Lack of due attention to the orientation of streets and establishment of urban blocks without regard for climatic characteristics and conditions of the environment have an adverse effect on thermal comfort in open urban spaces. Construction of new settlements without taking into account climatic requirements undermines thermal comfort for pedestrians and other users, especially in cold regions. Considering the coldness of the region under study and the significance of the orientation of streets in absorbing radiation and providing heat to outdoor urban spaces, this study investigates the effect of the orientation of streets on microclimatic comfort in one of the residential towns of Hamadan City in Iran. For this purpose, microclimate simulation was performed using ENVI-met software. A residential block with four different orientations (the most common orientations of its surrounding buildings) were simulated in the coldest day of winter and the hottest day of summer. The results suggest that streets have different thermal behavior in different orientations. Orientation affects mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), the duration of exposure to direct sunlight, wind speed, and physiological equivalent temperature (PET), which are all important factors in thermal comfort. Based on these findings, north-south streets in Hamedan receive more radiant temperature during winter compared to other simulated orientations and provide more desirable thermal comfort. The average PET value on a winter day at a point on the north-south passage was 4.5-8 °C warmer than other orientations. In summer, streets with intercardinal orientations (i.e., northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast) provided the lowest PET (about 2 °C cooler than other orientations) and better thermal comfort

The effects of carbon fiber hybridisation on the thermal properties of woven kenaf reinforced epoxy composites kenaf fibre were studied. Woven kenaf hybrid composites at the different weave designs of plain and satin, and fabric count of 5 × 5 and 6 × 6 were manually prepared by vacuum infusion technique. Thermal properties of pure carbon fibre and hybrid composites were conducted by using thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). It was found that at high kenaf fibre content showed better thermal stability while the highest thermally stable was found in pure carbon fibre composite. The TG and DTG results showed that the amount of residue decreased in plain-designed hybrid composite compared to satin-designed hybrid composite. The DSC data revealed that the presence of woven kenaf increase decomposition temperature.

Plastics have become an indispensable part of modern life today. The global production of plastics has gone up to 299million tones in 2013, which is believed to be increasing in the near future. The utilization of plastics and its final disposal pose a tremendous negative significance impacts on the environment. The aim of this study was to investigate the thermal and catalytic pyrolysis for production of fuel oil from the polyethene plastic wastes. Catalysts used in the experiment were acid activated clay mineral and aluminum chlorides on activated carbon. The clay mineral was activated by refluxing it with 6M Sulphuric acid for 3hours. The experiment was conducted in three different phases: the first phase of the experiment was done without a catalyst where 88mL oil was obtained at a maximum temperature of 39 and heating rates of 12.5, reaction time of 4hours. The second phase involves the use of acid activated clay mineral where 100mL of oil was obtained and heating rates of 12.5 and reaction time of 3hours 30minutes. The third phase was done using aluminium chlorides on activated carbon and 105ml oil was obtained at a maximum temperature of 400 and heating rates of 15.5 reaction time of 3hours 10minutes. From the results, catalytic pyrolysis is more efficient than purely thermal pyrolysis and homogenous catalysis (aluminum chlorides) shows a better result than solid acid catalyst (activated clay minerals) hence saving the energy needed for pyrolysis and making the process more economically feasible.

In this short communication, we conducted first-principles calculations to explore the stability of boron monochalcogenides (BX, X=S, Se or Te), as a new class of two-dimensional (2D) materials. We predicted BX monolayers with two different atomic stacking sequences of ABBA and ABBC, referred in this work to 2H and 1T, respectively. Analysis of phonon dispersions confirm the dynamical stability of BX nanosheets with the both 2H and 1T atomic lattices. Ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations reveal the outstanding thermal stability of all predicted monolayers at high temperatures over 1500 K. BX structures were found to exhibit high elastic modulus and tensile strengths. It was found that BS and BTe nanosheets can show high stretchability, comparable to that of the graphene. It was found that all predicted monolayers exhibit semiconducting electronic character, in which 2H structures present lower band-gaps as compared with 1T lattices. The band-gap values were found to decrease from BS to BTe. According to the HSE06 results, 1T-BS and 2H-BTe show respectively, the maximum (4.0 eV) and minimum (2.06 eV) electronic band-gaps. This investigation introduces boron monochalcogenides as a novel class of 2D semiconductors with remarkable thermal, dynamical and mechanical stability.

Dynamic thermogravimetric (TG) analysis under nitrogen environment was used to understand the thermal decomposition process of 3D printing filaments made of wood-filled polylactic acid (PLA)/starch blend. The characteristic temperatures and apparent activation energy (AAE) of the filaments with various starch contents were calculated with well-known kinetic models by Friedman, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa, Coats-Redfern and Kissinger. With the increased starch content in the filament, the onset thermal decomposition temperatures of the filaments decreased gradually from 272.4 to 155.1°C. The thermal degradation degree became smaller, and the transitional temperature interval became larger with increased starch proportion. The AAE values of the three types of filaments with different starch ratios varied between 97 kJ/mol and 114 kJ/mol, depending on material composition and method of calculation. The improved understanding of thermal decomposition behavior of PLA-starch-wood composites can help develop more biodegradable PLA/starch-based filaments for 3D printing.

We report the synthesis and characterization of Poly Methyl-Meth-Acrylate (PMMA)/Poly vinylalcohol (PVA) polymeric blend doped with different concentrations of Copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles (NPs). The (PMMA-PVA)/CuO nanocomposite hybrid thin films (wt. % = 0%, 2%, 4%, 8%, and 16%) of CuO NPs are deposited on glass substrates via dip-coating technique. The transmittance (T%), reflectance (R%), the absorption coefficient (α), the optical constants [refractive index (n), extinction coefficient (k)], optical dielectric functions [ɛ',ɛ''] are investigated and interpreted. Tauc, Urbach, Spitzer-Fan, and Drude models are employed to calculate the optical bandgap energy (Eg) and the optoelectronic parameters of the nanocomposite thin films. The refractive index and optical bandgap energy of of (PMMA-PVA) polymeric thin film are found to be (1.5 to 1.85) and 4.101 eV, respectively. Incorporation of specific concentrations of CuO-NPs in (PMMA-PVA) polymeric thin films leads to a noticeable decrease in the optical bandgap energy and to an increase of the refractive index. Moreover, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) transmittance spectra are measured and analyzed for undoped and doped polymeric thin films to pinpoint the major vibrational modes in the spectral range (500 and 4000 cm-1), as well as, the nature of network bonding in both systems. Thermal stability of thin films is investigated by performing thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The TGA thermograms confirm that both doped polymeric thin films are thermally stable at temperatures below 110°C which enables them to be attractive for a wide range of optical and optoelectronic applications. Our results indicate that optical, vibrational and thermal properties of both polymeric thin films can be tuned for specific applications by the appropriate corporation of particular concentrations of CuO-NPs.

The aim of this study is to provide the scientists with a straightforward correlation that can be applied for predicting the Fanning friction factor and consequently the pressure drop during blood flow in small caliber vessels. Due to the small diameter of the conduit, the Reynolds numbers are low and thus the flow is laminar. The study has been conducted using CFD simulations validated with relevant experimental data acquired using an appropriate experimental set-up. The experiments concern pressure drop measurement during the flow of a blood analogue that follows the Casson model, i.e. an aqueous glycerol solution that contains a small amount of xanthan gum and exhibits similar behavior to blood, in a smooth, stainless steel microtube (L=5.6cm and D=400 μm). The interpretation of the resulting numerical data led to the proposal of a simplified model that incorporates the effect of the flow rate, the hematocrit value (35-55%) and the vessel diameter (300-1800 μm) and predicts with better than ±10% the Fanning friction factor and consequently the pressure drop during laminar blood flow in small caliber vessels.

The considerable biological and medicinal activities of pyridazines has stimulated considerable research on efficient syntheses of these derivatives. In the last decade, microwave irradiation has generally been used for the energy source. As demonstrated in recent studies, pressure reactor “Q-tubes” may be used to accelerate several of these reactions in a more optimal and safer manner (compared to microwaves). In these studies there has been postulated a pathway for the formation of pyridazino[5,4,3-de][1,6]naphthyridine derivatives . In this paper we consider this pathway, and an alternate pathway, for several reactions. Contrary to the suggestion in these studies the pathway in which initial dimerization of malononitrile was postulated could be excluded based on chemical evidence. The reactions performed were the reaction of arylhydrazonals 1a,b with benzylidinemalononitrile which afforded in Q-tube the 3-acyl-4-aryl-1-phenyl-6-amino-1,4-dihydropyridazines, and the reaction of arylhydrazonals 1a,b, malononitrile 9 and aromatic aldehydes 10a-g in Q-tubes which afforded the tricyclic systems 12a-n whose structure could be established by X-ray crystal structure determination. In conclusion, we have added to the work of the recent studies by excluding a reaction pathway for one of their reaction products.

Background: Pressure ulcers (PU) affect millions of people worldwide and always occur over bony areas of the body where pressure and tissue distortion is greatest. The national pooled prevalence of pressure ulcer remains unknown. Hence, the aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the effect of position change on pressure ulcer among hospitalized clients in Ethiopia. Methods: Studies were retrieved through search engines in PubMed, Scopus, WHO afro library, Google Scholar, Africa journal online, PsycINFO and web-science following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P). Analysis was done using STATA version 14 software. We checked the between-study heterogeneity using the I² and examined a potential publication bias by visual inspection of the funnel plot and Egger’s regression test statistic. The random-effect model was fitted to estimate the summary effects, odds ratios (ORs), and 95% confidence interval (CIs) across studies. Results: Out of the reviewing 401 studies, 7 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included in the meta-analysis. The estimated pooled prevalence of pressure ulcer in Ethiopia was 11.7% (95% CI (7.28, 16.13%)). Based on the subgroup analysis, the estimated magnitude of pressure ulcer was 15.89% (95% CI: 35.34, 54.04) among studies their sample size were greater than or equals to 250. Those clients who have position change during hospitalization were 85% less likely to develop pressure ulcer [(OR 0.15, 95%CI (0.06, 0.4)] than their counter part. Conclusion: The overall prevalence of pressure ulcer in Ethiopia was relatively high. Position change of the client during hospitalization had paramount benefit to reduce the burden of pressure ulcer. Therefore, policymakers could give special attention to minimize the magnitude of pressure ulcer in order to improve the overall quality of healthcare service. Further meta-analysis study is need to identify individual and health care service related factors to the occurrence of pressure ulcer.

It is important to distinguish between natural earthquakes and those induced by CO2 injection at carbon capture and storage sites. For example, the 2004 Mw 6.8 Chuetsu earthquake occurred close to the Nagaoka CO2 storage site during gas injection, but we could not quantify whether the earthquake was due to CO2 injection or not. Here we simulated changes of pore pressure during CO2 injection at the Nagaoka site and compared them with estimated natural seasonal fluctuations of pore pressure due to rainfall and snowmelt as well as estimated pore pressure increases related to remote earthquakes. We clearly distinguished changes of pore pressure due to CO2 injection from those due to rainfall and snowmelt. The simulated local increase in pore pressure at seismogenic fault area was much less than the seasonal fluctuations related to precipitation and increases caused by remote earthquakes, and the lateral extent of pore pressure increase was insufficient to influence seismogenic faults. We also demonstrated that pore pressure changes due to distant earthquakes are capable of triggering slip on seismogenic faults. The approach we developed could be used to distinguish natural from injection-induced earthquakes and will be useful for that purpose at other CO2 sequestration sites.

A novel hybrid cobalt phosphite, (H2DAB)[Co(H2PO3)4]·2H2O, has been synthesized by using slow evaporation method, in the presence of cobalt nitrate, phosphorous acid and 1,4- dia-minobutane (DAB= 1,4- diaminobutane) as a structure-directing agent. Single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the compound crystallizes in the P-1(n.2) triclinic space group, with the following unit cell parameters (Å, °) a = 5.4814 (3), b = 7.5515 (4), c = 10.8548 (6), α = 88.001 (4), β = 88.707 (5), γ = 85.126 (5), and V= 447.33 (4) Å3. The crystal structure was built up from cor-ner-sharing [CoO6] octahedra, forming chains parallel to [001], which are interconnected by H2PO3 pseudo-tetrahedral units. The deprotonated cations, residing between the parallel chains, interacted with the inorganic moiety via hydrogen bonds leading thus to the formation of the 3D crystal structure. The Fourier transform infrared spectrum showed characteristic bands corresponding to the phosphite group and the organic amine. The thermal behavior of the compound consisted mainly of the loss of its organic moiety and the water molecules. The biological tests exhibited significant activity against Candida albicans and Escherichia coli strains in all used concentrations, while less inhibitory activity was pronounced against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and in the case of multi-cellular organisms, no activity against the nematode model Steinernema feltiae was detected.

Starting with a hypothetical geostrophic zonal current in an unbounded ocean, the investigation points out the response of this simple system to a thermal forcing, applied to the free surface and consistent with the maintenance of the geostrophic balance. The main result is the formation of a meridional component of the current, according to the Sverdrup relation, such that the full velocity vector rotates clockwise for heating and anticlockwise for cooling to adjust eventually in the initial zonal direction for large depths.

Coal-fired thermal plants (CTPP) are known to pollute the atmosphere with emission of many greenhouse gases and particulate matter. The power generation from these thermal plants cannot be stopped completely because it forms the backbone of the grid power supply. It is necessary to study the dispersion patterns of pollutants that affect the health of the people. The dispersion patterns are location specific since they depend on local meteorological conditions. In this study, the dispersion of particulate matter (PM) and sulphur dioxide (SO₂) from a CTPP with 275 m high stack are studied under different atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) of neutral, stable and unstable conditions up to a distance of 30 km from the stack. The plume of the PM spreads under all conditions. During some parts of the day, PM settles around the stack while at other times PM keeps suspending in the air for the full distance under study. Sulphur dioxide dilutes to concentrations below the detection limits in about 12-13 km from the stack for neutral and unstable ABL whereas for the stable ABL, the dispersion is up to 30 km. The 24 h weighted average concentration of sulphur dioxide, at 10 m height from the ground, is 14.2 mg/m³ at a distance of 25 kms from the CTPP, which is comparable with the value of 9.2 mg/m³ measured at the Air Quality Stations located around the same distance. Based on the results policy changes that need to be implemented are suggested.

The financial equilibrium of the enterprise is an important company function ensuring by itself the maintenance of the enterprise of the competitive market. The financial equilibrium is analysed in numerous empirical studies. In this empirical study we highlight for the first time in a research the impact that taxation has on the financial equilibrium of some companies over ten years, period that includes the pre-crisis, the financial crisis and post-crisis periods.

Estimation of core and surface temperature is one of the crucial functionalities of the lithium-ion Battery Management System (BMS) towards providing effective thermal management, fault detection and operational safety. While, it is impractical to measure core temperature using physical sensors, implementing a complex estimation strategy in on-board low-cost BMS is challenging due to high computational cost and the cost of implementation. Typically, a temperature estimation scheme consists of a heat generation model and a heat transfer model. Several researchers have already proposed ranges of thermal models having different levels of accuracy and complexity. Broadly, there are first-order and second-order heat capacitor-resistor-based thermal models of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for core and surface temperature estimation. This paper deals with a detailed comparative study between these two models using extensive laboratory test data and simulation study to access suitability in online prediction and onboard BMS. The aim is to guide whether it’s worth investing towards developing a second-order model instead of a first-order model with respect to prediction accuracy considering modelling complexity, experiments required and the computational cost. Both the thermal models along with the parameter estimation scheme are modelled and simulated using MATLAB/Simulink environment. Models are validated using laboratory test data of a cylindrical 18650 LIB cell. Further, a Kalman Filter with appropriate process and measurement noise levels are used to estimate the core temperature in terms of measured surface and ambient temperatures. Results from the first-order model and second-order models are analyzed for comparison purposes.

Traditional phase change composites usually suffer poor mechanical property and easy collapsing in the phase changing process. Herein, a highly flexible phase change composite is fabricated using thermoplastic elastomer as the basic gel and the expanded graphite/paraffin as the filler. This new phase change composite shows a tensile strength of 2.1 MPa and a breaking elongation of 220%. It has a melting enthalpy of 145.4 J•g^-1 and a thermal conductivity of 2.2 W•m^-1•K^-1 with 70% of expanded graphite/paraffin. The thermoplastic elastomer based phase change composite exhibits great reversible property after 200 heating/cooling cycles. This flexible phase change composite demonstrates good photo-thermal energy charging/discharging property and shows great potential to be applied in the solar thermal energy systems.

In California, water is a perennial concern. As competition for water resources increases due to growth in population, California’s tree nut farmers are committed to improving the efficiency of water used for food production. There is an imminent need to have reliable methods that provide information about the temporal and spatial variability of crop water requirements, which allow farmers to make irrigation decisions at field scale. This study focuses on estimating the actual evapotranspiration and crop coefficients of an almond and pistachio orchard located in Central Valley (California) during an entire growing season by combining a simple crop evapotranspiration model with remote sensing data. A dataset of the vegetation index NDVI derived from Landsat-8 was used to facilitate the estimation of the basal crop coefficient (Kcb), or potential crop water use. The soil water evaporation coefficient (Ke) was measured from microlysimeters. The water stress coefficient (Ks) was derived from airborne remotely sensed canopy thermal-based methods, using seasonal regressions between the crop water stress index (CWSI) and stem water potential (Ystem). These regressions were statistically-significant for both crops, indicating clear seasonal differences in pistachios, but not in almonds. In almonds, the estimated maximum Kcb values ranged between 1.05 to 0.90, while for pistachios, it ranged between 0.89 to 0.80. The model indicated a difference of 97 mm in transpiration over the season between both crops. Soil evaporation accounted for an average of 16% and 13% of the total actual evapotranspiration for almonds and pistachios, respectively. Verification of the model-based daily crop evapotranspiration estimates was done using eddy-covariance and surface renewal data collected in the same orchards, yielding an r² >= 0.7 and average root mean square errors (RMSE) of 0.74 and 0.91 mm day^-1 for almond and pistachio, respectively. It is concluded that the combination of crop evapotranspiration models with remotely-sensed data is helpful for upscaling irrigation information from plant to field scale and thus may be used by farmers for making day-to-day irrigation management decisions.

Polymer-based composites reinforced with nanocarbonaceous materials can be tailored for functional applications. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNT) or graphene with different filler contents have been developed as potential piezoresistive materials. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposites depend of the PVDF matrix, filler type and filler content. PVDF 6010 is a relatively more ductile material, whereas PVDF-HFP shows larger maximum strain near 300% strain for composites with CNT, 10 times higher than the pristine polymer. This behaviour is similar for all composites reinforced with CNT. On the other hand, rGO/PVDF composites decrease the maximum strain compared to neat PVDF. It is shown that the use of different PVDF copolymers does not influence the electrical properties of the composites. On the other hand, CNT as filler leads to composites with percolation threshold around 0.5 wt.%, whereas reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanocomposites shows percolation threshold at ≈2 wt.%. Both nanocomposites present excellent linearity between applied pressure and resistance variation, with pressure sensibility (PS) decreasing with applied pressure, from PS≈ 1.1 to 0.2 MPa^-1. A proof of concept demonstration is presented, showing the suitability of the materials for industrial pressure sensing applications.

Land Surface Temperature is a one of the key variable of Global climate changes and model which estimate radiating budget in heat balance as control of climate model. It is a major influenced factor by the ability of the surface emissivity. In this study, were used Landsat 8 satellite image that have Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor to calculate Land Surface Temperature through geospatial technology over Ampara district, Sri Lanka. The Land Surface Temperature was estimated with respect to Land Surface Emissivity and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index values determined from the Red and Near Infrared channels. Land Surface Emissivity was processed directly by the thermal Infrared bands. Pixels based calculation were used to effort at LANDSAT 8 images that thermal Band 10 various dates in this study. The results were achievable to compute Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Land Surface Emissivity, and Land Surface Temperature with applicable manner to compare with land use/ land cover data. It determines and predicts the changes of surface temperature to favorable to decision making process for the society. Study area faces seasonal drought in Sri Lanka, the prediction method that how land can be efficiently used with the present condition. Therefore, the Land Surface Temperature estimation can prove whether new irrigation systems for agricultural activities or can transformed source of energy into useful form that introducing solar hubs for energy production in future.

In this paper, we investigate the stabilization of a one-dimensional thermoelastic laminated beam with structural damping, coupled to a heat equation modeling an expectedly dissipative effect through heat conduction governed by Gurtin-Pipkin thermal law. Under some assumptions on the relaxation function g, we establish the well-posedness for the problem. Furthermore, we prove the exponential stability and lack of exponential stability for the problem. To achieve our goals, we make use of the semigroup method, the perturbed energy method and Gearhart-Herbst-Prüss-Huang theorem.

Daylight usage in buildings improves visual comfort and lowers the final energy demand for artificial lighting. The question always occurs: how much conservation can you achieve? New upcoming or rare materials and constructions have a lack of information about their application. Therefore, the current work investigates the daylight performance of a multi-layer textile membrane roof with 2 300 m² on top of a sports hall. A translucent, thermal insulation with a glass fibre fleece between the roof membranes combines daylight usage and heating demand reduction. A sports hall with built year 2017 is selected as the case study building. The optical properties of the roof construction are measured. The (visual) light transmittance amounts to 0.72 % with a clean surface. An accordingly parametrized climate-based annual daylight modeling delivers daylight indicators for different construction scenarios. The results show that in comparison to only one glass facade, the additional translucent and thermally insulated membrane construction increases the annual daylight autonomy700/ continuous DA700 from 0/ 15 % to 1.5/ 38 %. In the roof covered areas of the sport field, this results in a reduction from 19.7 to 13.8 kWhel/m²/a electricity for the artificial lighting with dim control (30 % savings). Also, the influence of soiling on the light transmittance was determined with a relevant reduction of one layer about a factor 0.81. The novel results are of great value as a comparison and benchmark for planners and future buildings of similar type.

People counting applications have been used in diverse applications. The ability and accuracy of thermal imaging over conventional image cameras has led to the implementation of thermal cameras in people counting applications. This paper present a thermal people counting smart glass windows. The people counting application would be remotely monitored from a single centralized PC station as it’s connected to a multiplex of mass monitoring of 20 thermal camera, all embedded into different glass windows. The thermal cameras would then be able to detect body temperatures of all individuals who pass through any of the camera range and also count the numbers of people who passed through the camera range. The data gotten can then be further utilized in various ways, example is in the control of air conditioning and lightening.

Research on urban heat mitigation has been growing in recent years with many of the studies focusing on green infrastructure (GI) as a strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of Urban Heat Island (UHI). This paper aims at presenting a review of the range of findings from GI research for urban heat mitigation through a review of scientific articles published during the years 2009-2019. This research includes a review of the different types of GI and its contribution for urban heat mitigation and human thermal comfort. In addition to analyzing different mitigation strategies, numerical simulation tools that are commonly used are also reviewed. It is seen that ENVI-met is one of the modelling tools that is considered as a reliable tool to simulate different mitigation strategies and hence has been widely used in the recent past. Considering its popularity in urban microclimate studies, this article also provides a review of ENVI-met simulation results that were reported in the reviewed papers. It was observed that the majority of the research was conducted on a limited spatial scale and focused on temperature and human thermal comfort.

Stagnation is the transient state of a solar thermal system under high solar irradiation where the useful solar gain is zero. Both flat-plate collectors with selective absorber coatings and vacuum-tube collectors exhibit stagnation temperatures far above the saturation temperature of the glycol-based heat carriers within the range of typical system pressures. Therefore, stagnation is always associated with vaporization and propagation of vapor into the pipes of the solar circuit. It is therefore essential to design the system in such a way that vapor never reaches components that cannot withstand high temperatures. In this article, a thermal-hydraulic model based on the integral form of a two-phase mixture model and a drift-flux correlation is presented. The model is applicable to solar thermal flat-plate collectors with meander-shaped absorber tubes and selective absorber coatings. Experimental data from stagnation experiments on two systems, which are identical except for the optical properties of the absorber coating, allowed comparison with simulations carried out under the same boundary conditions. The absorber of one system features a conventional highly selective coating, while the absorber of the other system features a thermochromic coating, which exhibits a significantly lower stagnation temperature. Comparison of simulation results and experimental data show good conformity. This model is implemented into an open-source software tool called “THD” for the thermal-hydraulic dimensioning of solar systems. The latest version of THD, updated by the results of this article, enables planners to achieve cost-optimal design of solar thermal systems and to ensure failsafe operation by predicting the steam range under the initial and boundary conditions of worst-case scenarios.

Traditional high pressure mechanical compressors account for over half of the car station’s cost, have insufficient reliability and are not feasible for a large-scale fuel cell market. An alternative technology, employing a two-stage, hybrid system based on electrochemical and metal hydride compression technologies, represents an excellent alternative to conventional compressors. The high-pressure stage, operating at 100-875 bar, is based on a metal hydride thermal system. A techno-economic analysis of the metal hydride system is presented and discussed. A model of the metal hydride system was developed, integrating a lumped parameter mass and energy balance model with an economic model. A novel metal hydride heat exchanger configuration is also presented, based on mini-channel heat transfer systems, allowing for effective high-pressure compression. Several metal hydrides were analyzed and screened, demonstrating that one selected material, namely (Ti_0.97Zr_0.03)_1.1Cr_1.6Mn_0.4, is likely the best candidate material to be employed for high-pressure compressors under the specific conditions. System efficiency and costs were assessed based on the properties of currently available materials at industrial levels. Results show that the system can reach pressures on the order of 875 bar with thermal power provided at approximately 150 °C. The system cost is comparable with the current mechanical compressors and can be reduced in several ways as discussed in the paper.

The Gurney flap (GF) is a miniature lift-enhancement device and is usually mounted at the trailing edge of an airfoil. The GF and has been successfully applied to isolated airfoils, multi-element airfoils, and aircraft wings as well as helicopter rotor due to its attractive features of simplicity, cost-effective and separation control. The GF also has aroused the attention of researchers in the turbomachinery industry. However, limited studies are currently available on the application of a GF to an axial fan.Hence, in this paper, we conduct a wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) investigation on an axial fan profiled with a NACA 65-(12)10 airfoil to evaluate the effect of the GF on the performance of the fan. We also present the detailed flow features of the fan with and without the GF after validating the simulation results with the experimental results. The experimental results show that as the GF is installed higher on the fan blade, it can produce a higher total pressure rise accompanied with a greater loss of efficiency. The installation of the GF also enlarges the work capacity of the fan. Detailed flow field analysis, including the surface pressure distribution, vorticity distribution at the trailing edge and streamline distribution of the fan, is carried out to understand the mechanisms of the effect of the GF on the performance of the fan.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new way of producing renewable energy based on fjords as a water heater. We will call this system the Water-thermal Energy Production System (WEPS), because the basic idea is to extract heating and cooling energy from water. Although a prototype of WEPS has existed in Norway for more than ten years, a WEPS currently in operation has not been financially analyzed in the literature. Coastal parts of Norway have a potential of 5 TWh of profitable WEPS-facilities [9], due to convenient access to fjords containing water with stable all-season temperatures of about 4–12C when the depth of the water is about 50 meters. This stability of the water temperature makes it possible to extract energy from the fjord in a very efficient way. The potential for economically-profitable WEPS in other parts of the world has not been estimated. In order to answer such a question, more research is required. We have conducted a case study of a WEPS located in the Norwegian municipality of Eid. This is the first full-scale Norwegian WEPS, and it has been operating since 2006. The nascent years have passed, and the technology has been in operation for some years. In this paper, we have made an estimate of the business profitability and the external effects based on past empirical evidence and some assumptions about future development in some key figures. The results suggests that WEPS-Eid has been a profitable investment carrying a positive internal rate of revenue, even if the present underutilization in production capacity will continue in the future. Stability in energy prices for heating purposes has also gained customers compared to the more volatile prices of alternative renewable energy, like hydropower or wind turbines. The negative, external effects in the operating phase from WEPS-Eid are insignificant. Despite the significant profitability of the WEPS facility in Eid, there are two main obstacles for new entrants. There is a lack of relevant operational information for potential investors due to few facilities. This leads to uncertainty, and investments in WEPS appear as a risky business. Secondly, construction of a WEPS requires both big financial investments in digging and facilitating long trenches for a pipeline system and time and effort spent on acquiring the licenses needed for doing this work. A coordinating unit is probably required in order to get the necessary public and private licenses and to reduce fixed costs by coordinating other tasks in the same trenches, like pipes for water and sewer, fiber cables and tele-cables. In Eid, the local municipal administration was the coordinating unit.

Batch combustion in wood log stoves is a promising application for latent heat storage (LHS), due to the transient heat production with high peak effects. The current study aimed at designing a compact, passive and durable LHS system storing a substantial part of the heat release during batch combustion and effectively releasing the stored heat to the room for 6 to 10 hours after the last batch. The LHS system consists of a coaxial cylinder located at the top of the wood stove, replacing part of the regular stovepipe. Internal metallic fins were applied as heat transfer enhancement to homogenize the temperature distribution inside the PCM. The effect of radial fin lengths was numerically investigated through a parametric study using five different fin lengths within the PCM. Using 35-mm fins in the 70-mm PCM layer yielded the best trade-off for the application. This configuration enabled achieving a slow but close to complete melting of the PCM within a realistic combustion duration, while avoiding overheating the PCM above its degradation temperature. Thereafter, the discharge allowed releasing the stored latent heat for 6 hours. The exhaust gas inlet temperature proved to have a strong influence on the PCM thermal performance.

We apply principles of Gibbs phase plane chemistry to and across the entire ocean-atmospheric interface. Surface tension increments support a two dimensional, tangential pressure well known to determine rates of bulk gas, bubble, salt, spray and momentum transfer plus both sensible and latent heat fluxes. Hence it is worth asking whether tension mapping follows from current understanding of two dimensional composition. A history is provided dating back centuries and demonstrating that detrital organic macromolecules are central; subtle surfactant functional variation creates a microforcing field which dissipates turbulent energy at the sub-meter scale. Since we have just distributed major biopolymeric classes emitted as primary organic aerosol, further climate links can be established by considering full planar thermochemistry. Organic microlayer behaviors are reviewed with attention to confined, analog phase transitions among two dimensional “solid, liquid, (and) gaseous” states serving as elasticity indicators. We also discuss surfactant properties of general marine dissolved organic carbon, demonstrating that only proteins and lipids are capable of occupying significant local micro-area. The literature often suggests albumin and stearic acid as best proxies, and so we distribute their concentrations through multilevel global ecodynamic simulations. Consensus distributions are obtained in order to control adsorptive equilibria. Working from conservation of planar free energy, a parametric equation of state is devised relating excess coverage to the surface pressure-modulus. Constant settings for the proxy pair are drawn from laboratory study, and they successfully reproduce frequencies for surfactant solid-to-gas occurrence in ambient compression experiments. Functionally resolved organic measurements are rare and so we group them into super-ecological province tables showing that our bulk concentration estimates are reasonable. Outputs are then fed into a coverage-tension-elasticity code. Resulting contours traverse the critical range for piston velocity, bubble-spray and damping effects on either a regional or seasonal basis. There is also a possibility for widespread microlayer crystallization in polar seas. The concepts are a direct extension of our organic aerosol work, and the two approaches could be inserted into Earth System Models in tandem. Uncertainties in the logic are enumerated and include kinetic and thermochemical factors at multiple scales. But the problems are reducible through molecular modeling coupled to renewed laboratory and field study. Connections to marine colloids-gels, microlayer iron chelation, and linings of the ice channel network are discussed additionally.

Abstract Due to the relatively low efficiency of thermoelectric (TE) generators, they have mostly been used in niche applications where the unique properties of TE generators outweigh their lack of efficiency, or conditions where it is more reasonable to base the optimal design on maximum generated power rather than maximum efficiency. The aim of this work is to investigate how the different fundamental transport properties (Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity and electrical resistivity) in materials with equal figure of merit (ZT) impact TE module design and maximum power output. Further, we discuss and review the strategies to enhance material properties and the latest studies on the TE module performance. It is shown, that by increasing the power factor by a factor of 15 and decreasing the thermal conductivity by 13.33 in order to maintain ZT=1, power output is increased by 45%. This effect is stronger in lower module fill factor and thermal resistance of the heat source and heat sink.

Uniform illumination is a key requirement in different research fields. However, this requirement is often difficult to achieve when high intensity is required at the same time. Recent advancements in LED lamps allow nowadays for compact and economical solutions. In this work we present a suitable solution for various laboratory purposes requiring stable, uniform and high intensity illumination. The system is composed of four identical high power white LED arrays of 30 mm diameter each, placed on a supporting and cooling structure having a minimum volume of 26 cm x 26 cm x 8 cm. A numerical model has been developed, based on a ray tracing software, in order to simulate the performances. These have then been experimentally validated with measurements of the power density map, carried out with a 1% uncertainty pyranometer. Data show that the built system is very stable over time and provides an illumination uniformity higher than 98%, on a surface of 50 mm radius, which reduces to 95% on a surface of 75 mm radius. The power density can be adjusted in the 390-1360 W m-2 range, not affecting uniformity.

This case study investigates the effects of ventilation intervention on measured and perceived indoor air quality (IAQ) in a repaired school where occupants reported IAQ problems. Occupants´ symptoms were suspected to be related to the impurities leaked indoors through the building envelope. The study’s aim was to determine whether a positive pressure of 5-7 Pa prevents the infiltration of harmful chemical and microbiological agents from structures, thus decreasing symptoms and discomfort. Ventilation intervention was conducted in a building section comprising 12 classrooms and was completed with IAQ measurements and occupants´ questionnaires. After intervention, the concentration of total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) decreased, and occupants´ negative perceptions became more moderate compared to those for other parts of the building. The indoor mycobiota differed in species composition from the outdoor mycobiota, and changed remarkably with the intervention, indicating that some species may have emanated from an indoor source before the intervention.

To evaluate the 2-year efficacy and safety of ab interno trabeculectomy with the Trabectome in Chinese primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) patients. This was a multicenter, retrospective study and included POAG patients with or without visually-significant cataracts. The primary outcome was intraocular pressure (IOP) reduction. Secondary outcomes included reduction of glaucoma medications, surgical complications, and success at 2-years. Success was defined as: 1) IOP < 21 mmHg and at least 20% IOP reduction from baseline after 3 months at any two consecutive visits, and 2) no additional glaucoma surgery required. A total of 42 patients were enrolled; thirteen had a history of failed glaucoma surgery. Twelve patients underwent Trabectome surgery combined with phacoemulsification while the remainder underwent Trabectome surgery alone. Overall, the mean preoperative IOP was 21.4±1.23 mmHg. The Trabectome lowered IOP to 18.5± 0.94 mmHg at 2 years (P<0.05). The number of glaucoma medications also decreased from a baseline of 2.0±0.9 to 1.2± 0.21 at 2 years (P=0.04). The overall success was 78%, with patients undergoing combined surgery having a higher success than those with Trabectome surgery alone (100% vs. 76%). No major complications were seen. The Trabectome appears to be an efficient and safe procedure in Chinese POAG patients in the long-term.

This paper proposes a novel method for optimizing the Cauer-type thermal network model considering both the temperature influence on the extraction of parameters and the errors caused by the physical structure. In terms of prediction of the transient junction temperature and the steady-state junction temperature, the parameters of conventional Cauer-type are modified, and the general method for estimating junction temperature is studied by using the adaptive thermal network model. The results show that junction temperature estimated by adaptive Cauer-type thermal network model is more accurate than that of the conventional model.

Medical institutions, where several patients are treated and medical workers engaged, are always exposed to secondary viral and bacterial infections. It is critical to prevent infection transmission by indirect as well as direct contact through air or splash. The infections of most diseases can be transmitted through the air. HEPA filters installed in air conditioning equipment are used to prevent infection transmission through air in medical institutions, but air circulation takes a long time in a large space. Virus and bacteria smaller than 0.3 μm cannot be removed by the HEPA filter; hence, those microbes remain alive throughout the air ventilation. A plasma sterilizer has the capability to provide environmental friendly sterilization by employing reactive oxide species and reactive nitrogen species at a low cost. We developed an excellent plasma sterilizer by using a non-thermal atmospheric-pressure biocompatible plasma (NBP). Ozone concentration in plasma sources has been derived by Kuhn et al. [1]. The diffusion coefficients inside (D₀) and outside (D₁) the plasma sterilizer have been calculated to be 0.0641 m² s^-1 and 0.717 m² s^-1, respectively. To sustain high O₃ concentrations over 121 ppm inside the plasma source and low O₃ concentrations below 0.05 ppm outside the sterilizer, it is necessary to keep O₃ concentrations at the exit of plasma sterilizer below 0.28 ppm. so that diffusion coefficient D₁ has been designed to be as large as 11 times of D₀.

The preparation and thermal properties of polypropylene foils, filled with ceramic microparticles, talc or boron nitride, are described. A slow, linear increase of thermal conductivity with volume percent of filler up to 30 vol % is detected. Reduction of the foil thickness bellow 200 micrometers leads to a significant increase of thermal conductivity. Specific thermal capacities of foils are temperature dependent, they decrease with filler incorporation.

A Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) or concussion has become a public health problem in the United State. Sports and recreational activities are major sources of concussions; with the most incidents connected to American football. Recently, many companies and research institutions have started studying concussions and introduced some means of protection and some alarming systems of strong jolts. The major detection and protection system currently available on the market is the electronic helmet (e-helmet) composed of measurement devices to record head impact acceleration. The most commonly used devices in e-helmets are accelerometers to measure linear acceleration and gyroscopes for rotational/angular acceleration. Using smart textiles for concussion detection is currently uncommon and limited due to the lack of literature studying their voltage related errors. Actually, there are few works that characterize some voltage-force related errors for such type of sensors but for small impact forces and under bench testing while the behavior of those sensors was not described for higher ranges of applied forces and in field situations. This paper previews some common techniques used in e-helmets for concussion detection and highlights electronic textiles and smart fabric sensors that could be very useful for these applications. It discusses and validates the general behavior of such type of sensors under high impact forces and on field testing instead of bench testing, and also it characterizes the effect of increasing the thickness of the sensing element layer on the sensor. A custom-made pressure sensor was created of some available fabrics to be embedded within the padding of a football helmet to quantify the impacting force to the head. The sensor is mainly composed a Semi Conductive Polymer Composite SCPC layer with modifiable thickness that was modified three times with 0.2, 0.4, and 1.6mm to characterize the general behavior of the sensor due to a high amount of impacts and correlated with the thickness. A pendulum system was built to test the pressure sensors, while a special camera and an open-source video analysis software, Tracker was used to track the pendulum bob. The speed and the acceleration of the pendulum bob were measured, then the impact force was calculated and a voltage-force response was obtained. The results showed that no meaningful improvement occurs by small increase in the thickness but better sensor behavior could be obtained by significant increment to observe any difference. Despite that at a very high impacts, the suggested sensor with Velostat layers is not giving the real voltage readings that reflect the actual applied forces but it gives a helpful information that illustrate the distribution of the force through identification the place of the highest and lowest voltage readings regardless of the exact values of those readings. However, the proposed smart textile pressure sensor could be applicable in future e-helmet designs with additional research-based improvements especially on the structure of the sensing element layer to be able to withstand such high impacts which in turns improves the overall sensor performance and accurately measures pressure in concussion-inducing ranges.

In this article we review the advances that have been made on the understanding of the high-pressure structural, vibrational, and electronic properties of wolframite-type oxides since the first works in the early 1990s. Mainly tungstates, which are the best known wolframites, but also tantalates and niobates, with an isomorphic ambient-pressure wolframite structure, have been included in this review. Apart from estimating the bulk moduli of all known wolframites; the cation-oxygen bond distances and their change with pressure have been correlated with their compressibility. The composition variations of all wolframites have been employed to understand their different structural phase transitions to post-wolframite structures as a response to high pressure. The number of Raman modes and band gap energy changes have been also analyzed in the basis of these compositional differences. The reviewed results are relevant for both fundamental science and for the development of wolframites as scintillating detectors. The possible next research venues of wolframites have also been evaluated.

The purpose of this study is to determine the equilibrium conditions for the formation of a mixture of propane and normal butane hydrates including temperature, pressure and mole fraction. In order to prevent the formation of hydrates in the cooling path, it is necessary to examine the conditions of hydrate formation and provide solutions. Modeling of hydrate formation conditions was performed using Hydoff software and compared with experimental results in this field, which obtained an acceptable error percentage. The range of temperature is between 267-276 °C and the molar percentage of propane is 0.7,0.8 and 0.9 and the mathematical equation was presented to predict hydrate formation. By analyzing the results, it was found that by increasing the concentration of ethane in the presence of other compounds, hydrate growth increased and hydrates formed more stable, also by increasing the concentration of propane and normal butane the amount of equilibrium pressure will decrease.

The powder bed fusion (PBF) metal additive manufacturing (AM) method uses an energy source like a laser to melt the metal powders. The laser can locally melt the metal powders and creates a solid structure as it moves. The complexity of the heat distribution in laser PBF metal AM is one of the main features that need to be accurately addressed and understood to design and manage an optimized printing process. In this research, the dependency of local thermal rates and gradients on print after solidification (in the heat-affected zone) was numerically simulated and studied to provide information for designing the print process. The simulation results were validated by independent experimental results. The simulation shows that the local thermal rates are higher at higher laser power and scan speed. Also, the local thermal gradients increase if the laser power increases. The effect of scan speed on the thermal gradients is opposite during heating versus cooling times. Increasing the scan speed increases the local thermal gradients in the cooling times and decreases the local thermal gradients during the heating. In addition, these simulation results could be used in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for developing digital additive manufacturing.

Burns is a pervasive and oppressive basic care issue. In children, burn injuries are a major reason for bleakness and mortality. The quirks in the physiology of liquid and electrolyte taking care of, the vital necessity and the distinctions in the different body extends in children direct that the pediatric wounds administration ought to be brought with an alternate point of view than for adults. Notwithstanding, for the intensivist, challenges regularly exist that muddle quiet help and adjustment. Moreover, burn injuries are mind-boggling and can show exceptional challenges that require deep-rooted recovery. Investigation in burn wound care has yielded progressions that will keep on improving practical recuperation. What's more, pain management all through this period is essential. Managing these wounds requires escalated therapeutic treatment for multi-organ dysfunction, and forceful surgical treatment to forestall sepsis and other inconveniences. The biological therapeutic bilayered skin substitutes with a long shelf life that recapitulates the normal barrier function of the intact human skin and stimulate wound repair and skin regeneration. A definitive objective is to accomplish a perfect skin substitute that gives a successful and without scar wound recuperating. This review article features the headway in pediatric burn wounds with an emphasis on the pathophysiology and treatment of burn wounds.

Ti64 alloy plays a significant role in the biomedical applications such as bioimplants for its excellent biocompatibility. Its usage can be further extended by improving the surface hardness and wear resistance. In this respect, laser surface glazing (LSG), an advanced surface modification technique, is very useful which can produce thin hardened surface layer and strong metallurgical bonding. Investigation of temporal and spatial temperature distributions of laser glazed surface of materials are essential because temperature plays significant role in achieving required surface properties. Therefore, in this study, a 3D Finite element analysis has been developed to perform transient thermal analysis of LSG for Ti64 alloy. The model investigated temperature distribution, depth of modified zone and heating and cooling. The results show that the peak temperature is attained 2095 K for 300 W laser power, 0.2 mm beam width and 0.15 ms residence time. Since this temperature is above the melting point (1933 K) of Ti64 alloy, the melt depth is calculated 22.5 μm. Furthermore, from the simulation results, the average heating and cooling rates are estimated 1.19×10⁷ Ks^-1 and 2.71×10⁶ Ks^-1 respectively which indicate the presence of hard phases in the modified zone.

A multiscale (micro-macro) approach is proposed for the establishment of the full thermal and induced stress fields in cracked composites that are subjected to heat flow. Both the temperature and stresses distributions are determined by the solution of a boundary value problem with one-way coupling. In the micro level and for combined thermomechanical loading, a micromechanical analysis is employed to determine the effective moduli, coefficients of thermal expansion and thermal conductivities of the undamaged composite. In the macro level, the representative cell method is employed according to which the periodic damaged composite region is reduced, in conjunction with the discrete Fourier transform, to a finite domain problem. As a result, a boundary value problem is obtained in the Fourier transform domain which is appropriately discretized and solved. The inverse transform and an iterative procedure provide the full thermal and stress fields. The proposed method is verified by comparisons with exact solutions. Applications are given for the determination of the thermal and stress fields in cracked fiber-reinforced polymeric composite, cracked porous ceramic material and cracked periodically layered ceramic composite caused by the application of heat flow. The presented formulation admits however the application of a combined mechanical and heat flux on cracked composites.

In this study, differences in the kinetics of thermal-supported hydrolytic degradation of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) sample wet spinning fibres due to material variance in the initial molecular and supramolecular structure were analysed. The investigation was carried out at the microstructural and molecular levels by using readily available methods such as scanning electron microscopy, mass erosion measurement and estimation of intrinsic viscosity. The results show a varying degree of influence of the initial structure on the degradation rate of studied PLA fibres. The experiment shows that hydrolytic degradation at a temperature close to the cold crystallization temperature on a macroscopic level is definitely more rapid for the amorphous material, while on a molecular scale it is similar to a semi-crystalline material. Further, for the adopted degradation temperature of 90 °C, a marginal influence of pH of the degradation medium on the degradation kinetics was also demonstrated

Hypertension is a common and growing medical problem that leads to enormous cardiovascular and kidney disease worldwide. While many drugs exist to treat hypertension, there is large individual variation in how a given individual responds to different agents, which contributes to dismal rates of hypertension control. While demographic factors predict which drugs may work better in certain individuals, a great degree of this variation has a genetic basis. In recent years, genome wide association studies have begun to identify specific gene variants that predict drug response to particular agents. This review identifies the major genetic variants influencing antihypertensive response that have emerged from this growing body of work. For novel genetic variants without a previously known biologic basis in blood pressure, it is crucial to validate initial findings in subsequent studies. This information may eventually lead to a more personalized approach to hypertension management that will improve blood pressure control and patient outcomes. The integration of this large amount of data and its real world application will be highly challenging, but strategies to accomplish this are discussed.

The quasi-two-dimensional organic charge-transfer salt κ-(BEDT-TTF)₂Cu₂(CN)₃ is one of the prime candidates for a quantum spin-liquid due the strong spin frustration of its anisotropic triangular lattice in combination with its proximity to the Mott transition. Despite intensive investigations of the material's low-temperature properties, several important questions remain to be answered. Particularly puzzling are the 6 K anomaly and the enigmatic effects observed in magnetic fields. Here we report on low-temperature measurements of lattice effects which were shown to be particularly strongly pronounced in this material (R. S. Manna et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 016403 (2010)). A special focus of our study lies on sample-to-sample variations of these effects and their implications on the interpretation of experimental data. By investigating overall nine single crystals from two different batches, we can state that there are considerable differences in the size of the second-order phase transition anomaly around 6 K, varying within a factor of 3. In addition, we find field-induced anomalies giving rise to pronounced features in the sample length for two out of these nine crystals for temperatures T < 9 K. We tentatively assign the latter effects to B-induced magnetic clusters suspected to nucleate around crystal imperfections. These B-induced effects are absent for the crystals where the 6 K anomaly is most strongly pronounced. The large lattice effects observed at 6 K are consistent with proposed pairing instabilities of fermionic excitations breaking the lattice symmetry. The strong sample-to-sample variation in the size of the phase transition anomaly suggests that the conversion of the fermions to bosons at the instability is only partial and to some extent influenced by not yet identified sample-specific parameters.

In this scientific research, thermally stable nickel nanoparticles were synthesized and characterized. Nickel nanoparticles were synthesized using phenol –formaldehyde by chemical method followed by calcination. The polymer metal complex was confirmed by FTIR and NMR. The spherical morphology of nickel nanoparticles confirmed by SEM. The crystallographic structure is confirmed by XRD and size of cobalt nanoparticles is 24.0 nm. The TGA analysis was performed over a range of 29-600OC. The TGA thermograph predicts mass decomposition of 11%, for nickel phenol-formaldehyde nanocomposite. The decomposition rate of composites is very low 2% weight loss per 100OC increment in temperature.

Background: Post-operative pain and swelling are frequently observed after sinus lift procedures. The aim of the present study was a clinical evaluation of swelling and pain of two sinus lift different flaps technique measured through visual analogue scale (VAS), verbal rating scale (VRS) and infrared thermal imaging (i.e., thermography). Methods: A randomized controlled trial was conducted in fifteen patients treated for a total of 30 sinus randomly allotted into two groups. In patients of Group I, a triangular flap was performed, while in Group II modified triangular flap without anterior release was performed. Postoperative pain was scored by VAS and inflammation was recorded by VRS at 2, 4, 6 and 14 days. The facial temperature was recorded before and after sinus augmentation, at 2, 4, 6 day intervals for the first week and at 14 day, to check the course of healing. Results: In group I the pain intensity was recorded at 2 days after the surgery with a score of 38.67 ± 6.4 mm. Swelling was higher at 2 and 4 day, and it was absent at day 6. Facial temperature difference before and after the procedure was 3 (4.737 °C ± 0.37). In Group II the pain was lower than in Group I (p < 0,05). Swelling scored 2 on the first and second day, and it was reduced at day 4. After the second day the difference of temperature reduced significantly compared to day of surgery (0.77 °C), at 2 and 4 days no difference was registered. Conclusion: In conclusion based on the outcome of the present study, modified triangular flap can be used with success in sinus augmentation procedures and is to be preferred to trapezoidal flap.

This manuscript discusses a novel method to map pressure results from one 3D surface shell mesh onto another. This technique is especially important when transferring results from one numerical analysis to another. This method works independent of the actual pressures, and only focuses on ensuring the surface areas consistently match. By utilizing this approach, the cumulative forces consistently match for all input pressures. This method is demonstrated to work for pressure profiles with precipitous changes in pressures, and with small quadrangular source elements being applied to a mix of large quadrangular and triangular target elements, and the forces at all pressure profiles match remarkably.

Conventional flame retardant (FR) application processes for textiles involve aqueous processing which is resource intensive in terms of energy and water usage. Recent research using sol-gel and layer-by-layer chemistries, while claimed to be based on more environmentally-sustainable chemistry, still require aqueous media with the continuing problem of water management and drying processes being required. This paper outlines the initial forensic work to characterise commercially produced viscose/flax, cellulosic furnishing fabrics which have had conferred upon them durable flame retardant (FR) treatments using a novel, patented atmospheric plasma/UV excimer laser facility for processing textiles with the formal name - Multiplexed Laser Surface Enhancement (MLSE) system. This system (MTIX Ltd., UK), is claimed to offer the means of directly bonding of flame retardant precursor species to the component fibres introduced either before plasma/UV exposure or into the plasma/UV reaction zone itself, thereby eliminating a number of wet processing cycles. Nine commercial fabrics, pre-impregnated with a semi-durable, proprietary FR finish and subjected to the MLSE process have been analysed for their flame retardant properties before and after a 40 °C 30 min water soak. For one fabric, the pre-impregnated fabric was subjected to a normal heat cure treatment which conferred the same level of durability as the plasma/UV-treated analogue. TGA and LOI were used to further characterise their burning behaviour and the effect of the treatment on surface fibre morphologies were assessed. Scanning electron microscopy indicated that negligible changes had occurred to surface topography of the viscose fibres occurred during plasma/UV excimer processing.

In this study, the efficiencies of flat-plate and U-tube solar collectors were investigated experimentally when an Al₂O₃ nanofluid was used as a working fluid and compared to those of solar collectors using water. The energy saving and CO₂ and SO₂ generated were calculated and compared to those of solar collectors using water. In addition, based on the experimental results, an economic analysis of the use of solar collectors in various countries was performed. As the concentration of the Al₂O₃ nanofluid increased, the performance of the solar collector improved. The highest efficiency for the solar collectors was shown at the concentration of 1.0 vol% with the nanoparticle size of 20 nm. The maximum efficiencies of the flat-plate and U-tube solar collectors using 1.0 vol%-Al₂O₃ nanofluid with 20-nm nanoparticles was 74.9% and 72.4%, respectively, when the heat loss parameter was zero. The efficiencies of the flat-plate and U-tube solar collectors using Al₂O₃ nanofluid were 14.8% and 10.7 higher, respectively, than those using water. When 50 EA flat-plate solar collectors were operated for one year using Al₂O₃ nanofluid, the coal use, generated CO₂, and generated SO₂ were 189.99 kg, 556.69 kg, and 2.03 kg less than those of solar collectors using water, respectively. In addition, the largest electricity cost reduction was in Germany.

Had magnetic monopoles been ubiquitous as electrons do, we would have probably had a different form of matter, and power plants based on currents of these magnetic charges would have been a familiar scene of modern technology. Magnetic dipoles do exist however, and in principle one could wonder if we can use them to generate magnetic currents. In the present work, we discuss the issue of generating magnetic currents and magnetic thermal currents in electrically-insulating low-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnets by invoking the (broken) electricity-magnetism duality symmetry. The ground state of these materials is a spin-liquid state that can be described well via the Jordan-Wigner fermions, which permit an easy definition of the magnetic particle and thermal currents. The spin-liquid states in these antiferromagnets are either gapless or gapped liquids of spinless fermions whose flow defines a current just as the one defined for electrons in a Fermi liquid. The driving force for the magnetic current is a magnetic field with a gradient along the magnetic conductor. The present work is about claiming that what the experiments in spintronics attempt to do is trying to treat the magnetic degrees of freedoms on the same footing as the electronic ones.

Culverts are often required under earth embankment to allow for the crossing of a watercourse, like streams, to prevent the road embankment from obstructing the natural waterway. The opening of the culvert is determined based on the waterway required to accommodate the design flood, whereas the thickness of the culvert section is designed based on the loads applied to the culvert. This paper studies some design parameters of box culverts, such as the thickness of the haunch, the coefficient of earth pressure, the thickness of box culvert, and depth of fill on the top slab, to show the effect of haunch on the stresses of the box culvert. The study investigated the variation in stresses and the cost comparison made for different width of the box culvert. The percentage reduction in the cost of culvert based on the presence of haunch is presented.

We evaluated the association of blood pressure with blood levels of cadmium, lead, and cadmium and lead together (cadmium+lead) in a representative sample of adolescents from Korea by use of 2010-2016 data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). This cross-sectional study enrolled adolescents aged at 10-18 years-old who completed a health examination survey and had blood measurements of lead and cadmium. The association of adjusted mean differences in diastolic and systolic blood pressure with doubling of blood lead and cadmium were estimated by regression of blood pressure against log₂-transformed blood metals and their quartiles after covariate adjustment. Adjusted odds ratios for prehypertension were calculated for log₂-transformed blood levels of lead and cadmium and their quartiles. Our analysis of adolescents in Korea indicated that blood levels of lead and cadmium were not significantly associated with increased blood pressure or risk of pre-hypertension. However, the cadmium+lead level was associated with pre-hypertension. Previous studies showed that blood levels of lead and cadmium were associated with increased blood pressure and risk of hypertension in adult populations. We found no such effect in Korean adolescents, although the cadmium+lead level was associated with prehypertension. These differences may be because adolescents generally have lower levels of these blood metals or because adolescents only rarely have hypertension.

The purpose of this study was to arrange a green roof on a sheet metal house to achieve winter heat preservation and summer thermal insulation using different plants and soil media, and to maintain the advantage of cost-saving and quick installation of sheet metal houses. In terms of the research method, the roof insulation, heat preservation and plant growth index were tested. Plants were grown in 10 container-type green roofs on the sheet metal house roof, and the physical environment of the building was monitored for one year. Five containers of commercially-available culture soil and five containers of sustainable composite were used as the media for growing five kinds of plants, respectively. The control group only had a sheet metal house roof. There were 11 experimental modules for testing whether the green roofs had thermal insulation, heat preservation and plant growth effects on a general sheet metal house. The results showed that, regarding the thermal insulation benefit assessment, the Sedum acre cv. robustum of green roof Groups B to D caused the temperature to be 38.29°C lower than the surface of the simple sheet metal house roof in August, showing a temperature difference of 54%.

Lightning strike can cause a considerable damage in aircraft parts made from semiconducting materials such as Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs). Therefore, in recent years, the lightning strike phenomenon has attracted the interest of the academic community and the aircraft industry. Until now, the problem has been addressed mainly experimentally, while the reported numerical works are very limited. In the present work, a coupled electro-thermal FE model has been developed using the ANSYS commercial FE code to simulate the lightning strike damage in unidirectional CFRP laminates due to the Joule heat flux phenomenon. The model is based on the SOLID69 thermoelectric element and applies a non-linear, time-transient analysis. The main input to the model is the thermal-electrical properties of the composite material which vary with temperature. Using the model, a parametric study on the effect of mesh density and peak intensity on the thermal damage has been performed. Three electrical lightning strikes of low (10 kA), medium (30 kA) and high peak intensity (40 kA) have been applied according to the SAE ARP 5412 standard. The electro-thermal model has been validated against a numerical model from the literature. The numerical results reveal that the increase of peak intensity leads to the increase of the area and penetration depth of matrix thermal damage (pyrolysis) as well as to the increase of the area of fiber damage (deterioration and ablation). Through progressive damage modeling, the residual tensile strength of the CFRP plate after being subjected to lightning strike of different peak intensity has been predicted. Lightning strike initial damage has been simulated by translating the thermal field into degradation of elastic properties of the lamina. The results show an increase in the accumulated matrix damage and a decrease of tensile strength due to the initial lightning strike damage. For the maximum peak intensity of 40 kA, a decrease in tensile strength of 4.8% has been predicted

Background and Objectives: Acute compartment syndrome (ACS) is an emergency condition of the lower limb in which prophylactic fasciotomy is required to prevent complications. A negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) used to the treatment of fasciotomy wounds provide beneficial clinical results. This study aimed to exchange the authors’ experience of using the NPWT installation system on the lower limb wounds after fasciotomy in ACS. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study enrolled consecutive patients with ACS, who underwent fasciotomy and was treated with the NPWT installation system at Department of Vascular Surgery, Provincial Hospital in Kielce from April 2016 to July 2017. Results: The study enrolled 15 patients with a diagnosis of ACS (87% men, mean age 65 years old). An open four-compartment fasciotomy (87%) or two-compartment fasciotomy (13%) was performed. The NPWT was applied on the first day after fasciotomy in 87% of patients. Therapy was initiated by the negative pressure of 125 mm Hg, which maintained at this level until the therapy was finalized. In 80% of patients, the vacuum-assisted wound closure (VAC) dressing changes were performed every 3 days. The first approximation of fasciotomy wounds margins occurred on the 4th day after surgery among 67% of individuals. The average time of using VAC on fasciotomy wounds was 9 days. The average time to definitive closure edges of fasciotomy wounds was 12 days. The average time of hospital stay was 17 days. Conclusions: Our experience indicates the legitimacy of using NPWT in wound treatment after fasciotomy in ACS. The NPWT enables faster primary closure of wounds, reduces edema, as well as decreases hospitalization time.

Moisture and thermal are the key factors for influencing methane desorption during CBM exploitation. Using high pressure water injection technology into coalbed, new fractures and pathways are formed to methane transport. It is existed a phenomenon of water inhibiting gas flow. This study is focused on various water pressures impacted on gas adsorbed coal samples, then the desorption capacity could be revealed under different conditions. And the results are shown that methane desorption capacity was decreased with water pressure increased at room temperature and the downtrend would be steady until water pressure was large enough. Heating could promote gas desorption capacity effectively, with the increasing of water injection pressures, the promotion of thermal on desorption became more obvious. These results are expected to provide a clearer understanding of theoretical efficiency of heat water or steam injection into coalbed, they can provide some theoretical and experimental guidance on CBM production and methane control.

A heat pump with thermal storage system is a system that operates a heat pump during night-time using inexpensive electricity; during this time, the generated thermal energy is stored in a thermal storage tank. The stored thermal energy is used by the heat pump during daytime. Based on a model of a dual latent heat storage tank and a heat pump, this study conducts control simulations using both conventional and advanced methods for heating in a building. Conventional methods include the thermal storage priority method and the heat pump priority method, while advanced approaches include the region control method and the dynamic programming method. The heating load required for an office building is identified using TRNSYS, used for simulations of various control methods. The thermal storage priority method shows a low coefficient of performance (COP), while the heat pump priority method leads to high electricity costs due to the low use of thermal storage. In contrast, electricity costs are lower for the region control method, which operates using the optimal part load ratio of the heat pump, and for dynamic programming, which operates the system by following the minimum cost path. According to simulation results for the winter season, the electricity costs using the dynamic programming method are 17% and 9% lower than those of the heat pump priority and thermal storage priority methods, respectively. The region control method shows results similar to the dynamic programming method with respect to electricity costs. In conclusion, advanced control methods are proven to have advantages over conventional methods in terms of power consumption and electricity costs.

Shale gas production is associated with significant usage of fresh water and discharge of wastewater. Consequently, there is a necessity to create the proper management strategies for water resources in shale gas production and to integrate conventional energy sources (e.g., shale gas) with renewables (e.g., solar energy). The objective of this study is to develop a design framework for integrating water and energy systems including multiple energy sources, cogeneration process, and desalination technologies in treating wastewater and providing fresh water for shale gas production. Solar energy is included to provide thermal power directly to a multi-effect distillation plant (MED) exclusively (to be more feasible economically) or indirect supply through a thermal energy storage system. Thus, MED is driven by direct or indirect solar energy, and excess or direct cogeneration process heat. The proposed thermal energy storage along with the fossil fuel boiler will allow for the dual-purpose system to operate at steady-state by managing the dynamic variability of solar energy. Additionally, electric production is considered to supply a reverse osmosis plant (RO) without connecting to the local electric grid. A multi-period mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP) is developed and applied to discretize operation period to track the diurnal fluctuations of solar energy. The solution of the optimization program determines the optimal mix of solar energy, thermal storage, and fossil fuel to attain the maximum annual profit of the entire system. A case study is solved for water treatment and energy management for Eagle Ford Basin in Texas.

In this investigation, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) was mixed with cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) because of its hardness, strength, and transparency properties. The results of thermal analysis through TGA and DTG showed that the thermal properties of the alloy are improved using 40% cyclic olefin copolymer. Kinetics of thermal degradation (pyrolysis) of polymers have been studied and analyzed and thermal pyrolysis of polymethyl methacrylate and cyclic olefin copolymer thermoplastic polymer was conducted. The computation of kinetic analysis is measured along with the different methods used to study the kinetics. The activation energy (E) of degradation of studied materials was estimated using Ozawa Flynn and Wall (OFW), Starink and Kissinger’s methods, and evaluation of three kinetic parameters taken appropriate kinetic model in terms of percent change for both types of polymers have been proposed, and finally, simulated curves were compared with the experimental curves. Both mechanisms of degradation for COC and PMMA under nitrogen atmosphere will reflect intramolecular transfer and random scission of the main chain.

Shale gas reservoirs (SGR) are important replacements for conventional energy resources and have been widely exploited by hydraulic fracturing technologies. On the one hand, due to the inherent ultra-low permeability and porosity, there is stress sensitivity in the reservoirs generally. On the other hand, hydraulic fractures and the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) generated by the massive hydraulic fracturing operation have contrast properties with the original reservoirs. These two phenomena bring huge challenges in SGR transient pressure analysis. Although some works in the literatures have been done on the transient pressure analysis of multi-fractured horizontal wells in SGR, unfortunately, none of them has taken the stress sensitivity and spatially varying permeability of SRV zone into consideration simultaneously. To fill this gap, this paper first idealizes the SGR to be four linear composite regions. What’s more, SRV zone is further divided into sub-sections on the basis of non-uniform distribution of proppant within SRV zone which easily yields spatially varying permeability away from the main hydraulic fracture. The stress sensitivity is characterized by the varying permeability depended on the pore pressure. By means of perturbation transformation and Laplace transformation, an analytical multi-linear flow model (MLFM) is obtained and validated by the comparison with the previous model. On the basis of our model, the flow regimes are identified and the sensitivity analysis of critical parameters are conducted to further understand the transient pressure behaviors. The research results provided by this work are of significance for well test interpretation and production performance analysis of SGR.

The human casualties from simulated nuclear detonation scenarios in New Delhi, India are analyzed, with a focus on the distribution of casualties in urban environments and the theoretical application of a nuclear-specific triage system. Model estimates of nuclear war casualties employed ESRI's ArcGIS 9.3, blast and prompt radiation were calculated using the Defense Nuclear Agency's WE program, and fallout radiation was calculated using the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA's) Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability (HPAC) V404SP4, as well as custom GIS and database software applications. ESRI ArcGISTM programs were used to calculate affected populations from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's LandScanTM 2007 Global Population Dataset for areas affected by thermal, blast and radiation data. Trauma, thermal burn, and radiation casualties were thus estimated on a geographic basis for New Delhi, India for single and multiple (six) 25 kiloton (kt) detonations and a single 1 megaton (1000kt) detonation. Major issues related to the emergency management of a nuclear incident are discussed with specific recommendations for improvement. The consequences for health management of thermal burn and radiation patients is the worst, as burn patients require enormous resources to treat, and there will be little to no familiarity with the treatment of radiation victims.

This study refers to the optimization of a Selective Solar Absorber to improve the Sun-to-thermal conversion efficiency at mid temperatures in high vacuum flat thermal collectors. Efficiency has been evaluated by using analytical formula and a numerical thermal model. Both results have been experimentally validated using a commercial absorber in a custom experimental set-up. The optimization procedure aimed at obtaining Selective Solar Absorber is presented and discussed in the case of a metal dielectric multilayer based on Cr2O3 and Ti. The importance of adopting a real spectral emissivity curve to estimate high thermal efficiency at high temperatures in selective solar absorber is outlined. Optimized absorber multilayers can be 8% more efficient than the commercial alternative at 250 °C operating temperatures and up to 27% more efficient at 300 °C. Once the multilayer has been optimized the choice of a very low emissivity substrate such as copper allows to further improve efficiency and to reach stagnation temperature higher than 400 °C without Sun concentration.

In this study, fibers were extracted from different parts of the okra plant (Abelmoschus esculentus) via water- and dew-retting methods. The fibers were subjected to physical and thermal analyses. The fibers obtained from the upper part of the okra plant show higher breaking strength and lower linear density. Fibers obtained via water-retting exhibited higher breaking strength, elongation at break rates, and lower linear density values. The paper also presents the results of thermogravimetric analysis of the okra fibers. Tests were carried out in oxygen and inert gas atmospheres. The temperature range of the main thermal decomposition stage was in the 275–400°C for range thermo-oxidation and 300–425°C for pyrolysis investigation. Slight differences were found in the thermal resistances of the tested fibers, which was confirmed by an analysis using the alpha s- alpha r methodology. The calculated activation energy values show a large-spread range.

Mixtures of methacrylic polymers are the most common materials for making composites to be used as resins for dental and cosmetic applications. Some of these mixtures are composed by poly (ethyl methacrylate) (PEMA) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), which constitute a solid component to be mixed with a liquid component made out of methacrylate monomers. The reaction between the thermal initiator benzoyl peroxyde (BPO) present in the solid component and the activator of the polymerization process, N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine (DMT) present in the liquid component, gives rise to thermoset materials. In the present study, different liquid formulations composed by a mixture of two methacrylic monomers, ethyl methacrylate (EMA) and triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) for cosmetic applications, were prepared and characterized, using a commercial powder (POW) composed by PEMA and PMMA. With the aim of improving workability during final application of the material, it was necessary to slow down the polymerization rate of liquid formulations. Their thermal behaviour was investigated by DSC in order to check the polymerization rate. Thermal stability of final materials was determined by TGA. DMTA, microindentation hardness and impact tests were performed on final materials, to assess their performance with respect to standard formulation. The combination of thermal and mechanical properties allows choosing which formulations could be suitable for use in cosmetics.

Many spectroscopic diagnostics are routinely used as a technique to infer the plasma parameters from line emission spectra but their accuracy depends on the numerical model or code used for the fitting process. However, the validation of a line shape code requires some steps : comparison of the line shape code with other similar codes for some academic (simple) cases and then more complex ones, comparison of the fitting parameters obtained from the best fit of the experimental spectra with those obtained with other diagnostic techniques and/or comparison of the fitting parameters obtained by different codes to fit the same experimental data. Here we compare the profiles of the hydrogen Balmer β line in a helium plasma computed by six codes for a selected set of plasma parameters and we report on the plasma parameters inferred by each of them from the fitting to a number of experimental spectra measured in a helium corona discharge where the pressure was in the range 1- 5 bar.

A new di-mannitol adipate ester-based zinc metal alkoxide (DMAE-Zn) was synthesized as a bi-functional PVC thermal stabilizer for the first time. The materials were characterized with Fourier-transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Characterization results confirmed the formation of Zn-O bonds in DMAE-Zn; and that DMAE-Zn had a high decomposition temperature and a low melting point. The thermal stability of DMAE-Zn on PVC also was tested by conductivity test, thermal aging test, and UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-VIS) test. PVC stabilized by DMAE-Zn had a good initial color and excellent long-term stability. UV-VIS also showed that the conjugated structure in PVC stabilized by DMAE-Zn was almost all of the triene, suggesting that the addition of DMAE-Zn would suppress the formation of conjugated structures above tetraene. Dynamic processing performance of PVC samples tested by torque rheometer indicated that, having a good compatibility with PVC chains in the amorphous regions, DMAE-Zn contributed good plasticizing effect to PVC. DMAE-Zn thus effectively demonstrates bi-functional roles, e.g., thermal stabilizers and plasticizers to PVC. Furthermore, FT-IR, HCl absorption capacity test, and complex ZnCl₂ test were also used to verify the thermal stability mechanism of DMAE-Zn for PVC.

Pigment dispersion can lead to pigmentary glaucoma, a poorly understood condition of younger myopic eyes with fluctuating high intraocular pressure. It has been difficult to investigate its pathogenesis without a model similar to human eyes in size and behavior. Here we present a porcine ex vivo model that recreates several features of pigmentary glaucoma, including intraocular hypertension, accumulation of pigment in the trabecular meshwork, and declining phagocytosis. We found that trabecular meshwork cells regulate outflow, form actin stress fibers, and have a decreased phagocytic activity. Gene expression microarrays and a pathway analysis of TM monolayers as well as ex vivo anterior segment perfusion cultures indicated that RhoA plays a central role in regulating the cytoskeleton, motility, and phagocytosis in the trabecular meshwork, providing new insights and targets to investigate in pigmentary glaucoma.

This paper reports the novel design of a touch mode capacitive pressure sensor (TMCPS) system with a wireless approach for a full-range continuous monitoring of ventricular pressure. The system consists of two modules: an implantable set and an external reading device. The implantable set, restricted to a 2x2 cm² area, consists of a TMCPS array connected with a dual-layer coil, for making a reliable resonant circuit for communication with the external device. The capacitive array is modelled considering the small deflection regime for achieving a dynamic and full 5-300 mmHg pressure range. In this design, the two inductive-coupled modules are calculated considering proper electromagnetic alignment, based on two planar coils and considering the following: 13.56 MHz frequency to avoid tissue damage and three types of biological tissue as core (skin, fat and muscle). The system was validated with the Comsol Multiphysics and CoventorWare softwares; showing a 90% power transmission efficiency at a 3.5 cm distance between coils. The implantable module includes aluminum- and polyimide-based devices, which allows ergonomic, robust, reproducible, and technologically feasible integrated sensors. In addition, the module shows a simplified and low cost design approach based on PolyMEMS INAOE® technology, featured by low-temperature processing.

As shown in former papers, the nonadiabatic Heisenberg model presents a novel mechanism of Cooper pair formation generated by the strongly correlated atomic-like motion of the electrons in narrow, roughly half-filled "superconducting bands". These are energy bands represented by optimally localized spin-dependent Wannier functions adapted to the symmetry of the material under consideration. The formation of Cooper pairs is not the result of an attractive electron-electron interaction but can be described in terms of quantum mechanical constraining forces constraining the electrons to form Cooper pairs. There is theoretical and experimental evidence that only this nonadiabatic mechanism operating in superconducting bands may produce eigenstates in which the electrons form Cooper pairs. These constraining forces stabilize the Cooper pairs in any superconductor, whether conventional or unconventional. Here we report evidence that also the experimentally found superconducting state in bismuth at ambient as well as at high pressure is connected with a narrow, roughly half-filled superconducting band in the respective band structure. This observation corroborates once more the significance of constraining forces in the theory of superconductivity.

Multi-Alignment method coupled with phylogenetic analysis we disclosed the Nsp9 and Nsp10 non-structural proteins of Corona Virus as rRNA RlmH/K methyltransferases with similarities with bin recombinase and int-core integrase fold. Further, Nsp9 has similarities to S8 ribosomal protein and Nap10 has similarity to S10 ribosomal protein. Previously, we showed Nsp13, Nsp14, Nsp15 and Nsp16 are also different types of rRNA RlmE/N and Cfr-like methyltransferases-ribonuclease with RNA helicase domains. Two domains of Nsp13 astonishingly have similarities to ribosomal proteins L6 and L9. Taken together, Nsp9/10 and Nsp13-16 proteins could mimic host ribosome assembly and also could methylate rRNA of mitobibosome preventing mitochondrial protein synthesis and oxidative phosphorylation. Low ATP synthesis causes lowering blood pressure following coma but very ATP concentration (1-10nM) surely induces platelets aggregation through vWA, collagen and GpIIb/IIIa proteins followed by fibrin formation and blood clotting as recently have seen in the lung of many Corona virus infected patients. We have also postulated that two polyproteins itself resemble like 28S and 38S mitoribosome subunits and compete with rRNAs inhibiting the ribosome turnover and new protein synthesis due to their similarities with many ribosomal proteins. Such finding may be valuable in computer-based novel drug design against Corona virus.

Desalination accounts for 1% of the total global water consumption and is an energy-intensive process, with the majority of operational expenses attributed to energy consumption. Moreover, at present, a significant portion of the power comes from traditional fossil fuel-fired power plants and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with power production along with concentrated brine discharge from the process, pose a severe threat to the environment. Due to the dramatic impact of climate change, there is a major opportunity to develop sustainable desalination processes to combat the issues of brine discharge, greenhouse gas emissions along with a reduction in energy consumption per unit of freshwater produced. Nanotechnology can play a vital role to achieve specific energy consumption reduction as nanofluids application increases the overall heat transfer coefficient enabling the production of more water for the same size desalination plant. Furthermore, concentrated brine discharge harms the marine ecosystems, and hence, this problem must also be solved to support the objective of sustainable desalination. Several studies have been carried out in the past several years in the field of nanotechnology applications for desalination, brine treatment and the role of renewable energy in desalination. This paper aims to review the major advances in this field of nanotechnology for desalination. Furthermore, a hypothesis for developing an integrated solar thermal and nanofluid sustainable desalination system, based on the cyclic economy model is proposed.

In this work we have investigated the role of various additives (emulsifier, anti-dripping agent) and formulation procedure (pre- dispersion of solid additives in polyol via milling) which influence the flame retardancy of 6,6′-[ethan-1,2-diylbis(azandiyl)]bis(6H-dibenzo[c,e][1,2]oxaphosphin-6-oxid) (EDA-DOPO) containing flexible polyurethane foams. For comparison, the flame retardancy of two additional structurally analogues bridged 9, 10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide (DOPO) based compounds i.e. ethanolamine-DOPO (ETA-DOPO) and ethylene glycol-DOPO (EG-DOPO) were also evaluated together with EDA-DOPO in flexible PU foams of various formulations. The flame retardancy of three bridged-DOPO compounds depends on the type of PU formulation. For certain PU formulation containing EDA-DOPO, lower fire performance was observed. Addition of emulsifier and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) to these PU formulations influenced positively the flame retardancy of EDA-DOPO/PU foams. In addition, dispersion of EDA-DOPO and PTFE via milling in polyol improved the flame retardancy of the PU foams. Mechanistic studies performed using pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry (PCFC) and its coupling to FTIR showed no difference in the combustion efficiency of the bridged-DOPO compounds in PU foams. From these PCFC experiments we can conclude that these bridged-DOPO compounds and their decomposition products may work primarily in the gas phase as flame inhibitors. Physiochemical behavior of additives in PU formulation responsible for the improvement in the flame retardancy of PU foams was further investigated by studying the dripping behavior of the PU foams in UL 94 HB test. A high-speed camera was used to study the dripping behavior in the UL 94 HB test and results indicate a considerable reduction of a total number of melt drips and flaming drips for the flame retardant formulations. This reduction in melt drips and flaming drips during the UL 94 HB tests help PU foams achieve higher fire classification.

Most of the phase change materials (PCMs) have been limited to use as functional additions or sealed in containers, and extra auxiliary equipment or supporting matrix is needed. The emergence of 3D printing technique has dramatically advanced the developments of materials and simplified production processes. This study focuses on a novel strategy to model thermal energy storage crystalline gels with three-dimensional architecture directly from liquid resin without supporting materials through light-induced polymerization 3D printing technique. A mask-projection stereolithography printer was used to measure the 3D printing test, and the printable characters of crystalline thermal energy storage P(SA-DMAA) gels with different molar ratios were evaluated. For the P(SA-DMMA) gels with small fraction of SA, the 3D fabrication was realized with higher printing precision both on mili- and micro-meter scales. As a comparison of 3D printed samples, P(SA-DMAA) gels made by other two methods, post-UV curing treatment after 3D printing and UV curing using conventional mold, were prepared. The 3D printed P(SA-DMAA) gels shown high crystallinity. Post–UV curing treatment was beneficial to full curing of 3D printed gels, but did not lead to the further improvement of crystal structure to get higher crystallinity. The P(SA-DMAA) crystalline gel having the highest energy storage enthalpy that reached 69.6 J·g⁻¹ was developed. Its good thermoregulation property in the temperature range from 25 to 40 °C was proved. The P(SA-DMAA) gels are feasible for practical applications as one kind of 3D printing material with thermal energy storage and thermoregulation functionality.

The ability to monitor Sprained Ankle Rehabilitation Exercises (SPAREs) in home environments can help therapists to ascertain if exercises have been performed as prescribed. Whilst wearable devices have been shown to provide advantages such as high accuracy and precision during monitoring activities, disadvantages such as limited battery life, users' inability to remember to charge and wear the devices are often the challenges for their usage. Also, video cameras, which are notable for high frame rates and granularity, are not privacy-friendly. This paper, therefore, proposes the use and fusion of unobtrusive and privacy-friendly sensing solutions for data collection and processing during SPAREs in home environments. Two Infrared Thermopile Array (ITA-32) thermal sensors and two Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) Radar sensors were used to simultaneously monitor 15 healthy participants during SPAREs which involved twisting their ankle in 4-fundamental movement patterns namely (i) extension, (ii) flexion, (iii) eversion and (iv) inversion. Experimental results indicated the ability to identify thermal blobs of participants performing the 4 fundamental movement patterns of the human ankle. Cluster-based analysis of data gleaned from the ITA-32 sensors and the FMCW Radar sensors indicated average classification accuracy of 96.9% with K-Nearest Neighbours, Neural Network, AdaBoost, Decision Tree, Stochastic Gradient Descent and Support Vector Machine, amongst others.

Purpose: To evaluate three different microincisional ab interno trabeculectomy procedures in a porcine eye perfusion model. Methods: In perfused porcine anterior segments, 90 degrees of trabecular meshwork (TM) were ablated using the Trabectome (T; n = 8), Goniotome (G; n = 8), or Kahook device (K; n = 8). After 24 hours, additional 90 degrees of TM were removed. Intraocular pressure (IOP) and outflow facility were measured at 5 µL/min and 10 µL/min perfusion to simulate an elevated IOP. Structure and function were assessed with canalograms and histology. Results: At 5 µL/min infusion rate, T resulted in a greater IOP reduction than G or K from baseline (76.12% decrease versus 48.19% and 47.96%, P = 0.013). IOP reduction between G and K was similar (P = 0.420). Removing another 90 degrees of TM caused an additional IOP reduction only in T and G but not in K. Similarly, T resulted in the largest increase in outflow facility at 5 µL/min compared with G and K (first ablation: 3.41 times increase versus 1.95 and 1.87; second ablation: 4.60 versus 2.50 and 1.74) with similar results at 10 µL/min (first ablation: 3.28 versus 2.29 and 1.90 (P = 0.001); second ablation: 4.10 versus 3.01 and 2.01 (P = 0.001)). Canalograms indicated circumferential flow beyond the ablation endpoints. Conclusions: T, G and K significantly increased the outflow facility. In this model, T had a larger effect than G and K.

Oscillometric blood pressure (BP) devices currently estimate a single point but do not identify fluctuations in BP or distinguish them from variations in response to physiological properties. In this paper, to analyze BP normality based on oscillometric measurements, we use statistical approaches including kurtosis, skewness, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, and correlation tests. Then, to mitigate uncertainties, we use a deep neural network (DNN) to determine the confidence limits (CLs) of BP measurements based on their normality. The proposed DNN regression model decreases the standard deviation of error (SDE) of the mean error (ME) and the mean absolute error (MAE) and reduces the uncertainty of the CLs and SDEs of the proposed technique. We validate the normality of the distribution of the BP estimation distribution which fits the Gaussian distribution very well. We use a rank test in the DNN regression model to demonstrate the independence of the artificial SBP and DBP estimations. First, we perform statistical tests to verify the normality of the BP measurements for individual subjects. The proposed methodology provides accurate BP estimations and reduces the uncertainties associated with the CLs and SDEs based on the DNN regression estimator.

We conducted an in-situ crystal structure analysis of ferroselite at non-ambient conditions. The aim is to provide a solid ground to further the understanding of the properties of this material in a broad range of conditions. Ferroselite, marcasite-type FeSe2, was studied under high pressures up to 46 GPa and low temperatures, down to 50 K using single-crystal microdiffraction techniques. High pressure and low temperatures were generated using a diamond anvil cell and a cryostat. We found no evidences of structural instability in the explored P-T space. The deformation of the orthorhombic lattice is slightly anisotropic. As expected, the compressibility of the Se-Se dumbbell, the longer bond in the structure, is larger than that of the Fe-Se bonds. Less obvious is the behavior of the octahedral bonds, the shorter bond is the most compressible determining a small increase in the octahedron distortion with pressure. We also achieved a robust structural analysis of ferroselite at low temperature in the diamond anvil cell. Structural changes upon temperature decrease are small but qualitatively similar to those produced by pressure.

Converting chemical energy from green hydrogen to electricity using Membrane Exchange Protons Fuel cell (PEMFC) is a promising solution in various applications such e-mobility and building facilities. The electrical efficiency of PEMFCs can reach 60%. However, they are immensely sensitive to the working temperature, requiring good thermal management. Active thermal management systems are expensive and energy-consuming. Passive thermal management systems enable PEMFC thermal management without additional energy consumption. Here various passive thermal management technologies are reviewed. Different techniques are thorougly described and critically compared in terms of complexity, efficiency, cooling rate, scope of applicability, and the sizes of PEMFCs to which they apply. The conclusions provide a solid background for further investigations, and recommendations for future work are suggested.

This paper reveals the physical properties of Jeffery nanofluid flow past a moving plate embedded in porous medium under the existence of radiation and thermal diffusion. The analysis is carried out in three cases of moving plate, namely stationary plate λ = 0, forth-moving plate λ = 1, back-moving plate λ = −1. Finite difference method is applied to solve the governing equations of the flow and pointed out the variations in velocity, temperature and concentration with the use of graphical presentations. The impact of several parameters on local skin friction, Nusselt number and Sherwood number is also noticed and discussed. Enhancement of velocity is observed under the impact of Jeffery parameter for the cases of stationary plate and back-moving plate, whereas reverse nature is found in the case of forth-moving plate. The velocity enhances as the values of porosity parameter increases for the case of stationary plate and forth-moving plate but a reverse nature is noticed in the case of back-moving plate.

Red mud is a hazardous waste of alumina industry that contains high amounts of iron, aluminum, titanium and REEs. One of the promising methods for the extraction of iron from red mud is car-bothermic reduction with the addition of sodium salts. This research focuses on the process of hy-drochloric high-pressure acid leaching using 10–20% HCl of two samples of non-magnetic tailings obtained by 60-minute carbothermic roasting of red mud at 1300 °C and the mixture of 84.6 wt. % of red mud and 15.4 wt. % Na2SO4 at 1150 °C, respectively, with subsequent magnetic separation of metallic iron. An influence of temperature, leaching duration, solid-to-liquid-ratio and acid con-centration on dissolution behavior of Al, Ti, Mg, Ca, Si, Fe, Na, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sc, Zr were studied. Based on the investigation of the obtained residues, mechanism of passing of valuable elements into the solution was proposed. It has shown that 90% Al, 91% Sc and above 80% of other REEs can be dissolved under optimal conditions; Ti can be extracted into the solution or the residue depending on the leaching temperature and acid concentration. Based on the research results, novel flowsheets for red mud treatment were developed.

1) Introduction: Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is a frequently applied open abdomen (OA) treatment. There are only a few experimental data supporting this method and describing the optimal settings and pressure distribution in the abdominal cavity during this procedure. The aim of our study was to evaluate pressure values at different points of the abdominal cavity during NPWT in experimental abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS) animal model. 2) Methods: In this study (permission Nr. 13/2014/UDCAR) 27 Hungahib pigs (15.4- 20.2 kg) were operated. ACS was generated by implanting a plastic bag in the abdomen through mini-laparotomy and filled with 2100- 3300 ml saline solution (37 C°) to an intraabdominal pressure (IAP) of 30 mmHg. After 3 hours, NPWT (Vivano Med ® Abdominal Kit, Paul Hartmann AG, Germany) or Bogota bag was applied. NPWT group was divided into -50, -100 and 150 mmHg suction group. Pressure distribution to the abdominal cavity was monitored at 6 different points of the abdomen via a multichannel pressure monitoring system. 3) Results: The absolute pressure levels were significantly higher above than below the layer. The values of the pressure were similar in the midline than laterally. Amongst the bowels, the pressure values changed periodically between 0 and -12 mmHg which might be caused by the peristaltic movements. 4) Conclusions: The porcine model of the present study seems to be well applicable for investigating ACS and NPWT. It was possible to provide valuable for clinicians. The pressure was well distributed by the protective layer to the lateral parts of the abdomen and this phenomenon did not change considerably during the therapy.

As on 31.03.2020, 55.4 % (205135 MW) of total installed capacity (370106 MW) in India is through coal and lignite based power plants. These plants, set up by central, state and private utilities with substantial capital investment are facing consistently reducing Plant Utilization Factor (known as Plant Load Factor, PLF, in India). In the year 2019-20 the national average thermal power PLF stood at 55.4%, down from 78.6 % in 2007-08. On the other hand, the electricity demand is consistently rising in the country and there exists a peak and energy shortage at national level. In 2019-20 energy shortage was 0.7 % and peak shortage was 0.5 %. A disturbing paradox therefore exists here. On one hand, the country is power deficit, and on the other hand, a large amount of coal based affordable power, ready to be generated by thermal power generators, remains grossly unused. Looking into the fact that considerable investment has gone into developing these thermal power generation assets in the country, the falling PLF is a matter of concern for all the key stakeholders including the power producers, lenders, regulators and consumers. This paper identifies seven major factors that are affecting PLF of thermal power plants and then makes an attempt to project future scenario of PLF so that critical stakeholders can intervene through appropriate actions. Primary research with responses from power professionals has been used to find out the major factors. Future projection of PLF has been done using Partial Least Square (PLS) regression. Projection shows that in the Business As Usual case (Factors increasing at the current CAGR rate), the thermal power plants will face very low level of PLF (14.76 %) by 2024-25. This will mean that many plants will be shut down and many will run for only few hours in a day that too at very low loads. If the future generation mix is kept as indicated by Central Electricity Authority (CEA), a Govt. of India in its report (Draft report on optimal generation capacity mix for 2029-30- CEA- Govt of India) then the thermal power plant average PLF can sustain above 68 % until 2024-25. If followed, this path can be a breather for the thermal power plants.

Activated carbons can be produced from biomass in a thermal process either in a direct carbonization-activation process or by first carbonizing the biomass and later on activating the biochars into activated carbons. The properties of the ACs are dependent on the type of process used for production. In this study, the properties of activated carbons produced in a one-stage and a two-stage process are considered. Activated carbons were produced by physical activation of two types of starting materials, bio chars produced from spruce and birch chips in a commercial carbonization plant and from the corresponding raw chips. The activated carbons produced were characterized regarding specific surfaces, pore volumes and pore size distributions. The un-activated bio chars had some degree of surface area 190 and 140 m²g^-1 for spruce and birch and pore volumes of 0.067 and 0.092 cm³g^-1. According to the results obtained, two slightly different types of activated carbons are produced depending if a one-stage or a two-stage carbonization and activation process is used. The ACs produced in the one-stage process had higher specific surface areas compared to the ones produced in a two-stage process (761-940 m²g^-1 vs. 540-650 m²g^-1) . In addition, total pore volumes were higher in one-stage process but development of micropores is greater compared to two-stage process. There was no significant difference in total carbon content between one-stage and two-stage process.

What proportions should a thermally massive building have? How should the thermal mass be distributed? Should the "massing" change with the choice of material? This paper shows how to optimize the physical proportions of a building so that it synchronizes ambient heat exchanges in a natural feedback cycle. The internal mass is thermally coupled with buoyancy ventilation; the cycle is driven by the daily swing of outdoor temperature. Tripling up functions in this way—so that structural materials can reliably cool and power the ventilation for buildings—could help decarbonize the construction industry and provide an effective strategy for adapting to life-threatening heatwaves. Based on harmonic analysis, the method allows designers to thermally tune the form and mass of a building to meet chosen targets for temperature and ventilation in free-running mode. Once the optimal balance of exchange rates is known, design teams can proportionally vary the building height and ventilation openings against the surface area and thickness of an internal thermal mass. The possible permutations are infinite but parametrically constrained, allowing teams to fairly compare the functional and environmental credentials of different construction materials while they produce and evaluate preliminary options for organizing the exterior form and interior spaces of a building. An example study suggests that thin-shell structures of minimum weight, and even timber buildings, may be optimally tuned to produce ample ventilation and temperature attenuation.

The aim of this paper is to explore the watertightness behaviour for high pressure applications using Multijetfusion technology and polyamide 12 as a material. It reports an efficient solution for manufacturing functional prototypes and final parts for water pressure applications. It provides manufacturing rules to engineers in the pressurized product development process up to 10 MPa of nominal pressure. The research findings show manufacturers the possibility of using additive manufacturing as an alternative to traditional manufacturing. Water leakage was studied using different printing orientations and wall thickness for a range of pressure values. An industrial ball valve was printed and validated with the ISO 9393 standard also meeting tolerance requirements. This paper is a pioneering approach to the additive manufacturing of high performance fluid handling components. This approach solves the problem of leakage caused by porosity in additive manufacturing technologies

Magnetic iron oxide particles are used for in vitro diagnostics for nearly 40 years. Due to their unique physical, chemical, thermal and mechanical properties, as well as biocompatibility and low toxicity in the human body, iron oxide nanoparticles have been used in many biomedical applications, such as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging, carriers for controlled drug delivery and immunoassays, but also in magnetic hyperthermia. Our aim is to investigate the effect of pressure and temperature on the structural, thermal and magnetic properties of iron oxide nanomaterials prepared by hydrothermal synthesis. Iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized at temperatures of 100-200°C and pressures of 20-1000 bar. It has been found that pressure influences the type of iron oxide crystalline phase. Thus, for lower pressure values (< 100 bar), iron oxide is predominantly formed as hematite, while at pressures > 100 bar, the major crystalline phase is goethite. The complex thermal analysis revealed the polymorphic changes of iron oxides at different temperatures. The existence of specific magnetite and hematite phases in all thermally treated samples are evidenced through the specific Verwey and Morin transitions highlighted by ZFC-FC (Zero Field Cooled-Field Cooled) measurements, whereas their relative content is precisely provided by Mössbauer spectroscopy.

The dilatometer curves of continuous cooling transformation of 12Mn steel were measured with Formastor-FⅡthermal mechanical simulator．The steel's undercooled austenite phase continuous cooling transformation curves ( CCT curves) were established by means of the dilatometer method and the metallographic-hardness measurement method． The effect of cooling rate on microstructure and hardness of the steel was studied． CCT curve of test steel was simulated by JMatPro. The results show that the Ac1 and Ac3 of the experimental steel are 692 ℃ and 855 ℃ ; the microstructure obtained is made of ferrite，pearlite and bainite．The ferrite transformation and pearlite transformation occur at a slower cooling rate，in which the ferrite is dominant. When the cooling rate is greater than 4.25 ℃ / s bainite transformation happens．As the cooling rate increases，microstructure or grains become finer．The hardness of the tested steel with increasing cooling rate shows a trend of first fast increase and soon decrease．The simulation results are consistent with the measured CCT law. The high temperature mechanical properties of 12mn steel round billet were tested by gleeble-1500d thermal / mechanical simulator. The tensile strength, reduction of area and stress-strain curves of the billet were obtained in the range of 600-1300 ℃.

Typhoon Durian forming over the Western North Pacific Ocean and entering into the South China Sea (SCS), caused extreme and widespread damages in 2006. In this research, sensitivity analyses on different physical parameterization schemes of the Weather Research and Forecasting Atmospheric Model (WRF-ATM) have been utilized to study typhoon Durian. Model accuracy and performance testing were investigated with different initial conditions during the tropical cyclone simulation in the SCS. The initial and boundary conditions (IBCs) for all experiments were derived from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Re-Analysis Interim (ERAI), and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) with Final (FNL) analysis data compiled through the WRF-ATM model. The sensitivity analysis results indicated a major improvement for the cumulus scheme by using the Grell-Devenyi scheme along with the PBL scheme of Yonsei University, mixed-phase microphysics scheme of the WRF Single Moment 5-class and IBCs for ECMWF-ERAI of TC simulation under the context of Wind-Pressure Relationships. This predicted better track and intensity comparing with these of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The results revealed that the TC track and intensity were well simulated by the WSM5-GD combination for the WRF-ATM model with an intensity error of 1.69 hPa for minimum surface level pressure, maximum wind speed of 1.83 knots and average track error of 25 km in 72 hours. The simulations showed that the potential track and intensity error decreased with the delayed IBCs, suggesting that the model simulation is more dependable when the coast is approached by the TC.

The polymer binder, poly(imide-co-siloxane) (PIS), was synthesized and applied to form a thin cathode layer composites for a thermal battery that has an unusually high operating temperature of 450 °C. The PIS was prepared through cross-linking of the polyimide with polysiloxane. The morphology of FeS₂/PIS composites showed that FeS₂ particles was coated with the PIS cross-linked gel. The FeS₂/PIS composites enabled to fabricate mechanically stable thin cathode layer that was 20–10% of the thickness of a conventional pellet-type cathode. The FeS₂/PIS composites were stable up to 400 °C and maintained their morphology at this temperature. PIS coating layers decomposed at 450 °C and a new residue was generated, which was observed by transmission electron microscopy and the compositional change was analyzed. The FeS₂/PIS composites showed enhanced thermal stability over that of FeS₂ in thermogravimetric analysis. The thermal battery with the PIS polymer binder showed a 20% discharge capacity increase when compared to a conventional pellet-type cathode.

The study sought to determine solar irradiation in Homa Bay County which can be tapped and utilized in improving lives of residents of the region by converting the solar thermal energy in Home Bay to other forms of energy such as electric form, mechanical form and light. The study was done by assessing the local atmospheric conditions which included sunshine duration data and air temperature records for the period of two years and the data obtained subjected to statistical analysis to determine the localized characteristics of the resource. The characteristics that were examined include; seasonal and annual power expectations as well as resource reliability. The solar irradiance of Home County was found to be 768.0 W/m².

Na-magadiite exchanged with cetyl-trimethylammonium cations provided organophilic silicate materials that allowed the effective removal of the acidic dye "eosin". The organic cations were intercalated into the interlayer spacing of the layered silicate via an exchange reaction between the organic cations from their bromide salt and the solid Na-magadiite at room temperature. Different techniques were used to characterize the effect of the initial concentration of the surfactant on the structure of the organo-magadiites. The C, H, N analysis indicated that a maximum of organic cations of 1.03 mmol/g was achieved at initial concentrations higher than 0.25 mmol/g and was accompanied by an expansion of the basal spacing of 3.15 nm, with a tilted angle of 64.5° to the silicate layers. The conformation of the organic surfactants was probed using solid-state ¹³C, finding mainly the trans conformation similar to that of the starting cetyl trimethylammonium bromide salt (C16TMABr). Thermal gravimetric analysis was carried out to study the thermal stability of the resulting organo-magadiites. The intercalated surfactants started to decompose at 200 °C, with a mass loss percentage of 8 % to 25 %, depending on the initial loading of the surfactant, and was accompanied by a decrease of the basal spacing from 3.20 nm to 2.51 nm, as deduced from the in situ X-ray diffraction studies. At temperatures below 220 °C, an expansion of the basal spacing from 3.15 to 3.35 nm occurred. These materials were used as a removal agent for the anionic dye "eosin". The maximum amount of the dye removed was related to the organic cation content and to the initial concentration of eosin, with an improvement from 2.5 mg/g to 98 mg/g. This value decreased when the organo-magadiite was preheated at temperatures above 200 °C. The regeneration tests indicated that an 85 % removal efficiency was maintained after 6 cycles of use for the organo-magadiites.

In recent years, cemented tailings/paste backfill (CPB) become more and more important to maintain mine structure and keep mining stope to be stable in deep underground mining. Deep mining process often accompanied by blasting, rock burst and other high-speed dynamic loading. So it’s important to make research on dynamic behavior and characteristics of CPB. In this paper, a series of dynamic loading tests on CPB specimens by SHPB were taken to study the characteristic of stress-strain, dynamic strength, deformation and failure of CPB. The experimental results revealed that some CPB specimens have 1~2 lower stress peaks after reaching the peak stress before getting completely failed. The greater the cement-sand ratio was, the more obvious of strain reaction was. This property mainly showed like follows. The greater the cement-sand ratio was, the greater the dynamic compressive strength was under similar velocity impact; the dynamic compressive strength and the average strain rate were quadratic equation relationship, and the greater the cement-sand ratio was, the higher increase rate of dynamic compressive strength caused by strain rate. The dynamic compressive strength enhancement factor increased with the increase of the strain rate, and is larger than that of rock samples. The failure forms of CPB specimens under low-speed impact were almost the same as them under static uniaxial and triaxle compression. The CPB specimens were crushed broken under the critical strain rate, similar to the failure mode of low strength concrete. The experimental research results will improve our understanding the dynamic mechanical property of CPB and help to guide the strength design of deep mining backfill.

Thermal interface material (TIM) that can exist as liquid at the service temperature enables efficient heat transfer across two adjacent surfaces in electronic applications. In this work, the thermal conductivities of different phase regions in the Ga-In system at various compositions and temperatures are measured for the first time. A modified comparative cut bar technique is used for the measurement of the thermal conductivities of In_xGa_1-x (x=0, 0.1, 0.214, 0.3, and 0.9) alloys at 40, 60, 80, and 100^oC that are the temperatures commonly encountered in consumer electronics. The thermal conductivity values for the liquid and semi-liquid (liquid+β) Ga-In alloys are higher than the TIM currently used in consumer electronics. These measured quantities, along with the available experimental data from the literature, served as input for the thermal conductivity parameter optimization using the CALPHAD (CALculation of PHase Diagram) method for the pure elements, solution phase, and two-phase region. A set of self-consistent parameters for the description of the thermal conductivity of the Ga-In system is obtained. There is good agreement between the measured and calculated thermal conductivity values for all the phases. Hence, it can be envisaged that liquid/semi-liquid Ga-In alloys can be considered as a potential TIM in consumer electronics due to its high thermal conductivity.

In this work, a xylan-based antimicrobial additive agent was prepared and aimed for uses in paper products against Escherichia coli bacteria. The derived Cationic-Xylan-grafted-PHGH (CX-g-PHGH) was successfully synthesized by graft copolymerization of cationic-xylan with guanidine polymer (PHGH) using ceric ammonium nitrate as initiator. The obtained CX-g-PHGH had maximum PHGH grafting ratio of 18.45% and efficiency of 58.45%, and showed good viscosity and thermal stability. Furthermore, the paper samples prepared in this work were reinforced obviously with the addition of CX-g-PHGH by improved mechanical properties. Compared to the reference paper without any of the xylan-derivatives, the index of tensile, tear, burst and folding endurance of the paper had increases up to 20.07%, 25.31%, 30.20% and 77.78%, respectively. Moreover, the prepared CX-g-PHGH paper exhibited an efficient antimicrobial activity against E. coli bacterial, by which a lot of applications based on the new xylan-derived additive agent obtained in this work could be found, especially in field of antimicrobial paper products against E. Coli bacteria from contaminated food.

Polydimethylsiloxane with hydroxy groups was functionalized to form functionalized polydimethylsiloxane, which subsequently underwent an addition reaction with isophorone diisocyanate to form the prepolymer. Next, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTS) reacted with 3-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTS) to produce bridged polysilsesquioxanes, and the sol–gel technology was employed to form hyperbranched polysiloxane nanoparticles with hydroxy groups, which was used as the additive. The hyperbranched polysiloxane and the prepolymer containing NCO functional groups then underwent an addition reaction to produce the hybrid materials. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and 29Si nuclear magnetic resonance were used to characterize the structure of the polyurethane hybrid. Regarding thermal stability, after the hyperbranched polysiloxane nanoparticles was introduced, the integral procedural decomposition temperature increased from 348 ºC for polyurethane matrix to 859 ºC for the hybrid material. The results revealed that the thermal stability of the hybrid material substantially increased by approximately 247%.

Solar energy is a renewable resources of energy which is broadly utilized and have the least pollution impact between the available alternatives of fossil fuels. In this investigation, machine leaening approaches of neural networks (NN), neuro-fuzzy and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) are used to build the models for prediction of the thermal performance of a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector (PV/T) by estimating its efficiency as an output of the model while inlet temperature, flow rate, heat, solar radiation, and heat of sun are input of the designed model. Experimental measurements was prepared by designing a solar collector system and 100 data extracted. Different analyses are also performed to examine the credibility of the introduced approaches revealing great performance. The suggested LSSVM model represented the best performance regarding the mean squared error (MSE) of 0.003 and correlation coefficient (R²) value of 0.99, respectively.

The use of cobalt-iron (VaCoFe) core is investigated as an alternative to silicon-iron (FeSi) on the design of interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSM). A spoke-type IPMSM geometry is optimized considering FeSi and VaCoFe cores for a torque range up to 40 N.m, providing a general comparative analysis between materials, considering the application of a 4-motor competition vehicle’s powertrain. A genetic optimization algorithm is applied over a hybrid analytical/finite-element model of the motor to provide sufficiently accurate electromagnetic and thermal results within a feasible time. VaCoFe can result in an estimated increase of up to 5 % in efficiency for the same torque, or up to 64 % torque increase for the same efficiency level. After optimization, and using a detailed time-dependent model, a potential 3.2 % increase in efficiency, a core weight reduction of 4.1 %, and a decrease of 9.6 % in the motor’s core volume was found for the VaCoFe at 20 Nm. In addition, for the same motor volume, the VaCoFe allows an increase of 51.9 % of torque with an increase of 1.1 % of efficiency, when compared with FeSi.

A simple fabrication method in the surface modification of electroosmotic silicon microchannel using thermal dry oxidation is presented. The surface modification is done by coating the silicon surface with a silicon dioxide (SiO₂) layer using thermal oxidation process. The process is aimed not only to improve the surface quality of the channel to be suitable for electroosmotic fluid transport but also to reduce the channel width using a simple technique. Initially, the parallel microchannel array with dimensions of 0.5 mm length and width ranging from 1.8 µm to 2 µm are created using plasma etching on the 2x2 cm <100> silicon substrate. The oxidation of silicon channel in a thermal chamber is then conducted to create the SiO₂ layer. The layer properties and the quality of the surface are analyzed using SEM and surface profiler, respectively. The results show that the maximum oxidation growth rate occurs in the first 4 hours of oxidation time and the rate decreases by time as the oxide layer becomes thicker. It is also found that the surface roughness is reduced with the increase of process temperature and oxide thickness. The scallop effect on the vertical wall due to plasma etching process also improved with the presence of the oxide layer. After the oxidation, the channel width is reduced by ~40%. The demonstrated method is suggested for the fabrication of a uniform channel cross section with high aspect ratio in sub-micro and nanometer scale that will be useful for the electroosmotic flow (EOF) manipulation of the biomedical fluid sample.