Search

We investigate the dynamic characteristics of oil—gas—water three-phase flow in terms of chaotic attractor comparison. In particular, we extract a statistic to characterize the dynamical difference in attractor probability distribution. We first take time series from Logistic chaotic system with different parameters as examples to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. Then we use this method to investigate the experimental signals from oil—gas—water three-phase flow. The results indicate that the extracted statistic is very sensitive to the change of flow parameters and can gain a quantitatively insight into the dynamic characteristics of different flow patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a large group of cells in a central nervous system, astrocytes have a great influence on ion and energy metabolism in a nervous system. Disorders of neuronal ion and energy metabolism caused by impaired astrocytes play a key role in the pathogenesis of epilepsy. This paper reviews the existing computational models of epileptogenesis resulting from impaired astrocytes and presents several open perspectives with regard to ion and energy metabolism-induced epileptogenesis in a neuron-astrocyte-capillary coupled model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have observed that electromagnetic induction can seriously affect the electrophysiological activity of the nervous system. Considering the role of astrocytes in regulating neural firing, we studied a simple neuron–astrocyte coupled system under electromagnetic induction in response to different types of external stimulation. Both the duration and intensity of the external stimulus can induce different modes of electrical activity in this system, and thus the neuronal firing patterns can be subtly controlled. When the external stimulation ceases, the neuron will continue to fire for a long time and then reset to its resting state. In this study, “delay” is defined as the delayed time from the firing state to the resting state, and it is highly sensitive to changes in the duration or intensity of the external stimulus. Meanwhile, the self-similarity embodied in the aforementioned sensitivity can be quantified by fractal dimension. Moreover, a hysteresis loop of calcium activity in the astrocyte is observed in the specific interval of the external stimulus when the stimulus duration is extended to infinity, since astrocytic calcium or neuron electrical activity in the resting state or during periodic oscillation depends on the initial state. Finally, the regulating effect of electromagnetic induction in this system is considered. It is clarified that the occurrence of “delay” depends purely on the existence of electromagnetic induction. This model can reveal the dynamic characteristics of the neuron–astrocyte coupling system with magnetic induction under external stimulation. These results can provide some insights into the effects of electromagnetic induction and stimulation on neuronal activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CS/PVA/Fe3O4 nanocomposite membranes with chainlike arrangement of Fe3O4 nanoparticles are prepared by a magnetic-field-assisted solution casting method. The aim of this work is to investigate the relationship between the microstructure of the magnetic anisotropic CS/PVA/Fe3O4 membrane and the evolved macroscopic physicochemical property. With the same doping content, the relative crystallinity of CS/PVA/Fe3O4-M is lower than that of CS/PVA/Fe3O4. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-TR) measurements indicate that there is no chemical bonding between polymer molecule and Fe3O4 nanoparticle. The Fe3O4 nanoparticles in CS/PVA/Fe3O4 and CS/PVA/Fe3O4-M are wrapped by the chains of CS/PVA, which is also confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The saturation magnetization value of CS/PVA/Fe3O4-M obviously increases compared with that of non-magnetic aligned membrane, meanwhile the transmittance decreases in the UV-visible region. The o-Ps lifetime distribution provides information about the free-volume nanoholes present in the amorphous region. It is suggested that the microstructure of CS/PVA/Fe3O4 membrane can be modified in its curing process under a magnetic field, which could affect the magnetic properties and the transmittance of nanocomposite membrane. In brief, a full understanding of the relationship between the microstructure and the macroscopic property of CS/PVA/Fe3O4 nanocomposite plays a vital role in exploring and designing the novel multifunctional materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]