The Mechanical Behavior of the Cable-in-Conduit Conductor in the ITER Project

Cable-in-conduit conductor (CICC) has wide applications, and this structure is often served to undergo heat force-electromagnetic coupled field in practical utilization, especially in the magnetic confinement fusion (e.g., Tokamak). The mechanical behavior in CICC is of relevance to understanding the mechanical response and cannot be ignored for assessing the safety of these superconducting structures. In this chapter, several mechanical models were established to analyze the mechanical behavior of the CICC in Tokamak device, and the key mechanical problems such as the equivalent mechanical parameters of the superconducting cable, the untwisting behavior in the process of insertion, the buckling behavior of the superconducting wire under the action of the thermo-electromagnetic static load, and the Tcs (current sharing temperature) degradation under the thermo-electromagnetic cyclic loads are studied. Finally, we summarize the existing problems and the future research points on the basis of the previous research results, which will help the related researchers to figure out the mechanical behavior of CICC more easily

An integrated software for virus community sequencing data analysis

BACKGROUND: A virus community is the spectrum of viral strains populating an infected host, which plays a key role in pathogenesis and therapy response in viral infectious diseases. However automatic and dedicated pipeline for interpreting virus community sequencing data has not been developed yet.RESULTS: We developed Quasispecies Analysis Package (QAP), an integrated software platform to address the problems associated with making biological interpretations from massive viral population sequencing data. QAP provides quantitative insight into virus ecology by first introducing the definition "virus OTU" and supports a wide range of viral community analyses and results visualizations. Various forms of QAP were developed in consideration of broader users, including a command line, a graphical user interface and a web server. Utilities of QAP were thoroughly evaluated with high-throughput sequencing data from hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, influenza virus and human immunodeficiency virus, and the results showed highly accurate viral quasispecies characteristics related to biological phenotypes.CONCLUSIONS: QAP provides a complete solution for virus community high throughput sequencing data analysis, and it would facilitate the easy analysis of virus quasispecies in clinical applications.</p

Characterization of gene expression profiles in HBV-related liver fibrosis patients and identification of ITGBL1 as a key regulator of fibrogenesis

Although hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the leading cause of liver fibrosis (LF), the mechanisms underlying liver fibrotic progression remain unclear. Here, we investigated the gene expression profiles of HBV-related LF patients. Whole genome expression arrays were used to detect gene expression in liver biopsy samples from chronically HBV infected patients. Through integrative data analysis, we identified several pathways and key genes involved in the initiation and exacerbation of liver fibrosis. Weight gene co-expression analysis revealed that integrin subunit β-like 1 (ITGBL1) was a key regulator of fibrogenesis. Functional experiments demonstrated that ITGBL1 was an upstream regulator of LF via interactions with transforming growth factor β1. In summary, we investigated the gene expression profiles of HBV-related LF patients and identified a key regulator ITGBL1. Our findings provide a foundation for future studies of gene functions and promote the development of novel antifibrotic therapies

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Twisted Fibers Can Have an Adjustable Thermal Expansion

In this paper, a device with high accuracy capacitive sensor (with the error of 0.1 micrometer) is constructed to measure the axial thermal expansion coefficent of the twisted carbon fibers and yarns of Kevlar. A theoretical model based on the thermal elasticity and the geometrical features of the twisted structure is also presented to predict the axial expansion coefficient. It is found that the twist angle, diameter and pitch have remarkable influences on the axial thermal expansion coefficients of the twisted carbon fibers and Kevlar strands, and the calculated results are in good agreement with experimental data. We found that, with the increase of the twist angle, the absolute value of the axial thermal expansion coefficient increases. For the Kevlar samples, the expansion coefficient will grow by about 46% when the twist angle increases from 0 to 25 degrees, while the carbon fiber samples will grow by about 72% when the twist angle increases from 0 to 35 degrees. The experimental measurements and the model calculations reveal important properties of the thermal expansion in the twisted structures. Most notably, the expansion of the strand during heating or cooling can be zero when the twist angle is around β = arcsin(αL/αT)^1/2, where β denotes twist angle of the strand and αL, αT are the longitute and the transverse thermal expansion coefficient of the strand, respectively. According to the present experiments and analyses, a method to control the axial thermal expansion coefficient of this new kind of twisted structure is proposed. Moreover, the mechanism of this tunable thermal expansion is discussed. Based on the model, a method that can be used to rectify the thermal expansion properties of the twist structures is established. This may be a new way of fabricating zero expansion composite materials in the future

An improved model for predicting effective Young's modulus of the twisted structure under cyclic loading: taking into account the untwisting effect

ABSTRACT: Twist structures have diverse applications, ranging from dragline, electrical cable, and intelligent structure. Among these applications, tension deformation can't be avoided during the fabrication and working processes, which often leads to the twist structure rotation (called untwisting effect) and twist pitch increasing. As a consequence, this untwisting behavior has a large effect on the effective Young's modulus. In this paper, we present an improved model based on the classical Costello's theory to predict the effective Young's modulus of the basic structure, twisted by three same copper strands under cyclic loading. Series of experiments were carried out to verify the present model taking into account the untwisting effect. The experimental results have better agreements with the presented model than the common Costello's model. Keywords: Twist structure, Young's modulus, Cyclic loading, Untwisting effec

Effective Young’s modulus of the artificial muscle twisted by fishing lines: Analysis and experiment

Artificial muscles transformed by fishing lines or sewing thread, have distinguished advantages, e. g., fast, scalable, nonhysteretic, and long-life, which have been proposed by Haines et al. [Science 343, 868 (2014)]. In this paper, we present a geometrical model to predict the effective Young’s modulus of the basic structure that is twisted by three fishing lines with the same diameter. Moreover, series of experiments are carried out to verify the present model, and it is found the theoretical calculations take good agreements with the experimental results