Theoretical study of preparative chromatography using closed-loop recycling with an initial gradient

Complementing classical isocratic elution, several more sophisticated operating modes have been proposed and are applied in preparative chromatography in order to improve performance. One such approach is gradient elution, where the solvent strength is altered by varying the fraction of a modifier added to the mobile phase to enhance selectivity and to achieve faster elution. Another useful technique is closed-loop recycling, allowing better peak resolution and increased yields. This study focuses on a modified new scheme which incorporates the advantages of both gradient elution and closed-loop recycling for the separation of a ternary mixture where the intermediately eluting component is the target. A parametric study was carried out using typical adsorption isotherm parameters to elucidate the effects of varying loading factors and parameters specific to the two basic operational modes on production rates and yields. A comparison was also made between the proposed scheme and conventional techniques. It was found that the studied scheme could exploit increased column loadings and offers significantly higher production rates.     

pH‐Sensitive Mechanical Properties of Elastin‐Based Hydrogels

Ionizable amino acids in protein‐based hydrogels can confer pH‐responsive behavior. Because elastin‐like polypeptides (ELPs) have an established sequence and can crosslink to form hydrogels, they are an ideal system for creating pH‐sensitive materials. This study examines different parameters that might affect pH‐sensitive behavior and characterizes the mechanical and physical properties between pH 3 and 11 of three ELP‐based crosslinked hydrogels. The first finding is that varying the amount of crosslinker affects the overall stiffness and resilience of the hydrogels but does not strongly affect water content, swelling ratio, or pH sensitivity. Second, the choice of two popular tag sequences, which vary in histidine and aspartic acid content, does not have a strong effect on pH‐sensitive properties. Last, selectively blocking lysine and tyrosine residues through acetylation significantly decreases the pH‐sensitive zeta potential. Acetylated hydrogels also demonstrate different behavior at low pH values with reduced swelling, reduced water content, and higher stiffness. Overall, this work demonstrates that ELP hydrogels with ionizable groups are promising materials for environmentally‐responsive applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and microfluidics.     

Conceptual linearization of Euler governing equations to solve high speed compressible flow using a pressure‐based method

The main objective of the current work is to introduce a new conceptual linearization strategy to improve the performance of a primitive shock‐capturing pressure‐based finite‐volume method. To avoid a spurious oscillatory solution in the chosen collocated grids, both the primitive and extended methods utilize two convecting and convected momentum expressions at each cell face. The expressions are obtained via a physical‐based discretization of two inclusive statements, which are constructed via a novel incorporation of the continuity and momentum governing equations. These two expressions in turn provide a strong coupling among the Euler conservative statements. Contrary to the primitive work, the linearization in the current work respects the definitions and essence of physics behind deriving the Euler governing equations. The accuracy and efficiency of the new formulation are then investigated by solving the shock tube as a problem with moving normal and expansion waves and the converging‐diverging nozzle as a problem with strong stationary normal shock. The results show that there is good improvement in performance of the primitive pressure‐based shock‐capturing method while its superior accuracy is not deteriorated at all. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008     

A vortex axis and vortex core border grid adaptation algorithm

In the design process of hydrodynamical and aerodynamical technical applications, the numerical simulation of massively separated vortical flow is crucial for predicting, for example, lift or drag. To obtain reliable numerical results, it is mandatory to accurately predict the physical behavior of vortices. Thus, the dominant vortical flow structures have to be resolved in detail, which requires a local grid refinement and certain adaptation techniques. In this paper, a vortex flow structure adaptation algorithm is presented, which is particularly designed for local grid refinement at vortex axes positions and associated vortex core border locations. To this end, a fast and efficient vortex axis detection scheme is introduced and the algorithm for the vortex core border determination is explained. As the interaction between vortices makes the assignment of grid points to a certain vortex axis difficult, a helicity‐based vortex distinction approach in combination with a geometrical rotational sensor is developed. After describing the combined different techniques in detail, the vortex feature adaptation algorithm is applied to analytical and more realistic examples, which show that the described grid adaptation algorithm is able to enhance the grid cell resolution locally such that all significant vortical flow phenomena are resolved. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CartGen: Robust,efficient and easy to implement uniform/octree/embedded boundary Cartesian grid generator

An efficient and easy to implement method to generate Cartesian grids is presented. The presented method generates various kinds of Cartesian grids such as uniform, octree and embedded boundary grids. It supports the variation of grid size along each spatial direction as well as anisotropic and non‐graded refinements. The efficiency and ease of implementation are the main benefits of the presented method in contrast to the alternative methods. Regarding octree grid generation, applying a simple and efficient data compression method permits to store all grid levels without considerable memory overhead. The presented method generates octree grids up to a 13‐level refinement (8192³ grids on the finest level) from a complicated geometry in a few minutes on the traditional desktop computers. The FORTRAN 90 implementation of the presented method is freely available under the terms of the GNU general public license. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

一种特殊设计约束面的有限元网格优化问题

网格设计质量的优劣是有限元分析的关键，对一些特殊的设计约束面，网格的优化设计是建模时需要首先研究解决的问题，本文对两种材料在几何尺寸差异很大情况下的有限元网格进行了优化设计并对其进行了讨论。     

Deep Learning for Walking Behaviour Detection in Elderly People Using Smart Footwear

The increase in the proportion of elderly in Europe brings with it certain challenges that society needs to address, such as custodial care. We propose a scalable, easily modulated and live assistive technology system, based on a comfortable smart footwear capable of detecting walking behaviour, in order to prevent possible health problems in the elderly, facilitating their urban life as independently and safety as possible. This brings with it the challenge of handling the large amounts of data generated, transmitting and pre-processing that information and analysing it with the aim of obtaining useful information in real/near-real time. This is the basis of information theory. This work presents a complete system aiming at elderly people that can detect different user behaviours/events (sitting, standing without imbalance, standing with imbalance, walking, running, tripping) through information acquired from 20 types of sensor measurements (16 piezoelectric pressure sensors, one accelerometer returning reading for the 3 axis and one temperature sensor) and warn the relatives about possible risks in near-real time. For the detection of these events, a hierarchical structure of cascading binary models is designed and applied using artificial neural network (ANN) algorithms and deep learning techniques. The best models are achieved with convolutional layered ANN and multilayer perceptrons. The overall event detection performance achieves an average accuracy and area under the ROC curve of 0.84 and 0.96, respectively.     

A Poisson–Boltzmann solver on irregular domains with Neumann or Robin boundary conditions on non-graded adaptive grid

We introduce a second-order solver for the Poisson–Boltzmann equation in arbitrary geometry in two and three spatial dimensions. The method differs from existing methods solving the Poisson–Boltzmann equation in the two following ways: first, non-graded Quadtree (in two spatial dimensions) and Octree (in three spatial dimensions) grid structures are used; Second, Neumann or Robin boundary conditions are enforced at the irregular domain’s boundary. The irregular domain is described implicitly and the grid needs not to conform to the domain’s boundary, which makes grid generation straightforward and robust. The linear system is symmetric, positive definite in the case where the grid is uniform, nonsymmetric otherwise. In this case, the resulting matrix is an M-matrix, thus the linear system is invertible. Convergence examples are given in both two and three spatial dimensions and demonstrate that the solution is second-order accurate and that Quadtree/Octree grid structures save a significant amount of computational power at no sacrifice in accuracy.