Numerical simulation of time partial fractional diffusion model by Laplace transform

<abstract><p>In the present work, the authors developed the scheme for time Fractional Partial Diffusion Differential Equation (FPDDE). The considered class of FPDDE describes the flow of fluid from the higher density region to the region of lower density, macroscopically it is associated with the gradient of concentration. FPDDE is used in different branches of science for the modeling and better description of those processes that involve flow of substances. The authors introduced the novel concept of fractional derivatives in term of both time and space independent variables in the proposed FPDDE. We provided the approximate solution for the underlying generalized non-linear time PFDDE in the sense of Caputo differential operator via Laplace transform combined with Adomian decomposition method known as Laplace Adomian Decomposition Method (LADM). Furthermore, we established the general scheme for the considered model in the form of infinite series by aforementioned techniques. The consequent results obtained by the proposed technique ensure that LADM is an effective and accurate technique to handle nonlinear partial differential equations as compared to the other available numerical techniques. At the end of this paper, the obtained numerical solution is visualized graphically by Matlab to describe the dynamics of desired solution.</p></abstract>

Study on Internal Phenomena of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Using Liquefied Natural Gas as Fuel

This study analyzed the internal phenomena of solid oxide fuel cells driven by liquefied natural gas. Reforming reactions of liquefied natural gas constituent in the solid oxide fuel cells were examined. First, the performance of solid oxide fuel cells using liquefied natural gas was compared to those using methane as fuel. Liquefied natural gas-driven solid oxide fuel cells outperformed methane-driven solid oxide fuel cells under all current conditions, with a maximum performance difference of approximately 12.8%. Then, the effect of inlet composition ratio on the internal phenomena in the solid oxide fuel cells was examined. The lower the steam-to-carbon ratio, the higher the steam reforming reaction in the cell. By changing the ratio, 7.1% of more hydrogen could be reformed. Finally, the effect of reformer operation on the internal phenomena in the solid oxide fuel cells was examined. Under 0.35 A/cm2, lower pre-reforming rate of reformer enhance the performance of solid oxide fuel cells. At high current density region, however, a higher pre-reforming rate of reforming is more favorable because the reforming reaction is rare in solid oxide fuel cells. This research can provide guidelines for achieving high power output of solid oxide fuel cells with high fuel flexibility.

Scalarons mimicking dark matter in the Hu–Sawicki model of f(R ) gravity

In this paper, we conduct a study on the scalar field obtained from [Formula: see text] gravity via Weyl transformation of the spacetime metric [Formula: see text] from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame. The scalar field is obtained as a result of the modification in the geometrical part of Einstein’s field equation of General Relativity. For the Hu–Sawicki model of [Formula: see text] gravity, we find the effective potential of the scalar field and calculate its mass. Our study shows that the scalar field (also named as scalaron) obtained from this model has the chameleonic property, i.e. the scalaron becomes light in the low-density region, while it becomes heavy in the high-density region of matter. Then it is found that the scalaron can be regarded as a dark matter (DM) candidate since the scalaron mass is found to be quite close to the mass of ultralight axions, a prime DM candidate. Thus, the scalaron in the Hu–Sawicki model of [Formula: see text] gravity behaves as DM. Further, a study on the evolution of the scalaron mass with the redshift is also carried out, which depicts that scalaron becomes light with expansion of the Universe and with different rates at different stages of the Universe.

Role of E×B drift in double-peak density distribution for the new lower tungsten divertor with unfavorable B t on EAST

Doubly peaked density distribution is expected not only to affect the plasma-wetted area at divertor plates, but also to correlate with the upstream density profile and hence characteristics of MHD activities in tokamak plasmas [H. Q. Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 195002 (2020)]. Clarifying its origination is important to understand the compatibility between power/particle exhausts in divertor and high-performance core plasmas which is required by present-day and future tokamak devices. In this paper, we analyzed the double-peak density profile appeared in the modeling during the physics design phase of the new lower tungsten divertor for EAST by using comprehensive 2D SOLPS-ITER code package including full drifts and currents, with concentrations on unfavorable magnetic field (ion B×∇B drift is directed away from the primary X-point). The results indicate that E×B drift induced by plasma potential gradient near the target, which is closely related to the divertor state, plays essential roles in the formation of double-peak profile at the target: (1) Large enough radial Ep×B drift produces a broadened high-density region; (2) Strong poloidal Er×B drift drives a significant particle sink and creates a valley on the high-density profile. Thus, the simulation results can explain why this kind of doubly peaked density profile is usually observed at the high-recycling divertor regime. In addition, features of the double-peak ion saturation current distribution measured in preliminary experiments testing the new lower tungsten divertor are qualitatively consistent with the simulations.

A Measurement Framework for Explicit and Implicit Urban Traffic Sensing

Urban traffic sensing has been investigated extensively by different real-time sensing approaches due to important applications such as navigation and emergency services. Basically, the existing traffic sensing approaches can be classified into two categories by sensing natures, i.e., explicit and implicit sensing. In this article, we design a measurement framework called EXIMIUS for a large-scale data-driven study to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of two sensing approaches by using two particular systems for traffic sensing as concrete examples. In our investigation, we utilize TB-level data from two systems: (i) GPS data from five thousand vehicles, (ii) signaling data from three million cellphone users, from the Chinese city Hefei. Our study adopts a widely used concept called crowdedness level to rigorously explore the impacts of contexts on traffic conditions including population density, region functions, road categories, rush hours, holidays, weather, and so on, based on various context data. We quantify the strengths and weaknesses of these two sensing approaches in different scenarios and then we explore the possibility of unifying two sensing approaches for better performance by using a truth discovery-based data fusion scheme. Our results provide a few valuable insights for urban sensing based on explicit and implicit data from transportation and telecommunication domains.

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in hemodialysis patients in Senegal: a multicenter cross-sectional study

Background Hemodialysis patients are among high-risk groups for COVID-19. Africa is the continent with the lowest number of cases in the general population but we have little information about the disease burden in dialysis patients. Objectives This study aimed to describe the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the hemodialysis population of Senegal. Patients and methods We conducted a multicenter cross-sectional survey, between June and September 2020 involving 10 public dialysis units randomly selected in eight regions of Senegal. After seeking their consent, we included 303 patients aged ≥ 18 years and hemodialysis for ≥ 3 months. Clinical symptoms and biological parameters were collected from medical records. Patients’ blood samples were tested with Abbott SARS-CoV-2 Ig G assay using an Architect system. Statistical tests were performed with STATA 12.0. Results Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 21.1% (95% CI = 16.7–26.1%). We noticed a wide variability in SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence between regions ranging from 5.6 to 51.7%. Among the 38 patients who underwent nasal swab testing, only six had a PCR-confirmed infection and all of them did seroconvert. Suggestive clinical symptoms were reported by 28.1% of seropositive patients and the majority of them presented asymptomatic disease. After multivariate analysis, a previous contact with a confirmed case and living in a high population density region were associated with the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Conclusion This study presents to our knowledge the first seroprevalence data in African hemodialysis patients. Compared to data from other continents, we found a higher proportion of patients with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies but a lower lethality rate.

Charge Carriers Density, Temperature, and Electric Field Dependence of the Charge Carrier Mobility in Disordered Organic Semiconductors in Low Density Region

We investigate the transport properties of charge carriers in disordered organic semiconductors using a model that relates a mobility with charge carriers (not with small polarons) hopping by thermal activation. Considering Miller and Abrahams expression for a hopping rate of a charge carrier between localized states of a Gaussian distributed energies, we employ Monte Carlo simulation methods, and calculate the average mobility of finite charge carriers focusing on a lower density region where the mobility was shown experimentally to be independent of the density. There are Monte Carlo simulation results for density dependence of mobility reported for hopping on regularly spaced states neglecting the role of spatial disorder, which does not fully mimic the hopping of charge carriers on randomly distributed states in disordered system as shown in recent publications. In this work we include the spatial disorder and distinguish the effects of electric field and density which are not separable in the experiment, and investigate the influence of density and electric field on mobility at different temperatures comparing with experimental results and that found in the absence of the spatial disorder. Moreover, we analyze the role of density and localization length on temperature and electric field dependence of mobility. Our results also give additional insight regarding the value of localization length that has been widely used as 0.1b where b is a lattice sites spacing.

Visual pursuit behavior in mice maintains the pursued prey on the retinal region with least optic flow

Mice have a large visual field that is constantly stabilized by vestibular ocular reflex (VOR) driven eye rotations that counter head-rotations. While maintaining their extensive visual coverage is advantageous for predator detection, mice also track and capture prey using vision. However, in the freely moving animal quantifying object location in the field of view is challenging. Here, we developed a method to digitally reconstruct and quantify the visual scene of freely moving mice performing a visually based prey capture task. By isolating the visual sense and combining a mouse eye optic model with the head and eye rotations, the detailed reconstruction of the digital environment and retinal features were projected onto the corneal surface for comparison, and updated throughout the behavior. By quantifying the spatial location of objects in the visual scene and their motion throughout the behavior, we show that the prey image consistently falls within a small area of the VOR-stabilized visual field. This functional focus coincides with the region of minimal optic flow within the visual field and consequently area of minimal motion-induced image-blur, as during pursuit mice ran directly toward the prey. The functional focus lies in the upper-temporal part of the retina and coincides with the reported high density-region of Alpha-ON sustained retinal ganglion cells.

A Multilevel Probabilistic Cerenkov Luminescence Tomography Reconstruction Framework Based on Energy Distribution Density Region Scaling

Cerenkov luminescence tomography (CLT) is a promising non-invasive optical imaging method with three-dimensional semiquantitative in vivo imaging capability. However, CLT itself relies on Cerenkov radiation, a low-intensity radiation, making CLT reconstruction more challenging than other imaging modalities. In order to solve the ill-posed inverse problem of CLT imaging, some numerical optimization or regularization methods need to be applied. However, in commonly used methods for solving inverse problems, parameter selection significantly influences the results. Therefore, this paper proposed a probabilistic energy distribution density region scaling (P-EDDRS) framework. In this framework, multiple reconstruction iterations are performed, and the Cerenkov source distribution of each reconstruction is treated as random variables. According to the spatial energy distribution density, the new region of interest (ROI) is solved. The size of the region required for the next operation was determined dynamically by combining the intensity characteristics. In addition, each reconstruction source distribution is given a probability weight value, and the prior probability in the subsequent reconstruction is refreshed. Last, all the reconstruction source distributions are weighted with the corresponding probability weights to get the final Cerenkov source distribution. To evaluate the performance of the P-EDDRS framework in CLT, this article performed numerical simulation, in vivo pseudotumor model mouse experiment, and breast cancer mouse experiment. Experimental results show that this reconstruction framework has better positioning accuracy and shape recovery ability and can optimize the reconstruction effect of multiple algorithms on CLT.

Genome-Wide Assessment Characteristics of Genes Overlapping Copy Number Variation Regions in Duroc Purebred Population

Copy number variations (CNVs) are important structural variations that can cause significant phenotypic diversity. Reliable CNVs mapping can be achieved by identification of CNVs from different genetic backgrounds. Investigations on the characteristics of overlapping between CNV regions (CNVRs) and protein-coding genes (CNV genes) or miRNAs (CNV-miRNAs) can reveal the potential mechanisms of their regulation. In this study, we used 50 K SNP arrays to detect CNVs in Duroc purebred pig. A total number of 211 CNVRs were detected with a total length of 118.48 Mb, accounting for 5.23% of the autosomal genome sequence. Of these CNVRs, 32 were gains, 175 losses, and four contained both types (loss and gain within the same region). The CNVRs we detected were non-randomly distributed in the swine genome and were significantly enriched in the segmental duplication and gene density region. Additionally, these CNVRs were overlapping with 1,096 protein-coding genes (CNV-genes), and 39 miRNAs (CNV-miRNAs), respectively. The CNV-genes were enriched in terms of dosage-sensitive gene list. The expression of the CNV genes was significantly higher than that of the non-CNV genes in the adult Duroc prostate. Of all detected CNV genes, 22.99% genes were tissue-specific (TSI &gt; 0.9). Strong negative selection had been underway in the CNV-genes as the ones that were located entirely within the loss CNVRs appeared to be evolving rapidly as determined by the median dN plus dS values. Non-CNV genes tended to be miRNA target than CNV-genes. Furthermore, CNV-miRNAs tended to target more genes compared to non-CNV-miRNAs, and a combination of two CNV-miRNAs preferentially synergistically regulated the same target genes. We also focused our efforts on examining CNV genes and CNV-miRNAs functions, which were also involved in the lipid metabolism, including DGAT1, DGAT2, MOGAT2, miR143, miR335, and miRLET7. Further molecular experiments and independent large studies are needed to confirm our findings.