The market for new durable products of modified wood has increased substantially during the last few years, especially in Europe. This increased interest depends partly on the restricted use of toxic ...preservatives due to increased environmental concern, as well as the need for reduced maintenance for wood products that are mainly for exterior use. Furthermore, as sustainability becomes a greater concern, the environmental impact of construction and interior materials should be included in planning by considering the entire life cycle and embodied energy of the materials used. As a result, wood modification has been implemented to improve the intrinsic properties of wood, widen the range of sawn timber applications, and acquire the form and functionality desired by engineers, without bringing environmental friendliness into question. The different wood modification processes are at various stages of development, and the challenges that must be overcome to expand to industrial applications differ amongst them. In this paper, three groups of wood modification processes are discussed and exemplified with modified wood products that have been newly introduced to the market: (i) chemical processing (acetylation, furfurylation, resin impregnation etc.); (ii) thermo-hydro processing (thermal treatment); and (iii) thermo-hydro-mechanical processing (surface densification). Building on these examples, the paper will discuss the environmental impact assessment of modification processes and further development needs.
Administration of substances directly into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that surrounds the brain and spinal cord is one approach that can circumvent the blood-brain barrier to enable drug delivery ...to the central nervous system (CNS). However, molecules that have been administered by intrathecal injection, which includes intraventricular, intracisternal, or lumbar locations, encounter new barriers within the subarachnoid space. These barriers include relatively high rates of turnover as CSF clears and potentially inadequate delivery to tissue or cellular targets. Nanomedicine could offer a solution. In contrast to the fate of freely administered drugs, nanomedicine systems can navigate the subarachnoid space to sustain delivery of therapeutic molecules, genes, and imaging agents within the CNS. Some evidence suggests that certain nanomedicine agents can reach the parenchyma following intrathecal administration. Here, we will address the preclinical and clinical use of intrathecal nanomedicine, including nanoparticles, microparticles, dendrimers, micelles, liposomes, polyplexes, and other colloidalal materials that function to alter the distribution of molecules in tissue. Our review forms a foundational understanding of drug delivery to the CSF that can be built upon to better engineer nanomedicine for intrathecal treatment of disease.
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Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of laminar separation bubbles on a NACA-0012 airfoil at Rec=5×104 and incidence 5° are presented. Initially volume forcing is introduced in order to promote ...transition to turbulence. After obtaining sufficient data from this forced case, the explicitly added disturbances are removed and the simulation run further. With no forcing the turbulence is observed to self-sustain, with increased turbulence intensity in the reattachment region. A comparison of the forced and unforced cases shows that the forcing improves the aerodynamic performance whilst requiring little energy input. Classical linear stability analysis is performed upon the time-averaged flow field; however no absolute instability is observed that could explain the presence of self-sustaining turbulence. Finally, a series of simplified DNS are presented that illustrate a three-dimensional absolute instability of the two-dimensional vortex shedding that occurs naturally. Three-dimensional perturbations are amplified in the braid region of developing vortices, and subsequently convected upstream by local regions of reverse flow, within which the upstream velocity magnitude greatly exceeds that of the time-average. The perturbations are convected into the braid region of the next developing vortex, where they are amplified further, hence the cycle repeats with increasing amplitude. The fact that this transition process is independent of upstream disturbances has implications for modelling separation bubbles.
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced in the cerebral ventricles and circulates within the subarachnoid space (SAS) of the brain and spinal cord, where it exchanges with interstitial fluid of the ...parenchyma. The access of CSF to the entire central nervous system (CNS) makes it an attractive medium for drug delivery. However, few intrathecal (IT) therapies have reached the clinic due, in part, to limited distribution and rapid clearance. Given the success of nanoparticle (NP) carriers in prolonging circulation and improving delivery of systemically administered agents, we sought to evaluate the distribution of IT injected NPs within the CNS. We administered fluorescent, 100 nm PEGylated-NPs into the cisterna magna of healthy mice and studied their distribution along the brain and spinal cord. Our data demonstrate that NPs are capable of distributing rapidly through the SAS along the entire neuraxis with reproducible, anatomically defined patterns of delivery. NPs were well retained within the leptomeninges for over 3 weeks, showing preference for ventral surfaces and minimal penetration into the CNS parenchyma. Clearance of NPs occurred across the cribriform plate into the nasal mucosa, with a small fraction of NPs localizing with nerve roots exiting the spinal column. Larger 10 µm particles were also capable of moving through the SAS but did not achieve as widespread distribution. These studies demonstrate the ability of NPs to achieve widespread delivery along the neuraxis and highlight IT administration as a potentially significant route of administration for delivery of nanomedicine to the subarachnoid space.
Stability characteristics of aerofoil flows are investigated by linear stability analysis of time-averaged velocity profiles and by direct numerical simulations with time-dependent forcing terms. ...First the wake behind an aerofoil is investigated, illustrating the feasibility of detecting absolute instability using these methods. The time-averaged flow around an NACA-0012 aerofoil at incidence is then investigated in terms of its response to very low-amplitude hydrodynamic and acoustic perturbations. Flow fields obtained from both two- and three-dimensional simulations are investigated, for which the aerofoil flow exhibits a laminar separation bubble. Convective stability characteristics are documented, and the separation bubble is found to exhibit no absolute instability in the classical sense; i.e. no growing disturbances with zero group velocity are observed. The flow is however found to be globally unstable via an acoustic-feedback loop involving the aerofoil trailing edge as a source of acoustic excitation and the aerofoil leading-edge region as a site of receptivity. Evidence suggests that the feedback loop may play an important role in frequency selection of the vortex shedding that occurs in two dimensions. Further simulations are presented to investigate the receptivity process by which acoustic waves generate hydrodynamic instabilities within the aerofoil boundary layer. The dependency of the receptivity process to both frequency and source location is quantified. It is found that the amplitude of trailing-edge noise in the fully developed simulation is sufficient to promote transition via leading-edge receptivity.
Direct numerical simulations of the flow around a NACA-0012 aerofoil are conducted, employing an immersed boundary method to represent flat-plate trailing-edge extensions both with and without ...serrations. Properties of the turbulent boundary layer convecting over the trailing edge are similar for both cases. For cases with serrations, the trailing-edge noise produced by the flow over the aerofoil is observed to decrease in amplitude, and the frequency interval over which the noise reduction occurs differs depending on the serration length. The directivity and spanwise coherence of the trailing-edge noise appears largely unaffected by the serrations. The hydrodynamic behaviour in the vicinity of the trailing-edge extensions is investigated. The streamwise discontinuity imparted upon the turbulent flow by the straight trailing edge can clearly be observed in statistical quantities, whereas for the serrated case no spanwise homogeneous discontinuities are observed. The trailing-edge serrations appear to break up the larger turbulent structures convecting into the wake, and to promote the development of horseshoe vortices originating at the serrations themselves.
In this study the role of acoustic feedback instabilities in the tonal airfoil self-noise phenomenon is investigated. First, direct numerical simulations are conducted of the flow around a NACA-0012 ...airfoil at
Re
=
1
×
10
5
and four angles of attack. At the two lowest angles of attack considered the airfoil self-noise exhibits a clear tonal contribution, whereas at the two higher angles of attack the tonal contribution becomes less significant in comparison to the broadband noise. Classical linear stability analysis of time-averaged boundary layer profiles shows that the tonal noise occurs at a frequency significantly lower than that of the most convectively amplified instability wave. Two-dimensional linear stability analysis of the time-averaged flowfield is then performed, illustrating the presence of an acoustic feedback loop involving the airfoil trailing edge. The feedback loop is found to be unstable only for the cases where tonal self-noise is prominent, and is found to self-select a frequency almost identical to that of the tonal self-noise. The constituent mechanisms of the acoustic feedback loop are considered, which appear to explain why the preferred frequency is lower than that of the most convectively amplified instability wave.
► The role of acoustic feedback instabilities in tonal airfoil self-noise is investigated. ► Direct numerical simulations of airfoil flows with and without discrete tones. ► Tonal noise cases exhibit acoustic feedback instability of the time-averaged flow. ► Acoustic feedback instability selects a frequency almost identical to the tonal noise. ► Stable loop frequency tends to that of most unstable shear-layer instability.
Advances in therapeutics for specific conditions have contributed to a categorical psychological approach to chronic diseases that affect children. Consensus statements and clinical guidelines ...recognize stress associated with disorders of sex development (DSD) for patients and their caregivers - yet much remains to be learned concerning the social adjustment, mental health, and quality of life of affected children and their families. We present preliminary data on the psychosocial comorbidities of caregivers of children with DSD, including stigma, isolation, stress, anxiety, and depressive symptomatology. Evidence is offered in support of individualized psychological approaches for families according to such variables as: 1) gender of the caregiver, 2) gender of the affected child and 3) presence of genital ambiguity at birth. Development of feasible, targeted interventions to ameliorate psychosocial comorbidities among caregivers is needed to optimize social adjustment, mental health, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for children with DSD.
Existing Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes-based transition models do not accurately predict separation induced transition for low pressure turbines. Therefore, in this paper, a novel framework based ...on computational fluids dynamics (CFD) driven machine learning coupled with multi-expression and multi-objective optimization is explored to develop models which can improve the transition prediction for the T106A low pressure turbine at an isentropic exit Reynolds number of Re2is=100,000. Model formulations are proposed for the transfer and laminar eddy viscosity terms of the laminar kinetic energy transition model using seven non-dimensional pi groups. The multi-objective optimization approach makes use of cost functions based on the suction-side wall-shear stress and the pressure coefficient. A family of solutions is thus developed, whose performance is assessed using Pareto analysis and in terms of physical characteristics of separated-flow transition. Two models are found which bring the wall-shear stress profile in the separated region at least two times closer to the reference high-fidelity data than the baseline transition model. As these models are able to accurately predict the flow coming off the blade trailing edge, they are also able to significantly enhance the wake-mixing prediction over the baseline model. This is the first known study which makes use of ‘CFD-driven’ machine learning to enhance the transition prediction for a non-canonical flow.
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