Microscopic analysis of recycled paper effect on print quality parameters

To determine whether the geometrical accuracy of small printed elements does not worsen on recycled paper, microscopic analysis of the dot area and the graphic elements raggedness printed on different types of recycled and coated papers at different screen ruling was carried out. Experimental tests have shown that geometrical accuracy of small elements printed on recycled paper/cardboard, in comparison to pictures printed on primary production paper is almost the same. Microsc. Res. Tech. 76:890–892, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Optimal design of a Kirchhoff-Love plate of variable thickness by application of the minimum principle

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - An approximate thickness optimization of a rectangular Kirchhoff-Love plate with variable stiffness under uniform load is performed in this paper....     

The Mechanism of Drug Nephrotoxicity and the Methods for Preventing Kidney Damage

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a global health challenge of vast proportions, as approx. 13.3% of people worldwide are affected annually. The pathophysiology of AKI is very complex, but its main causes are sepsis, ischemia, and nephrotoxicity. Nephrotoxicity is mainly associated with the use of drugs. Drug-induced AKI accounts for 19–26% of all hospitalized cases. Drug-induced nephrotoxicity develops according to one of the three mechanisms: (1) proximal tubular injury and acute tubular necrosis (ATN) (a dose-dependent mechanism), where the cause is related to apical contact with drugs or their metabolites, the transport of drugs and their metabolites from the apical surface, and the secretion of drugs from the basolateral surface into the tubular lumen; (2) tubular obstruction by crystals or casts containing drugs and their metabolites (a dose-dependent mechanism); (3) interstitial nephritis induced by drugs and their metabolites (a dose-independent mechanism). In this article, the mechanisms of the individual types of injury will be described. Specific groups of drugs will be linked to specific injuries. Additionally, the risk factors for the development of AKI and the methods for preventing and/or treating the condition will be discussed.     

Effect of Specimen Thickness on the Oxidation Rate of High Chromium Ferritic Steels: The Significance of Intrinsic Alloy Creep Strength

Previous studies revealed that initial sample thickness affects the growth rate of oxide scales formed during 800 or 900 °C air exposure. The effect is partially related to differences in depletion of minor alloying additions such as Mn, Ti, La in thick and thin specimens. However, it has previously been proposed that the specimen thickness dependence is partially governed by differences in creep strength of thick and thin substrates. To investigate this hypothesis, discontinuous air oxidation experiments were carried out with the Laves phase strengthened ferritic steel Crofer 22 H at 800 °C. Comparing the data for solution annealed and pre-aged (500 h, 900 °C) materials it could be shown that intrinsic creep strength of the alloy substantially affects oxidation rates. The observations can qualitatively be explained by assuming the relaxation of oxide growth stresses by plastic deformation of the metallic substrate to be an important parameter affecting the kinetics of oxide scale growth.     

Mechanical properties of suspension plasma sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings submitted to simulated body fluid

Home synthesized (HA) powder was formulated with water and alcohol to obtain a suspension used to plasma spray coatings onto titanium substrate. The deposition process was optimized and the resulting coatings were soaked in simulated body fluid (SBF) for the periods of 3, 7, 14, 28, and 60 days at controlled temperature of 37 °C. The microstructural research enabled to find in the as-sprayed deposits two characteristic zones: (i) dense zone corresponding to the lamellas, observed usually in thermally sprayed coatings; (ii) sintered zone containing fine hydroxyapatite grains corresponding to the fine solids from initial suspension. The sintered zone disappears after soaking in SBF and the pores get filled by the reprecipitated calcium phosphates. The adhesion of the soaked coatings to the substrate was characterized by the critical load in the scratch test and was about 10 to 12 N. The Young modules of the coatings were determined with help of depth-sensing indentation test by the use of the technique developed by Oliver and Pharr. The modules were not depending on the time of soaking and their mean values were 15.6 and 28.4 GPa, depending on the coating operational parameters. The scratch test enables to determine the hardness of the coatings, which remained fairly constant during the time of soaking in the range of 3 to 5 GPa. This hardness was compared to that the Martens microhardness which doubled with time of soaking to reach up to 1 GPa.     

Solvability of infinite systems of singular integral equations in Fréchet space of continuous functions

The aim of this paper is to show how some measures of noncompactness in the Fréchet space of continuous functions defined on an unbounded interval can be applied to an infinite system of singular integral equations. The results obtained generalize and improve several ones.     

A Comparison of Catalytic Properties of Cs x H3−x PW12O40 Salts of Various Cesium Contents in Gas Phase and Liquid Phase Reactions

The cesium salts Cs _x H_3?x PW₁₂O₄₀ of Cs content x = 2 up to x = 3 were tested as the catalysts in the gas and liquid phase reactions. Dehydration of ethanol and transesterification of triglycerides with methanol were selected as the catalytic reactions. Apart from the standard preparation, the catalysts were prepared by two-stage procedure with methanol or water as a solvent. The Cs-salts were characterized by FT-IR, XRD, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray techniques. In turn, the influence of Cs-salts composition on the pH and conductivity of their aqueous colloidal solutions was investigated. The results obtained by the latter techniques were also characteristic for acidity of surface layer of colloidal particles because of surface layer-solution equilibrium. It has been shown that the secondary structure of acidic cesium salts existing in crystalline samples (solid solution of H₃PW₁₂O₄₀ in Cs₃PW₁₂O₄₀) changes after contacting with polar medium to the system consisting most probably of Cs₃PW₁₂O₄₀ core with epitaxial layer of heteropolyacid. This is result of the protons migration from bulk to surface layer of primary particles enhanced by polar medium. It strongly influences the surface acidity of primary particles as well as the activity of Cs-salts in transesterification of triglycerides with methanol. In such polar medium, Cs₂HPW₁₂O₄₀ salt becomes the most active catalyst, more active than Cs_2.5H_0.5PW₁₂O₄₀. An accumulation of partial glycerides and in particular glycerol on the surface of primary particles of Cs-salts resulted in relatively low maximum conversion of triglycerides, most probably due to partial blockage of the catalytic centers. This effect and the almost constant activity of Cs-salts under recycling use in the transesterification experiments are considered to be experimental evidences that methanolysis over Cs-salts was accomplished with the participation of surface protons.     

PADLOC: a powerful tool to assign disulfide bond connectivities in peptides and proteins by NMR spectroscopy

The determination of the disulfide bond connectivity in a peptide or protein represents a significant challenge. It is notoriously difficult to use NMR spectroscopy to assign disulfide connectivities because NMR spectra lack direct evidence for disulfide bonds. These bonds are typically inferred from three-dimensional structure calculations, which can result in ambiguous disulfide assignment. Here, we present a new NMR based methodology, in which the disulfide connectivity is obtained by applying Bayesian rules of inference to the local topology of cysteine residues. We illustrate how this approach successfully predicts the disulfide connectivity in proteins for which crystal structures are available in the protein data bank (PDB). We also demonstrate how this methodology is used with experimental NMR data for peptides with complex disulfide topologies, including hepcidin, Kalata-B1, and μ-Conotoxin KIIIA. In the case of μ-Conotoxin KIIIA, the PADLOC connectivity (1-15,2-9,4-16) differs from previously published results; additional evidence is presented demonstrating unequivocally that this newly proposed connectivity is correct.