Effects of processing parameters on the convective heat transfer rate during ultrasound assisted low temperature immersion treatment of a stationary sphere

The effect of ultrasound irradiation, as a novel method, on the enhancement of convective heat transfer between a stationary copper sphere and cooling medium was experimentally studied at different Re and Pr numbers. The high thermal conductivity of copper allowed the application of lumped system analysis which led to more accurate results on convective heat transfer. The ultrasonic cooling system included a refrigerated circulator, a flow meter, an ultrasound generator (25 kHz) and an ultrasonic bath. The studied parameters were sphere diameter (0.01 or 0.02 m), flow rate (1.67 × 10⁻⁵, 2.5 × 10⁻⁵ m³ s⁻¹), fluid temperature (0, −5, −10, −15 and −20 °C) and ultrasound intensity (0, 190, 890 and 2800 W m⁻²), leading to Re range of 0.98–3.4 and Pr range of 68.3–188.9. The Nu number varied from 6.8 to 19 for non-irradiated samples. When ultrasound was irradiated (890 W m⁻²) the range of Nu number increased to 11–31. Enhancement factors from 30% to 119% were observed for the irradiated samples. The largest values of the enhancement factor were observed for low values of Re and Pr which demonstrated a better efficiency of ultrasound irradiation at higher viscosities and lower flow rates as a result of its mixing and cavitation effects. The results obtained in this study confirmed that ultrasound irradiation is able to enhance the convective heat transfer rate between the cooling medium and the submerged object. Irradiation effect was independent of sphere diameter and a linear relationship was detected between the ultrasound intensity and the Nu number. A correlation was suggested to predict the values of Nu at the presence or absence of ultrasound for different Re and Pr values with good agreement with the experimental data (R² = 0.90). The obtained data for copper can be generalized for food products with similar geometries and can be used for process design, as the convective heat transfer is mostly controlled by the cooling medium.     

Thermodynamic analysis of load-leveling hyper energy converting and utilization system

Load-leveling hyper energy converting and utilization system (LHECUS) is a hybrid cycle which utilizes ammonia–water mixture as the working fluid in a combined power generation and refrigeration cycle. The power generation cycle functions as a Kalina cycle and an absorption refrigeration cycle is combined with it as a bottoming cycle. LHECUS is designed to utilize the waste heat from industry to produce cooling and power simultaneously. The refrigeration effect can be either transported to end-use sectors by means of a solution transportation absorption chiller (STA) as solution concentration difference or stored for demand load leveling.     

Molecular Framework of Mouse Endothelial Cell Dysfunction during Inflammation: A Proteomics Approach

A key aspect of cytokine-induced changes as observed in sepsis is the dysregulated activation of endothelial cells (ECs), initiating a cascade of inflammatory signaling leading to leukocyte adhesion/migration and organ damage. The therapeutic targeting of ECs has been hampered by concerns regarding organ-specific EC heterogeneity and their response to inflammation. Using in vitro and in silico analysis, we present a comprehensive analysis of the proteomic changes in mouse lung, liver and kidney ECs following exposure to a clinically relevant cocktail of proinflammatory cytokines. Mouse lung, liver and kidney ECs were incubated with TNF-α/IL-1β/IFN-γ for 4 or 24 h to model the cytokine-induced changes. Quantitative label-free global proteomics and bioinformatic analysis performed on the ECs provide a molecular framework for the EC response to inflammatory stimuli over time and organ-specific differences. Gene Ontology and PANTHER analysis suggest why some organs are more susceptible to inflammation early on, and show that, as inflammation progresses, some protein expression patterns become more uniform while additional organ-specific proteins are expressed. These findings provide an in-depth understanding of the molecular changes involved in the EC response to inflammation and can support the development of drugs targeting ECs within different organs. Data are available via ProteomeXchange (identifier PXD031804).     

Microstructural and microwave dielectric properties of LZT (Li2ZnTi3O8) ceramics sintered in presence of bismuth borate glass for LTCC applications

In the present research, the Li₂ZnTi₃O₈(LZT) ceramics were synthesized throughout solid-state ceramic processing, then mixed with bismuth borate (BiBO) glass prepared based on conventional melt quenching method. Wetting behavior of BiBO glass on the LZT ceramic substrate was monitored by hot stage microscopy. Afterward, dielectric LZT ceramics containing different amounts of BiBO glass (0.25–6 wt%) were sintered at various temperatures. X-ray diffraction and electron back scatter diffraction examinations revealed the presence of two crystalline phases of Li₂ZnTi₃O₈ and Bi₂Ti₂O₇. The maximum value of relative density (above 95%) was obtained in the case of specimens contained more than 5 wt% glass. The microwave dielectric properties of the finally sintered BiBO glass containing LZT ceramics were as follows: dielectric constant (ε_r) = 21.44–25.09, quality factor (Q × f) = 10839–54708 GHz and temperature coefficient of resonant frequency (τ_f) = (? 15.58) ? (? 12.86)ppm/°C.     

Video-based isolated hand sign language recognition using a deep cascaded model

In this paper, we propose an efficient cascaded model for sign language recognition taking benefit from spatio-temporal hand-based information using deep learning approaches, especially Single Shot Detector (SSD), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), from videos. Our simple yet efficient and accurate model includes two main parts: hand detection and sign recognition. Three types of spatial features, including hand features, Extra Spatial Hand Relation (ESHR) features, and Hand Pose (HP) features, have been fused in the model to feed to LSTM for temporal features extraction. We train SSD model for hand detection using some videos collected from five online sign dictionaries. Our model is evaluated on our proposed dataset (Rastgoo et al., Expert Syst Appl 150: 113336, 2020), including 10’000 sign videos for 100 Persian sign using 10 contributors in 10 different backgrounds, and isoGD dataset. Using the 5-fold cross-validation method, our model outperforms state-of-the-art alternatives in sign language recognition

     

Highly efficient synthesis of benzopyranopyridines via ZrP2O7 nanoparticles catalyzed multicomponent reactions of salicylaldehydes with malononitrile and thiols

ZrP₂O₇ nanoparticles as an efficient catalyst have been used for the preparation of benzopyrano[2,3-b]pyridines from the four-component condensation reaction of salicylalde-hydes, thiols, and 2 equiv. of malononitrile under reflux conditions in ethanol in excellent yields and short reaction times.     

Nonlinear free vibration of temperature-dependent sandwich beams with carbon nanotube-reinforced face sheets

In this research, large amplitude free vibrations of a sandwich beam with stiff core and carbonnanotube (CNT)-reinforced face sheets are analysed. The distribution of CNTs across the thickness of the facesheets may be uniform or functionally graded. The equivalent single- layer theory of Timoshenko is used toconstruct the Hamiltonian of the beam under the von Kármán type of geometrical nonlinearity assumptions.A uniform temperature field through the beam is also included in the formulation. The Ritz method withpolynomial basis functions is used to discrete the equations of motion and establish the matrix representation ofthe governing equations. A nonlinear eigenvalue problem is obtained and solved using a standard continuationprocedure. After validating the developed solution method and formulation, parametric studies are conductedto examine the influences of thermal environment, core thickness-to-face sheet thickness ratio, boundaryconditions, amplitude of vibrations, CNTs volume fraction and their distribution pattern. It is concludedthat an increase in the volume fraction of CNTs results in higher fundamental frequency and decreases thenonlinear-to-linear frequency ratio.     

Application of the adjoint multi-point and the robust optimization of shock control bump for transonic aerofoils and wings

A shock control bump (SCB) is a flow control method which uses a local small deformation in a flexible wing surface to considerably reduce the strength of shock waves and the resulting wave drag in transonic flows. Most of the reported research is devoted to optimization in a single flow condition. Here, both equally and variably weighted multi-point optimization and a robust adjoint optimization scheme are used to optimize the SCB. The numerical simulation of the turbulent viscous flow and a gradient-based adjoint algorithm are used to find the optimum location and shape of the SCB for two benchmark aerofoils. A multi-point optimization method under a constant-lift-coefficient constraint is implemented to find the optimum design of a two-dimensional (2D) SCB and it is observed that the general results are similar to other optimization algorithms. To show that these results are extendable to real three-dimensional (3D) cases, a 3D bump model with 11 parameters is introduced, and it is optimized using both single- and multi-point optimization procedures. Although the 3D flow structure involves much more complexity, the overall results are shown to be similar to the 2D case.     

Titanium-containing bioactive phosphate glasses

The use of biomaterials has revolutionized the biomedical field and has received substantial attention in the last two decades. Among the various types of biomaterials, phosphate glasses have generated great interest on account of their remarkable bioactivity and favourable physical properties for various biomedical applications relating to both hard and soft tissue regeneration. This review paper focuses mainly on the development of titanium-containing phosphate-based glasses and presents an overview of the structural and physical properties. The effect of titanium incorporation on the glassy network is to introduce favourable properties. The biocompatibility of these glasses is described along with recent developments in processing methodologies, and the potential of Ti-containing phosphate-based glasses as a bone substitute material is explored.