Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is a 53-amino acid peptide that plays an important role in regulating cell growth, survival, migration, apoptosis, proliferation, and differentiation. In addition, EGF has been established to be an effective intestinal regulator helping to protect intestinal barrier integrity, which was essential for the absorption of nutrients and health in humans and animals. Several researches have demonstrated that EGF via binding to the EGF receptor and subsequent activation of Ras/MAPK, PI3K/AKT, PLC-γ/PKC, and STATS signal pathways regulates intestinal barrier function. In this review, the relationship between epidermal growth factor and intestinal development and intestinal barrier is described, to provide a better understanding of the effects of EGF on intestine development and health.

Internal stress in structural steel members is an important parameter for steel structures in their design, construction, and service stages. However, it is hard to measure via traditional approaches. Among the existing non-destructive testing (NDT) methods, the ultrasonic method has received the most research attention. Longitudinal critically refracted (Lcr) waves, which propagate parallel to the surface of the material within an effective depth, have shown great potential as an effective stress measurement approach. This paper presents a systematic non-destructive evaluation method to determine the internal stress in in-service structural steel members using Lcr waves. Based on theory of acoustoelasticity, a stress evaluation formula is derived. Factor of stress to acoustic time difference is used to describe the relationship between stress and measurable acoustic results. A testing facility is developed and used to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Two steel members are measured by using the proposed method and the traditional strain gauge method for verification. Parametric studies are performed on three steel members and the aluminum plate to investigate the factors that influence the testing results. The results show that the proposed method is effective and accurate for determining stress in in-service structural steel members.

Lithium-rich layered oxides are promising cathode candidates for the production of high-energy and high-power electronic devices with high specific capacity and high discharge voltage. However, unstable cycling performance, especially at high charge-recharge rate, is the most challenge issue which needs to be solved to foster the diffusion of these materials. In this paper, hierarchical platelike LiMnNiCoO cathode materials were synthesized by a facile solvothermal method followed by calcination. Calcination time was found to be a key parameter to obtain pure layered oxide phase and tailor its hierarchical morphology. The Li-rich material consists of primary nanoparticles with exposed {010} planes assembled to form platelike layers which exhibit low resistance to Li diffusion. In detail, the product by calcination at 900 °C for 12 h exhibits specific capacity of 228, 218, and 204 mA h g at 200, 400, and 1000 mA g, respectively, whereas after 100 cycles at 1000 mA g rate of charge and recharge the specific capacity was retained by about 91%.

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Absolute stress in structural steel members is an important parameter for the design, construction, and servicing of steel structures. However, it is difficult to measure via traditional approaches to structural health monitoring. The ultrasonic time-of-flight method has been widely studied for monitoring absolute stress by measuring the change in ultrasonic propagation time induced by stress. The time-of-flight of the two separated shear-wave modes induced by birefringence, which is particular to shear waves, is also affected by stress to different degrees. Their synthesis signal amplitude spectrum exhibits a minimum that varies with stress, which makes it a potential approach to evaluating uniaxial stress using the shear-wave amplitude spectrum. In this study, the effect of steel-member stress on the shear-wave amplitude spectrum from the interference of two shear waves produced by birefringence is investigated, and a method of uniaxial absolute stress measurement using shear-wave spectral analysis is proposed. Specifically, a theoretical expression is derived for the shear-wave pulse-echo amplitude spectrum, leading to a formula for evaluating uniaxial absolute stress. Three steel-member specimens are employed to investigate the influence of uniaxial stress on the shear-wave pulse-echo amplitude spectrum. The testing results indicate that the amplitude spectrum changes with stress and that the inverse of the first characteristic frequency in the amplitude spectrum and its corresponding stress exhibit a near-perfect linear relationship. On this basis, the uniaxial absolute stress of steel members loaded by a test machine is measured by the proposed method. Parametric studies are further performed on three groups of steel members made of 65# steel and Q235 steel to investigate the factors that influence the testing results. The results show that the proposed method can measure and monitor steel-members uniaxial absolute stress on the laboratory scale and has potential to be used in practical engineering with specific calibration.

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