An Updated Quantification Method for Liquid Refrigerant Distribution in Microchannel Evaporators Using Infrared Thermography

Refrigerant distribution in the parallel tubes of a microchannel evaporator significantly affects its heat transfer performance, which can further affect the coefficient of performance of the whole air-conditioning or refrigeration system. This paper proposes an easy-to-implement quantification method using infrared thermography for the liquid refrigerant distribution in microchannel evaporators to update the original method developed by Li and Hrnjak (2015). Before the detailed discussion of the new quantification method, the effect of surface emissivity on the infrared thermography is investigated, and the calibration process of the infrared thermography is presented for a microchannel heat exchanger sample. Then, the updated quantification method is introduced in detail. The ε-NTU approach is clarified for the formula derivation. A new mathematical method is introduced for the determination of the transition between the two-phase region and the single-phase region. A facility with pump-driven two-phase refrigerant R134a has been built to demonstrate the updated quantification method for the liquid refrigerant distribution in a microchannel evaporator with vertical parallel tubes. The tests have been run at the conditions of 41.7 g/s refrigerant flow rate and 5 oC evaporation temperature with the evaporator inlet vapor quality of 0.15 and 0.25, respectively. The infrared images and the reduced liquid refrigerant mass flow rate distributions are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the updated quantification method

Flow Boiling Heat Transfer And Pressure Drop Characteristics Of R1234yf In A Dimpled Flat Duct

Among various heat transfer enhancement technologies, the dimpled surface, which is inspired by the resistance reduction characteristics of the specific concaves on golf balls, has the potential to improve heat transfer with a relatively low pressure-drop penalty. More and more applications of dimpled surfaces in heat exchangers have shown up in industries. However, the lack of experimental data, especially the heat transfer and pressure drop data for liquidand-vapor two-phase flow, inside the dimpled flow channels prevents the good design of the dimpled heat exchangers. In this study, a facility has been designed and built to investigate the heat transfer and pressure drop of flow-boiling R1234yf in a dimpled flat duct. The details of the facility, especially the test section, are presented. A microscope is used to measure the geometrical dimensions of the dimpled flat tube. The heat loss is tested and the heat balance is -2 -1 checked before the experiments. The experiments are performed at mass flux from 100 to 200 kg m s , heat flux of 5 kW m-2, saturation temperature of 15 oC, and vapor quality from 0.1 to 0.95. The experimental results are presented and discussed in detail

Pseudogap and weak multifractality in disordered Mott charge-density-wave insulator

The competition, coexistence and cooperation of various orders in low-dimensional materials like spin, charge, topological orders and charge-density-wave has been one of the most intriguing issues in condensed matter physics. In particular, layered transition metal dichalcogenides provide an ideal platform for studying such an interplay with a notable case of 1${T}$-TaS$_{2}$ featuring Mott-insulating ground state, charge-density-wave, spin frustration and emerging superconductivity together. We investigated local electronic states of Se-substituted 1${T}$-TaS$_{2}$ by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), where superconductivity emerges from the unique Mott-CDW state. Spatially resolved STS measurements reveal that an apparent V-shape pseudogap forms at the Fermi Level (E$_{F}$), with the origin of the electronic states splitting and transformation from the Mott states, and the CDW gaps are largely preserved. The formation of the pseudogap has little correlation to the variation of local Se concentration, but appears to be a global characteristics. Furthermore, the correlation length of local density of states (LDOS) diverges at the Fermi energy and decays rapidly at high energies. The spatial correlation shows a power-law decay close to the Fermi energy. Our statistics analysis of the LDOS indicates that our system exhibits weak multifractal behavior of the wave functions. These findings strongly support a correlated metallic state induced by disorder in our system, which provides an new insight into the novel mechanism of emerging superconductivity in the two-dimensional correlated electronic systems

The postoperative cognitive dysfunction induced by central inflammation with possible involvement of the gut-brain axis

Background: Postoperative cognitive dysfunction is widely recognized as severe postoperative central nervous dysfunction and has a significant impact on the ’patient's physical and mental health. Methods: Postoperative models of tibial fracture in aged rats were established, including the control group, model group, CCL11 protein injection group, and saline injection group. Morris water maze test was used to detect the behavioral characteristics of rats. Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay was used or determine the content of CCL11 and CXCL10. Immunofluorescence staining was used to detect the distribution of CD14+CD163+macrophages in colon tissues and CD11b+CCR3+microglia cells in hippocampal tissues. Western blot analyzed NOX1 and STAT3 expression in hippocampus tissues. Results: Water maze test results confirmed severe cognitive impairment in CCL11 rats. The content of CCL11 and CXCL10 in the CCL11 group was much higher than that of the model group. The distribution of macrophage and microglia cells in the CCL11 model group was greater than that in the model group and the saline group. The expression of NOX1 and STAT3 in the CCL11 group was higher compared with the model group. Conclusion: Abnormal macrophage function and excessive CCL11 secretion were observed in the rats with lower limb fractures after surgery. Postoperative central inflammation in rats with lower limb fracture induced postoperative cognitive dysfunction through the gut-brain axis molecular mechanism

Curvature regularization for Non-line-of-sight Imaging from Under-sampled Data

Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging aims to reconstruct the three-dimensional hidden scenes from the data measured in the line-of-sight, which uses photon time-of-flight information encoded in light after multiple diffuse reflections. The under-sampled scanning data can facilitate fast imaging. However, the resulting reconstruction problem becomes a serious ill-posed inverse problem, the solution of which is of high possibility to be degraded due to noises and distortions. In this paper, we propose two novel NLOS reconstruction models based on curvature regularization, i.e., the object-domain curvature regularization model and the dual (i.e., signal and object)-domain curvature regularization model. Fast numerical optimization algorithms are developed relying on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) with the backtracking stepsize rule, which are further accelerated by GPU implementation. We evaluate the proposed algorithms on both synthetic and real datasets, which achieve state-of-the-art performance, especially in the compressed sensing setting. All our codes and data are available at https://github.com/Duanlab123/CurvNLOS

ILT4 drives B7-H3 expression via PI3K/AKT/mTOR signalling and ILT4/B7-H3 co-expression correlates with poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer

AbstractImmunoglobulin-like transcript (ILT) 4 is critical for the inhibitory function of certain immune cells. We previously demonstrated that ILT4 is over-expressed in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells and is involved in tumour evasion via an unknown mechanism. In this report, we demonstrate that ILT4 increases the expression of the co-inhibitory molecule B7-H3 through PI3K/AKT/mTOR signalling. In primary human NSCLC tissues, a significant positive relationship is observed between ILT4 and B7-H3 expression. ILT4/B7-H3 co-expression is significantly associated with a reduction in T infiltrating lymphoid cells and lower overall survival. In summary, ILT4 increases B7-H3 expression and ILT4/B7-H3 co-expression may be involved in NSCLC progression