Effect of digestive enzymes on the activity of camel‐milk insulin

This study investigated the effect of digestive enzymes on the activity of camel‐milk insulin. The digestion was performed using the sequential action of pepsin and pancreatin. Proteolysis degree was estimated using the O‐phthaldialdehyde method. Insulin concentration was determined using an enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results revealed that milk proteins were partially digested by pepsin alone and the degradation was increased during the pepsin–pancreatin digestion as compared to control. Insulin lost its activity after 30 min of pepsin digestion, and it was not detected by ELISA. This study strongly suggests that insulin is not responsible for the antidiabetic action of camel's milk.     

Effects of the Caputo fractional derivatives on convective flow in wavy vented enclosures filled with a porous medium using Al2O3‐Cu hybrid nanofluids

This paper studies the effect of fractional derivatives on the fractional convective flow of hybrid nanofluids in a wavy enclosure that has inlet and outlet parts near the left wall and is filled with a porous medium. The Caputo definition of the fractional derivatives is applied on the partial differential equations governing flow. The complex shape is mapped to a rectangular domain using appropriate transformations. The finite difference method is used to solve the resulting system. The results showed that an increase in order of the fractional derivatives causes a low activity of the fluid flow and a reduction in the rate of heat transfer. Also, an increase in the nanoparticles volume fractions reduces the activity of the fluid flow and, as a result, the rate of heat transfer is diminished. An enhancement in fluid motion and rate of the heat transfer is obtained by increasing the amplitude of the wavy wall.     

Full-Scale Testing for Composite Slab/Beam Systems Made with Extended Stud Spacing

Investigation of the background of the 610?mm (24?in.) spacing of stud shear connectors showed that this limit was set on the basis of a small amount of testing of beams with spacing greater than this limit. The literature search showed that some attempts have been recently made to extend this limit. One of the objectives of the NCHRP 12-65 research project was to investigate the possibility of extending this limit to 1,220?mm (48?in.) for cluster of studs used for precast concrete panels made composite with steel I-beams. The experimental investigation included testing of push-off specimens and full-scale composite beams. Results of the push-off specimens have shown that the fatigue loading has no detrimental effect on the load-slip relationship when the number of studs is doubled per cluster. This paper covers the second part of the experimental investigation, which is fatigue and ultimate testing of full-scale composite beams. The full-scale testing has proven that full-composite action between precast concrete panels and steel girders can be achieved when the spacing between the stud clusters is extended up to 1,220?mm (48?in.).     

Non-destructive characterization of structural hierarchy within aligned carbon nanotube assemblies

Understanding and controlling the hierarchical self-assembly of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is vital for designing materials such as transparent conductors, chemical sensors, high-performance composites, and microelectronic interconnects. In particular, many applications require high-density CNT assemblies that cannot currently be made directly by low-density CNT growth, and therefore require post-processing by methods such as elastocapillary densification. We characterize the hierarchical structure of pristine and densified vertically aligned multi-wall CNT forests, by combining small-angle and ultra-small-angle x-ray scattering (USAXS) techniques. This enables the nondestructive measurement of both the individual CNT diameter and CNT bundle diameter within CNT forests, which are otherwise quantified only by delicate and often destructive microscopy techniques. Our measurements show that multi-wall CNT forests grown by chemical vapor deposition consist of isolated and bundled CNTs, with an average bundle diameter of 16 nm. After capillary densification of the CNT forest, USAXS reveals bundles with a diameter >4 μm, in addition to the small bundles observed in the as-grown forests. Combining these characterization methods with new CNT processing methods could enable the engineering of macro-scale CNT assemblies that exhibit significantly improved bulk properties.     

Augmentation of a nearest neighbour clustering algorithm with a partial supervision strategy for biomedical data classification

Abstract: In this paper, a partial supervision strategy for a recently developed clustering algorithm, the nearest neighbour clustering algorithm (NNCA), is proposed. The proposed method (NNCA-PS) offers classification capability with a smaller amount of a priori knowledge, where a small number of data objects from the entire data set are used as labelled objects to guide the clustering process towards a better search space. Experimental results show that NNCA-PS gives promising results of 89% sensitivity at 95% specificity when used to segment retinal blood vessels, and a maximum classification accuracy of 99.5% with 97.2% average accuracy when applied to a breast cancer data set. Comparisons with other methods indicate the robustness of the proposed method in classification. Additionally, experiments on parallel environments indicate the suitability and scalability of NNCA-PS in handling larger data sets.     

Non-platinum electrocatalysts: Manganese oxide nanoparticle-cobaltporphyrin binary catalysts for oxygen reduction

This study is concerned with the development of non-platinum electrocatalysts for the efficient 4-electron reduction of molecular oxygen to water in acidic media. A binary catalyst composed of electrodeposited manganese oxide nanoparticles (nano-MnO _x ) and cobalt porphyrin macro complex (CoP) has been proposed in. The modification of glassy carbon (GC) electrode with CoP alone resulted in a significant positive shift of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) compared to the unmodified GC electrode while maintining a 2-electron reduction. That is a positive shift of the onset potential of the ORR of ca. 450 mV was achieved at the former electrode. The modification of the GC electrode with nano-MnO _x alone did not affect the ORR peak potential, but caused a remarkable increase in the reduction peak current due to the catalytic disproportionation of the electrogenerated hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. The modification of a GC electrode with CoP and nano-MnO _x (utilizing the advantages of the individual catalysts) resulted in the occurrence of the ORR at a significantly positive potential with almost double peak current compared to the unmodified GC electrode, suggesting a promising procedure for developing electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction in replacement of costly Pt. XPS and SEM techniques were employed to probe the structural and morphological characterization of the proposed binary catalysts.     

Design and simulation of a universal N-bit binary encoder using single electron linear threshold gates

The Single-Electron (SE) Linear Threshold Gate (LTG) is one of the basic functional Single-Electron Nano-Devices (SENDs). In this paper, using a SE LTG as the basic building block in an artificial neural network (ANN) is reviewed. A universal SE ANN 2-bit (4-to-2) binary encoder, which is composed of only two SE LTGs, is designed. The detailed schematic diagrams along with the corresponding SIMON 2 simulation results (that include input and output signals as well as the stability diagrams) of the designed binary encoder are included. The proposed SE ANN 2-bit binary encoder can easily be generalized to design n-bit binary encoders. As an example of this generalization, a SE ANN 3-bit (8-to-3) binary encoder, which is composed of three SE LTGs, is designed and its SIMON 2 simulation results are presented. This design is compared with the previously reported C-SET 3-bit binary encoder.     

Selection and identification of protective culture for controlling Staphylococcus aureus in fresh Domiati like cheese

Antibacterial activity of forty lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolates toward Staphylococcus aureus was evaluated. The selected strains were then used as protective culture in artificial contaminated Domiati like cheese with S. aureus. The effect of using these strains on physicochemical properties and overall acceptability of fresh cheese was evaluated. Depending on its antibacterial activity, three strains of Lactobacillus rhamnosus 130RZFAAU, 131RZFAAU, and 190RZFAAU were selected for cheese making. No negative sensory properties were observed by the panelists when LAB strains were used as a single culture in the fresh cheese making. The application of these strains as protective culture in artificial contaminated cheesemaking process give a positive results. S. aureus was detected in cheese samples by culture method and propidium mono azide–quantitative polymerase chain reaction method. The results recommended that the strain L. rahmnosus 131RZFAUU that used in this study has antimicrobial activity against S. aureus and could be used as protective culture for improving the safety of Egyptian soft cheese.

Practical applications

Detection of pathogenic bacteria by classical tests can take several days. It would be useful to have a rapid detection protocol to screen for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus in milk and cheese. Application of real‐time PCR in cheese is sufficient in characterization the S. aureus communities in raw milk and follow the dynamics of the entire populations in cheese. Recently, some scientific publications have shown that the naturally cheese microflora can efficiently prevent the growth of pathogenic or spoilage microorganisms. The control of spoilage and pathogens bacteria has been traditionally done by chemical additives, but the application of promising protective cultures, especially for traditionally cheeses made from raw milk, is limited. This work present some protective culture selected for controlling S. aureus in soft cheese. This work confirm the PMA‐q PCR method for detection live cells of S. aureus in cheese rapidly.