Montmorillonite (MMT), a natural absorbent agent, has widely been accepted for its antidiarrhea function in human and farm animals; however, its specific physicochemical property limits its biological function in practical use. In the current study, raw MMT was loaded by andrographolide, namely andrographolide loaded montmorillonite (AGP-MMT). The microstructure of AGP-MMT was observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The effect of AGP-MMT on the growth performance, intestinal barrier and inflammation was investigated in an enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) challenged mice model. The results show that the microstructure of MMT was obviously changed after andrographolide modification: AGP-MMT exhibited a large number of spheroid particles, and floccule aggregates, but lower interplanar spacing compared with MMT. ETEC infection induced body weight losses and intestinal barrier function injury, as indicated by a lower villus height and ratio of villus height/crypt depth, whereas the serum levels of diamine oxidase (DAO), D-xylose and ETEC shedding were higher in the ETEC group compared with the CON group. Mice pretreated with AGP-MMT showed alleviated body weight losses and the intestinal barrier function injury induced by ETEC challenge. The villus height and the ratio of villus height/crypt depth, were higher in mice pretreated with AGP-MMT than those pretreated with equal levels of MMT. Pretreatment with AGP-MMT also alleviated the increased concentration of serum tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and the corresponding genes in the jejunum induced by ETEC infection in mice. The protein and mRNA levels of IL-1β were lower in mice pretreated with AGP-MMT than those with equal levels of MMT. The results indicate that AGP-MMT was more effective in alleviating intestinal barrier injury and inflammation in mice with ETEC challenge than MMT.

To explore the basic principles of hierarchical materials designed from nanoscale and up, we have been studying the mechanics of robust and releasable adhesion nanostructures of gecko [1]. On the question of robust adhesion, we have introduced a fractal-like hierarchical hair model to show that structural hierarchy allows the work of adhesion to be exponentially enhanced as the level of structural hierarchy is increased. We show that the nanometer length scale plays an essential role in the bottom-up design and, baring fracture of hairs themselves, a hierarchical hair system can be designed from nanoscale and up to achieve flaw tolerant adhesion at any length scales. For releasable adhesion, we show that elastic anisotropy leads to orientation-dependent adhesion strength. Finite element calculations revealed that a strongly anisotropic attachment pad in contact with a rigid substrate exhibits essentially two levels of adhesion strength depending on the direction of pulling.

A microgrid with parallel structure operating under islanded mode is considered in this paper. Under microgrid islanded operation mode, lines bring adverse effect for power distribution between microsources (MSs). Because traditional droop control ignores this effect, MSs adopting this method can not achieve satisfactory power distribution. A kind of droop control including line compensation applied to this microgrid is proposed. It can eliminate this effect to obtain satisfactory power distribution. The relationship of two kinds of droop control with power distribution is analyzed. The reference voltage generated by droop control is applied to control output voltage of MSs. Comparison of two kinds of droop control through MATLAB/Simulink simulation is made to verify the superiority of droop control including line compensation for power distribution. The relationship between PCC voltage and output power of MSs is also presented.

22 representative antibiotics, including 8 quinolones (QNs), 9 sulfonamides (SAs), and 5 macrolides (MCs) were selected to investigate their occurrence and removal efficiencies in a Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) and their distribution in the receiving water of the Chaobai River in Beijing, China. Water quality monitoring was performed in an integrated way at different selected points in the WWTP to explore the potential mechanism of antibiotics removal during wastewater treatment. Water quality of the Chaobai River was also analyzed to examine environmental distribution in a river ecosystem. The results showed that within all the 22 compounds examined, 10 antibiotics were quantified in wastewater influent, 10 in effluent, and 7 in river. Sulfadiazine (SDZ, 396 ng/L) and Sulfamethazine (SMZ, 382 ng/L) were the dominating antibiotics in the influent. Both the conventional treatment and advanced Biological Aerated Filter (BAF) system was important for the removal of antibiotics from the wastewater. And the concentrations of selected antibiotics were ranged from 0-41.8 ng/L in the effluent-receiving river. Despite the fact that the concentrations were reduced more than 50% compared to effluent concentrations, WWTP discharge was still regarded as a dominant point-source input of antibiotics into the Chaobai River.

The parenchyma cellulose isolated from bagasse pith was used as an alternative resource for preparation of water-soluble cellouronic acid sodium salt (CAS). The influence of ultrasound treatment on the cellulose was investigated for obtaining CAS by regioselective oxidization using 4-acetamide-TEMPO and NaClO with NaClO2 as a primary oxidant in an aqueous buffer at pH 6.0. The yield, carboxylate content and polymerization degree (DP) of CAS were measured as a function of ultrasonic power, agitating time and cellulose consistency by an orthogonal test. The ultrasound-treated conditions were further improved by discussion of ultrasonic power, the most important factor influencing the yield and DP. An optimized CAS yield of 72.9% with DP value (DPv) of 212 was found when the ultrasonic strength is 550 W, agitating time is 3 h and cellulose consistency is 2.0%. The oxidation reactivity of cellulose was improved by ultrasonic irradiation, whereas no significant changes in crystallinity of cellulose were measured after ultrasonic treatment. Moreover, the ultrasound treatment has a greater effect on yielding CAS from parenchyma cellulose than from bagasse fibrous' one. The CAS was further characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

A robust Kalman filter improved with IGG (Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics) scheme is proposed and used to resist the harmful effect of gross error from GPS observation in PPP/INS (precise point positioning/inertial navigation system) tightly coupled positioning. A new robust filter factor is constructed as a three-section function to increase the computational efficiency based on the IGG principle. The results of simulation analysis show that the robust Kalman filter with IGG scheme is able to reduce the filter iteration number and increase efficiency. The effectiveness of new robust filter is demonstrated by a real experiment. The results support our conclusion that the improved robust Kalman filter with IGG scheme used in PPP/INS tightly coupled positioning is able to remove the ill effect of gross error in GPS pseudorange observation. It clearly illustrates that the improved robust Kalman filter is very effective, and all simulated gross errors added to GPS pseudorange observation are successfully detected and modified.

Accurate flatness measurement of silicon wafers is affected greatly by the gravity-induced deflection (GID) of the wafers, especially for large and thin wafers. The three-point-support method is a preferred method for the measurement, in which the GID uniquely determined by the positions of the supports could be calculated and subtracted. The accurate calculation of GID is affected by the initial stress of the wafer and the positioning errors of the supports. In this paper, a finite element model (FEM) including the effect of initial stress was developed to calculate GID. The influence of the initial stress of the wafer on GID calculation was investigated and verified by experiment. A systematic study of the effects of positioning errors of the support ball and the wafer on GID calculation was conducted. The results showed that the effect of the initial stress could not be neglected for ground wafers. The wafer positioning error and the circumferential error of the support were the most influential factors while the effect of the vertical positioning error was negligible in GID calculation.

Ludwigite is the main available boron-bearing resource in China. In order to enrich the theory system and optimize its utilization processes, this paper study the mechanism and kinetics on non-isothermal decomposition of ludwigite in inert atmosphere by means of thermal analysis. Results show that, the decomposition of serpentine and szajbelyite is the main cause of mass loss in the process. At the end of decomposition, hortonolite and ludwigite are the two main phases in the sample. The average E value of structural water decomposition is 277.97 kJ/mol based on FWO method (277.17 kJ/mol based on KAS method). The results is proved to be accurate and reliable. The mechanism model function of structural water decomposition is confirmed by Satava method and Popescu method. The form of the most probable model function is G(α) = (1 – α)–1 – 1 (integral form) and f (α) = (1 – α)2 (differential form), and its mechanism is chemical reaction. This is verified by the criterion based on activation energy of model-free kinetics analysis.

The normal modes cannot be extracted even in the Pekeris waveguide when the source-receiver distance is very close. This paper introduces a normal mode extraction method based on a dedispersion transform (DDT) to solve this problem. The method presented here takes advantage of DDT, which is based on the waveguide invariant such that the dispersion associated with all of the normal modes is removed at the same time. After performing DDT on a signal received in the Pekeris waveguide, the waveform of resulting normal modes is very close to the source signal, each with different position and amplitude. Each normal mode can be extracted by determining its position and amplitude parameters by applying particle swarm optimization (PSO). The waveform of the extracted normal mode is simply the waveform of the source signal; the real waveform of the received normal mode can then be recovered by applying dispersion compensation to the source signal. The method presented needs only one receiver and is verified with experimental data

Based on the mould temperature measured by thermocouples during slab continuous casting, a difference of temperature thermograph is developed to detect slab cracks. In order to detect abnormal temperature region caused by longitudinal crack, the suspicious regions are extracted and divided by virtue of computer image processing algorithms, such as threshold segmentation, connected region judgement and boundary tracing. The abnormal regions are then determined and labeled with the eight connected component labeling algorithm. The boundary of abnormal region is also extracted to depict characteristics of longitudinal crack. Based on above researches, longitudinal crack with abnormal temperature region can be detected and is different from other abnormalities. Four samples of temperature drop are picked up to compare with longitudinal crack on the abnormal region formation, length, width, shape, et al. The results show that the abnormal region caused by longitudinal crack has a linear and vertical shape. The height of abnormal region is more than the width obviously. The ratio of height to width is usually larger than that of other temperature drop regions. This method provides a visual and easy way to detect longitudinal crack and other abnormities. Meanwhile it has a positive meaning to the intelligent and visual mould monitoring system of continuous casting.

Sample-time errors can greatly degrade the dynamic range of a time-interleaved sampling system. In this paper, a novel correction technique employing a cubic spline interpolation is proposed for inter-channel sample-time error compensation. The cubic spline interpolation compensation filter is developed in the form of a finite-impulse response (FIR) filter structure. The correction method of the interpolation compensation filter coefficients is deduced. A 4GS/s two-channel, time-interleaved ADC prototype system has been implemented to evaluate the performance of the technique. The experimental results showed that the correction technique is effective to attenuate the spurious spurs and improve the dynamic performance of the system.

In order to understand infection of avian influenza A virus (AIV) and canine distemper virus (CDV) in the Siberian Tiger in Northeast China, 75 Siberian Tiger serum samples from three cap- tive facilities in northeastern China were collected. AIV and CDV antibody surveillance was test- ed by using hemagglutination inhibition and serum neutralization methods. The results showed that the seroprevalence of H5 AIV, H9 AIV and CDV was respectively 9.33% (7/75), 61.33% (46/75) and 16% (12/75). In the 1<years <2 and > 5 year-old group, the seroprevalence of the H9 AIV was 24% and 80% (P < 0.01), and the CDV seroprevalence was 6% and 36% (P < 0.01), respectively. It was demonstrated that 3 (4%) out of 75 serum samples were AIV+CDV seropos- itive, with 2.67% (2/75) in H9+AIV and 1.33% (1/75) in H5+H9+AIV. To our knowledge, this is the first report of AIV and CDV seroprevalence in Siberian Tigers in China, which will provide base-line data for the control of AIV and CDV infection in Siberian Tigers in China.

The combined effect of sulfur (S) and acid soluble aluminum (Als) content on precipitates and microstructures in grainoriented silicon steel were investigated. The results show that there are dominant AlN and a little amount of MnS-AlN composite in annealed hot-rolled band, and the amount of precipitates increases distinctly with increasing Als content, while S content plays a negligible role. The inhibitors that precipitate during hot band annealing can restrain the grain growth during hot band annealing and primary annealing, and the smaller grains of annealed hot-rolled band can contribute to the formation of {111} <112> texture during primary annealing. Lower S content is conducive to the formation of {111} <112> texture during primary annealing by promoting the formation of Goss texture during hot rolling.

Twinned dendrites in Al-Zn alloy with high Zn content (40% wt.%) were successfully prepared by directional solidification. At different directional solidification rates (1000 and 1500 μm/s), microstructures and growth orientation variations of Al twinned dendrite and non-twinned dendrite were characterized. By using the inverted trapezoidal graphite sleeve at 1000 μm/s, Al twinned dendrite were formed to developed feather crystal structures in longitudinal section. Its primary and secondary twinned dendrite were grew along [110] direction. Moreover the deviation angle between [110] direction of Al twinned dendrite and the heat flow direction was about 27.15°. While not using the inverted trapezoidal graphite sleeve at 1000 and 1500 μm/s, Al dendrite was the non-twinned dendrite and the twinned dendrite was not appeared. The experimental results showed that the higher temperature gradient, a certain pulling rate and convection environment were the formation conditions of twinned dendrites.

Hylocereus undatus flower is commonly used as food or for medicinal purposes in south China. To study its antioxidant activity and mechanism we used antioxidant and chemical assays to compare two commercial samples from different locations (Shenjing, Qixing). The difference in antioxidant levels corresponded with differences in chemical content (including total phenolics, total flavonoids, kaempferol and quercetin) between Shenjing and Qixing. The antioxidant ability of H. undatus flower seems attributable to total phenolics (mainly total flavonoids). Kaempferol is one of the main bioactive components. H. undatus flower exerts its antioxidant effects through metal chelation and radical scavenging via hydrogen atom (H•) and electron (e) donation.