160,493 research outputs found
The concept of peace in the Tao Te Ching
No full textThis thesis represents a first attempt to analyze Lao Tzu's main method of resolving the social and political problems in Ch'un Ch'iu and Warring States Periods. Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, suggested many solutions that could bring an end to the conflicts and to the ending of the disunity of China. Examples of these include the reform or abolishment of some ancient Chinese institutions as well as new principles for the enhancement and preservation of life. All these ideas were to become crystallised in Tao Te Ch'ing, which became an important religious text. In particular, the aspect of Lao Tzu's methods for solving the social and political problems of China in the Warring States Period needs more attention. In each chapter of the Tao Te Ch'ing there was a main emphasis on peace as the main method of developing social cohesion and as a cure to all fundamental human problems. Therefore, Lao Tzu's ideas about peace and his methods of solving the problems of the Warring States period are significant and from the main focus of the thesis
Development of new proton conducting materials for intermediate temperature fuel cells
No full textThe work in this thesis mainly focuses on the preparation and characterization of several phosphates and solid oxide systems with the aim of developing new proton conducting materials for intermediate temperature fuel cells (ITFCs). Soft chemical methods such as sol-gel methods and conventional solid state methods were applied for the synthesis of these materials.
Aluminum phosphate obtained by a solution method is single phase and belongs to one of the Al(H₂PO₄)₃ allotropies with hexagonal symmetry. The material is stable up to 200°C and decomposes into Al(PO₃)₃ at a higher temperature. The electrical conductivity of pure Al(H₂PO₄)₃ is on the order of 10⁻⁶-10⁻⁷ S/cm, very close to the value for the known proton conductors AlH₃(PO₄)₂•3H₂O and AlH₂P₃O₁₀•2H₂O. Much higher conductivity is observed for samples containing even a trace amount of excess H₃PO₄. It is likely that the conduction path gradually changes from grain interior to the surface as the acid content increases. The conductivity of Al(H₂PO₄)₃-0.5H₃PO₄ exhibited a good stability over the measured 110 hours.
Although tin pyrophosphate (SnP₂O₇) has been reported to show a significantly high conductivity (~10⁻² S/cm) at 250°C in various atmospheres, we observed large discrepancies in the electrical properties of SnP₂O₇ prepared by different methods. Using an excess amount of phosphorous in the synthetic procedure generally produces SnP₂O₇ with much higher conductivity (several orders of magnitude higher) than samples with stoichiometric Sn:P ratios in their synthetic procedure. Solid state ³¹P NMR confirmed the presence of residual phosphoric acid for samples with excess starting phosphorous. Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) confirmed an amorphous layer covered the SnP₂O₇ granules which was probably phosphoric acid or condensed phases. Thereby, it is quite likely that the high conductivity of SnP₂O₇ results mainly from the contribution of the residual acid. The conductivity of these samples exhibited a good stability over the measured 80 hours.
Based on the observations for SnP₂O₇, we developed a nano core-shell structure based on BPO₄ and P₂O₅ synthesised by solid state methods. The particle size of BPO₄ using this method varied between 10-20 nm depending on the content of P₂O₅. TEM confirmed the existence of an amorphous layer that is homogeneously distributed. The composite exhibits the highest conductivity of 8.8×10⁻² S/cm at 300°C in air for 20% extra P₂O₅ and demonstrates a good stability during the whole measured 110 hours. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) was introduced into the composites in order to increase malleability for fabrication. The conductivity and mechanical strength were optimized by adjusting the PTFE and P₂O₅ content. These organic-inorganic composites demonstrate much better stability at elevated temperature (250°C) over
conventional SiC-H₃PO₄-PTFE composites which are common electrolytes for phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFCs). Fuel cells based on BPO₄-H₃PO₄-PTFE composite as the electrolyte were investigated using pure H₂ and methanol as fuels. A maximum power density of 320 mW/cm² at a voltage of 0.31 V and a maximum current density of 1.9 A/cm² at 200°C were observed for H₂/O₂ fuel cells. A maximum power density of 40 mW/cm² and maximum current of 300 mA/cm² 275°C were observed when 3M methanol was used in the cell.
Phosphoric acid was also introduced into materials with internal open structures such as phosphotungstic acid (H₃PW₁₂O₄₀) and heteropolyacid salt ((NH₄)₃PW₁₂O₄₀), for the purpose of acquiring additional connections. The hybrids obtained have a cubic symmetry with enlarged unit cell volume, probably due to the incorporation of phosphoric acid into the internal structures. Solid state ³¹P NMR performed on H₃PW₁₂O₄₀-xH₃PO₄ (x = 0-3) showed additional peaks at high acid content which could not assigned to phosphorus from the starting materials, suggesting a strong interaction between H₃PW₁₂O₄₀ and H₃PO₄. The conductivity of hybrids was improved significantly compared with samples without phosphoric acid. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) suggest the existence of large amount of hydrogen bonds (OH••••O) that may responsible for the high conductivity. A H₂/O₂ fuel cell based on H₃PW₁₂O₄₀-H₃PO₄-PTFE exhibited a peak power density of 2.7 mW/cm² at 0.3 V in ambient temperature.
Solid oxide proton conductors based on yttrium doped BaZrO₃ were investigated by introducing potassium or lanthanum at the A-sites. The materials were prepared by different methods and were obtained as a single phase with space group Pm-3m (221). The unit cell of these samples is slightly smaller than the undoped one. The upper limit of solid solution formation on the A-sites for potassium is between 5 ~ 10% as introducing more K results in the occurrence of a second phase or impurities such as YSZ (yttrium stabilized zirconium). K doped Barium zirconates showed an improved water uptake capability even with 5% K doping, whereas for La doped ones, water uptake is strongly dependent on particle size and synthetic history. The conductivity of K doped BaZrO₃ was improved by a factor of two (2×10⁻³ S/cm) at 600°C compared with undoped material. Fuel cells based on Pt/Ba₀.₉₅K₀.₀₅Zr₀.₈₅Y₀.₁₁Zn₀.₀₄O[subscript(3-δ)]/Pt under humidified 5% H₂/air conditions gave a maximum power density 7.7 mWcm⁻² at 718°C and an interfacial resistance 4 Ωcm⁻². While for La doped samples, the conductivity was comparable with undoped ones; the benefits of introducing lanthanum at A-sites may not be so obvious as deficiency of barium is one factor that leads to the diminishing conductivity
Surfactant protein D modulates HIV infection of both T-cells and dendritic cells
No full textSurfactant Protein D (SP-D) is an oligomerized C-type lectin molecule with immunomodulatory properties and involvement in lung surfactant homeostasis in the respiratory tract. SP-D binds to the enveloped viruses, influenza A virus and respiratory syncytial virus and inhibits their replication in vitro and in vivo. SP-D has been shown to bind to HIV via the HIV envelope protein gp120 and inhibit infectivity in vitro. Here we show that SP-D binds to different strains of HIV (BaL and IIIB) and the binding occurs at both pH 7.4 and 5.0 resembling physiological relevant pH values found in the body and the female urogenital tract, respectively. The binding of SP-D to HIV particles and gp120 was inhibited by the presence of several hexoses with mannose found to be the strongest inhibitor. Competition studies showed that soluble CD4 and CVN did not interfere with the interaction between SP-D and gp120. However, soluble recombinant DC-SIGN was shown to inhibit the binding between SP-D and gp120. SP-D agglutinated HIV and gp120 in a calcium dependent manner. SP-D inhibited the infectivity of HIV strains at both pH values of 7.4 and 5.0 in a concentration dependent manner. The inhibition of the infectivity was abolished by the presence of mannose. SP-D enhanced the binding of HIV to immature monocyte derived dendritic cells (iMDDCs) and was also found to enhance HIV capture and transfer to the T-cell like line PM1. These results suggest that SP-D can bind to and inhibit direct infection of T-cells by HIV but also enhance the transfer of infectious HIV particles from DCs to T-cells in vivo
NADH consumption for reducing FAD by wild-type GST-TAO (A), its mutants GST-TAO (N1–174) (B), GST-TAO (N1–104) (C), GST-TAO (N175–348) (D), point mutated GST-TAO (W38A/T43A/Y55A) (E), and negative control (F) at 0 min (▪), 30 min (•), and 60 min (▴).
No full text<p>NADH consumption for reducing FAD by wild-type GST-TAO (A), its mutants GST-TAO (N1–174) (B), GST-TAO (N1–104) (C), GST-TAO (N175–348) (D), point mutated GST-TAO (W38A/T43A/Y55A) (E), and negative control (F) at 0 min (▪), 30 min (•), and 60 min (▴).</p
The Equatorial Undercurrent and TAO sampling bias from a decade at SEA
No full textAuthor Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 21 (2014): 2015–2025, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00262.1.The NOAA Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) moored array has, for three decades, been a valuable resource for monitoring and forecasting El Niño–Southern Oscillation and understanding physical oceanographic as well as coupled processes in the tropical Pacific influencing global climate. Acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements by TAO moorings provide benchmarks for evaluating numerical simulations of subsurface circulation including the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC). Meanwhile, the Sea Education Association (SEA) has been collecting data during repeat cruises to the central equatorial Pacific Ocean (160°–126°W) throughout the past decade that provide useful cross validation and quantitative insight into the potential for stationary observing platforms such as TAO to incur sampling biases related to the strength of the EUC. This paper describes some essential sampling characteristics of the SEA dataset, compares SEA and TAO velocity measurements in the vicinity of the EUC, shares new insight into EUC characteristics and behavior only observable in repeat cross-equatorial sections, and estimates the sampling bias incurred by equatorial TAO moorings in their estimates of the velocity and transport of the EUC. The SEA high-resolution ADCP dataset compares well with concurrent TAO measurements (RMSE = 0.05 m s−1; R2 = 0.98), suggests that the EUC core meanders sinusoidally about the equator between ±0.4° latitude, and reveals a mean sampling bias of equatorial measurements (e.g., TAO) of the EUC’s zonal velocity of −0.14 ± 0.03 m s−1 as well as a ~10% underestimation of EUC volume transport. A bias-corrected monthly record and climatology of EUC strength at 140°W for 1990–2010 is presented.The authors thank the NSF
Physical Oceanography program (OCE-1233282) and
the WHOI Academic Programs Office for funding.2015-03-0
Distributed control of a simply supported beam
No full textIn this paper the application of distributed vibration control for a flexible structure is studied both analytically and experimentally. The purpose is to investigate the effectiveness of distributed vibration control strategies and compare them with centralized and decentralized methods. A simply supported beam is chosen as the illustrative flexible structure. Distributed control architectures are designed based on a system identification model and are used to minimize vibration due to broadband disturbances. Experimental results are presented for the control of vibrational modes below 600 Hz. It is demonstrated that the distributed control architecture presented here approaches the performance of a traditional centralized controller employing the same control effort. In addition, in comparison to centralized control, the distributed controller has the advantages of scalability for application in large systems and that it will continue to perform (although probably with diminished capability ) even if some processors fail
Experiments on distributed active vibration control of a simply supported beam
No full textIn this paper, the application of distributed vibration control for a flexible structure is studied both analytically and experimentally. The purpose is to investigate the effectiveness of distributed vibration control strategies and to compare them with centralized and decentralized methods. A simply supported beam is chosen as the illustrative flexible structure. A distributed control architecture is designed based on a system identification model and is used to minimize vibration due to broadband disturbances. Experimental results are presented for the control of the beam's vibration modes under 600 Hz. It is shown that the distributed control architecture presented here approaches the performance of a traditional centralized controller employing the same control effort. In addition, in comparison to centralized control, the distributed controller has the advantages of scalability for application in large systems and that it will continue to perform even when some processors fail, although probably with diminished capability
Hindi ibang-tao ang ibang-tao in the relationship of norm violations to guilt and shame
No full textThis study focuses on determining the influence of the extensions of the self- identity which are the hindi ibang-tao and ibang-tao to the relationship of committing norm violations in the form of social or moral violations and the emotions that will be elicited using a moderation model for its conceptual framework. Related literature provided that when the self-extension hindi ibang-tao is involved, an offender may feel guilt as they commit a moral violation, and would feel more shame as they would commit a social violation towards ibang-tao.
Undergraduate students (N=102) from different universities, ages ranging from 18 to 21, served as participants of the study, as they answered questionnaires that included an informed consent form, stories of norm violations involving hindi ibang-tao and ibang-tao self-extensions, and the state shame and guilt scale (Marshall, D. E., Sanftner, J. L., & Tangney, J.P. (1994). Debriefing about the study was also provided afterwards. Using statistical analyses of Pearson\u27s correlation and ANOVA, guilt is more evident regardless of the norm violations committed, as seen in the results involving the ibang-tao, while the hindi ibang-tao influenced emotions of both guilt and shame in the social violation and more shame in the moral violation. The results may have contradicted the literature, but it did show a trend concluding that social violations do not trigger emotionally in comparison to moral violations whereas shame and guilt as self-conscious emotions are felt when both hindi ibang-tao and ibang-tao are involved in the Filipino context wherein an idea of the shared self-identity is present
Distributed vibration control with sensor networks
No full textIn this paper the application of distributed vibration control for a flexible structure is studied both analytically and experimentally. The purpose is to investigate the effectiveness of distributed vibration control strategies and compare them with centralized and decentralized methods. A simply supported beam is chosen as the illustrative flexible structure. A distributed control architecture is designed based on a system identification model and is used to minimize broadband vibration disturbances. The experiment results are presented for the control of the beam's vibration modes under 600 Hz. It is shown that distributed control approaches the performance of centralized control if the same control effort is applied. In addition, in comparison to centralized control, the distributed controller has the advantage that it will continue to work even when some processors fail, although probably with diminished capability
- …
