An integrated online adaptive state of charge estimation approach of high-power lithium-ion battery packs.

A novel online adaptive state of charge (SOC) estimation method is proposed, aiming to characterize the capacity state of all the connected cells in lithium-ion battery (LIB) packs. This method is realized using the extended Kalman filter (EKF) combined with Ampere-hour (Ah) integration and open circuit voltage (OCV) methods, in which the time-scale implementation is designed to reduce the computational cost and accommodate uncertain or time-varying parameters. The working principle of power LIBs and their basic characteristics are analysed by using the combined equivalent circuit model (ECM), which takes the discharging current rates and temperature as the core impacts, to realize the estimation. The original estimation value is initialized by using the Ah integral method, and then corrected by measuring the cell voltage to obtain the optimal estimation effect. Experiments under dynamic current conditions are performed to verify the accuracy and the real-time performance of this proposed method, the analysed result of which indicates that its good performance is in line with the estimation accuracy and real-time requirement of high-power LIB packs. The proposed multimodel SOC estimation method may be used in the real-time monitoring of the high-power LIB pack dynamic applications for working state measurement and control

Denoising Terahertz Image Using Non-Linear Filters

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, (Grant No. 11872058), the Sichuan Science and Technology Program of China (No.2019YFG0114) Abstract A major challenge in the processing and analysis of images is the presence of noise especially in terahertz images. Denoising techniques are designed to remove noise or distorted images while maintaining the original image quality. In this paper, terahertz image denoising is proposed using different filtering methods. This work provides an algorithm that denotes the terahertz image with a non- linear and spatial function of mean and medium filter. The THz images were transformed using Gaussian and Salt & Pepper noise at different percentage levels from 5% to 50%. Universal Image Quantitative Analysis was utilized specifically the most renowned PSNR, MSE, MAE and IEF were explored in this work. Experimental results show that the mean-median filter outperforms Salt and Pepper in removing the Gaussian noise especially when noise factor is increasing. Keywords: Mean- median filter, terahertz image, Gaussian noise, Salt & pepper noise DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/12-2-02 Publication date: April 30th 202

Facilitating granule cell survival and maturation in dentate gyrus with baicalin for antidepressant therapeutics

Baicalin isolated from Scutellaria baicalensis possesses antidepressant abilities through its relation to hippocampal neurogenesis. Current research has found that baicalin can promote the proliferation of hippocampal granule cells, however, the detailed mechanism of baicalin on the survival and maturation of hippocampal granule cells has yet to be sufficiently explored. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether baicalin could facilitate the survival and maturation of hippocampal granule cells, and to explore its potential mechanism. The chronic corticosterone (CORT)-induced mouse model of depression was used to assess antidepressant-like effects of baicalin and to illuminate possible molecular mechanisms by which baicalin affects hippocampal neurogenesis. The survival and maturation of granule cells were measured by immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence and Golgi staining. The expression of Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Protein kinase B (AKT)/glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK3β)/β-catenin pathway related proteins were measured by western blot analysis. PI3K inhibitor LY292002 and AKT inhibitor Perifosine were administered to HT-22 cells to explore the relationship between the PI3K/AKT/GSK3β/β-catenin pathway and baicalin. The results of the study illustrated that baicalin significantly decreased chronic CORT-induced depressive-like behaviors and reduced serum corticosterone levels. In addition, baicalin (administered at 60 mg/kg) reversed chronic CORT-induced lesions on hippocampal granule cells. Moreover, baicalin significantly increased the phosphorylation rate of PI3K, AKT, GSK3β, and total β-catenin. The study found that administration of LY292002/Perifosine counteracted the effects of baicalin in HT-22 cells. These results demonstrate that baicalin can alleviate chronic CORT-induced depressive-like behaviors through promoting survival and maturation of adult-born hippocampal granule cells and exhibiting protective effect on hippocampal neuron morphology. We propose the underlying mechanisms involve the activation of the PI3K/AKT/GSK3β/β-catenin pathway

Research on imbibition effect of surfactant fracturing fluid in offshore reservoirs with low permeability and high temperature

Surfactant imbibition can effectively improve the development effect of fracturing technique. In order to enhance oil recovery, a temperature resistant surfactant was selected using interfacial tension and contact angle testers based on the offshore reservoir conditions of high temperature and low permeability. Experiments on spontaneous and forced imbibition with artificial columnar cores were performed to optimize parameters of imbibition processes during fracturing in high temperature and low permeability reservoirs. Results show that among the three surfactants, amphoteric Gemini surfactant had a stable molecular structure with non-compressible hydrophobic groups which significantly reduced oil-water interfacial tension, enhanced rock wettability, and demonstrated good resistance to high temperatures The maximum recovery increase during amphoteric Gemini surfactant imbibition is 16.22%. The higher the core permeability, the higher the core inside pressure, and the longer the well shut-in time, the greater the forced imbibition effect. A proper well shut-in time and injection volume should be considered when using surfactant solution as fracturing liquid

Development of a recombinase-aided amplification combined with a lateral flow dipstick assay for rapid detection of H7 subtype avian influenza virus

Avian influenza viruses (AIV) pose a significant persistent threat to the public health and safety. It is estimated that there have been over 100 outbreaks caused by various H7 subtypes of avian influenza viruses (AIV-H7) worldwide, resulting in over 33 million deaths of poultry. In this study, we developed a recombinase-aided amplification combined with a lateral flow dipstick assay for the detection of hemagglutinin (HA) genes to provide technical support for rapid clinical detection of AIV-H7. The results showed that the assay can complete the reaction within 30 min at a temperature of 39°C. Specificity tests demonstrated that there was no cross-reactivity with other common poultry pathogens, including Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and infections bronchitis virus (IBV). The detection limit of this assay was 1 × 101 copies/μL, while RT-qPCR method was 1 × 101 copies/μL, and RT-PCR was 1 × 102 copies/μL. The κ value of the RT-RAA-LFD and RT-PCR assay in 132 avian clinical samples was 0.9169 (p < 0.001). These results indicated that the developed RT-RAA-LFD assay had good specificity, sensitivity, stability and repeatability and may be used for rapid detection of AIV-H7 in clinical diagnosis

Working Memory for Spatial Sequences: Developmental and Evolutionary Factors in Encoding Ordinal and Relational Structures

Sequence learning is a ubiquitous facet of human and animal cognition. Here, using a common sequence reproduction task, we investigated whether and how the ordinal and relational structures linking consecutive elements are acquired by human adults, children, and macaque monkeys. While children and monkeys exhibited significantly lower precision than adults for spatial location and temporal order information, only monkeys appeared to exceedingly focus on the first item. Most importantly, only humans, regardless of age, spontaneously extracted the spatial relations between consecutive items and used a chunking strategy to compress sequences in working memory. Monkeys did not detect such relational structures, even after extensive training. Monkey behavior was captured by a conjunctive coding model, whereas a chunk-based conjunctive model explained more variance in humans. These age- and species-related differences are indicative of developmental and evolutionary mechanisms of sequence encoding and may provide novel insights into the uniquely human cognitive capacities.Journal of Neuroscienc

Pathogen Populations Evolve to Greater Race Complexity in Agricultural Systems – Evidence from Analysis of Rhynchosporium secalis Virulence Data

Fitness cost associated with pathogens carrying unnecessary virulence alleles is the fundamental assumption for preventing the emergence of complex races in plant pathogen populations but this hypothesis has rarely been tested empirically on a temporal and spatial scale which is sufficient to distinguish evolutionary signals from experimental error. We analyzed virulence characteristics of ∼1000 isolates of the barley pathogen Rhynchosporium secalis collected from different parts of the United Kingdom between 1984 and 2005. We found a gradual increase in race complexity over time with a significant correlation between sampling date and race complexity of the pathogen (r20 = 0.71, p = 0.0002) and an average loss of 0.1 avirulence alleles (corresponding to an average gain of 0.1 virulence alleles) each year. We also found a positive and significant correlation between barley cultivar diversity and R. secalis virulence variation. The conditions assumed to favour complex races were not present in the United Kingdom and we hypothesize that the increase in race complexity is attributable to the combination of natural selection and genetic drift. Host resistance selects for corresponding virulence alleles to fixation or dominant frequency. Because of the weak fitness penalty of carrying the unnecessary virulence alleles, genetic drift associated with other evolutionary forces such as hitch-hiking maintains the frequency of the dominant virulence alleles even after the corresponding resistance factors cease to be used