The digital transformation of management consulting companies: a review

Information Systems and e-Business Management - Management consulting (MC), as a knowledge-based industry, is regarded as fertile ground for digital transformation (DT). However, the changes that...     

Crystalline ytterbium disilicate environmental barrier coatings made by high velocity oxygen fuel spraying

Dense environmental barrier coatings (EBCs) are an essential prerequisite to exploit the advantages offered by SiC-based fiber reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) to increase efficiency in gas turbines. Today's state-of-the art materials for application as EBCs are rare-earth (RE) silicates which, however, form amorphous phases upon rapid quenching from the melt. This makes their processing by thermal spray a challenge. Recently, high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) spraying was proposed as potential solution since the melting degree of the feedstock can be controlled effectively. This work studies the deposition of ytterbium disilicate (YbDS) at short stand-off distances and variant total feed rates and oxy-fuel ratios of the working gas. It was found that the overall degree of crystallinity could be kept at high level above 90%. The kinetic energy transferred by impinging particles was found to be an effective parameter to control the densification of the coatings. Porosities well below 10% were achieved while fully dense coatings were impeded due to the progressive accumulation of stresses in the coatings.     

Comparison of numerical and computational aspects between two constraint-based contact methods in the description of wheel/rail contacts

Multibody System Dynamics - The numerical and computation aspects of the Knife-edge Equivalent Contact (KEC) constraint and lookup table (LUT) methods are compared in this paper. The LUT method...     

BION-2: Predicting Positions of Non-Specifically Bound Ions on Protein Surface by a Gaussian-Based Treatment of Electrostatics

Ions play significant roles in biological processes—they may specifically bind to a protein site or bind non-specifically on its surface. Although the role of specifically bound ions ranges from actively providing structural compactness via coordination of charge–charge interactions to numerous enzymatic activities, non-specifically surface-bound ions are also crucial to maintaining a protein’s stability, responding to pH and ion concentration changes, and contributing to other biological processes. However, the experimental determination of the positions of non-specifically bound ions is not trivial, since they may have a low residential time and experience significant thermal fluctuation of their positions. Here, we report a new release of a computational method, the BION-2 method, that predicts the positions of non-specifically surface-bound ions. The BION-2 utilizes the Gaussian-based treatment of ions within the framework of the modified Poisson–Boltzmann equation, which does not require a sharp boundary between the protein and water phase. Thus, the predictions are done by the balance of the energy of interaction between the protein charges and the corresponding ions and the de-solvation penalty of the ions as they approach the protein. The BION-2 is tested against experimentally determined ion’s positions and it is demonstrated that it outperforms the old BION and other available tools.     

Rounding Out the Understanding of ACD Toxicity with the Discovery of Cyclic Forms of Actin Oligomers

Actin is an essential element of both innate and adaptive immune systems and can aid in motility and translocation of bacterial pathogens, making it an attractive target for bacterial toxins. Pathogenic Vibrio and Aeromonas genera deliver actin cross-linking domain (ACD) toxin into the cytoplasm of the host cell to poison actin regulation and promptly induce cell rounding. At early stages of toxicity, ACD covalently cross-links actin monomers into oligomers (AOs) that bind through multivalent interactions and potently inhibit several families of actin assembly proteins. At advanced toxicity stages, we found that the terminal protomers of linear AOs can get linked together by ACD to produce cyclic AOs. When tested against formins and Ena/VASP, linear and cyclic AOs exhibit similar inhibitory potential, which for the cyclic AOs is reduced in the presence of profilin. In coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, profilin and WH2-motif binding sites on actin subunits remain exposed in modeled AOs of both geometries. We speculate, therefore, that the reduced toxicity of cyclic AOs is due to their reduced configurational entropy. A characteristic feature of cyclic AOs is that, in contrast to the linear forms, they cannot be straightened to form filaments (e.g., through stabilization by cofilin), which makes them less susceptible to neutralization by the host cell.     

The digital transformation of management consulting companies: a qualitative comparative analysis of Romanian industry

Information Systems and e-Business Management - Digital transformation affects all industries. This study targets how management consulting companies address this phenomenon. Based on a survey of...     

A Palladium‐Catalyzed Carbonylative–Deacetylative Sequence to 1,3‐Keto Amides

An efficient three‐component reaction involving carbon monoxide with a range of aryl bromides and N‐substituted acetoacetamides is reported for the synthesis of β‐keto amides. This transformation is promoted by Pd‐catalysis followed by an acid‐mediated deacetylation upon work‐up, enabling a large number of β‐keto amides to be isolated. Finally, d₂‐¹³C‐dyclonine could be synthesized in three steps utilizing the developed catalytic system as the key step.