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Maternal-fetal fluid balance is critical during pregnancy, and amniotic fluid is essential for fetal growth and development. The placenta plays a key role in a successful pregnancy as the interface between the mother and her fetus. Aquaporins （AQPs） form specific water channels that allow the rapid transcellular movement of water in response to osmotic/hydrostatic pressure gradients. AQPs expression in the placenta and fetal membranes may play important roles in the maternal-fetal fluid balance.

The changes in the crystal structures of synthetically prepared amorphous calcium phosphate（ACP） and hydroxyapatite（HAP） in water（1：1 mass ratio） were studied by synchrotron X-ray diffraction（XRD） under ultra-high hydrostatic pressures as high as 2.34 GPa for ACP and 4 GPa for HAP. At ambient pressure, the XRD patterns of the ACP and HAP samples in capillary tubes and their environmental scanning electron micrographs indicated amorphous and crystalline characteristics for ACP and HAP, respectively. At pressures greater than 0.25 GPa, an additional broad peak was observed in the XRD pattern of the ACP phase, indicating a partial phase transition from an amorphous phase to a new high-pressure amorphous phase. The peak areas and positions of the ACP phase, as obtained through fitting of the experimental data, indicated that the ACP exhibited increased pseudo-crystalline behavior at pressures greater than 0.96 GPa. Conversely, no structural changes were observed for the HAP phase up to the highest applied pressure of 4 GPa. For HAP, a unit-cell reduction during compression was evidenced by a reduction in both refined lattice parameters a and c. Both ACP and HAP reverted to their original structures when the pressure was fully released to ambient pressure.

First-principles pseudopotential calculations are performed to investigate the phase transition and elastic properties of niobium nitrides （NbN）. The lattice parameters a0 and c0/a0, elastic constants Cu, bulk modulus B0, and the pressure derivative of bulk modulus B0＇ are calculated. The results are in good agreement with numerous experimental and theoretical data. The enthalpy calculations predict that NbN undergoes phase transition from NaCl-type to NiAs-type structure at 13.4 GPa with a volume collapse of about 4.0% and from AsNi-type to CW-type structure at 26.5 GPa with a volume collapse of about 7.0%. Among the four types of structures, CW-type is the most stable structure. The elastic properties are analyzed on the basis of the calculated elastic constants. Isotropic wave velocities and anisotropic elasticity of NbN are studied in detail. The longitudinal and shear-wave velocities, Vr, Vs and V increase with increasing pressure, respectively. The Debye temperature OD increases monotonically with increasing pressure except for NiAs-type structure. Both the longitudinal velocity and the shear-wave velocity increase with pressure for wave vector along all the propagation directions, except for VTA（[100]） and VTA[001]（[110]） with NaCl structure and VTA[001]（[100]） with the other three types of structures.

The effects of hydrostatic pressure of SrWeO3 are investigated by means of generalized gradient approximation （GGA） plus on-site Coulomb interaction corrections （GGA＋U） method within the framework of density functional theory （DFT）. Magnetic phase diagrams and structural parameters of SrTcO3 as a function of pressure are predicted. The magnetic ground state of SrTcO3 is found to keep in a G-type antiferromagnetic （G-AFM） structure under the pressure varying from 0 to 100 GPa. With the increase of the pressure, magnetic exchange energy increases, indicating a higher magnetic ordering temperature for SrTcO3 under a larger pressure. Besides the volume of the unit cell, lattice constants, and the bond length, the angles between typical Tc-O-Tc and Sr-O-Sr also decrease with the pressure, leading to strong structural distortions. Very obvious displace- ments of Sr and O atoms are observed under the pressure. Our work provides necessary understanding on electronic structures of SrTcO3 under high pressures.

Underpressured reservoirs are widespread in the Huatugou （黄土沟） oUfield of the western uplift in Qaidam basin, western China. At depths between 462 and 1 248 m, the pressure of Neogene reservoirs in the Huatugou oUfield is only about 40% to 80% of hydrostatic pressure. Based on a study of the geological characteristics of these underpressured reservoirs, this work used fluid inclusion analysis and numerical simulation to investigate the mechanism creating these abnormal pressures and to evaluate the characteristics of the hydrocarbon distribution. The results show that the underpressured reservoirs are all well-sealed by undercompacted and thick mudrocks. The large-scale tectonic uplift in the late Himalayan plays an important role in the generation of underpressure in the Huatugou oilfield. At the beginning of this movement, the field was overpressured due to episodic petroleum accumulation. Later, structural uplift and erosion led to porous rebound and a temperature decrease, which produced the underpressure.

To reveal the basic deformation mechanisms under the conditions of high friction, small reduction, and long contact length in thin strip temper rolling process, an elastoplastic finite element analysis of plane strain upsetting was made based on the FEM software Marc. The results indicated that a near flat ‘zero reduction’ region was present in the center of the contact arc. The simulation results about the effect of rolling parameters on the central flat region showed that any change of increasing the rolling force could result in or enlarge the central flat region in the deformation zone. Stress distribution results illustrated that the metal was in triaxial compression state. Although the maximum and minimum principal stresses were all much larger than the yield stress of the strip, the equivalent stress became lower than that, and no further plastic strain, even a small elastic spring-back occurred in the central flat region. That was the problem of ‘hydrostatic pressure’ in thin strip temper rolling.