Characterisation of friction and lubrication regimes in premium tubular connections

A friction test rig has been developed to carry out repeated sliding friction tests for premium tubular connections. The test rig enables accurate measurement of friction in various contact regimes which are relevant to the threaded connections between tubular components. Higher load tests can simulate the contact in metal-to-metal seals under very high contact pressures by using perpendicular pin-on-pin tests. The contact in the thread loading flank under intermediate pressures can be simulated by using larger radius coupon-on-coupon tests. The measured coefficient of friction is well correlated with a lubrication parameter combining lubricant film thickness and initial surface roughness. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

一种中草药复方制剂对罗非鱼非特异免疫力的影响

将杜仲、当归、黄芪、枸杞等10味中草药均匀粉碎后配制成复方制剂,按质量分数为0(对照组)、1%(A组)、3%(B组)、6%(C组)添加到饲料中投喂罗非鱼Oreochromis niloticus,分别在饲养试验的第4、11、18、25、32天采样,检测其血清溶菌酶活性、头肾巨噬细胞吞噬活性、血清杀菌活性、红细胞比容等免疫指标的变化,并在最后一次采样中检测其脾脏脏器系数。用嗜水气单胞菌Aeromonas hydrophila对试验鱼进行人工感染试验,分析中草药对鱼体免疫功能及免疫保护率的增强作用。饲养结果表

微囊藻毒素对澳洲水泡螺的毒性效应

用梯度浓度的微囊藻毒素(6.7μg/L、26.7μg/L、66.7μg/L、166.7μg/L、333.8μg/L、1 335.2μg/L)和人工培养的有毒铜绿微囊藻(Microcystis aeruginosa7806)对澳洲水泡螺(Bulinus australinanus)分别进行急性和亚慢性毒性暴露,观察对螺的毒性效应.急性毒性实验结果表明,澳洲水泡螺对微囊藻毒素有很强的耐受力,试验期间(5 d)未发现螺中毒死亡情况,甚至当微囊藻毒素高达1 335.2μg/L时,仍无死亡.亚慢性口服毒性实验结果发

梁子湖湿地自然保护区生物多样性研究

根据1999～2001年的野外调查数据,研究了湖北鄂州梁子湖自然保护区的生物多样性资源,并对其进行了评价。结果表明:有浮游藻类71种,高等植物331种,浮游动物89种,底栖动物49种,鱼类94种,两栖类8 种,爬行类15种,鸟类166种,兽类21种。其中:国家重点保护野生动物25种,占湖北省同类总种数的22.93％;湖北省省级重点保护野生动物64种,占湖北省同类总种数的44.75％;国家重点保护植物4种。认为梁子湖自然保护区水质污染轻,生态系统完整、自然,生物多样性十分丰富,在长江中下游湿地中具典型性和代

鳝池的建造和处理技术

根据作者多年的研究 ,提出了鳝池建造的五个基本要素 ,并从面积大小、池形、水口、鱼巢、食台和泥层等方面总结了黄鳝有土养殖池、无土养殖池和混合型养殖池的不同要求 ,还从脱碱、清池和水草投放等三方面概括了鳝池的处理技术。

The role of infrastructure in improving human settlements

This paper considers how the provision of integrated household-level infrastructure – particularly water and environmental sanitation (including water supply, sewerage, roads, storm drainage and solid waste management) –can play a leading role in improving the conditions in slum settlements. Around 700 socio-economic interviews were carried out in India and South Africa to investigate an innovative approach called slum networking, which sees the strong correlation between slum locations and drainage paths as an opportunity for improving the wider urban environment. This recognition allows resources to be mobilised locally, thereby removing the need for external aid funding. The evidence from the 700 families shows that communities perceive water and sanitation inputs to be their top priority and are willing to contribute to the costs. If slum upgrading is led with access to integrated water and environmental sanitation at household level with community contributions to the cost of infrastructure, then slum communities subsequently invest considerably greater sums in improved housing and education, with longer term contributions to poverty alleviation, improvements in health and literacy and an increase in disposable incomes.

Fabrication and control of miniature McKibben actuators

This paper investigates the development of miniature McKibben actuators. Due to their compliancy, high actuation force, and precision, these actuators are on the one hand interesting for medical applications such as prostheses and instruments for surgery and on the other hand for industrial applications such as for assembly robots. During this research, pneumatic McKibben actuators have been miniaturized to an outside diameter of 1.5 mm and a length ranging from 22 mm to 62 mm. These actuators are able to achieve forces of 6 N and strains up to about 15% at a supply pressure of 1 MPa. The maximal actuation speed of the actuators measured during this research is more than 350 mm/s. Further, positioning experiments with a laser interferometer and a PI controller revealed that these actuators are able to achieve sub-micron positioning resolution. © 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Predictive neural coding of reward preference involves dissociable responses in human ventral midbrain and ventral striatum.

Food preferences are acquired through experience and can exert strong influence on choice behavior. In order to choose which food to consume, it is necessary to maintain a predictive representation of the subjective value of the associated food stimulus. Here, we explore the neural mechanisms by which such predictive representations are learned through classical conditioning. Human subjects were scanned using fMRI while learning associations between arbitrary visual stimuli and subsequent delivery of one of five different food flavors. Using a temporal difference algorithm to model learning, we found predictive responses in the ventral midbrain and a part of ventral striatum (ventral putamen) that were related directly to subjects' actual behavioral preferences. These brain structures demonstrated divergent response profiles, with the ventral midbrain showing a linear response profile with preference, and the ventral striatum a bivalent response. These results provide insight into the neural mechanisms underlying human preference behavior.

Development of accurate, robust liquid equations of state for multi-phase CFD simulations with a modified AUSM+-up scheme

Eight equations of state (EOS) have been evaluated for the simulation of compressible liquid water properties, based on empirical correlations, the principle of corresponding states and thermodynamic relations. The IAPWS-IF97 EOS for water was employed as the reference case. These EOSs were coupled to a modified AUSM+-up convective flux solver to determine flow profiles for three test cases of differing flow conditions. The impact of the non-viscous interaction term discretisation scheme, interfacial pressure method and selection of low-Mach number diffusion were also compared. It was shown that a consistent discretisation scheme using the AUSM+-up solver for both the convective flux and the non-viscous interfacial term demonstrated both robustness and accuracy whilst facilitating a computationally cheaper solution than discretisation of the interfacial term independently by a central scheme. The simple empirical correlations gave excellent results in comparison to the reference IAPWS-IF97 EOS and were recommended for developmental work involving water as a cheaper and more accurate EOS than the more commonly used stiffened-gas model. The correlations based on the principles of corresponding-states and the modified Peng-Robinson cubic EOS also demonstrated a high degree of accuracy, which is promising for future work with generic fluids. Further work will encompass extension of the solver to multiple dimensions and to account for other source terms such as surface tension, along with the incorporation of phase changes. © 2013.