Heat strain in chemical protective clothing in hot-humid environment: Effects of clothing thermal properties.

Heat strain experienced by individuals wearing chemical protective clothing (CPC) is severe and dangerous especially in hot-humid environment. The development of material science and interdisciplinary studies including ergonomics, physiology and heat transfer is urgently required for the reduction of heat strain. The aim of this paper was to study the relationship among clothing thermal properties, physiological responses and environmental conditions. Three kinds of CPC were selected. Eight participants wore CPC and walked (4 km/h, two slopes with 5% and 10%) on a treadmill in an environment with (35±0.5) °C and RH of (60±5)%. Core temperature, mean skin temperature, heart rate, heat storage and tolerance time were recorded and analyzed. Physiological responses were significantly affected by the clothing thermal properties and activity intensity in hot-humid environment. The obtained results can help further development of heat strain model. New materials with lower evaporative resistance and less weight are necessary to release the heat strain in hot-humid environments.

Bidirectional spin filter in a triple orbital molecule junction by tuning the magnetic field along a single direction.

Metal-molecule-metal junction is considered the basing block and key element of molecular spintronic devices, within which to generate spin polarized currents is one of the most fundamental issues for quantum computation and quantum information. In this paper, by employing a parallel triple orbital molecule junction with large inter-orbital tunneling couplings, we propose theoretically a bidirectional spin filter where both spin-up and spin-down currents could be obtained by simply adjusting the external magnetic field to different regimes along a single direction, and the filtered efficiencies could reach almost 100%. The Zeeman effect and the occupancy switching for the bonding and anti-bonding states are found to be responsible for the spin selective transport. We demonstrate that our scheme is robust for large parameter spaces of the orbital energy level, except the particle-hole symmetric point, and is widely suitable for the strong-, weak-, and non-interacting cases. To implement these problems, we use the Wilson's numerical renormalization group technique to treat such systems.