Adaptive laboratory evolution of the fast-growing cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 11801 for improved solvent tolerance

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Activation of Muscle-Specific Kinase (MuSK) Reduces Neuromuscular Defects in the Delta7 Mouse Model of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron disease caused by insufficient levels of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. One of the most prominent pathological characteristics of SMA involves defects of the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), such as denervation and reduced clustering of acetylcholine receptors (AChRs). Recent studies suggest that upregulation of agrin, a crucial NMJ organizer promoting AChR clustering, can improve NMJ innervation and reduce muscle atrophy in the delta7 mouse model of SMA. To test whether the muscle-specific kinase (MuSK), part of the agrin receptor complex, also plays a beneficial role in SMA, we treated the delta7 SMA mice with an agonist antibody to MuSK. MuSK agonist antibody #13, which binds to the NMJ, significantly improved innervation and synaptic efficacy in denervation-vulnerable muscles. MuSK agonist antibody #13 also significantly increased the muscle cross-sectional area and myofiber numbers in these denervation-vulnerable muscles but not in denervation-resistant muscles. Although MuSK agonist antibody #13 did not affect the body weight, our study suggests that preservation of NMJ innervation by the activation of MuSK may serve as a complementary therapy to SMN-enhancing drugs to maximize the therapeutic effectiveness for all types of SMA patients.     

Modified water-cement ratio law for silica fume concretes

The application of condensed silica fume as a mineral admixture in concrete is almost a routine one nowadays for the production of tailor-made high-performance concretes. Abrams' Law, which was originally formulated for conventional concrete containing cement as the only cementitious material, is not directly applicable to these new-generation concretes. In the present paper, modified relationships have been proposed to evaluate the strength of silica fume concrete. An extensive experimentation was carried out to determine the isolated effect of silica fume on concrete, and, analyzing the 28-day strength results of 32 concrete mixes performed over a wide range of water-binder ratios and silica fume replacement percentages, simplified relationships have been proposed. These simplified models might serve as useful guides for proportioning concrete mixes incorporating silica fume.     

Studies on the Seed Fat Composition of Moringaceae family

The component fatty acids of the seed fats of Moringa pterygosperma and Moringa concanensis have been investigated by using the techniques of urea-adduct segregation and quantitative paper chromatography. The present analysis indicates the percentage composition of the mixed fatty acids to be: palmitic 3.1, 11.7; stearic 8.0, 3.8; arachidic 7.8, 2.4; behenic 3.5, 4.1; lignoceric 5.8, 0.6; oleic 71.0, 75.5 and linoleic 0.8, 0.9% respectively.     

Visual hierarchical clustering of supply chain using growing hierarchical self-organising map algorithm

The study identifies a need for efficient and robust visual clustering approach that can potentially deal with complex supply chain clustering problems. Based on the underlying philosophy of group technology, a growing hierarchical self-organising map algorithm (GHSOM) is proposed to identify a lower two-dimension visual clustering map that can effectively address supply chain clustering problems. The proposed approach provides optimal solutions by decomposing a large-sized supply chain problem into independent, small, manageable problems. It facilitates simple decision-making by exploring similar clusters that are represented by the neighbouring branches in the GHSOM map structure. Unlike other approaches in literature, the proposed approach can further attain good topological ordered representations of the various work order families, to be processed by clusters of supply units along with information on hierarchical sub-cell formation as identifiable from the visually navigable map. The proposed approach has been successfully applied on 16 benchmarked problems. The performance of GHSOM based on grouping efficacy measure outperformed the best results in literature.     

Accelerating earthquake simulations on general‐purpose graphics processors

Parallelization strategies are presented for Virtual Quake, a numerical simulation code for earthquakes based on topologically realistic systems of interacting earthquake faults. One of the demands placed upon the simulation is the accurate reproduction of the observed earthquake statistics over three to four decades. This requires the use of a high‐resolution fault model in computations, which demands computational power that is well beyond the scope of off‐the‐shelf multi‐core CPU computers. However, the recent advances in general‐purpose graphic processing units have the potential to address this problem at moderate cost increments. A functional decomposition of Virtual Quake is performed, and opportunities for parallelization are discussed in this work. Computationally intensive modules are identified, and these are implemented on graphics processing units, significantly speeding up earthquake simulations. In the current best case scenario, a computer with six graphics processing units can simulate 500 years of fault activity in California at 1.5 km × 1.5 km element resolution in less than 1 hour, whereas a single CPU requires more than 2 days to perform the same simulation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.