Experimental Study of the Triplet Synchronization of Coupled Nonidentical Mechanical Metronomes

Date of Acceptance:22/10/2015 This research recieved funds from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61377067, 10575016, 11262006) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. W.L. was supported by the project of high school of Jiangxi province (Grant No. KJLD14047), and the training plan of young scientists of Jiangxi province.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Reduction of Eddy Current Loss of Permanent-Magnet Machines with Fractional Slot Concentrated Windings

Abstract-Fractional slots concentrated windings (FSCWs) are characterized with high magnetic motive force (MMF) harmonics which results in undesirable effects on permanent-magnet (PM) machines. A new design technique is reported in this paper in order to simultaneously reduce the sub-and high MMF harmonics. By using multiple layer windings and different turns per coil, a new 18-teeth/10-poles FSCWs PM machine is designed. Then, this machine is evaluated as compared with a conventional 12-teeth/10-poles FSCWs PM machine. Both machines are designed under the same electrical and geometrical constrains. The obtained results verify the high performances of the newly designed machine. Due to the adopted new winding type, the proposed design can effectively reduce eddy current loss in PMs as compared with the conventional design

PMINR: Pointwise Mutual Information-Based Network Regression – With Application to Studies of Lung Cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease

Complex diseases are believed to be the consequence of intracellular network(s) involving a range of factors. An improved understanding of a disease-predisposing biological network could lead to better identification of genes and pathways that confer disease risk and therefore inform drug development. The group difference in biological networks, as is often characterized by graphs of nodes and edges, is attributable to effects of these nodes and edges. Here we introduced pointwise mutual information (PMI) as a measure of the connection between a pair of nodes with either a linear relationship or nonlinear dependence. We then proposed a PMI-based network regression (PMINR) model to differentiate patterns of network changes (in node or edge) linking a disease outcome. Through simulation studies with various sample sizes and inter-node correlation structures, we showed that PMINR can accurately identify these changes with higher power than current methods and be robust to the network topology. Finally, we illustrated, with publicly available data on lung cancer and gene methylation data on aging and Alzheimer’s disease, an evaluation of the practical performance of PMINR. We concluded that PMI is able to capture the generic inter-node correlation pattern in biological networks, and PMINR is a powerful and efficient approach for biological network analysis

The Effect of Nanoparticle Surface State on Trap Level Distribution of Polyimide/Aluminum Nitride-montmorillonite Nanocomposite Films

The electrical properties of polyimide (PI) nanocomposites, which are widely used in microelectronic industry and electrical engineering fields, strongly depend on the surface state of nanoparticles. To explore this dependence, the aluminum nitride (AIN) nanoparticles were treated by γ-aminopropyltriethoxysilane coupling agent, while PI/MMT, PI/AlN, and PI/AlN-MMT nanocomposite films doped by 5 wt% of treated and untreated AlN nanoparticles were prepared by the in-situ polymerization process. The SEM and TEM results indicate that the untreated AlN nanoparticles are prone to accumulation in the polymer matrix, while those treated by the coupling agent are readily combined with the polyimide matrix, and their compatibility and dispersion exhibit a significant improvement. The trap level distributions of nanocomposite films were studied by the isothermal discharge current (IDC) method based on the charge decay theory linking IDC with the trap level density (TLD). The TLD and number of trapped charges of PI/AlN and PI/AlN-MMT films doped by treated AlN nanoparticles are found to be much higher than those of untreated ones. The TLD of the PI/AlN (treated) film is 6.490×1023 eV·m-3, which is about 2.27 times higher than that of pure PI film in the range of 0.9~1.1 eV, while the maximum TLD=9.370×1023 eV·m-3 is observed in the PI/AlN (treated)-MMT film

Candidate Effector Pst_8713 Impairs the Plant Immunity and Contributes to Virulence of Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici

Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), the causal agent of stripe rust, is an obligate biotrophic pathogen responsible for severe wheat disease epidemics worldwide. Pst and other rust fungi are acknowledged to deliver many effector proteins to the host, but little is known about the effectors’ functions. Here, we report a candidate effector Pst_8713 isolated based on the genome data of CY32 and the expression of Pst_8713 is highly induced during the early infection stage. The Pst_8713 gene shows a low level of intra-species polymorphism. It has a functional N-terminal signal peptide and its product was found in the host cytoplasm and nucleus. Co-infiltrations in Nicotiana benthamiana demonsrated that Pst_8713 was capable of suppressing cell death triggered by mouse pro-apoptotic protein-BAX or Phytophthora infestans PAMP-INF1. Overexpression of Pst_8713 in plants suppressed pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) -associated callose deposition and expression of PTI-associated marker genes and promoted bacterial growth in planta. Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) induced by an avirulent Pst isolate was weakened when we overexpressed Pst_8713 in wheat leaves which accompanied by reduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and hypersensitive response (HR). In addition, the host induced gene silencing (HIGS) experiment showed that knockdown of Pst_8713 weakened the virulence of Pst by producing fewer uredinia. These results indicated that candidate effector Pst_8713 is involved in plant defense suppression and contributes to enhancing the Pst virulence