Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Aconitum Alkaloids in Raw and Processed Chuanwu and Caowu by HPLC in Combination with Automated Analytical System and ESI/MS/MS

HPLC in combination with automated analytical system and ESI/MS/MS was used to analyze aconitine (A), mesaconitine (MA), hypaconitine (HA), and their benzoyl analogs in the Chinese herbs Caowu and Chuanwu. First, an HPLC method was developed and validated to determine A, MA, and HA in raw and processed Caowu and Chuanwu. Then an automated analytical system and ESI/MS/MS were applied to analyze these alkaloids and their semihydrolyzed products. The results obtained from automated analytical system are identical to those from ESI/MS/MS, which indicated that the method is a convenient and rapid tool for the qualitative analysis of herbal preparations. Furthermore, HA was little hydrolyzed by heating processes and thus it might account more for the toxicity of processed aconites. Hence, HA could be used as an indicator when one alkaloid is required as a reference to monitor the quality of raw and processed Chuanwu and Caowu. In addition, the raw and processed Chuanwu and Caowu can be distinguished by monitoring the ratio of A and MA to HA

TL-nvSRAM-CIM: Ultra-High-Density Three-Level ReRAM-Assisted Computing-in-nvSRAM with DC-Power Free Restore and Ternary MAC Operations

Accommodating all the weights on-chip for large-scale NNs remains a great challenge for SRAM based computing-in-memory (SRAM-CIM) with limited on-chip capacity. Previous non-volatile SRAM-CIM (nvSRAM-CIM) addresses this issue by integrating high-density single-level ReRAMs on the top of high-efficiency SRAM-CIM for weight storage to eliminate the off-chip memory access. However, previous SL-nvSRAM-CIM suffers from poor scalability for an increased number of SL-ReRAMs and limited computing efficiency. To overcome these challenges, this work proposes an ultra-high-density three-level ReRAMs-assisted computing-in-nonvolatile-SRAM (TL-nvSRAM-CIM) scheme for large NN models. The clustered n-selector-n-ReRAM (cluster-nSnRs) is employed for reliable weight-restore with eliminated DC power. Furthermore, a ternary SRAM-CIM mechanism with differential computing scheme is proposed for energy-efficient ternary MAC operations while preserving high NN accuracy. The proposed TL-nvSRAM-CIM achieves 7.8x higher storage density, compared with the state-of-art works. Moreover, TL-nvSRAM-CIM shows up to 2.9x and 1.9x enhanced energy-efficiency, respectively, compared to the baseline designs of SRAM-CIM and ReRAM-CIM, respectively

Simulation and Analysis of Building Energy Consumption in Port passenger Stations

Port passenger station buildings (PPSD) are an important part of transportation buildings in China, which is characterized by large human flow, long operating time, high load of equipment and lighting. The characteristics and functions of PPSD lead to the high energy consumption. However, the energy consumption analysis of PPSD was deficient. In this paper, the characteristics of energy consumption of port passenger stations in cold regions and hot summer and warm winter regions in China were analyzed. Based on eQUEST, the building models of port passenger stations are established. The influencing factors of the building energy consumption were analyzed through orthogonal experiment with SPSS. Results show that the factors such as summer indoor design temperature, heat source form, air conditioning form, window to wall ratio and lighting control mode are the key factors affecting the energy consumption of port passenger station

Raman Spectroscopy for Pharmaceutical Quantitative Analysis by Low-Rank Estimation

Raman spectroscopy has been widely used for quantitative analysis in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. However, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of Raman spectra is always poor due to weak Raman scattering. The noise in Raman spectral dataset will limit the accuracy of quantitative analysis. Because of high correlations in the spectral signatures, Raman spectra have the low-rank property, which can be used as a constraint to improve Raman spectral SNR. In this paper, a simple and feasible Raman spectroscopic analysis method by Low-Rank Estimation (LRE) is proposed. The Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm is applied in the LRE method to seek the optimal solution. The proposed method is used for the quantitative analysis of pharmaceutical mixtures. The accuracy and robustness of Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) chemometric models can be improved by the LRE method

Obesity and endocrine-related cancer: The important role of IGF-1

Obesity is increasingly becoming a global epidemic of concern and is considered a risk factor for several endocrine-related cancers. Moreover, obesity is associated with cancer development and poor prognosis. As a metabolic abnormality, obesity leads to a series of changes in insulin, IGF-1, sex hormones, IGFBPs, and adipokines. Among these factors, IGF-1 plays an important role in obesity-related endocrine cancers. This review describes the role of obesity in endocrine-related cancers, such as prostate cancer, breast cancer and pancreatic cancer, focusing on the mechanism of IGF-1 and the crosstalk with estrogen and adipokines. In addition, this review briefly introduces the current status of IGF-1R inhibitors in clinical practice and shows the prospect of IGF-1R inhibitors in combination with other anticancer drugs

Study on the Behaviors of a Conceptual Passive Containment Cooling System

The containment is an ultimate and important barrier to mitigate the consequences after the release of mass and energy during such scenarios as loss of coolant accident (LOCA) or main steam line break (MSLB). In this investigation, a passive containment cooling system (PCCS) concept is proposed for a large dry concrete containment. The system is composed of series of heat exchangers, long connecting pipes with relatively large diameter, valves, and a water tank, which is located at the top of the system and serves as the final heat sink. The performance of the system is numerically studied in detail under different conditions. In addition, the influences of condensation heat transfer conditions and containment environment temperature conditions are also studied on the behaviors of the system. The results reveal that four distinct operating stages could be experienced as follows: startup stage, single phase quasisteady stage, flashing speed-up transient stage, and flashing dominated quasisteady operating stage. Furthermore, the mechanisms of system behaviors are thus analyzed. Moreover, the feasibility of the system is also discussed to meet the design purpose for the containment integrity requirement. Considering the passive feature and the compactness of the system, the proposed PCCS is promising for the advanced integral type reactor