Semi-analytical solution to the second-order wave loads on a vertical cylinder in bi-chromatic bi-directional waves

A complete solution is presented for the second-order wave loads experienced by a 15 uniform vertical cylinder in bi-chromatic bi-directional waves. The solution is obtained 16 based on the introduction of an assisting radiation potential without explicitly 17 evaluating the second-order diffraction potential. The semi-analytical formulation for 18 calculating the wave loads is provided and an efficient numerical technique is 19 developed to treat the oscillatory free-surface integral that appears in the force 20 formulation. After validating the present solution by comparing with the predictions 21 based on other methods, numerical studies are conducted for different combinations of 22 incident wave frequencies and wave headings, and the influence of frequencies and 23 headings of dual waves on the second-order wave loads is investigated. In addition, by 24 expressing the second-order wave loads in a power expansion with respect to the wave 25 frequency difference and wave heading difference which are both assumed to be small, 26 approximations on the calculation of wave loads are developed. The accuracy of 27 different approximations is assessed by comparing the approximate results with those 28 based on the complete solution

Event-triggered distributed H∞ state estimation with packet dropouts through sensor networks

This study is concerned with the event-triggered distributed H∞ state estimation problem for a class of discrete-time stochastic non-linear systems with packet dropouts in a sensor network. An event-triggered communication mechanism is adopted over the sensor network with hope to reduce the communication burden and the energy consumption, where the measurements on each sensor are transmitted only when a certain triggering condition is violated. Furthermore, a novel distributed state estimator is designed where the available innovations are not only from the individual sensor, but also from its neighbouring ones according to the given topology. The purpose of the problem under consideration is to design a set of distributed state estimators such that the dynamics of estimation errors is exponentially mean-square stable and also the prespecified H∞ disturbance rejection attenuation level is guaranteed. By utilising the property of the Kronecker product and the stochastic analysis approaches, sufficient conditions are established under which the addressed state estimation problem is recast as a convex optimisation one that can be easily solved via available software packages. Finally, a simulation example is utilised to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed design scheme of event-triggered distributed state estimators.This work was supported in part by Royal Society of the UK, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61329301, 61203139, 61473076, 61374127 and 61422301, the Shanghai Rising-Star Program of China under Grant 13QA1400100, the ShuGuang project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and Shanghai Education Development Foundation under Grant 13SG34, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, DHU Distinguished Young Professor Program, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Quark Delocalization, Color Screening, and Nuclear Intermediate Range Attraction

We consider the effect of including quark delocalization and color screening, in the nonrelativistic quark cluster model, on baryon-baryon potentials and phase shifts. We find that the inclusion of these additional effects allows a good qualitative description of both.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures in PostScript after text, LA-UR-91-215

Efficient Derivation of Human Cardiac Precursors and Cardiomyocytes from Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cells with Small Molecule Induction

To date, the lack of a suitable human cardiac cell source has been the major setback in regenerating the human myocardium, either by cell-based transplantation or by cardiac tissue engineering. Cardiomyocytes become terminally-differentiated soon after birth and lose their ability to proliferate. There is no evidence that stem/progenitor cells derived from other sources, such as the bone marrow or the cord blood, are able to give rise to the contractile heart muscle cells following transplantation into the heart. The need to regenerate or repair the damaged heart muscle has not been met by adult stem cell therapy, either endogenous or via cell delivery. The genetically stable human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have unlimited expansion ability and unrestricted plasticity, proffering a pluripotent reservoir for in vitro derivation of large supplies of human somatic cells that are restricted to the lineage in need of repair and regeneration. Due to the prevalence of cardiovascular disease worldwide and acute shortage of donor organs, there is intense interest in developing hESC-based therapies as an alternative approach. However, how to channel the wide differentiation potential of pluripotent hESCs efficiently and predictably to a desired phenotype has been a major challenge for both developmental study and clinical translation. Conventional approaches rely on multi-lineage inclination of pluripotent cells through spontaneous germ layer differentiation, resulting in inefficient and uncontrollable lineage-commitment that is often followed by phenotypic heterogeneity and instability, hence, a high risk of tumorigenicity (see a schematic in Fig. 1A). In addition, undefined foreign/animal biological supplements and/or feeders that have typically been used for the isolation, expansion, and differentiation of hESCs may make direct use of such cell-specialized grafts in patients problematic. To overcome these obstacles, we have resolved the elements of a defined culture system necessary and sufficient for sustaining the epiblast pluripotence of hESCs, serving as a platform for de novo derivation of clinically-suitable hESCs and effectively directing such hESCs uniformly towards clinically-relevant lineages by small molecules (see a schematic in Fig. 1B). After screening a variety of small molecules and growth factors, we found that such defined conditions rendered nicotinamide (NAM) sufficient to induce the specification of cardiomesoderm direct from pluripotent hESCs that further progressed to cardioblasts that generated human beating cardiomyocytes with high efficiency (Fig. 2). We defined conditions for induction of cardioblasts direct from pluripotent hESCs without an intervening multi-lineage embryoid body stage, enabling well-controlled efficient derivation of a large supply of human cardiac cells across the spectrum of developmental stages for cell-based therapeutics

Investigation of water injection benefits on downsized boosted direct injection spark ignition engine

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Engine downsizing and boosting are key technologies to achieve the increasingly stringent emissions standards for spark ignition (SI) engines. However, knock is a major obstacle inhibiting further downsizing of SI engines. Water injection is a promising technology that has regained attention recently to solve the knock problem. In this paper, a 1.5L turbocharged gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine was modified by installing a water port injection (WPI) system on the intake manifold. The WPI system was modified from a GDI system and deionized water was pressured to 50 bar in a water tank by compressed nitrogen. The effect of WPI on engine combustion and emissions performance were experimentally investigated under different water/gasoline volume percentages and WPI timings. The results show that WPI has great potential in suppressing engine knock. At original engine setting (without adjustment of spark timing), all the combustion indexes related to knock are decreased by WPI, including maximum in-cylinder pressure (Pmax) and maximum pressure rise rate (Rmax). The flame kernel formation process (CA0-5), initiation combustion duration (CA0-10), early combustion duration (CA0-50) and major combustion duration (CA0-90) are deteriorated, resulting in decreased indicated mean effective pressure (IMEP) and thermal efficiency. By properly advancing spark timing, the combustion process can be improved, allowing the engine to achieve higher Pmax and better combustion phases without occurrence of knock. It is also found that the water/gasoline volume percentage should be kept within a proper range (30% in this study) because over WPI can lead to deterioration of combustion and pollutant emissions. WPI can effectively reduce the production of NO and CO emissions, while HC emissions are increased with the rise of water/gasoline volume percentage

Search for Intrinsic Excitations in 152Sm

The 685 keV excitation energy of the first excited 0+ state in 152Sm makes it an attractive candidate to explore expected two-phonon excitations at low energy. Multiple-step Coulomb excitation and inelastic neutron scattering studies of 152Sm are used to probe the E2 collectivity of excited 0+ states in this "soft" nucleus and the results are compared with model predictions. No candidates for two-phonon K=0+ quadrupole vibrational states are found. A 2+, K=2 state with strong E2 decay to the first excited K=0+ band and a probable 3+ band member are established.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication as a Rapid Communication in Physical Review