Improving water retention of chicken breast meats by CaCl2 combined with pulsed electric fields

Frozen poultry meat is the most widely consumed animal-based food. However, water loss often leads to quality loss of poultry meat. Therefore, the present study sought to investigate the combined effect of calcium chloride (CaCl₂) and pulsed electric fields (PEF) treatment on chicken breast meats and the mechanisms underlying protein degradation. The results showed that the synergistic effect was superior to the single treatment. Compared with the untreated group, the combination of CaCl₂ and PEF increased water holding capacity of chicken breast meats by 16.61% and decreased cooking loss by 28.93%. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) results indicated that the synergistic treatment promoted water molecules' binding capacity in myofibrils of poultry meat, which exhibited higher immobilised water. Additionally, the combination of CaCl₂ and PEF led to increased degradation of proteins of high-molecular weight and surface hydrophobicity of myofibrillar protein. Furthermore, the extension of the protein molecule and microenvironmental changes promoted interaction between protein and water. In conclusion, the synergistic treatment of CaCl₂ and PEF enhanced water retention and improved physicochemical properties of the myofibrillar protein in chicken breast meats.     

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Stimulation in Osteogenesis and Chondrogenesis: Signaling Pathways and Therapeutic Implications

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are the main cell players in tissue repair and thanks to their self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation capabilities, they gained significant attention as cell source for tissue engineering (TE) approaches aimed at restoring bone and cartilage defects. Despite significant progress, their therapeutic application remains debated: the TE construct often fails to completely restore the biomechanical properties of the native tissue, leading to poor clinical outcomes in the long term. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) are currently used as a safe and non-invasive treatment to enhance bone healing and to provide joint protection. PEMFs enhance both osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs. Here, we provide extensive review of the signaling pathways modulated by PEMFs during MSCs osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. Particular attention has been given to the PEMF-mediated activation of the adenosine signaling and their regulation of the inflammatory response as key player in TE approaches. Overall, the application of PEMFs in tissue repair is foreseen: (1) in vitro: to improve the functional and mechanical properties of the engineered construct; (2) in vivo: (i) to favor graft integration, (ii) to control the local inflammatory response, and (iii) to foster tissue repair from both implanted and resident MSCs cells.     

A novel flow field with controllable pressure gradient to enhance mass transport and water removal of PEM fuel cells

An easily machined novel flow field with controllable pressure gradient across adjacent channels was designed and a two dimensional, across-the-channel, two-phase model was developed to study the gas transport and water removal of the novel configuration. The effect of channel-rib width ratio, GDL thickness and pressure gradient on the profiles of oxygen concentration and water saturation within the GDL were investigated. Special attention was paid to the mechanisms of the promoted mass transport and water removal rates under a pressure gradient. The model was validated by experiments with various channel-rib ratios and GDL thicknesses at different operating pressure. The results revealed that, oxygen concentration was increased, and the water saturation was reduced under the rib with a pressure gradient generated across the adjacent channels. The optimal pressure gradient is between 0.1 to 0.2 atm for the studied channel geometry and configuration. The mechanisms of the improved cell performance were elucidated.     

双盘式磁力耦合器振动噪声分析与实验研究

为了在双盘式磁力耦合器设计阶段分析振动噪声特性,优化双盘式磁力耦合器设计,提出了一种利用模态叠加原理来分析其振动噪声的方法。双盘式磁力耦合器具有高转矩密度与高效率等优势,因此逐渐发展成为煤矿机械柔性传动装置。由于双盘式磁力耦合内部的转子磁场非正弦分布以及涡电流谐波等因素影响,双盘式磁力耦合器输出转矩中不可避免的存在波动。若根据计算得出的双盘式磁力耦合器的电磁振动噪声特点,在设计时选取振动噪声小的参数进行优化组合,可在实际中降低其电磁振动及噪声,有利于减少制造成本。本文结合双盘式磁力耦合器的结构特征,提出了一种模态叠加响应法计算电磁振动噪声,建立了其电磁径向力的解析模型,并在多物理场耦合作用下分析主要电磁径向力波在工作频率内的谐波响应,最后在额定功率为55 kW双盘式磁力耦合器实验台上进行试验验证。基于麦克斯韦张量法,建立了双盘式磁力耦合器的径向电磁力解析模型,并得出0阶与10阶电磁径向力波是产生振动噪声的最主要原因;利用多物理场耦合分析法进行谐波响应NVH特性分析,结果显示0阶力波的振动加速度与形变量均大于10阶力波的振动加速度与形变量,因此双盘式磁力耦合器的电磁振动主要来源于0阶力波;在额定功率为55 kW,最高转速为1 500 r/min的双盘式磁力耦合器实验台进行振动测试,试验结果显示在1 500 r/min时,试验得出的最大振动峰值及频率约为35 m/s^2和4 950 Hz,与有限元仿真结果的误差对应为6.3%和1.1%;而当变频电机的输入转速依次增大时,振动加速度的理论值、仿真值与试验值的曲线形态较为接近,误差较小;噪声估计值与实测值的最大误差仅为8.9%,基本验证了本文所提出模态叠加法的正确性。     

Better damage of chicory tissue by combined electroporation and ohmic heating for solute extraction

Damage of chicory tissue by combined electroporation and ohmic heating is studied for better solute extraction. Moderate (400–1000 V/cm) and high (10,000 V/cm) PEF treatments were applied varying pause duration between the trains of individual pulses. Ohmic heating was induced with increase of the number of trains N. Temperature dependence of tissue damage degree Z is evaluated for the different PEF intensities. With higher ohmic heating, chicory tissue is faster and better damaged. Electric field strengths of 600–800 V/cm combined with ohmic heating permit to enhance noticeably the solute extraction from chicory tissue. The solute diffusivity D for the different PEF treatments, is nearly the same for same values of Z. Chicory tissue treated to the same damage degree (Z = 0.8–1.0) using different PEF conditions (800, 1000 and 10,000 V/cm) has nearly the same diffusivity.Combined electroporation/ohmic heating pretreatment by moderate PEF (400–1000 V/cm) presents an interesting alterative for the treatment of high product throughputs (e.g. in the case of inulin production from chicory).     

Spatially constrained sparse coding scheme for natural scene categorization

Coding and pooling, the major two sequential procedures in sparse coding based scene categorization systems, have drawn much attention in recent years. Yet improvements have been made for coding or pooling separately, this paper proposes a spatially constrained scheme for sparse coding on both steps. Specifically, we employ the m-nearest neighbors of a local feature in the image space to improve the consistency of coding. The benefit is that similar image features will be encoded with similar codewords, which reduced the stochasticity of a conventional coding strategy. We also show that the Viola–Jones algorithm, which is well-known in face detection, can be tailored to learning receptive fields, embedding the spatially constrained information on the pooling step. Extensive experiments on the UIUC sport event, 15 natural scenes and the Caltech 101 database suggests that scene categorization performance of several popular algorithms can be ubiquitously improved by incorporating the proposed two spatially constrained sparse coding scheme.     

Modulation of iron–nickel layers composition by an external magnetic field

In this article, characterization of FeNi layers deposited on a Cu plate for variable magnetic field arrangement is shown. Layers were prepared using a simple electrodeposition process, from an aqueous solution of Fe²⁺ and Ni²⁺ sulfate salts containing boric acid, an iron activator. By application of variation of current values, times, and external magnetic field orientations, the resultant film quality was examined and the efficiency of the embedded elements was investigated. The studies show differences in the coating morphology and relative composition of ferromagnetic metals (Ni, Fe) electrodeposited on a not ferromagnetic (paramagnetic) metal (Cu). The obtained layers were investigated by Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy.     

On auto- and cross-interdependence in interval field finite element analysis

This paper discusses the concepts of auto- and cross-interdependence in interval field finite element analysis. In classic interval analysis, independent intervals are used to construct hyper-rectangular input spaces that correspond to the bounded uncertainty that is present on some model parameters. This is a direct result from the inability of modeling interdependence. Such assumption of complete independence might prove in some cases to be highly over-conservative. A first example is the modeling of spatial uncertainty, where the interdependence is governed by allowable spatial gradients of field realizations. Secondly, interdependence can also occur in case uncertainty in several structural quantities has the same root cause (eg, the manufacturing process). Recent work by the authors introduced concepts for modeling dependence between intervals in a spatial and multivariate context. However, it is unclear how an analyst has to deal with multiple quantities that have a spatial uncertainty component and are furthermore interdependent. This paper presents an approach to link multiple interval fields using recently introduced convex hull pair constructions and inverse distance weighting interpolation. Two case studies to illustrate the new methodology are included, proving the flexibility of the methodology in the modeling of auto- and cross-interdependence between multiple interval scalars and/or interval fields.     

基于双向耦合的东安513型发动机整机多物理场研究

以东安513型汽油发动机整机为例,基于ANSYS有限元分析软件对其进行流体场、瞬态温度场以及瞬态结构场的多物理场双向耦合研究,实现了对发动机实际工况下的有限元分析。研究了发动机整机在实际工况下的受力以及密封情况,并对现有发动机组合结构存在的密封缺陷进行优化调整。文中详细阐述了在分析过程中涉及到的关键技术和要点,并最终获得了发动机整机实际工作状态下的多个结果云图。根据分析结果云图可以发现,发动机在热载荷、螺栓预紧力以及爆破压力的共同影响下,会使整机发生一定的形变,这种变形会影响其工作状况下的密封性能。通过对分析结果的研究,最终选择调整螺栓预紧力的大小和分布来提高发动机密封性能。