In traditional medicine, lung-moistening herbal medicines (LMHM) are regarded as a major option for treating symptoms of pulmonary fibrosis (PF) including dry cough and dyspnea. As PF agents are being applied to the development of lung cancer agents, PF and lung cancer are reported to have high pathological and pharmacological relationships. This study was proposed to identify candidates for the treatment of PF via investigating the effect of LMHM on PF mouse model. PF was induced by intratracheal instillation of bleomycin. Six water extracts of LMHM such as Farfarae Flos (FAF), Trichosanthis Semen (TRS), Lilii Bulbus (LIB), Adenophorae Radix (ADR), Asteris Radix (ASR), and Scrophulariae Radix (SCR) were prepared and administered (300 mg/kg) orally for 10 days after induction. The changes in body weight, histopathology, and immune cell of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were investigated. Among those, LIB and ADR significantly decreased the deposition of collagen and septal thickne... [more]

Recently, consumer markets have shown great interest in sustainable products. Considerable research efforts are headed towards developing biodegradable and recyclable polymers and composites. In this study, the fabrication of a wood−plastic composite (WPC) via solid state compounding has been examined. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and wood sawdust waste as major components of waste and challenging materials for the manufacturing of WPCs have been explored. Furthermore, the addition of poly(ε-caprolactone) as a biodegradable plasticizing agent was investigated. Composite powders were prepared by cryogenic solid-state milling (cryomilling) according to a statistical mixture design. Mechanical and water absorption properties were inspected on film samples obtained by hot pressing. Different formulations resulted in a variety of colors, textures, water interactions and mechanical properties. A sawdust content of approximately 25 vol.% was optimal for the best combination of properties.... [more]

The paper presents the possibility of applying a twin-screw press for juice extraction from apples with different textural properties. The research was carried out with six different varieties; namely, Granny Smith, Modi, Ligol, Lobo, Boscop and Szampion. During the experiment, the following properties were measured: texture properties, pressing yield and polyphenolic content; and ascorbic acid content and antioxidant activity both in raw apples and apple juice. Based on the analysis, three hardness levels of apples can be distinguished, impacting the course of juice pressing in a twin-screw press (low hardness below 30 N, medium hardness 30−50 N and high hardness 50 N). The study showed that only high hardness apples are suitable for pressing on a twin-screw press. The mechanism by which texture properties influence the juice pressing process in the studied press was explained. It was further demonstrated that the hardness of apples has a positive impact on the degree of extraction of... [more]

Neutralization of acid and base to produce electricity in the process of reverse electrodialysis with bipolar membranes (REDBP) presents an interesting but until now fairly overlooked flow battery concept. Previously, we presented single-cell experiments, which explain the principle and discuss the potential of this process. In this contribution, we discuss experiments with REDBP stacks at lab scale, consisting of 5 to 20 repeating cell units. They demonstrate that the single-cell results can be extrapolated to respective stacks, although additional losses have to be considered. As in other flow battery stacks, losses by shunt currents through the parallel electrolyte feed/exit lines increases with the number of connected cell units, whereas the relative importance of electrode losses decreases with increasing cell number. Experimental results are presented with 1 mole L−1 acid (HCl) and base (NaOH) for open circuit as well as for charge and discharge with up to 18 mA/cm2 current densi... [more]

In order to study the influence of eccentricity on hydrodynamic characteristics of nuclear reactor coolant pump under different cavitation conditions, five different schemes were obtained by analyzing and optimizing the existing structural schemes. Based on the RNG k-ε model (Renormalization Group with k-epsilon turbulence models) and two-fluid two-phase flow model, the unsteady numerical analysis and test verification of different designed schemes are carried out by using the flow field software ANSYS CFX. The results of research show that different eccentricities will affect the nuclear reactor coolant pump’s head under different cavitation conditions, and the corresponding head in the scheme with the eccentricity of 5mm under the fracture cavitation condition is lower than that of the other schemes. When the impeller rotates at a certain angle from the initial position under critical and severe cavitation conditions, the radial force acting on the rotor system will fluctuate greatly... [more]

Cs−pollucite can be a potential solid base catalyst due to the presence of (Si-O-Al)−Cs+ basic sites. However, it severely suffers from molecular diffusion and pore accessibility problems due to its small micropore opening. Herein, we report the use of new organosilane, viz. dimethyloctadecyl[3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl]ammonium chloride (TPOAC), as a promising pore-expanding agent to develop the hierarchical structure in nanosized Cs−pollucite. In respect to this, four different amounts of TPOAC were added during the synthesis of hierarchical Cs−pollucite (CP-x, x = 0, 0.3, 1.0, or 2.0, where x is the molar ratio of TPOAC) in order to investigate the effects of TPOAC in the crystallization process of Cs−pollucite. The results show that an addition of TPOAC altered the physico-chemical and morphological properties of hierarchical Cs−pollucite, such as the crystallinity, crystallite size, pore size distribution, surface areas, pore volume, and surface basicity. The prepared solids were al... [more]

In this study, we studied the drying process, grinding characteristics and physicochemical characteristics of broccoli sprouts (BS). The seeds of broccoli were germinated at 20 °C for 3 and 6 days. Then, the seeds were air- and freeze-dried, and the Page model was used for prediction of drying kinetics of broccoli sprouts. It was observed that the drying time of BS decreased about twofold as the air-drying temperature increased from 40 to 80 °C. An increasing the air-drying temperature from 40 to 80 °C decreased the drying time by approximately twofold. Freeze-drying of sprouts took the longest drying time. Germination of seeds significantly decreased the value of grinding energy requirements, and the ground sprouts exhibited a different grinding pattern in comparison to ground non-germinated seeds. In terms of color parameters, the highest lightness and yellowness were found for freeze-dried sprouts. Redness and yellowness of sprouts increased with an increase in the air-drying temper... [more]

This paper investigated the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mixed convection flow of Fe3O4-water ferrofluid over a nonlinearly moving surface. The present work focused on how the state of suction on the surface of the moving sheet and the effects of thermal radiation influence the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics within the stagnation region. As such, a similarity solution is engaged to transform the governing partial differential equations to the ordinary differential equations. A collocation method, namely the bvp4c function in the MATLAB software solves the reduced system, numerically. Two different numerical solutions were identified for the cases of assisting and opposing flows. The stability analysis was conducted to test the stability of the non-uniqueness solutions. The increment of the thermal radiation effect affects the rate of heat transfer to decrease. The stability analysis conveyed that the upper branch solution is stable and vice versa for the other solution.

Carbon nanomaterials are widespread in the atmospheric aerosol as a result of the combustion processes and their extensive industrial use. This has raised many question about the potential toxicity associated with the inhalation of such nanoparticles, and its incorporation into the lung surfactant layer. In order to shed light on the main physical bases underlying the incorporation of carbon nanomaterials into lung surfactant layers, this work has studied the interaction at the water/vapor interface of carbon nanosheets (CN) with Langmuir monolayers of 1,2-Dipalmitoyl-sn-glycerol-3-phosphocholine (DPPC), with this lipid being the main component of lung surfactant layers and responsible of some of the most relevant features of such film. The incorporation of CN into DPPC Langmuir monolayers modifies the lateral organization of the DPPC at the interface, which is explained on the basis of two different effects: (i) particles occupy part of the interfacial area, and (ii) impoverishment of... [more]

It has been proven that polymer injection at early times is beneficial to offshore heavy oil recovery. It is of significant importance to optimize the polymer injection timing and decide the residual oil distribution after polymer flooding. Aiming at a specific offshore heavy oil reservoir in Bohai, China, the optimum polymer injection timing is investigated through laboratory experiments. The influence of polymer injection timing on oil displacement and remaining oil distribution is analyzed by combining macroscopic and microscopic flooding experiments. The results reveal that the optimum polymer injection timing should be close to the water breakthrough, i.e., just before the waterflooding front reaches the outlet of the core. In addition, the waterflooding front position is analytically solved by using the Buckley−Leverett method and verified by experimental results, which supply an approach to predict the polymer injection timing. When polymer is injected before the waterflood fron... [more]

Calculating hydrocarbon components solubility of natural gases is known as one of the important issues for operational works in petroleum and chemical engineering. In this work, a novel solubility estimation tool has been proposed for hydrocarbon gases—including methane, ethane, propane, and butane—in aqueous electrolyte solutions based on extreme learning machine (ELM) algorithm. Comparing the ELM outputs with a comprehensive real databank which has 1175 solubility points yielded R-squared values of 0.985 and 0.987 for training and testing phases respectively. Furthermore, the visual comparison of estimated and actual hydrocarbon solubility led to confirm the ability of proposed solubility model. Additionally, sensitivity analysis has been employed on the input variables of model to identify their impacts on hydrocarbon solubility. Such a comprehensive and reliable study can help engineers and scientists to successfully determine the important thermodynamic properties, which are key f... [more]

The Kumar model as a molecular model has achieved successful application. However, only 22 reactions limit its veracity and adaptability for feedstocks. A series of models with different degrees of integration of the free radical model and the molecular model has been proposed to enhance feedstock adaptability and simulation accuracy. An improved search engine algorithm, namely Improved PageRank (IPR), is provided and applied to calculate the importance of substances in Kumar model to screen the free-radical reaction network for efficient model selection. A methodology of optimal structure and model parameters chosen is applied to the target to improve the adaptability of the material and the accuracy of the model. Then, two cases with different feedstocks are demonstrated with industrial data to verify the correctness of the proposed approach and its wide feedstock adaptability. The proposed model demonstrates good performance: (1) The mean relative errors (MRE) of the K-R (Kumar and... [more]

Safety analysis is one of the important means to show compliance with airworthiness requirements. The traditional safety analysis methods are significantly dependent on analysts’ skills and experiences. A model-based safety analysis approach is proposed for typical fly-by-wire (FBW) systems based on the system development model built via Simulink, by which the response of system performances can be simulated. The safety requirements of the FBW system are defined by presenting the thresholds of system performance metrics, and the effects of failure conditions on aircraft safety are determined according to the system response simulation by injecting failures or failure combinations into the Simulink model. The Monte Carlo simulation method is used to calculate the probability of unsafe conditions, whose effects are determined by the system response simulation with fault injections. Finally, a case study is used to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of our proposed approach.

This work aims to characterize a new method to recover low-manipulated human adipose tissue, enriched with adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ATD-MSCs) for autologous use in regenerative medicine applications. Lipoaspirated fat collected from patients was processed through Lipocell, a Class II-a medical device for dialysis of adipose tissue, by varying filter sizes and washing solutions. ATD-MSC yield was measured with flow cytometry after stromal vascular fraction (SVF) isolation in fresh and cultured samples. Purification from oil and blood was measured after centrifugation with spectrophotometer analysis. Extracellular matrix preservation was assessed through hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining and biochemical assay for total collagen, type-2 collagen, and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) quantification. Flow cytometry showed a two-fold increase of ATD-MSC yield in treated samples in comparison with untreated lipoaspirate; no differences where reported when varying filter size... [more]

During mathematical representation of microbial cultures, it is normally assumed that changes in the environment produce instantaneous effects on growth. However, reports are available indicating that sometimes this may not be the case. This work studied the existence of delays on the response of a population of microalgae when subjected to changes in energy and carbon sources, and when exposed to a growth inhibitor. Results show that no appreciable delays exist when microalgae undergo changes in the incident light intensity. For changes in carbon source concentration (inorganic carbon), a small delay in the range of minutes was detected. Finally, when exposing microalgae to inhibitory concentrations of ammonia, a significant delay of several hours was observed.

This paper aims at studying the dynamic fluid evolution process of port plate pair of an axial piston pump. First of all, The Renormalization Group k-ε model (RNG k-ε model) is implemented to simulate the dynamic flow distribution and forecast the evolution of the internal vortex structure inside the valve plate chamber with different speeds of pistons and velocities of inlet fluid by using computational fluid dynamics software. Then, an equivalent amplification test model of a piston-valve plate is built up based on Reynolds similarity theory; the flow state of the piston-valve plate flow field is observed applied the particle image velocimetry (PIV) measuring technique. The resulting uniformity of numerical simulation and PIV measurement verifies that the RNG k-ε model can achieve high-precision prediction for the vortex structure inside the valve plate chamber. Through analysis of velocity contours and streamlines of the flow field, it can be found that vortices with different scale... [more]

Biopharmaceuticals are currently becoming one of the fastest growing segments of the global pharmaceutical industry, being used in practically all branches of medicine from disease treatment to prevention. Virus-like particles (VLP) hold tremendous potential as a vaccine candidate due to their anticipated immunogenicity and safety profile when compared to inactivated or live attenuated viral vaccines. Nevertheless, there are several challenges yet to be solved in the development and manufacturing of these products, which ultimately can increase time to market. Suchlike virus-based products, the development of a platform approach is often hindered due to diversity and inherent variability of physicochemical properties of the product. In the present work, a flow-through chromatographic purification strategy for hepatitis C VLP expressed using the baculovirus-insect cell expression system was developed. The impact of operational parameters, such as residence time and ionic strength were s... [more]

Municipal solid waste (MSW) gasification could be a novel method that shows the various advantages over traditional MSW treatments in China. Other research concluded that MSW gasification was operating by the assistant heat, and the gasification may occur under medium temperature. So, this study is aimed to investigate MSW gasification and pyrolysis behavior and analyze the syngas evolution and reaction mechanism. The MSW samples were collected in daily life and the experiments were carried out in a fixed tubular reactor below 650 °C. The effects of medium temperature and oxygen content on syngas quality were elucidated in depth. The results have shown that temperature can promote the syngas quality in the range of 550−650 °C, because the increasing temperature strengthens the reaction rate. The oxygen content should be controlled in a certain range, or oxidation reactions will be more prominent during gasification. The optimal gasification condition in this study was obtained at 650 °... [more]

The toxic pollutants phenol and cyanide in the bio-treated effluent of coking wastewater still need advanced treatment to meet environmental requirements. In this study, activated carbon prepared from municipal sludge and bamboo waste (SBAC) was used for simultaneous adsorption of phenol and cyanide from bio-treated effluent of coking wastewater. The results showed that the optimum removal efficiencies of volatile phenol (69.7%) and total cyanide (80.1%) were observed at a SBAC dosage of 8 g/L, a pH value of 8.0, and a contact time of 80 min. The physical and chemical properties of SBAC were analyzed using Brunauer−Emmett−Teller (BET) surface area (SBET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. SBAC had high SBET (289.58 m2/g) and rich mesoporous structure (average pore diameter of 3.688 nm), and carboxylic groups on SBAC surfaces were enhanced due to the addition of bamboo waste. In addition, a kinetic model of pseudo-first-order fitted... [more]

As interest in the modularization and intensification of chemical processes continues to grow, more research must be directed towards the modeling and analysis of these units. Intensified process units such as polymer membrane reactors pose unique challenges pertaining to design and operation that have not been fully addressed. In this work, a novel approach for modeling membrane reactors is developed in AVEVA’s Simcentral Simulation Platform. The produced model allows for the simulation of polymer membrane reactors under nonisothermal and countercurrent operation for the first time. This model is then applied to generate an operability mapping to study how operating points translate to overall unit performance. This work demonstrates how operability analyses can be used to identify areas of improvement in membrane reactor design, other than just using operability mapping studies to identify optimal input conditions. The performed analysis enables the quantification of the Pareto front... [more]

This article describes the use of the electrical conductivity for measuring bed expansion in a continuous anaerobic biofilm reactor in order to prevent the exit of support material from the reactor with the consequent loss of biomass. The substrate used for the tests is obtained from a two-stage anaerobic digestion (AD) process at the pilot scale that treats the liquid fraction of fruit and vegetable waste (FVW). Tests were performed with the raw substrate before anaerobic treatment (S1), the effluent from the hydrolysis reactor (S2), and the effluent from the methanogenic reactor (S3) to evaluate its effect on the electrical conductivity values and its interaction with colonized support material. The tests were carried out in a 32 L anaerobic inverse fluidized bed reactor (IFBR), which was inoculated with colonized support material and using two industrial electrodes at different column positions. The results with the previously digested samples (S2 and S3) were satisfactory to detect... [more]

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is a well-known computing service, which provides infrastructures over the cloud without owning real hardware resources. This is attractive as resources can be scaled up and down instantly according to the user’s computing demands. Customers of such services would like to adjust the utilization policy promptly by considering the charge of the service, but an instantaneous response is not possible as it takes several hours or even a couple of days for cloud service providers to inform the billing information. In this article, we present an instant cost estimation model for estimating the cost of public cloud resources. Specifically, our model estimates the cost of IaaS by monitoring the usage of resources on behalf of virtual machine instances. As this is performed by generating a user-side metering daemon, it is very precise and thus similar to the resource usage evaluated by the cloud service provider. To validate our model, we run PC laboratory serv... [more]

Microwave (MW) heating of supported metal nanoparticles (NPs) presents attractive effects on catalysis such as the rapid heating processes and the enhancement of the reaction rate. Improving the heating property of the NPs, which act as the catalytic active sites, the MW effects will become more significant. Here we show a systematic study about the supported Pt NPs structure to improve the MW heating property. We found that the drastic heating was induced by a percolated Pt NPs structure, where the conduction electrons move around in the two-dimensional network. On the other hand, no heating was observed in an isolated Pt NPs system with the confined electrons. We conclude that the percolation of the Pt NPs giving the network structure is one of the important key factors for the efficient MW heating. The optimized Pt NPs catalyst leads to the dramatic MW effects on catalytic reactions.

The increasing trends in gas emissions have had direct adverse impacts on human health and ecological habitats in the world. A variety of technologies have been deployed to mitigate the release of such gases, including CO2, CO, SO2, H2S, NOx and H2. This special issue on gas-capture processes collects 25 review and research papers on the applications of novel techniques, processes, and theories in gas capture and removal.

When internal flows go through a valve with a small opening degree, high-speed jet flows are induced, which causes the erosion of the valve core and affects the stability of the flow field. Setting guiding plates in the valve behind the valve core has the function of reducing the adverse effect of high-speed jet flows. In this work, numerical simulations were carried out to investigate the effect of the guiding plate on flow and resistance coefficient, velocity and pressure distributions and flow stability downstream of the valve. The number of guiding plates was changed from 0 to 3 and the opening degree was varied from 0 to 100% at intervals of 10%. A guiding plate with holes in it plays the role of bypassing and guiding flow. Under the action of the guiding plate, the flow coefficient obviously decreases, the gap flow between the valve core and the valve wall in the top of the valve are modified, and the gap flow even disappeared in the valve with 3 guiding plates. It was found that... [more]