Covalent Immobilization of Tyrosinase on Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile/Polyurethane/Poly(m-anthranilic acid) Nanofibers: An Electrochemical Impedance Study

Polyacrylonitrile/polyurethane/poly(m-anthranilic acid) nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning. Tyrosinase immobilization was performed by EDC/N-hydroxyl succinimide activation. Covalent binding of tyrosinase onto nanofibers was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared-attenuated total reflectance, and bicinchoninic acid assay revealed the amount of enzyme. Nanofiber morphology and composition were characterized by scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Nanofibers became smoother and thicker after tyrosinase immobilization. Effects of enzyme on nanofibers were investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and the data were fitted to equivalent electrical circuit model. EDX-mapping showed uniform distribution of enzyme. The solution resistance and charge transfer resistance of nanofibers decreased after enzyme immobilization.     

Buckling lengths of irregular frame columns

In several design codes and specifications, simplified formulae and diagrams are given for determining the buckling lengths of frame columns. It is shown that these formulae may yield rather erroneous results, especially for irregular frames. This is due to the fact that the code formulae utilise only local stiffness distributions. In this paper, a simplified procedure for determining approximate values for the buckling loads of both regular and irregular frames is developed. The procedure utilises lateral load analysis of frames and yields errors on the order of 5%, which may be considered suitable for design purposes. The proposed procedure is applied to several numerical examples and it is shown that all the errors are in the acceptable range and on the safe side.     

Investigation of Magnetic Properties of Phase Transformations in Copper-Based Alloys

In this study, the magnetic properties of both Cu_85.41Al_9.97Mn_4.62 and Cu_82.41Mn_13.81Al_3.78 (wt%) shape memory alloys were studied. The analysis of the magnetization as a function of applied field and temperature was conducted between ?10 to 10 T magnetic field ranges at constant temperature. Two alloys were examined using ac magnetic susceptibility measurements. The magnetic saturation values at room temperature were found to be approximately 1 and 70 emu/g for Cu_85.41Al_9.97Mn_4.62 (wt%) and Cu_82.41Mn_13.81Al_3.78 (wt%) alloys, respectively. The magnetic saturation and the coercivity values for the CuAlMn alloy are found smaller than those for the CuMnAl alloy. Moreover, from the magnetization curves, the typical ferromagnetic behavior were observed for both alloys. Details of the morphological properties and chemical composition have been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), respectively.     

Multi-objective crashworthiness optimization of tapered thin-walled tubes with axisymmetric indentations

In this paper, the effects of tapering and introducing axisymmetric indentations on the crash performances of thin-walled tubes are investigated. The crash performances of the tubes are evaluated using two metrics: the crush force efficiency (CFE, the ratio of the average crushing load to the peak load), and the specific energy absorption (SEA, absorbed energy per unit mass). The optimum values of the number of the axisymmetric indentations, the radius of the indentations, the taper angle and the tube thickness are sought for maximum CFE and maximum SEA using surrogate based optimization. In addition, multi-objective optimization of the tubes is performed by maximizing a composite objective function that provides a compromise between CFE and SEA. The CFE and SEA values at the training points of surrogate models (metamodels) are computed using the finite element analysis code LS-DYNA. Polynomial response surfaces, radial basis functions, and Kriging are the different surrogate models used in this study. Surrogate based optimization of the tubes showed that the tubes with indentations have better crush performance than tubes without indentations. It is found that maximum CFE requires large number of indentations with high radius, small thickness, and medium taper angle, while maximum SEA requires small number of indentations with low radius, large thickness and small taper angle. It is also found that the globally most accurate surrogate model does not necessarily lead to the optimum.     

A Benchmark for Some Physical Properties of Zinc-Blende ZnS

Somephysical properties of zinc-blende polytype of ZnS were investigated via geometry optimization calculations. After employing a shell model interatomic potential to our computations, some physical parameters such as typical cubic elastic constants, young modulus, shear modulus, bulk modulus, poisson ratio, elastic wave velocities, static and high frequency dielectric constants, and static refractive index zinc-blende ZnS were deduced. Later, previous theoretical results and our current results with each other as well as with former experimental findings were evaluated. Present results exhibit a fair consistency with experiments and better than those of several recent density functional theory results for the considered parameters of related material.     

Antenatal fetal risk assessment using a neurofuzzy technique

This study defines an intelligent neurofuzzy system for antepartum fetal evaluation, The task is to investigate the Doppler ultrasound measurements of the umbilical artery (UA) and the cerebral artery (CA) to relate the health conditions of fetuses. We thus use the UA blood flow velocity waveforms [pulsality index, resistance index, and systolic/diastolic ratio] and the ratios of cerebral-umbilical resistance indices in terms of weeks. We then make a decision on the basis of a fuzzy-rule-based system combined with data-based learning strategies such as a radial basis function network and a multilayer perceptron for assessing the hypoxia suspicion. A fuzzy grade of membership is used for the evaluation of the seriousness of the situation of the fetus, and the diagnostic interpretations for doctors such as good, suspicious, and alarming conditions of fetus are derived     

Antenatal fetal risk assessment by blood-flow velocity waveforms

The purpose of this article is to study a system for antepartum fetal evaluation. The task is to investigate the Doppler ultrasound measurements of the umbilical artery and the cerebral artery to relate the health status of a fetus by using discriminant functions of pattern recognition. The authors then analyze the individual effects of various blood-flow velocity waveforms using principal component analysis.     

Immobilization of albumin on magnetite nanoparticles

The magnetite (Fe₃O₄) nanoparticles were prepared by the co-precipitation of ferrous and ferric salts with NH₄OH, and then modified with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) by silanization reaction and subsequent reaction with glutaraldehyde (GA) to obtain functional groups on their surface. The influence of different terminated groups on protein binding was studied with bare and modified magnetite nanoparticles. Amine terminated magnetite nanoparticles were shown the highest binding ability for immobilization process compared to Fe₃O₄ NPs and GA bonded NPs. This binding ability was shown by using sodium dodecyl polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis technique (SDS-PAGE). Albumin attached magnetite nanoparticles were also examined by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).