Hydrodynamics and heat transfer of gas-solid two-phase mixtures flowing through packed beds–a review

Flow of a gas-solid two-phase mixture through a packed bed is relevant to a number of industrial processes such as heat recovery and filtration of dusty flue gases, iron making in shaft reactors, gas purification, and sorption enhanced reaction processes. In spite of the industrial relevance, little work has been reported in the literature. The limited amount of research work has mainly addressed the mac- roscopic hydrodynamics in terms of pressure drop and solids hold-ups at the ambient temperature. Very little is done, until fairly recent, on solids motion at the single particle level, hydrodynamics at elevated temperatures and heat transfer. This paper reviews the recent development in the field including both the hydrodynamics and heat transfer of gas-solid two-phase mixtures flowing through packed beds, which is believed to represent the state-of-the-art in the field. The review is not aimed to be exhaustive but rather focused on our own work carried out over the past few years in the Institute of Particle Science ＆ Engineering at the University of Leeds. And some of our results are compared with that of other groups.     

Genome-wide association study identifies susceptibility loci for dengue shock syndrome at MICB and PLCE1

Hypovolemic shock (dengue shock syndrome (DSS)) is the most common life-threatening complication of dengue. We conducted a genome-wide association study of 2,008 pediatric cases treated for DSS and 2,018 controls from Vietnam. Replication of the most significantly associated markers was carried out in an independent Vietnamese sample of 1,737 cases and 2,934 controls. SNPs at two loci showed genome-wide significant association with DSS. We identified a susceptibility locus at MICB (major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I polypeptide-related sequence B), which was within the broad MHC region on chromosome 6 but outside the class I and class II HLA loci (rs3132468, P(meta) = 4.41 × 10(-11), per-allele odds ratio (OR) = 1.34 (95% confidence interval: 1.23-1.46)). We identified associated variants within PLCE1 (phospholipase C, epsilon 1) on chromosome 10 (rs3765524, P(meta) = 3.08 × 10(-10), per-allele OR = 0.80 (95% confidence interval: 0.75-0.86)). We identify two loci associated with susceptibility to DSS in people with dengue, suggesting possible mechanisms for this severe complication of dengue.