Physically-Realizable Uniform Temperature Boundary Condition Specification on a Wall of an Enclosure: Part II – Problem Solution

Temperature measurements along one side of the rectangular plate showed severe temperature non-uniformity along one side of a wall of a cubical experimental apparatus where the uniform temperature was physically desired. Despite proper planning and analyses, this non-uniformity was high enough that a benchmark study could not be carried out to the desired accuracy of about one percent error. This paper presents and extends analyses made previously based on the modifications to the original design of the apparatus to reduce the temperature non-uniformity on the wall by adding an auxiliary heater around a wall where the uniform temperature was desired. A detailed mathematical analysis shows significant reduction in temperature non-uniformity from about four percent (based on the initial design) to less than one percent (for the modified design). By examining the temperature difference between two locations on the plate, the predicted temperature difference obtained through mathematical analyses show excellent agreement with the measured temperature difference. The temperature non-uniformity along the boundary of a wall was reduced to less than one percent of the overall temperature difference

Physically-Realizable Uniform Temperature Boundary Condition Specification on a Wall of an Enclosure: Part I – Problem Investigation

Designing an experimental apparatus requires considerable amount of planning. Despite proper planning, one can easily overlook a design such as the standard uniform temperature boundary condition applied to all or portion of a wall of an experimental apparatus. Although this boundary condition is mathematically simple and precise, achieving it physically may not be that simple. This paper addresses one such three-dimensional natural convection heat transfer apparatus that was designed to measure benchmark Nusselt numbers at various Rayleigh numbers with uniform temperatures specified at two walls of the enclosure. It was found that the effect of thermal spreading/constriction resistance on one wall where this uniform temperature condition was prescribed was significant, and as a result, the uniform temperature profile based on the initial design was not physically achieved. In support of this non-uniform temperature observation, this paper presents a thermal resistance model of a plate (which is a portion of this overall heat transfer apparatus) to explain the observed temperature non-uniformity. The results obtained from the current model are validated with measured data, and in terms of a temperature difference between two locations on the plate, the approximate analytical solution is well within the experimental error of 0.03K

Measurement of Shear Modulus Profile Using a Continuous Surface Wave Measurement System

For most ground response analyses, the shear modulus is an important parameter to be determined and it has to be measured over a large strain range, so as to characterise the soil behavior under various loading conditions. Laboratory measurement of shear modulus covers a limited strain range depending on the test method. The main difficulty lies in the determination of the shear modulus at very small strains. In this respect, geophysical methods are more attractive. One of these test methods, which uses a continuous surface wave, is used to obtain the shear modulus profile at two sites in Singapore. The Continuous Surface Wave System (CSWS) is a nonintrusive field geophysical test consisting of a vibrator source and several receiver geophones connected to a computer system. The computer collects and analyses the field data, and provides a shear modulus profile at the test site. Conclusions from the field tests support published literature that such field seismic tests are capable of measuring the low-strain shear modulus well. The interpretation of field test data in the absence of specific stratigraphic information can pose some difficulties. An important part in interpreting continuous surface wave measurement data is in the selection of a suitable inversion tool so as to derive the correct shear modulus profile for the site under consideration. A finite element approach (using LS DYNA) is investigated for inversion of field test data. Data obtained from S-wave cross-hole survey are also compared with field tests data obtained using CSWS

Modulation of Natural Killer Cell Cytotoxicity in Human Cytomegalovirus Infection: The Role of Endogenous Class I Major Histocompatibility Complex and a Viral Class I Homolog

Natural killer (NK) cells have been implicated in early immune responses against certain viruses, including cytomegalovirus (CMV). CMV causes downregulation of class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC) expression in infected cells; however, it has been proposed that a class I MHC homolog encoded by CMV, UL18, may act as a surrogate ligand to prevent NK cell lysis of CMV-infected cells. In this study, we examined the role of UL18 in NK cell recognition and lysis using fibroblasts infected with either wild-type or UL18 knockout CMV virus, and by using cell lines transfected with the UL18 gene. In both systems, the expression of UL18 resulted in the enhanced killing of target cells. We also show that the enhanced killing is due to both UL18-dependent and -independent mechanisms, and that the killer cell inhibitory receptors (KIRs) and CD94/NKG2A inhibitory receptors for MHC class I do not play a role in affecting susceptibility of CMV-infected fibroblasts to NK cell–mediated cytotoxicity

Processing of strong flux trapping high T(subc) oxide superconductors: Center director's discretionary fund

Magnetic suspension effect was first observed in samples of YBa2Cu3O7/AgO(Y-123/AgO) composites. Magnetization measurements of these samples show a much larger hysteresis which corresponds to a large critical current density. In addition to the Y-123AgO composites, recently similar suspension effects in other RE-123/AgO, where RE stands for rare-Earth elements, were also observed. Some samples exhibit even stronger flux pinning than that of the Y-123/AgO sample. An interesting observation was that in order to form the composite which exhibits strong flux trapping effect the sintering temperature depends on the particular RE-123 compound used. The paper presents the detailed processing conditions for the formation of these RE-123/AgO composites, as well as the magnetization and critical field data

Repeat-Until-Success quantum computing using stationary and flying qubits

We introduce an architecture for robust and scalable quantum computation using both stationary qubits (e.g. single photon sources made out of trapped atoms, molecules, ions, quantum dots, or defect centers in solids) and flying qubits (e.g. photons). Our scheme solves some of the most pressing problems in existing non-hybrid proposals, which include the difficulty of scaling conventional stationary qubit approaches, and the lack of practical means for storing single photons in linear optics setups. We combine elements of two previous proposals for distributed quantum computing, namely the efficient photon-loss tolerant build up of cluster states by Barrett and Kok [Phys. Rev. A 71, 060310(R) (2005)] with the idea of Repeat-Until-Success (RUS) quantum computing by Lim et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 030505 (2005)]. This idea can be used to perform eventually deterministic two-qubit logic gates on spatially separated stationary qubits via photon pair measurements. Under non-ideal conditions, where photon loss is a possibility, the resulting gates can still be used to build graph states for one-way quantum computing. In this paper, we describe the RUS method, present possible experimental realizations, and analyse the generation of graph states.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, minor changes, references and a discussion on the effect of photon dark counts adde

A monte-carlo floating-point unit for self-validating arithmetic

Monte-Carlo arithmetic is a form of self-validating arith-metic that accounts for the effect of rounding errors. We have implemented a floating point unit that can perform ei-ther IEEE 754 or Monte-Carlo floating point computation, allowing hardware accelerated validation of results during execution. Experiments show that our approach has a mod-est hardware overhead and allows the propagation of round-ing error to be accurately estimated

Design and fabrication of 3D-printed anatomically shaped lumbar cage for intervertebra disc (IVD) degeneration treatment

Spinal fusion is the gold standard surgical procedure for degenerative spinal conditions when conservative therapies have been unsuccessful in rehabilitation of patients. Novel strategies are required to improve biocompatibility and osseointegration of traditionally used materials for lumbar cages. Furthermore, new design and technologies are needed to bridge the gap due to the shortage of optimal implant sizes to fill the intervertebral disc defect. Within this context, additive manufacturing technology presents an excellent opportunity to fabricate ergonomic shape medical implants. The goal of this study is to design and manufacture a 3D-printed lumbar cage for lumbar interbody fusion. Optimisations of the proposed implant design and its printing parameters were achieved via in silico analysis. The final construct was characterised via scanning electron microscopy, contact angle, x-ray micro computed tomography (μCT), atomic force microscopy, and compressive test. Preliminary in vitro cell culture tests such as morphological assessment and metabolic activities were performed to access biocompatibility of 3D-printed constructs. Results of in silico analysis provided a useful platform to test preliminary cage design and to find an optimal value of filling density for 3D printing process. Surface characterisation confirmed a uniform coating of nHAp with nanoscale topography. Mechanical evaluation showed mechanical properties of final cage design similar to that of trabecular bone. Preliminary cell culture results showed promising results in terms of cell growth and activity confirming biocompatibility of constructs. Thus for the first time, design optimisation based on computational and experimental analysis combined with the 3D-printing technique for intervertebral fusion cage has been reported in a single study. 3D-printing is a promising technique for medical applications and this study paves the way for future development of customised implants in spinal surgical applications

A compact and reconfigurable silicon nitride time-bin entanglement circuit

Photonic chip based time-bin entanglement has attracted significant attention because of its potential for quantum communication and computation. Useful time-bin entanglement systems must be able to generate, manipulate and analyze entangled photons on a photonic chip for stable, scalable and reconfigurable operation. Here we report the first time-bin entanglement photonic chip that integrates time-bin generation, wavelength demultiplexing and entanglement analysis. A two-photon interference fringe with an 88.4% visibility is measured (without subtracting any noise), indicating the high performance of the chip. Our approach, based on a silicon nitride photonic circuit, which combines the low-loss characteristic of silica and tight integration features of silicon, paves the way for scalable real-world quantum information processors.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

An improved wrapper-based feature selection method for machinery fault diagnosis

A major issue of machinery fault diagnosis using vibration signals is that it is over-reliant on personnel knowledge and experience in interpreting the signal. Thus, machine learning has been adapted for machinery fault diagnosis. The quantity and quality of the input features, however, influence the fault classification performance. Feature selection plays a vital role in selecting the most representative feature subset for the machine learning algorithm. In contrast, the trade-off relationship between capability when selecting the best feature subset and computational effort is inevitable in the wrapper-based feature selection (WFS) method. This paper proposes an improved WFS technique before integration with a support vector machine (SVM) model classifier as a complete fault diagnosis system for a rolling element bearing case study. The bearing vibration dataset made available by the Case Western Reserve University Bearing Data Centre was executed using the proposed WFS and its performance has been analysed and discussed. The results reveal that the proposed WFS secures the best feature subset with a lower computational effort by eliminating the redundancy of re-evaluation. The proposed WFS has therefore been found to be capable and efficient to carry out feature selection tasks