Genome-wide association study for conformation traits in three Danish pig breeds

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Manhattan plot of GWAS in Landrace pigs for (a) FRONT, (b) BACK, (c) HIND and (d) CONF. The data provided represent the Manhattan plot of single-trait association analyses in Landrace pigs for four traits studied

Performance and design analyses of various configurations of dew point evaporative cooling-based desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) systems for hot and humid conditions

Thermally driven desiccant- and evaporative cooling-based technologies are promising greener and cheaper alternatives to compressor-based systems due to the separate handling of latent and sensible loads. Desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) systems comprise a desiccant dehumidifier, a sensible cooling unit, a heat source for regeneration, and a heat recovery unit. These components of a DAC system can be arranged in various ways to give different configurations with varying advantages and disadvantages. In this study, five configurations of thermally driven desiccant dehumidifier- and dew point evaporative cooling (DPEC)-based DAC systems were investigated. Seven evaluation criteria namely regeneration temperature, desiccant moisture removal capacity, COPt, DPEC L/H, heat exchanger UA, system size, and fan power requirement were employed. Results show that the standard cycle in ventilation mode offers the highest COPt despite having the highest regeneration temperature. Recirculation of the return room air can operate at a significantly lower regeneration temperature at the expense of larger equipment size and much lower COPt. DAC with an internally cooled dehumidification can operate at low regeneration temperature at the expense of higher fan power and slightly lower COPt. Dividing the dehumidification process into two stages can offer operation at moderately lower regeneration temperature without severely affecting the other criteria. This study can serve as a guide for the selection of an appropriate DAC configuration for space cooling depending on the objective criteria and the resources available

The second law analysis of a humidification-dehumidification desalination system using M-cycle

Humidification-dehumidification desalination (HDD) systems offer a feasible approach for the production of fresh water in inaccessible areas as they can be operational using renewable energy and require little maintenance. Various studies are being carried out to boost the system performance. In this paper, an open air open water HDD system is proposed that exploits the enhanced evaporation and condensation processes by implementing with the Maisotsenko cycle (M-cycle). The system utilizes solar energy as the energy input to heat the saline water. A thermodynamic model is formulated under steady-state conditions, considering the first and second law of thermodynamics. The energetic and exergetic performance of the system is studied. The model is first validated with the experimental data and a good agreement is found where the maximum discrepancy is about 6.0 %. Effects of different operating conditions on key performance parameters such as the Gain Output Ratio (GOR), specific energy consumption (SEC), exergy destruction, and exergy efficiency are analyzed. An improvement is observed in the GOR when the inlet air temperature is raised at constant humidity ratio. The system exhibits better performance in dry air environment when compared with humid air environment. The analysis shows a maximum mass flow rate of desalinated water of 22.3 kg/h, recovery ratio (RR) of 0.223, GOR of 3, SEC of 0.23 kWh/kg and an exergy efficiency of 43.21 %

Relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms

Using the operator representation of the Dirac Coulomb Green function the analytical method in perturbation theory is employed in obtaining solutions of the Dirac equation for a hydrogen-like atom in a time-dependent electric field. The relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms is calculated and analysed.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures (not included, but hard copies are available upon request

Novel battery thermal management via scalable dew-point evaporative cooling

Thermal management is critical to safety, stability, and durability of battery energy storage systems. Existing passive and active air cooling are not competent when the cooling performance, energy efficiency and cost of the thermal management system are drawing concurrent concerns. Here we propose dew-point evaporative cooling as a novel active air-cooling approach for large battery systems. Its capability of cooling the air towards its dew-point temperature with simple working principle and great electrical efficiency offers an ideal solution. Therefore, a scalable dew-point evaporative cooling technology was developed, and a large-scale cooler was constructed which could deliver 2.9–6.7 kW cooling capacity with 8.9–28.9 coefficient of performance (COP). To demonstrate its performance for battery thermal management, we took a 20 Ah lithium iron phosphate (LFP) prismatic pouch cells for a case study whose complex dynamic electrochemical and thermal responses were investigated via lock-in thermography experiments and electrochemical-thermal modeling. The potential of dew-point evaporative cooling for battery cooling was explored via the multi-physics coupling of battery and cooler models. This study elucidates that dew-point evaporative cooling can efficiently cool a battery by 3.0–13.6 °C lower than the cases with only forced convection, and control the battery operating temperature within an ideal operating range of 20–40 °C

Analytical model for calibrating laser intensity in strong-field-ionization experiments

Citation: Zhao, S. F., Le, A. T., Jin, C., Wang, X., & Lin, C. D. (2016). Analytical model for calibrating laser intensity in strong-field-ionization experiments. Physical Review A, 93(2), 10. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.93.023413The interaction of an intense laser pulse with atoms and molecules depends extremely nonlinearly on the laser intensity. Yet experimentally there still exists no simple reliable methods for determining the peak laser intensity within the focused volume. Here we present a simple method, based on an improved Perelomov-Popov-Terent'ev model, that would allow the calibration of laser intensities from the measured ionization signals of atoms or molecules. The model is first examined by comparing ionization probabilities (or signals) of atoms and several simple diatomic molecules with those from solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation. We then show the possibility of using this method to calibrate laser intensities for atoms, diatomic molecules as well as large polyatomic molecules, for laser intensities from the multiphoton ionization to tunneling ionization regimes

Differences in Proinflammatory Cytokines and Monocyte Subtypes in Older as Compared With Younger Kidney Transplant Recipients.

Background:The number of elderly patients with end-stage kidney disease requiring kidney transplantation continues to grow. Evaluation of healthy older adults has revealed proinflammatory changes in the immune system, which are posited to contribute to age-associated illnesses via "inflamm-aging." Immunologic dysfunction is also associated with impaired control of infections. Whether these immunologic changes are found in older kidney transplant recipients is not currently known, but may have important implications for risk for adverse clinical outcomes. Methods:Three months after transplant, innate immune phenotype was evaluated by flow cytometry from 60 kidney transplant recipients (22 older [≥60 years] and 38 younger [<60 years old]). Multiplex cytokine testing was used to evaluate plasma cytokine levels. Younger patients were matched to older patients based on transplant type and induction immune suppression. Results:Older kidney transplant recipients demonstrated decreased frequency of intermediate monocytes (CD14++CD16+) compared with younger patients (1.2% vs 3.3%, P = 0.007), and a trend toward increased frequency of proinflammatory classical monocytes (CD14++CD16-) (94.5% vs 92.1%) (P = 0.065). Increased levels of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) were seen in older patients. Conclusions:In this pilot study of kidney transplant recipients, we identified differences in the innate immune system in older as compared with younger patients, including increased levels of IFN-γ. This suggests that age-associated nonspecific inflammation persists despite immune suppression. The ability to apply noninvasive testing to transplant recipients will provide tools for patient risk stratification and individualization of immune suppression regimens to improve outcomes after transplantation

New determination of structure parameters in strong field tunneling ionization theory of molecules

In the strong field molecular tunneling ionization theory of Tong et al. [Phys. Rev. A 66, 033402 (2002)], the ionization rate depends on the asymptotic wavefunction of the molecular orbital from which the electron is removed. The orbital wavefunctions obtained from standard quantum chemistry packages in general are not good enough in the asymptotic region. Here we construct a one-electron model potential for several linear molecules using density functional theory (DFT). We show that the asymptotic wavefunction can be improved with an iteration method and after one iteration accurate asymptotic wavefunctions and structure parameters are determined. With the new parameters we examine the alignment-dependent tunneling ionization probabilities for several molecules and compare with other calculations and with recent measurements, including ionization from inner molecular orbitals

Operator method in solving non-linear equations of the Hartree-Fock type

The operator method is used to construct the solutions of the problem of the polaron in the strong coupling limit and of the helium atom on the basis of the Hartree-Fock equation. $E_0=-0.1085128052\alpha^2$ is obtained for the polaron ground-state energy. Energies for 2s- and 3s-states are also calculated. The other excited states are briefly discussed.Comment: 7 page

Reconstruction of two-dimensional molecular structure with laser-induced electron diffraction from laser-aligned polyatomic molecules

Citation: Yu, C., Wei, H., Wang, X., Le, A. T., Lu, R. F., & Lin, C. D. (2015). Reconstruction of two-dimensional molecular structure with laser-induced electron diffraction from laser-aligned polyatomic molecules. Scientific Reports, 5, 8. doi:10.1038/srep15753Imaging the transient process of molecules has been a basic way to investigate photochemical reactions and dynamics. Based on laser-induced electron diffraction and partial one-dimensional molecular alignment, here we provide two effective methods for reconstructing two-dimensional structure of polyatomic molecules. We demonstrate that electron diffraction images in both scattering angles and broadband energy can be utilized to retrieve complementary structure information, including positions of light atoms. With picometre spatial resolution and the inherent femtosecond temporal resolution of lasers, laser-induced electron diffraction method offers significant opportunities for probing atomic motion in a large molecule in a typical pump-probe measurement