Developing flow of Newtonian fluids over superhydrophobic transverse grooves in circular tube

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - In this paper, the effects of dimensionless gas area fraction (δ) and normalized groove-rib periodic spacing (Λ) on developing flow for...     

Enhancing smart shop floor management with ubiquitous augmented reality

This paper describes a framework for implementing Smart manufacturing Shop floor systems based on the Ubiquitous Augmented Reality technology (SSUAR). The proposed system makes use of data sharing between shop floor resources and a sensor network in order to optimise the production schedules for carrying out projects. The optimisation is performed in real-time and the production scheduling responds to new projects as well as the changing status of resources, such as machines and workers. Ubiquitous augmented reality interface has been developed and utilised as a user interface for the shop floor workers to receive information, instructions and guidance from the experts and manufacturing systems, and to update the systems on task parameters, such as estimated completion times, progress and machine status. A review of related work, methodology and implementation of the proposed system, and a case study are presented in this paper. Using this architecture, real-time scheduling of tasks in the smart shop floor can be achieved. The case study demonstrated the ability of SSUAR to integrate task scheduling with two-way communication between the system and the users.     

Field synergy principle in forced convection of plane Couette–Poiseuille flows with effect of thermal asymmetry

The field synergy principle is employed to analyze convection heat transfer enhancement which can be achieved by reducing the included angle between the velocity vector and the temperature gradient (synergy angle). The present study is aimed to scrutinize the relationship of the synergy angle and the field synergy number with other pertinent parameters in forced convection of plane Couette–Poiseuille flows with asymmetric heat-flux wall boundary conditions. This type of problem arises in various engineering processes, such as in the operation of extruders and in various lubrication problems. The variation of the velocity vector is governed by the moving plate velocity while the temperature gradient is affected by both the moving plate velocity and the asymmetrical heat fluxes at the wall boundaries. Analytical solutions are obtained and the effects of thermal asymmetries under the imposition of isoflux at the walls in Couette–Poiseuille flows are analyzed by adopting field synergy principle. The variations of synergy angle with different boundary conditions and the relationship between the Nusselt number and the synergy (coordination) number, are compared and analyzed. The thermal condition at the wall boundary, the variations of the moving plate velocity and the Peclet number are the essential parameters in the synergetic behavior of the system.     

Microfluidic devices harboring unsealed reactors for real-time isothermal helicase-dependent amplification

High-throughput microchip devices used for nucleic-acid amplification require sealed reactors. This is to prevent evaporative loss of the amplification mixture and cross-contamination, which may occur among fluidically connected reactors. In most high-throughput nucleic-acid amplification devices, reactor sealing is achieved by microvalves. Additionally, these devices require micropumps to distribute amplification mixture into an array of reactors, thereby increasing the device cost, and adding complexity to the chip fabrication and operation processes. To overcome these limitations, we report microfluidic devices harboring open (unsealed) reactors in conjunction with a single-step capillary based flow scheme for sequential distribution of amplification mixture into an array of reactors. Concern about evaporative loss in unsealed reactors have been addressed by optimized reactor design, smooth internal reactor surfaces, and incorporation of a localized heating scheme for the reactors, in which isothermal, real-time helicase-dependent amplification (HDA) was performed.     

Fabrication of hydrothermal ageing resistant of 3 mol % yttria-stabilised tetragonal zirconia polycrystalline via microwave sintering

The influence of microwave sintering on the densification, mechanical performances, microstructure evolution and hydrothermal ageing behaviour of pure 3 mol % yttria-stabilised tetragonal zirconia polycrystalline (3Y-TZP) ceramics was compared with conventional sintered samples. Green bodies were sintered via conventional pressure-less and microwave sintering method between 1200 °C to 1400 °C with dwelling time and firing rate at 120 min, 10 °C/min and 1 min, 20 °C/min. Result showed that reduced processing temperature and holding time is possible with microwave sintering technique for fabricating good resistant zirconia sample with bulk density, Young's modulus, and Vicker's hardness that are comparable to samples sintered with conventional method. However, the microwave sintered samples suffered from hydrothermal ageing where their average grain size is above critical size. The enhancement of hydrothermal ageing resistance of the sintered samples is associated with the decreasing grain size of the sintered samples instead of sintering method.     

The effect of Ginkgo biloba on the cerebellum of aging SAMP mouse--a TUNEL, bcl-2, and fMRI study

EGb 761, an extract from Ginkgo biloba that possesses neuroprotective properties, was fed to a strain of fast aging mice (SAMP-8) beginning at 3 weeks of age until they were sacrificed at 3 months and 11 months, respectively, along with an age-matched control group without herbal feeding. The aim of the study was to determine (1) the status of apoptosis and the status of bcl-2, a molecule involved in the fate of cells following injury, in the cerebella of these mice and (2) to analyze the functional changes as shown by fMRI images. The data indicated that there were no differences in apoptosis between the mice fed with EGb 761 and the control group at the two time points of 3 and 11 months of age. For bcl-2 positive cells, there was a decrease in density only in the cerebella of 11-month-old mice fed with the herbal extract when compared with controls. Functional studies indicated that while no changes were observed in the 3-month-old mice fed with Ginkgo biloba, an expansion of activated sites, possibly related to "synaptic reorganization and pathway alteration," was observed in the 11-month-old mice.     

Conservation of closed loops

The closed loop hypothesis of Berezovsky and Trifonov implicates the closure of loops of length 25-35 through hydrophobic interactions at the 'locks' as a key event in protein folding. The hypothesis is supported by published analyses of nine major superfolds. Here, we have generated multiple sequence alignments for the nine superfolds with PDB codes lthb, 1ilb, 256b, 2rhe, 1aps, 2stv, 4fxn (2fox), lubq and 7tim and have analysed the degree of conservation at the loop ends. Seventy percent of these loop ends are found to be well conserved and the peak in the distribution of distances between these well conserved regions lies at around 25 residues; both observations are consistent with the Berezovsky and Trifonov's hypothesis.     

Design and implementation of a leader-follower cooperative control system for unmanned helicopters

In this paper, we present a full scheme for the cooperative control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) helicopters. We adopt the leader-follower pattern to maintain a fixed geometrical formation while navigating the UAVs following certain trajectories. More specifically, the leader is commanded to fly on some predefined trajectories, and each follower is controlled to maintain its position in formation using the measurement of its inertial position and the information of the leader position and velocity, obtained through a wireless modem. More specifications are made for multiple UAV formation flight. In order to avoid possible collisions of UAV helicopters in the actual formation flight test, a collision avoidance scheme based on some predefined alert zones and protected zones is employed. Simulations and experimental results are presented to verify our design.     

Mercury: Combining Performance with Dependability Using Self-Virtualization

Virtualization has recently gained popularity largely due to its promise in increasing utilization,improving availability and enhancing security.Very often,the role of computer systems needs to change ...     

Combining Global and Local Surrogate Models to Accelerate Evolutionary Optimization

In this paper, we present a novel surrogate-assisted evolutionary optimization framework for solving computationally expensive problems. The proposed framework uses computationally cheap hierarchical surrogate models constructed through online learning to replace the exact computationally expensive objective functions during evolutionary search. At the first level, the framework employs a data-parallel Gaussian process based global surrogate model to filter the evolutionary algorithm (EA) population of promising individuals. Subsequently, these potential individuals undergo a memetic search in the form of Lamarckian learning at the second level. The Lamarckian evolution involves a trust-region enabled gradient-based search strategy that employs radial basis function local surrogate models to accelerate convergence. Numerical results are presented on a series of benchmark test functions and on an aerodynamic shape design problem. The results obtained suggest that the proposed optimization framework converges to good designs on a limited computational budget. Furthermore, it is shown that the new algorithm gives significant savings in computational cost when compared to the traditional evolutionary algorithm and other surrogate assisted optimization frameworks