Study of a BGO calorimeter using electron and hadron beams from 1 to 50 GeV

A calorimeter of 25 bismuth germanate (BGO) crystals equipped with silicon photodiode readout has been tested at the CERN SPS in the energy range 1–50 GeV. The response for electrons has been shown to be linear in this energy range and the rms resolution obtained ( ) is approximately 1%, for E > 4 GeV. The electron/pion separation was found to be better than 1:500 in the energy range 1–20 GeV. Data on lateral and longitudinal shower development were compared with the results of a Monte Carlo simulation using the SLAC-EGS program and found to be in good agreement.     

On the elemental effect of AlCoCrCuFeNi high-entropy alloy system

The AlCoCrCuFeNi high-entropy alloy system was synthesized using a well-developed arc melting and casting method. Their elemental effect on microstructures and hardness was investigated with X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and Vickers hardness testing. The alloys exhibit quite simple FCC and BCC solid solution phases. Co, Cu and Ni elements enhance the formation of the FCC phase while Al and Cr enhance that of the BCC phase in the alloy system. BCC phases form a spinodal structure during cooling. Copper tends to segregate at the interdendrite region and forms a Cu-rich FCC phase. Low copper content renders the interdendrite as a thin film and the as-cast structure like recrystallized grain structure. The formation of BCC phases significantly increases the hardness level of the alloy system. The strengthening mechanism is discussed.     

Patients requiring sedation

Recent advances in the pharmacology of sedative drugs have expanded their use in the intensive care unit. Indications and endpoints for sedation, however, often are defined poorly and are difficult to assess. Nevertheless, the complications of sedative drug administration are real. New indications for sedation have been proposed in recent years, including enforcing sleep/wake cycles, manipulating cellular metabolism, and preventing myocardial ischemia. The evidence supporting the efficacy of these new indications is not yet complete.     

Dielectric relaxation and electrical conduction at low field of mineral-filled epoxy

Dielectric properties and conduction of the epoxy and its composites were measured over the temperature range — 20 to 70°C and the frequency range 10^–4-10^–1 Hz. Dielectric properties were obtained by performing Fouriertransforms on the charging and discharging curves. The resulting isothermal frequency spectra of dielectric constants and dielectric loss factors were analysed using the Cole-Cole law to obtain the activation energy for each material. The activation energies were also obtained for isothermal d.c. current. Current density-electric field-temperature characteristics are obtained for field levels up to 60 kV cm^–1, with step excitation of the applied field and currents recorded after a delay time of 10 min. Current density and electric field were computed and plotted for constant temperature. The linear (ohmic) curves were obtained for fields up to about 60 kV cm^–1 for temperatures up to about 20 °C. The non-linearity at the higher fields and temperatures did not imply the occurrence of non-ionic conduction. It has been demonstrated that both electric conduction and relaxation behaviour were ionic and could be fit by the Nakajima model for the unfilled epoxy and the Taylor model for the composites.     

MODELING LIQUID MASS TRANSFER IN HIGEE SEPARATION PROCESS

Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Professor Richard S.H. Mah. Hsien-Hsin Tung is now affiliated with Department of Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

Penetration theory is used to describe the liquid mass transfer in Higee separation process. Within a possible range of effective areas, it is shown that the predicted mass transfer coefficients are in reasonable agreement with the estimated mass transfer coefficients. The estimated coefficients were calculated from the experimental data and the possible effective areas. Hence it is concluded the penetration theory is generally applicable to describe liquid mass transfer in Higee separation process. The comparison also suggests that liquid mixing at the junctions of packing materials may be more complete in Higee process than in traditional process.     

High affinity hormone binding to the extracellular N-terminal exodomain of the follicle-stimulating hormone receptor is critically modulated by exoloop 3

The human follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSH-R) consists of two distinct domains of >330 amino acids, the N-terminal extracellular exodomain and membrane-associated endodomain. The exodomain alone binds hormone with high affinity, whereas the endodomain is the site of receptor activation. Coordination of these two domains is essential for successful hormone action but little is known about their functional and structural relationship. In this communication, we report that exoloop 3 of FSH-R constrains follicle-stimulating hormone binding to the exodomain. When the FSH-R exodomain was prepared by truncating its endodomain, the hormone binding affinity of the exodomain was slightly improved, compared with the wild type receptor. The binding affinity was further improved by >3-fold when the exodomain was attached to the membrane-associated domain of CD8. These results suggest that the FSH-R endodomain attenuates hormone binding at the exodomain. As a first step to test this hypothesis, the 11 amino acids except Ala589 of exoloop 3 were individually substituted with Ala. Ala substitution for Leu583 or Ile584 improved the hormone binding affinity by 4-6-fold while totally abolishing cAMP induction, indicating an inverse relationship. The Ala substitution for Lys580 or Pro582 had a similar trend but to a lesser extent. This significant improvement in the binding affinity suggests that the four residues at the N-terminal region of exoloop 3 interact with the exodomain and constrain the hormone binding in the wild type receptor. This effect is specific since substitutions for other than the 4 residues did not improve the hormone binding affinity. Computer modeling shows that the 4 residues can be positioned on one side of exoloop 3. This result and the apparent inverse relationship of hormone binding and cAMP induction suggest that these two essential functions may work against each other. Therefore, hormone binding might be compromised to preserve cAMP inducibility while maintaining a reasonably high, but below maximum, binding affinity.     

Effect of vibration on eye,head and helmet movements while wearing a helmet‐mounted display

Previous research has demonstrated a loss of helmet‐mounted display (HMD) legibility for users exposed to whole body vibration. A pair of human factors studies was conducted to evaluate the effect of whole body vibration on eye, head, and helmet movements for seated users of a HMD while conducting simple fixation and smooth pursuit tracking tasks. These experiments confirmed that vertical eye motion can be demonstrated, that is consistent with the human visual systems' response to the vestibular–ocular reflex (VOR). Helmet slippage was also shown to occur, which could exacerbate loss of display legibility. The largest amplitudes in eye movements were observed during exposure to sinusoidal vibration in the 4–6 Hz range, which is consistent with the frequencies that past research has associated with whole‐body resonance and the largest decrease in display legibility. Further, the measured eye movements appeared to be correlated with both the angular acceleration of the user's head and the angular slippage of the user's helmet. This research demonstrates that the loss of legibility while wearing HMDs likely results from a combination of VOR‐triggered eye movements and movement of the display. Future compensation algorithms should consider adjusting the display in response to both VOR‐triggered eye and HMD motion.     

Chemical reaction optimization with greedy strategy for the 0–1 knapsack problem

The 0–1 knapsack problem (KP01) is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem. It is an NP-hard problem which plays important roles in computing theory and in many real life applications. Chemical reaction optimization (CRO) is a new optimization framework, inspired by the nature of chemical reactions. CRO has demonstrated excellent performance in solving many engineering problems such as the quadratic assignment problem, neural network training, multimodal continuous problems, etc. This paper proposes a new chemical reaction optimization with greedy strategy algorithm (CROG) to solve KP01. The paper also explains the operator design and parameter turning methods for CROG. A new repair function integrating a greedy strategy and random selection is used to repair the infeasible solutions. The experimental results have proven the superior performance of CROG compared to genetic algorithm (GA), ant colony optimization (ACO) and quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA).     

Smart Utilization of Carbon Dots in Semiconductor Photocatalysis

Efficient capture of solar energy will be critical to meeting the energy needs of the future. Semiconductor photocatalysis is expected to make an important contribution in this regard, delivering both energy carriers (especially H₂) and valuable chemical feedstocks under direct sunlight. Over the past few years, carbon dots (CDs) have emerged as a promising new class of metal‐free photocatalyst, displaying semiconductor‐like photoelectric properties and showing excellent performance in a wide variety of photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic applications owing to their ease of synthesis, unique structure, adjustable composition, ease of surface functionalization, outstanding electron‐transfer efficiency and tunable light‐harvesting range (from deep UV to the near‐infrared). Here, recent advances in the rational design of CDs‐based photocatalysts are highlighted and their applications in photocatalytic environmental remediation, water splitting into hydrogen, CO₂ reduction, and organic synthesis are discussed.