On the bubble trapped underneath a droplet impacting a moving hydrophilic surface: From perfect slip to no slip

The bubble trapped underneath a droplet impacting a moving hydrophilic surface was investigated using high-speed photography. The bubble diameter was found to depend weakly on the surface speed Vs, but strongly on the Weber number We. The bubble and the surrounding liquid slip on the surface while accelerating to Vs, with the slip velocity gradually decreasing to zero, demonstrating that the no-slip boundary condition does not apply during the acceleration period. The terminal slip distance, identifying the maximum distance between the bubble and the impact point, increases with an increase of Vs and weakly depends on We. Its observed length was up to 1.39 mm. An acceleration extracted from the experiments quantifies the slip and provides a simple tool for predicting the terminal slip distance

Vitexin attenuates smoke inhalation induced acute lung injury in rats by inhibiting oxidative stress via PKC β/p66Shc signaling pathway

Purpose: To investigate the protective effect of vitexin on smoke inhalation-induced acute lung injury (SI-ALI), and the underlying mechanism of action.Methods: The ALI rat model was established by inhalation of smoke in a closed smoke chamber. Survival rate, arterial blood gas analysis, wet-to-dry weight ratio of lung tissues, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid protein concentration, lung tissue histology, and oxidative stress and inflammation level were evaluated. Expressions of protein kinase C β (PKC β), p66Shc, and phosphorylated p66Shc were determined by western blot or quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.Results: Compared with smoke inhalation group, vitexin alleviated the decline in arterial partial pressure of oxygen (p < 0.05), reduced lung tissue exudation and pathological lung tissue damage, inhibited the expression of PKC β/p66Shc signaling pathway proteins, downregulated the level of oxidative stress and inflammation, and ultimately improved the survival rate in SI-ALI rats (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Vitexin attenuates SI-ALI in rats by alleviating oxidative stress via inhibition of PKC β/p66Shc signaling pathway. Thus, this compound is a potential agent for the treatment of SI-ALI

Estimation of state of charge of lithium-ion battery based on photovoltaic generation energy storage system

Brza i točna procjena stanja naboja - state of charge (SOC) litij-ion baterije jedna je od ključnih tehnologija sustava za praćenje stanja baterije. Imajući u vidu nelinearni dinamički sustav litij baterije, u ovom je radu postavljen RC model histereze drugog reda ispitivanjem i analizom karakteristika histereze litij-ion baterije, a kubatura algoritma Kalmanovog filtra primijenjena je za procjenu stanja naboja baterije. Rezultati eksperimenta pokazuju da se modelom baterije može predvidjeti dinamičko ponašanje naboja histereze litij-ion baterije, a algoritmom kubature Kalmanovog filtriranja održati visoka točnost u postupku procjene.The fast and accurate estimation of state of charge (SOC) of lithium-ion battery is one of the key technologies of battery management system. In view of this nonlinear dynamic system of lithium battery, through the test and analysis of lithium-ion battery hysteresis characteristics, the second-order RC hysteresis model is established, and the cubature Kalman filter algorithm is used to estimate the battery state of charge in this report. The experiment results show that the battery model can essentially predict the dynamic hysteresis voltage behavior of the lithium-ion battery and cubature Kalman Filtering algorithm can maintain high accuracy in the estimation process

Pyrolysis characteristics of waste tire particles in fixed-bed reactor with internals

This study investigated the characteristics of pyrolysis for waste tire particles in the newly developed fixed-bed reactor with internals that are a central gas collection channel mounted inside reactor. And a few metallic plates vertically welded on the internal wall of the reactors and extending to the region closing their central gas collection pipe walls. Experiments were conducted in two laboratory fixed bed reactors with or without the internals. The results shown that employing internals produced more light oil at externally heating temperatures above 700 °C due to the inhibited secondary reactions in the reactor. The oil from the reactor with internals contained more aliphatic hydrocarbons and fewer aromatic hydrocarbons, leading to its higher H/C atomic ratios as for crude petroleum oil. The char yield was relatively stable for two beds and showed the higher heating values (HHVs) of about 23 MJ/kg. The gaseous product of pyrolysis mainly consisted of H2 and CH4, but the use of internals led to less pyrolysis gas through its promotion of oil production. Keywords: Pyrolysis, Waste tire, Fixed bed, Internals, Secondary reaction

BMCloud: Minimizing Repair Bandwidth and Maintenance Cost in Cloud Storage

To protect data in cloud storage, fault tolerance and efficient recovery become very important. Recent studies have developed numerous solutions based on erasure code techniques to solve this problem using functional repairs. However, there are two limitations to address. The first one is consistency since the Encoding Matrix (EM) is different among clouds. The other one is repairing bandwidth, which is a concern for most of us. We addressed these two problems from both theoretical and practical perspectives. We developed BMCloud, a new low repair bandwidth, low maintenance cost cloud storage system, which aims to reduce repair bandwidth and maintenance cost. The system employs both functional repair and exact repair while it inherits advantages from the both. We propose the JUDGE_STYLE algorithm, which can judge whether the system should adopt exact repair or functional repair. We implemented a networked storage system prototype and demonstrated our findings. Compared with existing solutions, BMCloud can be used in engineering to save repair bandwidth and degrade maintenance significantly

Outage Probability of One-Source-with-One-Helper Sensor Systems in Block Rayleigh Fading Multiple Access Channels

Two correlated sources are transmitted over a block Rayleigh fading multiple access channel (MAC), where information recovery from only one of the sources is aimed at, and the other is used as a helper which helps recover the source sequences at the destination. In this paper, the successful transmission is defined as in the case the transmission rates satisfy the intersection of both the MAC region and the Slepian-Wolf (SW) region with a helper, referred to as h-SW region, even though it is a sufficient condition. Then, the outage is defined as the average probability that the two regions do not have an intersection. The explicit expressions of the outage probability of the system are derived, in the form of multiple integrals with respect to the probability density function of instantaneous signal-to-noise ratios of each link. To have an in-depth insight regarding the contributions of some special cases to the successful transmission probability, the occurrence probabilities of these cases are also evaluated. The results indicate that outage probabilities decrease as the correlation between the source and helper information increases. The impacts of geometric gains of each link and the correlation of each link’s fading variation are also considered. The most significant finding of this paper is that h-SW over a MAC improves the throughput efficiency compared to the orthogonal transmission both in independent and correlated block Rayleigh fading channels without sacrificing the outage probability

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring for the management of hypertension

Abstract. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) has become indispensable in the current management of hypertension. ABPM is particularly useful in the accurate diagnosis of hypertension. Its diagnostic thresholds had been recently established based on hard clinical outcomes. Cross-classification of patients according to office and ambulatory blood pressure identifies white-coat, masked, and sustained hypertension. ABPM is also useful in cardiovascular (CV) risk assessment. It provides information on daytime and nighttime blood pressure and circadian rhythm, particularly nighttime blood pressure dipping. Nighttime blood pressure is predictive of CV risk independent of office and daytime blood pressure. Isolated nocturnal hypertension is a special form of masked hypertension, with normal daytime but elevated nocturnal blood pressure. It also helps in the evaluation of blood pressure fluctuation and variation, such as morning blood pressure surge and reading-to-reading blood pressure variability. ABPM may derive several other indexes, such as ambulatory blood pressure index and salt sensitivity index, which may be useful in CV evaluations

Correlating micro/meso pore evolution and chemical structure variation in a mild thermal treatment of a subbituminite

This work investigates the evolution of micro/meso pores during a mild thermal treatment of subbituminous coal based on the observation of coal structure changes with the gradual detachment of organic matter from the coal. Pores in coal can be described as super-micropores (d < 1 nm), micropores (1 nm < d < 2 nm) and mesopores (2 nm < d < 50 nm). The decomposition of the carboxyl group at 200 degrees C decreases the super-micropore volume. A mild and sustained reaction takes place at 300 degrees C to gradually change the aromaticity and CH2/CH3 ratio of the treated coal. The amount of micropore structure sharply decreases in the early stages of heating, while the amount of mesopore structure continuously decreases during the whole process. A dramatic reaction takes place at 400 degrees C to sharply change the aromaticity and CH2/CH3 ratio of the treated coal, while the detachment of volatile compounds from the coal matrix caused an evident variation in the mesopore structure of the coal. The aromaticity and CH2/CH3 ratio of coal organics are found to correlate with the volumes of super-micropores and mesopores, respectively. The super-micropores are identified as comprising the inter-layer distance between stacks of aromatic rings, and mesopores are the spaces between macromolecular aromatic rings which are inter-connected via aliphatic chains