Understanding and Designing the Gold–Bio Interface: Insights from Simulations

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are an integral part of many exciting and novel biomedical applications, sparking the urgent need for a thorough understanding of the physicochemical interactions occurring between these inorganic materials, their functional layers, and the biological species they interact with. Computational approaches are instrumental in providing the necessary molecular insight into the structural and dynamic behavior of the Au‐bio interface with spatial and temporal resolutions not yet achievable in the laboratory, and are able to facilitate a rational approach to AuNP design for specific applications. A perspective of the current successes and challenges associated with the multiscale computational treatment of Au‐bio interfacial systems, from electronic structure calculations to force field methods, is provided to illustrate the links between different approaches and their relationship to experiment and applications.     

Patterns-based evaluation of open source BPM systems: The cases of jBPM,OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark

In keeping with the proliferation of free software development initiatives and the increased interest in the business process management domain, many open source workflow and business process management systems have appeared during the last few years and are now under active development. This upsurge gives rise to two important questions: What are the capabilities of these systems? and How do they compare to each other and to their closed source counterparts? In other words: What is the state-of-the-art in the area?. To gain an insight into these questions, we have conducted an in-depth analysis of three of the major open source workflow management systems – jBPM, OpenWFE, and Enhydra Shark, the results of which are reported here. This analysis is based on the workflow patterns framework and provides a continuation of the series of evaluations performed using the same framework on closed source systems, business process modelling languages, and web-service composition standards. The results from evaluations of the three open source systems are compared with each other and also with the results from evaluations of three representative closed source systems: Staffware, WebSphere MQ, and Oracle BPEL PM. The overall conclusion is that open source systems are targeted more toward developers rather than business analysts. They generally provide less support for the patterns than closed source systems, particularly with respect to the resource perspective, i.e. the various ways in which work is distributed amongst business users and managed through to completion.     

MEMBERSHIP FUNCTIONS SHAPE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE STABILITY OF FUZZY CONTROL SYSTEMS

In the present paper the investigation of the influence of nonlinearities in membership functions shape on stability of the system linear object-nonlinear fuzzy logic controller is carried out by means of the second Lyapunov's method. The extension of the circle stability criterion for the transformed in the space of error and its derivative system is derived. Simulation investigations with a simple linear object that prove the obtained theoretical results are carried out.     

Subclass problem-dependent design for error-correcting output codes

A common way to model multi-class classification problems is by means of Error-Correcting Output Codes (ECOC). Given a multi-class problem, the ECOC technique designs a code word for each class, where each position of the code identifies the membership of the class for a given binary problem. A classification decision is obtained by assigning the label of the class with the closest code. One of the main requirements of the ECOC design is that the base classifier is capable of splitting each sub-group of classes from each binary problem. However, we can not guarantee that a linear classifier model convex regions. Furthermore, non-linear classifiers also fail to manage some type of surfaces. In this paper, we present a novel strategy to model multi-class classification problems using sub-class information in the ECOC framework. Complex problems are solved by splitting the original set of classes into sub-classes, and embedding the binary problems in a problem-dependent ECOC design. Experimental results show that the proposed splitting procedure yields a better performance when the class overlap or the distribution of the training objects conceil the decision boundaries for the base classifier. The results are even more significant when one has a sufficiently large training size.     

Possibility for the light stabilization of polycaproamide for fiber production

A considerable setback of polyamide fibers, especially polycaproamidefibers (PCAFs), is their low light resistance. This leads to changes in their appearance and their physicomechanical parameters under ambient atmosphere conditions and as a result of the effect of sunlight. This setback could be compensated to a certain extent by the introduction of suitable light stabilizers in the fiber mass. Depending on its efficiency, each light stabilizer is added at a concentration of 0.2–5% with respect to the mass of the polymer. We have investigated two possibilities for introducing the light stabilizer into the fiber mass. In the first one, the composition was finished immediately after the fiber spinning, and in the second one, polycaproamide granules were processed with a solution of light stabilizers before their melting. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 4921–4924, 2006     

Photographic Action of Ph(II)-EDTA

By turbidimetric and electron-microscopic methods the influence of Pb(II)-EDTA on the physical ripening of silver bromide and silver chloride emulsions, obtained in excess of halide or silver ions, was investigated. The effect of Pb(II)- EDTA on the photosensitivity, S, the contrast, and the maximum density, D_m, was also studied. The reagent was found to perform as an active sensitizer when introduced at a concentration of 2 × 10^-4 M prior to precipitation.

Investigations on hypersensitization were carried out by a known method for hypersensitization with Pb(II)-EDTA. It was also shown that Pb(II)-EDTA can be applied in practice as a hypersensitizer as well as a sensitizer.     

Automatic bifurcation detection in coronary IVUS sequences

In this paper, we present a fully automatic method which identifies every bifurcation in an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) sequence, the corresponding frames, the angular orientation with respect to the IVUS acquisition, and the extension. This goal is reached using a two-level classification scheme: first, a classifier is applied to a set of textural features extracted from each image of a sequence. A comparison among three state-of-the-art discriminative classifiers (AdaBoost, random forest, and support vector machine) is performed to identify the most suitable method for the branching detection task. Second, the results are improved by exploiting contextual information using a multiscale stacked sequential learning scheme. The results are then successively refined using a-priori information about branching dimensions and geometry. The proposed approach provides a robust tool for the quick review of pullback sequences, facilitating the evaluation of the lesion at bifurcation sites. The proposed method reaches an F-Measure score of 86.35%, while the F-Measure scores for inter- and intraobserver variability are 71.63% and 76.18%, respectively. The obtained results are positive. Especially, considering the branching detection task is very challenging, due to high variability in bifurcation dimensions and appearance.     

Thermal stability of Al-Ni-Fe-La aluminum amorphous alloys

The thermal stability of aluminum amorphous alloys with various contents of nickel, iron, and lanthanum is studied by differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction, and electron-microscopic analysis in the initial state and after heat and deformation treatment. The alloys are found to crystallize in two stages. The alloy with the maximum iron content (Al₈₅Ni₇Fe₄La₄) is shown to have the maximum thermal stability. Preliminary annealing at temperatures below the temperature of the onset of crystallization weakly affects this temperature. Preliminary severe plastic deformation increases the thermal stability of the alloys, which is caused by the existence of the first stage of crystallization during deformation. The structural aspects affecting the thermal stability of the alloys are considered.     

Surfactant Systems: A Survey of the Transcontinental Gas Pipeline from Houston to New Jersey

The Transcontinental Pipeline, Transco, is a 10,560-mile line that traverses the US, transporting natural gas from its source in the Gulf of Mexico to the East Coast. Petia Morozov describes the postwar engineering feat that made the pipeline a reality, and also reveals the web of myriad agreements, with often diametrically opposed parties or interests, that support its rights of way and management. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.