Vibration isolators with quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) perform well for low- or ultra-low-frequency vibration isolation. This paper proposes a novel dual-parallelogram passive rocking vibration isolator with QZS that could effectively attenuate in-plane disturbances with low-frequency vibration. First, a kinematic model of the proposed vibration isolator was established and four linear spring configuration schemes were developed to implement the QZS. Next, an optimal scheme with good high-static-low-dynamic stiffness (HSLDS) performance was obtained through comparison and analysis, and used as a focus for the QZS model. Subsequently, a dynamic model-based Lagrangian equation that considered the spring stiffness and damping and the influence of the payload gravity center on the vibration isolation system was developed, and an average approach was used to analyze the vibration transmissibility. Finally, the prototype and test system were constructed. A comparison of the simulation and experimental results showed that this novel passive rocking vibration isolator could bolster a heavy payload. Experimentally, the vibration amplitude decreased by 53% and 86% under harmonic disturbances of 0.08 Hz and 0.35 Hz, respectively, suggesting the great practical applicability of this presented vibration isolator. Full article

On 25 November 2016 (UTC 14:24:30), an Mw 6.6 dextral strike-slip earthquake ruptured Aketao county in the northwestern portion of the Kongur Shan extensional system, western China. We extracted surface deformation maps and investigated the distribution of the coseismic slip of the 2016 Aketao earthquake by exploiting the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar data imaged by the Sentinel-1 satellites of the European Space Agency and the ALOS-2 satellite of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Assuming the crust of the earth is an elastic half-space homogeneous medium, the best fitting slip model suggests a dip angle of 78° for the seismogenic fault. The rupture of the 2016 Aketao earthquake may have consisted of two sub-events that occurred in rapid succession within a few seconds, resulting in two large discrete asperities with maximum slip of ~0.85 m, which were separated by a ~6 km-wide small slip gap. The maximum slip for the sub-event near the epicenter was mainly concentrated at a depth of ~10 km and that of the other at a depth of ~5 km. The estimated total seismic moment from the optimal slip model is 1.58 × 1019 N•m, corresponding to an event with a moment magnitude of 6.74. More than 65% of the aftershocks occurred in the areas of increased Coulomb failure stress, in which the stress was estimated to have been increased by at least 0.1 bar. Matching the potential barrier on the fault with the depth distribution of aftershocks implies that friction on the causative fault was heterogeneous, which may play a primary role in controlling the active behavior of the Muji fault. Full article

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in soil fertility and the global carbon cycle. A better understanding of spatial-temporal changes of SOC content is essential for soil resource management, emission studies, and carbon accounting. In this study, we used a boosted regression trees (BRT) model to map distributions of SOC content in the topsoil (0–20 cm) and evaluated its temporal dynamics from 1990–2010 in Wafangdian City, northeast of China. A set of 110 (1990) and 127 (2010) soil samples were collected and nine environment variables (including topography and vegetation) were used. A 10-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate model performance as well as predictive uncertainty. Accuracy assessments showed that R² of 0.53 and RMSE (Root-mean-square error) of 9.7 g∙kg⁻¹ for 1990, and 0.55, and 5.2 g∙kg⁻¹ for 2010. Elevation and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) were the two important variables affecting SOC distribution. Results showed that mean SOC content decreased from 19 ± 14 to 18 ± 8 g∙kg⁻¹ over a 20 year period. The maps of SOC represented a decreasing trend from south to north across the study area in both periods. Rapid urbanization and land-use changes were accountable for declining SOC levels. We believe predicted maps of SOC can help local land managers and government agencies to evaluate soil quality and assess carbon sequestration potential and carbon credits. Full article

Radiation-induced skin injury, which remains a serious concern in radiation therapy, is currently believed to be the result of vascular endothelial cell injury and apoptosis. Here, we established a model of acute radiation-induced skin injury and compared the effect of different vascular growth factors on skin healing by observing the changes of microcirculation and cell apoptosis. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was more effective at inhibiting apoptosis and preventing injury progression than other factors. A new strategy for improving the bioavailability of vascular growth factors was developed by loading VEGF with chitosan nanoparticles. The VEGF-chitosan nanoparticles showed a protective effect on vascular endothelial cells, improved the local microcirculation, and delayed the development of radioactive skin damage. Full article

Novel ether thionocarbamates, O-butoxy isopropyl-N-ethoxycarbonyl thionocarbamate (BIPECTC) and O-(2-butoxy-1-methylethoxy) isopropyl-N-ethoxycarbonyl thionocarbamate (BMIPECTC), were synthesized in this study. Their collecting efficiencies in the flotation of chalcopyrite were investigated using flotation tests, adsorption measurements, ultraviolet spectra (UV) and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The synthesized ether thionocarbamates showed better frothing properties than methyl-isobutyl-carbinol (MIBC) and stronger affinity to chalcopyrite compared with O-isopropyl-N-ethyl thionocarbamate (IPETC) and O-isobutyl-N-ethoxycarbonyl thionocarbamate (IBECTC). UV spectra analysis showed that the ether thionocarbamates react with Cu²⁺, with the exception of Fe²⁺, Ni²⁺, Zn²⁺ and Pb²⁺. Additionally, it was further confirmed by FTIR spectra that a chemical reaction occurs between copper ion and BIPECTC and BMIPECTC. The adsorption capacity measurements revealed that chalcopyrite exhibits good adsorption ability for ether thionocarbamates at an approximate pH of 8–10, which agrees with the flotation tests. The quantum chemistry calculation results indicated that the ether thionocarbamates exhibit stronger collecting ability for copper mineral in terms of frontier molecular orbital analysis, binding model simulation with copper ions and the molecular hydrophobicity compared with IPETC and IBECTC. The computational results are in very good agreement with the experimental results. Full article

To study common failure characteristics of gateways, a total of 55 typical gateways at coal mines, in Sichuan Province, China, were selected for investigating the rules of broken widths based on the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) technique and numerical model. Results indicated that the broken width values around the gateways were larger than 1.5 m, and those in the roof and high side wall were larger than those in the low side wall, as a whole. The width values had close relationships with the thickness of the coal seam and immediate roof, angle of the coal seam, and depth of the gateways. Furthermore, combined with the plastic zone of numerical models in 3-Dimensional Distinct Element Code (3DEC) and the broken width, we obtained the excavation broken zone (EBZ) cross-section diagram for each gateway and determined that the EBZ appeared to have a basically elliptical shape—with the long axis along the seam inclination direction and the short axis along the vertical direction of the rock layer—and that this elliptical shape was only slightly affected by the gateway cross-section shape. It was observed that the failure extent was greater in the seam inclination direction than in the vertical direction of the rock layer. Obviously, the gateways presented asymmetric failure characteristics and implied that an asymmetric support system should be provided when using bolts, cables, and shotcrete combined with steel mesh and steel belts. Such a support system could improve material parameters and form a combined arch structure in surrounding rocks, with arch crown and arch springing thicknesses that are larger in the roof and high side wall. Full article

The effects of basicity and MgO content on reduction behavior and separation of iron and slag during smelting vanadium titanomagnetite by electric furnace were investigated. The reduction behaviors affect the separation of iron and slag in the direct reduction-electric furnace process. The recovery rates of Fe, V, and Ti grades in iron were analyzed to determine the effects of basicity and MgO content on the reduction of iron oxides, vanadium oxides, and titanium oxides. The chemical compositions of vanadium-bearing iron and main phases of titanium slag were detected by XRF and XRD, respectively. The results show that the higher level of basicity is beneficial to the reduction ofiron oxides and vanadium oxides, and titanium content dropped in molten iron with the increasing basicity. As the content of MgO increased, the recovery rate of Fe increased slightly but the recovery rate of V increased considerably. The grades of Ti in molten iron were at a low level without significant change when MgO content was below 11%, but increased as MgO content increased to 12.75%. The optimum conditions for smelting vanadium titanomagnetite were about 11.38% content of MgO and quaternary basicity was about 1.10. The product, vanadium-bearing iron, can be applied in the converter steelmaking process, and titanium slag containing 50.34% TiO₂ can be used by the acid leaching method. Full article

Centrifugal booster fans are important equipment used to recover blast furnace gas (BFG) for generating electricity, but blade crack faults (BCFs) in centrifugal booster fans can lead to unscheduled breakdowns and potentially serious accidents, so in this work quantitative fault identification and an abnormal alarm strategy based on acquired historical sensor-dependent vibration data is proposed for implementing condition-based maintenance for this type of equipment. Firstly, three group dependent sensors are installed to acquire running condition data. Then a discrete spectrum interpolation method and short time Fourier transform (STFT) are applied to preliminarily identify the running data in the sensor-dependent vibration data. As a result a quantitative identification and abnormal alarm strategy based on compound indexes including the largest Lyapunov exponent and relative energy ratio at the second harmonic frequency component is proposed. Then for validation the proposed blade crack quantitative identification and abnormality alarm strategy is applied to analyze acquired experimental data for centrifugal booster fans and it has successfully identified incipient blade crack faults. In addition, the related mathematical modelling work is also introduced to investigate the effects of mistuning and cracks on the vibration features of centrifugal impellers and to explore effective techniques for crack detection. Full article

Over the last decade, the rapid emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens has become a global concern, which has prompted the search for alternative antibacterial agents for use in food animals. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), produced by bacteria, insects, amphibians and mammals, as well as by chemical synthesis, are possible candidates for the design of new antimicrobial agents because of their natural antimicrobial properties and a low propensity for development of resistance by microorganisms. This manuscript reviews the current knowledge of the basic biology of AMPs and their applications in non-ruminant nutrition. Antimicrobial peptides not only have broad-spectrum activity against bacteria, fungi, and viruses but also have the ability to bypass the common resistance mechanisms that are placing standard antibiotics in jeopardy. In addition, AMPs have beneficial effects on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, intestinal morphology and gut microbiota in pigs and broilers. Therefore, AMPs have good potential as suitable alternatives to conventional antibiotics used in swine and poultry industries. Full article

Bioassay-guided evaluation shows that a deep sea-derived fungus, Spiromastix sp. MCCC 3A00308, possesses lipid-lowering activity. Chromatographic separation of a culture broth resulted in the isolation of 15 known depsidone-based analogues, labeled spiromastixones A–O (1–15). Each of these compounds was tested for its ability to inhibit oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL)-induced foam cell formation in RAW264.7 macrophages. Spiromastixones 6–8 and 12–14 significantly decreased oxLDL-induced lipid over-accumulation, reduced cell surface area, and reduced intracellular cholesterol concentration. Of these compounds, spiromastixones 6 and 14 exerted the strongest inhibitory effects. Spiromastixones 6 and 14 dramatically inhibited cholesterol uptake and stimulated cholesterol efflux to apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in RAW264.7 macrophages. Mechanistic investigation indicated that spiromastixones 6, 7, 12 and 14 significantly up-regulated the mRNA levels of ATP-binding cassette sub-family A1 (ABCA1) and down-regulated those of scavenger receptor CD36, while the transcription of ATP-binding cassette sub-family A1 (ABCG1) and proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) were selectively up-regulated by 6 and 14. A transactivation reporter assay revealed that spiromastixones 6 and 14 remarkably enhanced the transcriptional activity of PPARγ. These results suggest that spiromastixones inhibit foam cell formation through upregulation of PPARγ and ABCA1/G1 and downregulation of CD36, indicating that spiromastixones 6 and 14 are promising lead compounds for further development as anti-atherogenic agents. Full article

Automated forward vehicle detection is an integral component of many advanced driver-assistance systems. The method based on multi-visual information fusion, with its exclusive advantages, has become one of the important topics in this research field. During the whole detection process, there are two key points that should to be resolved. One is to find the robust features for identification and the other is to apply an efficient algorithm for training the model designed with multi-information. This paper presents an adaptive SVM (Support Vector Machine) model to detect vehicle with range estimation using an on-board camera. Due to the extrinsic factors such as shadows and illumination, we pay more attention to enhancing the system with several robust features extracted from a real driving environment. Then, with the introduction of an improved genetic algorithm, the features are fused efficiently by the proposed SVM model. In order to apply the model in the forward collision warning system, longitudinal distance information is provided simultaneously. The proposed method is successfully implemented on a test car and evaluation experimental results show reliability in terms of both the detection rate and potential effectiveness in a real-driving environment. Full article

Although previous studies reported the associations between the intakes of individual foods or nutrients and the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the relationship between dietary patterns and NAFLD in the Chinese population has been rarely studied to date. This study aimed to investigate the associations between dietary patterns and the risk of NAFLD in a middle-aged Chinese population. The Study subjects were 999 Chinese adults aged 45–60 years in the Anhui province who participated in the Hefei Nutrition and Health Study. Dietary intake was collected by a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. NAFLD was defined as the presence of moderate-severe hepatic steatosis (by B-ultrasonic examination); the absence of excessive alcohol use (>20 g day⁻¹ in men and 10 g day⁻¹ in women); no use of steatogenic medications within the past six months; no exposure to hepatotoxins; and no history of bariatric surgery. Log-binomial regression analysis was used to examine the association between dietary patterns and NAFLD with adjustment of potential confounding variables. Out of 999 participants, 345 (34.5%) were classified as having NAFLD. Four major dietary patterns were identified: “Traditional Chinese”, “Animal food”, “Grains-vegetables” and “High-salt” dietary patterns. After adjusting for potential confounders, subjects in the highest quartile of the “Animal food” pattern scores had greater prevalence ratio for NAFLD (prevalence ratio (PR) = 1.354; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.063–1.724; p < 0.05) than did those in the lowest quartile. After adjustment for body mass index (BMI), compared with the lowest quartile of the “Grains-vegetables” pattern, the highest quartile had a lower prevalence ratio for NAFLD (PR = 0.777; 95% CI: 0.618–0.977, p < 0.05). However, the “traditional Chinese” and “high-salt” dietary patterns showed no association with the risk of NAFLD. Our findings indicated that the “Animal food” dietary pattern was associated with an increased risk of NAFLD. Full article

The activation of scheelite and wolframite by lead nitrate with benzohydroxamic acid (BHA) as collector was investigated by means of micro flotation test, zeta potential measurement, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses and density functional theory (DFT) calculation. The flotation results confirmed that the addition of lead nitrate can markedly enhance the recovery of scheelite and wolframite. In the zeta potential curves obvious positive shifts were observed with the presence of lead nitrate. Lead was detected on mineral surface in microscopic analysis and the survey XP spectra. Both the electrokinetic study and XPS analyses indicated that lead ion can be adsorbed onto mineral surface. In DFT calculation, the coordination model of BHA with metal hydroxyl ions (Ca(OH)⁺, Mn(OH)⁺, Fe(OH)⁺ and Pb(OH)⁺) was simulated and their binding energy were also calculated. The calculated results revealed that the binding ability of BHA and Pb(OH)⁺ is the strongest, indicating that BHA can preferentially coordinate with Pb ion compared with Ca, Mn and Fe ions. Full article

Nucleobase and nucleoside compounds exist widely in various organisms. An often occurring problem in the discovery of new bioactive compounds from natural products is reisolation of known nucleobase and nucleoside compounds. To resolve this problem, a capillary electrophoresis-high resolution mass spectrometry (CE-HR-MS) method providing both rapid separation and accurate mass full-scan MS data was developed for the first time to screen and dereplicate known nucleobase and nucleoside compounds in crude extracts of natural products. Instrumental parameters were optimized to obtain optimum conditions for CE separation and electrospray ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ESI-TOF/MS) detection. The proposed method was verified to be precise, reproducible, and sensitive. Using this method, known nucleobase and nucleoside compounds in different marine medicinal organisms including Syngnathus acus Linnaeus; Hippocampus japonicus Kaup and Anthopleura lanthogrammica Berkly were successfully observed and identified. This work demonstrates that CE-HR-MS combined with an accurate mass database may be used as a powerful tool for dereplicating known nucleobase and nucleoside compounds in different types of natural products. Rapid dereplication of known nucleobase and nucleoside compounds allows researchers to focus on other leads with greater potential to yield new substances. Full article

Although remote sensing technology has been widely used to monitor inland water bodies; the lack of suitable data with high spatial and spectral resolution has severely obstructed its practical development. The objective of this study is to improve the unmixing-based fusion (UBF) method to produce fused images that maintain both spectral and spatial information from the original images. Images from Environmental Satellite 1 (HJ1) and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) were used in this study to validate the method. An improved UBF (IUBF) algorithm is established by selecting a proper HJ1-CCD image band for each MERIS band and thereafter applying an unsupervised classification method in each sliding window. Viewing in the visual sense—the radiance and the spectrum—the results show that the improved method effectively yields images with the spatial resolution of the HJ1-CCD image and the spectrum resolution of the MERIS image. When validated using two datasets; the ERGAS index (Relative Dimensionless Global Error) indicates that IUBF is more robust than UBF. Finally, the fused data were applied to evaluate the chlorophyll a concentrations (C_chla) in Taihu Lake. The result shows that the C_chla map obtained by IUBF fusion captures more detailed information than that of MERIS. Full article

Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) is a member of the Lentivirus genus in the Retroviridae family that exhibits a genomic structure similar to that of HIV-1. The S2 accessory proteins play important roles in viral replication in vivo and in viral pathogenicity; however, studies on S2 evolution in vivo are limited. This study analyzed the evolutionary characteristics of the S2 gene of a pathogenic EIAV strain, EIAV_LN40, in four experimentally infected horses. The results demonstrated that 14.7% (10 of 68 residues) of the stable amino acid mutations occurred longitudinally in S2 during a 150-day infection period. Further analysis revealed that six of the ten mutated residues were positively selected during the infection. Alignment and phylogenetic analyses showed that the S2 gene sequences of viruses isolated from the infected horses at the early stage of EIAV_LN40 infection were highly homologous and similar to the vaccine-specific sequence. The S2 gene variants isolated from the febrile episodes and late phase of infection became homologous to the S2 gene sequence of the inoculating EIAV_LN40 strain. Our results indicate that the S2 gene evolves in diversity and divergence in vivo in different stages of EIAV infection and that this evolution correlates with the pathogenicity of the virus. Full article

Transient potential receptor vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) channels, which are expressed on sensory neurons, elicit cardioprotective effects during ischemia reperfusion injury by stimulating the release of neuropeptides, namely calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and substance P (SP). Recent studies show that TRPV1 channels are also expressed on cardiomyocytes and can exacerbate air pollutant-induced apoptosis. However, whether these channels present on cardiomyocytes directly modulate cell death and survival pathways during hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) injury remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the role of TRPV1 in H/R induced apoptosis of H9C2 cardiomyocytes. We demonstrated that TRPV1 was indeed expressed in H9C2 cells, and activated by H/R injury. Although neuropeptide release caused by TRPV1 activation on sensory neurons elicits a cardioprotective effect, we found that capsaicin (CAP; a TRPV1 agonist) treatment of H9C2 cells paradoxically enhanced the level of apoptosis by increasing intracellular calcium and mitochondrial superoxide levels, attenuating mitochondrial membrane potential, and inhibiting mitochondrial biogenesis (measured by the expression of ATP synthase β). In contrast, treatment of cells with capsazepine (CPZ; a TRPV1 antagonist) or TRPV1 siRNA attenuated H/R induced-apoptosis. Furthermore, CAP and CPZ treatment revealed a similar effect on cell viability and mitochondrial superoxide production in primary cardiomyocytes. Finally, using both CGRP_8–37 (a CGRP receptor antagonist) and RP67580 (a SP receptor antagonist) to exclude the confounding effects of neuropeptides, we confirmed aforementioned detrimental effects as TRPV1^−/− mouse hearts exhibited improved cardiac function during ischemia/reperfusion. In summary, direct activation of TRPV1 in myocytes exacerbates H/R-induced apoptosis, likely through calcium overload and associated mitochondrial dysfunction. Our study provides a novel understanding of the role of myocyte TRPV1 channels in ischemia/reperfusion injury that sharply contrasts with its known extracardiac neuronal effects. Full article

Accurate prediction of the remaining useful life (RUL) of lithium-ion batteries is important for battery management systems. Traditional empirical data-driven approaches for RUL prediction usually require multidimensional physical characteristics including the current, voltage, usage duration, battery temperature, and ambient temperature. From a capacity fading analysis of lithium-ion batteries, it is found that the energy efficiency and battery working temperature are closely related to the capacity degradation, which account for all performance metrics of lithium-ion batteries with regard to the RUL and the relationships between some performance metrics. Thus, we devise a non-iterative prediction model based on flexible support vector regression (F-SVR) and an iterative multi-step prediction model based on support vector regression (SVR) using the energy efficiency and battery working temperature as input physical characteristics. The experimental results show that the proposed prognostic models have high prediction accuracy by using fewer dimensions for the input data than the traditional empirical models. Full article

Sophoricoside, an isoflavone glycoside isolated from Sophora japonica (Leguminosae), has been widely reported as an immunomodulator. In this study, the effects of sophoricoside on lipogenesis and glucose consumption in HepG2 cells and C2C12 myotubes were investigated. Treatment with sophoricoside at concentrations of 1–10 μM inhibited lipid accumulation in HepG2 cells in a dose-dependent manner. At the same concentration range, no effect on cell viability was observed in the MTT assay. Inhibition of lipogenesis was associated with the downregulation of SREBP-1a, SREBP-1c, SREBP-2 and their downstream target genes (FAS, ACC, HMGR) as revealed by realtime quantitative PCR. The lipid-lowering effect was mediated via the phosphorylation of AMPK. Further investigation of the activities of this isoflavone showed that sophoricoside has the capability to increase glucose uptake by C2C12 myotubes. It also effectively inhibited the activities of α-glucosidase and α-amylase in vitro and remarkably lowered postprandial hyperglycaemia in starch-loaded C57BL6/J mice. These results suggest that sophoricoside is an effective regulator of lipogenesis and glucose consumption and may find utility in the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Full article

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades are conserved signal transduction pathways in all eukaryotic organisms. MAPKKKs (MAPK kinase kinases) operate at the top levels of these cascades. Recently, this family of genes has been systematically investigated in Arabidopsis, rice and maize, but has not yet been characterized in cotton. In this study, we identified 78 putative MAPKKK genes in the genome of the diploid cotton, Gossypium raimondii. They were classified into three subfamilies, of which 12 were ZIK, 22 were MEKK and 44 were Raf. The ZIK and MEKK genes displayed a scattered genomic distribution across 11 of the 13 chromosomes, whereas Raf genes were distributed across the entire genome. Their conserved patterns observed for introns and additional domains were consistent with the evolutionary relationships inferred from the phylogenetic analysis within subfamily. Transcriptome sequencing data were used to investigate their transcript profiles in mature leaves, 0 day and 3 days post-anthesis (DPA) ovules. Sixty MAPKKK genes were expressed, of which 41 were strongly expressed in mature leaves. Twelve MAPKKK genes were more highly expressed in 3-DPA ovules than in 0-DPA ovules. Our results provide a foundation for future evolutionary and functional characterizations of MAPKKK genes in cotton and probably other Gossypium plants. Full article

Current formulas for calculating scour depth below of a free over fall are mostly deterministic in nature and do not adequately consider the uncertainties of various scouring parameters. A reliability-based assessment of scour, taking into account uncertainties of parameters and coefficients involved, should be performed. This paper studies the reliability of a dam foundation under the threat of scour. A model for calculating the reliability of scour and estimating the probability of failure of the dam foundation subjected to scour is presented. The Maximum Entropy Method is applied to construct the probability density function (PDF) of the performance function subject to the moment constraints. Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is applied for uncertainty analysis. An example is considered, and there liability of its scour is computed, the influence of various random variables on the probability failure is analyzed. Full article

The slope stability is a very important problem in geotechnical engineering. This paper presents an approach for slope reliability analysis based on the maximum-entropy method. The key idea is to implement the maximum entropy principle in estimating the probability density function. The performance function is formulated by the Simplified Bishop’s method to estimate the slope failure probability. The maximum-entropy method is used to estimate the probability density function (PDF) of the performance function subject to the moment constraints. A numerical example is calculated and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and the Advanced First Order Second Moment Method (AFOSM). The results show the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed method should be valuable for performing probabilistic analyses. Full article