Membrane sorption property effects on transmembrane permeation

A theoretical study was carried out into membrane transport phenomena.Formulae for calculating the membrane transport resistance and transmembrane mass flux were given,variations in membrane resistance and moisture flux with the membrane sorption constant(C)under various humidity conditions were analyzed,and the value of C corresponding to the minimum membrane resistance or the maximum moisture flux was obtained.The results show that the membrane resistance and moisture flux relate not only to C but also to the relative humidities on both sides of the membrane.As C increases,membrane resistance initially decreases but then increases,i.e.,a minimum occurs,while the moisture flux first decreases and then increases,i.e.,a maximum occurs.The membrane resistance and moisture flux reach their extrema at the same value of C,which is determined by the relative humidities on both sides of the membrane.To reduce the membrane resistance,the value of C should be chosen based on the humidity conditions.     

Reverberation nulling and echo enhancement at low frequency using waveguide invariance

Based on the fact that the transfer function vector between a source receiver array and the dominant scatterer of boundary reverberation at a range can be obtained from the corresponding reverberations scattered from this range cell, a reverberation nulling concept using time reversal processing has been proposed. However, current reverberation nulling methods have certain limitations when applied into practice, which would null boundary reverberation and target echo simultaneously. As a solution, a passive reverberation nulling and echo enhancement method at low frequency using waveguide invariance is proposed in this paper. In this method, the reverberation subspace for the target range cell is not obtained directly from the return signals scattered by the target range cell but from the return signals scattered by a range cell located before the target using waveguide invariance, so as to suppress the reverberation embodied in the target echo by passive reverberation nulling. Besides, a range-dependent optimal weighting vector rather than conventional projector matrix is deduced to null the reverberation component meanwhile maximizing the target echo, thereby enhancing the echo-to-reverberation ratio furthest. Numerical simulations in typical range-independent shallow water environment demonstrate the efficacy and the improved performance of the proposed method for echo-to-reverberation enhancement.     

The effects of the guide field on the structures of electron density depletions in collisionless magnetic reconnection

Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are performed to investigate the formation of electron density depletions in collisionless magnetic reconnection.In anti-parallel reconnection,the quadrupole structures of the out-of-plane magnetic field are formed,and four symmetric electron density depletion layers can be found along the separatrices due to the effects of magetic mirror.With the increase of the initial guide field,the symmetry of both the out-of-plane magnetic field and electron density depletion layers is distorted.When the initial guide field is sufficiently large,the electron density depletion layers along the lower left and upper right separatrices disappear.The parallel electric field in guide field reconnection is found to play an important role in forming such structures of the electron density depletion layers.The structures of the out-of-plane magnetic field By and electron depletion layers in anti-parallel and guide field reconnection are found to be related to electron flow or in-plane currents in the separatrix regions.In anti-parallel reconnection,electrons flow towards the X line along the separatrices,and are directed away from the X line along the magnetic field lines just inside the separatrices.In guide field reconnection,electrons can only flow towards the X line along the upper left and lower right separatrices due to the existence of the parallel electric field in these regions.     

A novel numerical method for infinite domain potential problems

The infinite domain potential problems arise in many branches of scientific and engineering fields, which by now still pose a great challenge to scientific computing community.This study proposes a novel meshless singular boundary method (SBM) to solve infinite domain potential problems.The SBM is mathematically simple, easy-to-program, meshless and integration-free.To guar-antee the uniqueness of numerical solutions, this article adds a constant term into the SBM approximate representation.The effi-ciency ...     

Attentional negativity bias moderated by positive mood arousal

Automatically allocation of more attention to negative stimuli is called emotional negativity bias. An event-related potentials (ERPs) experiment investigated whether or not this bias was altered by positive mood arousal. The results suggested that the attention bias towards negative stimuli was attenuated when positive information was accessible.     

Co-substituted ATS-type molecular sieves and films for cyclohexane oxidation

Pure CoAPO-36 crystal grains were synthesized by hydrothermal reaction. Porous α-Al₂O₃, stainless steel and K₂Ti₆O₁₃ supported CoAPO-36 films were fabricated using in situ crystallization for the first time. SEM images and XRD measurements demonstrate that a continuous CoAPO-36 film was obtained on the K₂Ti₆O₁₃ substrate. Diffuse reflectance UV-Vis spectra indicate that Co²⁺ has been incorporated into the ATS framework. Both CoAPO-36 crystal grains and the K₂Ti₆O₁₃ supported CoAPO-36 film exhibit satisfactory catalytic activities for the oxidation of cyclohexane.     

A numerical method to simulate the coupled oscillations of flexible structures in flowing fluids

A numerical method is developed to simulate the coupled phenomena in a fluid-flexible-structure system. Specifically, a two-dimensional panel method is used to calculate the hydrodynamic forces and a modal superposition method is adopted to solve the governing equation of an Eulerian beam. The stability boundary of a single flexible beam in a uniform flow is calculated and compared with previous results to verify the validity of the code. The flow-induced flapping of a single and two flexible bodies for S=1.0, U*=7.0 are investigated. For the flow-induced vibration of a single beam, the oscillation frequency is close to the secondary natural frequency of a cantilever. For two parallel flexible beams, they oscillate in phase when the non-dimensional separating distance H<0.25. When H>0.25, the out-of-phase mode occurs with a jump in frequency. When H>1, the interaction between the two beams decouples and the frequency and forces of each beam revert to behavior associated with a single beam in the same flow. Simulations of coupled-flapping of two tandem flexible structures proved that the drag acting on the upstream body is reduced while for that downstream drag is obviously increased when the structures are closely arranged. The numerical results obtained in the present work are qualitatively consistent with early experimental results.     

Application of surface plasmon resonance in screening adsorbents and explaining adsorption phenomena using model polymers

A surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique was developed as an online screening method to identify effective adsorbents for the peptide NH₂-Cys-Thr-Trp-Trp-COOH (CW-4). To validate the SPR technique, several linear polymers containing amino acid residues were synthesized as models of their corresponding adsorbents. SPR screening of all the linear polymers demonstrated that the linear polymer containing phenylalanine residues (PPhe) exhibited the highest affinity for CW-4 among the polymers tested. In accordance with the screening results from SPR, the adsorbent containing phenylalanine (APhe) exhibited the highest adsorption capacity for CW-4. An interesting observation was that the amounts of CW-4 adsorbed on 3 adsorbents were quite small, even though both SPR and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) experiments indicated the presence of interactions between CW-4 and the three polymers. A kinetic analysis performed using SPR technology suggested such a phenomenon was ascribed to the poor stability of the CW-4/polymer complexes; that is, CW-4 associates with the polymers quickly, but it also dissociated quickly. The combined results suggested that SPR was a promising tool to identify the optimal adsorbent for peptides, analyze the interactions contributing to adsorption and explain adsorption phenomena using polymer models.     

Synthesis process of Ba-ferrites from α-FeOOH and γ-FeOOH and investigation of magnetic properties

The claviform BaFe₁₂O₁₉ crystals were synthesized by the precipitation-toptactic reaction method using α-FeOOH and γ-FeOOH as raw materials respectively. The synthesis processes of BaFe₁₂O₁₉, studied by XRD, SEM, EDS, FT-IR, and TG-DTA techniques, included preparations of precursor γ and precursor α, formations of α-Fe₂O₃ and BaFe₂O₄, and production of rod-like BaFe₁₂O₁₉ through dehydroxylation of pod-like FeOOH, followed by reactions of α-Fe₂O₃ with BaCO₃ and BaFe₂O₄. The crystallinity of α-Fe₂O₃ and BaCO₃ from precursor α was better than from precursor γ due to the direct dehydroxylation of α-FeOOH, resulting in a lower nucleation rate and better crystallinity of BaFe₂O₄. BaFe₁₂O₁₉ prepared from precursor α showed lower crystallinity and purity with a higher length-diameter ratio than from precursor γ. The VSM results proved that the appearance of final products had an important influence on magnetic properties.