Double optical monitoring of dip coating with a time-varying refractive index

A brief overview of optical monitoring for vacuum and wet-bench film-deposition processes is presented. Interferometric and polarimetric measurements are combined with regard to simultaneous monitoring of refractive index and physical thickness in real time. Monitoring stability and accuracy are verified during dip coating with a transparent oil standard. This double optical technique is applied to dip coating with a multicomponent zirconyl chloride aqueous solution, whose resulting temporal refractive-index and physical-thickness curves indicate good reproducibility as well as significant sensitivity to changes of film-flow properties during the dip-coating process.     

Predicting the migration rate of dialkyl organotins from PVC pipe into water

Organotins (OTs) are additives widely used as thermal and light stabilizers in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. OTs can leach into water flowing through PVC pipes. This work examines the leaching rates of two potentially neurotoxic OTs, dimethyl tin (DMT) and dibutyl tin (DBT), from PVC pipe. Water was circulated in a closed loop laboratory PVC pipe system. Using a gas chromatograph-pulsed flame photometric detector (GC-PFPD), the change in concentrations of DMT and DBT in the water in the system was monitored over time and allowed to reach equilibrium. OT concentration as a function of time was analyzed using a mechanistic leaching rate model. The diffusion coefficient for OT in the PVC pipe material, the only unknown model parameter, was found to be 9 × 10(-18) m(2)/s. This value falls within with the range of values estimated from the literature (2 × 10(-18) to 2 × 10(-17) m(2)/s) thus increasing confidence in the leaching rate model.     

Occurrence of certain mycotoxins in corn and corn-based products and thermostability of fumonisin B1 during processing

A total of 57 samples of corn and corn-based products collected from various districts of Egypt were analyzed for Fusarium mycotoxins (T-2, diacetoxyscripenol (DAS), deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisin B1 (FB1) and aflatoxins. FB1 was detected in about 80%, 53.85%, 33.3%, and 28.57% of yellow corn, corn meal, white corn, and popcorn samples, respectively. The levels of FB1 ranged from 10 to 780 microg/kg. T-2 and DAS were detected in 5% and 10% of yellow corn samples, respectively, and DON was detected in white corn and popcorn samples at levels of 28.8 and 10.1 microg/kg, respectively. Starch samples were found to be free from Fusarium mycotoxins. Baking balady bread at 450 degrees C/min reduced FB1 to 72.4% while baking Franco bread at 250 degrees C/20 min reduced FB1 to 57.4%. Boiling of macaroni and corn in water completely removed FB1 from contaminated samples. On the other side, corn flakes samples were found to be contaminated with aflatoxins B1 and G1 at levels ranging from 6 to 10 ppm, whereas 2.9% of samples were contaminated with aflatoxin B1 > 35 ppm and G1 > 16 ppm.     

Genotype x environment interaction for yield and somatic cell score with automatic and conventional milking systems

The objective of this study was to quantify genotype by environment interaction (G x E) between automatic milking systems (AMS) and conventional milking systems (CMS) for test-day milk, fat, and protein yield and for test-day somatic cell score (SCS) in The Netherlands. The G x E was studied in 2 ways: 1) between AMS farms and CMS farms in the same period and 2) within farms comparing the period before introduction of AMS with the period after introduction of AMS. For both sub-objectives, a separate data set was generated. Test-day records were used to be more flexible with respect to the introduction date of AMS. Multivariate, fixed regression, test-day sire models were used to estimate variance components. Genetic correlations between AMS farms and CMS farms in the same period were 0.93, >0.99, 0.98, and 0.79 for test-day milk yield, fat yield, protein yield, and SCS, respectively. Genetic correlations within farms between the period before and after introduction of AMS were lower for production traits and higher for SCS: 0.89, 0.91, 0.87, and >0.99, respectively, for test-day milk yield, fat yield, protein yield, and SCS. Heterogeneity of variance was observed between AMS and CMS in both data sets. Especially the residual variance increased with automatic milking. As a consequence, the heritability tended to be lower for automatic milking. It was concluded that effects of G x E are small between AMS and CMS. Therefore, AMS farms can select sires accurately based on national rankings.     

KPCA plus LDA: a complete kernel Fisher discriminant framework for feature extraction and recognition

This paper examines the theory of kernel Fisher discriminant analysis (KFD) in a Hilbert space and develops a two-phase KFD framework, i.e., kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) plus Fisher linear discriminant analysis (LDA). This framework provides novel insights into the nature of KFD. Based on this framework, the authors propose a complete kernel Fisher discriminant analysis (CKFD) algorithm. CKFD can be used to carry out discriminant analysis in "double discriminant subspaces." The fact that, it can make full use of two kinds of discriminant information, regular and irregular, makes CKFD a more powerful discriminator. The proposed algorithm was tested and evaluated using the FERET face database and the CENPARMI handwritten numeral database. The experimental results show that CKFD outperforms other KFD algorithms.     

Construction of a 3D model of nattokinase, a novel fibrinolytic enzyme from Bacillus natto. A novel nucleophilic catalytic mechanism for nattokinase

A three-dimensional structural model of nattokinase (NK) from Bacillus natto was constructed by homology modeling. High-resolution X-ray structures of Subtilisin BPN' (SB), Subtilisin Carlsberg (SC), Subtilisin E (SE) and Subtilisin Savinase (SS), four proteins with sequential, structural and functional homology were used as templates. Initial models of NK were built by MODELLER and analyzed by the PROCHECK programs. The best quality model was chosen for further refinement by constrained molecular dynamics simulations. The overall quality of the refined model was evaluated. The refined model NKC1 was analyzed by different protein analysis programs including PROCHECK for the evaluation of Ramachandran plot quality, PROSA for testing interaction energies and WHATIF for the calculation of packing quality. This structure was found to be satisfactory and also stable at room temperature as demonstrated by a 300ps long unconstrained molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Further docking analysis promoted the coming of a new nucleophilic catalytic mechanism for NK, which is induced by attacking of hydroxyl rich in catalytic environment and locating of S221.