Mixed convection in the heated semi-circular lid-driven cavity for nonNewtonian power-law fluids: Effect of presence and shape of the block

The present work delineates the hydrodynamics and thermal characteristics due to mixed convection in the liddriven semi-circular cavity affected by the presence of the adiabatic block at its geometric center for twodimensional, steady-state, laminar and for non-Newtonian power-law fluids. The semi-circular cavity has a diameter of D. The horizontal wall/lid is sliding with a uniform horizontal velocity(u = U) and is subjugated to the ambient thermal condition; while the curved surface is subjugated to a higher isothermal temperature.The convective characteristics inside the system is explored for the broad range of Richardson number(0.1 ≤Ri ≤ 10), Prandtl number(1 ≤ Pr ≤ 100) and non-Newtonian power-law index(0.5 ≤ n ≤ 1.5) at a constant Grashof number of 10~4. Apart from this, the effect of shape(cross-section) of the inserted block, i.e., circular, square and triangular on heat transfer characteristics has also been explored. It is observed that the shear thickening fluids display better cooling characteristics. Besides, the cavity with immersed triangular block shows better heat transfer results than the circular and square blocks. The deviations observed in the flow and heat transfer characteristics in the cavity by inserting an adiabatic block as compared with cavity without block have been ascertained by calculating normalized Nusselt number(Nu~N). The presence of the block was found to have a diminishing effect on the heat transfer due to convection in the cavity. In the end, the results of the study are summarized in the form of a predictive correlation exhibiting the functional dependence of average Nusselt number with Prandtl number, power-law index, and Richardson number.     

Microenvironmental engineering:An effective strategy for tailoring enzymatic activities

Rationally, engineering a favorable physicochemical microenvironment for enzymes has recently emerged as an effective strategy to improve their catalytic performance. In this review, we discuss four microenvironmental effects according to the mechanism of action: localizing and excluding reactants and regulators, regulating microenvironmental pH, creating a water-like microenvironment, and increasing the local temperature. These mechanisms are enzyme-independent and can in principle be used in combination to tailor enzyme behaviors,offering new approaches to enabling, enhancing, and regulating enzyme catalysis in diverse applications without the need for genetic engineering.     

Review of latent thermal energy storage systems for solar air-conditioning systems

Solar air conditioning is an important approach to satisfy the high demand for cooling given the global energy situation. The application of phase-change materials (PCMs) in a thermal storage system is a way to address temporary power problems of solar air-conditioning systems. This paper reviews the selection, strengthening, and application of PCMs and containers in latent thermal storage system for solar air-conditioning systems. The optimization of PCM container geometry is summarized and analyzed. The hybrid enhancement methods for PCMs and containers and the cost assessment of latent thermal storage system are discussed. The more effective heat transfer enhancement using PCMs was found to mainly involve micro-nano additives. Combinations of fins and nanoadditives, nanoparticles, and metal foam are the main hybrid strengthening method. However, the thermal storage effect of hybrid strengthening is not necessarily better than single strengthening. At the same time, the latent thermal storage unit has less application in the field of solar air-conditioning systems, especially regarding heat recovery, because of its cost and thermal storage time. The integration of latent thermal storage units and solar air-conditioning components, economic analysis of improvement technology, and quantitative studies on hybrid improvement are potential research directions in the future.     

Review: Enhancement of composite anode materials for low-temperature solid oxide fuels

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology is attractive for its high-energy efficiency and expanded fuel flexibility. It is also more environmentally benign than conventional power generation systems. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to intermediate-to-low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells, which operating at 400–800 °C. Reducing its operating temperature can render SOFC more competitive with other types of fuel cells and portable energy storage system (EES) over a range of applications (eg: transportation, portable, stationary) and more conducive for commercialization. The high-performance composite anode requirements for low operating temperature (400–600 °C) demand microstructural and chemical stability, high electronic conductivity, and good electrochemical performance. The current high-temperature anode, Ni-YSZ (nickel-yttria stabilized zirconia) is generally reported with high interfacial resistance at reduced temperatures. This review highlights several potential composite anode materials (Ni-based and Ni-free) that have been developed for low-temperature SOFCs within the past 10 years. This literature survey shows that most of these anodes still exhibit relatively high polarization resistance. Focus is also given on reducing polarization resistance to maintain the cell power density. In literature, common approaches that have been adopted to enhance the performance of anodes are (i) selecting high-performance electrolyte, (ii) exploiting nanopowder properties, and (iii) adding noble metals as electrocatalysts.     

Broadband bowtie belt nanoantennas

In this article, we study a linear array of bowtie nanoantennas placed between two metallic strips that can work from 800 to 1420 nm (600 nm linewidth), with an electric field enhancement factor close to 20. We study the dynamical change of the position of the electric field enhancement amongst different elements in the array and, at the same time, the effects of dispersion on the scalability of the array elements. A systematic analysis and methodology to produce an array that can operate over a large bandwidth whilst maintaining the electric field enhancement without significant variation is provided.     

Optimization of three-dimensional boiling enhancement structure at evaporation surface for high power light emitting diode

A theoretical model of phase change heat sink was established in terms of thermal resistance network. The influence of different parameters on the thermal resistance was analyzed and the crucial impact factors were determined. Subsequently, the forming methods including ploughing–extrusion and stamping method of boiling enhancement structure at evaporation surface were investigated, upon which three-dimensional microgroove structure was fabricated to improve the efficiency of evaporation. Moreover, the crucial parameters related to the fabrication of miniaturized phase change heat sink were optimized. The heat transfer performance of the heat sink was tested. Results show that the developed phase change heat sink has excellent heat transfer performance and is suitable for high power LED applications.     

水下图像处理技术研究综述

随着自主式水下机器人的发展，水下探测技术成为新的研究热点。然而，吸收效应和散射效应导致水下获取的图像存在雾化和色彩偏差等缺陷。降质的水下图像在一定程度上降低了水下目标识别的准确性。为了改善水下图像质量，国内外学者对水下图像处理方法进行了深入研究。因水下图像处理方法对提升水下目标识别准确性具有良好的促进作用，故其具有重要的研究与分析价值。介绍了水下成像模型，分析了水下图像视觉质量下降的原理；根据水下物理成像模型将水下图像处理方法分为水下图像增强与水下图像复原，并分别对两类方法的研究现状进行分析与归纳；最后，总结与讨论了各类方法的优缺点，并展望了未来的发展方向。     

Stability and thermophysical properties of fly ash nanofluid for heat transfer applications

Improving the performance of heat transfer fluids is altogether significant. The best approach for improving the thermal conductivity is the addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid. In the present study, specific heat, dynamic viscosity, and thermal conductivity of water-based Indian coal fly ash stable nanofluid for 0.1% to 0.5% volume concentration in the temperature range of 30 to 60°C has been investigated. To evaluate an average particle diameter of 11.5 nm, the fly ash nanoparticles were characterized with scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. Using zeta potential, the stability of nanofluid in the presence of surfactant Triton X-100 was tested. Thermal conductivity and viscosity of fly ash nanofluid increased, while specific heat decreased as volume concentration increased. The effect of temperature on the fly ash nanofluid was directly proportional to its thermal conductivity and specific heat and inversely proportional to viscosity.     

Combination of dynamic features with a new mask to optimize neural network speech enhancement

Concerning the problem that the Neural Network speech enhancement algorithm cannot fully represent the nonlinear structure of speech due to feature selection,which leads to speech distortion.This paper proposes the combination of dynamic features with a new mask to optimize neural network speech enhancement.First,three features of noisy speech are extracted and spliced to obtain static features.Then,the first and second difference derivatives are obtained to capture the instantaneous signals of speech and fuse them into dynamic features.The combination of dynamic and static features completes internal complementarity of features and reduced speech distortion.Second,in order to enhance the intelligibility and clarity of speech at the same time,an adaptive mask is proposed,which can adjust the energy ratio of speech and noise as well as the ratio of the traditional mask and the square root mask.The Gammatone channel weight is used to modify the mask value in each channel to simulate the human auditory system and further improve the speech intelligibility.Finally,the simulation of multiple voices under different noise backgrounds shows that compared with different literature algorithms,the algorithm has a higher SNR,subjective speech quality and short-term objective intelligibility,which verifies the effectiveness of the algorithm.     

Diverse bio-sensing and therapeutic applications of plasmon enhanced nanostructures

Substantial advancements have been observed over the years in the research and development of Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR). A variety of current and future applications involving anisotropic plasmonic nanoparticles include biosensors, photothermal therapies, photocatalysis, and various other fields. Amongst various other applications, plasmonic enhancements are deployed in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) mediated bio-sensing, absorption spectroscopy based analyte quantification, and fluorescence spectroscopy-based biomolecular detection up to femtomolar level and even on the level of single molecules. LSPR based healthcare diagnostics and therapeutics have grown much faster than expected, with an increased number of published original research articles and reviews. Despite the extensive literature available, a comprehensive review with a focused emphasis on recent advances in the field of plasmonic particle anisotropy, plasmonic nanostructure, plasmonic coupling mediated enhanced LSPR intensity and their diverse applications in biosensing is needed. This article focuses on LSPR properties of anisotropic nanostructures like spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNP), gold nanorod (AuNR), gold nanostar (AuNs), gold nanorattles (AuNRT), gold nanoholes (AuNH), dimeric nanostructures and their role in plasmonic enhancements for targeted biosensing and therapeutic research. The contemporary state of the art biosensing development around SERS has also been discussed. A detailed literature analysis of recent development in micro-surgery, photothermal tumor killing, biosensor development for detection up to single molecule level, high-efficiency drug delivery are covered in this article. Furthermore, recent and advanced technologies including Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS), Surface Enhanced Resonance Raman Spectroscopy (SERRS), and Surface Enhanced Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SESORS) are presented citing their importance in biosensing. We complement this review article with relevant theoretical frameworks to understand finer nuances within the literature that is discussed.