Ion-beam Assisted Sputtering of Titanium Nitride Thin Films

Titanium nitride is a material of interest for many superconducting devices such as nanowire microwave resonators and photon detectors. Thus, controlling the growth of TiN thin films with desirable properties is of high importance. In previous work on niobium nitride, ion beam-assisted sputtering (IBAS) reduced nitrogen sensitivity during deposition in tandem with an increase in nominal critical temperature. We have deposited thin films of titanium nitride by both, the conventional method of DC reactive magnetron sputtering and the IBAS method and compare their superconducting critical temperatures Tc as functions of thickness, sheet resistance, and nitrogen flow rate. We perform electrical and structural characterizations by electric transport and X-ray diffraction measurements. Compared to the conventional method of reactive sputtering, the IBAS technique has demonstrated a 10% increase in nominal critical temperature and 33% reduced sensitivity to nitrogen flow, without noticeable variation in the lattice structure. Additionally, we explore the behavior of superconducting Tc in ultra-thin films. Trends in films grown at high nitrogen concentrations follow predictions of mean-field theory in disordered films and show suppression of superconducting Tc due to geometric effects, while nitride films grown at low nitrogen concentrations strongly deviate from the theoretical models

Case report of a Li-Fraumeni syndrome-like phenotype with a de novo mutation in <i>CHEK2</i>

BACKGROUND: Cases of multiple tumors are rarely reported in China. In our study, a 57-year-old female patient had concurrent squamous cell carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, brain cancer, bone cancer, and thyroid cancer, which has rarely been reported to date. METHODS: To determine the relationship among these multiple cancers, available DNA samples from the thyroid, lung, and skin tumors and from normal thyroid tissue were sequenced using whole exome sequencing. RESULTS: The notable discrepancies of somatic mutations among the 3 tumor tissues indicated that they arose independently, rather than metastasizing from 1 tumor. A novel deleterious germline mutation (chr22:29091846, G->A, p.H371Y) was identified in CHEK2, a Li–Fraumeni syndrome causal gene. Examining the status of this novel mutation in the patient's healthy siblings revealed its de novo origin. CONCLUSION: Our study reports the first case of Li–Fraumeni syndrome-like in Chinese patients and demonstrates the important contribution of de novo mutations in this type of rare disease

Detection and analysis of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in breast cancer patients by an effective method of HPV capture

Despite an increase in the number of molecular epidemiological studies conducted in recent years to evaluate the association between human papillomavirus (HPV) and the risk of breast carcinoma, these studies remain inconclusive. Here we aim to detect HPV DNA in various tissues from patients with breast carcinoma using the method of HPV capture combined with massive paralleled sequencing (MPS). To validate the confidence of our methods, 15 cervical cancer samples were tested by PCR and the new method. Results showed that there was 100% consistence between the two methods.DNA from peripheral blood, tumor tissue, adjacent lymph nodes and adjacent normal tissue were collected from seven malignant breast cancer patients, and HPV type 16(HPV16) was detected in 1/7, 1/7, 1/7and 1/7 of patients respectively. Peripheral blood, tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissue were also collected from two patients with benign breast tumor, and 1/2, 2/2 and 2/2 was detected to have HPV16 DNA respectively. MPS metrics including mapping ratio, coverage, depth and SNVs were provided to characterize HPV in samples. The average coverage was 69% and 61.2% for malignant and benign samples respectively. 126 SNVs were identified in all 9 samples. The maximum number of SNVs was located in the gene of E2 and E4 among all samples. Our study not only provided an efficient method to capture HPV DNA, but detected the SNVS, coverage, SNV type and depth. The finding has provided further clue of association between HPV16 and breast cancer

Evaluation of hydrodynamic forces on turbine ring gate during emergency shutdown process

This work uses numerical methods to investigate the hydrodynamic forces that act on a turbine ring gate during emergency shutdown. Accurately predicting the hydrodynamic forces on such gates is important because the forces constitute a design criterion of ring gates, especially in the case of the downward-pulling hydrodynamic force, which directly affects the opening or closing of the gate. In this article, we use Fluent, which is a computational fluid dynamics code, to simulate the flow patterns around the ring gate and to calculate the hydrodynamic forces on the gate. We numerically simulate the three-dimensional unsteady turbulence over the entire flow passage of the turbine. The numerical results show that the hydrodynamic forces are induced mainly by flow acceleration under the bottom surface of the ring gate. When the ring gate is at 90% closing position, the downward-pulling hydrodynamic force is maximal; near the completely closed position, the hydrodynamic force is more sensitive to the position of the ring gate. This investigation of the hydrodynamic forces that act on the ring gates provides the theoretical basis for determining the operational capacity and the optimal design of ring gates

Numerical Research on Flow Characteristics around a Hydraulic Turbine Runner at Small Opening of Cylindrical Valve

We use the continuity equation and the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations to study the flow-pattern characteristics around a turbine runner for the small-opening cylindrical valve of a hydraulic turbine. For closure, we adopt the renormalization-group k-ε two-equation turbulence model and use the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT to numerically simulate the three-dimensional unsteady turbulent flow through the entire passage of the hydraulic turbine. The results show that a low-pressure zone develops around the runner blades when the cylindrical valve is closed in a small opening; cavitation occurs at the blades, and a vortex appears at the outlet of the runner. As the cylindrical valve is gradually closed, the flow velocity over the runner area increases, and the pressure gradient becomes more significant as the discharge decreases. In addition, the fluid flow velocity is relatively high between the lower end of the cylindrical valve and the base, so that a high-velocity jet is easily induced. The calculation and analysis provide a theoretical basis for improving the performance of cylindrical-valve operating systems

An iterative tuning approach for feedforward control of parallel manipulators by considering joint couplings

Feedforward control is an effective way to improve the joint tracking accuracy of robotic systems. This paper presents an iterative approach for feedforward controller parameter tuning of parallel manipulators that considers joint couplings (cross-talk). Based upon a compound control strategy, increments of the feedforward tuning parameters are iteratively updated by minimizing the sum of squares of joint tracking errors at each step. A plant-free identification Jacobian is formulated using the measured data associated with a number of sequential statuses within each iteration cycle. Experiments on the 3-DOF parallel mechanism within a 5-DOF hybrid robot verify parameter convergence and the extrapolation capability of the proposed approach. Compared to otherwise similar feedforward control not considering joint couplings, the root mean square of joint tracking errors was reduced by up to 22% when the mechanism moved at high speed along a path in the neighborhood of the reference configuration

Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of the Hydraulic Actuator Used in the Active Reflector System

In order to improve the control quality of the active reflector system which is used in the 500 m aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) project, a study on hydraulic actuator is proposed. The dynamic performance of hydraulic actuator is due to the interaction of several physical phenomena. Modeling of such a system needs a unified approach to represent the nonlinear behavior characteristics. Bond graph model is ideal for this task. In addition, conventional PID control strategy cannot achieve the required accuracy and precision, so we combine grey prediction with PID control. Furthermore, a new adjustment mechanism is presented to change the grey step size, which is simple, automatic, less time-consuming, and efficient. Simulations and experiments on the actuator are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed control method. In experiments, the velocity error is less than 0.05mm/s and the position error is less than 0.2mm. It shows the actuator meets the astronomical observation requirement totally

Fuzzy gain scheduling PID control of a hybrid robot based on dynamic characteristics

In this paper, a fuzzy gain scheduling proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller based on dynamic characteristics of a hybrid robot named TriMule is presented. Since the equivalent inertia and gravity imposed on motor shafts vary with the robot configuration, it is difficult to obtain satisfactory control performance with a linear, fixed gain PID controller. After analyzing the effect mechanism of dynamic characteristics on control performance, the clustering analysis algorithm and fuzzy logic are combined to deduce the control parameters online according to the command acceleration, equivalent inertia and gravity. The experimental results on a prototype machine show that, compared with the conventional PID and fuzzy gain scheduling PID controller, the proposed method can significantly reduce the effect of dynamic characteristics on control system, thus ensuring satisfactory control performance under any configuration in the task workspace