Mechanical adaptation of biological materials — The examples of bone and wood

Many biological materials have the property of being responsive to their environment combined with the ability to adapt to possible changes in this environment. Two prototypical responsive biological materials are presented and confronted with each other: bone and wood. These biomaterials have attracted research interest of materials scientists mainly investigating structure–property relationships. Ageing and diseases of bone and the widespread use of wood as construction material, fuel research from a medical and technological perspective. After describing the structure of bone and wood, the mechanisms of adaptation – adaptive growth and remodelling – are introduced, which allow structural changes in these biomaterials. Four examples are presented how these mechanisms are used for adaptation on different length scales starting from the shape at the macroscopic scale to the composite structure at the nanoscopic scale. In all these examples the biomaterials respond to mechanical stimuli and try to improve their mechanical performance. While some of the embarked strategies are very similar in bone and wood, like the arrangement of fibres and the architecture of the nanocomposite, differences can be observed in other situations like growing a supportive cylindrical structure or in the reorientation of structures. At the core of these differences is the capacity of living bone to deposit material where needed, but also to remove superfluous material. In contrast, a tree can only grow by adding new material.     

Intrinsic isotopic C labelling of polyphenols

The intrinsic isotopic labelling of plants with ¹³CO₂ is an effective method to generate highly labelled compounds using photosynthesis and avoiding labour-intensive complex organic syntheses. In this study, the intrinsic isotopic labelling of polyphenols in parsley, spinach and peppermint is shown for the first time. The plants were grown in an atmosphere where ¹²CO₂ was replaced by ¹³CO₂, in order to generate highly labelled compounds. The total content of ¹³C as well as the individual polyphenols were analysed by Isotopic Ratio-MS and HPLC–Iontrap-MSⁿ.     

Screening of whey protein isolate hydrolysates for their dual functionality: Influence of heat pre-treatment and enzyme specificity

Heat pre-treated and non heat pre-treated whey protein isolate (WPI) were hydrolysed using α-chymotrypsin (chymotrypsin), pepsin and trypsin. The in vitro antioxidant activity, ACE-inhibition activity and surface hydrophobicities of the hydrolysates were measured in order to determine if peptides with dual functionalities were present. Dual functional peptides have both biological (e.g. antioxidant, ACE-inhibition, opioid activities) and technological (e.g. nanoemulsification abilities) functions in food systems. Heat pre-treatment marginally enhanced the hydrolysis of WPI by pepsin and trypsin but had no effect on WPI hydrolysis with chymotrypsin. With the exception of the hydrolysis by trypsin, heat pre-treatment did not affect the peptide profile of the hydrolysates as analysed using size exclusion chromatography, or the antioxidant activity (P > 0.05). Heat pre-treatment significantly affected the ACE-inhibition activities and the surface hydrophobicities of the hydrolysates (P < 0.05), which was a function of the specificity of the hydrolysing enzyme. Extended hydrolysis (up to 24 h) had no significant effect on the DH and the molecular weight profiles (P > 0.05) but in some instances caused a reduction in the antioxidant activity of WPI hydrolysates. The chymotrypsin hydrolysate showed a broad MW size range, and was followed by pepsin and then trypsin. The bioactivities of the hydrolysates generally decreased in the order; chymotrypsin > trypsin > pepsin. This study showed that by manipulating protein conformation with pre-hydrolysis heat treatment, combined with careful enzyme selection, peptides with dual functionalities can be produced from WPI for use as functional ingredients in the manufacture of functional foods.     

Privacy from Promises to Protection

Privacy issues are becoming more and more important especially since the cyber and the real world are converging up to certain extent when using mobile devices. Means that really protect privacy are still missing. The problem is, as soon as a user provides data to a service provider the user looses control over her data. The simple solution is not to provide any data but then many useful services, e.g. navigation applications, cannot be used. In order to solve this problem, we propose privacy guaranteeing execution containers (PGEC). Basically the concept is that the application obtains access to the user data in a specially protected and certified environment, the PGEC. PGECs enable applications to access private user data and guarantee that the user data is deleted as soon as the service is quit. The PGEC also restricts the communication between the application and the service provider to what is explicitly allowed by the service user. In addition to those means the PGEC also implements countermeasures against malicious attacks such as modified host systems and covert channel attacks, which might be misusing CPU load to signal data out of the PGEC. Thus, the PGEC guarantees a “one time use” of the provided private data.     

Concurrent Q‐learning: Reinforcement learning for dynamic goals and environments

This article presents a powerful new algorithm for reinforcement learning in problems where the goals and also the environment may change. The algorithm is completely goal independent, allowing the mechanics of the environment to be learned independently of the task that is being undertaken. Conventional reinforcement learning techniques, such as Q‐learning, are goal dependent. When the goal or reward conditions change, previous learning interferes with the new task that is being learned, resulting in very poor performance. Previously, the Concurrent Q‐Learning algorithm was developed, based on Watkin's Q‐learning, which learns the relative proximity of all states simultaneously. This learning is completely independent of the reward experienced at those states and, through a simple action selection strategy, may be applied to any given reward structure. Here it is shown that the extra information obtained may be used to replace the eligibility traces of Watkin's Q‐learning, allowing many more value updates to be made at each time step. The new algorithm is compared to the previous version and also to DG‐learning in tasks involving changing goals and environments. The new algorithm is shown to perform significantly better than these alternatives, especially in situations involving novel obstructions. The algorithm adapts quickly and intelligently to changes in both the environment and reward structure, and does not suffer interference from training undertaken prior to those changes. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 20: 1037–1052, 2005.     

Correlation of film structure and molecular oxygen reduction at nitrogen doped amorphous carbon thin film electrochemical electrodes

Nitrogen doped amorphous carbon (a-C:N) thin film electrodes with a range of film structures have been deposited using a filtered cathodic vacuum arc system. The correlation between film structure and electro-reduction of molecular oxygen in aqueous media at the electrodes has been explored. In aqueous 0.1 M NaOH, dioxygen reduction is inhibited at all the a-C:N electrodes compared with that at glassy carbon electrodes. The potential of the dioxygen reduction current peak shifts negatively at a-C:N electrodes as the sp³ C fraction in the a-C:N materials increases, while the current peak height decreases simultaneously. The a-C:N electrodes possess high sensitivity for investigating the mechanism of dioxygen reduction. It was found that the catalytic H₂O₂ reduction to H₂O on carbon materials is attributed to oxygen species at sp² C sites.     

Development of a cost effective probe for the long term monitoring of straw bale buildings

This paper reviews current methodologies for measuring the moisture content of straw bale walls in buildings. It discusses the development of an affordable and accurate moisture probe that has been designed to be easily assembled by the builder or owner of a straw bale building from items readily available in the United Kingdom (UK). The probe uses a timber block inserted into the wall, relying upon the measurable moisture variances of the timber and relating this to the surrounding straw. The probes are designed to be used in pairs of varying length, taking measurements at different depths to give an estimate of the moisture gradient through the wall. In order to properly calibrate this device, a full set of sorption and desorption isotherms were established for both Oat and Wheat straw and three different timber species. The results from an environmental chamber have been compared to readings from specimens of the new probe installed in a straw bale house in the south west of the UK. The results were found to be consistent, to within 2%, with the laboratory findings.     

Low-income Tenants in the Private Rental Housing Market

The private rented sector (PRS) in England has often been described as having a ‘residual’ role in accommodating low-income households who are unable to gain access to social housing. This paper examines the accuracy of this residual role thesis. It does so using secondary analysis of the 2007 English House Condition Survey. The paper shows that the PRS plays a disproportionately important role in accommodating households living in poverty. It also shows that the odds of being income poor are the same for private tenants as for social housing tenants and three times higher than for owner-occupiers. It is concluded that, as a source of accommodation for low-income households, the role of the private rented sector is not residual at all. In addition, the paper assesses how well accommodated low-income households are in the PRS compared with non-poor private tenants and with low-income households in social housing and owner-occupation.     

Enhanced field induced martensitic phase transition and magnetocaloric effect in Ni55Mn20Ga25 metallic foams

The high surface/volume ratio and mechanical stability under cyclic strain makes polycrystalline Ni–Mn–Ga metallic foams attractive for magnetic refrigeration. By means of comparison with a polycrystalline bulk material, we have demonstrated that the porous structure of Ni_54.8Mn_20.2Ga_25.0 open-cells metallic foams (porosity varying between 44% and 58%) reduces the temperature span of the phase transition and increases the magnetocaloric effect (MCE). MCE was investigated using calorimetry in a magnetic field. Temperature scan and isothermal experiments have shown a 0.8 K T^?1 shift of the phase transition temperature and a maximum irreversible entropy change of 2.5 Jkg^?1 K^?1. The results indicate that metallic foams can represent a good approach for enhancing field induced phase transitions in magnetic refrigeration applications.