Two-dimensional thermoelastic contact problem of functionally graded materials involving frictional heating

AbstractThe two-dimensional thermoelastic sliding frictional contact of functionally graded material (FGM) coated half-plane under the plane strain deformation is investigated in this paper. A rigid punch is sliding over the surface of the FGM coating with a constant velocity. Frictional heating, with its value proportional to contact pressure, friction coefficient and sliding velocity, is generated at the interface between the punch and the FGM coating. The material properties of the coating vary exponentially along the thickness direction. In order to solve the heat conduction equation analytically, the homogeneous multi-layered model is adopted for treating the graded thermal diffusivity coefficient with other thermomechanical properties being kept as the given exponential forms. The transfer matrix method and Fourier integral transform technique are employed to convert the problem into a Cauchy singular integral equation which is then solved numerically to obtain the unknown contact pressure and the in-plane component of the surface stresses. The effects of the gradient index, Peclet number and friction coefficient on the thermoelastic contact characteristics are discussed in detail. Numerical results show that the distribution of the contact stress can be altered and therefore the thermoelastic contact damage can be modified by adjusting the gradient index, Peclet number and friction coefficient

GVD effect and nonlinear pulse propagation in 40Gbit/s optical fiber communication systems

AbstractIn this paper, group velocity dispersion (GVD) and second-order GVD effects are shortly discussed and then the limitations on the bit rate induced by dispersion or second-order GVD are estimated. For relative higher pulse energy and shorter pulse width in 40Gbit/s systems, self-phase modulation(SPM) is significant. The combined effect of GVD and SPM on the propagation pulses are analyzed through Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation(NLSE)

First R and I Lights and Their Photometric Analyses of GSC 02393-00680

We obtained complete $R$ and $I$ light curves of GSC 02393-00680 in 2008 and analyzed them with the 2003 version of the W-D code. It is shown that GSC 02393-00680 is a W-type shallow contact binary system with a high mass ratio $q=1.600$ and a degree of contact factor $f=5.0$. It will be a good example to check up on the TRO theory. A period investigation based on all available data suggests that the system has a small-amplitude period oscillation ($A_3=0.^{d}0030$; $T_3=1.92$years). This may indicate it has a moderate mass close third body, which is similar to XY Leo

An Efficient Framework for Image Matching

AbstractThe goal of this paper is to present an efficient framework for non-rigid medical image matching. Previous non-rigid matching often produces unpredictable deformation field and unwanted stretching in the images. The as-rigid-as-possible nature of the Moving-LS technique thus makes it a new candidate by providing transformation that maintains the rigidity of structures for underlying physical reasons, while producing local deformations. In addition, it is very suitable for parallel computation, and the performance can be accelerated by multi-core processors through employment of multiple threads. The results demonstrate that the proposed matching method has good balance between accuracy and speed, and has potential in many medical applications

Highly Efficient White Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Controllable Excitons Behavior by a Mixed Interlayer between Fluorescence Blue and Phosphorescence Yellow-Emitting Layers

A highly efficient hybrid white organic light-emitting diode (HWOLED) has been demonstrated with a mixed interlayer between fluorescent blue and phosphorescent yellow-emitting layers. The device structure is simplified by using a controllable fluorescence-mixed interlayer-phosphorescence emission layer structure. The electroluminance (EL) performance can be modulated easily by adjusting the ratio of the hole-predominated material to the electron-predominated material in the interlayer. It is found that the HWOLED with a ratio of 3 : 2 exhibits a current efficiency of 34 cd/A and a power efficiency of 29 lm/W at 1000 cd/m2 with warm white Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage (CIE1931) coordinates of (0.4273, 0.4439). The improved efficiency and adaptive CIE coordinates are attributed to the controllable mixed interlayer with enhanced charge carrier transport, optimized excitons distribution, and improved harvestings of singlet and triplet excitons

Induction of protective immunity in swine by recombinant bamboo mosaic virus expressing foot-and-mouth disease virus epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Plant viruses can be employed as versatile vectors for the production of vaccines by expressing immunogenic epitopes on the surface of chimeric viral particles. Although several viruses, including tobacco mosaic virus, potato virus X and cowpea mosaic virus, have been developed as vectors, we aimed to develop a new viral vaccine delivery system, a bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV), that would carry larger transgene loads, and generate better immunity in the target animals with fewer adverse environmental effects.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We engineered the BaMV as a vaccine vector expressing the antigenic epitope(s) of the capsid protein VP1 of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). The recombinant BaMV plasmid (pBVP1) was constructed by replacing DNA encoding the 35 N-terminal amino acid residues of the BaMV coat protein with that encoding 37 amino acid residues (T¹²⁸-N¹⁶⁴) of FMDV VP1.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The pBVP1 was able to infect host plants and to generate a chimeric virion BVP1 expressing VP1 epitopes in its coat protein. Inoculation of swine with BVP1 virions resulted in the production of anti-FMDV neutralizing antibodies. Real-time PCR analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the BVP1-immunized swine revealed that they produced VP1-specific IFN-γ. Furthermore, all BVP1-immunized swine were protected against FMDV challenge.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Chimeric BaMV virions that express partial sequence of FMDV VP1 can effectively induce not only humoral and cell-mediated immune responses but also full protection against FMDV in target animals. This BaMV-based vector technology may be applied to other vaccines that require correct expression of antigens on chimeric viral particles.</p

Automatic liver vessel segmentation using 3D region growing and hybrid active contour model

This paper proposes a new automatic method for liver vessel segmentation by exploiting intensity and shape constraints of 3D vessels. The core of the proposed method is to apply two different strategies: 3D region growing facilitated by bi-Gaussian filter for thin vessel segmentation, and hybrid active contour model combined with K-means clustering for thick vessel segmentation. They are then integrated to generate final segmentation results. The proposed method is validated on abdominal computed tomography angiography (CTA) images, and obtains an average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, Dice, Jaccard, and RMSD of 98.2%, 68.3%, 99.2%, 73.0%, 66.1%, and 2.56 mm, respectively. Experimental results show that our method is capable of segmenting complex liver vessels with more continuous and complete thin vessel details, and outperforms several existing 3D vessel segmentation algorithms