Pulsed Corona Discharge for Oxidation of Gaseous Elemental Mercury

Positive pulsed corona discharge has been applied for the oxidation of gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0) from a simulated flue gas. The oxidation of Hg0 to HgO and HgCl2 can significantly enhance the mercury removal from flue gas. At a gas condition of O2 (10%), H2O (3%), and N2 (balance), Hg0 oxidation efficiency of 84% was achieved at an input energy density of 45 J/l. The presence of NO, however, hinders Hg0 oxidation due to the preferential reaction of NO with O and O3. On the contrary, SO2 shows little effect on Hg0 oxidation due to its preferential reaction with OH. It has been also observed that the HCl in gas stream can be dissociated to Cl and Cl2 and can induce additional Hg0 oxidation to HgCl2

High-Performance PVC Gel for Adaptive Micro-Lenses with Variable Focal Length.

This paper presents a bio-inspired adaptive micro-lens with electrically tunable focus made of non-ionic high-molecular-weight polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel. The optical device mimics the design of the crystalline lens and ciliary muscle of the human eye. It consists of a plano-convex PVC gel micro-lens on Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) glass, confined with an annular electrode operating as an artificial ciliary muscle. Upon electrical activation, the electroactive adhesive force of the PVC gel is exerted on the annular anode electrode, which reduces the sagittal height of the plano-convex PVC gel lens, resulting in focal length variation of the micro-lens. The focal length increases from 3.8 mm to 22.3 mm as the applied field is varied from 200 V/mm to 800 V/mm, comparable to that of the human lens. The device combines excellent optical characteristics with structural simplicity, fast response speed, silent operation, and low power consumption. The results show the PVC gel micro-lens is expected to open up new perspectives on practical tunable optics

Multi-Hop Routing-Based Optimization of the Number of Cluster-Heads in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks require energy-efficient data transmission because the sensor nodes have limited power. A cluster-based routing method is more energy-efficient than a flat routing method as it can only send specific data for user requirements and aggregate similar data by dividing a network into a local cluster. However, previous clustering algorithms have some problems in that the transmission radius of sensor nodes is not realistic and multi-hop based communication is not used both inside and outside local clusters. As energy consumption based on clustering is dependent on the number of clusters, we need to know how many clusters are best. Thus, we propose an optimal number of cluster-heads based on multi-hop routing in wireless sensor networks. We observe that a local cluster made by a cluster-head influences the energy consumption of sensor nodes. We determined an equation for the number of packets to send and relay, and calculated the energy consumption of sensor networks using it. Through the process of calculating the energy consumption, we can obtain the optimal number of cluster-heads in wireless sensor networks

The Expression of AGO2 and DGCR8 in Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss

ObjectivesThe microRNAs have been implicated in the development and function of the inner ear, especially in contribution to hearing. However, the impact of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) on expression of miRNA biogenesis-related components has not been established. To investigate the regulations of microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis-related components, argonaute 2 (AGO2) and DiGeorge syndrome critical region gene 8 (DGCR8) mRNA expression in SSNHL and to evaluate the value of clinical parameters on their expression.MethodsThirty-seven patients diagnosed with SSNHL and fifty-one healthy volunteers were included in this study. We measured mRNA expression levels of AGO2 and DGCR8 in whole blood cells but erythrocytes of patients with SSNHL and controls, using reverse transcription and real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis.ResultsThe mRNA expression level of AGO2 is upregulated in SSNHL. The expression level of AGO2 was significantly correlated with that of DGCR8 in both patients with SSNHL and controls. Expression level of AGO2 in SSNHL was correlated with white blood cell counts.ConclusionThis study demonstrated for the first time that the AGO2 mRNA expression level was upregulated in SSNHL, suggesting its important role in pathobiology of SSNHL development

Experimental study on the measurement of effective themal conductivity for VHTR fuel block geometry

Papers presented to the 11th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 20-23 July 2015.Effective thermal conductivity models which can be used to analyze the heat transfer phenomena of a prismatic fuel block were evaluated by the experiments. In the accident condition of VHTR when forced convection is lost, the heat flows in radial direction through the hexagonal fuel blocks that contain the large number of coolant holes and fuel compacts. Due to the complex geometry of fuel block and radiation heat transfer, the detail computation of heat transfer on the fuel block needs excessive computation resources. Therefore, the detail computation isn't appropriate for the lumped parameter code and a system code such as GAMMA+ adopts effective thermal conductivity model. Despite the complexity in heat transfer modes, the accurate analysis on the heat transfer in fuel block is necessary since it is directly relevant to the integrity of nuclear fuel embedded in fuel block. To satisfy the accurate analysis of complex heat transfer modes with limited computing sources, the credible effective thermal conductivity (ETC) models in which the effects of all of heat transfer modes are lumped is necessary. In this study, various ETC models were evaluated with the experiment result. Experiments for measuring the ETC values of the VHTR fuel block geometry were conducted with IG-11 graphite block. And four probable models compared to the experiment result showed good agreement with them, and thus they could be a candidate ETC model for VHTR fuel block.This research was supported by the National Nuclear R&D Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by MSIP; Ministry of Science ICT & Future Planning (No. NRF-2014M2A8A2074314)am201

Development of Web GIS-Based VFSMOD System with Three Modules for Effective Vegetative Filter Strip Design

In recent years, Non-Point Source Pollution has been rising as a significant environmental issue. The sediment-laden water problem is causing serious impacts on river ecosystems not only in South Korea but also in most countries. The vegetative filter strip (VFS) has been thought to be one of the most effective methods to reduce the transport of sediment to down-gradient area. However, the effective width of the VFS first needs to be determined before VFS installation in the field. To provide an easy-to-use interface with a scientific VFS modeling engine, the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system was developed in this study. The Web GIS-based VFSMOD uses the UH and VFSM executable programs from the VFSMOD-w model as core engines to simulate rainfall-runoff and sediment trapping. To provide soil information for a point of interest, the Google Map interface to the MapServer soil database system was developed using the Google Map API, Javascript, Perl/CGI, and Oracle DB programming. Three modules of the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system were developed for various VFS designs under single storm, multiple storm, and long-term period scenarios. These modules in the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system were applied to the study watershed in South Korea and these were proven as efficient tools for the VFS design for various purposes

Development of Web GIS-Based VFSMOD System with Three Modules for Effective Vegetative Filter Strip Design

In recent years, Non-Point Source Pollution has been rising as a significant environmental issue. The sediment-laden water problem is causing serious impacts on river ecosystems not only in South Korea but also in most countries. The vegetative filter strip (VFS) has been thought to be one of the most effective methods to reduce the transport of sediment to down-gradient area. However, the effective width of the VFS first needs to be determined before VFS installation in the field. To provide an easy-to-use interface with a scientific VFS modeling engine, the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system was developed in this study. The Web GIS-based VFSMOD uses the UH and VFSM executable programs from the VFSMOD-w model as core engines to simulate rainfall-runoff and sediment trapping. To provide soil information for a point of interest, the Google Map interface to the MapServer soil database system was developed using the Google Map API, Javascript, Perl/CGI, and Oracle DB programming. Three modules of the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system were developed for various VFS designs under single storm, multiple storm, and long-term period scenarios. These modules in the Web GIS-based VFSMOD system were applied to the study watershed in South Korea and these were proven as efficient tools for the VFS design for various purposes

The translational network for metabolic disease – from protein interaction to disease co-occurrence

Background The recent advances in human disease network have provided insights into establishing the relationships between the genotypes and phenotypes of diseases. In spite of the great progress, it yet remains as only a map of topologies between diseases, but not being able to be a pragmatic diagnostic/prognostic tool in medicine. It can further evolve from a map to a translational tool if it equips with a function of scoring that measures the likelihoods of the association between diseases. Then, a physician, when practicing on a patient, can suggest several diseases that are highly likely to co-occur with a primary disease according to the scores. In this study, we propose a method of implementing n-of-1 utility (n potential diseases of one patient) to human disease network—the translational disease network. Results We first construct a disease network by introducing the notion of walk in graph theory to protein-protein interaction network, and then provide a scoring algorithm quantifying the likelihoods of disease co-occurrence given a primary disease. Metabolic diseases, that are highly prevalent but have found only a few associations in previous studies, are chosen as entries of the network. Conclusions The proposed method substantially increased connectivity between metabolic diseases and provided scores of co-occurring diseases. The increase in connectivity turned the disease network info-richer. The result lifted the AUC of random guessing up to 0.72 and appeared to be concordant with the existing literatures on disease comorbidity