The split of vertical two-phase flow at a small diameter T-junction

Measurements and observations of the phase split occurring at a small diameter vertical T-junction are reported. Time varying, void fraction data obtained using ring-type conductance probes have been analysed to yield valuable information regarding the effect of the junction on flow behaviour. It is shown through comparisons with the work of Stacey et al. [2000. The split of annular two-phase flow at a small diameter T-junction. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 26, 845-856] in a horizontal T-junction of a similar size that the orientation of the junction has no influence on the flow split. This behaviour is attributed to the absence of flooding and is corroborated by our high-speed images. Subsequently, better prediction of the phase split is obtained when the model of Azzopardi [1988. Measurements and observations of the split of annular flow at a vertical T-junction. International Journal of Multiphase Flow 14, 701-710] is modified to account for the absence of flooding. Regarding flow transitions, the methods by Barnea et al. [1983. Flow pattern in horizontal and vertical two-phase flow in small diameter pipes. The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering 61, 617-620] and Omebere-Iyari et al. [2005. Flow patterns for gas/liquid flow in small diameter tubes. Ninth UK National Heat Transfer Conference, Manchester, UK, 5-6 September] are found to give good predictions of the exit flow patterns in the horizontal side arm and vertical run arm, respectively.     

The toxic effect of ketamine on SH‐SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line and human neuron

Ketamine used as an injectable anesthetic in human and animal medicine is also a recreational drug used primarily by young adults often at all night dance parties in nightclubs. The percentage of ketamine users has grown very fast in the last 5 years worldwide. However, this leads to the serious question of the long‐term adverse effects of ketamine on our nervous system, particularly the brain, because ketamine as an NMDA antagonist could cause neurons to commit apoptosis. Our study therefore aimed to find out the chronic effect of ketamine on neuron using prolonged incubation (48 h) of neuronal cells with ketamine in culture. Our results showed that differentiated neuronal cells were prone to the toxicity of ketamine but probably less susceptible than undifferentiated neuronal cells and fibroblasts. This suggested that the ketamine abuse would be harmful to many other organs as well as the brain. Our results also confirmed that the toxicity of ketamine is related to apoptosis via the Bax/Bcl‐2 ratio pathway and caspase‐3 in the differentiated neuronal cells. Therefore, long‐term ketamine treated cell or animal models should be sought to study this multiorgan effects of ketamine. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

植入式医学传感器体内通信的建模与分析

研究植入式医学传感器体内通信的人体信道传输特性.采用有限元方法建立植入式医学传感器体内通信的准静态场模型,设计实验平台验证模型的正确性,计算出模型电导率分别为各向同性和各向异性时体内电信号沿轴向和径向传输的电位增益.结果表明,植入式医学传感器的体内通信信号在准静态场频段内沿轴向衰减明显,沿径向稳定传输;信号增益受频率变化的影响较小;当电导率为各向异性时信号增益明显大于各项同性的情况;并比较了体内通信对射频通信在信号增益上的优势.     

Preparation and characteristics of fine-grained ferroelectric glass-ceramic composites via a modified hybrid route at low temperature sintering

Dense, homogeneous and fully developed fine-grained ferroelectric Pb(Zr_0.53Ti_0.47)O₃?Cbased glass-ceramics have been successfully prepared at a low-sintering temperature of 850?C900°C by a modified hybrid process in air. The influence of the PbO-B₂O₃-SiO₂ (abbreviated as PBS) glass-gel content on the microstructure, dielectric, and ferroelectric properties of such glass-ceramics has been investigated. The temperature dependence of the dielectric constant indicated that the fine-grained Pb(Zr_0.53Ti_0.47)O₃ (abbreviated as PZT(53/47)) based glass-ceramic shows the characteristic dispersion at the Curie point. Ferroelectric hysteresis loop analyses have been performed to manifest the ferroelectric nature of the highly crystallized PZT(53/47) phase prepared by this modified novel hybrid process despite containing higher wt% glass-gel contents. The best dielectric and ferroelectric properties in a typical sample with 5% by weight of glass-gel content were found to have dielectric constant and loss tangent of 920 and 0.02 at 1 kHz, respectively. The saturation polarization (P _s ), and remanent polarization (P _r ) as well as the coercive field (E _c ) are 21.9 ??C/cm², 10.8 ??C/cm² and 2.19 kV/mm, respectively.     

IGUS – 50 Years of International Collaboration to the Benefit of Safety in the Field of Unstable Substances

IGUS is the International Group of Experts on the Explosion Risks of Unstable Substances. Today, the aim of the group is to exchange information on the behavior of unstable substances and to improve safety in production, storage, transport, and use of these substances. Full members of IGUS work for governments and independent research organizations. Experts from industry can and do attend meetings by invitation. IGUS's 50th anniversary in 2012 gives reason to have a closer look at the questions of how IGUS came to be, what IGUS's aims and objectives were, and how it is organized and working today.     

Machine learning for multimodality genomic signal processing

This paper discusses how machine learning can be applied to genomic signal processing, particularly via fusion of multiple biological or algorithmic modalities, to improve prediction performance.     

An empirical measure of element contribution in neural networks

A frequent complaint about neural net models is that they fail to explain their results in any useful way. The problem is not a lack of information, but an abundance of information that is difficult to interpret. When trained, neural nets will provide a predicted output for a posited input, and they can provide additional information in the form of interelement connection strengths. This latter information is of little use to analysts and managers who wish to interpret the results they have been given. We develop a measure of the relative importance of the various input elements and hidden layer elements, and we use this to interpret the contribution of these components to the outputs of the neural net     

The collaborative information portal and NASA's Mars Rover mission

NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory jointly developed the collaborative information portal for NASA's Mars exploration rover mission. Mission managers, engineers, scientists, and researchers used this Internet-based enterprise software application to view current staffing and event schedules, download data and image files generated by the rovers, send and receive broadcast messages, and get accurate times in various Mars and Earth time zones. This article describes the application's features, architecture, and implementation, and conveys the lessons learned from its deployment.     

A novel intelligent sphygmogram analyzer for health monitoring of cardiovascular system

A novel sphygmogram analyzer (SGA) with embedded medical advisory system is proposed to conquer the drawbacks of the existing commercial systems such as clumsy volume, awkward user-interface, and weak intelligence, etc. Firstly, benefited from the advanced embedded systems and micro-processing chips, the elementary components of SGA can be condensed into a tiny micro-system, which will greatly contribute to the wearable health monitoring devices. Secondly, the proposed SGA is distinguished due to the embedded medical advisory system, which can provide the comparative medical services while adaptive to the source restricted embedded platforms. In this paper, the hemodynamic analysis of sphygmogram is firstly introduced and then, the implementation of SGA, including data acquiring and analyzing unit (DA²U), embedded medical advisory system (e-MAS) boosted for the application of soft computing, and the distributed information exchanging framework, is addressed in detail.     

Seeking professional help: Etiology beliefs about mental illness across cultures.

In the present study, the authors examined the contributions of cultural beliefs about the etiology of mental illness to the seeking of help from mental health professionals among college students in 4 cultural groups, European Americans, Chinese Americans, Hong Kong Chinese, and Mainland Chinese. Group differences were found in help-seeking history and likelihood, with European and Chinese Americans being more likely to seek help than Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese. Multiple-group path analysis showed that lay beliefs about causes of mental illness and prior help-seeking history significantly predicted help-seeking likelihood, which was related positively to environmental/hereditary causes but negatively to social-personal causes. Our findings demonstrate the importance of understanding help-seeking patterns within specific cultural contexts and the effects of Western influences on shaping help-seeking propensities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)