Analysis of the Insect OS-D-Like Gene Family

Insect OS-D-like proteins, also known as chemosensory (CSP) or sensory appendage proteins (SAP), are broadly expressed in various insect tissues, where they are thought to bind short to medium chain length fatty acids and their derivatives. Although their specific function remains uncertain, OS-D-like members have been isolated from sensory organs (including the sensillum lymph in some cases), and a role in olfaction similar to that of the insect odorant binding proteins (OBP) has been suggested for some. We have identified 15 new OS-D-like sequences: four from cDNA clones described herein and 11 from sequence databases. The os-d-like genes from the Anopheles gambiae, Apis mellifera, Drosophila melanogaster, and Drosophila pseudoobscura genomes typically have single, small introns with a conserved splice site. Together with all family members entered on GenBank, a total of 70 OS-D-like proteins, representing the insect orders Diptera, Dictyoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Orthoptera, and Phasmatodea, were analyzed. A neighbor joining distance phenogram identified several protein similarity classes that were characterized by highly conserved sequence motifs, including (A) N-terminal YTTKYDN(V/I)(N/D)(L/V)DEIL, (B) central DGKELKXX(I/L)PDAL, and (C) C-terminal KYDP. In contrast, three similarity classes were characterized by their diversion from these conserved motifs. The functional importance of conserved amino acid residues is discussed in relation to the crystal and NMR structures of MbraCSPA6.     

The role of fats and oils in cosmetics

The earliest emollients in the history of cosmetics were the naturally occurring animal fats and vegetable oils. These provided soothing and smoothing action on the skin and grooming effects on head and beard hair. For the most part, odor problems limited the interest in oils derived from fish. With the increasing sophistication of users and increasing understanding of the technology of these materials, the short-comings of natural fats and oils were overcome in several ways: (a) increased stability through use of antioxidants; (b) reduced odor through improved processing; (c) improved stability and diversification through chemical modification; (d) increased diversity through preparation of derivatives, and (e) substitution of mineral oil. Today the most important single cosmetic use of an unmodified natural fat or oil is that of castor oil as the base for lipsticks. Other unmodified oils have largely minor specialty uses, particularly in higher-priced cosmetics. These include almond oil, apricot kernel oil, sesame oil, safflower oil, wheat germ oil, avocado oil, turtle oil and mink oil. Cocoa butter is used to some extent in suntan products. Reconstituted fractionated coconut oil is widely used. Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids are increasing in importance. Hydrogenation has produced stable oils useful in cosmetics. Alkyl esters and monoglycerol esters of fatty acids offer a wider range of properties than the original oils. Improvements in the naturally occurring fats and oils have made it possible for them to compete in some characteristics, and current interest in “natural” cosmetics may turn the attention of the cosmetic chemist back to improved versions of the classical raw materials. One of five papers in the symposium “Fats and Oils in Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals,” presented at the AOCS Meeting, Atlantic City, October 1971.     

Fundamentals of bitumen coking processes analogous to granulations: A critical review

A number of coking processes use hot particles to heat liquid bitumen or petroleum residue to cause cracking reactions. These particles may be mineral or coke solids. Interactions of these particles, in fluid beds, moving beds and other types of contactors, are governed by the liquid films on the particle surfaces. This paper explores the analogy between granulation and coking, and suggests that the key relationships that will govern the behavior of wet particles in coking processes are the Stokes number of the particles, the thickness or the liquid films, and the diameter and surface roughness of the particles. The implications for distribution of liquid feed in the reactor, fouling, and defluidization or bogging are discussed. This analysis suggests experiments that can be performed under non‐reactive conditions with scaled variables in order to study phenomena that cannot be observed in situ in high‐temperature cracking processes.     

THE QUEST FOR WORLD CLASS IT CAPABILITY IT Is Key to Achieving Quality Goals

Abstract

In today's competitive world, many organizations are pursuing total quality improvement programs, and as a result of these initiatives, are seeking to define world class capabilities. The organizations with these aspirations are trying to improve product and service quality, business process quality, or delivered quality, and are becoming aware that information technology is playing a more substantial role in realizing these quality goals.     

Involving the user Through Library 2.0

Libraries, as we know them today, can be defined by the term Library 1.0. This defines the way resources are kept on shelves or at a computer behind a login. These resources can be taken from a shelf, checked out by the library staff, taken home for a certain length of time and absorbed, and then returned to the library for someone else to avail of. Library 1.0 is a one-directional service that takes people to the information they require. Library 2.0 – or L2 as it is now more commonly addressed as – aims to take the information to the people by bringing the library service to the Internet and getting the users more involved by encouraging feedback participation. This paper presents an overview of Library 2.0 and introduces web 2.0 concepts.     

Development and Deployment of an Intelligent Kite Aerial Photography Platform (iKAPP) for Site Surveying and Image Acquisition

Aerial photographs and images are used by a variety of industries, including farming, landscaping, surveying, and agriculture, as well as academic researchers including archaeologists and geologists. Aerial imagery can provide a valuable resource for analyzing sites of interest and gaining information about the structure, layout, and composition of large areas of land that would be unavailable otherwise. Current methods of acquiring aerial images rely on techniques such as satellite imagery, manned aircraft, or more recently unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and micro‐UAV technologies. These solutions, while accurate and reliable, have several drawbacks. Using satellite imagery or UAVs can prove to be very expensive, costing tens of thousands for images. They can also prove to be time‐consuming and in some cases have constraints on use, such as no‐fly zones. In this paper, we present an alternative low‐cost, versatile solution to these methods, an intelligent kite aerial photography platform (iKAPP), for the purpose of acquiring aerial images and monitoring sites of interest. We show how this system provides flexibility in application, and we detail the system's design, mechanical operation, and initial flight experiments for a low‐cost, lightweight, intelligent platform capable of acquiring high‐resolution images. Finally, we demonstrate the system by acquiring images of a local site, showing how the system functions and the quality of images it can capture. The application of the system and its capabilities in terms of capture rates, image quality, and limitations are also presented. The system offers several improvements over traditional KAP systems, including onboard “intelligent” processing and communications. The intelligent aspect of this system stems from the use of self‐image stabilization of the camera, the advantage being that one is able to configure the system to capture large areas of a site automatically, and one can see the site acquisition in real time, all of which are not possible with previous methods of AP. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Siting park-and-ride facilities using a multi-objective spatial optimization model

Park-and-ride services are an important component of many public transportation systems in the United States. Locating park-and-ride facilities is an essential step when planning for these services. In this research we focus on three major siting/modeling concerns that need to be addressed when siting park-and-ride facilities: covering as much potential demand as possible, locating park-and-ride facilities as close as possible to major roadways, and siting such facilities in the context of an existing system. Unfortunately, existing models do not enable each of these concerns to be simultaneously addressed. This paper presents a multi-objective spatial optimization model for integrating these considerations. This model is applied for siting park-and-ride facilities in Columbus, Ohio. Application results show the usefulness of the developed model in supporting transit planning in an urban region.     

A cost-effective lexical acquisition process for large-scale thesaurus translation

Thesauri and controlled vocabularies facilitate access to digital collections by explicitly representing the underlying principles of organization. Translation of such resources into multiple languages is an important component for providing multilingual access. However, the specificity of vocabulary terms in most thesauri precludes fully-automatic translation using general-domain lexical resources. In this paper, we present an efficient process for leveraging human translations to construct domain-specific lexical resources. This process is illustrated on a thesaurus of 56,000 concepts used to catalog a large archive of oral histories. We elicited human translations on a small subset of concepts, induced a probabilistic phrase dictionary from these translations, and used the resulting resource to automatically translate the rest of the thesaurus. Two separate evaluations demonstrate the acceptability of the automatic translations and the cost-effectiveness of our approach.