Trifluoperazine increases fatty acid turnover in phospholipids in cultured human fibroblasts

A 24-hr pretreatment of cultured human fibroblasts with trifluoperazine induced a marked increase in incorporation of saturated (stearic, palmitic) and unsaturated (oleic, arachidonic) fatty acids into phospholipids (1.5- to 2-fold for 5.10⁻⁵ M trifluoperazine). Concomitantly, incorporation into cholesteryl esters was strongly inhibited (20% of control for 5.10⁻⁵ M trifluoperazine). The drug did not change the phospholipid composition of treated cells. The effect of trifluoperazine on oleic acid incorporation into phospholipids was time-dependent and reached a maximum after a six-hr preincubation with the drug. Trifluoperazine also induced an increase in the rate of chase of oleic acid from the different phospholipid classes. In vitro preincubation of cell-free extracts with trifluoperazine resulted in activation of phospholipid acyltransferases, whereas cholesterol acyltransferase activity was decreased. The rapid effect of trifluoperazine together with its effect on a cell-free system suggests a direct action of this amphiphilic drug on the acyltransferase activities, probably by modification of the structural organization of cellular membranes.     

Sesame seed as an alternative plant protein source: A comprehensive physicochemical characterisation study for alkaline,salt and enzyme-assisted extracted samples

Sesame seed is mostly utilised for its oil but also the waste of the oil processing; the seed meal has also significant potential to be used as an alternative protein source. In this study, the goal is to produce sesame seed protein by using three different techniques; alkaline, salt and enzyme-assisted extraction. A comprehensive physicochemical characterisation of the extracts was performed. Total and soluble protein contents, emulsification activity & emulsion stability, FTIR spectroscopy, hydration behaviour and gelling ability experiments by TD-NMR were conducted for all extracted proteins. Also, SDS-PAGE experiments were performed to observe the effect of extraction conditions on protein folding. Overall, the aqueous phase of enzyme-assisted extracted proteins (E-ACP) had the highest protein content and solubility, which resulted in other improved physicochemical properties. Salt extracted samples were ‘salted-out’, therefore, had poor physicochemical properties. TD-NMR experiments further confirmed the solubility and gelling ability results by measuring the change in the T₂ spin relaxation times. Additionally, FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the most critical peaks for the proteins; Amide I (C=O stretching) and Amide II (N–H bending). In summary, depending on the physicochemical property of interest, different extraction methods yielded proteins with different properties.     

Thermal characteristics of a volumetric solar absorption system

Solar volumetric heating is one of the alternative clean energy applications, and the improvement of thermal storage capacity of the system is necessary for the efficient applications. Consequently, volumetric solar absorption flow system incorporating the absorber plate in the channel was investigated for different Reynolds numbers and solar concentrations. The influence of the location of the absorbing plate on the heat transfer and hydrodynamic losses was also examined in the channel. In order to increase the thermal storage capacity of the working fluid, phase change materials of 7% concentration was incorporated in the analysis. Lauric acid was used as phase change materials, and water was considered as the carrier fluid in the channel. The performance and pump power loss parameters were introduced to assess the thermal performance of the volumetric solar absorption system. It is found that the performance parameter attained the highest value for the absorber plate location at the top of the channel, which was about 10% higher than those corresponding to the other locations. This was more pronounced with increasing Reynolds number and solar concentration. The pump power loss parameter was the highest for the absorber plate location at the mid‐height of the channel. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Configuration of segmented leg for the enhanced performance of segmented thermoelectric generator

Thermal analysis of a segmented thermoelectric generator is performed, and the segmented leg configurations maximizing the efficiency and the output power are formulated. The effect of operating conditions such as external load resistance, the temperatures of hot and cold junctions, on the device performance is studied. The segmented thermoelectric generator has the leg configuration consisting of the combination of modified lead telluride and modified bismuth telluride. The segmented thermoelectric generator performance, such as device efficiency and output power, is compared with those corresponding to a single material leg configuration (modified lead telluride or modified bismuth telluride) for various operating conditions. It is found that a unique value of the segmented leg combination maximizes the efficiency and the output power for each operating condition. The variation in the operating conditions changed the locus points of the maximum efficiency and the maximum output power. The segmented thermoelectric generator gives rise to the higher device efficiency and the output power than those of the single material leg configuration, especially for the low external load resistance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ferromagnetic Behavior of Fe+ Implanted Si(100) Semiconductor

Fe ions have been implanted into Si (100) single crystals using ion implantation technique. The Fe ions have been accelerated to 45 keV with a dose of 5×10¹⁷ ion/cm² at room temperature. The ions have been sent to the substrate??s surface at normal incidence. The temperature dependence of magnetization measurement was explored at the temperature range of 10?C300 K. The implanted Si substrate was studied with Ferromagnetic Resonance (FMR) technique and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM). The FMR spectra were recorded by applying external magnetic field in different experimental geometries. FMR spectra were analyzed and the magnetic properties, which are the g-factor, effective magnetization and uniaxial anisotropy parameter, were estimated by simulation of the experimental data. The sample showed two-fold magnetic anisotropic symmetry. By fitting the Si-2p region obtained through XPS measurements it is observed that Fe and Fe compounds are present in the material.     

A novel feature ranking algorithm for text classification: Brilliant probabilistic feature selector (BPFS)

Text classification (TC) is a very crucial task in this century of high-volume text datasets. Feature selection (FS) is one of the most important stages in TC studies. In the literature, numerous feature selection methods are recommended for TC. In the TC domain, filter-based FS methods are commonly utilized to select a more informative feature subsets. Each method uses a scoring system that is based on its algorithm to order the features. The classification process is then carried out by choosing the top-N features. However, each method's feature order is distinct from the others. Each method selects by giving the qualities that are critical to its algorithm a high score, but it does not select by giving the features that are unimportant a low value. In this paper, we proposed a novel filter-based FS method namely, brilliant probabilistic feature selector (BPFS), to assign a fair score and select informative features. While the BPFS method selects unique features, it also aims to select sparse features by assigning higher scores than common features. Extensive experimental studies using three effective classifiers decision tree (DT), support vector machines (SVM), and multinomial naive bayes (MNB) on four widely used datasets named Reuters-21,578, 20Newsgroup, Enron1, and Polarity with different characteristics demonstrate the success of the BPFS method. For feature dimensions, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 dimensions were used. The experimental results on different benchmark datasets show that the BPFS method is more successful than the well-known and recent FS methods according to Micro-F1 and Macro-F1 scores.     

Solar energy harvesting and self-cleaning of surfaces by an impacting water droplet

The self-cleaning of surfaces via impacting water droplets is examined pertinent to solar energy applications. The mechanism of spreading and retraction of the impacting droplet onto the dust and cleaned hydrophobic surfaces is considered in the analysis. The spreading factor of the impacting droplet is formulated incorporating the energy balance on the hydrophobic surface. High-speed photography is used to monitor the impacting droplet behavior. The functionalized silica particles coating is introduced towards generating hydrophobic wetting state on the glass surfaces. Environmental dust particles are characterized prior to self-cleaning impacting tests. It is found that spreading rate predicted for the impacting droplet agrees well with that obtained from the experiments. The droplet Weber number incorporated in the experiments does not result in droplet breaking on the surface upon impacting. The dusts are dissimilar in shapes and consist of several elements. Impacting droplet gives rise to cloaking of the dust on the surface during spreading and retraction. Almost all the dusts are removed from the surface through the impacting droplets; however, few dust residues are left on the impacting surface, which cover only 0.03% of the total surface area. Hence, we have demonstrated that self-cleaning of a surface can be achieved by an impacting droplet for renewable energy applications.     

Structural and Magnetic Properties of Cobalt(II) Complexes of Triphenylphosphine

This work is related to the structural and magnetic properties of the Co(PPh₃)Cl₂ metal complex for different sintering times. The structural and physical properties of the complex have been studied by using SEM, EDX, and magnetization techniques. SEM results clearly demonstrate that the grains of the complex are very well connected to each other and tightly packed. Magnetization measurements with respect to magnetic field and temperature show a paramagnetic behavior above 20 K for the all samples. Furthermore, the susceptibility (χ) as a function of temperature indicates a paramagnetic-antiferromagnetic phase transition with a negative value of the Curie–Weiss temperature, θ. In addition, increasing sintering time appears to also enhance the effective magnetic moment, μ _eff.     

Hydrolysis,polycondensation, and catalytic properties of Ru(II) complex of 3‐4,5‐dihydroimidazol‐1‐yl‐propyltriethoxysilane

The preparation and measurements of some properties of organic–inorganic hybrid materials derived from Ru(II)‐3‐4,5‐dihyroimidazol‐1‐yl‐propyltriethoxysilane inside a polysiloxane network have been achieved. The hydrolysis and polycondensation of Ru(II)‐3‐4,5‐dihyroimidazol‐1‐yl‐propyltriethoxysilane were performed in different experimental conditions, producing a new organic–inorganic silica. The alkoxysilyl groups available were used for the construction of inorganic backbone by the sol‐gel process, and the imidazole group was found suitable for incorporating Ru(II) by coordination. The coordination of metal complex is retained because there is no leaching from the metal complex containing gels. To ensure sufficient catalytic properties, a series of hybrid materials from tetraethoxysilane was prepared. These materials were identified and catalytic activities were tested for cyclization of (Z)‐3‐methylpent‐2‐en‐4‐yn‐1‐ol to 2,3‐dimethylfuran. Heterogeneous Ru(II) catalyst can also be recycled and reused without significant loss of selectivity or activity. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 80: 1329–1334, 2001     

Immobilization of invertase in conducting polypyrrole/PMMA‐co‐PMTM graft copolymers

In this study, invertase was immobilized in copolymer electrodes constructed. Three different types of polymethyl methacrylate‐co‐polymethyl thienyl methacrylate matrices were used to obtain copolymers that were characterized by FT‐IR spectroscopy. Immobilization of enzymes was carried out by the entrapment of the enzyme in conducting polymer matrices during electrochemical polymerization of pyrrole through thiophene moieties of polymers. Immobilization of the enzyme was achieved by application of 1.0 V constant potential on a platinum electrode for 30 min in solution. The effects of temperature and pH on the activity of the enzyme electrodes were examined and operational stability studies were done. The changes in the maximum reaction rate and the variations in the Michaelis–Menten constant were studied. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 502–507, 2005