Development of National Assessment Criteria for Green Schools in China

In the Peoples' Republic of China, a green schools programme was initiated in 1996. It has promoted both education reform and socially sustainable development. Recently, the assessment criteria for green schools have become an obstacle to the rapid development of the green school initiative, mainly due to the cultural and social system in Mainland China. Because there are many district criteria which mainly focus on green schools construction and evaluation, it is necessary to have new criteria to replace them. However, the requirements of the existing national criteria aren’t detailed, and the requirements don’t satisfy evaluation needs after the provincial criteria are replaced. Hence, the new national criteria should include a more comprehensive set of indices and requirements. This paper firstly examines the experiences from other countries and areas, and then analyses weaknesses of the existing green schools assessment process in China. Finally, some   understanding about green schools, and principles to establish new national criteria in China, are discussed in the paper. Since new national criteria are being established, they will be applied to the evaluation of the  national green schools project in Mainland China in 2006

Understanding the interplay of capillary and viscous forces in CO2 core flooding experiments

Interaction between capillary and viscous forces significantly affects the flow instability in immiscible displacement, which is usually investigated by visualization of flow patterns in 2d porous micromodels or in 3d system equipped with X-ray CT. However, in most practical applications, visualization of flow in porous media is not possible and the pressure signal is often as one of the important sources of information. Core flooding experiments were implemented in this study to investigate the interplay of capillary and viscous effects by analysis of differential pressure. Water and crude oil were employed as defending fluid, and different states of CO2 were injected as invading fluid. The inlet was set as the constant injection flow rate while the outlet as the constant pressure. In viscous-dominated displacement, differential pressure evidently depends on the injection rate and the pressure decline curve is fitted by a power function. The exponent of the function is found to be significantly larger at the crossover between capillary-dominated and viscous-dominated regions. In capillary-dominated displacement, the pressure profile is characterized by a pressure jump at the beginning and intermittent fluctuations during the displacement. Further analysis by wavelet decomposition indicates a transition point existing in standard deviation of pressure fluctuations when the displacement is transformed from capillary-dominated to viscous-dominated. The experimental results are finally verified by a macroscopic capillary number, which characterizes the interaction between capillary and viscous forces at a critical value of , agreeing well with the Log Nca-Log M phase diagram

Research on Low Frequency Noise Caused by Beat Vibration of Rotary Compressor

The discontinuity of low frequency noise caused by beat frequency vibration of rotary compressor is studied in this paper. Based on beat frequency theoretical analysis, a finite element model is established to simulate the electromagnetic harmonics. And the contributions of various compressor motor designs to beat frequency vibration are investigated, so the motor optimization design schemes are obtained. The tests show that the method proposed in the paper is effective to improve low frequency noise of the compressor

The effect of CO2 phase on drainage process by analysis of transient differential pressure

Authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports from China Scholarship Council (CSC) and UK India Education & Research Initiative (UKIERI).Peer reviewedPostprin

Numerical and Experimental Research on Vibration Mechanism of Rotary Compressor

With a typical rotary compressor as the research object, the vibration mechanism of the rotary compressor was analyzed in detail in this work. And according to the work, the formulations of the tangential vibration and the radial vibration were proposed for the rotary compressor. First, the oil film stiffness and the damp coefficient were obtained by coupling the experimental testing method and numerical simulation. Then a dynamics simulation was conducted for the rotor system and the critical speed for the current rotor system was obtained, which was used to judge if the rotor system is a kind of flexible rotor. After that, with the aerodynamic force and the crankshaft deformation under consideration, the electromagnetic force, the electromagnetic torque and the revolution fluctuation rate were calculated and analyzed based on an electromagnetic simulation analysis for the motor of the rotary compressor. Finally, the tangential vibration and the radial vibration on the shell and the reservoir of the rotary compressor were obtained by using a dynamics simulation with the revolution fluctuation rate as the load for the rotor system. Based on the simulation result, the predicted results match well with the experimental test results. This work in this paper and the method used in this work provide a good reference for prediction of the vibration and resolving vibration problem of the rotary compressor

DNA-functionalized gold nanoparticles: Modification, characterization, and biomedical applications

With the development of technologies based on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), bare AuNPs cannot meet the increasing requirements of biomedical applications. Modifications with different functional ligands are usually needed. DNA is not only the main genetic material, but also a good biological material, which has excellent biocompatibility, facile design, and accurate identification. DNA is a perfect ligand candidate for AuNPs, which can make up for the shortcoming of bare AuNPs. DNA-modified AuNPs (DNA-AuNPs) have exciting features and bright prospects in many fields, which have been intensively investigated in the past decade. In this review, we summarize the various approaches for the immobilization of DNA strands on the surface of AuNPs. Representative studies for biomedical applications based on DNA-AuNPs are also discussed. Finally, we present the challenges and future directions

Antiproliferation and cell apoptosis inducing bioactivities of constituents from Dysosma versipellis in PC3 and Bcap-37 cell lines

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recently, interest in phytochemicals from traditional Chinese medicinal herbs with the capability to inhibit cancer cells growth and proliferation has been growing rapidly due to their nontoxic nature. <it>Dysosma versipellis </it>as Bereridaceae plants is an endemic species in China, which has been proved to be an important Chinese herbal medicine because of its biological activity. However, systematic and comprehensive studies on the phytochemicals from <it>Dysosma versipellis </it>and their bioactivity are limited.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fifteen compounds were isolated and characterized from the roots of <it>Dysosma versipellis</it>, among which six compounds were isolated from this plant for the first time. The inhibitory activities of these compounds were investigated on tumor cells PC3, Bcap-37 and BGC-823 <it>in vitro </it>by MTT method, and the results showed that podophyllotoxone (PTO) and 4'-demethyldeoxypodophyllotoxin (DDPT) had potent inhibitory activities against the growth of human carcinoma cell lines. Subsequent fluorescence staining and flow cytometry analysis indicated that these two compounds could induce apoptosis in PC3 and Bcap-37 cells, and the apoptosis ratios reached the peak (12.0% and 14.1%) after 72 h of treatment at 20 <it>μ</it>M, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that most of the compounds from the roots of <it>D. versipellis </it>could inhibit the growth of human carcinoma cells. In addition, PTO and DDPT could induce apoptosis of tumor cells.</p