ALBERT

Description: The flower buds of three Panax species (PGF: flower bud of P. ginseng; PQF: flower bud of P. quinquefolius; PNF: flower bud of P. notoginseng), widely consumed as healthcare products, are easily confused particularly in the extracts or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formulae. We are aimed to develop an untargeted metabolomics approach, by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography/ion mobility-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/IM-QTOF-MS) to unveil the chemical markers diagnostic for the differentiation of PGF, PQF, and PNF. Key parameters affecting chromatographic separation and MS detection were optimized in sequence. Forty-two batches of flower bud samples were analyzed in negative high-definition MSE (HDMSE; enabling three-dimensional separations). Efficient metabolomics data processing was performed by Progenesis QI (Waters, Milford, MA, USA), while pattern-recognition chemometrics was applied for species classification and potential markers discovery. Reference compounds comparison, analysis of both HDMSE and targeted MS/MS data, and retrieval of an in-house ginsenoside library, were simultaneously utilized for the identification of discovered potential markers. Satisfactory conditions for metabolite profiling were achieved on a BEH Shield RP18 column and Vion™ IMS-QTOF instrument (Waters; by setting the capillary voltage of 1.0 kV and the cone of voltage 20 V) within 37 min. A total of 32 components were identified as the potential markers, of which Rb3, Ra1, isomer of m-Rc/m-Rb2/m-Rb3, isomer of Ra1/Ra2, Rb1, and isomer of Ra3, were the most important for differentiating among PGF, PQF, and PNF. Conclusively, UHPLC/IM-QTOF-MS-based metabolomics is a powerful tool for the authentication of TCM at the metabolome level.

Description: The state of the art ion mobility quadrupole time of flight (IM-QTOF) mass spectrometer coupled with ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) can offer four-dimensional information supporting the comprehensive multicomponent characterization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Compound Xueshuantong Capsule (CXC) is a four-component Chinese patent medicine prescribed to treat ophthalmic disease and angina. However, research systematically elucidating its chemical composition is not available. An approach was established by integrating reversed-phase UHPLC separation, IM-QTOF-MS operating in both the negative and positive electrospray ionization modes, and a “Component Knockout” strategy. An in-house ginsenoside library and the incorporated TCM library of UNIFITM drove automated peak annotation. With the aid of 85 reference compounds, we could separate and characterize 230 components from CXC, including 155 ginsenosides, six astragalosides, 16 phenolic acids, 16 tanshinones, 13 flavonoids, six iridoids, ten phenylpropanoid, and eight others. Major components of CXC were from the monarch drug, Notoginseng Radix et Rhizoma. This study first clarifies the chemical complexity of CXC and the results obtained can assist to unveil the bioactive components and improve its quality control.

Description: With the widely used monthly gravity models, it is hard to determine the sub-monthly variations. Thanks to the high temporal resolution, a daily ITSG-Grace2018 gravity model is employed to derive the vertical deformation of the China region in 1.0° × 1.0° grids. The standard deviations of residuals between the daily and monthly averaged displacement range from 1.0 to 3.5 mm, reaching half of the median residuals, which indicates that a higher temporal resolution gravity model is quite necessary for the analysis of crustal displacement. For the signal analysis, traditional least square (LS) is limited in its analysis of signals with constant amplitude. However, geophysical signals in a geodetic time series usually fluctuate over long periods, and missing data happen. In this study, the data adaptive approach called enhanced harmonic analysis (EHA), which is based on an Independent Point (IP) scheme, is introduced to deal with these issues. To demonstrate the time-varying signals, the relative differences between EHA and LS are calculated. It illustrates that the median percentage of epochs at grids with a relative difference larger than 10% is 69.7% and the proportions for the ranges of 30%, 50%, and 70% are about 30.1%, 18.4%, and 13.0%, respectively. The obvious discrepancy suggests the advantage of EHA over LS in obtaining time-varying signals. Moreover, the spatial distribution of the discrepancy also demonstrates the regional characteristics, suggesting that the assumption of constant amplitude is not appropriate in specific regions. To further validate the effectiveness of EHA, the comprehensive analysis on the different noise types, number of IPs, missing data, and simultaneous signals are carried out. Specifically, EHA can deal with series containing white or color noise, although the stochastic model for the color noise should be modified. The signals are slightly different when selecting different numbers of IPs within a range, which could be accepted during analysis. Without interpolation, EHA performs well even with continuously missing data, which is regarded as its feature. Meanwhile, not only a single signal but also simultaneous signals can be effectively identified by EHA.

Description: Terahertz (THz) radiation has attracted much attention in new scientific and industrial applications. There has been significant recent progress in generating THz with accelerators. To investigate the collective behavior of electron dynamics, we have proposed a new high throughput material characterization system, which supplies a multiple light source. The system includes a pre-bunched THz free electron laser (FEL), which is a high-power narrow-band THz source with a wide tuning range of frequency. The physical design with the main components of the facility is introduced, and the simulation results are illustrated. Radiation of 0.5–3.0 THz is obtained by the fundamental wave of the pre-bunched beam, and radiation covering 3.0–5.0 THz is realized by second harmonic generation. As the simulation shows, intense THz radiation could be achieved in a frequency from 0.5–5.0 THz, with a peak power of several megawatts (MWs) and a bandwidth of a few percent.

Description: A new type of dielectric-loaded waveguide, the high-gradient dielectric-loaded waveguide (HG-DLW), where the Cherenkov radiation with a high gradient can be excited by relativistic electron, is proposed in this paper. Based on the simulation results, the process of the high-gradient Cherenkov radiation excited in the proposed structure is studied in details, and the amplitude of wakefields excited in proposed structure can be enhanced by over six times compared with that from ordinary dielectric-loaded waveguides.

Description: The complexity of herbal matrix necessitates the development of powerful analytical strategies to enable comprehensive multicomponent characterization. In this work, targeting the multicomponents from Panax japonicus C.A. Meyer, both data dependent acquisition (DDA) and data-independent high-definition MSE (HDMSE) in the negative electrospray ionization mode were used to extend the coverage of untargeted metabolites characterization by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to a VionTM IM-QTOF (ion-mobility/quadrupole time-of-flight) high-resolution mass spectrometer. Efficient chromatographic separation was achieved by using a BEH Shield RP18 column. Optimized mass-dependent ramp collision energy of DDA enabled more balanced MS/MS fragmentation for mono- to penta-glycosidic ginsenosides. An in-house ginsenoside database containing 504 known ginsenosides and 60 reference compounds was established and incorporated into UNIFITM, by which efficient and automated peak annotation was accomplished. By streamlined data processing workflows, we could identify or tentatively characterize 178 saponins from P. japonicus, of which 75 may have not been isolated from the Panax genus. Amongst them, 168 ginsenosides were characterized based on the DDA data, while 10 ones were newly identified from the HDMSE data, which indicated their complementary role. Conclusively, the in-depth deconvolution and characterization of multicomponents from P. japonicus were achieved, and the approaches we developed can be an example for comprehensive chemical basis elucidation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

Description: The development of China’s sharing economy has slowed down significantly after experiencing the savage growth since the beginning of 2018 and has entered the turning point of structural adjustment. Factors including homogeneous and single profit model, excessive reliance on capital, and the immaturity of win-win industrial ecosystem are major bottlenecks. Therefore, how to overcome the obstacles is a key issue to be solved urgently. In view of the sharing economy’s characteristics of industry integration and cross-boundary symbiosis, the concept of sharing economy industrial ecosystem was put forward. Furthermore, social network analysis (SNA) was used to solve the problem of weak synergy in the development of China’s sharing economy and strive to break through the development bottleneck in order to realize the optimization of China’s sharing industry ecosystem and the sustainable development of industry. Specially, we proposed a fusion framework of industrial ecosystem and SNA including macro, meso, and micro dimensions. Macro analysis is based on the fusion of ecological environment in ecosystem theory and density analysis in SNA. Meso analysis is based on the fusion of ecological communities in ecosystem theory and subgroup analysis in SNA. Micro analysis is based on the fusion of an ecological niche in ecosystem theory and centrality analysis in SNA. It was found that the ecosystem of sharing mobility industry has been basically established, and the ecological diversity is good, including sharing mobility, third-party platform, automobile manufacturing, insurance and venture capital enterprises and universities. In addition, some sharing enterprises, typically represented by Didi, are upgrading their strategies to ecological development through cross-border integration. Mobile payment plays a vital role in developing China’s sharing mobility industry.

Description: Nd3+, Y3+: SrF2 transparent ceramics were successfully synthesized by two methods: hot-forming and hot-pressing techniques. The mechanical properties and optical properties of the hot-formed Nd3+, Y3+: SrF2 transparent ceramics were much better than that of single crystal. On the other hand, the transmittance of the hot-formed transparent ceramics with different deformation rate reached up to 90% at 1054 nm, which is superior to the hot-pressed ceramics. Furthermore, the fracture toughness of hot-formed Nd3+, Y3+: SrF2 transparent ceramics with the deformation rate of 51% reached up to 0.70 MPa m1/2, which is nearly 1.5 times higher than that of as-grown single crystal. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the hot-formed ceramic is larger than that of the single crystal at 1053 nm under continuous-wave (CW) laser operation. The thermal conductivity of Nd3+, Y3+: SrF2 single crystal and hot-formed ceramics were also discussed.

Description: The revitalization of Northeastern China has been an important topic in China in recent years. Sustainable development of cities plays a strong role in the revitalization process. In this paper, we evaluated the sustainability of the 34 prefecture-level and above cities in Northeastern China. The evaluation process was viewed as a dynamic evaluation problem. A dynamic technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and entropy method was developed by extending the entropy weight and TOPSIS to dynamic situation. It was found that the sustainability levels of the cities in Northeastern China were comparatively low. Only four sub-provincial cities’ average performances were over 0.5 (accounting for 11.8%). Except for Jixi, nearly all the cities had dim sustainability because of the lower positive or even negative growth rates. In addition to Shenyang, Dalian, Changchun, Harbin, and Daqing, the other cities performed worst in the economic sustainability with performance values below 0.3. This implicates that the necessity and urgency of improving the economic sustainability levels of the cities in Northeastern China to realize the coordinated development of the three dimensions (economy, society and environment). In terms of the cities located in Liaoning province, they need to pay more attention to the economic sustainability, even though their economy basis (or levels) were comparatively better than that in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. For the cities in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, the decline of their environmental sustainability was serious. This case should arouse the attention of local authorities.

Description: City sustainability is an important issue in the urbanization process. In this paper, the sustainability of 14 cities in Liaoning province in China is evaluated and predicted. The process of evaluating city sustainability is viewed as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. A simple additive weighting method is used for aggregating the normalized sustainability criteria data, built based on the three-pillar model and the associated weights. The results indicate that although the sustainability of the cities in Liaoning province is not perfect, the cities show better development momentum. For example, only two cities’ (Shenyang and Dalian) average performance scores in 2010–2016 were over 0.5, but all the cities’ sustainability improved in 2016 compared to 2010. We develop a stochastic simulation procedure used for predicting a city’s sustainability in future years. Many prediction results were obtained, including the maximum, minimum, and average performance scores of the cities, the pairwise priority matrix representing the ratio of one city outperforming another, and the ranking of cities’ sustainability with probabilities. The prediction results indicate various degrees of increase for almost all the cities’ sustainability in the future, which is consistent with the judgment of better development momentum determined from the evaluation results. Moreover, the cities of Dandong, Panjin may exceed Shenyang, Dalian, and rank in the top among all the cities in future years.