Improving gelling properties of myofibrillar proteins incorporating with cellulose micro/nanofibres

The effects of cellulose microfibres (CMFs, Average size: 100 ± 5 μm) and cellulose nanofibres (CNFs, Average size: 60 ± 3 nm) on the properties of myofibrillar protein (MP) gels from duck breast meat were studied. The results demonstrated that CMFs and CNFs were mostly connected to MP by non-covalent bonds, the diffusion and cross-linking of MP molecules was promoted, and a denser and more complete gel network was formed. With the increases of CMFs and CNFs concentration (0–10%), the hardness was increased by 13.15% and 19.78% for CMFs10% and CNFs10% gels, respectively, and the elasticity was increased by 40% and 80%, respectively. At the same concentration (0–10%), the increase in gel hardness, viscoelasticity and immobilised water content was greater in the CNFs-MP group than in the CMFs-MP group. The CNFs-MP group had a tighter gel network, and CNFs had a better potential to improve the gelation performance of MP.     

Ensemble relation network with multi-level measure

Fine-grained few-shot learning is a difficult task in image classification. The reason is that the discriminative features of fine-grained images are often located in local areas of the image, while most of the existing few-shotlearning image classification methods only use top-level features and adopt a single measure. In that way, the localfeatures of the sample cannot be learned well. In response to this problem, ensemble relation network with multi-level measure (ERN-MM) is proposed in this paper. It adds the relation modules in the shallow feature space tocompare the similarity between the samples in the local features, and finally integrates the similarity scores from thefeature spaces to assign the label of the query samples. So the proposed method ERN-MM can use local details andglobal information of different grains. Experimental results on different fine-grained datasets show that the proposedmethod achieves good classification performance and also proves its rationality.     

Lower down both ohmic and cathode polarization resistances of solid oxide fuel cell via hydrothermal modified gadolinia doped ceria barrier layer

Hydrothermal reaction in Cerium and Gadolinium solution as an optimization method is developed and first reported for the densification of gadolinia doped ceria, the barrier layer between Zirconia electrolyte and (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O_3-δ cathode. This method is based on the hydrothermal reaction for nano particles in-situly grown on porous surface, to improve barrier layer density, alongside the sintering of cathode at 1075 °C. As a result, the ohmic resistance is prominently decreased by ～16.4 % at 750 °C for electrolyte supported symmetrical cell. Whereas, the cathode polarization resistance is decreased by as much as a factor of ～3 from 0.3702 Ω·cm² to 0.1325 Ω·cm² at 750 °C and $p_{O_2}=0.21atm$. Furthermore, the anode supported cell exhibits higher open circuit voltage, smaller area specific resistance, elevated performance output and less degradation. And this modified barrier layer shows reduced Sr migration in 300 h operation at 750 °C. The hydrothermal reaction is demonstrated to prepare denser and sintering-active barrier layer with faster oxygen ion transfer and better interface connection, with large-scale application prospects and cost-competitiveness.     

Water vapor volatilization and oxidation induced surface cracking of environmental barrier coating systems: A numerical approach

A numerical model is developed for surface crack propagation in brittle ceramic coatings, aiming at the intrinsic failure of rare-earth silicate environmental barrier coating systems (EBCs) under combustion conditions in advanced gas turbines. The main features of progressive degradation of EBCs in such conditions are captured, including selective silica vaporization in the top coat due to exposure to water vapor, diffusion path-dependent bond coat oxidation, as well as crack propagation during cyclic thermal loading. In light of these features, user-defined subroutines are implemented in finite element analysis, where surface crack growth is simulated by node separation. Numerical results are validated by existing experimental data, in terms of monosilicate layer thickening, thermal oxide growth, and fracture behaviors. The experimentally observed quasi-linear oxidation in the early stage is also elucidated. Furthermore, it is suggested that surface crack undergoes rapid propagation in the late stage of extended thermal cycling in water vapor and leads to catastrophic failure, driven by both thermal mismatch and oxide growth stresses. The latter is identified as the dominant mechanism of penetration. Based on detailed analyses of failure mechanisms, the optimization strategy of EBCs composition is proposed, balancing the trade-off between mechanical compliance and erosion resistance.     

A Dynamic Programming Framework for Large-Scale Online Clustering on Graphs

Neural Processing Letters - As a fundamental technique for data analysis, graph clustering grouping graph data into clusters has attracted great attentions in recent years. In this paper, we...     

温拌LDPE改性沥青混合料性能研究

选择Sasobit和Evotherm 3G两种温拌剂对温拌LDPE沥青混合料制备工艺和性能进行研究。首先,比较变温等体积法和等黏温度法两种方法,并确定两种温拌混合料的拌和及击实温度。在此基础上,分别采用车辙试验、低温弯曲试验、中点加载弯曲试验以及冻融劈裂试验评价70#、LDPE、Sasobit-LDPE以及3G-LDPE四种沥青混合料的高温性能、低温性能、疲劳性能和水稳定性。结果表明,两种温拌技术均是可行的,Sasobit和3G温拌技术可使施工温度降低20℃和15℃。与热拌LDPE沥青混合料相比,Sasobit温拌沥青混合料具有更好的高温性能和水稳定性,在高应力比条件下抗疲劳性能更好,低温性能虽变差,但是优于70#沥青混合料;3G温拌沥青混合料的高温性能,低温性能以及水稳定性则与热拌LDPE沥青混合料各项性能较为接近,抗疲劳性能变差,但是优于70#沥青混合料。     

Standing Surface Acoustic Wave (SSAW)‐Based Fluorescence‐Activated Cell Sorter

Microfluidic fluorescence‐activated cell sorters (μFACS) have attracted considerable interest because of their ability to identify and separate cells in inexpensive and biosafe ways. Here a high‐performance μFACS is presented by integrating a standing surface acoustic wave (SSAW)‐based, 3D cell‐focusing unit, an in‐plane fluorescent detection unit, and an SSAW‐based cell‐deflection unit on a single chip. Without using sheath flow or precise flow rate control, the SSAW‐based cell‐focusing technique can focus cells into a single file at a designated position. The tight focusing of cells enables an in‐plane‐integrated optical detection system to accurately distinguish individual cells of interest. In the acoustic‐based cell‐deflection unit, a focused interdigital transducer design is utilized to deflect cells from the focused stream within a minimized area, resulting in a high‐throughput sorting ability. Each unit is experimentally characterized, respectively, and the integrated SSAW‐based FACS is used to sort mammalian cells (HeLa) at different throughputs. A sorting purity of greater than 90% is achieved at a throughput of 2500 events s^?1. The SSAW‐based FACS is efficient, fast, biosafe, biocompatible and has a small footprint, making it a competitive alternative to more expensive, bulkier traditional FACS.