Skin Surface Temperature Research Articles

Regional climate trend analyses for Aqua MODIS land surface temperatures

ABSTRACT Land surface temperature (LST) is the skin surface temperature of the Earth’s land surface and is an essential climate variable (ECV) that critically characterizes the Earth’s climate and surface energy processes. This is the first regional trend analysis for LST with uncertainties, using a stable LST climate data record suitable for climate trend analyses: the Aqua Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) dataset (MYDCCI) produced in the European Space Agency (ESA) LST Climate Change Initiative (LST_cci) Project. The quality of the trends is verified here for Western Europe, for which consistent trends per decade of 0.5 K and 0.57 K across daytime and night-time data, respectively. Eight regions representative of a range of biomes and, including the Amazon, Western U.S.A., Greenland, the Sahel, Siberia, China, India, and Australia, have been analysed. Our most significant findings show substantial LST increases for Siberia and the Amazon, as well as evidence of recent increasing trends for the Western U.S.A. Siberia showed the most substantial daytime and night-time changes per decade of +0.87 K and +0.93 K, respectively. Furthermore, the Amazon and Western U.S.A. showed significant daytime LST trend increases of +0.82 K and +0.51 K, respectively. Western Europe and Western U.S.A. show the largest night-time change of +0.57 K and +0.54 K, respectively. India presents an atypical time series with a decreasing daytime and increasing night-time trend per decade of −0.62 K and +0.44 K, respectively, consistent with reported air temperatures. Overall the results show significant positive regional LST trends, against a background of both strong seasonal cycles and intermittent disruptive events, which demonstrate the importance of continued LST observations. The results also incentivize remote sensing science to derive ever more rigorous LST datasets and to continue to investigate emissivity and error correlations to allow improved trend analyses for smaller regions and individual locations.

In vivo evaluation of prototype for quantitative skin surface temperature recording

<i>In vivo</i> evaluation of prototype for quantitative skin surface temperature recording

Influence of Tissue Thermophysical Characteristics and Situ-Cooling on the Detection of Breast Cancer

This article presents a numerical simulation model using COMSOL software to study breast thermophysical properties. It analyzes tumor heat at different locations within the breast, records breast surface temperatures, investigates the effects of factors such as blood perfusion, size, depth, and thermal conductivity on breast size, and applies Pennes’ bioheat formula to illustrate thermal distribution on the breast skin surface. An analysis was conducted to examine how changes in tumor location depth, size, metabolism, blood flow, and heat conductivity affect breast skin surface temperature. The simulation model results showed that the highest variations in skin temperatures for breasts with tumors and without tumors can range from 2.58 °C to 0.274 °C. Further, large breast size with a large surface area consistently reduces the temperature variations on the skin and might have difficulty in yielding observable temperature contrast. For small breast sizes, however, heat from tumor sizes below 0.5 cm might be quite difficult to detect, while tumors located deep within the breast layers could not produce observable temperature variations. Motivated by the above interesting results, an emulation experiment was conducted to enhance the observable heat and temperature background contrast, using situ-cooling gel applied to silicon breasts, while the tumor source was emulated using LEDs. The experiment was used to evaluate the effectiveness of adding situ-cooling to the breast surface area, and to study the modulated effect of tumor size and depth. Experimental results showed that situ-cooling enhances thermal contrast in breast thermal images. For example, for a tumor location at a depth of 10 cm, a difference of 6 °C can still be achieved with situ-cooling gel applied, a feat that was not possible in the simulation model. Furthermore, changes in tumor size and location depth significantly impacted surface temperature distribution.

Retrieval of Sea Surface Skin Temperature from the High Resolution Picture Transmission Data of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Series Satellites

The High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) data of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series meteorological satellites had been received by the SeaSpace ground station located at the Ocean University of China (OUC). Based on the atmospheric radiative transfer model, we obtained the NOAA-15/16/17/18/19 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sea surface skin temperature (SSTskin) data using the Bayesian cloud detection method and the optimal estimation (OE) sea surface temperature (SST) retrieval algorithm. Compared with the NOAA/AVHRR multi-channel SST data, the AVHRR SSTskin data have higher data accuracy. We also compared the AVHRR SSTskin with the buoy SST with spatial and temporal windows of 0.01° and 30 min. The daytime biases ranged from −0.32 °C (NOAA-16) to 0.08 °C (NOAA-17) with standard deviations (SDs) ranging from 0.36 °C (NOAA-18/ NOAA-19) to 0.60 °C (NOAA-16), and the nighttime biases ranged from −0.26 °C (NOAA-16) to −0.02 °C (NOAA-17) with SDs ranging from 0.33 °C (NOAA-19) to 0.60 °C (NOAA-16). The accuracy of all five satellite data during daytime and nighttime was significantly improved. These results show that the AVHRR SSTskin of NOAA series satellites is good and consistent in different periods, and the SSTskin data products with high spatial resolution and accuracy can be used for mesoscale and submesoscale marine applications.

Cool skin effect and warm skin phenomenon observed by shipboard radiometer in the Northwest Pacific

Sea surface temperature (SST) is an important variable in the study of ocean boundary layers and heat exchange. The accurate simulation and measurement of skin effects are vital to air–sea model processing and satellite SST retrieval. Shipboard measurements from eleven cruises in the Northwest Pacific between August 2015 and October 2018 were used to estimate the cool skin effect and compare model results. The temperature difference ΔT between the sea surface skin temperature (SSTskin), as measured by an infrared radiometer, and the sea surface depth temperature (SSTdepth) at around 4 meters showed a mean difference and a standard deviation of the same 0.2 K, with a total of 5-min 39909 measurements. Both daytime and nighttime ΔT values were compared to physical model simulations and were found to have relatively larger mean values. A set of new coefficients for an exponential parameterization of the cool skin effect was derived in the research area, which performed well in comparison to previous empirical models. In nighttime observations from two summer cruises, the reverse process of heat flux transfer from the air to the sea in the form of a warm skin was distinguished. There were 667 positive ΔT values out of the 1917 nighttime observations, with magnitudes ranging from around 0 to 0.3 K. A high proportion of the cases of the warm skin phenomenon occurred when the air was very humid and much warmer than the sea surface.

Phase Change Microcapsule Composite Material with Intelligent Thermoregulation Function for Infrared Camouflage.

The infrared camouflage textile materials with soft and wear-resistant properties can effectively reduce the possibility of soldiers and military equipment being exposed to infrared detectors. In this paper, the infrared camouflage textile composites with intelligent temperature adjustment ability were prepared by different methods, using phase change microcapsule as the main raw material and high polymer polyurethane as the matrix, combining the two factors of temperature control and emissivity reduction. It was tested by differential scanning calorimeter, temperature change tester, infrared emissivity tester, and infrared imager. The results show that the temperature regulation effect of textile materials finished by coating method is better than dip rolling method, the temperature regulation ability and presentation effect are the best when the microcapsule content is 27%. When the bottom layer of infrared camouflage textile composite is 27% phase change microcapsule and the surface layer is 20% copper powder, its infrared emissivity in the band of 2-22 μm is 0.656, and the rate of heating and cooling is obviously slowed down. It has excellent heat storage and temperature regulation function, which can reduce the skin surface temperature by more than 6 °C and effectively reduce the infrared radiation. This study can provide reference for laboratory preparation and industrial production of infrared camouflage composite material. The infrared camouflage textile composite prepared are expected to be used in the field of military textiles.

Challenges in the Description of Sea Ice for a Kilometer-Scale Weather Forecasting System

Abstract Simulation of atmosphere–ocean–ice interactions in coupled Earth modeling systems with kilometer-scale resolution is a new challenge in operational numerical weather prediction. This study presents an assessment of sensitivity experiments performed with different sea ice products in a convective-scale weather forecasting system for the European Arctic. On kilometer-scale resolution sea ice products are challenged by the large footprint of passive microwave satellite observations and issues with spurious sea ice detection of the higher-resolution retrievals based on synthetic aperture radar instruments. We perform sensitivity experiments with sea ice concentration fields of 1) the global ECMWF-IFS forecast system, 2) a newly developed multisensor product processed through a coupled sea ice–ocean forecasting system, and 3) the AMSR2 product based on passive microwave observations. There are significant differences between the products on O(100) km scales in the northern Barents Sea and along the Marginal Ice Zone north of the Svalbard archipelago and toward the Fram Strait. These differences have a direct impact on the modeled surface skin temperature over ocean and sea ice, the turbulent heat flux, and 2-m air temperature (T2M). An assessment of Arctic weather stations shows a significant improvement of forecasted T2M in the north and east of Svalbard when using the new multisensor product; however, south of Svalbard this product has a negative impact. The different sea ice products are resulting in changes of the surface turbulent heat flux of up to 400 W m−2, which in turn results in T2M variations of up to 5°C. Over a 2-day forecast lead time this can lead to uncertainties in weather forecasts of about 1°C even hundreds of kilometers away from the sea ice. Significance Statement Weather forecasting in polar regions requires an accurate description of sea ice properties due to the very important atmosphere–ocean–ice interactions. With the increasing resolution of weather forecasting systems, there is also a need to advance the resolution of the sea ice characteristics in the models. This is, however, not straightforward due to various issues in the sea ice satellite products. This study explores new products and approaches to integrate high-resolution sea ice in a weather prediction system. We find that the model is sensitive to the choice of the sea ice product and that it is still challenging to provide an accurate sea ice field on a kilometer-scale resolution.

Temperature measurements on facial skin surface as evaluated by infrared thermal cam-era and pyrometer following physiotherapeutic light treatments

Any clinical procedure in dentistry, especially one that involves a breach of tissue integrity, carries the risk of complications, which can occur in any speciality. These include: postopera-tive wound pain, tissue swelling, bleeding, redness, elevated temperature, trismus, decreased sensation as a result of nerve damage. Postoperative patient care aims to minimise the risk of complications and to treat those which have developed. To this end, we can resort to physical therapy, one of the modalities of which is light therapy, using electromagnetic wave ranges of red, infrared, yellow and ultraviolet light. Yet, it remains unclear which wavelength should be used to treat any specific disease entity and which form of therapeutic light should be used in the rehabilitation of a specific complication following dental procedures? In this study, we used the Cason CA380 infrared digital pyrometer with a laser pointer and the Fluke Ti 400 thermal imaging camera. On the basis of the tests and statistical analysis, it can be concluded that the application of light significantly increases the temperature of the irradiated facial skin surface. Irrespective of the type of light used, each was associated with an increase in temper-ature. A more pronounced increase in temperature on the facial skin surface after a given ap-plication suggests that the effect of light therapy is shallow, which is relevant to the choice of a specific light wavelength to be applied in a particular disease entity or dental complication.

The Effect of Radial Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy (rESWT) on the Skin Surface Temperature of the Longissimus Dorsi Muscle in Clinically Healthy Racing Thoroughbreds: A Preliminary Study

Radial extracorporeal shock wave therapy (rESWT) is increasingly being used to treat musculoskeletal injuries in horses. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of rESWT on the skin surface temperature of the longissimus dorsi muscle in clinically healthy racing horses. A total of 24 thoroughbreds were divided into a study group (n = 12) and an rESWT-sham group (n = 12). The study group underwent rESWT, whereas the rESWT-sham group had rESWT without probe activation in the treated area. Both groups underwent thermographic examination before and just after rESWT to determine and compare skin surface temperatures. Palpation examination was performed after the first and second thermography examination to assess longissimus dorsi muscle tone. Additionally, thermographic examination was repeated 10 min after the rESWT. In both groups, there was an increase in skin surface temperature just after rESWT, and a decrease 10 min after it to below the initial value. In the study group, the skin surface temperature just after rESWT was higher than in the rESWT-sham group. Additionally, in the study group the average muscle tone before rESWT was significantly higher than just after the procedure, whereas in the rESWT-sham group the average change in muscle tone was not significant. The results proved that rESWT increases skin surface temperature of the longissimus dorsi muscle in clinically healthy horses. Further research is necessary in order to configure shockwave treatment with appropriate parameters for effective and safe therapy.

An inversion approach for non-invasive detection of subcutaneous structure and temperature based on 1D residual neural network

Laser skin dermatology has attracted increasing attention with awareness of the aesthetic sense. Real-time detection of subcutaneous vessel temperature and structure during laser treatment is essential for efficacy and safety of surgery. By using 1D residual neural network to improve the accuracy of feature extraction, an inverse method model with outstanding reconstruction performance and noise insensitivity was proposed to estimate vascular parameters including temperature, depth and diameter of blood vessel. The network established an end-to-end mapping of the time-dependent skin surface temperature after short-pulse laser irradiation to the temperature gradient along the skin depth, allowing vascular parameters to be extracted directly from the observed data measured by the infrared camera. The model trained by data containing noise of multiple intensities could identify and attenuate noise in the original data, which is beneficial to suppress the broadening effect of a significant broadening of reconstructed temperature peaks induced by noise and significantly improve the reconstruction accuracy of less than 5%. In comparison with traditional iterative methods, the new model shows technical superiority in its unparalleled accuracy and low computational cost as well as great potential for real-time monitoring of subcutaneous vascular features.

Satellite-Based Estimation of Roughness Length over Vegetated Surfaces and Its Utilization in WRF Simulations

Based on morphological methods, MODIS satellite remote sensing data were used to establish a dataset of the local roughness length (Z0) of vegetation-covered surfaces in Guangdong Province. The local Z0 was used to update the mesoscale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in order to quantitatively evaluate its impact on the thermodynamic environment of vegetation-covered surfaces. The specific results are as follows: evergreen broad-leaved forests showed the largest average Z0 values at 1.27 m (spring), 1.15 m (summer), 1.03 m (autumn), and 1.15 m (winter); the average Z0 values of mixed forests ranged from 0.90 to 1.20 m; and those for cropland-covered surfaces ranged from 0.17 to 0.20 m. The Z0 values of individual vegetation coverage types all exhibited relatively high values in spring and low values in autumn, and the default Z0 corresponding to specific vegetation-covered surfaces was significantly underestimated in the WRF model. Modifying the default Z0 of surfaces underlying evergreen broad-leaved forests, mixed forests, and croplands in the model induced only relatively small changes (&lt;1%) in their 2 m temperature, relative humidity, skin surface temperature, and the planetary boundary layer height. However, the average daily wind speed of surfaces covered by evergreen broad-leaved forests, mixed forests, and croplands was reduced by 0.48 m/s, 0.43 m/s, and 0.26 m/s, respectively, accounting for changes of 12.0%, 11.1%, and 6.5%, respectively.

Behavioral and Physiological Alterations in Angus Steers Grazing Endophyte-Infected Toxic Fescue during Late Fall.

Fescue toxicosis is caused by grazing ergot alkaloid-producing endophyte (Epichloë coenophiala)-infected tall fescue (E+). Summer grazing of E+ leads to decreased productivity, associated impaired thermoregulation, and altered behavior. The goal of this study was to determine the role of E+ grazing-climate interaction on animal behavior and thermoregulation during late fall. Eighteen Angus steers were placed on nontoxic (NT), toxic (E+) and endophyte-free (E-) fescue pastures for 28 days. Physiological parameters, such as rectal temperature (RT), respiration rate (RR), ear and ankle surface temperature (ET, AT), and body weights, were measured. Skin surface temperature (SST) and animal activity were recorded continuously with temperature and behavioral activity sensors, respectively. Environmental conditions were collected using paddocks-placed data loggers. Across the trial, steers on E+ gained about 60% less weight than the other two groups. E+ steers also had higher RT than E- and NT, and lower SST than NT post-pasture placement. Importantly, animals grazing E+ spent more time lying, less time standing, and took more steps. These data suggest that late fall E+ grazing impairs core and surface temperature regulation and increases non-productive lying time, which may be partly responsible for the observed decreased weight gains.

Influence of circadian rhythm, breed, stage of lactation, milk yield and parity on body and udder skin surface temperature of lactating cows monitored by infrared thermography

ABSTRACT The objective of the study was to establish baseline thermographic information on body and udder skin surface temperature (USST) of lactating cows in different stages of lactation, milk yield, parity, breed and season. Holstein Friesian crossbred (n = 19 cows) and Deoni lactating cows (n = 14 cows) were monitored for body (i.e. eye) and USST prior to milking using a forward looking infra-red (FLIR) camera. It was observed that the mean body and USST of both crossbred and Deoni cows did not differ significantly. The body and USST of both the breeds were significantly higher by 0.9–1.0°C during evening than morning milking. There was no difference in body and USST between days and between udder quarters. Similarly, stage of lactation, milk yield and parity did not show any influence over body and USST. The body and USST were higher in summer (1.1°C) than in spring and winter seasons. Deoni cows had 1.0°C lesser body and USST than crossbred cows. It is concluded that baseline thermographic information on body and USST would be useful in developing breed-specific thermographic signature for individual animal.

Predicting Dust-Storm Transport Pathways Using a Convolutional Neural Network and Geographic Context for Impact Adaptation and Mitigation in Urban Areas

Dust storms are natural disasters that have a serious impact on various aspects of human life and physical infrastructure, particularly in urban areas causing health risks, reducing visibility, impairing the transportation sector, and interfering with communication systems. The ability to predict the movement patterns of dust storms is crucial for effective disaster prevention and management. By understanding how these phenomena travel, it is possible to identify the areas that are most at risk and take appropriate measures to mitigate their impact on urban environments. Deep learning methods have been demonstrated to be efficient tools for predicting moving processes while considering multiple geographic information sources. By developing a convolutional neural network (CNN) method, this study aimed to predict the pathway of dust storms that occur in arid regions in central and southern Asia. A total of 54 dust-storm events were extracted from the modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) product to train the CNN model and evaluate the prediction results. In addition to dust-storm data (aerosol optical depth (AOD) data), geographic context information including relative humidity, surface air temperature, surface wind direction, surface skin temperature, and surface wind speed was considered. These features were chosen using the random forest feature importance method and had feature importance values of 0.2, 0.1, 0.06, 0.03, and 0.02, respectively. The results show that the CNN model can promisingly predict the dust-transport pathway, such that for the 6, 12, 18, and 24-h time steps, the overall accuracy values were 0.9746, 0.975, 0.9751, and 0.9699, respectively; the F1 score values were 0.7497, 0.7525, 0.7476, and 0.6769, respectively; and the values of the kappa coefficient were 0.7369, 0.74, 0.7351, and 0.6625, respectively.

A Physical Explanation for Ocean Air–Water Warming Differences under CO2-Forced Warming

Abstract Modeled global warming is often quantified using global near-surface air temperature (Tas). Meanwhile, long-term temperature datasets combine observations of Tas over land with sea surface temperature (SST) over ocean. Modeled ocean Tas warms more than SST, which can bias model–observation comparisons. Skin temperature (Ts), which is typically warmer than Tas, follows SST changes so the ocean surface temperature discontinuity δTs = Ts − Tas decreases with warming. Here I show that under CO2 forcing, decreased δTs is consistently simulated for nonpolar ocean within ±60°S/N, but not for other regions. I investigate the causes of oceanic δTs decrease using a LongRunMIP climate simulation, radiative kernels, and standard methods for diagnosing forcing and feedbacks from the CMIP5 ensemble. CO2 forcing establishes longwave heating of the lower atmosphere and subsequent adjustments that result in a small Tas increase, and therefore a δTs decrease. During the subsequent warming in response to CO2 forcing, the model-mean surface evaporation feedback is 3.6 W m−2 °C−1 over oceans, which reduces Ts warming relative to Tas and further shrinks δTs. Present-day forcing and feedback contributions are of similar magnitude, and both contribute to small differences in model–observation comparisons of global warming rates when these differences are not accounted for. Significance Statement Earth’s surface skin temperature is generally warmer than that of the air just above, and this discontinuity drives upward turbulent heat fluxes. Under global warming, climate models consistently show that over oceans, the air above warms more than the water below. This causes issues when comparing model output and observational temperature records, since observational records blend land air and ocean water temperature. It also affects understanding of how surface energy and moisture fluxes will change with warming. Observational data are currently too uncertain to confidently support or refute this model behavior, and the IPCC recently noted that “there is no simple explanation based on physical grounds alone for how this difference responds to climate change.” This study provides such an explanation for changes over ocean, and shows that this result applies only to nonpolar oceans.

Inkjet-Printed Soft Intelligent Medical Bracelet for Simultaneous Real-Time Sweat Potassium (K+), Sodium (Na+), and Skin Temperature Analysis

Truly wearable, fully flexible, multi-parametric sweat analysis with soft and socially discrete packaging offers tremendous potential to enable the next generation of non-invasive digital biomarkers analysis. Several examples of miniaturized potentiometric ion selective electrodes (ISE) have been proposed. However, several challenges remain unsolved concerning their long-term stability due to variations in physical sweat parameters. We hypothesize that the simultaneous monitoring of such parameters (e.g., skin-surface temperature, sweat rate, and pH) may pave the way for accurate and robust sweat biomarker analysis. Therefore, we propose a flexible multiparameter sensory interface fabricated on Kapton polyimide (PI) foil with high-resolution inkjet printing using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). A facile controlled drop-casting of a custom synthesized ion-selective membrane ensures the selectivity of the biosensing. Next, we interfaced the fabricated sensory array with a custom-designed compact flexible biosignals conditioning embedded system, which enables system calibration, data processing, and wireless data transmission to a smartphone device. Later, we validate the proposed system in simultaneous sweat multi-ion (K <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+</sup> and Na <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+</sup> ) and skin-surface temperature recording. After that, we characterize the system by embedding the smart medical bracelet in a soft microfluidic platform to mimic <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">in situ</i> analysis on the body. Overall, the reported results represent the fundamental evidence proof for the development of the wearable multimodal sweat parameter analyzer.

Physiological and behavioral responses of northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) to global change among three northern California rookeries

The California coast provides a unique study system for investigating the effects of warming and habitat quality on the thermoregulatory capacity of the northern elephant seal (NES). In California, island rookeries such as the offshore site at the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge are experiencing habitat loss and reduced suitable haul-out surfaces due to erosion from storm events. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity with global change. Semi-aquatic animals face a unique thermal challenge. They possess adaptations to conserve heat when immersed in cold water during deep dives but must compensate for such heat-conserving properties of their physiology when transitioning to heat exposure on land. Therefore, these animals must precisely thermoregulate with physiological and behavioral adjustments across a broad thermal range. We investigated how environmental variables affect seal thermoregulation at three northern California rookeries, the southeast Farallon Island (SEFI), Point Reyes National Seashore (PORE) and Año Nuevo State Park (ANSP). Infrared thermography was used to determine seal skin surface temperature and weather data was collected at each site. We found that average surface temperature increases with solar radiation, maximum surface temperature decreases with increasing wind speed, and thermal window area percentage decreases with relative humidity and increases with ambient temperature. Climatic variation may present physiological and behavioral challenges for marine mammals that experience significant life-history stages on land. Such ongoing findings will be fundamental in predicting climate change vulnerabilities and will be critical in mitigating the impacts of anthropogenic warming and promoting resilience in these populations. Carol Baird Graduate Student Award for Field Research; The Neubacher Fund for Marine Science at Point Reyes National Seashore. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Uncertainty analysis and optimization for mild moxibustion.

During mild moxibustion treatment, uncertainties are involved in the operating parameters, such as the moxa-burning temperature, the moxa stick sizes, the stick-to-skin distance, and the skin moisture content. It results in fluctuations in skin surface temperature during mild moxibustion. Existing mild moxibustion treatments almost ignore the uncertainty of operating parameters. The uncertainties lead to excessive skin surface temperature causing intense pain, or over-low temperature reducing efficacy. Therefore, the interval model was employed to measure the uncertainty of the operation parameters in mild moxibustion, and the uncertainty optimization design was performed for the operation parameters. It aimed to provide the maximum thermal penetration of mild moxibustion to enhance efficacy while meeting the surface temperature requirements. The interval uncertainty optimization can fully consider the operating parameter uncertainties to ensure optimal thermal penetration and avoid patient discomfort caused by excessive skin surface temperature. To reduce the computational burden of the optimization solution, a high-precision surrogate model was established through a radial basis neural network (RBNN), and a nonlinear interval model for mild moxibustion treatment was formulated. By introducing the reliability-based possibility degree of interval (RPDI), the interval uncertainty optimization was transformed into a deterministic optimization problem, solved by the genetic algorithm. The results showed that this method could significantly improve the thermal penetration of mild moxibustion while meeting the skin surface temperature requirements, thereby enhancing efficacy.

The Influence of Refined Urban Morphological Parameters on Dynamical and Thermal Fields in a Single-Layer Urban Canopy Model

In this study, localised and non-uniform urban morphology (UM) and urban fraction (UF) parameters are implemented in a single-layer urban canopy scheme in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale meteorological model. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effect of the refined parameterisation scheme on the simulation of dynamic and thermal fields in the urban canopy of the Guangzhou metropolitan area. The results showed that, compared with the default urban canopy parameters of the WRF model, using the localised UM parameters resulted in the most significant improvement in the 10 m wind speed simulation. In urban districts, the mean bias between the observed and simulated 10 m wind speed was reduced significantly by 59% from 2.63 m/s to 1.09 m/s during the daytime. For the thermal environment simulation during the daytime, higher UF and UM values resulted in lower surface albedos and generated narrower street canyons compared with the default modelling setting, which caused more heat to be trapped in the urban canopy and ultimately led to an increase in the surface skin temperature (TSK) and a largely increased ground heat flux (GRD). As a result, at night, more heat was transferred from the ground to the surface, producing a higher TSK. The effect of the localised UF on the sensible heat flux (HFX) was closely related to the near-surface temperature gradient. The UM caused the HFX to increase during the daytime, which was related to the near-surface heat exchange coefficient in the lower model layers. As the high-resolution UM significantly altered the urban geometry, the dynamic environment simulation resulted in a large increase in friction velocity and a decrease in wind speed.

Effects and Mode of Action of Oleic Acid and Tween 80 on Skin Permeation of Disulfiram.

Oral disulfiram (DSF) has been used clinically for alcohol dependence and recently has been found to have antitumor activity. A transdermal delivery system would be useful for maintaining drug concentration and reducing the frequency of administration of DSF for cancer treatment. Penetrating the stratum corneum (SC) barrier is a challenge to the transdermal delivery of DSF. Therefore, we investigated the promoting effects and mechanism of action of the combination of oleic acid (OA) and Tween 80 on the skin permeation of DSF. Hairless mouse skin was exposed to OA and Tween 80, combined in various ratios (1 : 0, 2 : 1, 1 : 1, 1 : 2, and 0 : 1). A permeation experiment was performed, and total internal reflection IR spectroscopic measurements, differential scanning calorimetry, and synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction measurements were taken of the SC with each applied formulation. The combination of OA and Tween 80 further enhanced the absorption-promoting effect of DSF, compared with individual application. The peak of the CH2 inverse symmetric stretching vibration near the skin surface temperature was shifted by a high frequency due to the application of OA, and DSF solubility increased in response to Tween 80. We believe that the increased fluidity of the intercellular lipids due to OA and the increased solubility of DSF due to Tween 80 promoted the absorption of DSF. Our study clarifies the detailed mechanism of action of the skin permeation and promoting effect of DSF through the combined use of OA and Tween 80, contributing to the development of a transdermal preparation of DSF.