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Hypertension is one of the leading causes of death due to target organ injury from cardiovascular disease. Although there are many treatments, only one-sixth of hypertensive patients effectively control their blood pressure. Therefore, further understanding the pathogenesis of hypertension is essential for the treatment of hypertension. Much research shows that immune cells play an important role in the pathogenesis of hypertension. Here, we discuss the roles of different immune cells in hypertension. Many immune cells participate in innate and adaptive immune responses, such as monocytes/macrophages, neutrophils, dendritic cells, NK cells, and B and T lymphocytes. Immune cells infiltrate the blood vessels, kidneys, and hearts and cause damage. The mechanism is that immune cells secrete cytokines such as interleukin, interferon, and tumor necrosis factor, which affect the inflammatory reaction, oxidative stress, and kidney sodium water retention, and finally aggravate or reduce the dysfunction, remodeling, and fibrosis of the blood vessel, kidney, and heart to participate in blood pressure regulation. This article reviews the research progress on immune cells and hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air-conditioning in cars and small trucks lowers fuel economy by an estimated 22% and significantly increases tailpipe emissions. The design of vehicle air conditioners is based on the maximum cabin (soak) temperature attained when the vehicle is parked on a hot, sunny summer day. Cool colored paints reflect most of the sun’s energy in the near-infrared band (0.7 – 2.5 microns) while offering choice of color in the visible band (0.4 – 0.7 microns). Painting vehicle shells with these cool colors can reduce the soak temperature and thus increase fuel economy by decreasing the vehicle's ancillary load and permitting the use of smaller air conditioners. In this report we investigate cool colored paints (a.k.a. “cool coatings”) for cars. This was carried out by(1) establishing a 21-member collaborative research team representing 13 organizations including government, industry and other research institutions; (2) estimating fuel savings and emission reductions attainable with cool coatings; (3) developing an energy RD&D framework (roadmap) addressing energy efficiency measures that have potential for improving the air conditioning performance of cars; (4) initiating development of a database of cool colored coatings for cars with measurements of solar spectral reflectance and thermal emittance of over 180 car coatings. An experimental comparison of otherwise identical black and silver compact sedans indicated that increasing the solar reflectance () of the car's shell by about 0.5 lowered soak temperature by about 5-6°C. Thermal analysis predicts that the air conditioning capacity required to cool the cabin air in the silver car to 25°C within 30 minutes is 13% less than that required in the black car. Assuming that potential reductions in AC capacity and engine ancillary load scale linearly with increase in shell solar reflectance, ADVISOR simulations of the SC03 urban/highway driving cycle indicate that substituting a typical cool-colored shell (= 0.35) for a black shell (= 0.05) would reduce fuel consumption by 0.12 L per 100 km (1.1%), increasing fuel economy by 0.10 km L-1 [0.24 mpg] (1.1%). It would also decrease CO2 emissions by 2.7 g km-1 (1.1%), NOx emissions by 0.0054 g km-1 (0.44%), CO emissions by 0.017 g km-1 (0.43%), and HC emissions by 0.0041 g km-1 (0.37%). Selecting a typical white or silver shell (= 0.60) instead of a black shell would lower fuel consumption by 0.21 L per 100 km (1.9%), raising fuel economy by 0.19 km L-1 [0.44 mpg] (2.0%). It would also decrease CO2emissions by 4.9 g km-1 (1.9%), NOx emissions by 0.0099 g km-1 (0.80%), CO emissions by 0.31 g km-1 (0.79%), and HC emissions by 0.0074 g km-1 (0.67%).

Short pulsed laser-induced single acoustic wave generation, propagation, interaction within a water-filled internal channel are experimentally and numerically studied. A large-area, short-duration, single-plane acoustic wave was generated by the thermoelastic interaction of a homogenized nanosecond pulsed laser beam with a liquid–solid interface and propagated at the speed of sound in water. Laser flash Schlieren photography was used to visualize the transient interaction of the plane acoustic wave in various internal channel structures ((a) sudden expansion and contraction channels, (b) bifurcating channels, (c) gradual contraction wall channels and (d) a cylinder). Fairly good agreement between the experimental results and numerical simulation is observed.

Polymer modified copper (Cu) catalysts have demonstrated an increased production of multi-carbon (C2+) products during the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). Herein, a solvent-free processing method has been developed to cover commercial Cu nanoparticles with a porous nanocoating of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) that greatly improved the production of C2+ products. The PTFE coating created a large interfacial surface area that facilitated the transport of CO2 to the solid–liquid–gas interface. The optimal catalyst achieved a faradaic efficiency of 78% for C2+ products and a notably large C2+ to C1 product ratio of ∼13 at current densities ranging from 400 to 500 mA cm−2. In comparison, catalysts prepared by a conventional solvent-based method only achieved a faradaic efficiency of 56% for C2+ products and a small C2+ to C1 product ratio of ∼2 in the same current density range. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggested that the physisorbed PTFE coating on Cu catalysts plays a more significant role than the most frequently studied chemisorbed PTFE. The physisorbed PTFE is predicted to increase the binding energy of CO intermediates on Cu and lower the activation energy for C–C coupling steps, leading to significantly higher C2+ product selectivity of the Cu catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]