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Ophiopogon Ker-Gawl. (Ophiopogoneae, Asparagaceae) is a genus containing approximately 65 species distributed in East and Southeast Asia. The biogeographical history within the area is still poorly known. Divergence time estimation was used to infer the biogeographic history of Ophiopogon based on nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer data from 33 Ophiopogon species, three Liriope Lour. species, and six Peliosanthes Andrews species. The ancestral area and dispersal routes of Ophiopogon were inferred using the Bayesian binary method. Ophiopogon motouensis S. C. Chen was a transitional taxon. Ophiopogon was estimated to have originated in Southwest China during the middle Miocene (11.74 Ma). Five migrations were hypothesized to explain the expansion of Ophiopogon from Southwest China to East China, South Central China, South China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The separation of Ophiopogon into East China and South Central China may be consistent with a broad east-west arid zone in continental Asia during the Paleogene. A migration from Southwest China to Taiwan was inferred in the Pliocene, when the ancestor of O. intermedius D. Don may have moved from Southwest China through the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau by the Nanling Corridor and Fujian-Taiwan Bridge into Taiwan. There was a dispersal route in the Pliocene (at 3.79 Ma) from Southwest China to South China, either along the Taiwan route (from Southwest China through the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau along the Nanling Corridor to Guangxi), or related to the E'mei Mountain orogeny. There was another dispersal event in the early Pleistocene at 2.00 Ma from Southwest China to Southeast Asia, possibly associated with the last uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to integrate equipment battlefield damage models of many levels into one large model, and describe equipment battlefield damage characteristics from resolving power of microcosmic, moderate, and macroscopical angles, composable modeling and simulating technology is studied. The hiberarchy of equipment battlefield damage models is researched from the sides of physical alteration level, function degradation level, and equipment cluster battle effectiveness degradation level. The relations among those different level models are analyzed. The mapping relation between physical alteration battlefield damage model and function degradation battlefield damage model is researched, the function description method based on equipment characteristic is presented, as well as the aggregation/disaggregation method for physical alteration battlefield damage model and function degradation battlefield damage model. The mapping relation between function degradation battlefield damage model and equipment cluster battle effectiveness degradation battlefield damage model is researched, the aggregation/disaggregation method for function degradation battlefield damage model and equipment cluster battle effectiveness degradation battlefield damage model is presented. At last a case of equipment battlefield damage composable modeling is researched. The research result shows that equipment battlefield damage composable modeling and simulating technology can realize high resolving power output for macroscopical model, and it helps to research equipment battlefield damage roundly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to resolve the problems of electronic equipment damage prediction and survivability assessment in the explosion vibration environment, the explosion vibration damage effects on electronic equipment were analyzed in details. And damage simulation models of electronic equipment were developed, including equipment structure and functional model oriented to the electronic equipment damage simulation, vibration damage effect model, equipment vibration damage model, and simulation procedure model. The experiment shows that the methodology of electronic equipment damage simulation is feasible and effective, and farther research on electronic equipment damage simulation in explosion vibration environment are brought forward through the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We undertook a multicenter epidemiological survey among hospitalized patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), aiming to reveal the characteristics of elderly CKD by comparing it with non-elderly CKD. Methods: Medical records were obtained from 18 military hospitals across China from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2011. The characteristics of chronic kidney disease in the elderly were analyzed through comparing with those in younger patients with chronic kidney disease. Results: A total of 380,461 hospitalized patients were included in the database, with 25,826 (6.8%) diagnosed with CKD. Unlike non-elderly, the top-three causes of chronic kidney disease among elderly patients were diabetic nephropathy (24.1%), hypertension-related renal impairment (20.9%), and primary glomerular disease (11.1%). 71.6% of the elderly patients with CKD had more than one comorbidities and the number of morbidities increased with age. In-hospital mortality of the elderly was significantly higher than those of younger patients (3.3% vs. 1.0%). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that age, CKD 5 stage, acidosis, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, infection disease, neoplasm, and dementia were independent risk factors for death from CKD in the elderly. The median length of stay (LOS) was similar between elderly and younger CKD patients. The median cost was higher for elderly CKD patients than for younger CKD patients. Among elderly individuals with CKD, LOS, and hospitalization costs also increased with an increase in the number of coexisting diseases. Conclusions: Diabetic nephropathy, and hypertension-related kidney injury were the leading causes of chronic kidney disease in elderly patients, which is different from the non-elderly. Elderly patients with chronic kidney disease were more likely to have a higher burden of comorbidities, which were associated with worse in-hospital outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced Organic Chemical Materials Co‐constructed Mechanically bonded amphiphiles (MBAs), also known as mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs), have emerged as an important kind of functional building block for the construction of artificial molecular machines and soft materials. Herein, a novel MBA, i. e., bistable [2]rotaxane H2 was designed and synthesized. In the solution state, H2 demonstrated pH and metal ion‐responsive emissions due to the presence of a distance‐dependent photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process and the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) process, respectively. Importantly, the amphiphilic feature of H2 has endowed it with unique self‐assembly capability, and nanospheres were obtained in a mixed H2O/CH3CN solvent. Moreover, the morphology of H2 aggregates can be tuned from nanospheres to vesicles due to the pH‐controlled shuttling motion‐induced alternation of H2 amphiphilicity. Interestingly, larger spheres with novel pearl‐chain‐like structures from H2 were observed after adding stoichiometric Zn2+. In particular, H2 shows pH‐responsive emissions in its aggregation state, allowing the visualization of the shuttling movement by just naked eyes. It is assumed that the well‐designed [2]rotaxane, and particularly the proposed concept of MBA shown here, will further enrich the families of MIMs, offering prospects for synthesizing more MIMs with novel assembly capabilities and bottom‐up building dynamic smart materials with unprecedented functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the electronic and piezoelectric properties of two-dimensional Janus CrXY (X/ Y = S, Se,Te) systems were investigated. The results show that the Janus CrXY systems are excellent semiconductor materials and the band gap widths of Janus CrXY range from 0. 27 eV to 0. 83 eV. The strain regulation in the x-axis direction has a great influence on the band gap, while the strain regulation in the z-axis direction has little influence on the band gap, indicating that the electronic properties of the system have good stability in the z-axis direction. The piezoelectric properties of the system were studied by density generalized perturbation method, the results show that all three materials have large out-of-plane piezoelectric coefficients d33, especially, the d33 of CrSeTe reaches 56. 89 pm/ V, which is about ten times that of the common piezoelectric material AlN (d33 = 5. 60 pm/ V). This research provides theoretical support for the practical application of two-dimensional Janus CrXY systems in the field of flexible and intelligent nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes that has a serious impact on the quality of life of patients. VEGFA is necessary in the physiological state to maintain endothelial activity and physical properties of blood vessels. VEGFA plays an important role in the promotion of neovascularization; therefore, inhibition of VEGFA can degrade the structure of blood vessels and reduce neovascularization. In the present study, HERB, a high-throughput experimental and reference-oriented database of herbal medicines, was used for compound mining targeting VEGFA. The compounds most likely to interact with VEGFA were screened by molecular docking. Next, the compounds were used to verify whether it could inhibit the activity of the VEGF signaling pathway in vitro and neovascularization in vivo. In vitro , we found that dioscin could inhibit the activation of the VEGFA–VEGFR2 signaling pathway and cell proliferation of human retinal microvascular endothelial cells in a high-glucose (HG) environment. A more important dioscin intervention inhibits the expression of pro-angiogenic factors in the retinas of db/db mice. In conclusion, our study indicates that dioscin reduces the vascular damage and the expression of pro-angiogenic factors in the retina of db/db mice and implies an important and potential application of dioscin for treatment of DR in clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Current metalenses with large numerical apertures suffer from low efficiency. In this paper, we demonstrate a refractive-meta hybrid system consisting of a ball lens mainly providing the ray bending ability, and a meta-corrector to eliminate aberration of the optical system. Spatial frequency requirement of the meta-device is significantly reduced since system ray bending ability is mainly provided by refractive element. As a result, a large pixel liquid crystal spatial light modulator is sufficient to demonstrate the concept of meta-corrector for the refractive-meta hybrid system with a numerical aperture of 0.52. It is shown that the focal spot size can be significantly reduced from 322.07 μm to 0.636 μm for ray-tracing simulation, and 101.6 μm to 7.7 μm for measurement, as an appropriate phase distribution of the meta-corrector is added. We believe this pilot experiment can be applied to ball lenses and other optical lens-sets like cookie triplets as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy restriction (ER) has been widely studied as a novel intervention, and its ability to prolong life has been fully demonstrated. For example, ER can significantly extend the lifespans of model flies, worms, rodents and other mammals. The role of ER in renal protection has also been elucidated. In preclinical studies, adjusting total energy intake or consumption of specific nutrients has prophylactic or therapeutic effects on ageing-related kidney disease and acute and chronic kidney injury. Amino acid restriction has gradually attracted attention. ER mimetics have also been studied in depth. The protective mechanisms of ER and ER mimetics for renal injury include increasing AMP-activated protein kinase and sirtuin type 1 (Sirt1) levels and autophagy and reducing mammalian target of rapamycin, inflammation and oxidative stress. However, the renal protective effect of ER has mostly been investigated in rodent models, and the role of ER in patients cannot be determined due to the lack of large randomised controlled trials. To protect the kidney, the mechanism of ER must be thoroughly researched, and more accurate diet or drug interventions need to be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]