ALBERT

Description: To investigate the effect of wave-induced mixing on the upper ocean structure, especially under typhoon conditions, an ocean-wave coupled model is used in this study. Two physical processes, wave-induced turbulence mixing and wave transport flux residue, are introduced. We select tropical cyclone (TC) Nepartak in the Northwest Pacific ocean as a TC example. The results show that during the TC period, the wave-induced turbulence mixing effectively increases the cooling area and cooling amplitude of the sea surface temperature (SST). The wave transport flux residue plays a positive role in reproducing the distribution of the SST cooling area. From the intercomparisons among experiments, it is also found that the wave-induced turbulence mixing has an important effect on the formation of mixed layer depth (MLD). The simulated maximum MLD is increased to 54 m and is only 1 m less than the observed value. The wave transport flux residue shows a dominant role in the mixed layer temperature (MLT) changing. The mean error of the MLT is reduced by 0.19 °C compared with the control experiment without wave mixing effects. The study shows that the effect of wave mixing should be included in the upper ocean structure modeling.

Description: In order to reduce the cost of titanium alloys, a novel low-cost Ti-3Al-5Mo-4Cr-2Zr-1Fe (Ti-35421) titanium alloy was developed. The influence of heat treatment on the microstructure characteristics and mechanical properties of the new alloy was investigated. The results showed that the microstructure of Ti-35421 alloy consists of a lamina primary α phase and a β phase after the solution treatment at the α + β region. After aging treatment, the secondary α phase precipitates in the β matrix. The precipitation of the secondary α phase is closely related to heat treatment parameters—the volume fraction and size of the secondary α phase increase when increasing the solution temperature or aging time. At the same solution temperature and aging time, the secondary α phase became coarser, and the fraction decreased with increasing aging temperature. When Ti-35421 alloy was solution-treated at the α + β region for 1 h with aging surpassing 8 h, the tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and reduction of the area were achieved in a range of 1172.7–1459.0 MPa, 1135.1–1355.5 MPa, 5.2–11.8%, and 7.5–32.5%, respectively. The novel low-cost Ti-35421 alloy maintains mechanical properties and reduces the cost of materials compared with Ti-3Al-5Mo-5V-4Cr-2Zr (Ti-B19) alloy.

Description: Lithium batteries are widely used in energy storage power systems such as hydraulic, thermal, wind and solar power stations, as well as power tools, military equipment, aerospace and other fields. The traditional fusion prediction algorithm for the cycle life of energy storage in lithium batteries combines the correlation vector machine, particle filter and autoregressive model to predict the cycle life of lithium batteries, which are subjected to many uncertainties in the prediction process and to inaccurate prediction results. In this paper, a probabilistic prediction algorithm for the cycle life of energy storage in lithium batteries is proposed. The LS-SVR prediction model was trained by a Bayesian three-layer reasoning. In the iterative prediction phase, the Monte Carlo method was used to express and manage the uncertainty and its transitivity in a multistep prediction and to predict the future trend of a lithium battery’s health status. Based on the given failure threshold, the probability distribution of the residual life was obtained by counting the number of particles passing through the threshold. The wavelet neural network was used to study the sample data of lithium batteries, and the mapping relationship between the probability distribution of the residual life of lithium batteries and the unknown values were established. According to this mapping relation and the probability distribution of the residual life of lithium batteries, the health data could be deduced and then iterated into the input of the wavelet neural network. In this way, the predicted degradation curve and the cycle life of lithium batteries could be obtained. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has good adaptability and high prediction efficiency and accuracy, with the mean error of 0.17 and only 1.38 seconds by average required for prediction.

Description: Plantago asiatica L. is widely distributed in Eastern Asia and a commonly used drug in China, Korea, and Japan for diuretic and antiphlogistic purposes. In this experiment, the present study was performed to isolate antioxidant molecules based on the DPPH scavenging activity assay and discover the bioactive compounds which contributed to performing the function of Plantago asiatica L. Each faction was chosen for further isolation guided by DPPH scavenging activity assay. Afterwards, two potential bioactive molecules, aesculetin and apigenin, were isolated for in vitro antioxidant activity in cells. Hydrogen-peroxide-induced oxidative stress led to decreased cell viability, impaired intercellular junction, and damage to the cell membrane and DNA. Furthermore, aesculetin ameliorated decreased cell viability induced by hydrogen peroxide via upregulation of antioxidant related genes, and apigenin also protected against H2O2 mainly by improving the glutathione (GSH) antioxidant system, such as increasing the activity of glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), and the ration of GSH/glutathione disulfide (GSSG). Above all, these findings suggest that aesculetin and apigenin may be bioactive compounds for antioxidant function in Plantago asiatica L.

Description: In the present study, the effect of cerium content in the range of 0~0.0676% on oxygen and sulfur content, as well as the quantity, size, distribution, and type of inclusions in C104Cr saw wire steel, were investigated using thermodynamic analysis, metallographic examination, SEM-EDS, and component analysis. The results showed that conducting a vacuum carbon pre-deoxidization process is helpful in preventing the formation of Ce2O3 inclusions in a smelting experiment, and cerium has a beneficial effect in terms of modifying inclusions. When the content of cerium in steel is 0.0136% or 0.0277%, the main inclusions in the steel are Ce2O2S and CeS, and when the content of cerium is 0.0389% or above, the inclusions in the steel are Ce2O2S, CeS, Ce–S–O–P(As), Ce–O–P, and Ce–P(As). The calculation of the segregation model showed that the precipitation of CeP and CeAs in steel takes place at the end of solidification. According to the element mapping distribution diagram of Ce–S–O–P(As) and the layered Ce–O–P inclusions found in steel with high cerium content, two possible mechanisms for the formation of Ce2O3 inclusions distributed in the outer layer of cerium composite inclusions are proposed. The first mechanism suggests that Ce2O3 inclusions are generated from the combination of [Ce] and [O] directly, and the second suggests that Ce2O3 is the product of an oxidization reaction after the formation of CeP.

Description: In this work, we have synthesized the rod-on-rod–like α-FeOOH/α-AgVO3 nanocomposite photocatalysts with the different amounts of solvothermally synthesized α-FeOOH nanorods via a simple co-precipitation method. The as-synthesized photocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, UV−Visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), element mapping, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The observed SEM images show that both α-AgVO3 and α-FeOOH exhibits the rod-shaped morphology with nano size. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activities of the obtained photocatalysts were evaluated towards the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible-light irradiation. It is demonstrated that the 3 mg α-FeOOH added to the α-FeOOH/α-AgVO3 nanocomposite exhibited an enhanced photocatalytic performance as compared with the pure α-AgVO3 and α-FeOOH. This significant improvement can be attributed to the increased photo-excited electron-hole pair separation efficiency, large portion of visible-light absorption ability and the reduced recombination of the electron-hole pair. The recycling test revealed that the optimized nanocomposite exhibited good photostability and reusability properties. In addition, the believable photodegradation mechanism of RhB using α-FeOOH/α-AgVO3 nanocomposite is proposed. Hence, the developed α-FeOOH/α-AgVO3 nanocomposite is a promising material for the degradation of organic pollutants in an aqueous environment.

Description: Embryonic suspensor in angiosperms is a short-lived structure that connects the embryo to surrounding maternal tissues, which is necessary for early embryogenesis. Timely degeneration via programed cell death is the most distinct feature of the suspensor during embryogenesis. Therefore, the molecular mechanism regulating suspensor cell death is worth in-depth study for embryonic development. However, this process can hardly be detected using conventional methods since early embryos are deeply embedded in the seed coats and inaccessible through traditional tissue section. Hence, it is necessary to develop a reliable protocol for terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) dUTP Nick-End Labeling (TUNEL) analysis using limited living early embryos. Here, we provide a detailed protocol for the whole-mount detection of suspensor cell death using a TUNEL system in tobacco. This method is especially useful for the direct and rapid detection of the spatial-temporal characters of programed cell death during embryogenesis, as well as for the diminishment of the artifacts during material treatment by traditional methods.

Description: The combination of chemotherapy and phototherapy has attracted increasing attention for cancer treatment in recent years. In the current study, porous PdPt bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized and used as delivery carriers for the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). DOX@PdPt NPs were modified with thiol functionalized hyaluronic acid (HA-SH) to generate DOX@PdPt@HA NPs with an average size of 105.2 ± 6.7 nm. Characterization and in vivo and in vitro assessment of anti-tumor effects of DOX@PdPt@HA NPs were further performed. The prepared DOX@PdPt@HA NPs presented a high photothermal conversion efficiency of 49.1% under the irradiation of a single 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) laser. Moreover, NIR laser irradiation-induced photothermal effect triggered the release of DOX from DOX@PdPt@HA NPs. The combined chemo-photothermal treatment of NIR-irradiated DOX@PdPt@HA NPs exerted a stronger inhibitory effect on cell viability than that of DOX or NIR-irradiated PdPt@HA NPs in mouse mammary carcinoma 4T1 cells in vitro. Further, the in vivo combination therapy, which used NIR-irradiated DOX@PdPt@HA NPs in a mouse tumor model established by subcutaneous inoculation of 4T1 cells, was demonstrated to achieve a remarkable tumor-growth inhibition in comparison with chemotherapy or photothermal therapy alone. Results of immunohistochemical staining for caspase-3 and Ki-67 indicated the increased apoptosis and decreased proliferation of tumor cells contributed to the anti-tumor effect of chemo-photothermal treatment. In addition, DOX@PdPt@HA NPs induced negligible toxicity in vivo. Hence, the developed nanoplatform demonstrates great potential for applications in photothermal therapy, drug delivery and controlled release.

Description: Inclusion removal and modification of C96V saw wire steel using Na2O- and Rb2O- containing novel low-basicity LF (ladle furnace) Refining Slags have been researched. The results indicated that the addition of Na2O deteriorates inclusion removal; by contrast, the addition of Rb2O seems to significantly enhance inclusion removal. In detail, Rb2O can improve the cleanliness in the as-quenched C96V saw wire steel melts compared to preexisting synthetic LF refining slag compositions: (i) The average inclusion diameter experienced a remarkable decrease after reaction between the liquid steel and the synthetic LF refining slag; (ii) In addition, the number of inclusions also suffered from a dramatic decrease, with the reaction time increasing from 900 to 2700 s (15 to 45 min); (iii) Furthermore, both of the MnO-SiO2-Al2O3 and CaO-SiO2-Al2O3 inclusion system mainly concentrated in the low melting zone when the composition of Rb2O in synthetic refining slag was ≥5.0 wt%. This is mainly because Na2O significantly reduces the viscosity of refining slag, while Rb2O increases it. Then, there are two remarkable influences causing the increase of viscosity of refining slag with the addition of Rb2O: the inclusions can be sufficiently entrained within the slag once absorbed due to the significant increase in the viscosity; and the slag entrapment during refining process weakened dramatically.