Design and finite element mode analysis of noncircular gear

The noncircular gear transmission is an important branch of the gear transmission, it is characterized by its compact structure, good dynamic equilibration and other advantages, and can be used in the automobile, engineering machine, ship, machine tool, aviation and spaceflight field etc. Studying on the dynamics feature of noncircular gear transmission can improve the ability to carry loads of, reduce the vibration and noise of, increase the life of the noncircular gear transmission machine, provides guidance for the design of the noncircular gear, and has significant theories and practical meanings. In this paper, the gear transmission technique is used to studied the design method of the noncircular gear, which contains distribution of teeth on the pitch curve, designs of the tooth tip curve and the tooth root curve, design of the tooth profile curve, the gear system dynamics principle is introduced to establish dynamics model for the noncircular gear; basic theory of finite element and mode analysis method are applied, finite element model for the noncircular gear is established, natural vibration characteristic of the noncircular gear is studied. And the oval gear is taken as an example, the mathematics software MathCAD, the 3D modeling software UG and the finite element software ABAQUS are used to realize precise 3D model of the oval gear. The finite element method is used, the natural vibration characteristic of the oval gear is studied, the main vibration types and natural frequencies of the oval gear and that of the equivalent cylindrical gears are analyzed and compared, the conclusions received reflect the dynamics performance of the oval gear, and solid foundation is laid for dynamics research and engineering application of the oval gear transmission

A switch element in the autophagy E2 Atg3 mediates allosteric regulation across the lipidation cascade

Autophagy depends on the E2 enzyme, Atg3, functioning in a conserved E1-E2-E3 trienzyme cascade that catalyzes lipidation of Atg8-family ubiquitin-like proteins (UBLs). Molecular mechanisms underlying Atg8 lipidation remain poorly understood despite association of Atg3, the E1 Atg7, and the composite E3 Atg12-Atg5-Atg16 with pathologies including cancers, infections and neurodegeneration. Here, studying yeast enzymes, we report that an Atg3 element we term E123IR (E1, E2, and E3-interacting region) is an allosteric switch. NMR, biochemical, crystallographic and genetic data collectively indicate that in the absence of the enzymatic cascade, the Atg3(E123IR) makes intramolecular interactions restraining Atg3's catalytic loop, while E1 and E3 enzymes directly remove this brace to conformationally activate Atg3 and elicit Atg8 lipidation in vitro and in vivo. We propose that Atg3's E123IR protects the E2 similar to UBL thioester bond from wayward reactivity toward errant nucleophiles, while Atg8 lipidation cascade enzymes induce E2 active site remodeling through an unprecedented mechanism to drive autophagy

Nodeless superconductivity in Ca3Ir4Sn13: evidence from quasiparticle heat transport

We report resistivity $\rho$ and thermal conductivity $\kappa$ measurements on Ca$_3$Ir$_4$Sn$_{13}$ single crystals, in which superconductivity with $T_c \approx 7$ K was claimed to coexist with ferromagnetic spin-fluctuations. Among three crystals, only one crystal shows a small hump in resistivity near 20 K, which was previously attributed to the ferromagnetic spin-fluctuations. Other two crystals show the $\rho \sim T^2$ Fermi-liquid behavior at low temperature. For both single crystals with and without the resistivity anomaly, the residual linear term $\kappa_0/T$ is negligible in zero magnetic field. In low fields, $\kappa_0(H)/T$ shows a slow field dependence. These results demonstrate that the superconducting gap of Ca$_3$Ir$_4$Sn$_{13}$ is nodeless, thus rule out nodal gap caused by ferromagnetic spin-fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Specific heat and thermal conductivity of ferromagnetic magnons in Yttrium Iron Garnet

The specific heat and thermal conductivity of the insulating ferrimagnet Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (Yttrium Iron Garnet, YIG) single crystal were measured down to 50 mK. The ferromagnetic magnon specific heat $C$$_m$ shows a characteristic $T^{1.5}$ dependence down to 0.77 K. Below 0.77 K, a downward deviation is observed, which is attributed to the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction with typical magnitude of 10$^{-4}$ eV. The ferromagnetic magnon thermal conductivity $\kappa_m$ does not show the characteristic $T^2$ dependence below 0.8 K. To fit the $\kappa_m$ data, both magnetic defect scattering effect and dipole-dipole interaction are taken into account. These results complete our understanding of the thermodynamic and thermal transport properties of the low-lying ferromagnetic magnons.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Barriers and Facilitators Associated With Vaccine Acceptance and Uptake Among Pregnant Women in High Income Countries: A Mini-Review

Vaccination during pregnancy is a safe and effective intervention to protect women from potentially severe consequences of influenza and reduce risk of influenza and pertussis in their infants. However, coverage remains variable. In this mini-review we update findings from a 2015 systematic review to describe results from recent studies in high income countries on the uptake of influenza and pertussis vaccination in pregnancy, reasons for vaccine hesitancy and barriers to increasing uptake, from maternal and healthcare provider (HCP) perspectives. Studies reported highly variable uptake (from 0% to 78%). A main facilitator for uptake among pregnant women was receiving a recommendation from their HCP. However, studies showed that HCP awareness of guidelines did not consistently translate into them recommending vaccines to pregnant women. Safety concerns are a well-established barrier to uptake/coverage of maternal immunization; 7%-52% of unvaccinated women gave safety concerns as a reason but these were also present in vaccinated women. Knowledge/awareness gaps among pregnant women and lack of confidence among HCPs to discuss vaccination were both important barriers. Several studies indicated that midwives were more likely to express safety concerns than other HCPs, and less likely to recommend vaccination to pregnant women. Women who perceived the risk of infection to be low were less likely to accept vaccination in several studies, along with women with prior vaccine refusal. Findings highlight the importance of further research to explore context-specific barriers to vaccination in pregnancy, which may include lack of vaccine confidence among pregnant woman and HCPs, and policy and structural factors

A multi-tone sound absorber based on an array of shunted loudspeakers

© 2018 by the authors. It has been demonstrated that a single shunted loudspeaker can be used as an effective low frequency sound absorber in a duct, but many shunted loudspeakers have to be used in practice for noise reduction or reverberation control in rooms, thus it is necessary to understand the performance of an array of shunted loudspeakers. In this paper, a model for the parallel shunted loudspeaker array for multi-tone sound absorption is proposed based on a modal solution, and then the acoustic properties of a shunted loudspeaker array under normal incidence are investigated using both the modal solution and the finite element method. It was found that each shunted loudspeaker can work almost independently where each unit resonates. Based on the interaction analysis, multi-tone absorbers in low frequency can be achieved by designing multiple shunted loudspeakers with different shunt circuits respectively. The simulation and experimental results show that the normal incidence sound absorption coefficient of the designed absorber has four absorption peaks with values of 0.42, 0.58, 0.80, and 0.84 around 100 Hz, 200 Hz, 300 Hz, and 400 Hz respectively

LEARNING FROM NOISY SAMPLES FOR MAN-MADE IMPERVIOUS SURFACE MAPPING

Abstract. Man-made impervious surfaces, indicating the human footprint on Earth, are an environmental concern because it leads to a chain of events that modifies urban air and water resources. To better map man-made impervious surfaces in any region of interest (ROI), we propose a framework for learning to map impervious areas in any ROIs from Sentinel-2 images with noisy reference data, using a pre-trained fully convolutional network (FCN). The FCN is first trained with reference data only available in Europe, which is able to provide reasonable mapping results even in areas outside of Europe. The proposed framework, aiming to achieve an improvement over the preliminary predictions for a specific ROI, consists of two steps: noisy training data pre-processing and model fine-tuning with robust loss functions. The framework is validated over four test areas located in different continents with a measurable improvement over several baseline results. It has been shown that a better impervious mapping result can be achieved through a simple fine-tuning with noisy training data, and label updating through robust loss functions allows to further enhance the performances. In addition, by analyzing and comparing the mapping results to baselines, it can be highlighted that the improvement is mainly coming from a decreased omission error. This study can also provide insights for similar tasks, such as large-scale land cover/land use classification when accurate reference data is not available for training

Tracking intracavernously injected adipose-derived stem cells to bone marrow.

The intracavernous (i.c.) injection of stem cells (SCs) has been shown to improve erectile function in various erectile dysfunction (ED) animal models. However, the tissue distribution of the injected cells remains unknown. In this study we tracked i.c.-injected adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) in various tissues. Rat paratesticular fat was processed for ADSC isolation and culture. The animals were then subject to cavernous nerve (CN) crush injury or sham operation, followed by i.c. injection of 1 million autologous or allogeneic ADSCs that were labeled with 5-ethynyl-2-deoxyuridine (EdU). Another group of rats received i.c. injection of EdU-labeled allogeneic penile smooth muscle cells (PSMCs). At 2 and 7 days post injection, penises and femoral bone marrow were processed for histological analyses. Whole femoral bone marrows were also analyzed for EdU-positive cells by flow cytometry. The results show that ADSCs exited the penis within days of i.c. injection and migrated preferentially to bone marrow. Allogenicity did not affect the bone marrow appearance of ADSCs at either 2 or 7 days, whereas CN injury reduced the number of ADSCs in bone marrow significantly at 7 but not 2 days. The significance of these results in relation to SC therapy for ED is discussed