Crystallization of porcine insulin with carbon dioxide as acidifying agent

Recent studies on the use of volatile electrolytes such as CO₂ in protein precipitation showed that these agents are a promising alternative to the conventional acids. This use of volatile electrolytes prevents protein denaturation due to local pH extremes, and saline effluent generation is greatly reduced, as the volatile electrolyte may be separated and recovered from solution just by pressure release. In this work, insulin was successfully crystallized in the presence of zinc using CO₂ as acidifying agent. The crystals obtained were rhombohedral, a common shape for porcine insulin crystals that contain zinc in their structure, and their average size varied with the mixing applied.     

The use of fire‐retardant intumescent mats for fire and heat protection of glass fibre‐reinforced polyester composites: Thermal barrier properties

This study investigates the use of integral, hybrid intumescent thermal barriers (mats) to provide surface protection to the core fibre‐reinforced polyester composite structural integrity when exposed to a fire or heat source. Glass fibre‐reinforced composites protected by intumescent mats/fabrics containing silicate fibres, expandable graphite and in some cases borosilicate glass bounded together by an organic matrix have been evaluated for fire performance under a constant heat flux of 50kW/m². The effect of insulative fabric thickness as well as chemical composition on the flammability of the resultant hybrid composites is evaluated. Glass fibre‐reinforced polyester (GRP) composites without any surface protection have a relatively higher time‐to‐ignition and peak heat release rate values when compared with core composites protected by insulative fabrics. Thermograms representing the variation of temperature on the reverse side of the hybrid composites with time when exposed to a constant heat flux show that the inclusion of intumescent surface barriers results in retarded temperature increments within the core GRP composites. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Independent component analysis: A flexible nonlinearity and decorrelating manifold approach

Independent component analysis (ICA) finds a linear transformation to variables that are maximally statistically independent. We examine ICA and algorithms for finding the best transformation from the point of view of maximizing the likelihood of the data. In particular, we discuss the way in which scaling of the unmixing matrix permits a "static" nonlinearity to adapt to various marginal densities. We demonstrate a new algorithm that uses generalized exponential functions to model the marginal densities and is able to separate densities with light tails. We characterize the manifold of decorrelating matrices and show that it lies along the ridges of high-likelihood unmixing matrices in the space of all unmixing matrices. We show how to find the optimum ICA matrix on the manifold of decorrelating matrices, and as an example we use the algorithm to find independent component basis vectors for an ensemble of portraits.     

The diagnostic value of symptoms and signs in childhood abdominal pain

Amiodarone is a benzofuran derivative with a chemical structure similar to thyroxine. Originally introduced to treat angina pectoris, amiodarone was found to have antiarrhythmic properties, and in 1985, was approved in the United States for treatment of life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. It is now used for various ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias refractory to conventional first-line medications, and as a result, side effects have been observed with increased frequency. The most severe and potentially life-threatening of these side effects is the development of pulmonary toxicity. Typically, amiodarone pulmonary toxicity (APT) is manifested by acute pneumonitis and chronic fibrosis. Amiodarone-associated hemoptysis (AAH) is a rare occurrence. The authors describe a case of AAH successfully treated with cessation of drug and steroid therapy.     

Smooth relevance vector machine: a smoothness prior extension of the RVM

Enforcing sparsity constraints has been shown to be an effective and efficient way to obtain state-of-the-art results in regression and classification tasks. Unlike the support vector machine (SVM) the relevance vector machine (RVM) explicitly encodes the criterion of model sparsity as a prior over the model weights. However the lack of an explicit prior structure over the weight variances means that the degree of sparsity is to a large extent controlled by the choice of kernel (and kernel parameters). This can lead to severe overfitting or oversmoothing—possibly even both at the same time (e.g. for the multiscale Doppler data). We detail an efficient scheme to control sparsity in Bayesian regression by incorporating a flexible noise-dependent smoothness prior into the RVM. We present an empirical evaluation of the effects of choice of prior structure on a selection of popular data sets and elucidate the link between Bayesian wavelet shrinkage and RVM regression. Our model encompasses the original RVM as a special case, but our empirical results show that we can surpass RVM performance in terms of goodness of fit and achieved sparsity as well as computational performance in many cases. The code is freely available. Action Editor: Dale Schuurmans.     

Surface roughness analysis,modelling and prediction in selective laser melting

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is an increasingly employed additive manufacturing process for the production of medical, aerospace, and automotive parts. Despite progresses in material flexibility and mechanical performances, relatively poor surface finish still presents a major limitation in the SLM process.In this study an investigation of surface roughness and morphology is presented for Steel 316L alloy parts made by SLM. In order to characterise the actual surfaces at different sloping angles, truncheon samples have been produced and an analysis has been conducted at different scales, by surface profilometer and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The surface analysis has showed an increasing density of spare particles positioned along the step edges, as the surface sloping angle increases. When layer thickness is comparable to particle diameter, the particles stuck along step edges can fill the gaps between consecutive layers, thus affecting the actual surface roughness.Classic models for roughness prediction, based on purely geometrical consideration of the stair step profile, fail to describe the observed trend of the experimental data. A new mathematical model is developed to include the presence of particles on top surfaces, in addition to the stair step effect, for the accurate prediction of surface roughness. Results show that surface roughness predicted by this model has a good agreement with the experimentally observed roughness. The paper investigates the key contributing factors influencing surface morphology, and a theoretical model for roughness prediction that provides valuable information to improve the surface quality of SLM parts, thus minimising the need of surface finishing.     

Reactor technology options for distributed hydrogen generation via ammonia decomposition: A review

Hydrogen (H₂) fuel obtained via thermo-catalytic ammonia (NH₃) decomposition is rapidly attracting considerable interest for portable and distributed power generation systems. Consequently, a variety of reactor technologies are being developed in view of the current lack of infrastructure to generate H₂ for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells. This paper provides an extensive review of the state-of-the-art reactor technology (also referred to as reactor infrastructure) for pure NH₃ decomposition. The review strategy is to survey the open literature and present reactor technology developments in a chronological order. The primary objective of this paper is to provide a condensed viewpoint and basis for future advances in reactor technology for generating H₂ via NH₃ decomposition. Also, this review highlights the prominent issues and prevailing challenges that are yet to be overcome for possible market entry and subsequent commercialization of various reactor technologies. To our knowledge, this work presents for the first time a review of reactor infrastructure for distributed H₂ generation via NH₃ decomposition. Despite commendable research and development progress, substantial effort is still required if commercialization of NH₃ decomposition reactor infrastructure is to be realized.     

Evaluation of the effect of ammonium carbamate on the stability of proteins

BACKGROUND: The use of the volatile salt ammonium carbamate in protein downstream processing has recently been proposed. The main advantage of using volatile salts is that they can be removed from precipitates and liquid effluents through pressure reduction or temperature increase. Although previous studies showed that ammonium carbamate is efficient as a precipitant agent, there was evidence of denaturation in some enzymes. In this work, the effect of ammonium carbamate on the stability of five enzymes was evaluated. RESULTS: Activity assays showed that α‐amylase (1,4‐α–D‐glucan glucanohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.1), lysozyme (1,4‐β‐N‐acetylmuramoylhydrolase, EC 3.2.1.17) and lipase (triacyl glycerol acyl hydrolase, EC 3.1.1.3) did not undergo activity loss in ammonium carbamate solutions with concentrations from 1.0 to 5.0 mol kg^?1, whereas cellulase complex (1,4‐(1,3:14)‐β‐D‐glucan 4‐glucano‐hydrolase, EC 3.2.1.4) and peroxidase (hydrogen peroxide oxidoreductase, EC 1.11.1.7) showed an average activity loss of 55% and 44%, respectively. Precipitation assays did not show enzyme denaturation or phase separation for α‐amylase and lipase, while celullase and peroxidase precipitated with some activity reduction. Analysis of similar experiments with ammonium and sodium sulfate did not affect the activity of enzymes. CONCLUSION: Celullase and peroxidase were denatured by ammonium carbamate. While more systematic studies are not available, care must be taken in designing a protein precipitation with this salt. The results suggest that the generally accepted idea that salts that denature proteins tend to solubilize them does not hold for ammonium carbamate. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry     

Pentoxifylline does not prevent the cytokine-induced first dose reaction following OKT3--a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study

The use of OKT3 as an immunosuppressive agent is accompanied by increased cytokine production and constellation of side effects collectively termed cytokine release syndrome (CRS). Pentoxifylline (PTF) inhibits synthesis of some cytokines, and has been shown to attenuate CRS when administered before OKT3. In this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, 46 renal allograft recipients were randomized to receive either PTF (800 mg q 8 hr for at least 24 h) p.o. or placebo, along with methylprednisolone (7 mg/kg), diphenhydramine, and acetaminophen, prior to beginning OKT3 as therapy for acute rejection. Patients were observed, and symptoms scored semiquantitatively. Despite the presence of therapeutic PTF levels (721 +/- 726 ng/ml), the frequency and severity of side effects (fever, chills, headache, neurocortical symptoms, dyspnea, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea) did not differ between treatment groups. Likewise PTF did not affect renal function or immunologic response to OKT3, with similar graft and patient survival in both groups. Plasma levels of TNF alpha, IFN gamma, IL-6, and IL-8 increased as predicted following OKT3 administration, without significant differences between PTF and placebo groups. In this controlled, multicenter trial, pretreatment with oral PTF was ineffective in attenuating OKT3-related CRS in renal allograft recipients.