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Background: This study explores the impact of varying altitudes on the quality characteristics of Mianning ham. Methods: By utilizing Solid-Phase Microextraction—Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) technology and high-throughput sequencing techniques, the physicochemical properties, volatile flavor compounds, and shifts in microbial communities of Mianning ham at different altitudes were investigated. Results: Ham's water content, aw, pH, malondialdehyde content,and nitrite content at high altitudes were higher, while the salt content of ham at low altitudes was higher. 112 volatile compounds were identified in ham fermented for 0, 1, and 2 years at low altitude and high altitude, and the volatile compounds in ham at high altitude were more abundant than those in ham at low altitude. The main flavor compounds were 1-octene-3-ol, Nonyl aldehyde, Octanal, and 15 other volatile compounds. At the phylum level, the dominant bacteria were Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, and the fungus was Basidiomycota. Staphylococcus was the dominant bacterium at the genus level, and Aspergillus was the dominant fungus.The correlation analysis of microorganisms and volatile flavor substances showed that Cobetia promoted the formation of Benzaldehyde in ham at low altitudes. In contrast, Kocuria promoted the formation of 1-Octanol, Heptanol,1-Butanol, 2-Heptanone, 3-Hydroxy-2-butanone, Octanal, and Hexanal in ham at high altitudes. Discussion: There were obvious differences in the quality of Mianning ham between the two altitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The esters are the most important flavor components in Baijiu as their species and content decide the style of Baijiu. During the formation of esters, pits play important roles. In this study, the main esters and their related microorganisms in different years of pits (5, 35 and 100 years) of strong-flavor Baijiu were comprehensively researched by headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) and amplicon sequencing. A total of 690 bacterial genera and 155 fungal genera were detected. The microbial composition of ZPs (fermented grains) from 100 years pit was the most abundant at the genus level. A total of 177 volatile flavor components were observed, including 80 esters, 42 alcohols, 21 acids, 10 ketones and 11 aldehydes. Ethyl acetate was the lowest and ethyl caproate was relatively high in 100 years pit. 15 genera, including Lactobacillus , Pichia , Issatchenkia , Saccharomyces , and Aspergillus , were positively related to the formation of four major esters and their precursors. The research demonstrated that 100 years pit was benefit for maintaining microbial diversity and controlling ethyl acetate. This study is helpful for understanding the microbial composition and succession in the fermentation process of strong-flavor Baijiu, and revealing the complex relationships between dominant genera, physicochemical properties and volatile flavor components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a nuclear cytoplasmic large DNA virus (NCLDV) that causes devastating hemorrhagic diseases in domestic pigs and wild boars, seriously threatening the development of the global pig industry. IFN-I plays an important role in the body's antiviral response. Similar to other DNA viruses, ASFV has evolved a variety of immune escape strategies to antagonize IFN-I signaling and maintain its proliferation. In this study, we showed that the ASFV early protein pK205R strongly inhibited interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) as well as the promoter activity of IFN-stimulated regulatory elements (ISREs). Mechanistically, pK205R interacted with the intracellular domains of IFNAR1 and IFNAR2, thereby inhibiting the interaction of IFNAR1/2 with JAK1 and TYK2 and hindering the phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of STATs. Subsequently, we generated a recombinant strain of the ASFV-pK205R point mutation, ASFV-pK205R7PM. Notably, we detected higher levels of ISGs in porcine alveolar macrophages (PAMs) than in the parental strain during the early stages of ASFV-pK205R7PM infection. Moreover, ASFV-pK205R7PM attenuated the inhibitory effect on IFN-I signaling. In conclusion, we identified a new ASFV immunosuppressive protein that increases our understanding of ASFV immune escape mechanisms. Author summary: African Swine fever virus (ASFV) causes a deadly swine disease that originated in Africa and has since spread to Europe, Asia, and Oceania, severely impacting the global pig industry. Although ASFV protein functions have been extensively studied, many remain unknown. pK205R is abundantly expressed during the early stages of ASFV infection and participates in viral replication during the late stages of infection. Our research reveals how pK205R inhibits IFN-I signaling by interacting with IFNAR1 and IFNAR2, blocking downstream signaling. These results improve our understanding of the immune escape process of ASFV, which may have implications for future vaccine development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to identify the chemical components of Massa Medicata Fermentata (MMF) in different fermentation methods, analyze its regulatory effects on gastrointestinal propulsion and intestinal flora in mice with food accumulation, and further explore its mechanism of action in the treatment of dyspepsia. Methods: The chemical compositions of three kinds of MMF were identified using the UPLC-Q- Exactive Orbitrap mass spectrometer. A model of spleen deficiency and food accumulation in mice was established. The gastric emptying rate and intestinal propulsion rate were calculated, serum gastrin concentration and cholinesterase activity were measured, and 16S rRNA microbial detection was performed in different groups of mouse feces. Results: The results showed that a total of 95 chemical components were identified from the three MMF extracts, 62 of which were the same, but there were differences in flavonoids and their glycosides, organic acids, and esters. MMF, PFMMF, and commercial MMF could all significantly improve the gastric emptying rate, intestinal propulsion rate, and GAS concentration in the serum of model mice; PFMMF has a better effect, while there was no significant difference in cholinesterase activity among the groups (p > 0.05). The 16S rRNA sequencing results showed that the MMF and PFMMF could increase the content of beneficial bacteria Bacteroidetes and decrease the pathogenic bacteria Verrucomicrobia in the intestines of model mice, while the commercial MMF could not. Discussion: Studies suggest that MMF has a variety of possible mechanisms for improving food accumulation and treating gastrointestinal dyspepsia, which provides reference value for the quality evaluation and clinical application of MMF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictyophora indusiata, commonly known as bamboo fungus, is a type of edible mushroom that is highly popular worldwide for its rich flavor and nutritional value. It is also recognized for its pharmaceutical efficacy, with medicinal benefits attributed to its consumption. One of the most important components of Dictyophora indusiata is polysaccharide, which has been acknowledged as a promising regulator of biological response due to its immunostimulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the specific roles of polysaccharide in modulating the NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome activation within macrophages remain relatively under-researched. To investigate this further, the mechanism by which Dictyophora indusiata polysaccharide (DIP) exerts its immunostimulatory activity in RAW 264.7 macrophages was analyzed. Results indicated that DIP has the potential to facilitate the priming of NLRP3 inflammasome activation by enhancing TLR4 expression, phosphorylation of IκB-α, and nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65 subunit. It was noted that DIP was unable to mediate the second step of NLRP3 inflammasome activation. The findings of this study provide compelling evidence that DIP has immunomodulatory effects by modulating the NLRP3 inflammasome in RAW264.7 macrophages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimodal classification research has been gaining popularity with new datasets in domains such as satellite imagery, biometrics, and medicine. Prior research has shown the benefits of combining data from multiple sources compared to traditional unimodal data that has led to the development of many novel multimodal architectures. However, the lack of consistent terminologies and architectural descriptions makes it difficult to compare different solutions. We address these challenges by proposing a new taxonomy for describing multimodal classification models based on trends found in recent publications. Examples of how this taxonomy could be applied to existing models are presented as well as a checklist to aid in the clear and complete presentation of future models. Many of the most difficult aspects of unimodal classification have not yet been fully addressed for multimodal datasets, including big data, class imbalance, and instance-level difficulty.We also provide a discussion of these challenges and future directions of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-Saccharomyces cerevisiae can effectively improve the wine quality by co-fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this study, the effects of Pichia kluyveri DG2 on the flavor characteristics of wine when co-culturing with S. cerevisiae MT were systematically researched. Compared to the fermentation by S. cerevisiae alone, P. kluyveri slowed down the fermentation process slightly but increased the productions of glycerol and esters (8.5% and 142%). Additionally, yield of total higher alcohols reduced in the co-fermentation. The sensory characteristics of the wine obtained by co-fermentation were improved obviously. Transcriptome analysis further showed that 512 genes were differentially expressed in S. cerevisiae in the co-fermentation, of which 318 genes were up-regulated including genes participating in the biosynthesis of flavor compounds in wine and 194 genes were down-regulated including the ones involved in glycolytic and amino acid metabolic pathways. These results indicated that P. kluyveri was a very promising non-S. cerevisiae for co-fermentation to regulate flavor and improve quality of wine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restriction modification (RM) systems are known to provide a strong barrier to the exchange of DNA between and within bacterial species. Likewise, DNA methylation is known to have an important function in bacterial epigenetics regulating essential pathways such as DNA replication and the phase variable expression of prokaryotic phenotypes. To date, research on staphylococcal DNA methylation focused mainly on the two species Staphylococcus aureus and S. epidermidis. Less is known about other members of the genus such as S. xylosus, a coagulase-negative commensal of mammalian skin. The species is commonly used as starter organism in food fermentations but is also increasingly considered to have an as yet elusive function in bovine mastitis infections. We analyzed the methylomes of 14 S. xylosus strains using single-molecular, real-time (SMRT) sequencing. Subsequent in silico sequence analysis allowed identification of the RM systems and assignment of the respective enzymes to the discovered modification patterns. Hereby the presence of type I, II, III and IV RM systems in varying numbers and combinations among the different strains was revealed, clearly distinguishing the species from what is known for other members of the genus so far. In addition, the study characterizes a newly discovered type I RM system, encoded by S. xylosus but also by a variety of other staphylococcal species, with a hitherto unknown gene arrangement that involves two specificity units instead of one (hsdRSMS). Expression of different versions of the operon in E. coli showed proper base modification only when genes encoding both hsdS subunits were present. This study provides new insights into the general understanding of the versatility and function of RM systems as well as the distribution and variations in the genus Staphylococcus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yong Yang, Ge Gao, Jun Shi, Jiangnan Zhang Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Ge Gao; Jiangnan ZhangDepartment of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, No. 17 Yongwaizheng Street, Donghu District, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 15279133591; +86 13607042729Email gaoge6116@126.com; zjnss@sina.comBackground: Hyperlipidaemia is related to the development of many cancers. The aim of this study was to explore whether blood lipid levels were associated with increased rates of cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).Methods: Data on 8504 participants from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) were analysed. A total of 304 participants with CRC who had experienced curative surgery were included. Logistic regression analysis was performed to analyse the relationship between blood lipid levels and CRC severity. Cox regression analysis was performed to assess the association between blood lipid levels and cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality in patients with CRC.Results: In 304 patients with CRC, the average age was 67.8± 5.4 years. The logistic regression analysis indicated that elevated levels of total cholesterol (2.104 [1.358– 3.650]; P-trend< 0.001), triglycerides (1.665 [1.337– 2.076]; P-trend=0.005) and LDL (2.127 [1.446– 4.099]; P-trend< 0.001) but not HDL (0.688 [0.409– 1.252]; P-trend=0.124) were associated with an increased risk of higher CRC stage after adjustments were made for age, sex, marital status, BMI, drinking status, smoking status, education, physical activity, antilipidaemic medications and self-reported CVDs (≥ 2). Cox proportional hazard analysis showed that higher blood lipid levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL were independently associated with higher rates of cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality. Similar results persisted in the sensitivity analysis using antilipidaemic medications as an additional covariate and the stratification analysis using antilipidaemic medications as a stratified variable.Conclusion: Increased blood lipid levels were associated with an increased risk of cancer-specific mortality and all-cause mortality in patients with CRC after adjusting for potential confounding factors. Clinicians should pay more attention to the prognostic value of increased blood lipids in patients with CRC for the risk of death.Keywords: blood lipids, colorectal cancer, cancer-specific mortality, all-cause mortality, prognostic value

The aroma characteristics of Pu-erh tea were studied in this work. A total of 117 volatile compounds were identified by HS-SPME combined with GC–TOF/MS, of which 29 active aroma compounds were identified by olfactometry. The active aroma compounds of Pu-erh tea were analyzed by intensity aroma (IA), aroma extraction dilution (AEDA), sensory quantification value (MF), detection frequency (DFA) and odor activity value (OAV). 24, 21 and 23 active aroma components were identified by DFA, AEDA and OAV, while 20 by IA and MF. Recombination of the obtained active aroma components indicated that OAV method was best for determining the active aroma compounds as the aroma profile of OAV recombination model was the most similar to that of Pu-erh tea sample. Omission test of the OAV recombination model furtherly identified 19 characteristic active aroma compounds of Pu-erh tea, and linalool, 1,2,3-trimenthoxybenzebe, 1,2,4-trimethoxybenzene and ɑ-ionone were the key characteristic active aromatic compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schistosomiasis is a chronic parasitic disease that continues to be a pressing public health problem in many developing countries. The primary pathological damage from the disease is granuloma and fibrosis caused by egg aggregation, and early treatment can effectively prevent the occurrence of liver fibrosis. Therefore, it is very important to identify biomarkers that can be used for early diagnosis of Schistosoma japonicum infection. In this study, a label-free proteomics method was performed to observe the alteration of proteins before infection, 1 and 6 weeks after infection, and 5 and 7 weeks after treatment. A total of 10 proteins derived from S. japonicum and 242 host-derived proteins were identified and quantified as significantly changed. Temporal analysis was carried out to further analyze potential biomarkers with coherent changes during infection and treatment. The results revealed biological process changes in serum proteins compared to infection and treatment groups, which implicated receptor-mediated endocytosis, inflammatory response, and acute-phase response such as mannan-binding lectin serine peptidase 1, immunoglobulin, and collagen. These findings offer guidance for the in-depth analysis of potential biomarkers of schistosomiasis, host protein, and early diagnosis of S. japonicum and its pathogenesis. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD029635. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capacitive deionization (CDI) as a novel energy and cost‐efficient water treatment technology has attracted increasing attention. The recent development of various faradaic electrode materials has greatly enhanced the performance of CDI as compared with traditional carbon electrodes. Prussian blue (PB) has emerged as a promising CDI electrode material due to its open framework for the rapid intercalation/de‐intercalation of sodium ions. However, the desalination efficiency, and durability of previously reported PB‐based materials are still unsatisfactory. Herein, a self‐template strategy is employed to prepare a Poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) reinforced cobalt hexacyanoferrate nanoflakes anchored on carbon cloth (denoted as CoHCF@PEDOT). With the high conductivity and structural stability achieved by coupling with a thin PEDOT layer, the as‐prepared CoHCF@PEDOT electrode exhibits a high capacity of 126.7 mAh g−1 at 125 mA g−1. The fabricated hybrid CDI cell delivers a high desalination capacity of 146.2 mg g−1 at 100 mA g−1, and good cycling stability. This strategy provides an efficient method for the design of high‐performance faradaic electrode materials in CDI applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of cancer-related death, but its pathogenesis is still unclear. As the disease is involved in multiple biological processes, systematic identification of disease genes and module biomarkers can provide a better understanding of disease mechanisms. In this study, we provided a network-based approach to integrate multi-omics data and discover disease-related genes. We applied our method to HCC data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and obtained a functional module with 15 disease-related genes as network biomarkers. The results of classification and hierarchical clustering demonstrate that the identified functional module can effectively distinguish between the disease and the control group in both supervised and unsupervised methods. In brief, this computational method to identify potential functional disease modules could be useful to disease diagnosis and further mechanism study of complex diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weaving enterprises are faced with problems of small batches and many varieties, which leads to difficulties in manual scheduling during the production process, resulting in more delays in delivery. Therefore, an automatic scheduling method for the weaving process is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a weaving production scheduling model is established based on the conditions and requirements during actual production. By introducing flexible model constraints, the applicability of the model has been greatly expanded. Then, an improved ant colony algorithm is proposed to solve the model. To address the problem of the traditional ant colony algorithm that the optimizing process usually traps into local optimum, the proposed algorithm adopts an iterative threshold and the maximum and minimum ant colony system. In addition, the initial path pheromone distribution is formed according to the urgency of the order to balance each objective. Finally, the simulation experiments confirm that the proposed method achieves superior performance compared with manual scheduling and other automatic methods. The proposed method shows a certain guiding significance for weaving scheduling in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who are at high risk of progressing to Alzheimer's disease (AD) is crucial for early treatment of AD. However, it is difficult to predict the cognitive states of patients. This study developed an extreme learning machine (ELM)-based grading method to efficiently fuse multimodal data and predict MCI-to-AD conversion. First, features were extracted from magnetic resonance (MR) images, and useful features were selected using a feature selection method. Second, multiple modalities of MCI subjects, including MRI, positron emission tomography, cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, and gene data, were individually graded using the ELM method. Finally, these grading scores calculated from different modalities were fed into a classifier to discriminate subjects with progressive MCI from those with stable MCI. The proposed approach has been validated on the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohort, and an accuracy of 84.7% was achieved for an AD prediction within 3 years. Experiments on predicting AD conversion from MCI within different periods showed similar results with the 3-year prediction. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach benefits from the efficient fusion of four modalities, resulting in an accurate prediction of MCI-to-AD conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapeseed meal (RSM) is an important source of protein, but its value is limited due to the poor digestibility and the presence of many antinutritional factors. In this study, a two‐step biological method was developed for detoxifying RSM and increasing its protein value. In the first stage, various detoxifying enzymes and proteases were produced by Aspergillus niger during solid‐state fermentation (SSF). In the second stage, coordinated enzymatic hydrolysis was employed to further degrade the antinutritional factors and macromolecular proteins in the fermented RSM. Following fermentation at 30 °C for 48 hr and enzymatic hydrolysis at 45 °C for 24 hr, the content of trichloroacetic acid soluble protein (TCA‐SP) and glucosinolates (GLS) in RSM was increased by 81.70% and reduced by 30.06%, respectively, compared with that obtained using the SSF process alone. Moreover, to improve the efficiency of enzymatic hydrolysis, the yield of acid protease was increased by optimizing the composition of the medium so that the TCA‐SP content was increased to 208.39 mg/g and accounted for 51.62% of the total RSM protein, which was 99.36% and 629.66% higher than that in the fermented RSM and control, respectively. Overall, these results demonstrate that the two‐step process could be more effective for the degradation of the antinutritional factors and improvement of the protein quality of RSM compared to use of the SSF method alone, which may improve the utilization of RSM in food and animal feed. Practical Application: Rapeseed meal (RSM) is a protein source that provides high‐quality nutrition and can be applied to the development of value‐added products for humans and animal feed. To improve the utilization of RSM, a combined method of solid‐state fermentation and enzymatic digestion was developed. Compared with the traditional solid‐state fermentation method, the present method further improves the quality of RSM and demonstrates improved efficacy in increasing the small peptide content while reducing the levels of antinutritional factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong secondary flow generated by ribbed channel and U-shaped bend is the key for forced convection performance and energy dissipation in U-shaped cooling passage. This investigation studies the coupling of nine different rib orientation and the 180-degree bend on overall friction loss and forced convection in the U-shaped passage by ANSYS CFX commercial CFD package when Re = 30000. The comprehensive evolution of secondary flow is visualized by vortex core method and colored by turbulence kinetic energy. The qualitative results show that the Nu ratio and overall pressure loss in the downstream passage (Passage 2) is highly affected by the upstream geometry. The N-type rib orientation in Passage 1 delivers more disturbance energy into Passage 2 where P-type rib orientation can reduce the momentum loss of the upstream secondary flows and pressure loss. Based on the understanding of interaction of secondary flow near the bend, modified bend geometry is proposed with 9% thermal performance gain over the existent optimized rib orientation. This investigation suggests vortex core method is a promising visualization tool for the flow control and optimization in U-shaped cooling channel with angled ribs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gas turbines are used in power plants to supply peak loads in hydro-plants and they are also used in jet, aircraft and ships for propulsion. Turbine blades extract energy from high temperature and pressure of combustion gases. In order to endure this extreme condition of temperature, gas turbine blades are often cooled internally. This ensures that the entry temperature of the combustion gases could be increased which in turn increases the thermal efficiency of a gas turbine blade and the turbine could work for a reasonable lifetime. With this desire to increase entry temperature, converging-diverging (CD) ducts are incorporated in the leading edge region as cooling passages for analysis. The CD ducts are used so that fluid passes through several fluid passages which increase its velocity and ultimately provides enhanced cooling of the turbine blades. From the analysis, it is observed that ducts with minor diameter of 7mm, major diameter of 8.5mm, and pitch of 5mm result in better cooling of turbine blades and lead to optimum thermal performance. Moreover, this study also reveals that incorporating turbulators has a significant impact on cooling of turbine blades. Turbulator arrangement with relative roughness (p/e) ratio of 2 for pitch length (ph) of 5mm gives enhanced cooling and it reduces blade wall temperature by 17%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface modification of anion exchange membranes (AEMs) by attaching a negatively charged layer is the main method for preparing monovalent anion selective membranes. However, tremendous increase of membrane resistance and poor long‐term stability of the modified membranes face great challenges. In this work, a photosensitive molecule (4,4‐diazostilbene‐2,2‐disulfonic acid disodium salt [DAS]) was infiltrated into the membrane surface and immobilized in the structure by cross‐linking under UV irradiation. This method introduced negative charge to the surface layer of the AEMs without increasing membrane thickness, leading to high performance membrane with high monovalent anion selectivity. The optimized membrane (D‐5) shows the highest perm‐selectivity of 11.21, which is superior to the commercial selective membrane Selemion® ASV and previously reported monovalent anion selective AEMs. Furthermore, the newly developed membrane exhibits excellent long‐term stability, which can maintain constant selectivity during the 80 h ED experiment. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 993–1000, 2018 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foam sizing has been studied as a low-add-on technology. Foam properties of size liquor, including foaming ability and foam stability, can directly affect the quality of sized yarns. Different foamers and stabilizers were added to oxidized starch/polyacrylic acid size liquor to prepare foaming size liquor. This paper reports the foam properties of the foaming size liquor the optimized mixed proportions of foamers and stabilizers. Foaming ratio and foam half-life time were measured to characterize the foaming ability and foam stability. The experimental results revealed that foam properties of the composite foamer and stabilizer were greater than those of each individual agent. The foam properties achieved optimum levels when the ratio of lauryl sodium sulfate to dodecyl dimethyl betaine was 80:20 and the foamer concentration was 6g/L. It was also found that the composite stabilizers of dodecanol and guar gum at a ratio of 60:40 exhibited a synergistic effect, achieving optimal foam properties at a stabilizer concentration of 4g/L. Yarn properties of the foam sizing were better than those of conventional sizing at optimum conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between flow field and heat transfer in an air/steam cooled ribbed channel was numerically investigated and compared. The width to height ratio was 4 and the rib height to hydraulic diameter was 0.078. The conjugate heat transfer method was adopted and a uniform heat source was located in the solid domain to simulate the actual heating method in the experiment. The GGI method was used to deal with the solid-fluid interface. The fluid field structure was shown by vortex core technology. We found that the wall heat flux distribution is similar with that of the Nusselt number, which is periodic. The temperature difference of a certain position on the inner and outer wall was less than 2 K. The Nusselt number reached its peak value at No.15-18 part and then decreased. The large width to height ratio led to strong interaction between the main flow fluid and the fluid in near wall region. As a result, an extra main flow secondary flow and two separation vortexes could be observed. These three additional vortexes were all in main flow region. The two separation vortexes approached to each other in flow direction and mixed into one vortex at low Reynolds number. When Reynolds number is larger than 30000, the two vortexes remain independent. The relative distance between them reaches the minimum value and the Nusselt number reaches the peak value at the same time. In addition, the flow field structure is mainly determined by Reynolds number and the fluid type cannot obviously influence the secondary flow distribution. The generation and separation of secondary flow as well as the mixing of secondary flows can enhance the local heat transfer strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large amount of seam detection for inhomogeneously textured fabrics makes those performing it fatigued, which leads to misjudgments by human vision, especially for the seam detection of patterned inhomogeneously textured fabrics. The traditional wavelet texture analysis is no longer applicable to fabrics with inhomogeneous textures and irregular patterns. In this paper, a novel mean weighting factor is proposed to obtain an optimized discriminant measure to detect the fabric seams. Firstly, the wavelet coefficients are extracted in individual decomposition levels. Then a mean weighting factor is calculated on the use of the difference of the coefficient values between two consecutive decomposition levels, and a better discriminant measure for seam detection is obtained. Lastly, a thresholding process is used to segment the seam information from the background. The experimental results show that the proposed approach effectively carries out the seam detection in the inhomogeneously textured fabric images. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Wrinkle recovery is a dynamic process in which a folded fabric specimen continues to be unfolded by itself, and is often evaluated by angle changes between two folded fabric wings. Inspired by the advantages of video sequence in dynamic measurement, we developed a video capturing and processing system for dynamic measurements of fabric wrinkle recovery angle. In the experiment stage, a wrinkled specimen is first compressed by a pneumatic presser for a certain duration, and then videoed using a charge-couple device camera during its entire recovery process. Each image frame in the video sequence is processed to detect the free wing of the wrinkled specimen. To calculate the recovery angle accurately, image-processing algorithms, such as binarization, thinning operation and Hough transform, are implemented subsequently. Finally, the Wilcoxon rank-sum test is carried out to evaluate the difference between the data measured using the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) 66-2008 method and this proposed method. Experimental results indicate that the data calculated by our proposed method are consistent with those ones measured by the AATCC 66-2008 method. Compared with the existing fabric wrinkle recovery measurement devices, such as the SDL-M003 wrinkle recovery tester, the developed measurement system has made three important contributions: (1) it automates the entire testing procedure so that human interference is eliminated; (2) it records the complete change of the wrinkle angle so that the recovery property can be analyzed dynamically; and (3) it uses video sequence analysis to calculate recovery angles so that the measurement is more accurate and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The surface characteristics of a solospun roller are important to the properties of solo-sirofil yarns. In this research, a three-level, three-factor, orthogonal experimental design (3³) was used to investigate the effect of a solospun roller diameter, groove width and groove depth on the hairiness of cotton/polyester composite yarn. Solo-sirofil yarns with different solospun rollers were produced, and the hairiness was tested. It was shown that the hairiness of the solo-sirofil composite yarn was reduced by 44% compared to that of the sirofil. The structure of the solo-sirofil was improved when the thickness of the groove is 0.2 mm, with an alternating depth of 0.3 mm and 0.4 mm, a width of 0.5 mm and a roller diameter of 13 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An automatic method for characterizing the parameters of ring slub yarn is presented. Firstly, size parameters of slub yarn were measured by using a capacitance-type sensor, and data was expressed as voltage signals through a data acquisition card (DAQ) installed in a PC. Then the voltage signals of the slub yarn were transferred to a two-dimensional (2D) image. Consequently, the repetition pattern of the slub yarn was determined by analyzing the 2D image using cluster analyses with an amended similarity-based clustering method. The samples were produced using a practical slub yarn production system. Results were validated by comparison of measurement parameters with set parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By contrast with the traditional method of adding hard particles into micro arc oxidation (MAO) coating to improve its wear performance, this study introduced copper into the MAO coating on TC4 alloy by adding copper pyrophosphate to enhance the wear property in a marine environment and the antibacterial property. The results demonstrated that the MAO coating with copper pyrophosphate addition showed a porous structure, and Cu was mainly concentrated around micropores. CuO and Cu2O were formed in this MAO coating. This MAO coating with Cu had a high bonding strength to the substrate. Although the hardness of the coating with Cu had been reduced, it could reduce the friction coefficient and enhance the wear property in simulated seawater due to the lubrication of Cu. Furthermore, this MAO coating with Cu addition had obvious antibacterial and bactericidal effects due to the antibacterial effect of Cu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The full-spatial decomposition of transverse electric (TE)/transverse magnetic (TM) mode in AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (DUV-LEDs) has been experimentally investigated by introducing self-built light intensity test system mainly composed of angle resolution bracket, Glan–Taylor prism and spectrometer. Through roughening the sapphire sidewall, the extraction efficiency of DUV-LED is improved, for both TE and TM mode light with no polarization selectivity. The introduction of self-built light intensity metrology system has been reflected via scribing the sapphire sidewalls using various laser conditions, which show a reliability in the enhancement validation of the light extraction efficiency. More importantly, the self-built light intensity test system enables effective feedback on epitaxial structures and chip structure design and provides a new perspective to design high efficiency AlGaN-based DUV-LEDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]