On the mechanism of porosity formation during welding of titanium alloys

The mechanism of porosity formation during the fusion welding of titanium and its alloys is studied. Porosity formed during the electron beam welding of titanium is characterized using high-resolution X-ray tomography, residual gas analysis and metallographic sectioning; the results confirm that porosity formation is associated with evolution of gas, especially hydrogen. A model for hydrogen diffusion-controlled bubble growth is proposed, to aid in the interpretation of these findings. To investigate further the effect of hydrogen on porosity formation, hydrogen charging is used to achieve different hydrogen levels prior to welding. The results confirm that porosity can be suppressed even at every high hydrogen levels, when welding is carried out with optimized welding parameters and perfect joint alignment; on the other hand, porosity is exacerbated when a small beam offset is employed. This is because any beam offset alters the size of the liquid zone at the melting front, where the joint edges first become melted. It is proposed that the thickness of the liquid film at the melting front is crucial for bubble nucleation and bubble survival in the weld pool; bubbles can escape through the keyhole by breaking through this liquid film, when it is too thin. This challenges the common assumption of bubble escape by flotation to the weld pool surface. Thus the nucleation rate in the liquid zone at the melting front determines the likelihood of porosity occurring. This suggests that the beam offset is likely to be one factor influencing porosity formation in these circumstances. The paper provides fundamental insights into the mechanism of porosity formation during the welding of titanium alloys and guidance to aid in its elimination.     

Effect of Operating Parameters on the Dewatering Performance of Press Filters: A Sensitivity Analysis

To optimize the press filters commonly used to dewater residual sludge, the impact of the operating parameters must be better understood. The objectives of this article are (1) to identify the impact of the operating parameters on press filter performances and (2) to classify the operating parameters regarding their impact on dewatering performances. Experiments were performed with conditioned activated sludge in a tangential filtration cell, and a sensitivity analysis of the process was performed. This study emphasizes that cake thickness and filtration pressure have the most significant impacts on dewatering efficiency. These results suggest a promising outlook for press-filter optimization.     

Detection, characterization, and screening of heme-binding molecules by mass spectrometry for malaria drug discovery

Drug screening for antimalarials uses heme biocrystallization inhibition methods as an alternative to parasite cultures, but they involve complex processes and cannot detect artemisinin-like molecules. The described method detects heme-binding compounds by mass spectrometry, using dissociation of the drug-heme adducts to evaluate putative antiplasmodial activity. Applied to a chemical library, it showed a good hit-to-lead ratio and is an efficient early stage screening for complex mixtures like natural extracts.     

Characterization of Liquid Resin Infusion (LRI) filling by fringe pattern projection and in situ thermocouples

Prepregs are not alone suited to the manufacturing of new types of aircraft structural parts that tend to be thicker and have more complex shapes. Direct processes called Liquid Composites Moulding (LCM), like Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) or Resin Infusion Process (LRI: Liquid Resin Infusion, RFI: Resin Film Infusion) are now available. Particular attention is paid here to LRI process that looks very promising. In order to optimize both the design and manufacturing parameters in LRI processes, a general model to analyze the isothermal fluid flow through highly compressible porous media such as fibrous preforms has been recently proposed [1], [2], [3]. To validate the model and to improve the knowledge of the LRI process, an experimental approach is proposed. Two different measurement techniques, micro-thermocouple sensors and fringe projection technique, have been used to characterize the process. It appears that results derived from both techniques are in agreement and support the assumption that the resin flow occurs mainly transversely to the preform plane.     

Extraction of spots in biological images using multiscale products

We present a new method to detect and count bright spots in fluorescence images coming from biological immunomicroscopy experiments. It is based on the multiscale product of subband images resulting from the à trous wavelet transform decomposition of the original image, after thresholding of non-significant coefficients. The multiscale correlation of the filtered wavelet coefficients, which allows to enhance multiscale peaks due to spots while reducing noise, combines information coming from different levels of resolution and gives a clear and distinctive chacterization of the spots. Results are presented for the analysis of typical immunofluorescence images.     

Antiviral Effects of ABMA and DABMA against Influenza Virus In Vitro and In Vivo via Regulating the Endolysosomal Pathway and Autophagy

Influenza virus is an acute and highly contagious respiratory pathogen that causes great concern to public health and for which there is a need for extensive drug discovery. The small chemical compound ABMA and its analog DABMA, containing an adamantane or a dimethyl-adamantane group, respectively, have been demonstrated to inhibit multiple toxins (diphtheria toxin, Clostridium difficile toxin B, Clostridium sordellii lethal toxin) and viruses (Ebola, rabies virus, HSV-2) by acting on the host’s vesicle trafficking. Here, we showed that ABMA and DABMA have antiviral effects against both amantadine-sensitive influenza virus subtypes (H1N1 and H3N2), amantadine-resistant subtypes (H3N2), and influenza B virus with EC₅₀ values ranging from 2.83 to 7.36 µM (ABMA) and 1.82 to 6.73 µM (DABMA), respectively. ABMA and DABMA inhibited the replication of influenza virus genomic RNA and protein synthesis by interfering with the entry stage of the virus. Molecular docking evaluation together with activity against amantadine-resistant influenza virus strains suggested that ABMA and DABMA were not acting as M2 ion channel blockers. Subsequently, we found that early internalized H1N1 virions were retained in accumulated late endosome compartments after ABMA treatment. Additionally, ABMA disrupted the early stages of the H1N1 life cycle or viral RNA synthesis by interfering with autophagy. ABMA and DABMA protected mice from an intranasal H1N1 challenge with an improved survival rate of 67%. The present study suggests that ABMA and DABMA are potential antiviral leads for the development of a host-directed treatment against influenza virus infection.     

Heterolytic activation of hydrogen gas: New evidence for Spencer–Yu hypothesis!

Hydrogenolysis or deuterogenolysis of organolithium compounds is described for the first time under heterogeneous catalysis. This work establishes that the carbon–lithium bond can undergo a facile reduction reaction when catalyzed by palladium or platinum catalysts and provides strong evidence for the existence of Pd^δ−–H^δ+ species.     

Analyse et conception de filtre passe-bande en guide nervuré par l’approche variationnelle

A multimodal variational approach is presented for the characterization of various uni-axial discontinuities in homogeneous waveguide. A study is carried out on the ridged waveguide discontinuities, and the results have been used for the optimized design of a bandpass filter. The introduction of the notion of coupled and uncoupled modes allows reduction of the order of the matrices handled in the numerical calculation and facilitates the use of the optimization process. The theoretical results are in good agreement with measured data.