Faulting of rocks as a critical energy process

Faulting of rocks is a dominant earth process that governs small-scale fracturing, formation of tectonic plate boundaries, and earthquakes occurrence1–4. Since the 18th century, the mechanical settings for rock faulting were commonly analyzed with the Coulomb criterion5 that offers empirical, useful tools for scientific and engineering applications1,6–12. Here we revisit the processes of rock faulting by an alternative approach that incorporates elastic energy, strain-state, and three-dimensional deformation; these mechanical fundamentals are missing in Coulomb criterion. We propose that a stressed rock-body fails as two conditions are met: (1) The elastic energy generated by the loading system equals or exceeds a critical energy intensity that is required for the faulting process; (2) The internal strain of the stressed rock-body due to slip and dilation along the developing faults equals the strain-state created by the loading system to maintain physical continuity13,14. Our simulations reveal that meeting these energy and strain conditions requires an orthorhombic, polymodal fault geometry that is similar to natural and experimental fault systems15–20. The application of our formulation to hundreds of rock-mechanics experiments11,21–28 provides a new, comprehensive benchmark for rock-faulting.

Experimental Investigation on the Vertical Bearing Characteristics of Jacked Piles in Saturated Silt Foundations under Excavation

A model test system for vertical bearing characteristics of the jacked piles in saturated soil foundations under excavation has been introduced. The system device comprises a soil pressure loading system, a model pile loading system, a soil vacuum saturation system, a model box, a model pile, and a control and data acquisition system. The soil vacuum saturation system designed for the model box of this test device can ensure that the saturated soil in the model box can reach a higher degree of saturation. Loading and unloading were conducted on the soil sample in the model box through the soil pressure loading system to simulate the soil excavation so that the soil sample and that in the field have the same stress state and history. The soil consolidation pressure, pile jacking pressure, pile tip force, soil consolidation settlement, and pile displacement at the top were collected and monitored in real time through the control and data acquisition system. This device is used to conduct an experimental study on the bearing characteristics of the jacked piles in saturated silt foundations under excavation. The results indicate that the static load test increases the residual pressure on the tip of the jacked pile while also increasing soil stiffness at pile tip and ultimate tip resistance, thereby increasing the pile top stiffness and ultimate load-carrying capacity. However, when the jacked pile is left undisturbed for the same time, the static load test on the jacked pile does not affect the pile skin friction resistance. There is a better linear relationship between the pile skin friction resistance and the undrained shear strength of the soil under the corresponding stress path during the static load test of the normally consolidated soil and the jacked pile after overburden pressure unloading. There is a good linear relationship between the ultimate resistance and the undrained shear strength of the soil under the corresponding stress path in pile sinking, normally consolidated soil, and during the static load test on jacked pile after unloading.

Application of Nanoparticles in the Treatment of Lung Cancer With Emphasis on Receptors

Lung cancer is one of the malignant tumors that has seen the most rapid growth in terms of morbidity and mortality in recent years, posing the biggest threat to people’s health and lives. In recent years, the nano-drug loading system has made significant progress in the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of lung cancer. Nanomaterials are used to specifically target tumor tissue to minimize therapeutic adverse effects and increase bioavailability. It is achieved primarily through two mechanisms: passive targeting, which entails the use of enhanced penetration and retention (EPR) effect, and active targeting, which entails the loading recognition ligands for tumor marker molecules onto nanomaterials. However, it has been demonstrated that the EPR effect is effective in rodents but not in humans. Taking this into consideration, researchers paid significant attention to the active targeting nano-drug loading system. Additionally, it has been demonstrated to have a higher affinity and specificity for tumor cells. In this review, it describes the development of research into active targeted nano-drug delivery systems for lung cancer treatment from the receptors’ or targets’ perspective. We anticipate that this study will help biomedical researchers use nanoparticles (NPs) to treat lung cancer by providing more and novel drug delivery strategies or solid ligands.

Smart delivery of lethal poly-peptide composite for effective cancer therapy

In the past decade, multifunctional peptides have attracted increasing attention in the biomedical field. Peptides possess many impressive advantages, such as high penetration ability, low cost, and etc. However, the short half-life and instability of peptides limit their application. In this study, a poly-peptide drug loading system (called HKMA composite) was designed based on the different functionalities of four peptides. The peptide compositions of HKMA composite from N-terminal to C-terminal were HCBP1, KLA, MMP-2-cleavable peptide and ABD. The targeting and lethality of HKMA to NSCLC cell line H460 sphere cells and the half-life of the system were measured in vivo. The results showed that the HKMA composite had a long half-life and specific killing effect on H460 sphere cells in vitro and in vivo. Our result proposed smart peptide drug loading system and provided a potential methodology for effective cancer treatment.

Battery Power Control and Monitoring System with Internet of Things Technology

Along with the development of battery/ACCU technology, the ACCU charging and loading system has also developed manually or automatically. In this paper, the results of research on the manufacture of tools that function to monitor and control the charging and loading of electrical power will be explained from batteries that are burdened with lights and DC motors through a control panel or android smart phone with IoT technology. This tool is designed to monitor 2 ACCUs, namely ACCU1 and ACCU2. ACCU1 is loaded with lamp and parallel with DC motor load while ACCU2 is loaded with DC motor and parallel with lamp load. If ACCU1 and ACCU2 are full, ACCU1 is loaded with only one lamp and ACCU2 is only loaded with DC motor. For example, ACCU1's electrical power is still within the limits that can be loaded with lights and DC motors while ACCU2 can't be loaded because electric power is not capable of being loaded with DC motors, the DC motor's load will be transferred to ACCU1. So that ACCU1 is loaded with DC lamps and motors and ACCU2 is charging the electricity, as well as for the opposite condition. The design of this tool uses the main component of the ESP32 microcontroller, where this component has been integrated with the wifi module and other supporting circuit modules, namely the current sensor circuit, voltage sensor and OLED display. The software design consists of a program code designer for hardware using C++ and an android smart phone application design using MIT App Inventor. The results of this study are in accordance with the design specifications, namely the device can be used to control charging and loading as well as monitor ACCU1 and ACCU2 electrical power on OLED screens and on Android smart phones screens

Optical Model of Thermal Radiation Loading System for Turbine Vane Leading Edge

With the increase of combustion temperatures, the thermal radiation effect for hot components in the new generation of aero-engines has become a key factor in the combustion process, cooling structure design, and thermal protection. A radiation loading system can be used as an external heat source to simulate the real thermal environment of hot components in aero-engines. Total receiving power, as well as 3-D heat flux distribution, should better coincide with real conditions. With the aid of freeform optics and the feedback optimization method, the current study develops a concentrating-type radiation heating system fit for the leading-edge surface of a C3X turbine vane. A xenon lamp combined with a freeform reflector was optimized for controllable heat flux. A design method in the area of illumination engineering was innovatively extended for the current model. Considering the effect of polar angular radiative flux distribution of a xenon lamp, a Monte Carlo ray tracing (MCRT) method was adopted to evaluate the optical performance. Feedback modifications based on Bayesian theory were adopted to obtain the optimal shape of the FFS for target heat flux. The current study seeks a feasible way to generate 3-D heat flux distribution for complex curved surfaces, such as turbine vane surfaces, and helps to simulate the real thermal environment of hot components in aero-engines.

Synthesis of Different Nanoparticles for Biological Application

Compared with traditional materials, the application of nanomaterials in biomedical fields will bring many excellent performances. This review summarizes some new developments and applications of nanoparticles in recent years from the perspective of biology and medicine, including magnetic resonance imaging, treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and plant infection disease, oxygen-releasing scaffolds, engineered water nanostructures (EWNS) based sanitizer, drug loading system and cancer treatment. This article summarized and discussed the synthesis methods, characterization, advantages, and applications based on these aspects. Introducing nanoparticles into biomedical fields can provide useful ideas for applying nanoparticles in biology and pharmacy in the future.

Glulam beams: Performance of PVA and PUR adhesives on bending strengths of locally selected Nigerian timber species

The applicability of structural timber to construction is due to its desirable qualities such as lightweight, aesthetics and eco-friendliness. However, continuous use of timber for structural purposes comes with the challenge posed by the anisotropic nature of various timber species. Advanced societies have developed and modified their sawn timber species in form of glue-laminated structural members such as beams, columns, joist etc. Nigeria timber species are yet to be fully explored along glued-laminated beams production. This paper assesses the suitability of three selected Nigerian timber species namely; Gmelina Arborea (ML), Terminalia superba (AF) and Pycnanthus angolensis (AK) for production of glued-laminated (glulam) beams. They are locally known respectively as Melina (ML), Afara (AF) and Akomu (AK). The applicability and glue-ability of the glues and their ultimate effect on the flexural strength were investigated through the use of two different types of glue components namely; polyvinyl acetate (PVA) and polyurethane (PUR) glue. The physical properties of the timber species such as moisture content (MC) and densities were determined using BS EN 408. The beams produced which are 1680mm by 150mm by 120mm in dimension were subjected to two points loading system to determine their flexural strengths and failure loads in accordance with ASTM D-198. The flexural strengths results indicated that Pycnanthus angolensis offered most resistance to bending loads with an average flexural strength value of 16.04N/mm2 when PUR glue was used and 13.04N/mm2 when PVA glue was used. The ANOVA result showed that glue types have significant effect on the flexural strength at confidence level of 95%. It was concluded that Pycnanthus angolensis is most suitable for structural applications. PUR is considered the better glue in terms of strength and glue-ability while PVA glue is considered better in terms of workability and applicability based on almost perfect glue line integrity achieved.