Dynamic response of continuous beams with discrete viscoelastic supports under sinusoidal loading

Analysis of vibrations of continuous beams with discrete viscoelastic supports has been established through theoretical modeling and a finite element analysis. The theoretical model is based on the Euler-Bernoulli theory, and the Ritz approach was employed to obtain numerical results from which the attenuation of the beam's vibration was obtained. In parallel, a finite element analysis was carried out in ABAQUS using 3D beam elements. It is shown that the results of theoretical calculation agree well with those of the finite element analysis. Both models were applied to explore geometric and design variations, and then to a full model of a bridge expansion unit as an application example. The vibration of the beams in the design, the influence of the stiffness and the viscous damping coefficient of the supports were discussed, demonstrating the models' usefulness in helping with design optimization. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

2021 Taxonomic update of phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales.

Correction to: 2021 Taxonomic update of phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales. Archives of Virology (2021) 166:3567–3579. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-021-05266-wIn March 2021, following the annual International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) ratification vote on newly proposed taxa, the phylum Negarnaviricota was amended and emended. The phylum was expanded by four families (Aliusviridae, Crepuscuviridae, Myriaviridae, and Natareviridae), three subfamilies (Alpharhabdovirinae, Betarhabdovirinae, and Gammarhabdovirinae), 42 genera, and 200 species. Thirty-nine species were renamed and/or moved and seven species were abolished. This article presents the updated taxonomy of Negarnaviricota as now accepted by the ICTV.This work was supported in part through Laulima Government Solutions, LLC prime contract with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under Contract No. HHSN272201800013C. J.H.K. performed this work as an employee of Tunnell Government Services (TGS), a subcontractor of Laulima Government Solutions, LLC under Contract No. HHSN272201800013C. This work was also supported in part with federal funds from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), under Contract No. 75N91019D00024, Task Order No. 75N91019F00130 to I.C., who was supported by the Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate, Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research. This work was also funded in part by Contract No. HSHQDC-15-C-00064 awarded by DHS S&T for the management and operation of The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center, a federally funded research and development center operated by the Battelle National Biodefense Institute (V.W.); and NIH contract HHSN272201000040I/HHSN27200004/D04 and grant R24AI120942 (N.V., R.B.T.). S.S. acknowledges partial support from the Special Research Initiative of Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES), Mississippi State University, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture, Hatch Project 1021494. Part of this work was supported by the Francis Crick Institute which receives its core funding from Cancer Research UK (FC001030), the UK Medical Research Council (FC001030), and the Wellcome Trust (FC001030).S

2021 Taxonomic update of phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales.

In March 2021, following the annual International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) ratification vote on newly proposed taxa, the phylum Negarnaviricota was amended and emended. The phylum was expanded by four families (Aliusviridae, Crepuscuviridae, Myriaviridae, and Natareviridae), three subfamilies (Alpharhabdovirinae, Betarhabdovirinae, and Gammarhabdovirinae), 42 genera, and 200 species. Thirty-nine species were renamed and/or moved and seven species were abolished. This article presents the updated taxonomy of Negarnaviricota as now accepted by the ICTV

Robust Adaptive Tracking Control for Nonlinearly Parameterized High-Order Systems With Unmatched Disturbances

The output tracking problem for a class of nonlinearly parameterized high-order uncertain systems with unmatched disturbances is studied. The developed robust adaptive control scheme is based on the combination of a decoupled backstepping control method for decoupling the coupling term in each step by elegantly using the Young’s inequality and an adaptive technique with fixed $\sigma$ -modification for ensuring the boundedness of parameter estimates. The proposed controller and adaptive laws guarantee the closed-loop signals global boundedness and output tracking error boundedness in a mean square sense. Finally, the desired control properties are verified by a numerical example and a mass-spring mechanical system, respectively

Bioactive electrospun nanoyarn-constructed textile dressing patches delivering Chinese herbal compound for accelerated diabetic wound healing

The treatment of tenacious diabetic wounds still remains an enormous challenge in clinics, originated from the complicated pathological microenvironment of wound sites. Therefore, it's urgently required to develop one type of innovative dressing patch with appropriate microstructure and multifunctions to regulate the pathological microenvironment and promote the regeneration of diabetic wounds. In this study, novel gelatin (Gel)/poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) nanofibrous yarns loading with or without Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge-Radix Puerariae herbal compound (SRHC) are fabricated by using our modified electrospinning strategy, which are further interlaced into nanofibrous woven fabrics respectively, serving as biofunctional dressing patches for potential diabetic wound treatment application. The actual photographs and SEM images confirm that all the different nanofibrous textiles with or without SRHC exhibit a uniform interwoven structure of warp and weft, and the internal nanofibers present bead-free morphology and uniaxially oriented structure along the longitudinal axis of nanofibrous yarns. Moreover, all the different nanofibrous woven fabrics are demonstrated to possess strong mechanical properties and great surface wettability. The in vitro cell characterization shows that the addition of SRHC can significantly promote the attachment and proliferation of human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs), and also dramatically inhibit the secretion levels of proinflammatory factors of M1 macrophages. The in vivo diabetic mouse full-thickness skin model experiments reveal that the as-developed SRHC-loaded Gel/PLLA nanofibrous textile shows the best performances referring to shorten wound healing time (100 % wound closure after 18 days of treatment) and high-quality regeneration (i.e., enhance collagen deposition, improve re-epithelialization and neovascularization, and increase hair follicles), which assuredly finds great interests serving as an innovative dressing patch for the treatment of hard-to-heal diabetic wounds

Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking Combined to Analyze the Molecular and Pharmacological Mechanism of Pinellia ternata in the Treatment of Hypertension

Hypertension is a cardiovascular disease that causes great harm to health and life, affecting the function of important organs and accompanied by a variety of secondary diseases, which need to be treated with drugs for a long time. P. ternata alone or combination with western medicine has played an important role in traditional Chinese medicine. Although P. ternata is used clinically to treat hypertension, its functional molecular mechanism and pharmacological mechanism have not been elucidated. Therefore, in this study, the potentially effective components, and targets of P. ternata in the treatment of hypertension were screened by the method of network pharmacology, and the mechanism of P. ternata in the treatment of hypertension was analyzed by constructing a component-target relationship network, PPI interaction network, targets’ function analysis, and molecular docking. In the study, 12 potentially effective components and 88 targets were screened, and 3 potential protein modules were found and analyzed after constructing a PPI network using targets. In addition, 10 targets were selected as core targets of the PPI network. After that, the targets were analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis. Finally, the molecular docking method is used to study the interaction between the targets and the active components. The above evidence shows that the mechanism of P. ternata in the treatment of hypertension is complicated, as it acts in many ways, mainly by affecting nerve signal transmission, cell proliferation, and apoptosis, calcium channels, and so on. The binding between targets and active components mainly depends on Pi bonds and hydrogen bonds. Using the method of network pharmacology and molecular docking to analyze the mechanism of P. ternata in the treatment of hypertension will help to provide a better scientific basis for the combined use of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine, and will better help to improve the quality of P. ternata and point out its direction

Experimental Study for Wave-Induced Pore-Water Pressures in a Porous Seabed around a Mono-Pile

In this paper, the results of a series of experiments on wave-induced pore-water pressures around a mono-pile are presented. Unlike the previous study, in which the mono-pile was fully buried, the mono-pile in this study was installed at 0.6 m below the seabed surface. In this study, we focus on the pore-water pressures around the mono-pile and beneath the pile. The experimental results lead to the following conclusions: (1) the seabed response is more pronounced near the surface (in the region above 30 cm deep), and the rate of pore pressure attenuation gradually slows down. For the region below 0.3 m, the response is much smaller; (2) in general, along the surface of the pile, pore pressures increase as the wave height and wave period increase; (3) the spatial distribution of pore pressure near the pile will vary with different wave periods, while the wave height only has a significant effect on the amplitude; and (4) At z = −0.15 m, the pore pressure in front of the pile is the largest, while at the point 0.1 m below the bottom of the pile, the largest pore pressure occurs behind the pile

Coupling of Defect Modes in Cholesteric Liquid Crystals Separated by Isotropic Polymeric Layers

Cholesteric liquid crystal structures with multiple isotropic defect layers exhibit localized optical modes (defect modes). Coupling effects between these modes were simulated using the finite difference time domain method. Analogous to the well-known result of the tight-binding approximation in solid state physics, splitting of the defect modes takes place, as soon as the structure contains more than one defect layer. The dispersion relation of the mini-bands forming within the photonic band gap of the structure is calculated numerically. The structures might have promising applications for multiwavelength filters and low-threshold lasers