FA composition and regiospecific analysis of Acer saccharum (sugar maple tree) and Acer saccharinum (silver maple tree) seed oils

GC analysis was performed to determine regiospecific distribution and FA composition in seed oils of the Aceraceae species, Acer saccharum and A. saccharinum. The oil content in the seeds was low at 5.0% in A. saccharum and 5.8% in A. saccharinum, and the main FA were linoleic (30.8 and 29.4%), oleic (21.3 and 27.6%), palmitic (10.1 and 10.5%), and cis-vaccenic (9.4 and 7.9%) acids, respectively. In addition, both oils contained long-chain monoenes of the n−9 and n−7 groups, including 11-eicosenoic, 13-docosenoic, 15-tetracosenoic, 13-eicosenoic, and 15-docosenoic acids, whereas γ-linolenic acid accounted for 0.8% of total FA in A. saccharum, and 0.5% in A. saccharinum. Regiospecific analysis, performed using the methodology of dibutyroyl derivatives of MAG, indicated that linoleic, oleic, and linolenic acids were mainly esterified at the internal position of TAG in both seed oils, whereas long-chain monoenes of the n−7 group were almost exclusively esterified on the external positions.     

On Efficiency of Multi-job Grid Allocation Based on Statistical Trace Data

The ever growing number of computation-intensive applications calls for utilizing large-scale, potentially interoperable distributed infrastructures. Nowadays, such distributed systems enable the management of heterogeneous scientific workflows of considerable sizes, where job scheduling and resource management is a crucial issue. In this paper we focus on the challenges of scheduling parameter sweep applications, a specific and commonly used type of workflows where ordering of job executions is irrelevant. A parameter sweep has a large set of independent job instances, called a multi-job, submitted for execution in a single step. In order to cope with the high uncertainty and unpredictable load of resources, and the simultaneous submissions of multi-job instances, we propose a statistics-based brokering approach for allocating jobs to resources so that the makespan is minimised. Earlier studies claim that users’ predictions on job runtime are inaccurate and unusable for scheduling. Our aim is to examine, whether statistical trace data for the same purpose is efficient compared to randomized allocation.     

Chaotic fluid mixing by alternating microparticle topologies to enhance biochemical reactions

We report experimental results on chaotic mass transport induced by alternating topological changes of magnetic particle chains actuated by a rotating magnetic field. Results on the induced fluid flows, through particle tracing experiments and mixing experiments, are obtained for (1) the regime of rigid chain rotation and (2) the regime wherein chains periodically fragment and reform. In the case of rigid rotating chains, the overall tracer particle trajectories are steady, slightly modulated circles around the center of the microparticle chains. In the regime of periodic chain breaking and reformation, the tracer particle trajectories become chaotic. The level of mixing is measured by using a mixing index (M) in a water–dye system, i.e., in a perfectly mixed system M = 0, while in an unmixed system M = 1. When particle chains periodically break and reform, we observe that the mixing index M decreases from 1 to 0.1 within 15 rotational cycles. For rigid rotating chains, M reaches a minimum of only 0.5. We also report the effect of the different actuation regimes on a biological binding reaction in the solution and indeed found that the reaction product (at equal actuation time) is significantly enhanced (3 times) by the dynamic chain regime as compared to the rigid chain regime. We conclude that the alternating topological change of microparticle chains—with repetitive chain breakup and chain reformation—is an effective mechanism to achieve chaotic mixing and thereby promote and homogenize reactions in lab-on-a-chip systems.     

Pore Propagation Directions in P+ Porous Silicon

A comparative study is presented on the pore propagation directions of porous silicon layers (PSL) formed on p⁺-type substrates of different orientations. PSLs were formed on plain (0 0 1) and (1 1 1) silicon wafers as well as on structured (0 0 1) wafers containing facets of various orientations. During anodization, regular pores follow the 0 0 1 direction on the (0 0 1) planes. While on the (1 1 1) planes fewer regular pores develop and seemingly propagate closely to the 1 1 1 direction. These results indicate that the pores propagate perpendicular to the surface i.e. along the field lines when the surface orientation is either (0 0 1) or (1 1 1).When the silicon surface provided (1 1 0) orientation (Chuang, Collins, and Smith, 1989), or its position is in between the (0 0 1) and (1 1 1) planes then the pores do not propagate perpendicular to the surface but along the 0 0 1 direction.All the phenomena exhibited might be explained by presuming that during formation, the pores propagate along the 1 0 0 directions, and that those 1 0 0 directions are preferred which are closely to the field lines. In PSLs formed on (0 0 1) surfaces the field lines and the 0 0 1 crystallographic direction are coincident. However, in the (1 1 1) oriented wafer where three equally probable 1 0 0 directions exist around the field lines, more irregular structure of PSLs will develop.     

Experimental design to evaluate properties of electrospun fibers of zein/poly (ethylene oxide) for biomaterial applications

The production of polymer fibers from the combination of zein and PEO might have great potential in the field of biomaterial. Zein/PEO fibers were obtained in this work through solution electrospinning. An experimental design, 2^4-1, was used for evaluating the influences of PEO content in the blend, distance from the needle tip to the collector, applied electric voltage and solution flow for average fiber diameter and relative-yield process. Beyond this, the relationship between PEO content in the blend and the fiber properties were evaluated through FTIR, DSC, TG, tensile tests, and cytotoxic tests. The factor that exerts the greatest effect on the average fiber diameter response was the electrical voltage. The increase in PEO content in the blend decreased the thermal stability and increased the degree of the fibers' crystallinity. The mechanical tests showed that fibers with higher elongation were obtained at richer PEO blends. The fibers presented cytocompatible characteristics.     

Towards the generation of dialogue acts in socio-affective ECAs: a corpus-based prosodic analysis

We present a corpus-based prosodic analysis with the aim of uncovering the relationship between dialogue acts, personality and prosody in view to providing guidelines for the ECA Greta’s text-to-speech system. The corpus used is the SEMAINE corpus, featuring four different personalities, further annotated for dialogue acts and prosodic features. In order to show the importance of the choice of dialogue act taxonomy, two different taxonomies were used, the first corresponding to Searle’s taxonomy of speech acts and the second, inspired by Bunt’s DIT++, including a division of directive acts into finer categories. Our results show that finer-grained distinctions are important when choosing a taxonomy. We also show with some preliminary results that the prosodic correlates of dialogue acts are not always as cited in the literature and prove more complex and variable. By studying the realisation of different directive acts, we also observe differences in the communicative strategies of the ECA depending on personality, in view to providing input to a speech system.     

Signage Versus Environmental Affordances: Is the Explicit Information Strong Enough to Guide Human Behavior During a Wayfinding Task?

This study aims to explore how people behave when they have to find a location within a complex building and are confronted with situations where directional signage (i.e., explicit information) is in opposition to environmental affordances that naturally direct users towards a specific path, creating a situation with conflicting information (e.g., a brighter corridor vs. a darker corridor but with a directional sign indicating to follow the darker one). A virtual reality–based methodology was used and a between‐subject design was considered. Thus, participants were given the tasks of finding three publicly accessible central points in a virtual hotel and confronted with a two forced‐choice task of local scenes in which environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness) and signage varied systematically, in two experimental conditions (i.e., neutral and signage). For the signage condition, signs were inserted to explicitly point in the opposite direction than that implicitly suggested by the environmental affordances, creating situations with conflicting information. Results indicate that environmental variables were able to direct people indoors acting as environmental affordances. Users preferred to follow the wider and brighter paths. However, when directional signage pointed in the opposite direction of the paths preferred by the participants, most of them complied with signage.