Traditional Wooden Buildings in China

Chinese ancient architecture, with its long history, unique systematic features and wide-spread employment as well as its abundant heritages, is a valuable legacy of the whole world. Due to the particularity of the material and structure of Chinese ancient architecture, relatively research results are mostly published in Chinese, which limits international communication. On account of the studies carried out in Nanjing Forestry University and many other universities and teams, this chapter emphatically introduces the development, structural evolution and preservation of traditional Chinese wooden structure; research status focuses on material properties, decay pattern, anti-seismic performance and corresponding conservation and reinforcement technologies of the main load-bearing members in traditional Chinese wooden structure

Connection Node Design and Performance Optimization of Girder Truss

Girder truss is a kind of high-performance truss, which is combined with some single trusses by connectors. It is the common structural form of the key-bearing node in the modern wood structure floor and roof structure system. With the development of the sponge city and green building in China, girder truss is widely used in wood structure buildings and re-roofing project for its lightweight, high strength, good seismic performance, simple construction, design flexibility, and other excellent characteristics. Since the stress environment of girder truss is more complicated than single wood truss, the wood girder truss needs higher bearing capacity. This chapter emphatically provides a theoretical basis for practical engineering and mainly introduces a new type of girder truss connected with different diameters of wood dowels. The deformation of each node in the static loading process is measured in situ and continuously by using the self-designed loading device and the advanced measuring system. Research contents include the increasing effect of girder truss than single truss and influence of different connection modes on the mechanical properties of girder trusses. We can restore the mechanical properties and failure mechanism from the two aspects of phenomena and mechanism by comparing the test results

Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) cultivar ROC22

The complete mitogenome of Saccharum spp. hybrid ROC22 (a modern sugarcane cultivar) was sequenced and analyzed in the present study. Our results revealed that, unlike most plants, the complete mitogenome of sugarcane contains two distinct circular chromosomes, Chromosome 1 and Chromosome 2. The length of Chromosome 1 is 300,837 bp with the GC content of 43.93%, and the length of Chromosome 2 is 144,755 bp with the GC content of 43.57%. Apart from 16 tRNAs and six rRNAs non-coding genes, there are 20 protein-coding genes in Chromosome 1, including six nad genes, four rps genes, three atp genes, three ccm genes, two cox genes, one mat gene and one mtt gene. Chromosome 2 contains 18 genes, including five tRNA genes and 13 protein-coding genes (four nad genes, three rps genes, two atp genes, one ccm gene, one cob gene, one cox gene and one rpl gene). Phylogenetic analysis indicated that Saccharum spp. hybrid ROC22 is close with Saccharum officinarum Khon Kaen 3 and Sorghum bicolor species

The complete mitochondrial genome of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) variety FN15

The complete mitogenome of Saccharum spp. hybrid FN15 was successfully sequenced. It contains two distinct circular chromosomes, Chromosome 1 and Chromosome 2. The former is 301,533 bp in length with the GC content of 43.90%, and 7.12% of genome (21,468 nucleotides) are coding DNA while 92.88% of genome (280,065 nucleotides) are intergenic region. The latter is 144,744 bp in length with the GC content of 43.57%, and 8.20% of genome (11,865 nucleotides) are coding DNA and 91.80% of genome (132,879 nucleotides) are intergenic region. Besides, Chromosome 1 contains 22 protein-coding genes (four atp genes, three ccm genes, three cox genes, one mat gene, one mtt gene, six nad genes and four rps genes), and 21 non-coding genes (15 tRNA and six rRNAs), whereas in Chromosome 2, there are 13 protein-coding genes (two atp genes, one ccm gene, one cob gene, one cox gene, one rpl gene, four nad genes and three rps genes) and five tRNA genes. Maximum Likelihood phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that FN15 is close with S. spp. hybrid ROC22, S. officinarum Khon Kaen 3 and S. bicolor species. This complete mitochondrial genome will provide essential DNA molecular data for further phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis for Saccharum

Isolation and characterization of a pangolin-borne HKU4-related coronavirus that potentially infects human-DPP4-transgenic mice

Abstract We recently detected a HKU4-related coronavirus in subgenus Merbecovirus (named pangolin-CoV-HKU4-P251T) from a Malayan pangolin1. Here we report isolation and characterization of pangolin-CoV-HKU4-P251T, the genome sequence of which is closest to that of a coronavirus from the greater bamboo bat (Tylonycteris robustula) in Yunnan Province, China, with a 94.3% nucleotide identity. Pangolin-CoV-HKU4-P251T is able to infect human cell lines, and replicates more efficiently in cells that express human-dipeptidyl-peptidase-4 (hDPP4)-expressing and pangolin-DPP4-expressing cells than in bat-DPP4-expressing cells. After intranasal inoculation with pangolin-CoV-HKU4-P251, hDPP4-transgenic female mice are likely infected, showing persistent viral RNA copy numbers in the lungs. Progressive interstitial pneumonia developed in the infected mice, characterized by the accumulation of macrophages, and increase of antiviral cytokines, proinflammatory cytokines, and chemokines in lung tissues. These findings suggest that the pangolin-borne HKU4-related coronavirus has a potential for emerging as a human pathogen by using hDPP4