[en] Highlights: •We designed a short fusion peptide (FP-50) for in vivo expression. •This peptide is a very promising component for detection of gp120 protein. •The detectable level is about 20–200 times lower than previously published methods. •It is a novel probe to detect HIV-1 gp120 during early stages of HIV infection. -- Abstract: To explore a low-cost novel probe for HIV detection, we designed and prepared a 50-amino acid-length short fusion peptide (FP-50) via Escherichia coli in vivo expression. It was employed as a novel probe to detect HIV-1 gp120 protein. The detectable level of gp120 protein using the FP-50 peptide was approximately 20–200 times lower than previously published methods that used a pair of monoclonal antibodies. Thus, this short peptide is a very promising component for detection of gp120 protein during early stages of HIV infection

[en] In this paper, a 3D numerical model, which was theoretically established and experimentally validated, was utilized to investigate the dynamic electromagnetic behaviors of a high-temperature superconductor (HTS) levitation system consisting of a cylindrical permanent magnet (PM) and an HTS fabricated by the YBCO material. The effects of critical current, cooling temperature, multiseeded material, and thickness of the HTS on electromagnetic behaviors were discussed from a 3D perspective. The dynamic electromagnetic behaviors indicate the induced current is mainly distributed near the top surface and edges of the HTS. As the PM approaches the HTS, the induced current density increases gradually. As the PM withdraws, it reduces initially and is then induced in the opposite direction. The levitation force increases with critical current but exhibits saturation. The lower the temperature, the larger the levitation force and the smaller the hysteresis. The induced current of the multiseeded HTS is characterized by a symmetrical distribution with the seed domain boundary or central axis. Its maximum value increases with the number of seeds but the levitation force significantly reduces. The induced current on the cross section is symmetrically distributed. As the thickness of the HTS decreases, the levitation force reduces drastically but the maximum value of the induced current increases. The reason was explained. Finally, the dynamic electromagnetic behaviors of a radial-type HTS bearing were investigated from a 3D perspective.

[en] We established a 3D coupled model to study the electromagnetic-thermal behaviors of a levitation system containing a bulk high-temperature superconductor (HTS) with a cuboid slot under the nonuniform magnetic field due to the movement of a permanent magnet (PM), analysing the influences of the geometrical parameters of the slot and inclination angle on the electromagnetic-thermal behaviors, giving the dynamic distribution of the global electromagnetic force density in the HTS. The results show that the longer the length of the slot, the smaller the levitation force, and the greater the loss. As its length takes up 7/10 of the HTS diameter, the loss is 4 times that of the HTS without damage. Due to the homodromous induced current appearing near the slot, the maximum guidance force increases with the length. The levitation force decreases with the increase of the slot depth. Its curve near the maximum becomes blunt and the loss increases significantly. As the depth is 3/5-4/5 of the HTS height, the loss is 300–400 times of that without damage. The guidance force and loss increase with the depth. As the inclination angle rises, the levitation and guidance force both drop. At 30 °, their maximums decrease by 70 % and 90 %, respectively. The lateral stability of the system thus becomes poorer, indicating the inclination angle is one of the important factors for instability. As the PM moves vertically, the guidance force density symmetrically distributes near the both wide sides of the slot. Its side faces with the wide sides will bear the shear force, resulting in that the slot has the tendency to tear along these faces. As the PM reciprocates laterally, the slot is subjected to the lateral shear force, proportional to the displacement. (paper)

[en] Design and test of superconducting magnet (SM) for a superconducting synchronous generator (SSG) are studied in this paper. First, a suitable superconducting material is selected to make SM by analyzing the characteristics and application background of the five practical superconducting materials, and the applicability and feasibility of the selected superconducting materials are demonstrated. Second, the initial structural parameters of the SM are obtained by finite element method (FEM). In addition, the influence of structural parameters of SM on the performance of SSG is analyzed by simulation. Then, an optimal algorithm combining response surface methodology (RSM) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed to optimize the structure of SM in order to give full play to the advantages of SM. The simulated results verify that the proposed optimal algorithm is feasible and effective. Finally, the prototype of SM is made by the optimized size, and the SM is tested at a low temperature to obtain the critical temperature and critical current of the SM; the experimental results verify that the designed SM can meet the requirements of SSG.

[en] The process of the production of multi-crystalline silicon is also that of incessant purification of metallurgical grade silicon, during which high energy consumption and environmental pollutants are inevitable. The paper, which is based on life cycle assessment (LCA), presents calculation and analysis on resource input, energy consumption, emissions into and comprehensive impact on environment generated from the whole process in which 1 kg of solar grade multi-crystalline silicon (SoG-Si) is produced with metallurgical route. The program is based on its research on four representative processes in metallurgical route, namely slag refining, wet purification, directional solidification and electron beam melting. Key factors determining environmental load are sought out through contribution analysis and improvement evaluation. Measures and suggestions on how to improve are proposed. For the first time, the LCA model of comparison of metallurgical route and modified Siemens process to SoG-Si environmental impact is constructed. The environmental impacts of SoG-Si production via metallurgical route is compared with purification via modified Siemens process. Results show that the comprehensive environmental impact of metallurgical route SoG-Si is only 49.57% of modified Siemens process SoG-Si. The metallurgical route enjoys obvious environmental advantage. The improvement should be focused on the reduction of electric power consumption in production processes.

[en] Semiconducting Mg₂Si films were synthesized on silicon (111) substrates by magnetron sputtering deposition and subsequent annealing in an annealing furnace filled with argon gas, and the effects of heat treatment on the formation and microstructure of Mg₂Si films were investigated. The structural and morphological properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The results show that the crystal quality of Mg₂Si films depends strongly on the annealing temperature, the annealing time and the deposited magnesium film thickness. Annealing at 400 deg. C for 5 h is optimal for the preparation of Mg₂Si film. XRD and SEM results show that magnesium silicide film with various orientations is formed on the silicon surface because of the interdiffusion and reaction of magnesium with substrate silicon atoms, and the evolution of surface features on growing films is very dependent on the annealing temperature and time.

[en] By using the techniques of culture of mice thymus stromal cells in vitro, the characteristics of thymus stromal cells, their dynamic changes in various times in normal and after irradiation, their radiosensitivity was studied. The values of D₀ and n of thymus stromal cells were 2.3 Gy and 1.4 respectively. Decreases in number of stromal cells after irradiation with doses of 0.75 Gy and 1.5 Gy was not significant compared with group of non-irradiation. Significant decreases in number of stromal cells occurred by irradiation with doses of 4.0 Gy and 8.0 Gy

[en] By using the technique of culture of immuno-stromal progenitors in vitro, we studied their radiosensitivities after irradiation in various doses. The values of D₀ and n of thymus, spleen and lymph node were 2.3 Gy and 1.5, 2.8 Gy and 1.2, 2.7 Gy and 1.4 respectively. The radiosensitivity of the CFU-F subgroups which formed dense colonies was significantly higher than that of loose colonies, when cultured in vitro

[en] We present a novel sea-ice classification framework based on locality preserving fusion of multi-source images information. The locality preserving fusion arises from two-fold, i.e., the local characterization in both spatial and feature domains. We commence by simultaneously learning a projection matrix, which preserves spatial localities, and a similarity matrix, which encodes feature similarities. We map the pixels of multi-source images by the projection matrix to a set fusion vectors that preserve spatial localities of the image. On the other hand, by applying the Laplacian eigen-decomposition to the similarity matrix, we obtain another set of fusion vectors that preserve the feature local similarities. We concatenate the fusion vectors for both spatial and feature locality preservation and obtain the fusion image. Finally, we classify the fusion image pixels by a novel sliding ensemble strategy, which enhances the locality preservation in classification. Our locality preserving fusion framework is effective in classifying multi-source sea-ice images (e.g., multi-spectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images) because it not only comprehensively captures the spatial neighboring relationships but also intrinsically characterizes the feature associations between different types of sea-ices. Experimental evaluations validate the effectiveness of our framework.

[en] For kA thermal emission current of electron beams,we developed a Φ100 mm scandate cathode,and established a 2 MV injector test stand with the large area thermionic cathode. Experiment results showed that under the diode voltage of 1.95 MV, pulse width at 120 ns (FWHM), cathode temperature at 1120 degree C, the maximum emission current was 1038 A, with an emission current density of about 13 A/cm². The results also indicates that under these conditions, the cathode is still working in the space-charge limited current state. (authors)