It is important to predict the incipient fault in transformer oil accurately so that the maintenance of transformer oil can be performed correctly, reducing the cost of maintenance and minimise the error. Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) has been widely used to predict the incipient fault in power transformers. However, sometimes the existing DGA methods yield inaccurate prediction of the incipient fault in transformer oil because each method is only suitable for certain conditions. Many previous works have reported on the use of intelligence methods to predict the transformer faults. However, it is believed that the accuracy of the previously proposed methods can still be improved. Since artificial neural network (ANN) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO) techniques have never been used in the previously reported work, this work proposes a combination of ANN and various PSO techniques to predict the transformer incipient fault. The advantages of PSO are simplicity and easy implementation. The effectiveness of various PSO techniques in combination with ANN is validated by comparison with the results from the actual fault diagnosis, an existing diagnosis method and ANN alone. Comparison of the results from the proposed methods with the previously reported work was also performed to show the improvement of the proposed methods. It was found that the proposed ANN-Evolutionary PSO method yields the highest percentage of correct identification for transformer fault type than the existing diagnosis method and previously reported works.

Licorice is an important Chinese materia medica frequently used in clinical practice, which contains more than 20 triterpenoids and 300 flavonoids. Chalcone, one of the major classes of flavonoid, has a variety of biological activities and is widely distributed in nature. To date, about 42 chalcones have been isolated and identified from licorice. These chalcones play a pivotal role when licorice exerts its pharmacological effects. According to the research reports, these compounds have a wide range of biological activities, containing anticancer, anti‐inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidative, antiviral, antidiabetic, antidepressive, hepatoprotective activities, and so on. This review aims to summarize structures and biological activities of chalcones from licorice. We hope that this work can provide a theoretical basis for the further studies of chalcones from licorice.

Artemisiae argyi Folium (AAF) is a popular herbal medicine that is always employed in moxa sticks and by oral dosage in clinical use. Less attention has been paid to nonvolatile compounds as active compounds, such as phenolic acids and flavonoids. In this study, we focused on the variation rule of phenolic acids and flavonoids in the various transformations of Artemisiae argyi Folium. Using the established ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) method with an excellent methodology under “spider-web” mode, six phenolic acids and three flavonoids were simultaneously quantified in fresh and drying Artemisiae argyi Folium as well as in moxa wool and residue. Some interesting phenomena about the variation rule of phenolic acids and flavonoids were uncovered. First, a sharp increase was observed in the detected compounds’ content as the moisture gradually decreased, when fresh Artemisiae argyi Folium was exposed to sunlight and ambient or high temperature. Nevertheless, the increased phenolic acids were subjected to high temperature, leading to obvious degradation under oven-drying (60 °C and 80 °C). Second, a wide content distribution was revealed for the detected compounds in Artemisiae argyi Folium from different habitats, especially rutin, caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, jaceosidin, eupatilin, and cryptochlorogenic acid. Third, accompanied by the elevated ratio of Artemisiae argyi Folium/moxa wool, the detected compounds conspicuously decreased in moxa wool and the correspondingly removed powder as residue. Importantly, a greater variation was found in moxa wool. Our findings contribute to the optimization of the drying process, the quality evaluation of the various transformations of Artemisiae argyi Folium, and the distinctive characterization of moxa wool produced at different ratios of Artemisiae argyi Folium/moxa wool.

The genus Psoralea, which belongs to the family Fabaceae, comprises ca. 130 species distributed all over the world, and some of the plants are used as folk medicine to treat various diseases. Psoralea corylifolia is a typical example, whose seeds have been widely used in many traditional Chinese medicine formulas for the treatment of various diseases such as leucoderma and other skin diseases, cardiovascular diseases, nephritis, osteoporosis, and cancer. So, the chemical and pharmacological studies on this genus were performed in the past decades. Here, we give a mini review on this genus about its phytochemical and pharmacological studies from 1910 to 2015.