Elemental analysis of particulate matter in a metal workshop and of biological samples from exposed workers

During metal welding and cutting, large amounts of particulate matter (PM) are produced that might represent a significant health risk for the exposed workers. In the present pilot study, we performed an elemental analysis of fine PM collected in a metal workshop. Also, elemental analysis of the hair and nail samples collected from workers exposed to the workshop dust and control group was done. Concentrations of 15 elements in PM were measured with X‐Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Particle Induced X‐ray Emission (PIXE), whereas inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) was used to determine 12 elements in hair and nail samples. Mean 8‐hr concentrations of PM_2.5, Fe, and Mn in the vicinity of welders were up to 1803, 860, and 30 μg/m³, respectively, whereas in the nearby city, daily PM_2.5 concentrations are on average 11 μg/m³. We found that several elements, especially Fe and Mn, had substantially higher concentrations in hair and nail samples of exposed workers than in the control group, which indicates the accumulation of metals in workers' tissues, although limit values were not exceeded.     

Model averaging for linear models with responses missing at random

Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics - In this paper, a model averaging approach is developed for the linear regression models with response missing at random. It is shown that the...     

Optimal design of gears contact interface modification for an objective as minimum impact resistance of initial meshing-in time domain

Meccanica - In gear pair actual alternating meshing process, the comprehensive errors of the transmission system and the thermal elastic deformation of the teeth body cause the gears in the meshing...     

Tantalum Nitride Nanosheets for Photoacoustic Imaging-Guided Photothermal Cancer Therapy

In this study, the synthesis of TaN nanosheets and their application in theranostic agents is reported. After coating polyethylene glycol (PEG) on the TaN nanosheets, the as-synthesized PEG-modified TaN nanosheets (TaN-PEG) show good stability and biocompatibility. Because of their high absorbance in the near-IR region, TaN-PEG can be utilized as photoacoustic imaging contrast agents for tumor imaging. Moreover, TaN-PEG has significant photothermal conversion performance, exhibiting effective laser-induced tumor ablation capability. The TaN-PEG possessing excellent photoacoustic contrast effect and photothermal properties thus have great promise in theranostic applications, especially imaging-guided cancer treatment.     

ON THE EXISTENCE WITH EXPONENTIAL DECAY AND THE BLOW-UP OF SOLUTIONS FOR COUPLED SYSTEMS OF SEMI-LINEAR CORNER-DEGENERATE PARABOLIC EQUATIONS WITH SINGULAR POTENTIALS

In this article,we study the initial boundary value problem of coupled semi-linear degenerate parabolic equations with a singular potential term on manifolds with corner singularities.Firstly,we introduce the corner type weighted p-Sobolev spaces and the weighted corner type Sobolev inequality,the Poincare′inequality,and the Hardy inequality.Then,by using the potential well method and the inequality mentioned above,we obtain an existence theorem of global solutions with exponential decay and show the blow-up in finite time of solutions for both cases with low initial energy and critical initial energy.Significantly,the relation between the above two phenomena is derived as a sharp condition.Moreover,we show that the global existence also holds for the case of a potential well family.     

Phase transition and scaling in Kuramoto model with high-order coupling

Nonlinear Dynamics - The classical Kuramoto model serves as a useful tool for studying synchronization transitions in coupled oscillators that is limited to the sinusoidal and pairwise...     

Study on propagation efficiency and fidelity of subthreshold signal in feed-forward hybrid neural network under electromagnetic radiation

Nonlinear Dynamics - The hybrid neural model provides a computationally effective and biophysics-based neuron behavior model, which maintains its simplicity by incorporating the dynamics...     

Semiconvergence analysis of the randomized row iterative method and its extended variants

The row iterative method is popular in solving the large‐scale ill‐posed problems due to its simplicity and efficiency. In this work we consider the randomized row iterative (RRI) method to tackle this issue. First, we present the semiconvergence analysis of RRI method for the overdetermined and inconsistent system, and derive upper bounds for the noise error propagation in the iteration vectors. To achieve a least squares solution, we then propose an extended version of the RRI (ERRI) method, which in fact can converge in expectation to the solution of the overdetermined or underdetermined, consistent or inconsistent systems. Finally, some numerical examples are given to demonstrate the convergence behaviors of the RRI and ERRI methods for these types of linear system.     

Development of an improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated coupled framework to solve flow problems with time‐varying geometries

In this article a coupled version of the improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated method will be proposed to simulate time‐varying geometries by direct forcing immersed boundary method. The proposed method can be seen as a quasi‐multi‐moment framework due to the fact that the momentum equations are discretized by both cell‐centered and cell‐face velocity. For simulating time‐varying geometries, a semi‐implicit iterative method is proposed for calculating the direct forcing terms. Treatments for suppressing spurious force oscillations, calculating drag/lift forces, and evaluating velocity and pressure for freshly cells will also be addressed. In order to show the applicability and accuracy, analytical as well as benchmark problems will be investigated by the present framework and compared with other numerical and experimental results.     

Quantum Resources in Heisenberg XX Model Under Noisy Environment

International Journal of Theoretical Physics - In this paper, we investigate Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering, Bell non-locality, first-order coherence and concurrence in the spin- $\frac {1}{2}$...