Three-dimensional interaction between uniform current and a submerged horizontal cylinder in an ice-covered channel

The problem of interaction of a uniform current with a submerged horizontal circular cylinder in an ice-covered channel is considered. The fluid flow is described by linearized velocity potential theory and the ice sheet is treated as a thin elastic plate. The potential due to a source or the Green function satisfying all boundary conditions apart from that on the body surface is first derived. This can be used to derive the boundary integral equation for a body of arbitrary shape. It can also be used to obtain the solution due to multipoles by differentiating the Green function with its position directly. For a transverse circular cylinder, through distributing multipoles along its centre line, the velocity potential can be written in an infinite series with unknown coefficients, which can be determined from the impermeable condition on a body surface. A major feature here is that different from the free surface problem, or a channel without the ice sheet cover, this problem is fully three-dimensional because of the constraints along the intersection of the ice sheet with the channel wall. It has been also confirmed that there is an infinite number of critical speeds. Whenever the current speed passes a critical value, the force on the body and wave pattern change rapidly, and two more wave components are generated at the far-field. Extensive results are provided for hydroelastic waves and hydrodynamic forces when the ice sheet is under different edge conditions, and the insight of their physical features is discussed

Hydroelastic wave diffraction by a vertical circular cylinder standing in a channel with an ice cover

The problem of hydroelastic wave diffraction by a surface-piercing vertical circular cylinder mounted on the bottom of an ice-covered channel is considered. The ice sheet is modelled as an elastic thin plate with homogeneous properties, while the linearized velocity potential theory is adopted to describe the motion of the fluid. The solution starts from the Green function satisfying all other boundary conditions apart from that on the body surface. This is obtained through applying a Fourier transform in the longitudinal direction of the channel and adopting an eigenfunction expansion in the vertical direction. The boundary conditions on the side walls and ice edges are imposed through an orthogonal product. Through the Green function, the velocity potential due to a surface-piercing structure with arbitrary shape can be expressed through a source distribution formula derived in this work, in which only integrals over the body surface and its interaction line with the ice sheet need to be retained. For a vertical circular cylinder, the unknown source distribution can be expanded further into a Fourier series in the circumferential direction, and then the analytical solution of the velocity potential can be obtained further. Extensive results and discussions are provided for the hydrodynamic forces and vertical shear forces on the cylinder, as well as the deflection and strain of the ice sheet. In particular, the behaviour of the solution near one of the natural frequencies of the channel is investigated in detail

Experimental and numerical studies of the effects of a rail vibration absorber on suppressing short pitch rail corrugation

The effects of a rail vibration absorber on suppressing short pitch rail corrugation are studied. Firstly, a rail vibration field test is carried out to analyze the vibration response of the rail with and without the vibration absorbers. Secondly, based on the hypothesis that friction-induced self-excited vibration of a wheel-rail system causes rail corrugation; two finite element models of a wheel-rail system and a wheel-rail-absorber system are established and analyzed. Both sets of rail vibration test results and theoretical results show that the rail absorbers can effectively reduce the friction-induced self-excited vibration of the wheel-rail system in the frequency range of 200-800 Hz, which corresponds to frequencies of short pitch rail corrugation. This may be a main reason that the rail vibration absorber can suppress the formation of short pitch rail corrugation

High nuclear expression of STAT3 is associated with unfavorable prognosis in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The purpose of the study was to investigate the expression and prognostic value of STAT3 in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Seventy-four DLBCL patients from 2001 to 2007 were reviewed in the study. The STAT3 expression in their tumor tissues was examined using the immunohistochemistry (IHC) method, and evaluated for its association with clinicopathological parameters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Strong nuclear staining of STAT3 and phosphorylated-STAT3^tyr705(P-STAT3) were observed in 19 cases (25.7%) and 24 cases (32.4%), respectively, and the expression levels were highly consistent between them (<it>P </it>= 0.001). The high nuclear expression of STAT3 was more frequent in the non-germinal center B cell-like (non-GCB) DLBCL than that in the GCB subtype, but not reaching significance (<it>P </it>< 0.061). The high nuclear expression of STAT3 was found to be correlated with poor overall survival (OS) (<it>P </it>= 0.005). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the STAT3 expression was an independent prognostic factor for DLBCL patients regardless of CHOP or R-CHOP regimen used as the first-line therapy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>STAT3 is more frequently expressed in non-GCB DLBCL than that in GCB subtype, and its strong nuclear expression is correlated with poor OS in DLBCL.</p

InN Island shape and its dependence on growth condition of molecular-beam epitaxy

The three-dimensional (3D) island shapes of the InN and its dependence on growth conditions of molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) were analyzed. The islands were dislocated and the strain in an island depended on its size. The pillar-shaped islands with low aspect ratios represented the equilibrium shape, and the pyrimidal islands with higher aspect ratios were limited by kinetics during MBE growth. The decreasing trend of island aspect ratio with respect to island size was attributed to gradual relaxation of residual strain in dislocated islands.published_or_final_versio

Sample entropy analysis of EEG signals via artificial neural networks to model patients' consciousness level based on anesthesiologists experience.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, as it can express the human brain's activities and reflect awareness, have been widely used in many research and medical equipment to build a noninvasive monitoring index to the depth of anesthesia (DOA). Bispectral (BIS) index monitor is one of the famous and important indicators for anesthesiologists primarily using EEG signals when assessing the DOA. In this study, an attempt is made to build a new indicator using EEG signals to provide a more valuable reference to the DOA for clinical researchers. The EEG signals are collected from patients under anesthetic surgery which are filtered using multivariate empirical mode decomposition (MEMD) method and analyzed using sample entropy (SampEn) analysis. The calculated signals from SampEn are utilized to train an artificial neural network (ANN) model through using expert assessment of consciousness level (EACL) which is assessed by experienced anesthesiologists as the target to train, validate, and test the ANN. The results that are achieved using the proposed system are compared to BIS index. The proposed system results show that it is not only having similar characteristic to BIS index but also more close to experienced anesthesiologists which illustrates the consciousness level and reflects the DOA successfully.This research is supported by the Center forDynamical Biomarkers and Translational Medicine, National Central University, Taiwan, which is sponsored by Ministry of Science and Technology (Grant no. MOST103-2911-I-008-001). Also, it is supported by National Chung-Shan Institute of Science & Technology in Taiwan (Grant nos. CSIST-095-V301 and CSIST-095-V302)

Scaling of three-dimensional InN islands grown on GaN(0001) by molecular-beam epitaxy

The scaling property of three-dimensional InN islands nucleated on GaN(0001) surface during molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) is investigated. Due to the large lattice mismatch between InN and GaN (∼10%), the islands formed from the Stranski-Krastanow growth mode are dislocated. Despite the variations in (residual) strain and the shape, both the island size and pair separation distributions show the scaling behavior. Further, the size distribution resembles that for submonolayer homoepitaxy with the critical island size i = 1, suggesting that detachment of atoms is not significant. The above results also indicate strain is insignificant in determining the nucleation and growth of dislocated islands during heteroepitaxy by MBE.published_or_final_versio

Step bunching of vicinal GaN(0001) surfaces during molecular beam epitaxy

Step bunching of vicinal GaN(0001) surface during epitaxial growth is observed by scanning tunneling microscopy. Large step stiffness and repulsive step-step interaction are suggested based on step morphology observations. The size of the bunch changes with time, depending on the direction in which the substrate is heated by a direct current. This observation provides evidence for the electromigration effect causing the step bunching, and from the field dependence we infer that adatoms, which are likely N, have effective positive charges. ©2000 The American Physical Society.published_or_final_versio

Reduction of threading defects in GaN grown on vicinal SiC(0001) by molecular-beam epitaxy

We observe a significant reduction of threading dislocations in GaN grown on vicinal substrates of SiC(0001). Using scanning tunneling microscopy, we find films grown on vicinal substrates maintain the surface misorientation of the substrate and display terraces with straight edges. On top of the terraces there is no spiral mound, which is the main feature found for films grown on singular substrates. Transmission electron microscopy studies confirm that threading screw dislocations are reduced by two orders of magnitude while edge dislocations are reduced by one order. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Substrate co-doping modulates electronic metal-support interactions and significantly enhances single-atom catalysis

Transitional metal nanoparticles or atoms deposited on appropriate substrates can lead to highly economical, efficient, and selective catalysis. One of the greatest challenges is to control the electronic metal–support interactions (EMSI) between the supported metal atoms and the substrate so as to optimize their catalytic performance. Here, from first-principles calculations, we show that an otherwise inactive Pd single adatom on TiO2(110) can be tuned into a highly effective catalyst, e.g. for O2 adsorption and CO oxidation, by purposefully selected metal–nonmetal co-dopant pairs in the substrate. Such an effect is proved here to result unambiguously from a significantly enhanced EMSI. A nearly linear correlation is noted between the strength of the EMSI and the activation of the adsorbed O2 molecule, as well as the energy barrier for CO oxidation. Particularly, the enhanced EMSI shifts the frontier orbital of the deposited Pd atom upward and largely enhances the hybridization and charge transfer between the O2 molecule and the Pd atom. Upon co-doping, the activation barrier for CO oxidation on the Pd monomer is also reduced to a level comparable to that on the Pd dimer which was experimentally reported to be highly efficient for CO oxidation. The present findings provide new insights into the understanding of the EMSI in heterogeneous catalysis and can open new avenues to design and fabricate cost-effective single-atom-sized and/or nanometer-sized catalysts