Experiments and simulations on interactions between 2,3-bis(hydroxymethyl)-2,3-dinitro-1,4-butanediol tetranitrate (DNTN) with some energetic components and inert materials

Abstract In order to survey the application prospects of 2,3-bis(hydroxymethyl)-2,3-dinitro-1,4-butanediol tetranitrate (DNTN, NEST-1, SMX) in high - energy solid rocket propellants and explosives, the interactionsbetween DNTN with some energetic components and inert materials were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and molecular dynamic (MD) methods, where glycidyl azide polymer (GAP), cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX), cyclotetramethylenetetranitroamine (HMX), lead 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-onate (NTO-Pb), hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20), aluminum powder (Al) and magnesium powder (Mg), 3,4-dinitrofurzanfuroxan (DNTF), N-guanylurea-dinitramide (GUDN), N-butyl-N-(2-nitroxy-ethyl)nitramine (Bu-NENA), bis(2,2-dinitropropyl) acetal (BDNPA)/bis(2,2-dinitropropyl) formal (BDNPF) mixture (A3), nitrocellulose - nitroglycerine (NC-NG) and ammonium dinitramide (ADN) were used as energetic components and hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), polyoxytetram ethylene-co- oxyethylene (PET), addition product of hexamethylene diisocyanate and water (N-100), 2,4-toluene diisocyanate (TDI), 1,3-dimethyl-1,3-diphenyl urea (C2), carbon black (C.B.), aluminum oxide (Al2O3), lead phthalate (φ-Pb), N-nitro-dihydroxyethylamine dinitrate (DINA), cupric 2,4-dihydroxy-benzoate (β-Cu) were used as inert materials. The impact and friction sensitivities of DNTN and DNTN in combination with energetic materials were obtained. . It was concluded that the binary systems of DNTN with RDX, HMX, NTO-Pb, Al, Mg, ADN, NC-NG, HTPB, PET, C2, C.B., β-Cu and Al2O3 are compatible, whereas systems of DNTN with GAP, CL-20, A3, N-100, TDI and DINA are slightly sensitive, and those containing DNTF and GUDN are incompatible. It is demonstrated that no consequential trend between sensitivity and compatibility is found. The mechanical properties and safety performance of GAP mixtures plasticized with three plasticizers decrease in the following order: [BTTN] > [TMETN] > [Bu-NENA]

Herb Target Prediction Based on Representation Learning of Symptom related Heterogeneous Network.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has received increasing attention as a complementary approach or alternative to modern medicine. However, experimental methods for identifying novel targets of TCM herbs heavily relied on the current available herb-compound-target relationships. In this work, we present an Herb-Target Interaction Network (HTINet) approach, a novel network integration pipeline for herb-target prediction mainly relying on the symptom related associations. HTINet focuses on capturing the low-dimensional feature vectors for both herbs and proteins by network embedding, which incorporate the topological properties of nodes across multi-layered heterogeneous network, and then performs supervised learning based on these low-dimensional feature representations. HTINet obtains performance improvement over a well-established random walk based herb-target prediction method. Furthermore, we have manually validated several predicted herb-target interactions from independent literatures. These results indicate that HTINet can be used to integrate heterogeneous information to predict novel herb-target interactions

Potential therapeutic effects of Chinese meteria medica in mitigating drug-induced acute kidney injury

Drug-induced acute kidney injury (DI-AKI) is one of the leading causes of kidney injury, is associated with high mortality and morbidity, and limits the clinical use of certain therapeutic or diagnostic agents, such as antineoplastic drugs, antibiotics, immunosuppressants, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and contrast media. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that many Chinese meteria medica, metabolites derived from botanical drugs, and Chinese medicinal formulas confer protective effects against DI-AKI by targeting a variety of cellular or molecular mechanisms, such as oxidative stress, inflammatory, cell necrosis, apoptosis, and autophagy. This review summarizes the research status of common DI-AKI with Chinese meteria medica interventions, including cisplatin, gentamicin, contrast agents, methotrexate, and acetaminophen. At the same time, this review introduces the metabolites with application prospects represented by ginseng saponins, tetramethylpyrazine, panax notoginseng saponins, and curcumin. Overall, this review provides a reference for the development of promising nephroprotectants

Surface Coating of Cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine (HMX) Particles and Its Property Investigation

To improve the safety of cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine (HMX) particles, the polymer thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU) and nitrocellulose (NC) were introduced to coat HMX powder by water-solution suspension method and internal solution method, respectively. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray photo-electron spectrometry (XPS) were employed to characterize the HMX samples and the role of NC and TPU in the coating processes were discussed. The impact sensitivity, friction sensitivity, and the thermal decomposition of coated HMX particles were investigated, and compared to the unprocessed ones. The results indicate that both TPU and NC can improve the wetting ability of the coating materials on HMX surface and reinforce the connection between HMX and the coating materials. The impact sensitivity and friction sensitivity of HMX samples decrease obviously after they have been surface coated; the drop height (H50) is increased from 35.24 cm to 50.08 cm, and the friction probability is reduced from 93.2 % to 58.3%. The activation energy (Ea) and the self-ignition temperature increase by 10.46 KJ·mol-1 and 1.8, respectively

Social Interaction, Stochastic Volatility, and Momentum

This paper incorporates information uncertainty and social interaction among investors into a random utility framework and develops an evolutionary equilibrium model of asset pricing and investor choice dynamics. We show that strong social interaction can lead to endogenous switching between two persistent regimes for the mean choice and return volatility, which can simultaneously generate time-series momentum and volatility clustering in asset returns. By using StockTwits post volume as a proxy for social interaction, we provide empirical evidence for the model predictions for various equity indices

Flexible and high-performance piezoresistive strain sensors based on carbon nanoparticles@polyurethane sponges

In this work, flexible and high-performance piezoresistive strain sensors were fabricated by simple layer-by-layer electrostatic self-assembly of carbon nanoparticles on commercial polyurethane (PU) sponges. It was shown that the sponge-based strain sensors exhibited obviously positive and negative piezoresistive characteristics under tensile and compressive strains, respectively. The alternate assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) contributed to the construction of a more complete conductive network and significantly improved the sensing performance of the sensor due to the synergistic effect between CNTs and GNPs. Compared with the CNT@PU and CNT/GNP@PU sponge strain sensors, the CNT/GNP/CNT@PU sensor had a larger strain detection range and higher linearity. Besides, the CNT/GNP/CNT@PU sponge strain sensor showed high sensitivity (GF = 43,000 at 60% tensile strain and GF = −1.1 at 50% compressive strain), responsive capability to very small strain (0.05%) and outstanding stability during 3000 loading cycles. Due to its excellent sensing performance, the CNT/GNP/CNT@PU sensor enabled monitoring of various physiological activities, including finger movements, wrist bending and walking etc. In addition, a 5 × 5 sensor array based on the sponge-based strain sensor was prepared to achieve accurate identification of weight distribution. This study provides valuable information for the development of flexible strain sensors with high-performance and low-cost

Complex Networks Approach for Analyzing the Correlation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome Evolvement and Cardiovascular Events in Patients with Stable Coronary Heart Disease

This is a multicenter prospective cohort study to analyze the correlation of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome evolvement and cardiovascular events in patients with stable coronary heart disease (CHD). The impact of syndrome evolvement on cardiovascular events during the 6-month and 12-month follow-up was analyzed using complex networks approach. Results of verification using Chi-square test showed that the occurrence of cardiovascular events was positively correlated with syndrome evolvement when it evolved from toxic syndrome to Qi deficiency, blood stasis, or sustained toxic syndrome, when it evolved from Qi deficiency to blood stasis, toxic syndrome, or sustained Qi deficiency, and when it evolved from blood stasis to Qi deficiency. Blood stasis, Qi deficiency, and toxic syndrome are important syndrome factors for stable CHD. There are positive correlations between cardiovascular events and syndrome evolution from toxic syndrome to Qi deficiency or blood stasis, from Qi deficiency to blood stasis, or toxic syndrome and from blood stasis to Qi deficiency. These results indicate that stable CHD patients with pathogenesis of toxin consuming Qi, toxin leading to blood stasis, and mutual transformation of Qi deficiency and blood stasis are prone to recurrent cardiovascular events