Thermally Responsive Fluid Behaviors in Hydrophobic Nanopores

A fundamental understanding of the thermal effects on nanofluid behaviors is critical for developing and designing innovative thermally responsive nanodevices. Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and experiment, we investigate the temperature-dependent intrusion/adsorption of water molecules into hydrophobic nanopores (carbon nanotubes and nanoporous carbon) and the underlying mechanisms. The critical infiltration pressure is reduced for elevated temperature or increased pore size. The variation of wettability is related to the thermally responsive fluid characteristics, such as the surface tension and contact angle, which arise from the variations of multiple atomic variables including the confined water density, hydrogen bond, and dipole orientation. With thermal perturbation, most of these physical quantities are found to be more significantly influenced in the confined nanoenvironment than in the bulk. By utilizing the prominent thermal effect at the nanoscale, the feasibility and prospective efficiency of employing nanofluidics for energy storage, actuation, and thermal monitoring are discussed

Crystal Structure of a Human Single Domain Antibody Dimer Formed through VH-VH Non-Covalent Interactions

Single-domain antibodies (sdAbs) derived from human VH are considered to be less soluble and prone to aggregate which makes it difficult to determine the crystal structures. In this study, we isolated and characterized two anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) sdAbs, Gr3 and Gr6, from a synthetic human VH phage display library. Size exclusion chromatography and surface plasmon resonance analyses demonstrated that Gr3 is a monomer, but that Gr6 is a strict dimer. To understand this different molecular behavior, we solved the crystal structure of Gr6 to 1.6 Å resolution. The crystal structure revealed that the homodimer assembly of Gr6 closely mimics the VH-VL heterodimer of immunoglobulin variable domains and the dimerization interface is dominated by hydrophobic interactions

Characterization and identification of the integrin family in silkworm, Bombyx mori

YesAs an important economic insect, Bombyx mori is also a useful model organism for lepidopteran insect. Integrins are evolutionarily conserved fromsponges to humans, and play vital roles inmany physiological and pathological processes. To explore their diverse functions of integrins in insect, eleven integrins including sixα and five β subunitswere cloned and characterized fromsilkworm. Our results showed that integrins fromsilkwormown more family members compared to other invertebrates. Among those α subunits, integrins α1, α2, and the other four subunits belong to PS1, PS2, and PS3 groups, respectively. The β subunits mainly gather in the insect βν group except the β1 subunit which belongs to the insect β group. Expression profiles demonstrated that the integrins exhibited distinct patterns, but were mainly expressed in hemocytes. α1 and β2 subunits are the predominant ones either in the embryogenesis or larva stages. Interestingly, integrins were significantly up-regulated after stimulated by 20-hydroxyecdysone (20-E) in vivo. These results indicate that integrins performdiverse functions in hemocytes of silkworm. Overall, our results provide a newinsight into the functional and evolutionary features of integrins.National Basic Research Programof China (No. 2012cb114603), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20130182110003), the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (cstc2013jcyjys0007), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU111014)

Real-time superpixel segmentation by DBSCAN clustering algorithm

In this paper, we propose a real-time image superpixel segmentation method with 50 frames/s by using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) algorithm. In order to decrease the computational costs of superpixel algorithms, we adopt a fast two-step framework. In the first clustering stage, the DBSCAN algorithm with color-similarity and geometric restrictions is used to rapidly cluster the pixels, and then, small clusters are merged into superpixels by their neighborhood through a distance measurement defined by color and spatial features in the second merging stage. A robust and simple distance function is defined for obtaining better superpixels in these two steps. The experimental results demonstrate that our real-time superpixel algorithm (50 frames/s) by the DBSCAN clustering outperforms the state-of-the-art superpixel segmentation methods in terms of both accuracy and efficiency

Mechanical properties and fracture damage law of coal-rock composition under the action of supercritical CO2

The injection of CO2 into deep unrecoverable coal seams is one of the effective ways to achieve CO2 geological sequestration, but CO2 will be in a supercritical state under the action of high pressure and high temperature. In order to investigate the effect of supercritical CO2 action on coal reservoir structure, based on the self-developed supercritical CO2 immersion experimental system, combined with acoustic emission test system and RFPA3D numerical simulation, we studied the three coal seam thicknesses and three top and bottom lithologies of the mechanical damage characteristics and the fracture extension evolution of “Rock-Coal-Rock” (RCR) composite specimens under the action of supercritical CO2 were investigated. The results show that: ① After the action of supercritical CO2, the degradation of compressive strength and elastic modulus of the RCR composite gradually increases and decreases with the increase of coal thickness, while the degradation of compressive strength and elastic modulus are basically the same when the strength ratios of rock and coal are different and do not show large differences; ② The action of supercritical CO2 will promote the plastic damage of the coal body and intensify the transformation of the RCR composite from tensile splitting damage to shear plastic damage, and the degree of plastic damage of RCR assemblage is positively correlated with both coal thickness and rock-to-coal strength ratio; ③ The supercritical CO2 immersion promoted the RCR assemblage to enter the elastic deformation stage earlier, and the destabilization damage occurred after a more brief elastic deformation, the greater the coal thickness, the greater the influence, while the rock-to-coal strength ratio has less influence; ④ The instability potential of RCR assemblage is proportional to coal thickness and inversely proportional to rock-coal strength ratio, and the power intensity of damage is inversely proportional to coal thickness and proportional to rock-coal strength ratio; ⑤ The total energy, dissipative energy, elastic energy and surplus energy of RCR assemblage gradually decrease with the increase of coal thickness and gradually increase with the increase of rock-coal strength ratio, and the supercritical CO2 effect will cause the elastic energy ratio of RCR assemblage specimens to decrease, the dissipative energy ratio to increase and the surplus energy ratio to decreases. Combining the above research results shows that the thicker the coal seam is, the more likely it is to be destabilized, and the higher the strength of the top and bottom rock layer is, the less likely it is to be destabilized, and the dynamic strength of the seam destabilization is inversely proportional to the coal thickness and positively proportional to the rock-to-coal strength ratio. Therefore, in a certain area of stratum that meets the premise of CO2 injection and storage, the area of stratum with higher top and bottom rock strength and thinner coal seam thickness should be selected to store CO2 with higher safety. The research results can provide some theoretical reference for the safety of geological storage of CO2 injected into deep unmineable coal seams

Bistatic InSAR interferometry imaging and DSM generation for TH-2

TH-2 is a bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite system in formation flight. Compared with traditional InSAR systems, it can eliminate decoherent sources such as time and atmosphere, besides, it can generate highly coherent SAR image pairs. This paper firstly describe the extended chirp scaling (ECS) imaging algorithm based on the hyperbolic equivalent method, and also introduces pre-filtering to deal with problems such as reduced coherence and interference phase errors caused by mixed baselines. Secondly, it introduces the interference processing method and the technical process of DSM reconstruction in the bistatic mode. Finally, an interference imaging experiment is performed using the original echo data of a certain mountainous experimental area, and the 3D reconstruction experiment is performed by using the generated SAR image pair, which analyzes the coherence of the image, the phase unwrapping results and the DSM reconstruction results. The experimental results verify that the interference imaging algorithm in this paper has good focusing effect and phase preservation capacity. At the same time, the interferometry and 3D reconstruction capabilities of the data are verified as well