Evolution of Anisotropy in Granular Materials: Effect of Particle Rolling and Particle Crushing

The effect of particle rolling and crushing on the evolutions of the two types of anisotropy, i.e., anisotropy of particle packing (microstructure) and anisotropy of force chains, is investigated numerically using the discrete element method. To this end, the classical fabric tensor is adopted to describe the anisotropy of microstructure, while two similar orientation tensors defined by the directions of contact forces are used to characterize the anisotropy of force chains. Numerical results show that the evolutions of anisotropy follows the same tendency as the stress–strain curve, and the anisotropy of force chains is more intense than that of the microstructure. In addition, particle rolling exerts different effect on anisotropy before and after the peak stress state, and particle crushing decreases the anisotropy of granular materials.Представлено чисельне дослідження за допомогою методу дискретних елементів впливу скочування і дроблення частинок на еволюцію анізотропій скочування частинок (мікроструктура) і силового ланцюжка. Для опису анізотропії мікроструктури використовується структурний класичний тензор, а два аналогічних тензора орієнтації, що характеризуються напрямком контактних зусиль, – для визначення анізотропії силового ланцюжка. Результати чисельного дослідження показали, що еволюція анізотропій має той же характер, що і залежність деформації від напруження, однак анізотропія силового ланцюжка є більш інтенсивною порівняно з анізотропією мікроструктури. Більш того, скочування частинок по-різному впливає на анізотропію до і після досягнення максимального значення напруження, в той час як дроблення частинок зменшує анізотропію гранульованих матеріалів.Представлено численное исследование с помощью метода дискретных элементов влияния скатывания и дробления частиц на эволюцию анизотропий скатывания частиц (микроструктура) и силовой цепочки. Для описания анизотропии микроструктуры используется структурный классический тензор, а два аналогичных тензора ориентации, характеризующихся направлением контактных усилий, – для определения анизотропии силовой цепочки. Результаты численного исследования показали, что эволюция анизотропий имеет тот же характер, что и зависимость деформации от напряжения, однако анизотропия силовой цепочки является более интенсивной по сравнению с анизотропией микроструктуры. Более того, скатывание частиц по-разному влияет на анизотропию до и после достижения максимального значения напряжения, тогда как дробление частиц уменьшает анизотропию гранулированных материалов

Flavor symmetry analysis of charmless B --> VP decays

Based upon flavor SU(3) symmetry, we perform global fits to charmless B decays into one pseudoscalar meson and one vector meson in the final states. We consider different symmetry breaking schemes and find that the one implied by na{\"i}ve factorization is slightly favored over the exact symmetry case. The $(\bar\rho,\bar\eta)$ vertex of the unitarity triangle (UT) constrained by our fits is consistent with other methods within errors. We have found large color-suppressed, electroweak penguin and singlet penguin amplitudes when the spectator quark ends up in the final-state vector meson. Nontrivial relative strong phases are also required to explain the data. The best-fit parameters are used to compute branching ratio and CP asymmetry observables in all of the decay modes, particularly those in the $B_s$ decays to be measured at the Tevatron and LHC experiments.Comment: 23 pages and 2 plots; updated with ICHEP'08 data and expanded in discussions and reference

Resilient Parameter-Invariant Control With Application to Vehicle Cruise Control

This work addresses the general problem of resilient control of unknown stochastic linear time-invariant (LTI) systems in the presence of sensor attacks. Motivated by a vehicle cruise control application, this work considers a first order system with multiple measurements, of which a bounded subset may be corrupted. A frequency-domain-designed resilient parameter-invariant controller is introduced that simultaneously minimizes the effect of corrupted sensors, while maintaining a desired closed-loop performance, invariant to unknown model parameters. Simulated results illustrate that the resilient parameter-invariant controller is capable of stabilizing unknown state disturbances and can perform state trajectory tracking

Detection of herb-symptom associations from traditional chinese medicine clinical data

YesTraditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an individualized medicine by observing the symptoms and signs (symptoms in brief) of patients. We aim to extract the meaningful herb-symptom relationships from large scale TCM clinical data. To investigate the correlations between symptoms and herbs held for patients, we use four clinical data sets collected from TCM outpatient clinical settings and calculate the similarities between patient pairs in terms of the herb constituents of their prescriptions and their manifesting symptoms by cosine measure. To address the large-scale multiple testing problems for the detection of herb-symptom associations and the dependence between herbs involving similar efficacies, we propose a network-based correlation analysis (NetCorrA) method to detect the herb-symptom associations. The results show that there are strong positive correlations between symptom similarity and herb similarity, which indicates that herb-symptom correspondence is a clinical principle adhered to by most TCM physicians. Furthermore, the NetCorrA method obtains meaningful herb-symptom associations and performs better than the chi-square correlation method by filtering the false positive associations. Symptoms play significant roles for the prescriptions of herb treatment. The herb-symptom correspondence principle indicates that clinical phenotypic targets (i.e., symptoms) of herbs exist and would be valuable for further investigations

Properties and Performance of Two Wide Field of View Cherenkov/Fluorescence Telescope Array Prototypes

A wide field of view Cherenkov/fluorescence telescope array is one of the main components of the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory project. To serve as Cherenkov and fluorescence detectors, a flexible and mobile design is adopted for easy reconfiguring of the telescope array. Two prototype telescopes have been constructed and successfully run at the site of the ARGO-YBJ experiment in Tibet. The features and performance of the telescopes are presented

Knockout of p75 neurotrophin receptor attenuates the hyperphosphorylation of Tau in pR5 mouse model

p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, whether p75NTR is involved in Tau hyperphosphorylation, one of the pathologies observed in AD, remains unclear. In our previous study, the extracellular domain of p75NTR blocked amyloid beta (Aβ) toxicity and attenuated Aβ-induced Tau hyperphosphorylation. Here we show that, in the absence of Aβ, p75NTR regulates Tau phosphorylation in the transgenic mice with the P301L human Tau mutation (pR5). The knockout of p75NTR in pR5 mice attenuated the phosphorylation of human Tau. In addition, the elevated activity of kinases responsible for Tau phosphorylation including glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta; cyclin-dependent-kinase 5; and Rho-associated protein kinase was also inhibited when p75NTR is knocked out in pR5 mice at 9 months of age. The increased caspase-3 activity observed in pR5 mice was also abolished in the absence of p75NTR. Our study also showed that p75NTR is required for Aβ- and pro-brain derived neurotrophin factor (proBDNF)-induced Tau phosphorylation, in vitro. Overall, our data indicate that p75NTR is required for Tau phosphorylation, a key event in the formation of neurofibrillary tangles, another hallmark of AD. Thus, targeting p75NTR could reduce or prevent the pathologic hyperphosphorylation of Tau.Noralyn B. Mañucat-Tan, Lin-Lin Shen, Larisa Bobrovskaya, Mohammed Al-hawwas, Fiona H. Zhou, Yan-Jiang Wang, Xin-Fu Zho

Effect of a Nonuniform Radial/Axial Tip Clearance on the Flow Field in a Mixed-Flow Pump

The effect of a nonuniform radial/axial tip clearance on the flow field in a mixed-flow pump was studied by numerical simulation of the unsteady flow in the pump with two tip clearance shapes using the standard Reynolds average Navier–Stokes turbulence model, and the equations were solved with the SIMPLEC computational algorithm. The external characteristics, distribution of static pressure, streamline flow of the tip clearance, and vorticity in the impeller are analyzed. The accuracy of numerical simulation was assessed by comparing experimental data with computational results. Although a nonuniform tip clearance leads to a decline in the pump head, which is more pronounced under part-load conditions, the configuration with a nonuniform tip clearance (c = 0.5–1 mm) provides the more uniform velocity and pressure distribution both in the circumferential and axial directions, as the leakage vortex intensity is weakened and its shedding is suppressed. The research results pointed the way for improving the unsteady flow in the mixed-flow pump.Изучено влияние неравномерного зазора на поле течения в радиально-осевом насосе с помощью численного моделирования нестационарного течения в насосе с зазором двух конфигураций на основе стандартной модели турбулентности RNG k , выполнено решение уравнений с применением алгоритма SIMPLE. Проанализированы внешние характеристики, распределение статического давления, потока в зазоре и турбулентности в импеллере. Проведена оценка достоверности численного моделирования путем сравнения экспериментальных данных с результатами расчетов. Показано, что неравномерный зазор вызывает уменьшение напора в насосе, что становится более выраженным в условиях частичного нагружения, но конфигурация с неравномерным зазором (с = 0,5 1,0 мм) обеспечивает более равномерные скорость и распределение давления в касательном и осевом направлениях, поскольку интенсивность обтекания с кольцевым вихрем уменьшается, а его сброс замедляется. Полученные результаты открывают путь к стабилизации нестационарного потока в радиально-осевом насосе

Effect of reducing 3.2% dietary protein level on the growth performance and immunity of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) with supplementation of multi amino acids

Reducing dietary protein content in fish feeds will reduce cost of production if growth performance can be maintained. In this study, we assessed the effects of reduced dietary protein content from 33.5% to 27.4% with ideal amino acids profile on the growth, immune parameters, intestinal microvilli length and total ammonia nitrogen discharge of tilapia. After 8 weeks of feeding, growth performance and feed efficiency were not affected by reducing dietary protein content from 33.5% to 30.3%, while fish fed 27.4% CP had the lowest weight gain. Total ammonia nitrogen discharged into the water 9 hours after the feeding was decreased by about 35%. Serum lysozyme activity, blood respiratory burst activity and serum ACH50 were not significantly affected by dietary protein content. Fold height, enterocyte height and microvillus height of proximal and middle intestine were significantly increased with reducing of dietary protein. Results indicated that 3.2% dietary protein content can be reduced, which had no effects on growth performance and immunity of Nile tilapia in practical diet

Theoretical study of the two-proton halo candidate 17^{17}Ne including contributions from resonant continuum and pairing correlations

With the relativistic Coulomb wave function boundary condition, the energies, widths and wave functions of the single proton resonant orbitals for $^{17}$Ne are studied by the analytical continuation of the coupling constant (ACCC) approach within the framework of the relativistic mean field (RMF) theory. Pairing correlations and contributions from the single-particle resonant orbitals in the continuum are taken into consideration by the resonant Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) approach, in which constant pairing strength is used. It can be seen that the fully self-consistent calculations with NL3 and NLSH effective interactions mostly agree with the latest experimental measurements, such as binding energies, matter radii, charge radii and densities. The energy of $\pi$2s$_{1/2}$ orbital is slightly higher than that of $\pi1d_{5/2}$ orbital, and the occupation probability of the $(\pi$2s$_{1/2})^2$ orbital is about 20%, which are in accordance with the shell model calculation and three-body model estimation