Biological Water Treatment by a Hybrid Fluidized-Bed Bioreactor: Theoretical Study

A hybrid fluidized-bed bioreactor for water purification was proposed and analyzed. It is a novel type of bioreactor characterized by hitherto unknown stationary and dynamic features. Steady-state characteristics of this hybrid bioreactor with external liquid circulation are presented. A quantitative analysis of steady-state properties of the bioreactor was performed with the aid of an original mathematical model developed for a double-substrate aerobic microbiological process. A steady-state analysis of aerobic processes characterized by different oxygen demand was performed. The effect of essential parameters was evaluated, including carbonaceous substrate concentration in the feed stream to the apparatus, aeration intensity, total residence time of a liquid in the bioreactor, and height of the bed of fine carrier particles.     

自动实时X射线检测技术在半导体制程控制中的应用

对X光检测的不同技术在半导体制程上的应用作了详细的介绍;着重讨论了全旋倾斜(off-axis)X射线技术的特点和优势。     

N-acetylcysteine does not influence the activity of endothelium-derived relaxing factor in vivo

Nitric oxide forms complexes with an array of biomolecular carriers that retain biological activity. This reactivity of nitric oxide in physiological systems has led to some dispute as to whether endothelium-derived relaxing factors nitric oxide or a closely related adduct thereof, such as a nitrosothiol. In vitro bioassays used to address this question are limited by the exclusion of biological thiols that are requisite for nitrosothiol formation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to obtain insight into the identity of endothelium-derived relaxing factor in vivo. We reasoned that if endothelium-derived relaxing factor in nitric oxide, infusion of physiological concentrations of thiol would potentiate its bioactivity by analogy with effects seen in vitro, whereas nitrosothiol would be resistant to such modulation. We used venous-occlusion plethysmography to study forearm blood flow in normal subjects. Methacholine (0.3 to 10 micrograms/min) and nitroglycerin (1 to 30 micrograms/min) were infused via the brachial artery to elicit endothelium-dependent and endothelium-independent vasodilation, respectively. Dose-response determinations were made for each drug before and after an intra-arterial infusion of the reduced thiol, N-acetylcysteine, at rates estimated to achieve a physiological concentration of 1 mmol/L. Methacholine increased forearm blood flow in a dose-dependent manner. Infusion of N-acetylcysteine did not change the sensitivity (ED50, 1.7 versus 1.7 micrograms/min, P = NS) or maximal response to methacholine. In contrast, thiol increased the sensitivity to nitroglycerin (ED50, 4.7 versus 2.8 micrograms/min, P < .01). Thus, conflicting with reports in vitro, thiol does not modulate endothelium-derived relaxing factor responses in vivo. These data indicate that sulfhydryl groups are not a limiting factor for endothelium-derived relaxing factor responses in forearm resistance vessels in normal humans and are in keeping with reports that nitrosothiol contributes to endothelium-derived relaxing factor bioactivity in plasma and vascular smooth muscle. Potentiation of the effects of nitroglycerin by N-acetylcysteine can be attributed to its enhanced biotransformation to an endothelium-derived relaxing factor equivalent, such as nitrosothiol. These observations support the notion of an equilibrium between nitric oxide and nitrosothiol in biological systems that may be influenced by redox state.     

Energy storage devices for future hybrid electric vehicles

Powertrain hybridization as well as electrical energy management are imposing new requirements on electrical storage systems in vehicles. This paper characterizes the associated vehicle attributes and, in particular, the various levels of hybrids. New requirements for the electrical storage system are derived, including: shallow-cycle life, high dynamic charge acceptance particularly for regenerative braking and robust service life in sustained partial-state-of-charge usage. Lead/acid, either with liquid or absorptive glass-fibre mat electrolyte, is expected to remain the predominant battery technology for 14 V systems, including micro-hybrids, and with a cost-effective battery monitoring system for demanding applications. Advanced AGM batteries may be considered for mild or even medium hybrids once they have proven robustness under real-world conditions, particularly with respect to cycle life at partial-states-of-charge and dynamic charge acceptance. For the foreseeable future, NiMH and Li-ion are the dominating current and potential battery technologies for higher-functionality HEVs. Li-ion, currently at development and demonstration stages, offers attractive opportunities for improvements in performance and cost. Supercapacitors may be considered for pulse power applications. Aside from cell technologies, attention to the issue of system integration of the battery into the powertrain and vehicle is growing. Opportunities and challenges for potential “battery pack” system suppliers are discussed.     

Characterization of Oleogels Based on Waxes and Their Hydrolyzates

In this paper, the structuring of liquid oils, also known as oleogelation, is systematically investigated for the first time using a quasi-quaternary mixing system approach. Native waxes with different quantities of wax esters (WE), n-alkanes (hydrocarbons (HC)), fatty acids (FA), and fatty alcohols (FaOH) are applied in mixtures with hydrolyzed waxes to systematically change the composition. Hydrolyzed waxes contain high levels of FA and FaOH. The model systems are investigated on microscopic level (brightfield light microscopy (BFM), cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM)) as well as on their macroscopic properties (rheology, gel hardness) and calorimetric behavior (differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)). It is found that sunflower wax (SFW)-based gels (12% structurant) become less hard on any admixture. Beeswax (BW)-based gels show significant increases in hardness when 25% and 50% (w/w) hydrolyzate are admixed. This could be related to stepwise crystallization. Further analysis reveals that the dissolution/melting behavior of the wax ester mixtures can be surprisingly well described as ideal solubility of a single pseudocomponent. The approach to unravel the individual contributions of the different species present in waxes is successful and marks a first step to better understand the systematic of wax functionality as oleogelators. Practical Application: The substitution of hardstock fats in structured oil phases is of interest for two reasons. The improved nutritional profile oleogels offer are beneficial for public health while the elimination of palm oil based ingredients appears to be a general public desire. Among the technical solutions for non-TAG oil structuring waxes are very promising. This is primarily due to their availability, prior consumption, potentially low cost for functionality. Currently waxes are technically and scientifically wrongly treated as single components. In order to better utilize the potential of waxes and design future sourcing strategies it is necessary to understand the wax functionality at a compositional/molecular level. This contribution marks the first step into this direction by considering classes of molecules with respect to their contribution to functionality. This understanding is considered as a key for future compositional design.     

Effect of Step Size in Incremental Loading Tests

Using the crack-growth model, the deviation of real fracture stress from the stressing level measured by stepwise incremental loading with three starting modes is calculated. For both static and dynamic fatigue, the relative error depends only on the relative increment size and the crack-growth parameter, n. The usefulness of stepwise incremental loading for strength testing can be confirmed.     

A New Research Infrastructure for Investigating Flow Hydraulics and Process Equipment at Critical Fluid Properties

An optimized equipment design for natural gas processing and liquefaction plants becomes increasingly difficult with changing process conditions: Particularly low values of surface tension create rising challenges on the design of phase separators and column internals. The TERESA test rig at HZDR was designed to allow the investigation of multiphase thermohydraulics and phase separator performance under critical fluid properties in industrial dimensions. A versatile pipe test section is available in DN200 and equipment internals may be tested in a sectional DN300/DN500 test separator. The applied test fluid shows a high vapor-liquid density difference between 1470 and 940 kg m⁻³, viscosity as low as 0.12 mm²s⁻¹, and surface tension down to 1.3 mN m⁻¹. Volumetric liquid and vapor flow rates may be varied up to 9 and 530 m³h⁻¹ in the test rig, respectively.     

Effect of post-slaughter processing and freezing on the functionality of hot-boned meat from young bull

The effects of variation in the times of mincing post mortem (2, 4, or 6 h), pre-rigor salting (1.5% wt wt ) and freezing rate [fast (10 min, liquid nitrogen); medium (4-6 h at -40 °C and 0.8 m s(-1) air velocity); or slow (36-38 h at -10 °C and 0.1 m s(-1) air velocity followed by 12 h at -20 °C and 0.1 m s(-1) air velocity)] on the functionality of young bull meat were examined using hot-boned forequarters. At 52 h post packaging, the meat was thawed (72 h at 4 °C), its pH measured, and it was used to make finely comminuted batters. Cook yield and stress and strain of the cooked batters were measured. Time of mincing had no effect on meat pH, cook yield or stress and strain. There was a significant interaction (P < 0.05) between pre-rigor salting and freezing rate for pH. Freezing rate did not affect the pH of pre-rigor salted meat whereas the pH of unsalted pre-rigor meat was highest at the fastest freezing rate. Meat salted pre-rigor had a significantly (P < 0.05) higher pH than the post-rigor chilled control. Pre-rigor salting decreased the stress values of cooked batter whereas the slowest freezing rate increased stress. Stress and strain values for cooked batters from thawed meat were not significantly different from the values for batters made from the unfrozen control. Cook yields of batters made from pre-rigor frozen meat were higher than that of the postrigor control but not significantly so. The results indicate that suppliers can use pre-rigor salted and frozen meat when manufacturing comminuted products without major detrimental effects on the cook yield and texture of the finished product.     

On the quantum and randomized approximation of linear functionals on function spaces

We deal with quantum and randomized algorithms for approximating a class of linear continuous functionals. The functionals are defined on a H?lder space of functions f of d variables with r continuous partial derivatives, the rth derivative being a H?lder function with exponent ρ. For a certain class of such linear problems (which includes the integration problem), we define algorithms based on partitioning the domain of f into a large number of small subdomains, and making use of the well-known quantum or randomized algorithms for summation of real numbers. For N information evaluations (quantum queries in the quantum setting), we show upper bounds on the error of order N ^−(γ+1) in the quantum setting, and N ^−(γ+1/2) in the randomized setting, where γ = (r + ρ)/d is the regularity parameter. Hence, we obtain for a wider class of linear problems the same upper bounds as those known for the integration problem. We give examples of functionals satisfying the assumptions, among which we discuss functionals defined on the solution of Fredholm integral equations of the second kind, with complete information about the kernel. We also provide lower bounds, showing in some cases sharpness of the obtained results, and compare the power of quantum, randomized and deterministic algorithms for the exemplary problems.     

Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning for non-minimum phase plants

Model reference control design methods fail when the plant has one or more non-minimum phase zeros that are not included in the reference model, leading possibly to an unstable closed loop. This is a very serious problem for data-based control design methods, where the plant is typically unknown. In this paper, we extend the Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning method to non-minimum phase plants. This extension is based on the idea proposed in Lecchini and Gevers (2002) for Iterative Feedback Tuning. We present a simple two-step procedure that can cope with the situation where the unknown plant may or may not have non-minimum phase zeros.