Berries anthocyanins as potential SARS-CoV–2 inhibitors targeting the viral attachment and replication; molecular docking simulation

The viral respiratory disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), has turned into a global health concern. Till now, there is no drug or vaccine has yet been specifically approved for SARS-CoV-2. One of the urgent solutions against the recent COVID-19 disease is the use of dietary molecules, which can be found abundantly in functional food. In the current study, we have conducted a molecular docking approach for eighteen dietary molecules belong to the subclass of anthocyanins, as potential inhibitors of the main protease and spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. Both selected targets, playing a vital role in attachment and replication of the virus. The results indicated that cyanidin-3-arabinoside exhibited the lowest binding energy and located onto the pocket through a sufficient number of hydrogen bonds with the main protease virus. However, pelargonidin-3-glucoside and pelargonidin 3-rhamnoside display significant binding energy with the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. All compounds mentioned above shown high drug-likeness and fulfils the Lipinski’s rule of five, as well as confer favorable toxicity parameters, in addition to ADME values. Considering the obtained results, regular consumption of berry fruits, which are rich in anthocyanin compounds, should be supportive to inhibit viral infectious by reducing of propagation and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV–2.     

Energetic performances of a refrigerating loop using ice slurry

The consideration of environmental constraints in production, transport and distribution of cold energy resulted in reconsidering the practices of installations dimensioning in particular. Their containment led to the development of secondary refrigerants such as ice slurries to store, transport and distribute the cold energy. These heat transfer fluids should have good thermophysical properties, giving high transport capability, high heat transfer ability as well as low pressure drops. The use of ice slurries can lead to lower flow rates and smaller pumping power compared to single phase fluid. The purpose of the presented work is to study the distribution network of indirect cold systems thanks to a model allowing the evaluation of the influence of various parameters on the operating behaviour of the installation. The available domain for the use of secondary heat transfer fluid (whether in their single phase or two phase form) is determined considering the best design from an energetic point of view. Because of the essential role of the fluid distribution between the production site and consumers, we focus our study on pressure drops and pumping power due to the fluid flow in cooling loops. For each investigated case, the minimum consumption power is obtained with the two phases (solid–liquid) heat transfer fluid (ice slurry).     

Sustainability of a wind power plant: Application to different Moroccan sites

In this paper, three main steps allowing the definition of the sustainability of a wind power plant (WPP) are described in detail. The first step is to choose a site with a good wind potential. In this respect, two approaches have been introduced: traditional wind statistical estimations based on the identification of the Weibull probability density function on specific sites; and an innovative Kriging approach based on artificial neural networks to reconstruct the profile of the mean wind speed of the territory. In the second step, given technical details, the energetic sustainability of a WPP installation is assessed according to a model computing the wind energy production per year, as well as the details of its efficiency. Finally, as third step, a cost/benefit evaluation on the overall reduction in CO₂ emissions with respect to traditional fossil fuel energy plants is reported. From a wind speed characterisation viewpoint, the case study is referred to the overall Moroccan territory. From a WPP model viewpoint, the case study is referred to the installation of a specific WPP, which would allow the production of more than 2 GWh per year in the south Atlantic coast and of nearly 1 GWh per year in the Mediterranean coast in the neighbourhood of Tangier.     

Stabilization of 2D saturated systems by state feedback control

The problem of stabilizability of the 2D continuous-time saturated systems under state-feedback control is solved in this paper. Two cases are considered: the first one, the control may saturate and limits may be attained. The second one, the control does not saturate and limits are avoided. Sufficient conditions of asymptotic stability are presented. The synthesis of the required controllers is given under LMIs form. Illustrative examples are treated.     

Widespread infection of lake whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis with the swimbladder nematode Cystidicola farionis in northern lakes Michigan and Huron

We estimated the prevalence, intensity, and abundance of swimbladder nematode infection in 1281 lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) collected from four sites in northern lakes Huron (Cheboygan and DeTour Village) and Michigan (Big Bay de Noc and Naubinway) from fall 2003 through summer 2006. Morphological examination of nematode egg, larval, and mature stages through light and scanning electron microscopy revealed characteristics consistent with that of Cystidicola farionis Fischer 1798. Total C. farionis prevalence was 26.94%, while the mean intensity and abundance of infection was 26.72 and 7.21 nematodes/fish, respectively. Although we detected C. farionis in all four stocks that were examined, Lake Huron stocks generally had higher prevalence, intensity, and abundance of infection than Lake Michigan stocks. A distinct seasonal fluctuation in prevalence, abundance, and intensity of C. farionis was observed, which does not coincide with reported C. farionis development in other fish species. Lake whitefish that were heavily infected with C. farionis were found to have thickened swimbladder walls with deteriorated mucosa lining, which could affect swimbladder function. Whether C. farionis infection may be negatively impacting lake whitefish stocks in the Great Lakes is unclear; continued monitoring of C. farionis infection should be conducted to measure responses of lake whitefish stocks to infection levels.     

The role of sintering additives on synthesis of cermets by auto-combustion

The purpose of this work is to decrease or eliminate porosities in SHS products with sintering additives. The Ti-C system has been synthesized for its advantages for refractory, abrasive and structural applications. We attempted to densify TiC by using Nickel addition; this metal is introduced through a secondary reaction 3NiO + 2Al. This mixture reacts exothermically and the heat is released according to 3NiO + 2Al → Al₂O₃ + 3Ni. So, the introduction of the Al₂O₃ diluent with the starting reactants is necessary because of the explosive character of the thermite reaction. Thus, doping method is finally used to fabricate materials by SHS method (self-propagating high temperature synthesis). Final products were analysed by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy.     

A fuzzy expert system for loss reduction and voltage control in radial distribution systems

In this paper, two methods for improving voltage profile and minimizing total system losses in radial distribution feeders are presented. The first method concerns with the capacitor allocation problem. Fuzzy expert system (FES) is used to select the best candidate nodes for capacitors to be installed in order to maximize total loss reduction and total net savings. The second method illustrated the voltage regulator problem. In this method, the location and the tapping ratio of the voltage regulators are determined in order to minimize total system losses while keeping the voltage within specified limits. The two methods have been applied to two test feeders. Comparison with other techniques is included to ensure methods validity and superiority.     

Experimental characterization and modeling stiffness of polymer/clay nanocomposites within a hierarchical multiscale framework

To provide a better understanding of the relationship between nanostructure and overall material stiffness in the case of polymer/clay nanocomposites, both analytical and finite element modeling were considered. A micromechanical analytical approach based on a multiscale framework is presented in which special attention is devoted to the constrained region around reinforcements. The thickness of the constrained region is seen as a characteristic length scale and the effect of particle size is explicitly introduced in the model. Moreover, the constrained region presents graded properties. The hierarchical morphology of intercalated silicate stacks is also explicitly introduced in the micromechanical model from an equivalent stiffness method in which the silicate stacks are replaced by homogeneous particles with constructed equivalent anisotropic stiffness. The orientational averaging process is used to derive the overall stiffness tensor of nanocomposite materials containing randomly oriented reinforcements. The respective influence of volume fraction, aspect ratio, size and orientation of the reinforcements, matrix properties, number of silicate layers per stack, and interlayer spacing on the overall nanocomposite stiffness is analyzed. The overall stiffness of polymer/clay nanocomposite systems is also evaluated by means of finite element simulations and the results compare favorably with model predictions. From an experimental point of view, relevant morphological and mechanical data were obtained on polyamide‐6 nanocomposites prepared using a modified montmorillonite Cloisite 30B and an unmodified sodium montmorillonite Cloisite Na⁺. The amount of constrained region around reinforcements was estimated using results issued from dynamic mechanical analyses and differential scanning calorimetry. Comparison to the model clearly underlines the contribution of the constrained region to the stiffness improvement. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Metaheuristic Optimization of Time Series Models for Predicting NetworksTraffic

Traffic prediction of wireless networks attracted many researchers and practitioners during the past decades. However, wireless traffic frequently exhibits strong nonlinearities and complicated patterns, which makes it challenging to be predicted accurately. Many of the existing approaches for predicting wireless network traffic are unable to produce accurate predictions because they lack the ability to describe the dynamic spatial-temporal correlations of wireless network traffic data. In this paper, we proposed a novel meta-heuristic optimization approach based on fitness grey wolf and dipper throated optimization algorithms for boosting the prediction accuracy of traffic volume. The proposed algorithm is employed to optimize the hyper-parameters of long short-term memory (LSTM) network as an efficient time series modeling approach which is widely used in sequence prediction tasks. To prove the superiority of the proposed algorithm, four other optimization algorithms were employed to optimize LSTM, and the results were compared. The evaluation results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approach in predicting the traffic of wireless networks accurately. On the other hand, a statistical analysis is performed to emphasize the stability of the proposed approach.