Our study suggests that plasma BNP is negatively correlated with muscle mass, and it is also related to muscle force in male patients. The serum albumin is an independent determinant factor of BNP in both men and women. These findings suggest that good protein nutritional status could be beneficial in maintaining the cardiac function in elder population.

In the thermo-mechanical process of lightweight alloys, such as aluminum alloys, complex microstructure evolutions are inevitably involved via the continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) featured with extensive formation of subgrains followed by progressive transition into new grains. In this study, a novel fully integrated CDRX-VPSC (visco-plastic self-consistent) model is established. First, numerical formulations for formation and rotation of subgrains are addressed by reasonably tackling the grain boundary characteristics, and also the concept of generation for CDRX grains is newly introduced. By considering these two aspects, the grain population is updated according to the complex grain boundary evolutions. In the VPSC module of the integrated modeling, the shear strain rate, dislocation density, and orientation are calculated to update the grain populations and grain sizes in the CDRX module. The validation of the proposed model is conducted by simulating the hot compression of extruded AA7075 sheet, in which the DRX mechanism is controlled by the subgrain related dynamic recovery (DRV) and CDRX. The simulated flow stresses, microstructural evolutions (grains size and DRX fractions), and texture features agree well with reported experimental observations.