Neuroscience bridging scientific disciplines in health: Who builds the bridge,who pays for it?

Scientometrics - The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamics of cross-disciplinary research in health-related fields as affected by individual and institutional factors. We examine the...     

Assessment of in situ butanol recovery by vacuum during acetone butanol ethanol (ABE) fermentation

BACKGROUND: Butanol fermentation is product limiting owing to butanol toxicity to microbial cells. Butanol (boiling point: 118 °C) boils at a higher temperature than water (boiling point: 100 °C) and application of vacuum technology to integrated acetone–butanol–ethanol (ABE) fermentation and recovery may have been ignored because of direct comparison of boiling points of water and butanol. This research investigated simultaneous ABE fermentation using Clostridium beijerinckii 8052 and in situ butanol recovery by vacuum. To facilitate ABE mass transfer and recovery at fermentation temperature, batch fermentation was conducted in triplicate at 35 °C in a 14 L bioreactor connected in series with a condensation system and vacuum pump. RESULTS: Concentration of ABE in the recovered stream was greater than that in the fermentation broth (from 15.7 g L^?1 up to 33 g L^?1). Integration of the vacuum with the bioreactor resulted in enhanced ABE productivity by 100% and complete utilization of glucose as opposed to a significant amount of residual glucose in the control batch fermentation. CONCLUSION: This research demonstrated that vacuum fermentation technology can be used for in situ butanol recovery during ABE fermentation and that C. beijerinckii 8052 can tolerate vacuum conditions, with no negative effect on cell growth and ABE production. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Coating of macroemulsion and microemulsion silicones on poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers: Evaluation of the thermal properties and flammability

Silicone softeners are widely used in the textile industry to improve the soft handling and aesthetic feel of textiles. These compounds can influence the thermal characteristics and flammability of polyester fabrics, which need to be addressed as important issues of human safety. To do this, the thermal degradation and flammability of macroemulsion and microemulsion silicone coated polyester fibers were studied with various analytical techniques, namely, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, dynamical mechanical thermal analysis, and limited oxygen index testing. It has been stated that the electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions of silicone emulsions with polyester can affect their thermal stability. On the other hand, the silicone emulsions present on the surface of poly(ethylene terephthalate) provide a three-dimensional scaffold, which produces faster combustion than pyrolysis. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

A GRASP algorithm for the Closest String Problem using a probability-based heuristic

The Closest String Problem (CSP) is the problem of finding a string whose Hamming distance from the members of a given set of strings of the same length is minimal. It has applications, among others, in bioinformatics and in coding theory. Several approximation and (meta)heuristic algorithms have been proposed for the problem to achieve ‘good’ but not necessarily optimal solutions within a reasonable time. In this paper, a new algorithm for the problem is proposed, based on a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) and a novel probabilistic heuristic function. The algorithm is compared with three recently proposed algorithms for CSP, outperforming all of them by achieving solutions of higher quality within a few seconds in most of the experimental cases.     

Accelerometer-based on-body sensor localization for health and medical monitoring applications

In this paper, we present a technique to recognize the position of sensors on the human body. Automatic on-body device localization ensures correctness and accuracy of measurements in health and medical monitoring systems. In addition, it provides opportunities to improve the performance and usability of ubiquitous devices. Our technique uses accelerometers to capture motion data to estimate the location of the device on the user's body, using mixed supervised and unsupervised time series analysis methods. We have evaluated our technique with extensive experiments on 25 subjects. On average, our technique achieves 89% accuracy in estimating the location of devices on the body. In order to study the feasibility of classification of left limbs from right limbs (e.g., left arm vs. right arm), we performed analysis, based of which no meaningful classification was observed. Personalized ultraviolet monitoring and wireless transmission power control comprise two immediate applications of our on-body device localization approach. Such applications, along with their corresponding feasibility studies, are discussed.     

Synthesis of soluble N‐functionalized polysaccharide derivatives using phenyl carbonate precursor and their application as catalysts

Soluble N‐functionalized basic and cationic polysaccharides have been synthesized using polysaccharide phenyl carbonate as a precursor. The products and intermediates were thoroughly characterized by conventional methods. The quaternization of amino intermediates in various conditions was studied. Moreover, the potential of basic polymers as green and selective catalysts in Knoevenagel reaction was investigated. In all cases, only one isomer was obtained.