Carex meyeriana Kunth Extract Is a Novel Natural Drug against Candida albicans.

As a widely distributed plant in Northeast China, Carex meyeriana Kunth (CMK) is generally considered to have antibacterial properties; however, there is a lack of scientific evidence for this. Therefore, we investigated the chemical composition of CMK extract and its effect against C. albicans. A total of 105 compounds were identified in the alcohol extracts of CMK by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS. Most were flavonoids, with Luteolin being the most represented. Among them, 19 compounds are found in the C. albicans lysates. After treatment with CMK ethanol extract, a significant reduction in the number of C. albicans colonies was observed in a vaginal douche solution from day 5 (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the CMK extract can reduce the number of C. albicans spores. The levels of IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-1ß, and TNF-α in vaginal tissues all exhibited a significant decrease (p < 0.05) compared to those in the model group as determined by ELISA. The results of HE staining showed that CMK extract can eliminate vaginal mucosa inflammation. CMK adjusts the vaginal mucosa cells by targeting twenty-six different metabolites and five specific metabolic pathways in order to effectively eliminate inflammation. Simultaneously, the CMK regulates twenty-three types of metabolites and six metabolic pathways against C. albicans infection. So, CMK strongly inhibits the growth of C. albicans and significantly reduces vaginal inflammation, making it a promising candidate for treating C. albicans infection.

Comparative Analysis of Herbaceous and Woody Cell Wall Digestibility by Pathogenic Fungi.

Fungal pathogens have evolved combinations of plant cell-wall-degrading enzymes (PCWDEs) to deconstruct host plant cell walls (PCWs). An understanding of this process is hoped to create a basis for improving plant biomass conversion efficiency into sustainable biofuels and bioproducts. Here, an approach integrating enzyme activity assay, biomass pretreatment, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and genomic analysis of PCWDEs were applied to examine digestibility or degradability of selected woody and herbaceous biomass by pathogenic fungi. Preferred hydrolysis of apple tree branch, rapeseed straw, or wheat straw were observed by the apple-tree-specific pathogen Valsa mali, the rapeseed pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and the wheat pathogen Rhizoctonia cerealis, respectively. Delignification by peracetic acid (PAA) pretreatment increased PCW digestibility, and the increase was generally more profound with non-host than host PCW substrates. Hemicellulase pretreatment slightly reduced or had no effect on hemicellulose content in the PCW substrates tested; however, the pretreatment significantly changed hydrolytic preferences of the selected pathogens, indicating a role of hemicellulose branching in PCW digestibility. Cellulose organization appears to also impact digestibility of host PCWs, as reflected by differences in cellulose microfibril organization in woody and herbaceous PCWs and variation in cellulose-binding domain organization in cellulases of pathogenic fungi, which is known to influence enzyme access to cellulose. Taken together, this study highlighted the importance of chemical structure of both hemicelluloses and cellulose in host PCW digestibility by fungal pathogens.

Active Return-to-Center Control Based on Torque and Angle Sensors for Electric Power Steering Systems.

This paper presents a complete control strategy of the active return-to-center (RTC) control for electric power steering (EPS) systems. We first establish the mathematical model of the EPS system and analyze the source and influence of the self-aligning torque (SAT). Second, based on the feedback signals of steering column torque and steering wheel angle, we give the trigger conditions of a state switch between the steering assist state and the RTC state. In order to avoid the sudden change of the output torque for the driving motor when the state switches frequently between the steering assist state and the RTC state, we design an undisturbed state switching logic algorithm. This state switching logic algorithm ensures that the output value of the RTC controller is set to an initial value and increases in given steps up to a maximum value after entering the RTC state, and the output value of the RTC controller will reduce in given steps down to zero when exiting the RTC state. This therefore ensures smooth switch control between the two states and improves the driver's steering feeling. Third, we design the RTC controller, which depends upon the feedback signals of the steering wheel angle and the angular velocity. In addition, the controller increases the auxiliary control function of the RTC torque based on vehicle speed. The experimental results show that the active RTC control method does not affect the basic assist characteristics, which effectively reduces the residual angle of the steering wheel at low vehicle speed and improves the RTC performance of the vehicle.

2-Hy-droxy-N,N,N-trimethyl-3-tetra-decyl-oxypropan-1-aminium bromide.

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C(20)H(44)NO(2) (+)·Br(-), the cation and anion are connected via an O-H⋯Br hydrogen bond, forming an ionic pair. The cation is disordered over two conformations related by a mirror plane, and the anion is situated on a mirror plane so that the asymmetric unit contains half of the ionic pair. The long alkyl chain in the cation adopts an all-trans conformation. The crystal packing exhibits weak inter-molecular C-H⋯O inter-actions.

[A new method to extract time-frequency characteristics of hypertension pathological signal based on pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution].

Hypertension, as one of diseases with the highest incidence in the world at present, is an important cause of stroke, coronary heart disease, renal insufficiency and other serious diseases. Based on pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution, this paper makes an analysis on the relevant pulse characteristics by measuring time range of the energy concentration circle. In view of the present situation, that is, about half of the high-normal blood pressure persons are likely to develop hypertension, we explored the pulse characteristics to find the pathological changes in subjects with prehypertension, in order to solve the problems that there are no obvious clinical significant features in prehypertension. The results showed that the duration of high energy circle in signal with hypertension pathological changes was shorter than the duration of healthy signal. Hence, healthy signal and hypertension pathological signal can be effectively distinguished by this method, and this provides a new basis to identify the lesion signal when blood pressure is in critical period.

Impacts of climate change on water resources in the major countries along the Belt and Road.

BACKGROUND: Climate change has altered global hydrological cycles mainly due to changes in temperature and precipitation, which may exacerbate the global and regional water shortage issues, especially in the countries along the Belt and Road (B&R). METHODS: In this paper, we assessed water supply, demand, and stress under three climate change scenarios in the major countries along the Belt and Road. We ensembled ten Global Climate Model (GCM) runoff data and downscaled it to a finer resolution of 0.1° × 0.1° by the random forest model. RESULTS: Our results showed that the GCM runoff was highly correlated with the FAO renewable water resources and thus could be used to estimate water supply. Climate change would increase water supply by 4.85%, 5.18%, 8.16% and water demand by 1.45%, 1.68%, 2.36% under RCP 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 scenarios by 2050s, respectively. As a result, climate change will, in general, have little impact on water stress in the B&R countries as a whole. However, climate change will make future water resources more unevenly distributed among the B&R countries and regions, exacerbating water stress in some countries, especially in Central Asia and West Asia. Our results are informative for water resource managers and policymakers in the B&R countries to make sustainable water management strategies under future climate change.

On the role of Zr substitution in structure modification and photoluminescence of Li5+2xLa3(Ta1-xZrx)2O12:Eu garnet phosphors.

Solid-state reaction at 1000 °C produces a series of Li-stuffed Li5+2x(La1-yEuy)3(Ta1-xZrx)2O12 garnet phosphors (x = 0-1, y = 0.05-0.6) that exhibit favorable efficiency and thermal stability for red luminescence under either blue or n-UV light excitation, where the optimal composition was identified to be x = 0.5 and y = 0.4. The concentration quenching of luminescence was determined to occur via electric dipole-dipole interactions. Zr4+ substitution for Ta5+, accompanied by additional Li+ for charge compensation, was found via Rietveld structure refinement and Raman/UV-Vis spectroscopy to profoundly affect the tetrahedral and octahedral occupancies of Li, the symmetry of (La/Eu)O8 dodecahedron, and the bandgap of the host lattice and cation disorder, with which the systematically varying excitation and emission behaviors of Eu3+ were deciphered. The Li6(La0.6Eu0.4)3(Ta0.5Zr0.5)2O12 optimal phosphor showed quantum yields of ∼40 and 48% under 393 and 463 nm excitations, respectively, a fluorescence lifetime of ∼0.66 ms for its main emission at 610 nm, color coordinates of around (0.653, 0.347), and can retain as high as ∼85% of its room-temperature emission intensity at 423 K. The phosphor also exhibited a favorable performance for n-UV excited LED lighting.

KLn(MoO4)2 micro/nanocrystals (Ln = La-Lu, Y): systematic hydrothermal crystallization, structure, and the performance of doped Eu3+ for optical thermometry.

Systematic crystallization of KLn(MoO4)2 double molybdate micro/nanocrystals was achieved in this work for the family of lanthanide elements (excluding Pm) and Y via hydrothermal reaction under the optimized conditions of pH = 7, Mo/Ln molar ratio R = 5 and 200 °C, with which the intrinsic influence of lanthanide contraction on phase preference, crystallite morphology (size/shape) and crystal structure was clearly revealed. Extended synthesis also produced KLa1-xEux(MoO4)2 (KLM:xEu) and KY1-yEuy(MoO4)2 (KYM:yEu) red phosphors, and detailed spectral analysis found that the layered structure of orthorhombic KYM allows Eu3+ to have a high quenching content of ∼70 at% (y = 0.7) and higher quantum efficiency and thermal stability of luminescence. Application also indicated that the KYM:0.7Eu optimal phosphor has the potential for optical temperature sensing with the thermally coupled 5D0 and 5D1 energy levels of Eu3+.

[The feature extraction of hypertension based on wavelet transform].

This paper carries out the multi-scale decomposition of pulse signals on different frequency bands by wavelet transform, and the analysis of power spectral density shows that the detailed signal energy of the fourth layer mainly concentrates on the 3-5 Hz, while the energy of the fifth layer concentrating on the 1-3 Hz. Through calculating the energy, the experimental results show that: the hypertension signal energy of 3-5 Hz band increases significantly, compared with the normal signals.

Microfluidic-Based Mechanical Phenotyping of Androgen-Sensitive and Non-sensitive Prostate Cancer Cells Lines.

Cell mechanical properties have been identified to characterize cells pathologic states. Here, we report our work on high-throughput mechanical phenotyping of androgen-sensitive and non-sensitive human prostate cancer cell lines based on a morphological rheological microfluidic method. The theory for extracting cells' elastic modulus from their deformation and area, and the used experimental parameters were analyzed. The mechanical properties of three types of prostate cancer cells lines with different sensitivity to androgen including LNCaP, DU145, and PC3 were quantified. The result shows that LNCaP cell was the softest, DU145 was the second softest, and PC3 was the stiffest. Furthermore, atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to verify the effectiveness of this high-throughput morphological rheological method.

Formation and characteristics of aqueous two-phase systems formed by a cationic surfactant and a series of ionic liquids.

Aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) were obtained in the aqueous mixtures of a cationic surfactant and a series of ionic liquids (ILs). The effects of IL structure, temperature and additives on the phase separation were systematically investigated. The microstructures of some ATPS were observed by freeze-fracture replication technique. Lyotropic liquid crystal was found in the bottom phase besides micelles under different conditions. Remarkably, both IL structure and additives profoundly affected the formation and properties of the ATPSs. The phase separation can be attributed to the existence of different aggregates and the cation-π interactions of the cationic surfactant with the ILs, which has a significant role in the formation of ATPS. The extraction capacity of the studied ATPS was also evaluated through their application in the extraction of two biosubstances. The results indicate that the ILs with BF4(-) as anion show much better extraction efficiencies than the corresponding ILs with Br(-) as anion do under the same conditions. l-Tryptophan was mainly distributed into the NPTAB-rich phase, while methylene blue and capsochrome were mainly in the IL-rich phase.