating method. Meanwhile, the physical models of thermal barrier coatings with multi-sized porous structure at micro and nano scales were constructed through Ansys Workbench. The evolutions of thermal conductivity of thermal barrier coatings with multi-sized pores after long-term service at 1100 °C were investigated through computation. It was found that the thermal conductivity of the coating increased with the extension of the serving time. When the serving time reached 60 days, the thermal conductivity of the coating tended to be stable and close to the compacted bulk. The computational results were consistent with the tested ones, which could be helpful to explain the thermal conducting evolution in thermal barrier coatings with multi-sized porous structure at nano and micro scales after long-term serving at high temperature.

In recent years, the two issues of climate change including elevated CO近年来,大气CO

Study hypothesis What factors in mouse oocytes are involved in the ageing-related decline in oocyte quality? Study finding The maternal effect gene Mater is involved in ageing-related oocyte quality decline in mice. What is known already Premature loss of centromere cohesion is a hallmark of ageing-related oocyte quality decline; the maternal effect gene Mater (maternal antigen that embryos require, also known as Nlrp5) is required for preimplantation embryo development beyond the 2-cell stage, and mRNA expression of Mater decreases with maternal ageing. Study design, samples/materials, methods Mater protein expression level in mature oocytes from 7 young (5-8 weeks old) to 7 old mice (41-68 weeks old) was compared by immunoblotting analysis. Wild-type and Mater-null mice were used to examine whether Mater is necessary for maintaining normal centromere cohesion by means of cytogenetic karyotyping, time-lapse confocal microscopy and immunofluorescence staining. Main results and the role of chance Mater protein is decreased in mature oocytes from old versus young mice (P = 0.0022). Depletion of Mater from oocytes leads to a reduction in centromere cohesion, manifested by precocious sister chromatid separation, enlargement of sister centromere distance and misalignment of chromosomes in the metaphase plate during meiosis I and II. Limitations, reasons for caution This study was conducted in mice. Whether or not the results are applicable to human remains further elucidation. In addition, we were unable to confirm if the strain of mice (C57BL/6XSv129) at the age of 41-68 weeks old has the 'cohesin-loss' phenotype. Wider implications of the findings Investigating Mater's functional mechanisms could provide fresh insights into understanding how the ageing-related oocyte quality decline occurs. Large scale data N/A. Study funding and competing interests This work was supported by the research grant from Chinese NSFC to P.Z. (31071274). We have no conflict of interests to declare.

SummaryPluripotent stem cells (PSCs) hold great promise in cell-based therapy, but the genomic instability seen in culture hampers their full application. A greater understanding of the factors that regulate genomic stability in PSCs could help address this issue. Here we describe the identification of Filia as a specific regulator of genomic stability in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Filia expression is induced by genotoxic stress. Filia promotes centrosome integrity and regulates the DNA damage response (DDR) through multiple pathways, including DDR signaling, cell-cycle checkpoints and damage repair, ESC differentiation, and apoptosis. Filia depletion causes ESC genomic instability, induces resistance to apoptosis, and promotes malignant transformation. As part of its role in DDR, Filia interacts with PARP1 and stimulates its enzymatic activity. Filia also constitutively resides on centrosomes and translocates to DNA damage sites and mitochondria, consistent with its multifaceted roles in regulating centrosome integrity, damage repair, and apoptosis.

This paper describes an efficient, measurement-based technique for estimating all minimal sets of usage parameter control (UPC) parameters for variable bit rate (VBR) ATM traffic streams. This virtual buffer measurement technique is applicable to simulation or live traffic measurement environments and is considerably more efficient than direct evaluation using the generic cell rate algorithm (GCRA). We derive analytically the relationships between virtual buffer measurements and minimal sets of UPC parameters as determined by GCRA, then illustrate the technique by estimating and verifying minimal UPC parameters for ATM Adaptation Layer, Type 2 (AAL2) traffic streams representing voice traffic.

We evaluate the efficiency of AAL2 for voice transport in ATM networks using a simulation approach. After highlighting some of the general characteristics of AAL2, we adopt as the QoS requirement a bound on the K/sup th/ percentile delay in the AAL transmitter. We then determine the maximum number of homogeneous voice sources of a given bit rate that can be supported on a given bandwidth without violating this QoS requirement for AAL1, AAL2 and AAL5. Comparisons with simple analytical approximations are also provided. We conclude that AAL2 can support approximately 5 times as many 8 kb/s voice users as either AAL1 or AAL5, but all AALs can support approximately the same number of 64 kb/s users.