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In view of the efficiency of the energy utilization, a hybrid heat pump system with cogeneration of boiling and chilled drinking water with R245fa as working fluid was proposed. The system could produce the boiling and chilled drinking water at the same time. In this paper, the thermodynamic model of the system was established. The effect of different factors on the system performance coefficient and thermal perfection was discussed. Comparative analysis of the energy consumption and economy between the novel system and traditional boiling water heater proved the feasibility of system application by the theoretical method. The result indicates that under the standard operating conditions, the annual average coefficient of performance (COP) of the heating cycle COPh,ave is 1.79, and the annual average thermal stability ηh,ave is 42.8%. The annual average COP of the cooling cycle COPc,ave is 4.92, and the annual average thermal stability ηh,ave c,ave is 37.0%. When the water inlet temperature of the cold water tank is 50 °C, compared with the electric boiling water heater, the annual energy saving efficiency of the novel system is 66.32%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Halophilic archaea are promising microbial cell factories for bacterioruberin (BR) production. BR is a natural product with multi-bioactivities, allowing potential application in many fields. In the previous work, a haloarchaeon Halorubrum sp. HRM-150 with a high proportion of BR (about 85%) was isolated, but the low yield impeded its large-scale production. This work figured out BR synthesis characteristics and mechanisms, and proposed strategies for yield improvement. First, glucose (10 g/L) and tryptone (15 g/L) were tested to be better sources for BR production. Besides, the combination of glucose and starch achieved the diauxic growth, and the biomass and BR productivity increased by 85% and 54% than using glucose. Additionally, this work first proposed the BR synthesis pattern, which differs from that of other carotenoids. As a structural component of cell membranes, the BR synthesis is highly coupled with growth, which was most active in the logarithm phase. Meanwhile, the osmotic down shock at the logarithm phase could increase the BR productivity without sacrificing the biomass. Moreover, the de-novo pathway for BR synthesis with a key gene of lyeJ , and its competitive pathways (notably tetraether lipids and retinal) were revealed through genome, transcriptome, and osmotic down shock. Therefore, the BR yield is expected to be improved through mutant construction, such as the overexpression of key gene lyeJ and the knockout of competitive genes, which need to be further explored. The findings will contribute to a better understanding of the metabolism mechanism in haloarchaea and the development of haloarchaea as microbial cell factories., Importance: Recent studies have revealed that halophilic microorganism is a promising microbial factory for the next-generation industrialization. Among them, halophilic archaea are advantageous as microbial factories due to their low contamination risk and low freshwater consumption. The halophilic archaea usually accumulate long chain C 50 carotenoids, which are barely found in other organisms. Bacterioruberin (BR), the major C 50 carotenoid, has multi-bioactivities, allowing potential application in food, cosmetic, and biomedical industries. However, the low yield impedes its large-scale application. This work figured out the BR synthesis characteristics and mechanism, and proposed several strategies for BR yield improvement, encouraging halophilic archaea to function as microbial factories for BR production. Meanwhile, the archaea have special evolutionary status and unique characteristics in taxonomy, the revelation of BR biosynthesis mechanism is beneficial for a better understanding of archaea., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This paper presents the development of a sensor suite that is used to measure the toeboard threedimensional (3D) dynamic deformation during a crash test, along with the methodology to use the sensor suite for toeboard measurement. The sensor suite consists of three high-speed cameras, which are firmly connected through a rigid metal frame. Two cameras, facing directly towards the toeboard, measure the shape of the toeboard through stereovision. The third camera, facing the ground, is equipped with a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer and localizes the sensor suite globally for removing the vibration of the sensor suite. The sensor suite was mounted onto the car through car seat mounting bolt holes, and a hole was made on the floor to let the downward camera see the ground. A pipeline using the data collected by the sensor suite is also introduced in this paper. A 56 km/h frontal barrier crash test was conducted to validate the capability of the sensor suite and a sled test was conducted to test the measuring accuracy of the purposed system. The results show that the proposed sensor suite identified its position and orientation, which allowed the removal of vibration of the stereo camera. The measuring accuracy, which is neither temporal nor positional, was 1.3 mm. The proposed methodology, as a result, has measured the global 3D deformation of the toeboard during crash with a measuring accuracy of 1.3mm.