Effect of nonprotein polymers on water‐uptake properties of fish protein‐based hydrogel

The effects of nonprotein polymers on the water‐swelling properties of fish protein‐based hydrogel were studied. Inclusion of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), or guar gum at a 2.5% (w/w) level in an 80% ethylenediaminetetraacetic dianhydide (EDTAD)‐modified fish protein hydrogel (10% monomer concentration) significantly decreased the extent of water uptake of the hydrogel. Among these polymers, PVA exhibited the greatest inhibitory effect. The inhibitory effect of these polymers on the water uptake of fish protein hydrogel was apparently due to the thermodynamic incompatibility of these polymers with the fish protein gel network and the consequent effect on the extent of relaxation of the crosslinked polypeptide network. In contrast, inclusion of 60% EDTAD‐modified soy protein up to a level of 40% of the total protein in the gel did not affect the extent of the equilibrium water uptake of the gel. At higher levels, however, soy protein also decreased the amount of water uptake by the gel. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 85: 45–51, 2002     

Grafting of methyl methacrylate to nitrocellulose by ceric ions

Studies were carried out on grafting of various vinyl monomers to nitrocellulose by ceric ions. It was observed that graft copolymerization occurred only with methyl methacrylate (MMA) and methyl acrylate monomer. The variables such as initiator concentration, monomer concentration, time of grafting, and nitrocellulose content on grafting of MMA are discussed. By hydrolyzing away the nitrocellulose backbone, the grafted poly(methyl methacrylate) branches were isolated and the >c?o peak at 1740 cm^?1 in the infrared spectra of these isolated branches gave definite evidence of grafting. The molecular weight of isolated branches has been determined by viscometry. The probable mechanism of grafting may be at the α-carbon atom of primary alcohol or at a C₂-C₃ glycol group of the anhydro glucose unit or at the hemiacetal group of the end unit of nitrocellulose, as nitrocellulose is formed by the partial nitration of cotton cellulose.     

Effects of ring substituents on the protective properties of self-assembled benzenethiols on copper

The self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of a series of substituted benzenethiol (BT) molecules, X-C₆H₄-SH (where X = meta-NH₂, ortho-NH₂, para-NH₂, para-NHCOCH₃, para-F, para-CH₃ and para-CH(CH₃)₂), have been prepared by adsorption from a solution onto a fresh copper (Cu) surface pretreated by a nitric acid etch. The corrosion inhibition efficiency of the modified Cu surfaces in a sulfuric acid solution was investigated by electrochemical characterization. The protection afforded by the substituted functional groups on BT is strongly influenced by the type and the position of the substituent on the benzene ring. BT molecules without any substituent group on the ring are ineffective corrosion inhibitors, indicating that the chemical configuration is the key factor in determining the efficacy of the SAMs as barriers to electrochemically corrosive ions. It is further proposed that the steric hindrance offered by the substituted group in the SAMs plays a very important role in determining its barrier properties.     

Sulfidation behavior of Fe-25Cr-20Ni-1.5Al2O3 in simulated coal combustion/gasification environments

The effect of minor addition of -Al₂O₃ dispersoids on the sulfidation behavior of Fe-25Cr-20Ni was investigated over a range of pO₂, 1.13×10^–20 to 1.18×10 ****^–22 atm. at constant pS₂=1.22×10^–8 atm. Fe-25Cr-20Ni and Fe-25Cr-20Ni 1.5 Al₂O₃ with and without preformed oxide scales were exposed to bioxidant gas mixtures H₂/H₂O/H₂S/Ar at 700° C. Both isothermal and cyclic exposures were included. Scales were characterized by a combination of several surface analytical tools. A remarkable improvement in sulfidation resistance is observed in Fe-25Cr-20Ni-1.5Al₂O₃ under the conditions investigated here. This is attributed to the ability of the alloy to form and maintain a predominantly Cr₂O₃ scale with reduced Fe-diffusion and content. Possible scientific reasons for such improvement are discussed. The base alloy, Fe-25Cr-20Ni, fails to develop and retain such a Cr₂O₃ scale and undergoes sulfidation within a few minutes of exposure. The scale breakdown process by sulfidation is explained qualitatively. Experimental evidence suggests that sulfur in the environment enhances Fe-diffusion and content in the scale.     

Mobile service oriented architectures for NN-queries

The ever-increasing number of mobile device users has also raised the users’ expectation of mobile services accordingly. This phenomenon has given pressures to the mobile service providers to improve their services in order to stay competitive in the market. The service oriented approach is seen to be a promising scheme for mobile services. This paper presents mobile service oriented architectures for Nearest-Neighbor (NN) queries that are classified into five categories, namely (i) intermittent query mobile services, (ii) continuous query mobile services, (iii) context-aware mobile services, (iv) continuous moving object query mobile services, and (v) data broadcast mobile services. These services incorporate query, location and context-aware services, ontological context model, and broadcast. The proposed architectures are concerned with mobile services for clients on the move requesting services based on their current location, which is arguably the most important feature in a wireless environment. Furthermore, we also discuss the Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirement for mobile services in which request latency time is one of the most important parameters to consider. Some analytical models for query latency measurement are presented and the results are compared with the simulation experiments.     

Characterizing the cross-sectional geometry of thin,non-cylindrical,twisted fibres (spider silk)

Quantitative tensile property evaluation of fibres requires accurate cross-sectional area measurement at a location close to the point of failure. Laser diffraction was evaluated as a non-destructive technique for characterizing the cross-sectional geometry of translucent, non-cylindrical, and/or twisted fibres with thicknesses in the range 2–5 m. Forcibly silked major ampullate fibres from Nephila clavipes spiders were used as specimens. Scanning electron microscopy was used to calibrate the extent to which laser diffraction over- or under-estimates fibre diameter. For the purpose of area measurement, elliptical or oval cross-sections can be treated as though they were circular. We demonstrate mathematically that the area can be obtained to within a few per cent of the true value, if (a) the circle is assigned an equivalent diameter equal to the average of at least four measurements of apparent diameter, (b) the apparent diameter measurements are taken at equal intervals of fibre rotation through a 180° range, and (c) the axial ratio of the cross-section is less than 1.5. The extent to which a non-cylindrical fibre is twisted can be deduced from the periodicity of bright and dark regions that alternate along the length of the fibre in reflected light. Values of cross-sectional ellipticity and area measured from a twisted fibre were smaller than the corresponding values obtained from a twist-free fibre. The apparent diameter of twist-free major ampullate fibre was found to be highly variable-by as much as ±20% relative to the mean within a 0.6 mm length. Therefore, local measurements of area, rather than a value derived from fibre denier, should be used in tensile property evaluation of this material.     

Improved authentication and computation of medical data transmission in the secure IoT using hyperelliptic curve cryptography

The Journal of Supercomputing - Data transmission is a great challenge in any network environment. However, medical data collected from IoT devices need to be transmitted at high speed to ensure...     

Serum from diabetic BB/W rats enhances calcium currents in primary sensory neurons

We examined the hypothesis that exposure of nondiabetic rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons to sera from diabetic BB/W rats would produce an increase in calcium currents associated with impaired regulation of the inhibitory G protein-calcium channel complex. Acutely dissociated rat DRGs were incubated for 18-24 h in medium supplemented with sera (10% vol/vol) from either diabetic rats with neuropathy or age-matched, nondiabetic controls. Exposure of DRG neurons to sera from diabetic BB/W rats resulted in a surface membrane immunofluorescence pattern when treated with an anti-rat light-chain antibody that was not observed in neurons exposed to control sera. Calcium current density (IDCa) was assessed with the use of the whole cell variation of the patch-clamp technique. IDCa in neurons exposed to diabetic sera was significantly increased compared with neurons exposed to control sera. Guanine nucleotide-binding (G) protein regulation of calcium channel function was examined with the use of a two-pulse "facilitation" or IDCa enhancement protocol in the presence of activators [guanosine 5'-O-(3-thiotriphosphate) (GTP gamma S)] or antagonists [guanosine 5'-O-(2-thiodiphosphate) (GDP beta S) and pertussis toxin (PTX)] of G protein function. Facilitation was significantly decreased in neurons exposed to diabetic sera. Intracellular diffusion of neurons with GDP beta s blocked facilitation, whereas dialysis with GTP gamma s increased facilitation to a similar magnitude in neurons exposed to either diabetic or control sera. Treatment with PTX resulted in a significant increase in IDCa and approximately 50% decrease in facilitation in neurons treated with control sera but no significant changes in neurons exposed to diabetic sera. We conclude that serum from diabetic BB/W rats with neuropathy contains an autoimmune immunoglobulin that impairs regulation of the inhibitory G protein-calcium channel complex, resulting in enhanced calcium influx. Regulation of the inhibitory G protein-calcium channel complex involves PTX-sensitive and -insensitive G proteins.     

Scheduling on Unrelated Machines under Tree-Like Precedence Constraints

We present polylogarithmic approximations for the R|prec|C _max and R|prec|∑ _j w _j C _j problems, when the precedence constraints are “treelike”—i.e., when the undirected graph underlying the precedences is a forest. These are the first non-trivial generalizations of the job shop scheduling problem to scheduling with precedence constraints that are not just chains. These are also the first non-trivial results for the weighted completion time objective on unrelated machines with precedence constraints of any kind. We obtain improved bounds for the weighted completion time and flow time for the case of chains with restricted assignment—this generalizes the job shop problem to these objective functions. We use the same lower bound of “congestion + dilation”, as in other job shop scheduling approaches (e.g. Shmoys, Stein and Wein, SIAM J. Comput. 23, 617–632, 1994). The first step in our algorithm for the R|prec|C _max problem with treelike precedences involves using the algorithm of Lenstra, Shmoys and Tardos to obtain a processor assignment with the congestion + dilation value within a constant factor of the optimal. We then show how to generalize the random-delays technique of Leighton, Maggs and Rao to the case of trees. For the special case of chains, we show a dependent rounding technique which leads to a bicriteria approximation algorithm for minimizing the flow time, a notoriously hard objective function. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proc. International Workshop on Approximation Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimization Problems (APPROX), pages 146–157, 2005. V.S. Anil Kumar supported in part by NSF Award CNS-0626964. Part of this work was done while at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and supported in part by the Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-36. M.V. Marathe supported in part by NSF Award CNS-0626964. Part of this work was done while at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and supported in part by the Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-36. Part of this work by S. Parthasarathy was done while at the Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, and in part while visiting the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Research supported in part by NSF Award CCR-0208005 and NSF ITR Award CNS-0426683. Research of A. Srinivasan supported in part by NSF Award CCR-0208005, NSF ITR Award CNS-0426683, and NSF Award CNS-0626636.