Influences of Tip Cooling Injection on Tip Clearance Control at Design and Off-Design Incidences

A numerical investigation has been performed to study the influences of cooling injection from the blade tip surface on controlling tip clearance flow in an unshrouded, high-turning axial turbine cascade. Emphasis is put on the analysis of the effectiveness of tip injection when the approaching flow is at design and off-design incidences. A total of three incidence angles are investigated, −7.4°, 0°, 0°, 0°, and 7.6°, 0° relative to the design value. The results indicate that even at the off-design incidences, tip injection can also act as an obstruction to the tip clearance flow and weaken the interaction between the passage flow and the tip clearance flow. It is also found that tip injection causes the tip clearance loss to be less sensitive to the incidences. Moreover, with injection, at all these incidences the heat transfer conditions are improved significantly on the blade tip surface in the middle and aft parts of blade. Thus, tip injection is proved to be an effective method of controlling tip clearance flow, even at off-design conditions. Beside that, an indirect empirical correlation is observed to be able to perform well in predicting the losses induced by tip clearance flow at design and off-design conditions, no matter whether air injection is active or not

Numerical simulation of side intake flow of a gas turbine

[Objectives] This paper studies the influence of wind direction on the stability,evenness and loss of flow resistance of the side intake flow of a gas turbine.[Methods] CFX is applied to make numerical simulation of the intake flow of the gas turbine. Through setting of the intake angle and comparison of the flow line distribution of the intake system under different intake status,the total pressure distribution of the fore intake louver,the side intake louver and the outlet of the intake system,and the cross-sectional velocity distribution of the fore and side intake filters,the intake evenness of the gas turbine with intake flow in different directions is studied.[Results] It is shown that,the mixing intensity of fore and side intake air varies with the intake angle. Thanks to the intake system,the unevenness of air flow due to difference between fore and side intake angles is greatly improved after the air flows through the intake pressure stabilizing chamber,making the downstream airflow more even.[Conclusions] The findings are meaningful for guiding the design of the side intake system of the gas turbine

Seasonal Variation of GPS-Derived the Principal Ocean Tidal Constituents’ Loading Displacement Parameters Based on Moving Harmonic Analysis in Hong Kong

The classical harmonic analysis (CHA) method only can be used to obtain the harmonic constants (amplitude and phase) of ocean tide loading displacement (OTLD). In fact, there are significant seasonal variations in the harmonic constants of OTLD. A moving harmonic analysis (MHA) method is proposed, which can effectively capture the seasonal variation of OTLD parameters. Based on 5 years of kinematic coordinate time series in direction U of six Global Positioning System (GPS) stations in Hong Kong, the MHA method is used to explore the seasonal variation of the OTLD parameters of the 6 principal tidal constituents (M2, S2, N2, K1, O1, Q1). The influence of mass loading on the seasonal variation of OTLD parameters is analyzed. The results show that there are obviously seasonal variations in OTLD parameters of the 6 principal tidal constituents in Hong Kong. The OTLD’s amplitude’s changes of the 6 principal tidal constituents are around 4–25.1% and the oscillation ranges of OTLD’s phase parameters vary from 8.8° to 20.4°. Among the seasonal variations of OTLD parameters, the annual signal, the semi-annual signal, and the ter-annual signal are the most significant. By analyzing the influence of atmospheric loading on the seasonal variation of OTLD parameters, it is found that atmospheric loading has certain contribution to the seasonal variation of OTLD parameters. Hydrological loading and non-tidal ocean loading have little influence on the seasonal variation of OTLD parameters

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Regulates Ishikawa Cell Proliferation through the TrkB-ERK1/2 Signaling Pathway

(1) Background: Endometrial regulation is a necessary condition for maintaining normal uterine physiology, which is driven by many growth factors. Growth factors produced in the endometrium are thought to be related to the proliferation of endometrial cells induced by estradiol-17β (E2). In this study, we found that E2 can induce the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in Ishikawa cells (the cells of an endometrial cell line). Furthermore, Ishikawa cells were used in exploring the regulatory role of BDNF in endometrial cells and to clarify the potential mechanism. (2) Methods: Ishikawa cells were treated with different concentrations of BDNF (100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 ng/mL). The mRNA expression levels of various proliferation-related genes were detected through quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and the expression of various proliferation-related genes was detected by knocking out BDNF or inhibiting the binding of BDNF to its receptor TrkB. The expression levels of various proliferation-related genes were detected by performing Western blotting on the TrkB-ERK1/2 signaling pathway. (3) Results: Exogenous BDNF promoted the growth of the Ishikawa cells, but the knocking down of BDNF or the inhibition of TrkB reduced their growth. Meanwhile, BDNF enhanced cell viability and increased the expression of proliferation-related genes, including cyclin D1 and cyclin E2. More importantly, the BDNF-induced proliferation of the Ishikawa cells involved the ERK1/2 signaling pathway. (4) Conclusions: The stimulating effect of exogenous E2 on the expression of BDNF in the uterus and the action of BDNF promoted the proliferation of the Ishikawa cells through the TrkB-ERK1/2 signal pathway

A Comprehensive Correction of the Gaia DR3 XP Spectra

By combining spectra from the CALSPEC and NGSL, as well as spectroscopic data from the LAMOST Data Release 7 (DR7), we have analyzed and corrected the systematic errors of the Gaia DR3 BP/RP (XP) spectra. The errors depend on the normalized spectral energy distribution (simplified by two independent “colors”) and G magnitude. Our corrections are applicable in the range of approximately −0.5 < BP − RP < 2, 3 < G < 17.5, and E ( B − V ) < 0.8. To validate our correction, we conduct independent tests by comparisons with the MILES and LEMONY spectra. The results demonstrate that the systematic errors of BP − RP and G have been effectively corrected, especially in the near-ultraviolet. The consistency between the corrected Gaia XP spectra and the MILES and LEMONY is better than 2% in the wavelength range of 336–400 nm and 1% in redder wavelengths. A global absolute calibration is also carried out by comparing the synthetic Gaia photometry from the corrected XP spectra with the corrected Gaia DR3 photometry. Our study opens up new possibilities for using XP spectra in many fields. A Python package is publicly available to do the corrections (doi: https://doi.org/10.12149/101375 or https://github.com/HiromonGON/GaiaXPcorrection )

Comparative analysis of the immunogenicity of monovalent and multivalent rotavirus immunogens

<div><p>The strategies for developing rotavirus (RV) vaccines have always been controversial. At present, both the monovalent RV vaccine and the multivalent RV vaccine have displayed excellent safety and efficacy against RV infection and shown cross-reactive immunity, which laid the question whether the multivalent RV vaccine could be replaced by the monovalent RV vaccine. In this study, we focused on comparing the immunogenicity (serum neutralization activity and protection against homotypic and heterotypic RVs’ challenge) of individual standard RV strains (monovalent RV immunogens) and different combinations of them (multivalent RV immunogens). In result, RV immunogens showed general immunogenicity and heterotypic reaction but the multivalent RV immunogens exhibited greater serum neutralization activity and stronger heterotypic reaction than the monovalent RV immunogens (P<0.05). As to the protection, the multivalent RV immunogens also revealed more rapid and stronger protection against homotypic and heterotypic RVs’ challenge than the monovalent RV immunogens. The results demonstrated that both the monovalent and multivalent RV immunogens exhibited high immunogenicity, but the monovalent RV immunogens could not provide enough neutralization antibodies to protect MA104 cells against the infection with heterotypic RV strains and timely protection against homotypic and heterotypic RVs, so the multivalent RV vaccine could not be replaced by the monovalent RV vaccine.</p></div

Neutralization test results of every group.

<p>The neutralization titers of each serum sample in every group were detected by neutralization tests against all the three RV immunogens Wa (G1P[8] genotype), SA11 (G3P[1] genotype) and Gottfried (G4P[6] genotype) after every dose. Data were expressed as GM*GSE^±tα/2,ν. GM stood for Geometric Mean. GSE stood for Geometric Standard Error. In this study, α = 0.05 and ν = n-1 = 8–1 = 7, so the corresponding t value was able to be found according to the tables for statistical distributions (t-distribution). The heights of columns were based on the GM of each test and the error bar stood for the 95% confidence interval.</p