We perform an experiment in which a quantum heat engine works under two reservoirs, one at a positive spin temperature and the other at an effective negative spin temperature, i.e., when the spin system presents population inversion. We show that the efficiency of this engine can be greater than that when both reservoirs are at positive temperatures. We also demonstrate the counterintuitive result that the Otto efficiency can be beaten only when the quantum engine is operating in the finite-time mode.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.240602 | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
December 2024
Kombolcha Institute of Technology, Wollo University, Dessie, Ethiopia.
Alcohol-based fuels have shown high compatibility with spark-ignition (SI) engines, which require improvements in fuel efficiency and emissions reduction to meet modern environmental standards. While extensive research has been conducted on ethanol and other lower-order alcohols, there has been comparatively limited investigation into higher-order alcohols like butanol and pentanol as fuel alternatives. Previous studies on pentanol-gasoline blends in SI engines have demonstrated improved engine performance and reduced emissions.
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December 2024
School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have recently garnered considerable concerns regarding their impacts on human and ecological health. Despite the important roles of polyamide membranes in remediating PFASs-contaminated water, the governing factors influencing PFAS transport across these membranes remain elusive. In this study, we investigate PFAS rejection by polyamide membranes using two machine learning (ML) models, namely XGBoost and multimodal transformer models.
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December 2024
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
Over 80% of biologic drugs, and 90% of vaccines, require temperature-controlled conditions throughout the supply chain to minimize thermal inactivation and contamination. This cold chain is costly, requires stringent oversight, and is impractical in remote environments. Here, we report chemical dispersants that non-covalently solvate proteins within fluorous liquids to alter their thermodynamic equilibrium and reduce conformational flexibility.
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December 2024
Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Compound soil drought and heat extremes are expected to occur more frequently with global warming, causing wide-ranging socio-ecological repercussions. Vegetation modulates air temperature and soil moisture through biophysical processes, thereby influencing the occurrence of such extremes. Global vegetation cover is broadly expected to increase under climate change, but it remains unclear whether vegetation greening will alleviate or aggravate future increases in compound soil drought-heat events.
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December 2024
Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, 61005, South Korea.
In optical imaging of solid tumors, signal contrasts derived from inherent tissue temperature differences have been employed to distinguish tumor masses from surrounding tissue. Moreover, with the advancement of active infrared imaging, dynamic thermal characteristics in response to exogenous thermal modulation (heating and cooling) have been proposed as novel measures of tumor assessment. Contrast factors such as the average rate of temperature changes and thermal recovery time constants have been investigated through an active thermal modulation imaging approach, yielding promising tumor characterization results in a xenograft mouse model.
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