In this paper, the shear-improved Smagorinsky model (SISM) is assessed in a K-type transitional channel flow. Our numerical simulation results show that the original SISM model is still too dissipative to predict the transitional channel flow. Two former reported empirical correction approaches, including a low-Reynolds-number correction and a shape-factor-based intermittency correction, are applied to further promote the capability of the SISM model in simulating the transition process. Numerical tests show that the shape-factor-based intermittency correction approach can correctly improve the transition-prediction capability of the SISM model, while the low-Reynolds-number correction approach fails. Furthermore, the shape-factor-based intermittency-corrected SISM model can capture the vortical structures during the transitional process very well and possesses the grid-insensitive characteristics.
It is not known whether exposure to air pollutants causes systemic oxidative stress in children. We investigated the association between exposure to air pollution and biomarkers of oxidative stress in relation to a governmental air quality intervention implemented during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. We studied 36 schoolchildren during 5 time periods before and during the Olympic Games in Beijing (June 2007-September 2008). The oxidative stress biomarkers 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) and malondialdehyde were measured in urine samples collected daily during each period. Generalized estimating equations were used to examine the relationship between repeated biomarker measurements and ambient air pollutant levels. During the Olympic intervention period, substantial reductions in air pollution (-19% to -72%), urinary 8-oxodG concentrations (-37.4%; 95% confidence interval: -53.5, -15.7), and urinary malondialdehyde concentrations (-25.3%; 95% confidence interval: -34.3, -15.1) were found. Malondialdehyde and 8-oxodG were significantly associated with concentrations of black carbon, fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic with diameter less than 2.5 mu m, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Biomarker changes per each interquartile-range increase in pollutants were largest at lag 0 or lag 1. In a 2-pollutant model, the most robust associations were for black carbon. These findings suggest that exposure to black carbon leads to systemic oxidative stress in children.
STUDY QUESTION: Is polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) associated with increased serum levels of typical organic pollutants? summary answer: PCOS in Han females from Northern China was significantly associated with elevated serum levels of pollutants, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). what is known already: PCOS is arguably the most common endocrinopathy in females of reproductive age. The etiology of PCOS is thought to be multifactorial. study design, size, duration: This was a preliminary case-control study undertaken at the Division of Reproductive Center, Peking University Third Hospital. Fifty participants affected by PCOS and 30 normal controls were recruited between August and October 2012 from Northern China. All participants were Han women. participants/materials, setting, methods: PCOS participants were diagnosed according to the 2003 Rotterdam criteria. The control participants were non-pregnant females unable to conceive solely due to male azoospermia. Serum levels of a wide range of organic pollutants, including PCBs, organochlorine pesticides, PAHs and more than 20 phenolic pollutants, were analyzed using gas chromatographic mass spectrometry. main results and the role of chance: Serum levels of PCBs, pesticides and PAHs were significantly higher in the PCOS group than the control group. Concentrations of PCBs, p,p'-dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (p,p'-DDE) and PAHs in serum above median levels were associated with PCOS with odds ratios of 3.81 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.45-10.0], 4.89 (95% CI, 1.81-13.2) and 2.39 (95% CI, 0.94-6.05), respectively. Partial least-squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) confirmed that serum levels of organic pollutants were associated with PCOS, especially for p, p'-DDE and PCBs. limitations, reasons for caution: Some other possible covariates (e.g. dietary and income) were missed in this study, although education and occupation have been considered as an indicator of personal income. The PLS-DA model allowed a quasi-exposome analysis with over 60 kinds of typical organic pollutants; however, the possibility of other pollutants involved in the PCOS still could not be excluded. wider implications of the findings: Our study identified that bodily retention of environmental organic pollutants-including PCBs, pesticides (especially p, p'-DDE) and PAHs-was associated with PCOS.
Barbecuing or charcoal-grilling has become part of popular outdoor recreational activities nowadays; however, potential human health hazards through outdoor exposure to barbecue fumes have yet to be adequately quantified. To fill this knowledge gap, atmospheric size-fractioned particle and gaseous samples were collected near an outdoor barbecuing vendor stall (along with charcoal-grilled food items) in Xinjiang of Northwest China with a 10-stage micro-orifice uniform deposit impactor and a polyurethane foam (PUP) sampler and were analyzed for particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Exposure to PAHs through inhalation and dermal contact by adult consumers who spent 1 h per day near a charcoal-grilling vendor for a normal meal (lunch or dinner) amounted to a BaP equivalent (BaPeq) dosage of 3.0-77 ng day(-1) (inhalation: 2.8-27 ng day(-1) of BaPeq; dermal contact: 0.2-50 ng day(-1) of BaPeq), comparable to those (22-220 ng day(-1) of BaPeq) from consumer exposure through the consumption of charcoal-grilled meat, assumed to be at the upper limit of 50-150 g. In addition, the potential health risk was in the range of 3.1 X 10(-10) to 1.4 X 10(-4) for people of different age groups with inhalation and dermal contact exposure to PAHs once a day, with a 95% confidence interval (7.2 X 10(-9) to 1.2 X 10(-6)) comparable to the lower limit of the potential cancer risk range (1 X 10(-6) to 1 X 10(-4)). Sensitivity analyses indicated that the area of dermal contact with gaseous contaminants is a critical parameter for risk assessment. These results indicated that outdoor exposure to barbecue fumes (particularly dermal contact) may have become a significant but largely neglected source of health hazards to the general population and should be well-recognized.
The stress and the debonding of the interface in coating layers structure due to thermal loading are investigated by using boundary element methods(BEM). The nearly-singular integrals that arise in the boundary integral equation(BIE) for such thin layered structures cannot be accurately evaluated us...
PCN bacteria capable of heterotrophic-aerobic nitrogen removal was successfully applied for bioaugmented treatment of municipal wastewater in a pilot-scale SBR. At an appropriate COD/N ratio of 8, the bioaugmentation system exhibited stable and excellent carbon and nutrients removal, the averaged effluent concentrations of COD, NH4+-N, TN and TP were 20.6, 0.69, 14.1 and 0.40 mg/L, respectively, which could meet the first class requirement of the National Municipal Wastewater Discharge Standards of China (COD < 50 mg/L, TN < 15 mg/L, TP < 0.5 mg/L). Clone library and real-time PCR analysis revealed that the introduced bacteria greatly improved the structure of original microbial community and facilitated their aerobic nutrients removal capacities. The proposed emerging technology was shown to be an alternative technology to establish new wastewater treatment systems and upgrade or retrofit conventional systems from secondary-level to tertiary-level. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Broadband continuous frequency tuning (CFT) in a terahertz gyrotron is promising for advanced terahertz applications. However, it is challenging to realize broadband CFT in a conventional open cavity, because a long cavity is helpful to expand the bandwidth but is generally difficult to suppress the high Q -factor gyromonotron competition. In this paper, a tapered cavity with a long effective interaction length is proposed to expand the CFT bandwidth. The tapered circuit can reduce the Q-factor of the first-order axial mode and accordingly suppress the gyromonotron competition. By selecting a reasonable Q-factor cavity, a gyrotron could generate effective radiation sequentially under gyromonotron and gyrobackward-wave oscillator (BWO) states during the magnetic field tuning. In gyromonotron range, the bandwidth is expanded because of the cutoff frequency shifting. On the other hand, in gyro-BWO range, the bandwidth is expanded because of the axial mode transition. The CFT bandwidth of 4 GHz is realized in a tapered 330-GHz TE12,4 mode low-voltage gyrotron. The principle is important for developing broadband CFT terahertz gyrotrons.
The relativistic electron cyclotron maser (ECM) has been successfully applied to generating high-power THz wave. In order to realize the additional advantages of broadband tuning and high efficiency interaction, this paper is devoted to exploring the THz pre-bunched ECM. Other than a conventional open-cavity tunable gyrotron consecutively switching between axial modes to realize frequency tuning, a pre-bunched ECM system operates on the backward traveling-wave resonance to achieve broadband smooth tuning. Especially, an interaction circuit of specified axial profile of beam-wave detuning frequency is built to achieve high efficiency. An optimized 0.1 THz pre-bunched ECM system using an electron beam of 30 kV voltage and 3 A current is predicted to generate broad bandwidth of 10 GHz and efficiency between 10% ~ 25%. The broadband tuning pre-bunched ECM is promising for a new generation of broadband and high-power THz source.
Fifteen different types of PM2.5 mass concentration samplers were used by seven different monitoring networks at 47 locations in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, region from 1999 to 2008. The samplers included Federal Reference Method (FRM) samplers, speciation samplers, tapered element oscillating microbalance (TEOM) samplers, and others. The different measurement principles used in these designs tended to lead to systematic differences (biases) when measuring the same quantity, and to differences in the typical size of random errors (imprecision) introduced by each type of sampler. Bias can take different forms either as a constant bias or as a non-constant (scale) bias, which depends on the size of the quantity being measured. The objective of the work presented here was to simultaneously calibrate the measurements made by these different samplers to remove relative biases (both constant and non-constant) so that all of the available PM2.5 data could be used interchangeably to develop exposure estimates for a retrospective epidemiology study. In order to accomplish this, we used linked temperature-stratified structural equation models, nonlinear regression models, and nonlinear mixed effects models. Applying these methods we constructed a comprehensive measurement error model that included both systematic error and random error components, and derived calibration equations that can be applied to place all of the PM2.5 mass concentration measurements on the same scale. The FRM sampler was used as the reference scale although the parameter estimates are invariant to this choice. Results showed that: (1) 50 degrees C TEOM samplers tended to show a large downward bias relative to the FRM sampler at low temperatures, and the magnitude of this bias decreased according to a nonlinear (sigmoidal) pattern with increasing temperature, (2) speciation samplers and other integrated samplers generally showed smaller biases relative to the FRM sampler that were not temperature-dependent, and (3) FRM samplers tended to be more precise than non-FRM samplers. These results are consistent with our previous work focusing on just a single monitoring site. Results are also presented here for several types of samplers that were not part of our previous study, including 30 degrees C TEOM, FDMS TEOM, and beta attenuation monitors. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The full models are estimated by spatial econometric models using county-level data from 1513 Chinese counties. The results indicate the existence of spatial contagion effects among local governments with respect to spending on local education. Financial shortages in education tend to be contagious; they affect counties or regions in geographic proximity. Contagion occurs due to three different fundamental causes: Intergovernmental competition, political economy and neighborhood watch. The possibility of contagion depends strongly on education investment, financial and economic conditions, cultural diversity, urban/rural distribution, and population structure. Poor counties are much more likely to become “infected” by neighboring financial behavior in education. The empirical evidence suggests that the speed of contagion is faster in economically underdeveloped areas than in economically developed areas.
Chengdu is an inland megacity in the Sichuan Basin, where dust influence remained an open question. During a one-year haze campaign, two dust events were identified in March 2013, indicating that desert dust can be transported to Chengdu and impacted local air quality strongly. The suggested low SO2/PM10, NO2/PM10 and PM2.5/PM10 ratios of 0.15, 0.27 and 0.40 could be used as immediate indicators for dust days. On typical dust day of March 12, PM10 was as high as 359.1 μg m−3, and crustal matter contributed 80.5% to total PM2.5 mass (106.6 μg m−3). Enrichment factors of most elements have decreased due to the dilution effect except for Ca and Mg. The dust was mainly from western and northern dust regions in China, including the “Northerly Mongolia Path”, “Western Desert Path” and “Northwestern Desert Path”. Due to the obstruction of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau on the west, the dust air to Chengdu was mostly from the northeastward direction after passing over Qinling Mountain. Moreover, the air experienced obvious elevation from its source regions driven by the cold front synoptic pattern. The spatial distribution of high AOD (Aerosol Optical Depth) values over 1.2 but low Ångström exponent of 0.5–0.6 around Chengdu verified the coarse pollution patterns. However, the dust pollution was not serious in nearby Chongqing and Guizhou and exhibited weak regional feature, a result different from those in Beijing and Shanghai.
