Dye adsorption characteristics of alginate/polyaspartate hydrogels

This study examined the removal of some basic dyes, such as Methylene Blue, Malachite Green and Methyl Orange, using alginate or alginate/polyaspartate composite gel beads. The adsorption of dyes from aqueous solutions at 25 °C was examined using a batch sorption technique. The effects of CaCl₂ and the dye concentration on the adsorption were examined. Type-S adsorption isotherms were obtained, which is characteristic of a weak solute–solid interaction. The ionic interaction between the dye molecule and gel matrix appears to be responsible for the efficient adsorption of cationic dyes in this system. These results suggest that an alginate/polyaspartate gel can be used as an effective sorbent for water pollutants such as dyes, and the immobilization of these organic contaminants in the hydrogels from wastewater can solve one of the most important environmental problems in the related industry.     

Compact Dipole Antenna for Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting Service

A compact dipole antenna for the terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (TDMB) application is presented. The length of the antenna is about 0.06λ at the TDMB resonance frequency of 190 MHz. Miniaturization of the antenna is achieved by using meander structures and lumped elements. The proposed antenna has two resonance frequencies and covers the TDMB band from 174 MHz to 216 MHz in Korea. The antenna has good impedance bandwidth and radiation characteristics for the TDMB. The experimental results of the designed dipole antenna are presented and analyzed.     

89-GHz fT room-temperature silicon MOSFETs

The authors report the implementation of deep-submicrometer Si MOSFETs that at room temperature have a unity-current-gain cutoff frequency (f_T) of 89 GHz, for a drain-to-source bias of 1.5 V, a gate-to-source bias of 1 V, a gate oxide thickness of 40 Å, and a channel length of 0.15 μm. The fabrication procedure is mostly conventional, except for the e-beam defined gates. The speed performance is achieved through an intrinsic transit time of only 1.8 ps across the active device region     

Efficiency increase of an induction motor by improving coolingperformance

Improving the efficiency of induction motors, which are the most energy consuming electric machines in the world, saves much energy. The efficiency can be increased by improving cooling performance as well as by using better materials or by improving electromagnetic performance with better design. This paper presents the relationship between the efficiency or the losses and the temperature of coils with experiments as well as simulations by changing parameters such as the load and the flow rate of cooling air. The losses and the efficiency are calculated from an equivalent circuit method as well as experiments. Coil temperatures variation affects much on the efficiency. The internal cooling method is better than that of external cooling for the coil temperature reduction. Several cooling methods are compared focusing on the fan efficiency and performance, from which the values of the efficiencies of the motors are expected. The fan efficiency as well as the fan performance should be considered for the optimum fan design to increase the total efficiency of a motor. The simulations are validated by the comparison with the experiments     

Performance of asynchronous DS-CDMA using a maximal ratio combiningdiversity over a Rician fading channel

The final closed-form expression for bit error probability (BEP) is presented for a DS-CDMA system using a maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity over a Rician fading channel. The accuracy of the BEP estimate evaluated by this expression is verified by comparison with a semi-analytic simulation result. The effect that diversity order has on the BEP is also considered for typical multipath delay profiles with different Rician ratios     

Free energy perturbation approach for the rational engineering of the antibody for human hepatitis B virus

HzKR127 is the humanized monoclonal antibody effective for the neutralization of human hepatitis B virus. By means of the free energy perturbation (FEP) calculations based on molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, we examine the mutation-induced variations in the energetic and structural features associated with the interactions between HzKR127 and its antigen. N58A, Y96A, D97A, and D97A/Y102A mutants of HzKR127 are taken in account in this study for which the experimental data for relative efficacies with respect to the wild-type antibody are available. The results of the present MD-FEP simulation studies show that in order to enhance the affinity for the antigen, the engineering of HzKR127 should be made in such a way as to promote the dynamic stability of the overall protein conformation and that of the translational motion of the antigen in the antibody-antigen complex. The relative binding free energies of the four mutant antibodies obtained from MD-FEP calculations compare pretty well with the experimental mutagenesis data with the associated squared correlation coefficient of 0.96. This indicates that MD-FEP calculations may serve as a useful computational tool for rational antibody engineering. Discussed in detail are the differences in the structural features of antibody-antigen interactions between the wild-type and the mutant antibodies that are responsible for the change in binding affinities for the antigen.     

Optimization of silicon solar cell fabrication based on neural network and genetic programming modeling

This study describes techniques for the cascade modeling and the optimization that are required to conduct the simulator-based process optimization of solar cell fabrication. Two modeling approaches, neural networks and genetic programming, are employed to model the crucial relation for the consecutively connected two processes in solar cell fabrication. One model (Model 1) is used to map the five inputs (time, amount of nitrogen and DI water in surface texturing and temperature and time in emitter diffusion) to the two outputs (reflectance and sheet resistance) of the first process. The other model (Model 2) is used to connect the two inputs (reflectance and sheet resistance) to the one output (efficiency) of the second process. After modeling of the two processes, genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization were applied to search for the optimal recipe. In the first optimization stage, we searched for the optimal reflectance and sheet resistance that can provide the best efficiency in the fabrication process. The optimized reflectance and sheet resistance found by the particle swarm optimization were better than those found by the genetic algorithm. In the second optimization stage, the five input parameters were searched by using the reflectance and sheet resistance values obtained in the first stage. The found five variables such as the texturing time, amount of nitrogen, DI water, diffusion time, and temperature are used as a recipe for the solar cell fabrication. The amount of nitrogen, DI water, and diffusion time in the optimized recipes showed considerable differences according to the modeling approaches. More importantly, repeated applications of particle swarm optimization yielded process conditions with smaller variations, implying greater consistency in recipe generation.     

Particularities of condensation of atoms with increased kinetic energy

Novel universal method for measurement of the condensation coefficient α is developed. Using this method, noticeable difference between measured (α≈0.8) and expected (α≈1) values of the condensation coefficient for sputtered Cr atoms was revealed for the first time. The effect is assumed to be a result of considerable elevation of the surface temperature during atomic condensation induced by the energy delivered to the condensation surface by sputtered atoms and from the plasma.     

A Fully-Human Antibody Specifically Targeting a Membrane-Bound Fragment of CADM1 Potentiates the T Cell-Mediated Death of Human Small-Cell Lung Cancer Cells

Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most aggressive form of lung cancer and the leading cause of global cancer-related mortality. Despite the earlier identification of membrane-proximal cleavage of cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADM1) in cancers, the role of the membrane-bound fragment of CAMD1 (MF-CADM1) is yet to be clearly identified. In this study, we first isolated MF-CADM1-specific fully human single-chain variable fragments (scFvs) from the human synthetic scFv antibody library using the phage display technology. Following the selected scFv conversion to human immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) scFv-Fc antibodies (K103.1–4), multiple characterization studies, including antibody cross-species reactivity, purity, production yield, and binding affinity, were verified. Finally, via intensive in vitro efficacy and toxicity evaluation studies, we identified K103.3 as a lead antibody that potently promotes the death of human SCLC cell lines, including NCI-H69, NCI-H146, and NCI-H187, by activated Jurkat T cells without severe endothelial toxicity. Taken together, these findings suggest that antibody-based targeting of MF-CADM1 may be an effective strategy to potentiate T cell-mediated SCLC death, and MF-CADM1 may be a novel potential therapeutic target in SCLC for antibody therapy.