Operation principles for hydrogen spark ignited direct injection engines for passenger car applications

The sustainable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from road transport requires solutions to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, in addition to vehicles with electrified powertrains, such as those implemented in battery electric of fuel cell vehicles, internal combustion engines fueled with e-fuels or biofuels are also under discussion. An e-fuel that has come into focus recently, is hydrogen due to its potential to achieve zero tank-to-wheel and well-to-wheel carbon dioxide emissions when the electrolysis is powered by electricity from renewable sources. Due to the high laminar burning velocity, hydrogen has the potential for engine operation with high cylinder charge dilution by e.g. external exhaust gas recirculation or enleanment, resulting in increased efficiency. On the other hand, the high burning velocity and high adiabatic flame temperatures pose a challenge for engine cooling due to increased heat losses compared to conventional fuels. To further evaluate the use of hydrogen for small passenger car engines, a series production 1 L 3 cylinder gasoline engine provided by Ford Werke GmbH was modified for hydrogen direct injection. The engine was equipped with a high pressure external exhaust gas recirculation system to investigate charge dilution at stoichiometric operation. Due to limitations of the turbocharging system, very lean operation, which can achieve nitrogen oxides raw emissions below 10 ppm, was limited to part load operation below BMEP = 8 bar. Thus, a reduction of the nitrogen oxides emission level at high loads compared to stoichiometric operation was not possible. At stoichiometric operation with external exhaust gas recirculation engine efficiency can be increased significantly. The comparison of stoichiometric hydrogen and gasoline operation shows a reduced indicated efficiency with hydrogen with significant faster combustion of hydrogen at comparable centers of combustion. However, higher boost pressures would allow to achieve even higher indicated efficiencies by charge dilution compared to gasoline engine operation.     

纳米零价铁材料对放射性核素的 去除及机理研究进展

随着人类社会的发展，放射性铀矿的开采和使用越来越多，环境面临着越来越严重的放射性污染问题。从生物和环境的角度来看，有效地清除环境中的放射性核素是核能利用过程中最重要的问题之一。纳米零价铁（nanoscale zero valent iron, nZVI）具有较大的比表面积和较高的活性位点，能显著提高放射性污染物的修复效率。本综述的目的是展示nZVI基材料对放射性核素的高效去除能力和环境修复作用。简介了常用的nZVI基材料（表面改性或多孔材料支撑的nZVI材料）及其对放射性核素的去除效果和相互作用机制（如吸附和氧化还原）。最后，对nZVI材料的应用和挑战给出个人见解。本综述有助于为高效去除放射性核素的nZVI材料的设计指明方向，为放射性核素的高效处理处置提供新材料。     

Airborne bacterial assemblage in a zero carbon building: A case study

Currently, there is little information pertaining to the airborne bacterial communities of green buildings. In this case study, the air bacterial community of a zero carbon building (ZCB) in Hong Kong was characterized by targeting the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. Bacteria associated with the outdoor environment dominated the indoor airborne bacterial assemblage, with a modest contribution from bacteria associated with human skin. Differences in overall community diversity, membership, and composition associated with short (day‐to‐day) and long‐term temporal properties were detected, which may have been driven by specific environmental genera and taxa. Furthermore, time‐decay relationships in community membership (based on unweighted UniFrac distances) and composition (based on weighted UniFrac distances) differed depending on the season and sampling location. A Bayesian source‐tracking approach further supported the importance of adjacent outdoor air bacterial assemblage in sourcing the ZCB indoor bioaerosol. Despite the unique building attributes, the ZCB microbial assemblage detected and its temporal characteristics were not dissimilar to that of conventional built environments investigated previously. Future controlled experiments and microbial assemblage investigations of other ZCBs will undoubtedly uncover additional knowledge related to how airborne bacteria in green buildings may be influenced by their distinctive architectural attributes.     

Spin‐Gapless Semiconductors

The spin‐gapless semiconductors (SGSs) are a new class of zero‐gap materials which have fully spin polarized electrons and holes. They bridge the zero‐gap materials and the half‐metals. The band structures of the SGSs can have two types of energy dispersion: Dirac linear dispersion and parabolic dispersion. The Dirac‐type SGSs exhibit fully spin polarized Dirac cones, and offer a platform for massless and fully spin polarized spintronics as well as dissipationless edge states via the quantum anomalous Hall effect. With fascinating spin and charge states, they hold great potential for spintronics. There have been tremendous efforts worldwide to find suitable candidates for SGSs. In particular, there is an increasing interest in searching for Dirac type SGSs. In the past decade, a large number of Dirac or parabolic type SGSs have been predicted by density functional theory, and some parabolic SGSs have been experimentally demonstrated. The SGSs hold great potential for spintronics, electronics, and optoelectronics with high speed and low‐energy consumption. Here, both the Dirac and the parabolic types of SGSs in different material systems are reviewed and the concepts of the SGS, novel spin and charge states, and the potential applications of SGSs in next‐generation spintronic devices are outlined.     

Graph-based video fingerprinting using double optimal projection

A double optimal projection method that involves projections for intra-cluster and inter-cluster dimensionality reduction are proposed for video fingerprinting. The video is initially set as a graph with frames as its vertices in a high-dimensional space. A similarity measure that can compute the weights of the edges is then proposed. Subsequently, the video frames are partitioned into different clusters based on the graph model. Double optimal projection is used to explore the optimal mapping points in a low-dimensional space to reduce the video dimensions. The statistics and geometrical fingerprints are generated to determine whether a query video is copied from one of the videos in the database. During matching, the video can be roughly matched by utilizing the statistics fingerprint. Further matching is thereafter performed in the corresponding group using geometrical fingerprints. Experimental results show the good performance of the proposed video fingerprinting method in robustness and discrimination.     

纳米铁的绿色合成及其在环境中的应用研究进展

纳米铁（零价铁及铁氧化物）比表面积大、还原能力强、反应活性高，是一种良好的环境功能材料。传统的纳米铁合成方法中，物理方法对反应所需仪器设备要求较高，化学方法使用的还原剂具有毒性，绿色合成方法能够有效克服传统方法的不足之处。本文首先根据合成途径、纳米铁的类型介绍了利用植物和微生物对纳米零价铁（nZVI）及纳米铁氧化物（IONPs）进行绿色合成的方法，同时论述了制备的纳米铁所表现的特征（如形貌、尺寸、聚集倾向、等电位点）。随后总结了纳米铁通过不同反应机制（吸附、还原、催化氧化）去除环境有机、无机污染物（染料、芳香族化合物、硝酸盐、重金属）的应用。最后指出了纳米铁在绿色合成与实际应用过程中存在的挑战性问题及解决方法，以期为纳米铁今后的深入研究和大规模的工业生产应用提供参考依据。     

考虑关节角加速度约束的仿人机器人偏摆力矩控制方法

针对仿人机器人步行过程中存在的机器人关节角加速度约束影响控制性能的问题，提出一种考虑关节角加速度约束的仿人机器人偏摆力矩控制方法.该方法充分考虑了双臂在摆动过程中对偏摆力矩的影响，根据力矩平衡条件得到需要抵消的偏摆力矩的大小与方向，将偏摆力矩的控制问题转化为带约束条件的二次规划问题，并设计了一种在线变步长迭代算法计算得到优化后的双臂摆动轨迹.实验表明，该方法能有效抵消机器人步行中产生的偏摆力矩，避免控制过程中的"削峰"现象，有效提高机器人的步行稳定性.     

Design and locomotion analysis of two kinds of rolling expandable mobile linkages with a single degree of freedom

Frontiers of Mechanical Engineering - This study presents two kinds of rolling robots that are able to roll by deforming their outer shapes with a single degree of freedom. Each robot is an...     

Effects of different feeding levels during a 14-week preweaning phase in dairy heifer calves on telomere length and mitochondrial DNA copy number in blood

Telomeres cap the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, and the telomere length (TL) is related to cellular age. The mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) reflects the abundance of mitochondria in a cell. In addition to generating energy, mitochondria are also the main producers of reactive oxygen species, which in turn can accelerate TL attrition and impair mitochondrial function. Nutrition in early life could influence mtDNAcn and TL in later life. In the present study, we investigated the effects of feeding different levels of milk replacer (MR) on TL shortening and energetic status by examining mtDNAcn of heifers during their first year of life. In this study, whole blood samples were obtained from German Holstein heifer calves 36 to 48 h after birth (wk 1) and at wk 12 and wk 16 of life (n = 37), as well as from 31 calves when reaching 1 yr of age. Calves were fed either a high level of MR (14% solids) at 10 L/d (1.4 kg of MR/d; n = 18) or a restrictive low level at 5.7 L/d (0.8 kg of MR/d; n = 19) until linear weaning in wk 13 to 14 of life. Additional whole blood samples were taken from their respective dams 36 to 48 h after calving. Relative TL (qT) and mtDNAcn in cells from whole blood were measured by multiplex quantitative PCR. The greatest qT values were observed in neonates (36–48 h after birth), with decreasing qT values thereafter. Delta qT values were calculated as ΔqT = qT (first year of life) ? initial qT (36–48 h after birth). We found no effect of the feeding regimen on qT values, but qT decreased with age. The mtDNAcn was lowest in neonates, increased until wk 12 of life, and then remained at a constant level until after weaning (wk 16). After the first year of life, mtDNAcn was decreased and returned to levels comparable to those of the neonatal stage. No differences in mtDNAcn were detectable between feeding groups within each time point. When comparing the values of qT and mtDNAcn between the calves and their dams after calving (36–48 h after birth and after calving), greater values were observed in calves than in dams. Delta qT values were negative in all but 2 calves (on the restricted diet), indicating that the change in TL with age was not uniform among individual animals, whereas no difference in mean ΔqT values occurred between the feeding groups. Additional analyses of the correlation between qT, mtDNAcn, and various indicators of oxidative status from birth until wk 16 of life did not indicate major interactions between oxidative status, qT and mtDNAcn. The results of this study support an age-dependent decrease of TL in calves independent of the MR feeding level and show the dynamic changes of mtDNAcn in early life.