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  • Bradford Cooley posted an update 2 weeks, 2 days ago

    Currently, there is great demand to implement circular economy principles and motivate producers of building materials to integrate into a closed loop supply chain system and improve sustainability of their end-product. Therefore, it is of great interest to replace conventional raw materials with inorganic or organic waste-based and filler-type additives to promote sustainability and the close loop chain. This article investigates the possibility of bottom waste incineration ash (WA) particles to be used as a flame retardant replacement to increase fire safety and thermal stability under higher temperatures. From 10 wt.% to 50 wt.% WA particles do not significantly deteriorate performance characteristics, such as compressive strength, thermal conductivity, and water absorption after 28 days of immersion, and at 32 °C WA particles improve the thermal stability of resultant PU foams. Furthermore, 50 wt.% WA particles reduce average heat release by 69% and CO2 and CO yields during fire by 76% and 77%, respectively. Unfortunately, WA particles do not act as a smoke suppressant and do not reduce smoke release rate.This paper presents a novel fabrication process that allows integration of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-based microfluidic channels and metal electrodes on a wafer with a micrometer-range alignment accuracy. This high level of alignment accuracy enables integration of microwave and microfluidic technologies, and furthermore accurate microwave dielectric characterization of biological liquids and chemical compounds on a nanoliter scale. The microfluidic interface between the pump feed lines and the fluidic channels was obtained using magnets fluidic connection. The tube-channel interference and the fluidic channel-wafer adhesion was evaluated, and up to a pressure of 700 mBar no leakage was observed. Adenine sulfate ic50 The developed manufacturing process was tested on a design of a microwave-microfluidic capacitive sensor. An interdigital capacitor (IDC) and a microfluidic channel were manufactured with an alignment accuracy of 2.5 μm. The manufactured IDC sensor was used to demonstrate microwave dielectric sensing on deionized water and saline solutions with concentrations of 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 2.5 M.Chemotherapy is a mainstay of treatment for solid tumors. However, little is known about how therapy-induced immune cell infiltration may affect therapy response. We found substantial CD45+ immune cell density adjacent to E-selectin expressing inflamed vessels in doxorubicin (DOX)-treated residual human breast tumors. While CD45 level was significantly elevated in DOX-treated wildtype mice, it remained unchanged in DOX-treated tumors from E-selectin null mice. Similarly, intravenous administration of anti-E-selectin aptamer (ESTA) resulted in a significant reduction in CD45+ immune cell density in DOX-treated residual tumors, which coincided with a delay in tumor growth and lung metastasis in MMTV-pyMT mice. Additionally, both tumor infiltrating T-lymphocytes and tumor associated-macrophages were skewed towards TH2 in DOX-treated residual breast tumors; however, ESTA suppressed these changes. This study suggests that DOX treatment instigates de novo intratumoral infiltration of immune cells through E-selectin, and functional blockade of E-selectin may reduce residual tumor burden as well as metastasis through suppression of TH2 shift.Adhesive strength of the coating significantly affects the lifetime of the coating. However, it is still inevitable for the coating, even with strong adhesive strength, to peel off from the substrate after working for a while. In this work, fatigue and wear behaviors were employed to analyze the effect on the mechanics of coating and contribute to a fundamental understanding of peeling of the coating. A small-size Co-cemented tungsten carbide drill bit was selected as the examined substrate to fabricate the diamond coating. Roughening pretreatment with a diamond slurry combined with ultrasonic vibration was performed for the substrate surface to enhance adhesive strength. Meanwhile, a diamond coating without roughening pretreatment was also fabricated for comparison. The lifetime and quality of the coating were evaluated by the drilling test. Although the diamond coating could grow on the substrates with and without roughening pretreatment, the diamond coating with roughening pretreatment possessed a higher lifetime and stronger wear resistance than that without roughening pretreatment. We found that both substrates with and without roughening pretreatment exhibited a coarse surface, whereas the roughening pretreatment could remove the original machined surface of the substrate and thus make the near surface with numerous integrated crystalline grains become the new topmost surface. This increased the contact area and surface energy of the interface, leading to the improvement of adhesive strength. Finally, fatigue strength and contact mechanics were studied to trace the changes in the stress of the diamond coating in the whole process of drilling from a theoretical point of view. We suggest that fatigue strength and contact mechanics may play vital roles on the durability and peeling of the coating.This paper develops an improved model predictive controller based on the online obtaining of softness factor and fusion velocity for automatic train operation to enhance the tracking control performance. Specifically, the softness factor of the improved model predictive control algorithm is not a constant, conversely, an improved online adaptive adjusting method for softness factor based on fuzzy satisfaction of system output value and velocity distance trajectory characteristic is adopted, and an improved whale optimization algorithm has been proposed to solve the adjustable parameters; meanwhile, the system output value for automatic train operation is not sampled by a normal speed sensor, on the contrary, an improved online velocity sampled method for the system output value based on a fusion velocity model and an intelligent digital torque sensor is applied. In addition, the two improved strategies proposed take the real-time storage and calculation capacities of the core chip of the controller into account.