Fast photodegradation of antibiotics and dyes by anionic surfactant-aided CdS/ZnO nanodispersion

The photocatalytic technology has broad applications in energy and environmental science. In this study, we synthesized a type II heterojunction CdS/ZnO (CSZ) nanodispersion by means of one-pot precipitation. Different from previous studies, an anionic surfactant was used to improve the photocatalytic activity of CdS/ZnO. The CdS/ZnO nanodispersion showed very good photocatalytic performance in the degradation of tetracycline (TC) under visible light, with the highest degradation rate of 94.4% when pH = 7, both pH > 7 and pH < 7 were not conducive to TC degradation. Fast and high degradation efficiency was observed for three model compounds, and the degradation efficiency of RhB reached 100%. After 5 cycles, the degradation efficiency remains above 85%. In the photocatalysts, CdS nanoparticles act as photosensitizers, extending the light response of ZnO to the region of visible light, meanwhile, effectively reducing the electron–hole binding rate, which greatly improved the photocatalytic activity. In the end, the photocatalytic enhancement mechanism of TC degradation was discussed.publishedVersio

Energy and Exergy Evaluations of a Combined Heat and Power System with a High Back-Pressure Turbine under Full Operating Conditions

High back-pressure technology is a promising method for the waste heat recovery of exhaust steams in combined heat and power systems. In this research, a 300 MW coal-fired subcritical combined heat and power system was selected as the reference system, and modeled in EBSILON professional. Then, energy-based and exergy-based performances of the high back-pressure system and traditional combined heat and power system were compared under full operating conditions. Moreover, a novel exergy-based evaluation method, which considers the energy level of the heating supply, was proposed and applied to evaluate the two systems. Results show that: In design conditions, both the heating capacity and power output of the high back-pressure system were higher than those of the extraction condensing system, which led to 17.67% and 33.21% increments of the gross thermal efficiency and generation efficiency, respectively. Compared with the extraction condensing system, the exergy efficiencies of the high back-pressure system were 7.04&ndash;8.21% higher. According to the novel exergy-based evaluation, the exergy efficiencies for the generation of the high back-pressure system and extraction condensing system were 46.48% and 41.22%, respectively. This paper provides references for the thermodynamic performance evaluation of the combined heat and power system

Polynomial Smooth Twin Support Vector Machines

Smoothing functions can transform the unsmooth twin support vector machines (TWSVM) into smooth ones, and thus better classification results can be obtained. It has been one of the key problems to seek a better smoothing function in this field for a long time. In this paper, a novel version for smooth TWSVM, termed polynomial smooth twin support vector machines (PSTWSVM), is proposed. In PSTWSVM, using the series expansion, a new class of polynomial smoothing is proposed, and then their important properties are discussed. It is shown that the approximation accuracy and smoothness rank of polynomial functions can be as high as required. Subsequently, the polynomial functions are adopted to convert the original constrained quadratic programming problems of TWSVM into unconstrained minimization problems, and then are solved by the well-known Newton-Armijo algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated via experiments on synthetic and real-word benchmark datasets

Research on Free-flight Validation Test of Stall Characteristics for Commuter Category Airplanes

It is found that the rolling characteristic after airplane stall is rapidly changed, when the wind tunnel test prediction is conducted for the small commuter category airplanes. On the basis of analyzing the wind tunnel test results of the airplane, the stalling characteristic method that the stall strips is added on the wing is adop-ted, and the flight verification is performed by using free-flight test of scaled-model. After adding stall strips on the wing and the original wing, the flight results are analyzed under the states of cruising structure and landing structure. The results show that the scaled-model free-flight test can verify the prediction results of the wind tunnel test, and the stalling characteristic improved method by adding stall strips can improve the stall characteristic of airplane

Numerical Simulation and Analysis of Vibrating Rice Filling Based on EDEM Software

An automatic rice-filling device for lotus root with glutinous rice was developed based on the process of artificial filling. In order to find the best parameters for the vibrating rice-filling device—feeding speed, filling height, funnel diameter, amplitude, and frequency—so as to reduce the time and improve the mass of rice filling, EDEM software (EDEM 2022) was used to conduct numerical simulation of the process and analyze the influence of various factors on the rice-filling time. The optimal combination of parameters for the highest quality of rice filling was determined as follows: rice feeding speed, 1.4 kg/s; height of rice filling, 30 mm; funnel diameter, 55 mm; amplitude, 0.6 mm; frequency, 50 Hz; and filling time, 3.4 s. The simulation experiment results are in good agreement with the prototype experiment, achieving the purpose of improving the efficiency of rice filling. This study provides theoretical guidance for research on an automatic rice-filling device for lotus root with glutinous rice

A Double-layer Multibeam Antenna with 45\ub0 Linear Polarization Based on Gap Waveguide Technology

In this paper, a double-layer 1-D multibeam antenna based on gap waveguide (GWG) technology is proposed. The bottom layer is the beamforming network (BFN), which is composed of four cruciform couplers and two -45\ub0 phase shifters realized by groove gap waveguides. Four output ports of the BFN are connected to the slot arrays on the top layer through 180\ub0 E-plane bends. The output amplitudes of the BFN are -6.3 \ub1 0.5 dB and the phase errors are within \ub1 14\ub0 from 26 to 32 GHz with a bandwidth of 20%. To relieve the grating lobe problem, groove gap waveguides are transited to ridge gap waveguides on the top layer and the slot array is fed from ridge gap waveguides. Due to the topology of the BFN, the slot array is oriented along the diagonal plane and as a result, the multibeam antenna is 45\ub0 linearly polarized. To handle the dip emerging in the side beam caused by the finite ground of the BFN, several metal fences working as a soft surface are applied to suppress the edge diffractions. Besides, the gain is increased by 0.78 dB compared to the case without metal fences at 29 GHz. Thanks to the low-loss property of gap waveguide technology, high gain and high radiation efficiency are obtained. The maximum gain is 17.46 dBi with the beam direction at -11\ub0 for Port 1 and 16.51 dBi with the beam direction at 37\ub0 for Port 2. The simulated radiation efficiency is above 97% for both Port 1 and Port 2

A Wideband End-fire Double Dipole Antenna Fed from Double-ridge Gap Waveguides for Multibeam Array Application

In this letter, an end-fire double dipole antenna fed from double-ridge gap waveguides (DRGWG) is proposed and designed for multibeam array application. Two dipoles with different lengths are connected to the extension of the ridges of DRGWG in series. Different resonances can be generated by these two dipoles, which contributes to a wide impedance bandwidth, high gain and stable radiation patterns across the working band. The double dipole antenna is vertically polarized and has a wide H-plane beam width suitable for beam scanning application. To verify the performance of the double dipole antenna, a butler matrix is designed based on ridge gap waveguides (RGWG) to feed a 1*4 double dipole array arranging in H-plane. The maximum gains achieved for Port 1 and Port 2 are 13.94 dBi and 12.68 dBi respectively. Besides, the simulated radiation efficiencies for Port 1 and Port 2 are both above 94%

Discovering the Mechanisms of Oleodaphnone as a Potential HIV Latency-Reversing Agent by Transcriptome Profiling

Latent HIV is a key factor that makes AIDS difficult to cure. Highly effective and specific latent HIV activators can effectively activate latent HIV, and then combined with antiretroviral therapy to achieve a functional cure of AIDS. Here, four sesquiterpenes (1–4) including a new one (1), five flavonoids (5–9) including three biflavonoid structures, and two lignans (10 and 11) were obtained from the roots of Wikstroemia chamaedaphne. Their structures were elucidated through comprehensive spectroscopic analyses. The absolute configuration of 1 was determined by experimental electronic circular dichroism. NH2 cell model was used to test the activity of these 11 compounds in activating latent HIV. Oleodaphnone (2) showed the latent HIV activation effect as well as the positive drug prostratin, and the activation effect was time- and concentration-dependent. Based on transcriptome analysis, the underlying mechanism was that oleodaphnone regulated the TNF, C-type lectin receptor, NF-κB, IL-17, MAPK, NOD-like receptor, JAK-Stat, FoxO, and Toll-like receptor signaling pathways. This study provides the basis for the potential development of oleodaphnone as an effective HIV latency-reversing agent