Novel three-piston pump design for a slipper test rig

Slipper's micro motions including the squeezing motion, spinning motion, and tilting motion have a significant impact on its lubricating condition and dynamic behavior. However, few experimental studies are on these micro motions within a real axial piston pump, especially the slipper's spinning motion. The experimental investigations on the slipper in the past mainly focused on the parameters of the oil film such as pressure, thickness, and temperature. The sensors were often installed in the fixed swash plate when the cylinder block was chosen to rotate. Alternatively, the sensors were mounted in the fixed modified slipper when the swash plate rotated. The biggest challenge of the direct measurements of these micro motions is the space limitation for the sensor installation due to the compact structure of axial piston pumps as well as the slipper's macro motion. This paper presents a new three-piston pump for the slipper test rig which can provide enough installation space for the sensor. To realize the cylinder block balance, a hold-down plate is first introduced into this three-piston pump. In addition, a detailed set of relevant equations is derived to evaluate the functionality of the hold-down plate. Finally, the slipper's spinning motion was measured directly and continuously using this three-piston pump, which confirmed the capability of the slipper test rig

Cloaking and imaging at the same time

In this letter, we propose a conceptual device to perform subwavelength imaging with positive refraction. The key to this proposal is that a drain is no longer a must for some cases. What's more, this device is an isotropic omnidirectional cloak with a perfect electric conductor hiding region and shows versatile illusion optical effects. Numerical simulations are performed to verify the functionalities.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

The Rice Pentatricopeptide Repeat Protein PPR756 Is Involved in Pollen Development by Affecting Multiple RNA Editing in Mitochondria.

In land plants, the pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins form a large family involved in post-transcriptional processing of RNA in mitochondria and chloroplasts, which is critical for plant development and evolutionary adaption. Although studies showed a number of PPR proteins generally influence the editing of organellar genes, few of them were characterized in detail in rice. Here, we report a PLS-E subclass PPR protein in rice, PPR756, loss of function of which led to the abolishment of RNA editing events among three mitochondrial genes includin

Novel three-piston pump design for a slipper test rig

Slipper's micro motions including the squeezing motion, spinning motion, and tilting motion have a significant impact on its lubricating condition and dynamic behavior. However, few experimental studies are on these micro motions within a real axial piston pump, especially the slipper's spinning motion. The experimental investigations on the slipper in the past mainly focused on the parameters of the oil film such as pressure, thickness, and temperature. The sensors were often installed in the fixed swash plate when the cylinder block was chosen to rotate. Alternatively, the sensors were mounted in the fixed modified slipper when the swash plate rotated. The biggest challenge of the direct measurements of these micro motions is the space limitation for the sensor installation due to the compact structure of axial piston pumps as well as the slipper's macro motion. This paper presents a new three-piston pump for the slipper test rig which can provide enough installation space for the sensor. To realize the cylinder block balance, a hold-down plate is first introduced into this three-piston pump. In addition, a detailed set of relevant equations is derived to evaluate the functionality of the hold-down plate. Finally, the slipper's spinning motion was measured directly and continuously using this three-piston pump, which confirmed the capability of the slipper test rig

Tumor-Infiltrating Podoplanin+ Fibroblasts Predict Worse Outcome in Solid Tumors

Background/Aims: Tumor-infiltrating fibroblasts are a heterogeneous population, and different subpopulations play differential roles in tumor microenvironment. However, the prognostic role of podoplanin+ fibroblasts in human solid tumors still remains controversial. Therefore, we performed the meta-analysis to better understand the role of this subpopulation in prognosis prediction for patients with solid tumor. Methods: We searched PubMed and EBSCO to identify the studies evaluating the association of intratumoral podoplanin+ fibroblast density detected by immunohistochemical method and overall survival (OS) and/or disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with solid tumor, then computed extracted data into hazard ratios for OS, DFS and clinicopathological features with STATA 12.0. Results: A total of 4883 patients from 29 published studies were incorporated into this meta-analysis. We found that podoplanin+ fibroblast infiltration significantly decreased OS and DFS in all types of solid tumors. In stratified analyses, podoplanin+ fibroblast infiltration was significantly associated with worse OS in cholangiocarcinoma, breast, lung and pancreatic cancer. And these cells were inversely associated with DFS in breast, lung and pancreatic cancer. In addition, high density of these cells significantly correlated with unfavorable clinicopathological features such as lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, lymphatic and vascular invasion of solid tumor. Conclusion: Podoplanin+ fibroblast infiltration leads to worse clinical outcome in solid tumors, implicating that it is a valuable prognostic biomarker and targeting it may have a potential for effective treatment

Effect of piston-slipper assembly mass difference on the cylinder block tilt in a high-speed electro-hydrostatic actuator pump of aircraft

When manufacturing axial piston pumps, mass difference of piston-slipper assembly is inevitable because of manufacturing precision limits. Small mass difference may not cause problems when the pump operates at low speeds, while it cannot be ignored at high speeds. One problem related to high speed is the cylinder block tilt resulting from the inertial effect of piston-slipper assembly. Recently, the speed of electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA) pump in aircraft can reach more than 10,000 rpm. Therefore, mass difference of pistonslipper assembly should be taken into account in future EHA pump design. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the mass difference of piston-slipper assembly on the cylinder block tilt in a high-speed EHA pump. A detailed set of relevant equations is developed to establish the relationship between the mass difference of piston-slipper assembly and cylinder block tilting moment. It is found that a tighter control over the mass difference of piston-slipper assembly should be guaranteed when it comes to high-speed EHA pumps

Systematic analysis of the role and significance of target genes of active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine injections in the progression and immune microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Traditional Chinese medicine in China is an important adjuvant therapy for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and traditional Chinese medicines injections have a wide range of clinical applications. The purpose of this study was to identify the active ingredients and related genes of traditional Chinese medicine injections that can treat hepatocellular carcinoma.Methods: Effective small molecule components were extracted from 14 types of traditional Chinese medicines from 8 injections and the main gene targets were identified. The 968 patients with HCC were classified based on the target gene set, and the characteristics of patients with different subtypes were analyzed. Patients with two subtypes of HCC were compared with normal tissues and cirrhosis to identify important gene targets related to traditional Chinese medicines in HCC progression.Results: In this study, 138 important genes associated with traditional Chinese medicines were identified and two HCC subtypes were identified. By analyzing the differences between the two subtypes, 25 related genes were associated with HCC subtypes. Through clinical and pharmacological analysis, this study identified quercetin as an important traditional Chinese medicines small molecule and secreted phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) as an important oncogene in HCC.Conclusion: Traditional Chinese medicines injection is an important adjuvant treatment modality for HCC. SPP1 is an important oncogene in HCC