Search results for: molecular mechanics.

Authors: Arpita Soni, Sapna Mittal

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Austenite and Martensite indicate the phases of solids undergoing phase transformation which we usually associate with materials and not with living organisms. This article provides an overview of bacterial proteins and structures that are undergoing phase transformation and suggests its probable effect on mechanical behavior. The context is mainly within the role of phase transformations occurring in the flagellum of bacteria. The current knowledge of molecular mechanism leading to phase variation in living organisms is reviewed. Since in bacteria, each flagellum is driven by a separate motor, similarity to a Differential drive in case of four-wheeled vehicles is suggested. It also suggests the application of the mechanism in which bacteria changes its direction of movement to facilitate single point turning of a multi-wheeled vehicle. Finally, examples are presented to illustrate that the motion due to phase transformation of flagella in bacteria can start a whole new research on motion mechanisms.

Keywords: Flagella, Phase Transformation, Nanobots, Differential Drive, Single point turn, Biomimetics

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Authors: Gang Li, Ghulam Mubashar Hassan, Arcady Dyskin, Cara MacNish

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Digital image correlation (DIC) is a contactless fullfield displacement and strain reconstruction technique commonly used in the field of experimental mechanics. Comparing with physical measuring devices, such as strain gauges, which only provide very restricted coverage and are expensive to deploy widely, the DIC technique provides the result with full-field coverage and relative high accuracy using an inexpensive and simple experimental setup. It is very important to study the natural patterns effect on the DIC technique because the preparation of the artificial patterns is time consuming and hectic process. The objective of this research is to study the effect of using images having natural pattern on the performance of DIC. A systematical simulation method is used to build simulated deformed images used in DIC. A parameter (subset size) used in DIC can have an effect on the processing and accuracy of DIC and even cause DIC to failure. Regarding to the picture parameters (correlation coefficient), the higher similarity of two subset can lead the DIC process to fail and make the result more inaccurate. The pictures with good and bad quality for DIC methods have been presented and more importantly, it is a systematic way to evaluate the quality of the picture with natural patterns before they install the measurement devices.

Keywords: Digital image correlation (DIC), Deformation simulation, Natural pattern, Subset size.

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Authors: S. Gupta, R. Chadha

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Five crystal modifications of water insoluble artesunate were generated by recrystallizing it from various solvents with improved physicochemical properties. These generated crystal forms were characterized to select the most potent and soluble form. SEM of all the forms showed changes in external shape leading them to be different morphologically. DSC thermograms of Form III and Form V showed broad endotherm peaks at 83.04oC and 76.96oC prior to melting fusion of drug respectively. Calculated weight loss in TGA revealed that Form III and Form V are methanol and acetone solvates respectively. However, few additional peaks were appeared in XRPD pattern in these two solvate forms. All forms exhibit exothermic behavior in buffer and two solvates display maximum ease of molecular release from the lattice. Methanol and acetone solvates were found to be most soluble forms and exhibited higher antimalarial efficacy showing higher survival rate (83.3%) after 30 days.

Keywords: Artesunate, Crystal modifications, in vivo studies, Recrystallization.

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Authors: Ami Nomura, Ken Imanishi, Yukinori Taniguchi, Etsuko Ueda, Tadahiro Wada, Shinichi Enoki

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Recently, there have been a lot of earthquakes in Japan. It is necessary to promote seismic isolation devices for buildings. The devices have been hardly diffused in attached houses, because the devices are very expensive. We should develop a low-cost seismic isolation device for detached houses. We suggested a new seismic isolation device which uses a two-layer circular tube as a unit. If hysteresis is produced in the two-layer circular tube under lateral compression load, we think that the two-layer circular tube can have energy absorbing capacity. It is necessary to contact the outer layer and the inner layer to produce hysteresis. We have previously reported how the inner layer comes in contact with the outer layer from a perspective of analysis used mechanics of materials. We have clarified that the inner layer comes in contact with the outer layer under a lateral compression load. In this paper, we explored contact area between the outer layer and the inner layer under a lateral compression load by using FEA. We think that changing the inner layer’s thickness is effective in increase the contact area. In order to change the inner layer’s thickness, we changed the shape of the inner layer. As a result, the contact area changes depending on the inner layer’s thickness. Additionally, we experimented to check whether hysteresis occurs in fact. As a consequence, we can reveal hysteresis in the two-layer circular tube under the condition.

Keywords: Contact area, energy absorbing capacity, hysteresis, seismic isolation device.

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Authors: M. R. Naghavi, S. Rashidi Monfared, A. H. Ahkami, M. A. Ombidbakhsh

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Knowledge of patterns of genetic diversity enhances the efficiency of germplasm conservation and improvement. In this study 96 Iranian landraces of Triticum turgidum originating from different geographical areas of Iran, along with 18 durum cultivars from ten countries were evaluated for variation in morphological and high molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) composition. The first two principal components clearly separated the Iranian landraces from cultivars. Three alleles were present at the Glu-A1 locus and 11 alleles at Glu-B1. In both cultivars and landraces of durum wheat, the null allele (Glu-A1c) was observed more frequently than the Glu-A1a and Glu-A1b alleles. Two alleles, namely Glu-B1a (subunit 7) and Glu-B1e (subunit 20) represented the more frequent alleles at Glu-B1 locus. The results showed that the evaluated Iranian landraces formed an interesting source of favourable glutenin subunits that might be very desirable in breeding activities for improving pasta-making quality.

Keywords: Triticum turgidum var. durum, glutenin subunits, morphological characters.

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Authors: S. Panda, J. S. Yadav, N. P. Patidar, C. Ardil

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Recently, genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique have attracted considerable attention among various modern heuristic optimization techniques. The GA has been popular in academia and the industry mainly because of its intuitiveness, ease of implementation, and the ability to effectively solve highly non-linear, mixed integer optimization problems that are typical of complex engineering systems. PSO technique is a relatively recent heuristic search method whose mechanics are inspired by the swarming or collaborative behavior of biological populations. In this paper both PSO and GA optimization are employed for finding stable reduced order models of single-input- single-output large-scale linear systems. Both the techniques guarantee stability of reduced order model if the original high order model is stable. PSO method is based on the minimization of the Integral Squared Error (ISE) between the transient responses of original higher order model and the reduced order model pertaining to a unit step input. Both the methods are illustrated through numerical example from literature and the results are compared with recently published conventional model reduction technique.

Keywords: Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Order Reduction, Stability, Transfer Function, Integral Squared Error.

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Authors: B. Tosh, C. R. Routray

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Homogeneous graft copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) onto cellulose was carried out in N, N – dimethyl acetamide/LiCl (DMAc/LiCl) and dimethyl sulfoxide/ paraformaldehyde (DMSO/PF) solvent system taking ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN), benzoyl peroxide (BPO) and tin (II)-2-ethyl hexanoate [Sn(Oct)2] as initiators. Different grafting parameters like graft yield (GY), grafting efficiency (GE) and total conversion of monomer to polymer (TC) were evaluated at different reaction conditions of temperature, time, and variation of the amount of monomer and initiator. The viscosity average molecular weight of grafted PMMA and number of grafts per cellulose chain were also calculated. The products were characterized by FT-IR and 1H-NMR analyses and possible reaction mechanisms were deduced. Thermal degradation of the grafted products was also studied by thermo-gravimetric analysis (TG) and differential thermo-gravimetry (DTG).

Keywords: Grafting, grafting efficiency, homogeneous medium, methyl methacrylate.

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Authors: JiEun Jeong, Dong Hyun Kim, Bharat Bhusan Patnaik, Se Won Kang, HeeJu Hwang, Yong Hun Jo, Dae-Hyun Seog, YeonSooHan, Yong Seok Lee

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An expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis provideus portions of expressed genes. We have constructed cDNA library and determined randomly sequences from cDNA library clones of T. molitor injected with acholeplasma lysate. We identified the homologous to a galectin gene. As the result of cloning and characterization of novel, we found that the protein has an open reading frame (ORF) of 495 bp, with 164 amino acid residues and molecular weight of 18.5 kDa. To characterize the role of novel Tm-galectin in immune system, we quantified the mRNA level of galectin at different times after treatment with immune elicitors. The galectin mRNA was up-regulated about 7-folds within 18 hrs. This suggests that Tm-galectin is a novel member of animal lectins, and has a role in the process of pathogen recognition. Our study would be helpful for the study on immune defense system and signaling cascade.

Keywords: EST, Innate immunity, Tenebrio molitor, Galectin.

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Authors: D. Sufi Ahmadi, B. Bagheri

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Thermal water hammer is a special type of water hammer which rarely occurs in heat exchangers. In biphasic fluids, if steam bubbles are surrounded by condensate, regarding lower condensate temperature than steam, they will suddenly collapse. As a result, the vacuum caused by an extreme change in volume lead to movement of the condensates in all directions and their collision the force produced by this collision leads to a severe stress in the pipe wall. This phenomenon is a special type of water hammer. According to fluid mechanics, this phenomenon is a particular type of transient flows during which abrupt change of fluid leads to sudden pressure change inside the tube. In this paper, the mechanism of abrupt failure of 80 tubes of 481 tubes of a methanol heat exchanger is discussed. Initially, due to excessive temperature differences between heat transfer fluids and simultaneous failure of 80 tubes, thermal shock was presupposed as the reason of failure. Deeper investigation on cross-section of failed tubes showed that failure was, ductile type of failure, so the first hypothesis was rejected. Further analysis and more accurate experiments revealed that failure of tubes caused by thermal water hammer. Finally, the causes of thermal water hammer and various solutions to avoid such mechanism are discussed.

Keywords: Thermal water hammer, Brittle Failure, Condensate thermal shock

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Authors: D. S. Fardhyanti, A. Damayanti

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Coal tar is a liquid by-product of coal pyrolysis processes. This liquid oil mixture contains various kinds of useful compounds such as benzoic aromatic compounds and phenolic compounds. These compounds are widely used as raw material for insecticides, dyes, medicines, perfumes, coloring matters, and many others. The coal tar was collected by pyrolysis process of coal obtained from PT Kaltim Prima Coal and Arutmin-Kalimantan. The experiments typically occurred at the atmospheric pressure in a laboratory furnace at temperatures ranging from 300 to 550oC with a heating rate of 10oC/min and a holding time of 1 hour at the pyrolysis temperature. The Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC-MS) was used to analyze the coal tar components. The obtained coal tar has the viscosity of 3.12 cp, the density of 2.78 g/cm3, the calorific value of 11,048.44 cal/g, and the molecular weight of 222.67. The analysis result showed that the coal tar contained more than 78 chemical compounds such as benzene, cresol, phenol, xylene, naphtalene, etc. The total phenolic compounds contained in coal tar are 33.25% (PT KPC) and 17.58% (Arutmin-Kalimantan). The total naphtalene compounds contained in coal tar is 14.15% (PT KPC) and 17.13% (Arutmin-Kalimantan).

Keywords: Coal tar, pyrolysis, gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy.

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Authors: Yi-Ping Fang, Hsien-Ting Cheng

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Topical photodynamic therapy (PDT) with 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) is an alternative therapy for treating superficial cancer, especially for skin or oral cancer. ALA, a precursor of the photosensitizer protoporphyrin IX (PpIX), is present as zwitterions and hydrophilic property which make the low permeability through the cell membrane. Collagen is a traditional carrier; its molecular composed various amino acids which bear positive charge and negative charge. In order to utilize the ion-pairs with ALA and collagen, the study employed various pH values adjusting the net charge. The aim of this study was to compare a series collagen form, including solution, gel and sponge to investigate the topical delivery behavior of ALA. The in vivo confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) study demonstrated that PpIX generation ability was different pattern after apply for 6 h. Gel type could generate high PpIX, and archived more deep of skin depth.

Keywords: 5-Aminolevulinic acid (ALA), Collagen, Ion-pairs, Penetration behavior

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Authors: Racholsan Raj Nirmal, B. S. V. Patnaik, R. Jayaganthan

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The deformation behaviour of additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy under low strains, high strain rates and elevated temperature conditions is essential to analyse and predict its response against dynamic loading such as impact and thermomechanical fatigue. The constitutive relation of Johnson-Cook is used to capture the strain rate sensitivity and thermal softening effect in AlSi10Mg alloy. Johnson-Cook failure model is widely used for exploring damage mechanics and predicting the fracture in many materials. In this present work, Johnson-Cook material and damage model parameters for additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy have been determined numerically from four types of uniaxial tensile test. Three different uniaxial tensile tests with dynamic strain rates (0.1, 1, 10, 50, and 100 s^-1) and elevated temperature tensile test with three different temperature conditions (450 K, 500 K and 550 K) were performed on 3D printed AlSi10Mg alloy in ABAQUS/Explicit. Hexahedral elements are used to discretize tensile specimens and fracture energy value of 43.6 kN/m was used for damage initiation. Levenberg Marquardt optimization method was used for the evaluation of Johnson-Cook model parameters. It was observed that additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy has shown relatively higher strain rate sensitivity and lower thermal stability as compared to the other Al alloys.

Keywords: ABAQUS, additive manufacturing, AlSi10Mg, Johnson-Cook model.

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Authors: Hamed Sadeghi, Pouya A. Panahi, Hamed Nasiri, Mohammad Sadeghi

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Collapsible soils like loess comprise an important category of problematic soils for construction purposes and sustainable development. As a result, research on both geological and geotechnical aspects of this type of soil have been in progress for decades. However, considerable natural variability in physical properties of in-situ loess strata even in a single block sample challenges the fundamental laboratory investigations. The reason behind this is that it is somehow impossible to remove the effect of a specific factor like void ratio from fair comparisons to come with a reliable conclusion. In order to cope with this limitation, two types of artificially made dispersive and calcareous loess are introduced which can be easily reproduced in any soil mechanics laboratory provided that all its compositions are known and controlled. The collapse potential is explored for a variety of soil water salinity and lime content and comparisons are made against the natural soil behavior. Trends are reported for the influence of pore water salinity on collapse potential under different osmotic flow conditions. The most important advantage of artificial loess is the ease of controlling cementing agent content like calcite or dispersive potential for studying their influence on mechanical soil behavior.

Keywords: Artificial loess, unsaturated soils, collapse potential, dispersive clays, laboratory tests.

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Authors: Ratanaporn Leesing, Ratanaporn Baojungharn

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Microbial oil was produced by soil isolated oleaginous yeast YU5/2 in flask-batch fermentation. The yeast was identified by molecular genetics technique based on sequence analysis of the variable D1/D2 domain of the large subunit (26S) ribosomal DNA and it was identified as Torulaspora globosa. T. globosa YU5/2 supported maximum values of 0.520 g/L/d, 0.472 g lipid/g cells, 4.16 g/L, and 0.156 g/L/d for volumetric lipid production rate, and specific yield of lipid, lipid concentration, and specific rate of lipid production respectively, when culture was performed in nitrogen-limiting medium supplemented with 80g/L glucose. Among the carbon sources tested, maximum cell yield coefficient (YX/S, g/L), maximum specific yield of lipid (YP/X, g lipid/g cells) and volumetric lipid production rate (QP, g/L/d) were found of 0.728, 0.237, and 0.619, respectively, using sweet potato tubers hydrolysates as carbon source.

Keywords: Microbial oil, oleaginous yeast, Torulasporaglobosa YU5/2, sweet potato tubers, kinetic parameters.

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Authors: Virupakshaiah DBM, Madiha Ahmed, Smita T. Patil, Chandrakanth Kelmani

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Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infectious disease caused by the obligate human pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a global reality that threatens tuberculosis control. Resistance to antibiotic Rifampicin, occurs in 95% of cases through nucleotide substitutions in an 81-bp core region of the rpoB i.e; beta subunit of DNA dependant RNA polymerase. In this paper, we studied the Rifampicin-rpoB receptor interactions In silico. First, homology modeling was performed to obtain the three dimensional structure of Mycobacterium rpoB. Sixty analogs of Rifampicin were prepared using Marvin sketch software. Both original Rifampicin and the analogs were docked with rpoB and energy values were obtained. Out of sixty analogs, 43 analogs had lesser energy values than conventional Rifampicin and hence are predicted to have greater binding affinity to rpoB. Thus, this study offers a route for the development of Rifampicin analogs against multi drug resistant Mycobacterium rpoB.

Keywords: Marvin Sketch, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Rifampicin, rpoB.

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Authors: D. Estrella, A. Silva, R. Zapata, H. Rubio

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A total of 100 primary caregivers (mothers, fathers, grandparents) with at least one child or grandchild with a diagnosis of congenital bilateral profound deafness were assessed in order to evaluate the functionality of families with a deaf member, who was evaluated by specialists in audiology, molecular biology, genetics and psychology. After confirmation of the clinical diagnosis, DNA from the patients and parents were analyzed in search of the 35delG deletion of the GJB2 gene to determine who possessed the mutation. All primary caregivers were provided psychological support, regardless of whether or not they had the mutation, and prior and subsequent, the family APGAR test was applied. All parents, grandparents were informed of the results of the genetic analysis during the psychological intervention. The family APGAR, after psychological and genetic counseling, showed that 14% perceived their families as functional, 62% moderately functional and 24% dysfunctional. This shows the importance of psychological support in family functionality that has a direct impact on the quality of life of these families.

Keywords: Deafness, psychological support, family, adaptation to disability.

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Authors: Yusmeeraz Yusof, Yoshiyuki Yanagimoto, Shigeyasu Uno, Kazuo Nakazato

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We demonstrate a nonfaradaic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurement of biochemically modified gold plated electrodes using a two-electrode system. The absence of any redox indicator in the impedance measurements provide more precise and accurate characterization of the measured bioanalyte at molecular resolution. An equivalent electrical circuit of the electrodeelectrolyte interface was deduced from the observed impedance data of saline solution at low and high concentrations. The detection of biomolecular interactions was fundamentally correlated to electrical double-layer variation at modified interface. The investigations were done using 20mer deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strands without any label. Surface modification was performed by creating mixed monolayer of the thiol-modified single-stranded DNA and a spacer thiol (mercaptohexanol) by a two-step self-assembly method. The results clearly distinguish between the noncomplementary and complementary hybridization of DNA, at low frequency region below several hundreds Hertz.

Keywords: Biosensor, electrical double-layer, impedance spectroscopy, label free DNA.

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Authors: Tokuei Sako, Paul-Antoine Hervieux

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The energy-level structure of a pair of electron and positron confined in a quasi-one-dimensional nano-scale potential well has been investigated focusing on its trend in the small limit of confinement strength ω, namely, the Wigner molecular regime. An anisotropic Gaussian-type basis functions supplemented by high angular momentum functions as large as l = 19 has been used to obtain reliable full configuration interaction (FCI) wave functions. The resultant energy spectrum shows a band structure characterized by ω for the large ω regime whereas for the small ω regime it shows an energy-level pattern dominated by excitation into the in-phase motion of the two particles. The observed trend has been rationalized on the basis of the nodal patterns of the FCI wave functions. 

Keywords: Confined systems, positron, wave function, Wigner molecule, quantum dots.

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Authors: Le Thuy Mai, Vu Nguyen Thanh

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β-Glucosidase is an important enzyme for production of ethanol from lignocellulose. With hydrolytic activity on cellooligosaccharides, especially cellobiose, β-glucosidase removes product inhibitory effect on cellulases and forms fermentable sugars. In this study, β-glucosidase encoding gene (BGL1) from traditional starter yeast Saccharomycosis fibuligera BMQ908 was cloned and expressed in Pichia pastoris. BGL1 of S. fibuligera BMQ 908 shared 98% nucleotide homology with the closest GenBank sequence (M22475) but identity in amino-acid sequences of catalytic domains. Recombinant plasmid pPICZαA/BGL1 containing the sequence encoding BGL1 mature protein and α-factor secretion signal was constructed and transformed into methylotrophic yeast P. pastoris by electroporation. The recombinant strain produced single extracellular protein with molecular weight of 120 kDa and cellobiase activity of 60 IU/ml. The optimum pH of the recombinant β-glucosidase was 5.0 and the optimum temperature was 50°C.

Keywords: β-Glucosidase, Pichia pastoris, Saccharomycopsisfibuligera, recombinant enzyme.

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Authors: Akshata S. Malani, Anagha D. Chaudhari, Rajeshkumar U. Sambhe

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Nanotechnology in pristine sense refers to building of structures at atomic and molecular scale. Meticulously nanotechnology encompasses the nanomaterials with at least one dimension size ranging from 1 to 100 nanometres. Unlike the literal meaning of its name, nanotechnology is a massive concept beyond imagination. This paper predominantly deals with relevance of nanotechnology in automotive industries. New generation of automotives looks at nanotechnology as an emerging trend of manufacturing revolution. Intricate shapes can be made out of fairly inexpensive raw materials instead of conventional fabrication process. Though the current era have enough technology to face competition, nanotechnology can give futuristic implications to pick up the modern pace. Nanotechnology intends to bridge the gap between automotives with superior technical performance and their cost fluctuation. Preliminarily, it is an area of great scientific interest and a major shaper of many new technologies. Nanotechnology can be an ideal building block for automotive industries, under constant evolution offering a very wide scope of activity. It possesses huge potential and is still in the embryonic form of research and development.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, nanomaterials, manufacturing, automotive industry.

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Authors: Radoslav Židek, Veronika Šidlová, Radovan Kasarda, Birgit Fuerst-Waltl

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Machine learning represents a set of topics dealing with the creation and evaluation of algorithms that facilitate pattern recognition, classification, and prediction, based on models derived from existing data. The data can present identification patterns which are used to classify into groups. The result of the analysis is the pattern which can be used for identification of data set without the need to obtain input data used for creation of this pattern. An important requirement in this process is careful data preparation validation of model used and its suitable interpretation. For breeders, it is important to know the origin of animals from the point of the genetic diversity. In case of missing pedigree information, other methods can be used for traceability of animal´s origin. Genetic diversity written in genetic data is holding relatively useful information to identify animals originated from individual countries. We can conclude that the application of data mining for molecular genetic data using supervised learning is an appropriate tool for hypothesis testing and identifying an individual.

Keywords: Genetic data, Pinzgau cattle, supervised learning.

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Authors: Noor Muzamil Mohamad, Abdul Manaf Ali, Hamzah Mohd Salleh

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Phytases (myo-inositol hexakisphosphate phosphohydrolases; EC 3.1.3.8) catalyze the hydrolysis of phytic acid (myoinositol hexakisphosphate) to the mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, and pentaphosphates of myo-inositol and inorganic phosphate. Therrmophilic bacteria isolated from water sampled from hot spring. About 120 isolates of bacteria were successfully isolated form hot spring water sample and tested for extracellular phytase producing. After 5 passages of the screening on the PSM media, 4 isolates were found stable in producing phytase enzyme. The 16s RDNA sequencing for identification of bacteria using molecular technique revealed that all isolates those positive in phytase producing are belong to Geobacillus spp. And Anoxybacillus spp. Anoxybacillus rupiensis UniSZA-7 were identified for their carbon source utilization using Phenotype Microarray Plate of Biolog and found they utilize several kind of carbon source provided.

Keywords: Phytase, Phytic Acid, Thermophilic Bacteria, PSM Media and Phytase Assay

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Authors: H. Sakamoto, S. Kurosawa, M. Suzuki, S. Oguri

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In Arabidopsis, several genes encoding proteins with ankyrin repeats and transmembrane domains (AtANKTM) have been identified as mediators of biotic and abiotic stress responses. It has been known that the expression of an AtANKTM gene, At2g24600, is induced in response to abiotic stress and that there are four splicing variants derived from this locus. In this study, by RT-PCR and sequencing analysis, an unknown splicing variant of the At2g24600 transcript was identified. Based on differences in the predicted amino acid sequences, the five splicing variants are divided into three groups. The three predicted proteins are highly homologous, yet have different numbers of ankyrinrepeats and transmembrane domains. It is generally considered that ankyrin repeats mediate protein-protein interaction and that the number oftransmembrane domains affects membrane topology of proteins. The protein variants derived from the At2g24600 locus may have different molecular functions each other.

Keywords: Alternative splicing, ankyrin repeats, transmembrane domains, Arabidopsis.

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Authors: K. Machida, H. Yamada

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Displacement measurement was conducted on compact normal and shear specimens made of acrylic homogeneous material subjected to mixed-mode loading by digital image correlation. The intelligent hybrid method proposed by Nishioka et al. was applied to the stress-strain analysis near the crack tip. The accuracy of stress-intensity factor at the free surface was discussed from the viewpoint of both the experiment and 3-D finite element analysis. The surface images before and after deformation were taken by a CMOS camera, and we developed the system which enabled the real time stress analysis based on digital image correlation and inverse problem analysis. The great portion of processing time of this system was spent on displacement analysis. Then, we tried improvement in speed of this portion. In the case of cracked body, it is also possible to evaluate fracture mechanics parameters such as the J integral, the strain energy release rate, and the stress-intensity factor of mixed-mode. The 9-points elliptic paraboloid approximation could not analyze the displacement of submicron order with high accuracy. The analysis accuracy of displacement was improved considerably by introducing the Newton-Raphson method in consideration of deformation of a subset. The stress-intensity factor was evaluated with high accuracy of less than 1% of the error.

Keywords: Digital image correlation, mixed mode, Newton-Raphson method, stress intensity factor.

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Authors: Joel Arrais, João E. Pereira, João Fernandes, José Luís Oliveira

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The scientific achievements coming from molecular biology depend greatly on the capability of computational applications to analyze the laboratorial results. A comprehensive analysis of an experiment requires typically the simultaneous study of the obtained dataset with data that is available in several distinct public databases. Nevertheless, developing a centralized access to these distributed databases rises up a set of challenges such as: what is the best integration strategy, how to solve nomenclature clashes, how to solve database overlapping data and how to deal with huge datasets. In this paper we present GeNS, a system that uses a simple and yet innovative approach to address several biological data integration issues. Compared with existing systems, the main advantages of GeNS are related to its maintenance simplicity and to its coverage and scalability, in terms of number of supported databases and data types. To support our claims we present the current use of GeNS in two concrete applications. GeNS currently contains more than 140 million of biological relations and it can be publicly downloaded or remotely access through SOAP web services.

Keywords: Data integration, biological databases

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Authors: Nurhayati Abdullah, Fauziah Sulaiman, Muhamad Azman Miskam, Rahmad Mohd Taib

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Banana pseudo-stem and fruit-bunch-stem are agricultural residues that can be used for conversion to bio-char, biooil, and gases by using thermochemical process. The aim of this work is to characterize banana pseudo-stem and banana fruit-bunch-stem through proximate analysis, elemental analysis, chemical analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis, and heating calorific value. The ash contents of the banana pseudo-stem and banana fruit-bunch-stem are 11.0 mf wt.% and 20.6 mf wt.%; while the carbon content of banana pseudo-stem and fruit-bunch-stem are 37.9 mf wt.% and 35.58 mf wt.% respectively. The molecular formulas for banana stem and banana fruit-bunch-stem are C24H33NO26 and C19H29NO33 respectively. The measured higher heating values of banana pseudostem and banana fruit-bunch-stem are 15.5MJ/kg and 12.7 MJ/kg respectively. By chemical analysis, the lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose contents in the samples will also be presented. The feasibility of the banana wastes to be a feedstock for thermochemical process in comparison with other biomass will be discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Banana Waste, Biomass, Renewable Energy, Thermo-chemical Characteristics.

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Authors: Anis S. Shuib, Peter R. Hoskins, William J. Easson

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Cardiovascular diseases, principally atherosclerosis, are responsible for 30% of world deaths. Atherosclerosis is due to the formation of plaque. The fatty plaque may be at risk of rupture, leading typically to stroke and heart attack. The plaque is usually associated with a high degree of lumen reduction, called a stenosis.It is increasingly recognized that the initiation and progression of disease and the occurrence of clinical events is a complex interplay between the local biomechanical environment and the local vascular biology. The aim of this study is to investigate the flow behavior through a stenosed artery. A physical experiment was performed using an artery model and blood analogue fluid. An axisymmetric model constructed consists of contraction and expansion region that follow a mathematical form of cosine function. A 30% diameter reduction was used in this study. The flow field was measured using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Spherical particles with 20μm diameter were seeded in a water-glycerol-NaCl mixture. Steady flow Reynolds numbers are 250. The area of interest is the region after the stenosis where the flow separation occurs. The velocity field was measured and the velocity gradient was investigated. There was high particle concentration in the recirculation zone. High velocity gradient formed immediately after the stenosis throat created a lift force that enhanced particle migration to the flow separation area.

Keywords: Stenosis artery, Biofluid mechanics, PIV

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Authors: Kent Salomonsson, Xuefang Zhao, Sara Kallin

Abstract:

Human soft tissue is loaded and deformed by any activity, an effect known as a stress-strain relationship, and is often described by a load and tissue elongation curve. Several advances have been made in the fields of biology and mechanics of soft human tissue. However, there is limited information available on in vivo tissue mechanical characteristics and behavior. Confident mechanical properties of human soft tissue cannot be extrapolated from e.g. animal testing. Thus, there is need for non invasive methods to analyze mechanical characteristics of soft human tissue. In the present study, the internal mechanical conditions of the lower limb, which is subject to an external load, is studied by use of the finite element method. A detailed finite element model of the lower limb is made possible by use of MRI scans. Skin, fat, bones, fascia and muscles are represented separately and the material properties for them are obtained from literature. Previous studies have been shown to address macroscopic deformation features, e.g. indentation depth, to a large extent. However, the detail in which the internal anatomical features have been modeled does not reveal the critical internal strains that may induce hypoxia and/or eventual tissue damage. The results of the present study reveals that lumped material models, i.e. averaging of the material properties for the different constituents, does not capture regions of critical strains in contrast to more detailed models.

Keywords: FEM, human soft tissue, indentation, properties.

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Authors: Jin Xu, Albert Y.S. Lam, Victor O.K. Li

Abstract:

Stock portfolio selection is a classic problem in finance, and it involves deciding how to allocate an institution-s or an individual-s wealth to a number of stocks, with certain investment objectives (return and risk). In this paper, we adopt the classical Markowitz mean-variance model and consider an additional common realistic constraint, namely, the cardinality constraint. Thus, stock portfolio optimization becomes a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem and it is difficult to be solved by exact optimization algorithms. Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO), which mimics the molecular interactions in a chemical reaction process, is a population-based metaheuristic method. Two different types of CRO, named canonical CRO and Super Molecule-based CRO (S-CRO), are proposed to solve the stock portfolio selection problem. We test both canonical CRO and S-CRO on a benchmark and compare their performance under two criteria: Markowitz efficient frontier (Pareto frontier) and Sharpe ratio. Computational experiments suggest that S-CRO is promising in handling the stock portfolio optimization problem.

Keywords: Stock portfolio selection, Markowitz model, Chemical Reaction Optimization, Sharpe ratio

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Authors: Hyung T. Kwak, Jun Gao, Yao An, Alfred Kleinhammes, Yue Wu

Abstract:

Surface wettability is a crucial factor in oil recovery. In oil industry, the rock wettability involves the interplay between water, oil, and solid surface. Therefore, studying the interplay between adsorptions of water and hydrocarbon molecules on solid surface would be very informative for understanding rock wettability. Here we use the in-situ Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) gas isotherm technique to study competitive adsorptions of water and isopropanol, an intermediate step from hydrocarbons. This in-situ NMR technique obtains information on thermodynamic properties such as the isotherm, molecular dynamics via spin relaxation measurements, and adsorption kinetics such as how fast the system can reach thermal equilibrium after changes of vapor pressures. Using surfaces of silica glass beads, which can be modified from hydrophilic to hydrophobic, we obtained information on the influence of surface hydrophilicity on the state of surface water via obtained thermodynamic and dynamic properties.

Keywords: Competitive adsorption, nuclear magnetic resonance, wettability.

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