Engineering

Development of Oversight Arrangements in the US NIH guidelines establish institutional biosafety committees (IBCs) to provide local oversight for recombinant DNA work. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) at NIH reviews "Major Actions," including some transfers of drug resistance and the cloning of toxin molecules with an LD 50 of less than 100 ng/kg body weight. Registration requirement and notification to the CDC for any transfer of a human pathogen on the select agent list Legal prohibition on knowing possession of any biological agent, toxin or delivery system not reasonably justified for prophylactic, protective, bona fide research, or other peaceful purposes. Criminalizes possession and transfer of select agents by restricted persons, including illegal aliens and individuals from terrorist-list countries. Extension of the registration requirements to facilities that possess select agents. Government background checks required for anyone having access to select agents. HHS required to develop a national database of registered persons and select agents they possess. USDA required to keep similar registration, security, record keeping, and inspection measures for facilities that transfer or possess specific plant and animal pathogens. The Secretary, HHS and Administrator of APHIS (USDA) must approve certain experiments with agents or toxins on the select agent or control list, respectively. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity established to advise US government agencies on how to reduce the risk that legitimate research will be misused for hostile purposes.

Thermodynamic analysis methods, based on an exergy metric, have been developed to improve system efficiency of traditional heat driven systems such as ground based power plants and aircraft propulsion systems. However, in more recent years interest in the topic has broadened to include applying these second law methods to the field of aerodynamics and complete aerospace vehicles. Work to date is based on highly simplified structures, but such a method could be shown to have benefit to the highly conservative and risk averse commercial aerospace sector. This review justifies how thermodynamic exergy analysis has the potential to facilitate a breakthrough in the optimization of aerospace vehicles based on a system of energy systems, through studying the exergy-based multidisciplinary design of future flight vehicles.

Recognizing the imperiled status of biodiversity and its benefit to human well-being, the world's governments committed in 2010 to take effective and urgent action to halt biodiversity loss through the Convention on Biological Diversity's "Aichi Targets". These targets, and many conservation programs, require monitoring to assess progress toward specific goals. However, comprehensive and easily understood information on biodiversity trends at appropriate spatial scales is often not available to the policy makers, managers, and scientists who require it. We surveyed conservation stakeholders in three geographically diverse regions of critical biodiversity concern (the Tropical Andes, the African Great Lakes, and the Greater Mekong) and found high demand for biodiversity indicator information but uneven availability. To begin to address this need, we present a biodiversity "dashboard"--a visualization of biodiversity indicators designed to enable tracking o...

Background: Vitis vinifera L. is one of society's most important agricultural crops with a broad genetic variability. The difficulty in recognizing grapevine genotypes based on ampelographic traits and secondary metabolites prompted the development of molecular markers suitable for achieving variety genetic identification.

Nursing informatics Workflow Electronic health records Information systems a b s t r a c t Purpose: The success of health information technology implementations is often tied to the impact the technical system will have on the work of the clinicians using them. Considering the role of nurses in healthcare, it is shocking that there is a lack of evaluations of nursing information systems in the literature. Here we report on how a human factors approach can be used to address barriers and facilitators to use of the nursing information system (NIS).

Synchronization thresholds of an array of nondiagonally coupled oscillators are investigated. We present experimental results which show the existence of ragged synchronizability, i.e., the existence of multiple disconnected synchronization regions in the coupling parameter space. This phenomenon has been observed in an electronic implementation of an array of nondiagonally coupled van der Pol's oscillators. Numerical simulations show good agreement with the experimental observations.

A new method entitled Relaxation Along a Fictitious Field (RAFF) was recently introduced for investigating relaxations in rotating frames of rank ≥ 3. RAFF generates a fictitious field (E) by applying frequency-swept pulses with sine and cosine amplitude and frequency modulation operating in a sub-adiabatic regime. In the present work, MRI contrast is created by varying the orientation of E, i.e. the angle ε between E and the z″ axis of the second rotating frame. When ε > 45°, the amplitude of the fictitious field E generated during RAFF is significantly larger than the RF field amplitude used for transmitting the sine/cosine pulses. Relaxation during RAFF was investigated using an invariant-trajectory approach and the Bloch-McConnell formalism. Dipoledipole interactions between identical (like) spins and anisochronous exchange (e.g., exchange between spins with different chemical shifts) in the fast exchange regime were considered. Experimental verifications were performed in vivo in human and mouse brain. Theoretical and experimental results demonstrated that changes in ε induced a dispersion of the relaxation rate constants. The fastest relaxation was achieved at ε ≈ 56°, where the averaged contributions from transverse components during the pulse are maximal and the contribution from longitudinal components are minimal. RAFF relaxation dispersion was compared with the relaxation dispersion achieved with off-resonance spin lock T 1ρ experiments. As compared with the offresonance spin lock T 1ρ method, a slower rotating frame relaxation rate was observed with RAFF, which under certain experimental conditions is desirable.

A new mechanism of fracture toughness enhancement in nanocrystalline metals and ceramics is suggested. The mechanism represents the cooperative grain boundary (GB) sliding and stress-driven GB migration process near the tips of growing cracks. It is shown that this mechanism can increase the critical stress intensity factor for crack growth in nanocrystalline materials by a factor of three or more and thus considerably enhances the fracture toughness of such materials.

We have performed a search for bursts of gravitational waves associated with the very bright Gamma Ray Burst GRB030329, using the two detectors at the LIGO Hanford Observatory. Our search covered the most sensitive frequency range of the LIGO detectors (approximately 80-2048 Hz), and we specifically targeted signals shorter than ≃150 ms. Our search algorithm looks for excess correlated power between the two interferometers and thus makes minimal assumptions about the gravitational waveform. We observed no candidates with gravitational wave signal strength larger than a pre-determined threshold. We report frequency dependent upper limits on the strength of the gravitational waves associated with GRB030329. Near the most sensitive frequency region, around ≃250 Hz, our root-sum-square (RSS) gravitational wave strain sensitivity for optimally polarized bursts was better than hRSS≃6×10 −21 Hz −1/2 . Our result is comparable to the best published results searching for association between gravitational waves and GRBs.

This paper presents a new manufacturing method to generate monodisperse microbubble contrast agents with polydispersity index (σ) values of <2% through microfluidic flow-focusing. Micronsized lipid shell-based perfluorocarbon (PFC) gas microbubbles for use as ultrasound contrast agents were produced using this method. The poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-based devices feature expanding nozzle geometry with a 7 μm orifice width, and are robust enough for consistent production of microbubbles with runtimes lasting several hours. With high-speed imaging, we characterized relationships between channel geometry, liquid flow rate Q, and gas pressure P in controlling bubble sizes. By a simple optimization of the channel geometry and Q and P, bubbles with a mean diameter of <5 μm can be obtained, ideal for various ultrasonic imaging applications. This method demonstrates the potential of microfluidics as an efficient means for custom-designing ultrasound contrast agents with precise size distributions, different gas compositions and new shell materials for stabilization, and for future targeted imaging and therapeutic applications.

On-demand air service presents a potentially viable alternative to road transport and commercial air transport in a regional transportation system. The objective of this research is a framework to better understand the performance and economic requirements for this mode. An integrated modeling framework is presented in this paper that models in composite fashion a regional transportation system including three principal modes of transport: road transport, commercial air transport, and a hypothetical on-demand air service mode, which can be configured differently for each simulation. Demand forecast modeling is based on the traditional four-step process, including a multinomial logit model for traveler mode choice and the network assignment carried out on a "composite network" consisting of all the modal networks. Scenarios with varying on-demand air service network sizes and price structures are presented as case studies to illuminate the most appropriate service networks for on-demand air service. Assuming typical very light jet aircraft parameters, the studies show that most of the demand for on-demand air service lies in medium-range trips (∼200 miles). On-demand air service comparative competitiveness is limited by its high cost for longer-range trips in spite of having superior capability. Finally, the framework also demonstrates a viable analytical tool for studying transportation systems with multimodal interactions.

are direct hexanucleotide repeats with a spacer of three nucleotides. The VDR associates with these VDREs with the greatest affinity as a heterodimer with one of the family of retinoid X receptors (RXRs). VDR consists of an N-terminal zinc finger domain that determines DNA binding, a "hinge" segment and a C-terminal hormone binding domain which also contains two conserved regions that engage in heterodimerization with an RXR on the VDRE. The role of the 1,25(OH)2D 3 ligand in transcriptional activation by the VDR-RXR heterodimer is to alter the conformation of the hormone-binding domain of VDR to facilitate strong dimerization with RXR, which results in ligand-enhanced association with the VDRE. Thus RXR is recruited into a heterocomplex by liganded VDR. The natural ligand for the RXR coreceptor, 9-cis retinoic acid, suppresses both VDR-RXR binding to the VDRE and 1,25(OH)2D3-stimulated transcription, indicating that 9-cis retinoic acid diverts RXR away from being the silent partner of VDR to instead form RXR

A computer aided design (CAD) tool has been specifically developed for rapid and easy design of solid models for surfboard and sailboard fins. This tool simplifies the lofting of advanced fin cross-sectional foils, in this instance based upon the family of standard airfoil series set by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), whilst retaining a basic parametric description at each cross-section.

List of contents S i WMSDs in Europe Background information on relevant CEN and ISO standards Applying standards at shopfloor level Emulating CEN & ISO standards by means of new methods (EAWS) (e.g. EAWS) Features & limitations of these new methods l i conclusions

A significant safety concern preventing extensive use of composite materials for large polymer composite structures is the ability to detect, locate, and quantify damages that occur at one or several locations in large polymer composite structures. Real-time health monitoring of large polymer composite structures improves their performance, durability, and reliability while minimizing the life cycle cost. In this article, we present a new, practical, and real-time structural health monitoring technique for detecting, locating, and quantifying damages in large polymer composite structures made of carbon fibers and carbon nanotube networks. In this technique, electrically conductive epoxy resin was prepared by dispersing multiwalled carbon nanotubes into epoxy matrix. This modified epoxy matrix was then incorporated with long carbon fibers to make large composite plates. Two sets of grid points made from silver-epoxy paste were mounted on the surface of the large plates. The first set was used to apply the constant electric current, and the second set was utilized to measure the electric potential. The electric potentials across the second set of grid points on the undamaged plate were measured and used as a reference set. Two different damages were created by drilling holes and by applying impact loading on the large plates. It is found that the electric potential between the contact points surrounding the damage changes. The significant change in electric potential corresponds to the damage location in the plates. As such, drilled holes, impact damages, and barely visible impact damages are detected, located, and quantified.

The electrical conduction behavior of undoped ultrananocrystalline diamond ͑UNCD͒ and its dependence on deposition temperature and chemical structure are presented. UNCD films were grown using a microwave plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique at deposition temperatures of 400°C and 800°C. The chemical structure of the UNCD films is characterized with several tools including: Elastic recoil detection analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, electron energy loss spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and environmental scanning electron microscope. The results show a higher content of sp 2 -bonded carbon for the 800°C deposition samples ͑ϳ65%͒ in comparison with the 400°C samples ͑ϳ38%͒. In both kinds of films, the hydrocarbon bonds have the saturated sp 3 structures, while there is lower hydrogen content in the 800°C samples ͑ϳ8%͒ than in the 400°C samples ͑ϳ10%͒. For conduction properties, experiments are conducted using a probe station and conductive-atomic force microscopy. Experimental data show that the samples deposited at 800°C are several orders of magnitude more conductive than the 400°C samples. The conduction occurs primarily along the grain boundary for both types of samples. The conductivity of both types of films also shows field dependent nonlinear behavior. Both the Poole-Frenkel models and single and overlapping Coulombic potential models show that the conduction is directly correlated with the sp 2 bond carbon density, and the role of the hydrocarbon bonds in the conduction path is formed by the network of the sp 2 bonded carbon.

The intermetallic La 2 MgNi 9 has been investigated as negative electrode material for NiMH battery by means of in situ neutron powder diffraction. This hydrideforming compound exhibits suitable plateau pressures ranging within the practical electrochemical window and leads to significant reversible electrochemical capacities. Charge and discharge of the composite electrode have been performed in beam following various current rates and galvanostatic intermittent titration. From the diffraction data analysis, phase amounts and cell volumes have been extracted, allowing the interpretation of the hydride formation and decomposition. From the evolution of the diffraction line widths, differences are observed between charge and discharge with the possible formation of an intermediate γ phase on charge. The electrode readily responds to current rate variations and does not show any kinetic limitation in the range C/10 and C/5 (C/n: full capacity C in n hours). This material shows excellent properties regarding electrochemical storage of energy.

The activation of the G-protein transducin (Gt) by rhodopsin (Rho) has been intensively studied for several decades. It is the best understood example of GPCR activation mechanism and serves as a template for other GPCRs. The structure of the Rho/G protein complex, which is transiently formed during the signaling reaction, is of particular interest. It can help understanding the molecular details of how retinal isomerization leads to the G protein activation, as well as shed some light on how GPCR recognizes its cognate G protein. The native Rho/Gt complex isolated from bovine retina suffers from low stability and loss of the retinal ligand. Recently, we reported that constitutively active mutant of rhodopsin E113Q forms a Rho/Gt complex that is stable in detergent solution. Here, we introduce methods for a large scale preparation of the complex formed by the thermo-stabilized and constitutively active rhodopsin mutant N2C/M257Y/D282C(RhoM257Y) and the native Gt purified from bovine...

This paper presents the design of broadband microstrip antenna for wireless communication applications. The antenna structure is based on the microstrip line combined with a slot technique and a modified geometry antenna in order to enlarge the bandwidth and adapting the impedance thus minimizing distortion in order to avoid high crosstalk and radiation. The proposed antennas have been successfully designed, optimized, miniaturized and simulated by using Momentum software integrated into ADS "Advanced Design System" and CADFEKO. The final broadband antennas are operating in 8.5GHz on ADS and 8.9 GHz on FEKO respectively with a return loss less than-10dB.

This work presents a three-dimensional CFD study of a two-phase flow field in a Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) using CFX4.3 TM , a commercial code based on the finite volume method. The numerical analysis was made for air-water mixtures at near atmospheric conditions, while both liquid and gas flow rates were changed. The two-phase flow behavior is modeled using an Eulerian-Eulerian approach, considering both phases as an interpenetrating continuum. This method computes the inter-phase phenomena by including a source term in the momentum equation to consider the drag between the liquid and gas phases. The gas phase is modeled as a bimodal bubble size distribution to allow for the presence of free-and entrapment gas, simultaneously. The results (interface vortex shape and liquid angular velocity) show a reasonable match with experimental data. The CFD technique here proposed, demonstrates to satisfactorily reproduce angular velocities of the phases and their spatial distribution inside the GLCC. The experiments showed gas volume fractions smaller than 150 ppm along the liquid exit, however it was not possible to reproduce numerically these small volume fractions, since they had approximately the same order of magnitude of the error in the numerical method.

For honey bees in the desert southwest, urban environments may provide abundant cavities and a more spatially and temporally continuous supply of nectar, pollen and water than would be available in surrounding natural desert areas. The presence of abundant cavities and food resources in urban environments places honey bees in close proximity to humans, creating concerns over public health and safety, particularly in areas dominated by Africanized honey bees. Africanized honey bee colonies are abundant in the greater Tucson metropolitan area, and requests for colony and swarm removals increased from 14 in 1994 to 1613 in 2001. We obtained invoices with data on honey bee colony and swarm removals from 1994 to 2001 from a private company in Tucson, Arizona, which specializes in the removal and control of Africanized honey bees. We evaluated spatio-temporal patterns in the distribution of Africanized honey bee colonies and swarms and evaluated the role of precipitation in generating the observed patterns. Colonies and swarms showed a shift from no spatio-temporal clustering in the initial years following the arrival of Africanized honey bees to significant spatio-temporal clustering in later years. Precipitation was a good predictor of honey bee abundance, with more colony and swarm removals following wet seasons and fewer following dry seasons. These patterns suggest the greatest likelihood of human-honey bee interactions in urban areas in the desert southwest will occur with high honey bee abundances following wet winters.

Our team is designing and fully characterizing black raspberry (BRB) food products suitable for long-term cancer prevention studies. The processing, scale-up, and storage effects on the consistency, quality, bioactive stability, and sensory acceptability of two BRB delivery systems of various matrices are presented. BRB dosage, pH, water activity, and texture were consistent in the scale-up production. Confections retained >90% of anthocyanins and ellagitannin after processing. Nectars had >69% of anthocyanins and >66% of ellagitannin retention, which varied with BRB dosage due to the processing difference. Texture remained unchanged during storage. BRB products consumed in a prostate cancer clinical trial were well accepted in sensory tests. Thus, this study demonstrates that two different BRB foods can be formulated to meet quality standards with a consistent bioactive pattern and successfully scaled up for a large human clinical trial focusing on cancer risk and other health outcomes.

Unconventional & Unexpected: Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 is a stunning collection of approximately 150 quirky, eccentric, maverick and extraordinary quilts made predominantly by anonymous quilters in the United States during the last half of the 20th century. Collected by renowned quilt authority and collector Roderick Kiracofe via eBay, flea markets, estate sales and other sources, they represent a 20th-century quilt movement that remains mostly undocumented. Unlike the quilts replicating traditional patterns of earlier centuries and the art quilts that we&#39;ve become accustomed to seeing, these surprising quilts represent a much freer, more casual, utilitarian aesthetic that departs from (and returns to) a multitude of norms and standards. In Unconventional & Unexpected, Kiracofe presents the best quilts in his collection along with essays that help to contextualise them by experts in a variety of fields, including quilt-making, quilt history, art history, collecting, colou...

In the built heritage context, BIM has shown difficulties in representing and managing the large and complex knowledge related to non-geometrical aspects of the heritage. Within this scope, this paper focuses on a domainspecific semantic-enrichment of BIM methodology, aimed at fulfilling semantic representation requirements of built heritage through Semantic Web technologies. To develop this semantic-enriched BIM approach, this research relies on the integration of a BIM environment with a knowledge base created through information ontologies. The result is knowledge base system-and a prototypal platform-that enhances semantic representation capabilities of BIM application to architectural heritage processes. It solves the issue of knowledge formalization in cultural heritage informative models, favouring a deeper comprehension and interpretation of all the building aspects. Its open structure allows future research to customize, scale and adapt the knowledge base different typologies of artefacts and heritage activities.

https://www.ijert.org/computer-aided-exhaust-valve-design-automation-using-creo-and-microsoft-excel-spreadsheet

https://www.ijert.org/research/computer-aided-exhaust-valve-design-automation-using-creo-and-microsoft-excel-spreadsheet-IJERTV9IS080211.pdf

3D Modeling has been widely used because of their ease in understanding, visualization, and generation of manufacturing drawing compared to 2D drafting. However modeling process is a time consuming and many draftsmen do not have the skills of performing such task. Exhaust valve is one of the component reputedly required nearly in all ic engines. It is the nose of the combustion engine to return exhaust gases out at a time of exhaust stroke. There are many tools and computer languages like C, C++, Python, Visual basic, Go language etc useful for task automation. In this paper we are automate the designing and solid modeling task of exhaust valve by creating graphical user tool to take input parameters required for exhaust valve design using visual basic programming language into the excel spreadsheet and integrate this spreadsheet with Creo or Pro-Engineering parametric tool for 3D solid modeling automation. To demonstrate our study we are considered to automate the exhaust valve design and solid model generation made by authors S.S Gawale & Dr S.N Shelke(8).

The cleft lip and palate (CLP) speech intelligibility is distorted due to the deformation in their articulatory system. For addressing the same, a few previous works perform phoneme specific modification in CLP speech. In CLP speech, both the articulation error and the nasalization distorts the intelligibility of a word. Consequently, modification of a specific phoneme may not always yield in enhanced entire word-level intelligibility. For such cases, it is important to identify and isolate the phoneme specific error based on the knowledge of acoustic events. Accordingly, the phoneme specific error modification algorithms can be exploited for transforming the specified errors and enhance the wordlevel intelligibility. Motivated by that, in this work, we combine some of salient phoneme specific enhancement approaches and demonstrate their effectiveness in improving the word-level intelligibility of CLP speech. The enhanced speech samples are evaluated using subjective and objective e...

One of the major costs incurred by railway companies is the maintenance of turnouts.This situation occurs because the large dynamic forces between the wheels of a train and the rails of a turnout cause excessive wear, rolling contact fatigue and rapid degradation of other components. A thorough understanding of the dynamic interaction between a train and a turnout could lead to a better design of the corresponding vehicle/track or of the damage mechanisms and subsequently to a smarter maintenance planning. Such an insight can be obtained through a detailed model of the train-turnout interaction. Such models exist in the literature for vehicle-track interaction, but they have some shortcomings when it comes to train-turnout interaction. This leads to the following research questions: 1. How to model the wheel rail contact? In this thesis different models are presented for the search of the contact location as well as for the normal and the tangential contact problem. Especially the r...

Solid-state foaming of cyclic olefin copolymer (COC, Topas 6017) using carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) was investigated. Before the foaming experiment, the solubility of CO 2 in the polymer at various saturation pressure (5−10 MPa) and saturation temperature (40°C) was measured using the ex-situ gravimetric method. The effects of the saturation pressure, foaming temperature, and foaming time on the foam structure were systematically investigated. Ultramicrocelluar foams with a cell size of 0.5 μm and cell density over 10 12 cells/cm 3 were successfully prepared. Moreover, it was observed that the system, which was strongly plasticized by CO 2 , would transition from foaming to crazing under certain conditions. The phenomenon was examined in detail and understood by a proposed mechanism that accounts for both homogeneous nucleation and stress fields induced crazing.

Mass transfer coefficients in commercial modules, including blood oxygenators, agree with literature correlations at high flows but are smaller at low flows. The smaller values at low flows probably result from channelling in the hollow fiber bundle. For the special case of flow within the fibers, the slight polydispersity of the hollow fibers causing this channelling can be used to predict deviations from the Ldvbque limit. These deviations can not be predicted from extensions to the L&&que analysis, or the analysis by Graetz. For the special case of flow outside the fibers, the mass transfer coefficients in commercial modules of various geometries are surprisingly similar, and fall below those of carefully handmade modules. These results can be used to develop still better membrane module designs.

Waste management has become an issue of increasing concern worldwide. These products are filling landfills and reducing the amount of livable space. Leachate produced from landfills contaminates the surrounding environment. The conventional incineration process releases toxic airborne fumes into the atmosphere. Researchers are working continuously to explore sustainable ways to manage and recycle waste materials. Recycling and reuse are the most efficient methods in waste management. The pavement industry is one promising sector, as different sorts of waste are being recycled into asphalt concrete and bitumen. This paper provides an overview of some promising waste products like high-density polyethylene, marble quarry waste, building demolition waste, ground tire rubber, cooking oil, palm oil fuel ash, coconut, sisal, cellulose and polyester fiber, starch, plastic bottles, waste glass, waste brick, waste ceramic, waste fly ash, and cigarette butts, and their use in asphalt concrete...

N-F-co-embedded titania (N-F-TiO2) photocatalysts with varying N:F ratios were synthesized and tested for their ability to photocatalyze the degradation of pollutants present at indoor air levels using visible light. The synthesis was achieved using a solvothermal process with tetrabutyl titanate, urea and ammonium fluoride as sources of Ti, N and F, respectively. Three selected volatile organic compounds (toluene, ethyl benzene and o-xylene) were selected as the test pollutants. The prepared composites were characterized using X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Ultra-violet (UV)-visible spectroscopy. The photocatalytic degradation efficiencies of N-F-TiO2 composites were higher than those obtained using pure TiO2 and N-TiO2. Moreover, these efficiencies increased as the N:F ratio decreased from sixteen to eight, then decreased as it dropped further to three, indicating the presence of an optimal N:F ratio. Meanwhile, as retention time decreased from 12.4 to 0.62 s, the average photocatalytic efficiencies decreased from 65.4% to 21.7%, 91.5% to 37.8% and 95.8% to 44.7% for toluene, ethyl benzene and o-xylene, respectively. In contrast, the photocatalytic reaction rates increased as retention time decreased. In consideration of all of these factors, under optimized operational conditions, the prepared N-F-TiO2 composites could be utilized for the degradation of target pollutants at indoor air levels using visible light. OPEN ACCESS Materials 2015, 8 32

d e n t a l m a t e r i a l s 2 6 ( 2 0 1 0 ) 600-607 a v a i l a b l e a t w w w . s c i e n c e d i r e c t . c o m j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . i n t l . e l s e v i e r h e a l t h . c o m / j o u r n a l s / d e m a a b s t r a c t Objectives. Resin-modified glass ionomers (RMGI) have demonstrated clinical success providing immediate and long-term relief from root sensitivity. RMGIs have been recently introduced as paste-liquid systems for convenience of clinical usage. The objective of this study was to measure the ability of a new paste-liquid RMGI to reduce fluid flow through human dentin, compared to an established single-bottle nanofilled total etch resin adhesive indicated for root desensitization.

One of the emerging control problem in manufacturing systems is the ―information interoperability (I 2 )‖ problem: information is required to be coherent and congruent with the specific use, particularly in interfacing manufacturing processes, at any stage of the product lifecycle management. Lack of comprehension, misunderstandings as well as redundant activities are typically signs of I 2 problems. Standardisation initiatives, in the frame of ISO and IEC (IEC 62264), try to answer these problems by specifying the information related to products, manufacturing resources and processes. These represent the most assessed corpus of knowledge for business to manufacturing (B2M) applications interoperability, available so far for studying and solving the I 2 issues. This paper tries to trace a path for studying the I 2 problems in production-control systems, by a formalisation procedure to build an ontology-based model, based on the IEC 62264 standard.

We present our findings from a study to evaluate the feasibility of a radioisotope power system (RPS) combined with active cooling to enable a longduration Venus surface mission. On-board power with active cooling technology featured prominently in both the National Research Council's Decadal Survey and in the 2006 NASA Solar System Exploration Roadmap as mission-enabling for the exploration of Venus. Power and cooling system options were reviewed and the most promising concepts modeled to develop an assessment tool for Venus mission planners considering a variety of future potential missions to Venus, including a Venus Mobile Explorer (either a balloon or rover concept), a long-lived Venus static lander, or a Venus Geophysical Network. The concepts modeled were based on the integration of General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) modules with different types of Stirling cycle heat engines for power and cooling. Unlike prior investigations which reported on single point design concepts, this assessment tool allows the user to generate either a point design or parametric curves of approximate power and cooling system mass, power level, and number of GPHS modules needed for a "black box" payload housed in a spherical pressure vessel. Input variables include altitude, pressure vessel diameter, payload temperature, and payload power on Venus. Users may also specify the number and type of pressure vessel windows, use of phase-change material for additional (time-dependent) payload cooling, and amount of (rechargeable) battery power for peak power demand operations. Parameter sets that would enable a Venus surface mission with fewer than 16 GPHS modules were identified. Thus, the study provides guidance for design practices that might enable a long-duration Venus surface mission with an attainable quantity of 238 Pu, and with achievable operating parameters. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .

A novel automatic 3D+time left ventricle (LV) segmentation framework is proposed for cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) datasets. The proposed framework consists of three conceptual blocks to delineate both endo and epicardial contours throughout the cardiac cycle: 1) an automatic 2D midventricular initialization and segmentation; 2) an automatic stack initialization followed by a 3D segmentation at the end-diastolic phase; and 3) a tracking procedure. Hereto, we propose to adapt the recent B-spline Explicit Active Surfaces (BEAS) framework to the properties of CMR images by integrating dedicated energy terms. Moreover, we extend the coupled BEAS formalism towards its application in 3D MR data by adapting it to a cylindrical space suited to deal with the topology of the image data. Furthermore, a fast stack initialization method is presented for efficient initialization and to enforce consistent cylindrical topology. Finally, we make use of an anatomically constrained optical flow method for temporal tracking of the LV surface.

The usefulness of the turbulent k-model for simulation of flow in a stirred vessel was studied in detail. For optimization, the effects of model parameters on flow characteristics were analyzed. It was observed that, any single set of model parameters could not yield even reasonable agreement between the model predictions and the experimental observations throughout the vessel. Therefore, the concept of zonal modeling was introduced for the r-z plane. It was observed that with the introduction of zonal modeling, the predicted values of flow variables, except the energy dissipation rate, were in good agreement with experimental data even close to the top surface of the tank. The same results could not be obtained with the standard set of parameters and a single zone. Local turbulent energy dissipation rate ( ) was calculated using the expression ( ) k 3/2 /L res ) proposed by . The zonal modeling prediction was better than the prediction by a standard set of parameters. However, above the impeller, a wide discrepancy between the predicted and experimental value for energy dissipation rate was observed.

Introduction: As high out-of-pocket healthcare expenses pose heavy financial burden on the families, Government of India is considering a variety of financing and delivery options to universalize health care services. Hence, an estimate of the cost of delivering universal health care services is needed.

Agriculture employs about three-quarter of Nigeria&#39;s workforce and yet food sufficiency is a challenge in the country. This is largely due to poor and outdated pre-harvest and post-harvest farming practices. The land fallow system is still been practised as fertiliser production in the country is grossly inadequate and expensive. The few available post-harvest processing facilities are faced with ageing and are inefficient. Also, use of modern processing equipment is limited by farmers&#39; lack of fund, adequate capacity to operate and maintain modern farming equipment. This paper, therefore, examines key barriers to agricultural products processing equipment in the country. These barriers include over-dependence on foreign technologies and expertise; poor and inadequate manufacturing infrastructure; and lack of political will by political leaders; lack of funds; and lack of adequate technical skills. This paper, however, sees the increase in the domestic manufacturing of pre-h...