Estimates of pollutant temporal and spatial variability in commercial buildings from the joint urban 2003 field experiments

In this paper, we report on the indoor concentrations from a suite of full-scale outdoor tracer-gas point releases conducted in the downtown area of Oklahoma City in 2003. A point release experiment consisted of releases of sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) in multiple buildings and from different outdoor locations. From the measurements, we are able to estimate the concentration variations indoors for a building operating under “typical” operating conditions. The mean indoor spatial coefficients of variation are 30% to 45% from a daytime outdoor release are around 80% during an outdoor evening release. Having estimates of the spatial coefficient of variation provides stakeholders, including first responders, with the likely range of concentrations in the building when little is known about the building characteristics and operating behavior, such as developing urban-scale hazard and consequence analyses. We show differences in indoor measurements at different distances to the release points, floors of the building, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC) operation. We also show estimates at different time resolutions. The statistics show that in the studied medium to large commercial buildings, spatial differences would result in peak indoor concentrations in certain parts of the buildings that may be substantially higher than the building average. To our knowledge, very few tracer gas measurements have been conducted in buildings of this scope, particularly with measurements on multiple floors and within a floor. The resulting estimates of spatial variability provide a unique opportunity for hazard assessment, and comparison to multi-zone models.     

Perfluorocarbons in Chemical Biology

Perfluorocarbons, saturated carbon chains in which all the hydrogen atoms are replaced with fluorine, form a separate phase from both organic and aqueous solutions. Though perfluorinated compounds are not found in living systems, they can be used to modify biomolecules to confer orthogonal behavior within natural systems, such as improved stability, engineered assembly, and cell-permeability. Perfluorinated groups also provide handles for purification, mass spectrometry, and ¹⁹F NMR studies in complex environments. Herein, we describe how the unique properties of perfluorocarbons have been employed to understand and manipulate biological systems.     

Development and monitoring of an integrated bioprocess for production of a potential malaria vaccine with Pichia pastoris

An engineered variant of the yeast Pichia pastoris was used to produce the potential malaria vaccine D1M1. This paper describes the implementation of an expanded bed adsorption chromatography step into a sequential cultivation process of the yeast in order to link protein expression, cell release, and product capture of the secreted protein in a fully automated plant. The process is operated with a semi-continuous strategy for an integrated production. Process improvements have been achieved using design of experiments. Resulting purities of product achieved up to 87% with recoveries of 51% in a single downstream operation. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of historical batch data was used to develop a golden batch model for process monitoring.     

Systematic convergence of nonlinear stochastic estimators on the Special Orthogonal Group SO(3)

This paper introduces two novel nonlinear stochastic attitude estimators developed on the Special Orthogonal Group with the tracking error of the normalized Euclidean distance meeting predefined transient and steady‐state characteristics. The tracking error is confined to initially start within a predetermined large set such that the transient performance is guaranteed to obey dynamically reducing boundaries and decrease smoothly and asymptotically to the origin in probability from almost any initial condition. The proposed estimators produce accurate attitude estimates with remarkable convergence properties using measurements obtained from low‐cost inertial measurement units. The estimators proposed in continuous form are complemented by their discrete versions for the implementation purposes. The simulation results illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed estimators against uncertain measurements and large initialization error, whether in continuous or discrete form.     

A Least Squares Approach to Escalator Algorithms for Adaptive Filtering

In this paper, we introduce an escalator (ESC) algorithm based on the least squares (LS) criterion. The proposed algorithm is relatively insensitive to the eigenvalue spread ratio (ESR) of an input signal and has a faster convergence speed than the conventional ESC algorithms. This algorithm exploits the fast adaptation ability of least squares methods and the orthogonalization property of the ESC structure. From the simulation results, the proposed algorithm shows superior convergence performance.     

CO2吞吐工艺操作参数的整体优化设计

针对ZY油田原油CO2吞吐的工艺过程，建立了CO2吞吐数值模拟模型。应用数值模拟方法对CO2吞吐进行了实例分析，首先对该井的CO2吞吐参数进行了单因素敏感性分析，分析了CO2周期注入量、注入速度、焖井时间、采液速度等因素对CO2吞吐效果的影响。在此基础上进一步运用正交试验方法对CO2吞吐参数进行了优化，通过计算表明用正交试验优选法得到的优化方案比单因素敏感性分析所得的优化结果更为合理。     

Cu基络合物催化甲醇液相氧化羰化反应

针对甲醇液相氧化羰基化法合成碳酸二甲酯(DMC)工艺,开发了新型Cu基络合催化剂(CuB rnLm)。对CuB rnLm催化剂的活性及其稳定性进行了研究。实验结果表明,采用该催化剂,甲醇转化率和DMC选择性较高;元素价态和物质结构分析表明,CuB rnLm催化剂循环使用5次后仍保持较好的稳定性。采用正交设计和中心响应曲面法设计实验,并使用S tatistica软件进行统计分析,寻求出反应的主要影响因素,并得到优化的工艺条件:反应温度100~110℃、反应压力3.0~3.5M Pa、反应时间4~6h、CuB rnLm催化剂质量浓度(以甲醇的体积计)0.15~0.20g/mL。在此工艺条件下,甲醇转化率可达23%以上,DMC的选择性为96%~98%。     

大型结构试验和结构监测中的数据采集系统

结构试验和结构监测正在向大型化和复杂化发展,与之配套的数据采集系统也要能满足它们不断增长的需求。清华大学土木工程系开发了适用于土木工程结构试验与监测的集成数据采集系统 IMPDAS,它具有测点多,速度快,功能全等优点。它的任务,不仅仅是记录数据,而是集成并且管理数据,将各种数据信息有条理,有重点地反馈给试验者。本文将讨论计算机在大型结构试验和结构监测的数据采集及数据处理分析等方面的应用。