Fabrication and properties of PVA-TiO2 hydrogel composites

AbstractThe preparation and properties of PVA-TiO2 hydrogel composites have been studied in this research. The results show that tensile strength and compression modulus of PVA-TiO2 hydrogel composites increased significantly, but the elongation did not changed obviously compared with the PVA hydrogel, indicating the good interaction between inorganic nanoparticles and organic polymer. Friction performance of the hydrogels was discussed, the friction of PVA-TiO2 hydrogel composites decrease than the PVA hydrogel and friction coefficient up to 0.001. The possible mechanism of friction was discussed

Genetic linkage maps of Pinus koraiensis Sieb. et Zucc. based on AFLP markers

Genetic linkage maps provide essential information for molecular breeding. In this paper, the genetic linkage map of Pinus koraiensis was constructed using an F1 progeny of 88 individuals. One hundred and thirty (130) of molecular markers were mapped onto 6 linkage groups, 4 triples and 15 pairs at the linkage criteria LOD 4.0. Nine primer combinations were applied to map construction. The consensus map gained covers 620.909 cM, with an average marker spacing of 4.776 cM. The presented map provides crucial information for future genomic studies of P. koraiensis, in particular for QTL (quantitative trait loci) mapping of economically important breeding target traits.Keywords: Genetic mapping, Korean pine, linkage map, marker-aided selectionAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 9(35), pp. 5659-5664, 30 August, 201

Optimal Demand Shut-offs of AC Microgrid using AO-SBQP Method

Microgrids are increasingly being utilized to improve the resilience and operational flexibility of power grids, and act as a backup power source during grid outages. However, it necessitates that the microgrid itself could provide power to the critical loads. This paper presents an algorithm named alternating optimization based sequential boolean quadratic programming tailored for solving optimal demand shut-offs problems arising in microgrids. Moreover, we establish local superlinear convergence of the proposed approximate Boolean quadratic programming method over nonconvex problems. In the end, the performance of the proposed method is illustrated on the modified IEEE 30-bus case study

The Effects of Weather on Passenger Flow of Urban Rail Transit

Predicting passenger flow on urban rail transit is important for the planning, design and decision-making of rail transit. Weather is an important factor that affects the passenger flow of rail transit by changing the travel mode choice of urban residents. This study aims to explore the influence of weather on urban rail transit ridership, taking four cities in China as examples, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. To determine the weather effect on daily ridership rate, the three models were proposed with different combinations of the factors of temperature and weather type, using linear regression method.   The large quantities of data were applied to validate the developed models.  The results show that in Guangzhou, the daily ridership rate of rail transit increases with increasing temperature. In Chengdu, the ridership rate increases in rainy days compared to sunny days. While, in Beijing and Shanghai, the ridership rate increases in light rainfall and heavy rainfall (except moderate rainfall) compared to sunny days. The research findings are important to understand the impact of weather on passenger flow of urban rail transit. The findings can provide effective strategies to rail transit operators to deal with the fluctuation in daily passenger flow

Guided flows in coronal magnetic flux tubes

There is evidence for coronal plasma flows to break down into fragments and to be laminar. We investigate this effect by modeling flows confined along magnetic channels. We consider a full MHD model of a solar atmosphere box with a dipole magnetic field. We compare the propagation of a cylindrical flow perfectly aligned to the field to that of another one with a slight misalignment. We assume a flow speed of 200 km/s, and an ambient magnetic field of 30 G. We find that while the aligned flow maintains its cylindrical symmetry while it travels along the magnetic tube, the misaligned one is rapidly squashed on one side, becoming laminar and eventually fragmented because of the interaction and backreaction of the magnetic field. This model could explain an observation of erupted fragments that fall back as thin and elongated strands and end up onto the solar surface in a hedge-like configuration, made by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The initial alignment of plasma flow plays an important role in determining the possible laminar structure and fragmentation of flows while they travel along magnetic channels.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication, movies available upon request to the first autho

Video-assisted thoracic bronchial sleeve lobectomy with bronchoplasty for treatment of lung cancer confined to a single lung lobe: a case series of Chinese patients

BACKGROUND: The outcomes of video-assisted thoracic bronchial sleeve lobectomy (VABSL), a minimally invasive video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) lobectomy, are mostly unknown in Chinese patients. OBJECTIVES: To investigate operative and postoperative outcomes of VABSL in a cases series of Chinese patients with lung cancer. METHODS: Retrospective study of 9 patients (male:female 8:1; mean age 59.4 ± 17.6 years, ranging 21–79 years) diagnosed with lung cancer of a single lobe, treated with VABSL between March 2009 and November 2011, and followed up for at least 2 months (mean follow-up: 14.17 ± 12.91 months). Operative outcomes (tumor size, operation time, estimated blood loss and blood transfusion), postoperative outcomes (intensive care unit [ICU] stay, hospitalization length and pathological tumor stage), death, tumor recurrence and safety were assessed. RESULTS: Patients were diagnosed with carcinoid cancer (11.1%), squamous carcinoma (66.7%) or small cell carcinoma (22.2%), affecting the right (77.8%) or left (22.2%) lung lobes in the upper (55.6%), middle (11.1%) or lower (33.3%) regions. TNM stages were T2 (88.9%) or T3 (11.1%); N0 (66.7%), N1 (11.1%) or N2 (22.2%); and M0 (100%). No patient required conversion to thoracotomy. Mean tumor size, operation time and blood loss were 2.50 ± 0.75 cm, 203 ± 20 min and 390 ± 206 ml, respectively. Patients were treated in the ICU for 18.7 ± 0.7 hours, and overall hospitalization duration was 20.8 ± 2.0 days. No deaths, recurrences or severe complications were reported. CONCLUSIONS: VABSL surgery is safe and effective for treatment of lung cancer by experienced physicians, warranting wider implementation of VABSL and VATS training in China

A Method of Energy-Optimal Trajectory Planning for Palletizing Robot

In this work, the energy-optimal trajectory planning and initial pick point searching problem for palletizing robot with high load capacity and high speed are studied, in which the pick point and place point of the robot are fixed to a desired location for each single task. These optimization problems have been transformed to ternary functional extremum problem and parameters optimal selection problem in which the performance index of the problems the rigid-flexible coupling dynamics model of the robot, and the constraint and boundary conditions of the robot are given. The fourth-order Runge-Kutta method, multiple shooting method, and traversing method are used to solve these specific mathematical problems. The effectiveness of the trajectory planning method is validated by the experimental and simulating results; thus the research work done here provides important support for subsequent palletizing robot research