Search

The TBX1 gene plays a critical role in the development of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS), a complex genetic disorder associated with various phenotypic manifestations. In this study, we performed in-silico analysis to identify potentially deleterious non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) within the TBX1 gene and evaluate their functional and structural impact on 22q11.2DS. A comprehensive analysis pipeline involving multiple computational tools was employed to predict the pathogenicity of nsSNPs. This study assessed protein stability and explored potential alterations in protein-protein interactions. The results revealed the rs751339103(C>A), rs780800634(G>A), rs1936727304(T>C), rs1223320618(G>A), rs1248532217(T>C), rs1294927055 (C>T), rs1331240435 (A>G, rs1601289406 (A>C), rs1936726164 (G>A), and rs911796187(G>A) with a high-risk potential for affecting protein function and stability. These nsSNPs were further analyzed for their impact on post-translational modifications and structural characteristics, indicating their potential disruption of molecular pathways associated with TBX1 and its interacting partners. These findings provide a foundation for further experimental studies and elucidation of potential therapeutic targets and personalized treatment approaches for individuals affected by 22q11.2DS., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Almakhari et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Detecting communities or clusters in a real-world, networked system is of considerable interest in various fields such as sociology, biology, physics, engineering science, and interdisciplinary subjects, with significant efforts devoted in recent years. Many existing algorithms are only designed to identify the composition of communities, but not the structures. Whereas we believe that the local structures of communities can also shed important light on their detection. In this work, we develop a simple yet effective approach that simultaneously uncovers communities and their centers. The idea is based on the premise that organization of a community generally can be viewed as a high-density node surrounded by neighbors with lower densities, and community centers reside far apart from each other. We propose so-called "community centrality" to quantify likelihood of a node being the community centers in such a landscape, and then propagate multiple, significant center likelihood throughout the network via a diffusion process. Our approach is an efficient linear algorithm, and has demonstrated superior performance on a wide spectrum of synthetic and real world networks especially those with sparse connections amongst the community centers.

Background: Signal transduction is the major mechanism through which cells transmit external stimuli to evoke intracellular biochemical responses. Diverse cellular stimuli create a wide variety of transcription factor activities through signal transduction pathways, resulting in different gene expression patterns. Understanding the relationship between external stimuli and the corresponding cellular responses, as well as the subsequent effects on downstream genes, is a major challenge in systems biology. Thus, a systematic approach is needed to integrate experimental data and theoretical hypotheses to identify the physiological consequences of environmental stimuli., Results: We proposed a systematic approach that combines forward and reverse engineering to link the signal transduction cascade with the gene responses. To demonstrate the feasibility of our strategy, we focused on linking the NF-kappaB signaling pathway with the inflammatory gene regulatory responses because NF-kappaB has long been recognized to play a crucial role in inflammation. We first utilized forward engineering (Hybrid Functional Petri Nets) to construct the NF-kappaB signaling pathway and reverse engineering (Network Components Analysis) to build a gene regulatory network (GRN). Then, we demonstrated that the corresponding IKK profiles can be identified in the GRN and are consistent with the experimental validation of the IKK kinase assay. We found that the time-lapse gene expression of several cytokines and chemokines (TNF-alpha, IL-1, IL-6, CXCL1, CXCL2 and CCL3) is concordant with the NF-kappaB activity profile, and these genes have stronger influence strength within the GRN. Such regulatory effects have highlighted the crucial roles of NF-kappaB signaling in the acute inflammatory response and enhance our understanding of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome., Conclusion: We successfully identified and distinguished the corresponding signaling profiles among three microarray datasets with different stimuli strengths. In our model, the crucial genes of the NF-kappaB regulatory network were also identified to reflect the biological consequences of inflammation. With the experimental validation, our strategy is thus an effective solution to decipher cross-talk effects when attempting to integrate new kinetic parameters from other signal transduction pathways. The strategy also provides new insight for systems biology modeling to link any signal transduction pathways with the responses of downstream genes of interest.

Discussed in this paper is the development of a new strategy to improve resolution of overlapping CE peaks by using second-order multivariate curve resolution with alternating least square (second-order MCR-ALS) methods. Several kinds of organic reagents are added, respectively, in buffers and sets of overlapping peaks with different separations are obtained. Augmented matrix is formed by the corresponding matrices of the overlapping peaks and is then analyzed by the second-order MCR-ALS method in order to use all data information to improve the precision of the resolution. Similarity between the resolved unit spectrum and the true one is used to assess the quality of the solutions provided by the above method. 3,4-Dihydropyrimidin-2-one derivatives (DHPOs) are used as model components and mixed artificially in order to obtain overlapping peaks. Three different impurity levels, 100, 20, and 10% relative to the main component, are used. With this strategy, the concentration profiles and spectra of impurities, which are no more than 10% of the main component, can be resolved from the overlapping peaks without pure standards participant in the analysis. The effects of the changes in the components spectra in the buffer with different organic reagents on the resolution are also evaluated, which are slight and can thus be ignored in the analysis. Individual data matrices (two-way data) are also analyzed by using MCR-ALS and heuristic evolving latent projections (HELP) methods and their results are compared with those when MCR-ALS is applied to augmented data matrix (three-way data) analysis.

This article reports a mixed-methods study about using virtual reality (VR) tools (Google Cardboard and Expeditions) for developing students' oral proficiency in learning Chinese as a second language. Twelve students role-played as tour guides for six locations throughout a semester: four of them with VR tools and two without. Data collection included oral presentations recorded at four different times of the semester (for Presentations 1, 3, 4, and 6), class observations, participants' reflection papers, and individual interviews at the end of the semester. Results revealed that the content and vocabulary of participants' oral presentations when using VR tools scored statistically significantly higher than when not using VR tools. Qualitative data showed that participants felt that VR tools facilitated preparation and encouraged active learning.

The purpose of this study is to examine the incorporation of Google Earth Virtual Reality (VR) into English Learners' (ELs) expository writing experiences from a Funds of Knowledge perspective utilizing a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design. The participants were 22 ELs from a middle school in a rural Midwestern town. During the quantitative phase, the expository writing artifacts were collected through a multiple before-and-after non-experimental design and analyzed using ANOVA. A "text-in-context coding" approach was adopted to examine changes in students' writing. The results showed a statistically significant increase in expository writing skills, particularly in "description," "cause/effect," "compare/contrast," and "enumeration." A descriptive survey assessing the acceptance of Google Earth VR was distributed as well. During the qualitative phase, a follow-up focus group for the ELs and teacher interviews were conducted. Field notes/memos were used to triangulate the data. The qualitative findings indicated that the ELs were engaged in the virtual-assisted writing environment and showed positive attitudes toward Google Earth VR. Concerns about using Google Earth VR in writing (i.e. time-consuming as well as distracting and posing integration difficulties) were addressed. Future directions inspired from this study are discussed as well.

This case study explored college students' use of interactive virtual reality tools (Google Cardboard and Expeditions) for learning Chinese as a foreign language. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to probe into students' perceived benefits and challenges of using VR tools for Chinese language and culture learning. Twelve students were paired and role-played as virtual tour guides for six locations throughout a semester. Every two weeks, each dyad studied a particular Chinese tourist attraction or location and presented orally in Chinese as virtual tour guides by using the VR tools. Data collection included class observations of all presentations by each dyad, 24 reflections (two per participant, after the first and fifth presentations), and individual follow-up interviews. The study indicated that the real-life view VR tools offered an authentic context for Chinese language learning, sparked interest in the virtually presented locales, and encouraged students to further explore the target culture.

Unidiameter Vertical Interpenetrating Cylindrical Surfaces (UVICS, also called T-pipe surfaces) are a type of typical complex surface that exists in facilities or equipment such as oil storage tanks and industrial pipelines. The shape and surface characteristics of a component undergoing spraying will have a significant impact on the spray flow field and the resulting coating film. In order to optimize the coating effects of complex surfaces, the Euler-Euler approach was utilized to model a spray film formation process that encompasses both a spray flow field model and a wall adhesion model. Subsequently, the influence of the geometric features, geometric dimensions, lateral air pressure of the spray gun, and spraying distance on the coating film characteristics of this kind of surface were systematically investigated. It is determined that the film thickness uniformity could be enhanced by decreasing the dimensions of the workpiece or increasing the lateral air pressure and spraying distance in an appropriate manner when spraying at the location with the most complex geometric features of UVICS. Furthermore, the optimal parameters under varying spraying conditions were identified. The experiments validated the accuracy of the numerical simulation results and demonstrated the feasibility of this simulation model. The study is of significant value in addressing the challenges associated with film formation during spraying on complex surfaces, developing a comprehensive theoretical framework for air spraying, and expanding the scope of applications for automatic spraying technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low permeability and submicron throats in most shale or tight sandstone reservoirs have a significant impact on microscale flow. The flow characteristics can be described with difficultly by the conventional Darcy flow in low-permeability reservoirs. In particular, the thickness of the boundary layer is an important factor affecting the formation permeability, and the relative permeability curve obtained under conventional conditions cannot accurately express the seepage characteristics of porous media. In this work, the apparent permeability and relative permeability were calculated by using non-Darcy-flow mathematical modeling. The results revealed that the newly calculated oil–water relative permeability was slightly higher than that calculated by the Darcy seepage model. The results of the non-Darcy flow based on the conceptual model showed that the area swept by water in non-Darcy was smaller than that in Darcy seepage. The fingering phenomenon and the high bottom hole pressure in the non-Darcy seepage model resulted from the larger amount of injected water. There was a large pressure difference between the injection and production wells where the permeability changed greatly. A small pressure difference between wells resulted in lower variation of permeability. Consequently, the non-Darcy simulation results were consistent with actual production data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Painting a V-shaped surface, which is widely found in various facilities and equipment, often results in poor coating quality, which may be caused by an insufficient understanding of film-forming characteristics and mechanism. In this study, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations were carried out for in-depth research on the film-forming characteristics and mechanism of painting V-shaped surfaces. The mathematical model of film formation was established with the Euler–Euler method, and the unstructured grids and adaptive-mesh refinement were adopted to discretize the computational domain. By solving the model, the coating thickness distribution law and flow-field characteristics of spraying a V-shaped surface were obtained. When painting a V-shaped surface with an angle less than 180°, the coating thickness distribution appeared as two peaks, instead of the single peak that appeared when painting a flat wall. As the V-shaped angle decreased, the coating thickness became thinner. The peak position gradually shifted to both sides, and the thickness distribution became wider. Analysis of the spray flow-field characteristics revealed the thickness distribution mechanism, by whichthe geometric characteristics of the V-shaped surface changed the near-wall distribution of the flow field. When the V-shaped angle decreased, the pressure peak at the center of the V-shaped surface and the eccentric pressure peaks that formed on both sides increased. The near-wall paint fluid was confined between the central pressure peak and the off-center pressure peak, resulting in paint droplets depositing between the pressure peaks and double-peak distribution of the coating thickness forming on the V-shaped surface. The spraying experiments verified the correctness of the numerical simulations, film-forming characteristics, and corresponding mechanism, which are of great significance for efficient and high-quality spraying on V-shaped surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a relay‐assisted massive multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) downlink system in which a base station (BS) communicates with all terminals via a relay node enabled simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). Both time‐switching (TS) and energy‐splitting (PS) protocols are respectively considered at the relay node for coordinating energy harvesting and information decoding. The quality‐of‐service (QoS) fairness problem among terminals is investigated in the considered systems. In detail, the power allocation coefficients and energy harvesting time duration for TS based SWIPT, and the power allocation coefficients and PS ratio for PS based SWIPT are jointly optimised, aiming at seeking to maximise the minimum achievable rate over all terminals. As the formulated problems are non‐convex and non‐linear, and hard to solve directly, suboptimal heuristic algorithms are proposed for solving them. Additionally, the convergence and complexity of the proposed algorithms are also analysed. Finally, the performance of the proposed algorithms is demonstrated by extensive computer simulations. Results manifest that the proposed algorithms can provide uniformly great QoS for every terminal by resource allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been conjectured that the tight upper bound for the mean steady-state waiting time in the GI/GI/1 queue given the first two moments of the interarrival-time and service-time distributions is attained asymptotically by two-point distributions. The two-point distribution for the interarrival time has one mass point at 0, but the service-time distribution involves a limit; there is one mass point at a high value, but that upper mass point must increase to infinity while the probability on that point must decrease to 0 appropriately. In this paper, we develop effective numerical and simulation algorithms to compute the value of this conjectured tight bound. The algorithms are aided by reductions of the special queues with extremal interarrival-time and extremal service-time distributions to D/GI/1 and GI/D/1 models. Combining these reductions yields an overall representation in terms of a D/RS(D)/1 discrete-time model involving a geometric random sum of deterministic random variables (the RS(D)), where the two deterministic random variables in the model may have different values, so that the extremal steady-state waiting time need not have a lattice distribution. Efficient computational methods are developed. The computational results show that the conjectured tight upper bound offers a significant improvement over established bounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Updating the urban land cover information has been proved a necessary method for the numerical studies of urban climate and urban atmospheric environment in China, a fast urbanizing country. However, there are uncertainties in the urban land use/cover (ULUC) information in different datasets due to the uncertainties in raw data sources and produce methods. In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model is used to simulate the summer climate over the Yangtze River Delta in July and August 2013, when a heatwave episode occurred. Five numerical experiments are designed; one is the baseline experiment (non-urban land cover (NOURB)) in which all urban land covers are removed, and different urban land use/cover (ULUC) experiments from four different global land cover datasets are used in other four experiments. The differences between the ULUC experiments and the NOURB experiment are used to observe the urbanization effects. The results show a remarkable urbanization effect in all the ULUC experiments, and the urbanization influences are most different over the union-urban area, which defined as the area marked as urban area by at least one land cover dataset, because the uncertainties in urban land cover information are greatest in this area. All the ULUC experiments show the regional influence of urbanization as well, which means urbanization effects are not limited in cities. The Climate Change Initiative (CCI) experiment using the European Space Agency CCI 2013 dataset showed the greatest urbanization influence and the highest effect index in all analyzed variables, because of the largest urban land cover area in the analysis domain. The urban land cover area in the Global Land Cover experiment is the smallest among the ULUC experiments, but it distributes in a more concentrated way than in other experiments; it indicates that both city size and city shape affect the regional influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buffering techniques have been commonly used in mobile video streaming systems to handle the bandwidth fluctuation and to mitigate the impact of the stochastic characteristic of wireless channels on a mobile user’s quality of experience. However, it has been shown by measurement study that users tend to abort when watching videos with mobile devices, which results in a significant wastage of the video data in the buffer. Therefore, one important problem in mobile video streaming is how to manage the buffer at each mobile user. On the other hand, mobile users generally share the wireless media to download the video data, i.e., mobile users compete with each other for the bandwidth to download the video data. Thus, another important problem in mobile video streaming is how to allocate bandwidth among mobile users. In this paper, we propose to optimize the resource management, i.e., to design buffer management strategy at each mobile user and bandwidth allocation strategy among mobile users, for the multiuser mobile video streaming systems. Specifically, we optimize the long-term average total cost of data wastage and quality of experience of mobile users with certain constraints. By introducing virtual queues and employing the Lyapunov optimization theory, we transform the original optimization problem into the drift-plus-penalty minimization problem. Then, we adopt the primal decomposition to decouple the relationship among different mobile users, which decomposes the problem into a master problem with multiple subproblems. A one-dimension full search algorithm is applied to find the global optimal solution to each subproblem, and the subgradient descent algorithm is utilized to update the solution to the master problem. Finally, simulations are conducted to show that the proposed algorithm is effective for the buffer management and bandwidth allocation in a multiuser mobile video streaming system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Running multiple-chain Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) provides an efficient parallel computing method for complex Bayesian models, although the efficiency of the approach critically depends on the length of the non-parallelizable burn-in period, for which all simulated data are discarded. In practice, this burn-in period is set arbitrarily and often leads to the performance of far more iterations than required. In addition, the accuracy of genomic predictions does not improve after the MCMC reaches equilibrium. Results: Automatic tuning of the burn-in length for running multiple-chain MCMC was proposed in the context of genomic predictions using BayesA and BayesCπ models. The performance of parallel computing versus sequential computing and tunable burn-in MCMC versus fixed burn-in MCMC was assessed using simulation data sets as well by applying these methods to genomic predictions of a Chinese Simmental beef cattle population. The results showed that tunable burn-in parallel MCMC had greater speedups than fixed burn-in parallel MCMC and both had greater speedups relative to sequential (single-chain) MCMC. Nevertheless, genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) and genomic prediction accuracies were highly comparable between the various computing approaches. When applied to the genomic predictions of four quantitative traits in a Chinese Simmental population of 1217 beef cattle genotyped by an Illumina Bovine 770 K SNP BeadChip, tunable burn-in multiple-chain BayesCπ (TBM-BayesCπ) outperformed tunable burn-in multiple-chain BayesCπ (TBM-BayesA) and Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (GBLUP) in terms of the prediction accuracy, although the differences were not necessarily caused by computational factors and could have been intrinsic to the statistical models per se. Conclusions: Automatically tunable burn-in multiple-chain MCMC provides an accurate and cost-effective tool for high-performance computing of Bayesian genomic prediction models and this algorithm is generally applicable to high-performance computing of any complex Bayesian statistical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The signalized traffic is considerably complex due to the fact that various driving behaviors have emerged to respond to traffic signals. However, the existing cellular automaton models take the signal–vehicle interactions into account inadequately, resulting in a potential risk that vehicular traffic flow dynamics may not be completely explored. To remedy this defect, this paper proposes a more realistic cellular automaton model by incorporating a number of the driving behaviors typically observed when the vehicles are approaching a traffic light. In particular, the anticipatory behavior proposed in this paper is realized with a perception factor designed by considering the vehicle speed implicitly and the gap to its preceding vehicle explicitly. Numerical simulations have been performed based on a signal controlled road which is partitioned into three sections according to the different reactions of drivers. The effects of microscopic driving behaviors on Kerner’s time-delayed traffic breakdown at signal (Kerner 2011, 2013) have been investigated with the assistance of spatiotemporal pattern and trajectory analysis. Furthermore, the contributions of the driving behaviors on the traffic breakdown have been statistically examined. Finally, with the activation of the anticipatory behavior, the influences of the other driving behaviors on the formation of platoon have been investigated in terms of the number of platoons, the averaged platoon size, and the averaged flow rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an optimal relay transmission policy by using a stochastic energy harvesting (EH) model for the EH two-way relay network, wherein the relay is solar-powered and equipped with a finite-sized battery. In this policy, the long-term average outage probability is minimized by adapting the relay transmission power to the wireless channel states, battery energy amount, and causal solar energy states. The designed problem is formulated as a Markov decision process (MDP) framework, and conditional outage probabilities for both decode-and-forward (DF) and amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperation protocols are adopted as the reward functions. We uncover a monotonic and bounded differential structure for the expected total discounted reward, and prove that such an optimal transmission policy has a threshold structure with respect to the battery energy amount in sufficiently high SNRs. Finally, the outage probability performance is analyzed and an interesting saturated structure for the outage performance is revealed, i.e., the expected outage probability converges to the battery empty probability in high SNR regimes, instead of going to zero. Furthermore, we propose a saturation-free condition that can guarantee a zero outage probability in high SNRs. Computer simulations confirm our theoretical analysis and show that our proposed optimal transmission policy outperforms other compared policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Micromixers are the microfluidic devices able to rapidly mix more than two liquids, with low pressure drop and high mixing efficiency (εmixing). In this study, the effect of Reynolds number ratio (Rer) and aspect ratio (AR) of heart-like biometric micromixer applied would be investigated by a numerical simulation and experimental confirmation. Results show that the heart-like biometric micromixer resulting from the coupling effect of the split and recombination (SAR) and biometric design can produce a high mixing efficiency, low pressure drop and short mixing path under a case of low Reynolds number. Two dimensional results also find that a flow mixing efficiency of εmixing=0.89 and an optimal mixing index of Midx=115 could be achieved at a flow condition of Rer=0.75 and Re2=0.1 of the middle-inlet channel I2. In additional, the three dimensional results indicate that a high flow mixing efficiency of εmixing=0.84 and the lowest pressure drop of 164.2 Pa was obtained at the flow conditions of Rer=0.9 and AR=10 when the middle-inlet channel I2 was Re2=0.1. These findings will be useful to improvement the efficiency for micromixcers of biometric design in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy harvesting from the surroundings is a promising solution to perpetually power-up wireless sensor communications. This paper presents a data-driven approach of finding optimal transmission policies for a solar-powered sensor node that attempts to maximize net bit rates by adapting its transmission parameters, power levels and modulation types, to the changes of channel fading and battery recharge. We formulate this problem as a discounted Markov decision process (MDP) framework, whereby the energy harvesting process is stochastically quantized into several representative solar states with distinct energy arrivals and is totally driven by historical data records at a sensor node. With the observed solar irradiance at each time epoch, a mixed strategy is developed to compute the belief information of the underlying solar states for the choice of transmission parameters. In addition, a theoretical analysis is conducted for a simple on-off policy, in which a predetermined transmission parameter is utilized whenever a sensor node is active. We prove that such an optimal policy has a threshold structure with respect to battery states and evaluate the performance of an energy harvesting node by analyzing the expected net bit rate. The design framework is exemplified with real solar data records, and the results are useful in characterizing the interplay that occurs between energy harvesting and expenditure under various system configurations. Computer simulations show that the proposed policies significantly outperform other schemes with or without the knowledge of short-term energy harvesting and channel fading patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a dynamic system, how to perform learning and make decisions are becoming more and more important for users. Although there are some works in social learning-related literature regarding how to construct belief for an uncertain system state, few studies have been conducted on incorporating social learning with decision making. Moreover, users may have multiple concurrent options on different objects/resources and their decisions usually negatively influence each other’s utility, which makes the problem even more challenging. In this paper, we propose an Indian Buffet Game to study how users in a dynamic system learn about the uncertain system state and make multiple concurrent decisions by not only considering the current myopic utility, but also the influence of subsequent users’ decisions. We analyze the proposed Indian Buffet Game under two different scenarios: 1) on customers requesting multiple dishes without budget constraint and 2) with budget constraint. For both cases, we design recursive best response algorithms to find the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (NE) for customers and characterize special properties of the NE profile under homogeneous setting. Moreover, we introduce a non-Bayesian social learning algorithm for customers to learn the system state, and theoretically prove its convergence. Finally, we conduct simulations to validate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the vortex dynamics of a two-dimensional H-rotor wind turbine using a Navier-Stokes solver. The k-ε turbulence model with the wall function is used as the turbulence closure. A sliding mesh technique is employed to handle the blade rotation. The vortex-blade interaction is systematically investigated and its influence on the force generation is discussed. Our simulations show that the vortex-blade interaction largely depends on the solidity and tip speed ratio. We further study the impact of solidity on the turbine performance. Our simulations show that the peak torque per blade decreases with the solidity while the peak torque azimuthal angle increases with the solidity. Our simulations also show that the increase in the azimuthal angle is more significant at low tip speed ratios than at high tip speed ratios. The impact of blade thickness is studied. Our simulations show that a thicker airfoil has a higher torque coefficient than a thinner airfoil. However, because for the thinner airfoil its peak torque occurs at a high tip speed ratio, the thinner airfoil has an overall higher power coefficient than the thicker airfoil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laminar and turbulent forced convection heat transfer and flow characteristics of nanofluids in small smooth tubes are numerically simulated using two kinds of multiphase-flow models. The simulated results are compared with the experimental results from the published papers and the traditional predicting correlations to investigate the applicability of these models for nanofluids. The multiphase-flow models including mixture model and Eulerian model, and both of them belong to the well-known Euler–Euler model. The effects of various parameters such as Reynolds number and nanoparticles concentration on the heat transfer and flow characteristics are investigated and discussed in each model. The study results show that little deviation exists between the simulated results and the traditional predicting correlations for low concentration nanofluid, which indicates that low concentration nanofluid has no meaningful nano-effect on forced convection heat transfer. While, non-traditional fluid characteristics occur and increase with increasing the nanoparticles concentration, and the simulated results using special models of multiphase flow are closer to the experimental data than that of the traditional correlations, which means the multiphase flow models are more accurate than traditional correlations for high concentration nanofluid. Moreover, the numerical results also indicate that the drag coefficients of simulated results have only little difference less than 0.4% with that of experimental results for nanofluids in the laminar flow region. However, the drag coefficients of simulated results have a increase by about 60–22% compared with the experimental results in the turbulent flow region. As conclusion, the present study indicates that the two-phase models, including mixture model and Eulerian model, can predict the forced convection heat transfer and flow characteristics of nanofluid well, and have important implications for the application of nanofluid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micromixers are the devices which have the ability to mix liquids uniformly. However, a Tesla valve has the potential for micromixer development because of its simple structure and special flow mechanism. In this study, a numerical simulation analysis of a new Tesla-type micromixer was designed by placing a flow plate into a micromixer, which has a contact angle of 30° with the channel wall. The optimization of the geometric parameter, aspect ratio (AR) and the Reynolds number (Re) effect is discussed. The results show that the optimal geometric parameters of the unit Tesla-type micromixer are θ1 = 45°, θ2 = 30°, A = 0.3 mm, B = 0.22 mm, C = 0.3 mm, D = 0.25 mm, and the mixing efficiency can achieve εmixing = 0.953 by passing three-unit Tesla-type micromixers (inverse-type, Re = 1, AR = 1). The Tesla-type micromixers designed in this study, which have a lower pressure drop and a higher mixing performance at a low Reynolds number, can contribute to the application of biomedical chips and chemical reactors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational problems that involve dynamic data, such as physics simulations and program development environments, have been an important subject of study in programming languages. Building on this work, recent advances in self-adjusting computation have developed techniques that enable programs to respond automatically and efficiently to dynamic changes in their inputs. Self-adjusting programs have been shown to be efficient for a reasonably broad range of problems, but the approach still requires an explicit programming style, where the programmer must use specific monadic types and primitives to identify, create, and operate on data that can change over time. We describe techniques for automatically translating purely functional programs into self-adjusting programs. In this implicit approach, the programmer need only annotate the (top-level) input types of the programs to be translated. Type inference finds all other types, and a type-directed translation rewrites the source program into an explicitly self-adjusting target program. The type system is related to information-flow type systems and enjoys decidable type inference via constraint solving. We prove that the translation outputs well- typed self-adjusting programs and preserves the source program's input–output behavior, guaranteeing that translated programs respond correctly to all changes to their data. Using a cost semantics, we also prove that the translation preserves the asymptotic complexity of the source program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Developed a customized Simulink library of HVAC components based on dynamic models. [•] Airflow rates are determined based on HVAC system characteristics and fan curves. [•] Demonstrated the application process for dynamic simulation with six major steps. [•] Analyzed two control strategies for energy performance and thermal comfort. [•] It is a novel signal-oriented dynamic simulation platform for control analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In cognitive radio, secondary users detect primary user's signal in a specific spectrum band to determine whether the band can be reused. For primary user detection, both of the detection accuracy and detection time are key performance indexes. This paper analyzed the detection time of decision fusion based primary user detection subject to the constraints of required detection accuracy. Two examples of AND rule as well as OR rule based primary user detection were considered, and analytic expressions for their average time were deduced. Moreover, by comparing the average detection time, this paper proved that OR rule was superior to AND rule from detection time point of view under the same accuracy constraints. Numerical simulation verified all the conclusions in this paper, and demonstrated that superiority of OR rule in detection time over AND rule was greater in the scenarios with higher accuracy constraints or lower signal to noise ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A biconcave particle suspended in a Poiseuille flow is investigated by the multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltz-mann method with the Galilean-invariant momentum exchange method. The lateral migration and equilibrium of the particle are similar to the Segré-Silberberg effect in our numerical simulations. Surprisingly, two lateral equilibrium positions are observed corresponding to the releasing positions of the biconcave particle. The upper equilibrium positions signiflcantly decrease with the increasing Reynolds number, whereas the lower ones are almost insensitive to the Reynolds number. Interestingly, the regular wave accompanied by nonuniform rotation is exhibited in the lateral movement of the biconcave particle. It can be attributed to the fact that the biconcave shape in various postures interacts with the parabolic velocity distribution of the Poiseuille flow. A set of contours illustrate the dynamic flow field when the biconcave particle has successive postures in a rotating period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Invisibility by metamaterials is of great interest, where optical properties are manipulated in the real permittivity-permeability plane. However, the most effective approach to achieving invisibility in various military applications is to absorb the electromagnetic waves emitted from radar to minimize the corresponding reflection and scattering, such that no signal gets bounced back. Here, we show the experimental realization of chip-scale unidirectional reflectionless optical metamaterials near the spontaneous parity-time symmetry phase transition point where reflection from one side is significantly suppressed. This is enabled by engineering the corresponding optical properties of the designed parity-time metamaterial in the complex dielectric permittivity plane. Numerical simulations and experimental verification consistently exhibit asymmetric reflection with high contrast ratios around a wavelength of of 1,550?nm. The demonstrated unidirectional phenomenon at the corresponding parity-time exceptional point on-a-chip confirms the feasibility of creating complicated on-chip parity-time metamaterials and optical devices based on their properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of a quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) scheme using entanglement swapping [Chin. Phys. Lett. 22 (2005) 18], by introducing additional local operations for encoding, we propose a bidirectional QSDC (BQSDC) protocol, in which two legitimate users can simultaneously exchange their respective messages. The rule for the users to retrieve his/her partner's messages is derived explicitly in the most general case. Eve's commonly used attack method has been discussed and can be detected with the security checking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a voxel-based biomechanical model for muscle deformation using finite element method (FEM) and volume graphics. Hierarchical voxel meshes are reconstructed from filtered segmented muscle images followed by FEM simulation and volume rendering. Physiological muscle force is considered and linear elastic muscle models for both static and dynamic cases are simulated by FEM. Voxel-based wireframe, polygon surface rendering, and volume rendering techniques are applied to show real-time muscle deformation processes as well as realistic animations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For low speed diesel engines under severe ocean conditions, high efficiency air–water separators must be equipped to separate excess moisture contained in the air and reduce the corrosion. Optimal design of air–water separator is an indispensable part in the development of marine main engines. In view of the complex gas–liquid two-phase turbulent motion within an air–water separator with corrugated plates, a mathematical model is established and numerical simulations of flow field, droplet trajectory and secondary transport are realized. The separation efficiency and pressure drop of the air–water separator under different structure parameters and different working conditions are studied. The results show that reducing the spacing of corrugated plate is helpful to improve the separation efficiency. The bending and hydrophobic hooks of the corrugated channel are important to improve the separation efficiency. The separation of droplet is mainly concentrated on the first two stages of the air–water separator, and the separation efficiency at the third stage is significantly reduced. Research results will further support corrugated plate theory, experimental research and optimization design of similar separators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]