Power train electrification is promoted as a potential alternative to reduce carbon intensity of transportation. Lithium-ion batteries are found to be suitable for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and ...pure electric vehicles (EVs), and temperature control on lithium batteries is vital for long-term performance and durability. Unfortunately, battery thermal management (BTM) has not been paid close attention partly due to poor understanding of battery thermal behaviour. Cell performance change dramatically with temperature, but it improves with temperature if a suitable operating temperature window is sustained. This paper provides a review on two aspects that are battery thermal model development and thermal management strategies. Thermal effects of lithium-ion batteries in terms of thermal runaway and response under cold temperatures will be studied, and heat generation methods are discussed with aim of performing accurate battery thermal analysis. In addition, current BTM strategies utilised by automotive suppliers will be reviewed to identify the imposing challenges and critical gaps between research and practice. Optimising existing BTMs and exploring new technologies to mitigate battery thermal impacts are required, and efforts in prioritising BTM should be made to improve the temperature uniformity across the battery pack, prolong battery lifespan, and enhance the safety of large packs.
•Flow test and numerical simulation solving NS equations on DFNs are conducted.•Critical hydraulic gradient depends on aperture, roughness and number of intersections.•Expressions for predicting ...coefficients in Forchheimer's law and critical gradient are proposed.
Transition of fluid flow from the linear to the nonlinear regime has been confirmed in single rock fractures when the Reynolds number (Re) exceeds some critical values, yet the criterion for such a transition in discrete fracture networks (DFNs) has received little attention. This study conducted flow tests on crossed fracture models with a single intersection and performed numerical simulations on fluid flow through DFNs of various geometric characteristics. The roles of aperture, surface roughness, and number of intersections of fractures on the variation of the critical hydraulic gradient (Jc) for the onset of nonlinear flow through DFNs were systematically investigated. The results showed that the relationship between hydraulic gradient (J) and flow rate can be well quantified by Forchheimer's law; when J drops below Jc, it reduces to the widely used cubic law, by diminishing the nonlinear term. Larger apertures, rougher fracture surfaces, and a greater number of intersections in a DFN would result in the onset of nonlinear flow at a lower Jc. Mathematical expressions of Jc and the coefficients involved in Forchheimer's law were developed based on multi-variable regressions of simulation results, which can help to choose proper governing equations when solving problems associated with fluid flow in fracture networks.
Recently, strong polymer‐based hydrogels have been intensively investigated. However, the development of tough protein hydrogels with controlled degradation for bone regeneration has rarely been ...reported. Here, regenerated silk fibroin/gelatin (RSF/G) hydrogels with both strength and controlled degradation are prepared via physically and chemically double‐crosslinked networks. As a representative example, the 9%RSF/3%G hydrogel shows approximately 80% elongation and a compressive and tensile modulus of up to 0.25 and 0.21 MPa, respectively. It also shows a degradation rate that can be adjusted to approximately three months in vivo, a value between that of the rapidly degrading gelatin hydrogel and the slowly degrading RSF hydrogel. The 9%RSF/3%G hydrogel has good biocompatibility and promotes the proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow–derived stem cells compared with the control and pure RSF hydrogels. At 12 weeks after implantation of the gel in a calvarial defect, micro‐computed tomography shows greater bone volume and bone mineral density in the 9%RSF/3%G group. More importantly, histology reveals more mineralization and enhancements in the quality and rate of bone regeneration with less of a tissue response in the 9%RSF/3%G group. These results indicate the promising potential of this tough protein hydrogel with controlled degradation for bone regeneration applications.
A novel facile strategy is developed to fabricate strong and tough hydrogels with controlled degradation by immersing an enzymatically crosslinked regenerated silk fibroin/gelatin (RSF/G) hydrogel in a salt solution, forming a double‐crosslinked network. The resulting 9%RSF/3%G hydrogel shows high strength, good biocompatibility, a suitable degradation rate, and capacity for promoting osteogenic differentiation and bone regeneration.
AbstractObjectiveTo study the clinical characteristics of patients in Zhejiang province, China, infected with the 2019 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) responsible for ...coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-2019).DesignRetrospective case series.SettingSeven hospitals in Zhejiang province, China.Participants62 patients admitted to hospital with laboratory confirmed SARS-Cov-2 infection. Data were collected from 10 January 2020 to 26 January 2020.Main outcome measuresClinical data, collected using a standardised case report form, such as temperature, history of exposure, incubation period. If information was not clear, the working group in Hangzhou contacted the doctor responsible for treating the patient for clarification.ResultsOf the 62 patients studied (median age 41 years), only one was admitted to an intensive care unit, and no patients died during the study. According to research, none of the infected patients in Zhejiang province were ever exposed to the Huanan seafood market, the original source of the virus; all studied cases were infected by human to human transmission. The most common symptoms at onset of illness were fever in 48 (77%) patients, cough in 50 (81%), expectoration in 35 (56%), headache in 21 (34%), myalgia or fatigue in 32 (52%), diarrhoea in 3 (8%), and haemoptysis in 2 (3%). Only two patients (3%) developed shortness of breath on admission. The median time from exposure to onset of illness was 4 days (interquartile range 3-5 days), and from onset of symptoms to first hospital admission was 2 (1-4) days.ConclusionAs of early February 2020, compared with patients initially infected with SARS-Cov-2 in Wuhan, the symptoms of patients in Zhejiang province are relatively mild.
Abstract
Little is known about the transcriptomic plasticity and adaptive mechanisms of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) during hematogeneous dissemination. Here we interrogate the transcriptome of 113 ...single CTCs from 4 different vascular sites, including hepatic vein (HV), peripheral artery (PA), peripheral vein (PV) and portal vein (PoV) using single-cell full-length RNA sequencing in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. We reveal that the transcriptional dynamics of CTCs were associated with stress response, cell cycle and immune-evasion signaling during hematogeneous transportation. Besides, we identify chemokine CCL5 as an important mediator for CTC immune evasion. Mechanistically, overexpression of CCL5 in CTCs is transcriptionally regulated by p38-MAX signaling, which recruites regulatory T cells (Tregs) to facilitate immune escape and metastatic seeding of CTCs. Collectively, our results reveal a previously unappreciated spatial heterogeneity and an immune-escape mechanism of CTC, which may aid in designing new anti-metastasis therapeutic strategies in HCC.
Metasurfaces have enabled a plethora of emerging functions within an ultrathin dimension, paving way towards flat and highly integrated photonic devices. Despite the rapid progress in this area, ...simultaneous realization of reconfigurability, high efficiency, and full control over the phase and amplitude of scattered light is posing a great challenge. Here, we try to tackle this challenge by introducing the concept of a reprogrammable hologram based on 1-bit coding metasurfaces. The state of each unit cell of the coding metasurface can be switched between '1' and '0' by electrically controlling the loaded diodes. Our proof-of-concept experiments show that multiple desired holographic images can be realized in real time with only a single coding metasurface. The proposed reprogrammable hologram may be a key in enabling future intelligent devices with reconfigurable and programmable functionalities that may lead to advances in a variety of applications such as microscopy, display, security, data storage, and information processing.Realizing metasurfaces with reconfigurability, high efficiency, and control over phase and amplitude is a challenge. Here, Li et al. introduce a reprogrammable hologram based on a 1-bit coding metasurface, where the state of each unit cell of the coding metasurface can be switched electrically.
•Flow test and numerical simulation solving NS equations on crossed fractures are conducted.•An expression for predicting hydraulic aperture of each segment of an intersection is proposed.•Influences ...of hydraulic gradient, surface roughness, intersecting angle, and scale effect are systematically investigated.•A necessary condition to apply the cubic law to flow through fracture intersections is suggested.
Fluid flow tests were conducted on two crossed fracture models for which the geometries of fracture segments and intersections were measured by utilizing a visualization technique using a CCD (charged coupled device) camera. Numerical simulations by solving the Navier–Stokes equations were performed to characterize the fluid flow at fracture intersections. The roles of hydraulic gradient, surface roughness, intersecting angle, and scale effect in the nonlinear fluid flow behavior through single fracture intersections were investigated. The simulation results of flow rate agreed well with the experimental results for both models. The experimental and simulation results showed that with the increment of the hydraulic gradient, the ratio of the flow rate to the hydraulic gradient, Q/J, decreases and the relative difference of Q/J between the calculation results employing the Navier–Stokes equations and the cubic law, δ, increases. When taking into account the fracture surface roughness quantified by Z2 ranging 0–0.42 for J=1, the value of δ would increase by 0–10.3%. The influences of the intersecting angle on the normalized flow rate that represents the ratio of the flow rate in a segment to the total flow rate, Ra, and the ratio of the hydraulic aperture to the mechanical aperture, e/E, are negligible when J<10−3, whereas their values change significantly when J>10−2. Based on the regression analysis on simulation results, a mathematical expression was proposed to quantify e/E, involving variables of J and Rr, where Rr is the radius of truncating circles centered at an intersection. For E/Rr>10−2, e/E varies significantly and the scale of model has large impacts on the nonlinear flow behavior through intersections, while for E/Rr<10−3, the scale effect is negligibly small. Finally, a necessary condition to apply the cubic law to fluid flow through fracture intersections is suggested as J<10−3, E/Rr<10−3, and Z2=0.
In next-generation LTE-advanced cellular networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication has emerged as an effective way to offload cellular traffic and improve system performance. Conventionally, a ...device exclusively relies on cellular communication to retrieve the content it desires. With D2D communication, however, if the same piece of content is available in the vicinity of the device, the content can be directly retrieved from one of its neighbouring devices. Naturally, the key problem becomes how to maximize content sharing via D2D communication. Existing works on content sharing are mainly concerned with a multi-hop communication setting, while works on D2D communication have primarily focused on the communication aspects, including interference avoidance and energy efficiency. In this paper, we study the problem of maximizing cellular traffic offloading with D2D communication, by selectively caching popular content locally, and by exploring maximal matching for sender-receiver pairs. Specifically, we consider an interference-aware communication model and formulate selective caching as a Knapsack problem, and sender-receiver matching as a maximum weighted matching problem in a bipartite graph. We propose decentralized algorithms to solve both problems, and our simulation results demonstrate that our algorithms are effective in maximizing cellular traffic offloading.
This paper introduces the concept, theory, and design of 3-D frequency selective rasorbers (FSRs), which have a transmission window transparent to the incident electromagnetic wave with two ...absorption bands located at both sides of the window. The proposed rasorber consists of a 2-D periodic array of parallel waveguides. The transmission characteristics with high selectivity are produced by lossless resonators implemented using a parallel waveguide with a metallic post in the center. On the other hand, the absorption bands are obtained by lossy resonators constructed by loading of lumped resistors at the entry port of short-circuited waveguides. Physical mechanism of the proposed FSRs is explained with the aid of an equivalent circuit model, and relevant design equations are formulated. Two prototypes of the designed FSRs are fabricated and measured as a proof of concept. The experimental results show that a bandwidth of 50% for the insertion loss less than 3 dB and two absorption bands with a high absorptance of around 90% can be achieved. Moreover, the simulated results also show that the proposed structure exhibits stable performance against the variation of the incident angle of an incoming plane wave.
Long-distance entanglement distribution is essential for both foundational tests of quantum physics and scalable quantum networks. Owing to channel loss, however, the previously achieved distance was ...limited to ~100 kilometers. Here we demonstrate satellite-based distribution of entangled photon pairs to two locations separated by 1203 kilometers on Earth, through two satellite-to-ground downlinks with a summed length varying from 1600 to 2400 kilometers. We observed a survival of two-photon entanglement and a violation of Bell inequality by 2.37 ± 0.09 under strict Einstein locality conditions. The obtained effective link efficiency is orders of magnitude higher than that of the direct bidirectional transmission of the two photons through telecommunication fibers.
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