Diffusion Process of High Concentration Spikes in a Quasi-Homogeneous Turbulent Flow

When a mass spreads in a turbulent flow, areas with obviously high concentration of the mass compared with surrounding areas are formed by organized structures of turbulence. In this study, we extract the high concentration areas and investigate their diffusion process. For this purpose, a combination of Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) techniques was employed to obtain simultaneously the two fields of the concentration of injected dye and of the velocity in a water turbulent channel flow. With focusing on a quasi-homogeneous turbulence in the channel central region, a series of PLIF and PIV images were acquired at several different downstream positions. We applied a conditional sampling technique to the PLIF images to extract the high concentration areas, or spikes, and calculated the conditional-averaged statistics of the extracted areas such as length scale, mean concentration, and turbulent diffusion coefficient. We found that the averaged length scale was constant with downstream distance from the diffusion source and was smaller than integral scale of the turbulent eddies. The spanwise distribution of the mean concentration was basically Gaussian, and the spanwise width of the spikes increased linearly with downstream distance from the diffusion source. Moreover, the turbulent diffusion coefficient was found to increase in proportion to the spanwise distance from the source. These results reveal aspects different from those of regular mass diffusion and let us conclude that the diffusion process of the spikes differs from that of regular mass diffusion.

Inverse Source Locating Method Based on Graphical Analysis of Dye Plume Images in a Turbulent Flow

The inverse estimation of a source location of pollutant released into a turbulent flow is a probability problem instead of a deterministic one, as the turbulent flow is chaotic and irreversible. However, researches can be conducted to provide helpful instructions to the possible source location with corresponding uncertainty. This study aims to propose a method of inverse estimation of a passive-scalar source location. Experimental investigation of the dye plume characteristics released into a fully-developed turbulent flow is performed in a water channel. A planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique is used to obtain two-dimensional images of spreading dye plumes at a bulk Reynolds number of 20,000. The distributions of high concentration areas in the PLIF images are chosen as features that characterize the traveling (diffusion) distance or time from the dye source. Graphical analysis is used to extract these high concentration areas. The procedure of graphical analysis has three steps: 1) binarization using a threshold to extract high concentration dye patches;2) labeling individual high-concentration dye patches in the binarized images;and 3) pixel-counting to measure the area and perimeter of each dye patch. We examine the variations of fractal dimension of patches, and the fractal dimension is observed to be almost constant irrespective of the distance from the source. The kurtosis of the probability density function curve of the logarithm dimensionless dye patch areas is found to be related with the downstream diffusion distance, based on which an inverse estimation method to locate a passive-scalar point source is proposed and evaluated.

Performance improvement of c-Si solar cell by a combination of SiNx/SiOx passivation and double P-diffusion gettering treatment

SiNx/SiOx passivation and double side P-diffusion gettering treatment have been used for the fabrication of c-Si solar cells. The solar cells fabricated have high open circuit voltage and short circuit current after the double P-diffusion treatment. In addition to better surface passivation effect, SiNx/SiOx layer has lower reflectivity in long wavelength range than conventional SiNx film. As a consequence, such solar cells exhibit higher conversion efficiency and better internal quantum efficiency, compared with conventional c-Si solar cells.

A Hierarchic Method for Studying the Distribution of Phenanthrene in Eisenia fetida

The distribution of heavy metals in earthworms has been widely studied, highlighting the importance of the fate of these metals.However, little information is available on the distribution of hydrophobic organic contaminants(HOCs) within earthworms. The aim of this study was to propose a hierarchic method to study the distribution of phenanthrene(PHE), a typical HOC, in Eisenia fetida at several levels: sub-organism(pre-clitellum, clitellum and post-clitellum), tissue(body wall, gut and body fluid) and subcellular(intracellular and extracellular fractions). Earthworms were incubated in the soils amended with low(LC, 10 mg kg-1) and high concentrations(HC, 50 mg kg-1) of PHE and sampled at different time intervals. At the sub-organism level, the distribution of PHE was homogeneous among the sub-organism fractions in the LC treatment but heterogeneous in the HC treatment and gradually reached the following form of post-clitellum ≈ clitellum > pre-clitellum. The uptake and elimination kinetics of PHE in the sub-organism were well described by a one-compartment model. At the tissue level, the concentration of PHE followed the order of gut > body fluid >body wall; while at the subcellular level, the concentration of PHE in the extracellular fraction was 1.23 to 4.68 times higher than that in the intracellular fraction. Therefore, the simple circulatory system of earthworms may account for the PHE distribution at the sub-organism level. Partition pathways(passive diffusion) of PHE between the body wall, body fluid and gut as well as the processes of PHE entrance into the inner cellular compartment via passive diffusion were experimentally supported.

Impact of molecular weight on the mechanism of cellular uptake of polyethylene glycols(PEGs) with particular reference to P-glycoprotein

Polyethylene glycols(PEGs)in general use are polydisperse molecules with molecular weight(MW)distributed around an average value applied in their designation e.g.,PEG 4000.Previous research has shown that PEGs can act as P-glycoprotein(P-gp)inhibitors with the potential to affect the absorption and efflux of concomitantly administered drugs.However,questions related to the mechanism of cellular uptake of PEGs and the exact role played by P-gp has not been addressed.In this study,we examined the mechanism of uptake of PEGs by MDCK-mock cells,in particular,the effect of MW and interaction with P-gp by MDCK-hMDRl and A549 cells.The results show that:(a)the uptake of PEGs by MDCK-hMDR1 cells is enhanced by P-gp inhibitors;(b)PEGs stimulate P-gp ATPase activity but to a much lesser extent than verapamil;and(c)uptake of PEGs of low MW(<2000 Da)occurs by passive diffusion whereas uptake of PEGs of hish MW(>5000 Da)occurs by a combination of passive diffusion and caveolae-mediated endocytosis.These findings suggest that PEGs can engage in P-gp-based drug interactions which we believe should be taken into account when using PEGs as excipients and in PEGylated drugs and drug delivery systems.