Coordinated optimal control of secondary cooling and final electromagnetic stirring for continuous casting billets

Secondary cooling and final electromagnetic stirring (F-EMS) are both key technologies for continuous casting. These parameters are usually optimized and controlled separately which caused internal quality fluctuations in unsteady conditions. In this paper, a coordinated optimal control strategy based on a multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm is proposed for the parameter optimization of secondary cooling and F-EMS, which is solved based on multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm. The solidification and heat transfer model are developed for the computation of billet temperature and the solidification, and the adaptive grid method is used to improve the diversity and robustness of optimal solutions. The secondary cooling water and F-EMS’ stirring current are dynamically controlled based on the optimization results. The results of field trials showed that the maximum carbon segregation and other quality indexes of billets can be improved significantly

SplatFlow: Learning Multi-frame Optical Flow via Splatting

The occlusion problem remains a crucial challenge in optical flow estimation (OFE). Despite the recent significant progress brought about by deep learning, most existing deep learning OFE methods still struggle to handle occlusions; in particular, those based on two frames cannot correctly handle occlusions because occluded regions have no visual correspondences. However, there is still hope in multi-frame settings, which can potentially mitigate the occlusion issue in OFE. Unfortunately, multi-frame OFE (MOFE) remains underexplored, and the limited studies on it are mainly specially designed for pyramid backbones or else obtain the aligned previous frame's features, such as correlation volume and optical flow, through time-consuming backward flow calculation or non-differentiable forward warping transformation. This study proposes an efficient MOFE framework named SplatFlow to address these shortcomings. SplatFlow introduces the differentiable splatting transformation to align the previous frame's motion feature and designs a Final-to-All embedding method to input the aligned motion feature into the current frame's estimation, thus remodeling the existing two-frame backbones. The proposed SplatFlow is efficient yet more accurate, as it can handle occlusions properly. Extensive experimental evaluations show that SplatFlow substantially outperforms all published methods on the KITTI2015 and Sintel benchmarks. Especially on the Sintel benchmark, SplatFlow achieves errors of 1.12 (clean pass) and 2.07 (final pass), with surprisingly significant 19.4% and 16.2% error reductions, respectively, from the previous best results submitted. The code for SplatFlow is available at https://github.com/wwsource/SplatFlow

Longitudinal Transitions Of Baryon Resonances in Constituent Quark Model

A longitudinal transition operator that satisfies the gauge invariance requirement is introduced in constituent quark model. The corresponding longitudinal transitions between the nucleon and baryon resonances are calculated. We show that the study of the longitudinal coupling plays an important role in understanding the structure of baryons.Comment: 13 pages with 5 figures in ps. file can be obtained from autho

Study on coal seam physical characteristics and influence on stimulation: A case study of coal seams in zhengzhuang block

Coalbed Methane (CBM) is an unconventional form of natural gas which is self-generated and self-stored in coal seams. In order to realize the effective exploitation of CBM in Zhengzhuang block, microstructure, wettability, permeability, rock mechanics and in-situ stress of coal were studied in this research. It is found that high rank anthracite characterized by high vitrinite content and low inorganic mineral content, is abundant in CBM. More than 96% of inorganic minerals are clays dominated by kaolinite and illite. Various types of pores are developed on the coal. The wettability of coal differs from high to low to surface water, active water, and foam fracturing fluid; and contact angles of coal with active water and foam fracturing fluid decrease with the increase of burial depth. Gradients of fracture pressure and closure pressure in No.3 coal seam are higher than that of No.15 coal seam. The elastic modulus of coal is lower than that of sandstone. The construction curve of hydraulic fracturing shows that, when the construction flow rate and sand quantity are similar, the construction pressure of prepad in No.3 coal seam is lower than the pumping pressure of No.15 coal seam, but the propagated pressure is higher than that of No.15 coal seam. The drainage effect of No.3 coal seam with large pore volume, shallow burial depth and obvious fracture pressure is better than that of No.15 coal seam. The comprehensive understanding of coal physical properties and engineering practice in the block provide certain guiding significance to the CBM exploitation in Qinshui Basin

HIV-1 Tat protein alter the tight junction integrity and function of retinal pigment epithelium: an in vitro study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>How HIV-1 enter into the eyes remains obscure. We postulated that HIV-1 Tat protein can alter the expression of specific tight-junction proteins and disturb the blood retinal barrier, and contributes to HIV trafficking into the eyes. This study is to determine the effects of HIV-1 Tat proteins on the barrier function and tight-junction protein expression of retinal pigment epithelial cell (RPE).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A human RPE cell line (D407) cultured on microporous filter-supports was used. After treating with HIV-1 Tat protein, transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) of confluent RPE cells was measured by epithelial voltmeter. The permeability of the RPE cells to sodium fluorescein was measured. The expressions of the occludin and claudins were determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction, immunofluorescence, and Western blot analysis. Activation of ERK1/2 was detected by Western blot analysis with specific antiphospho protein antibodies. NF-κB DNA binding activity was determined by transcription factor assay. Specific pharmacologic inhibitors directed against the MAPKs were used to analyze the signaling involved in barrier destruction of RPE cells exposed to HIV-1 Tat.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Treating cultured human retinal pigment epithelial cells with 100 nM Tat for 24 hours increased the permeability and decreased the TER of the epithelial monolayer. HIV-1 Tat also disrupted and downregulated the tight-junction proteins claudin-1, claudin-3, and claudin-4 in these cells, whereas claudin-2 was upregulated, and the expression of occludin was unaffected. HIV-1 Tat protein also induced activation of ERK1/2 and NF-κB. HIV-1 Tat protein induced barrier destruction, changes in expression of TJs, and activation of ERK1/2 and NF-κB were abrogated by inhibitor of ERK1/2 and NF-κB.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>HIV-1 Tat protein causes increases in the paracellular permeability of RPE cells in vitro concomitant with changes in expression of certain transmembrane proteins associated with the tight junction. The effects of HIV-1 Tat on barrier function of the RPE may be mediated by ERK MAPK and NF-κB activation, which may represent potential targets for novel therapeutic approaches for the retinopathy induced by HIV infection.</p

Effects Of The Quantity σTS\sigma_{TS} On The Spin Structure Functions Of Nucleons In The Resonance Region

In this paper, we investigate the effects of the quantity $\sigma_{TS}$ on the spin-structure functions of nucleons in the resonance region. The Schwinger sum rule for the spin structure function $g_2(x,Q^2)$ at the real photon limit is derived for the nucleon treated as a composite system, and it provides a crucial constraint on the longitudinal transition operator which has not been treated consistently in the literature. The longitudinal amplitude $S_{\frac 12}$ is evaluated in the quark model with the transition operator that generates the Schwinger sum rule. The numerical results of the quantity $\sigma_{TS}$ are presented for both spin structure functions $g_1(x,Q^2)$ and $g_2(x,Q^2)$ in the resonance region. Our results show that this quantity plays an important role in the low $Q^2$ region, which can be tested in the future experiments at CEBAF.Comment: 20 pages, latex, 4 postscript figures can be obtained from the autho

A Novel Framework for the Comparative Analysis of Biological Networks

Genome sequencing projects provide nearly complete lists of the individual components present in an organism, but reveal little about how they work together. Follow-up initiatives have deciphered thousands of dynamic and context-dependent interrelationships between gene products that need to be analyzed with novel bioinformatics approaches able to capture their complex emerging properties. Here, we present a novel framework for the alignment and comparative analysis of biological networks of arbitrary topology. Our strategy includes the prediction of likely conserved interactions, based on evolutionary distances, to counter the high number of missing interactions in the current interactome networks, and a fast assessment of the statistical significance of individual alignment solutions, which vastly increases its performance with respect to existing tools. Finally, we illustrate the biological significance of the results through the identification of novel complex components and potential cases of cross-talk between pathways and alternative signaling routes

A Real Time De-Striping Algorithm for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) 15 Sounder Images

The images in a short wave channel 15 (4.45µm) of GOES 15 Sounder show considerable striping effects. The study by ITT Exelis group showed that these striping effects can be characterized by the detector to detector (D2D) and scan to scan (S2S) stripings. The D2D striping is caused by the overall sinusoidal oscillation behavior across east-west scan direction for each detector with the fixed wavelength of 350 pixels. The phases of the sinusoidal oscillation for detector 1 and 3 is opposite to that for detector 2 and 4 so that the striping effects reaches to the maximum when the oscillation magnitude for 1 and 3 (1+3) or 2 and 4 (2+4) are at maximum. The D2D is location dependent as well as time dependent with a diurnal behavior. The S2S striping is overall the difference of same detector between East to West and West to East scans. This striping feature is not location dependent in an image, however, it is time dependent with the diurnal behavior. A real time de-striping algorithm implemented in GOES ground systems is presented in this study. The algorithm corrects both D2D and S2S stripings on a scan by scan basis to minimize the impact on the latency requirements of the GOES Sounder data processing in the ground system. The de-striping is done sequentially with D2D striping being corrected first. The algorithm retrieves the sinusoidal oscillation function from an offset function between detectors 1+3 and 2+4 through the Fast Fourier transformation (FFT), as the offset function is dominated by the D2D striping function. The D2D striping is corrected for a detector in the scan by subtracting the value of the oscillation function at the corresponding position. The S2S striping characteristics is obtained from the difference between the mean values of a detector at a given scan direction and the whole image. For the real time de-striping operation, the S2S striping for an image is corrected by an average of S2S striping terms from the images at the same time in previous two days. Before the correction is made, the data are collected for the current scan that will be used to evaluate the S2S striping characteristics, which is calculated at the end of each frame to replace the old value in the data buffer which will be used for the image at the next day at the same time. The results show that the algorithm has been very effective to provide systematic corrections to both D2D and S2S stripings. Independent evaluation of the test data shows that the S2S and D2D striping noises meet the specification after the application of correction algorithm. It is also very efficient so that it has no significant impact on the latency of the Sounder data processing in GOES ground system