Efficient Excitation of Hybrid Modes in a THz Clinotron

Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves - Various regimes of hybrid, bulk-surface, modes being excited in the clinotron oscillator with a sheet electron beam and nonuniform grating...     

Classification of Reconfigurable Parallel Mechanisms

Russian Engineering Research - The theoretically possible reconfigurable parallel mechanisms are classified, in terms of the layout of guides on the base. Formulas are derived for the...     

Wear Resistance of Carbide and Boride Coatings on U8A Steel

Wear resistance measurements have been made with U8A steel bearing protective coatings based on the carbides of titanium, vanadium, and chromium or iron borides, for various forms of wear. The carbide and boride coatings raise the wear resistance considerably (by factors of 6-30 in accordance with the type of wear). Measurements have been made on the microhardness, microbrittleness, and adhesion of the coating to the substrate, which are effective characteristics that quite fully reflect the effects of the microhardness and state of stress, structure, and defectiveness on the wear resistance.     

Multiple Testing Correction in Medical Image Analysis

We present a novel method for correcting the significance level of hypothesis testing that requires multiple comparisons. It is based on the spectral graph theory, in which the variables are seen as the vertices of a complete undirected graph and the correlation matrix as the adjacency matrix that weights its edges. The method increases the statistical power of the analysis by refuting the assumption of independence among variables, while keeping the probability of false positives low. By computing the eigenvalues of the correlation matrix, it is possible to obtain valuable information about the dependence levels among the variables of the problem, so that the effective number of independent variables can be estimated. The method is compared to other available models and its effectiveness illustrated in case studies involving high-dimensional sets of variables.     

1/f noise and self-organized criticality in crisis regimes of heat and mass transfer

Thermal fluctuations under the transition from nucleate to film boiling of water on a wire heater and fluctuations of jet form during an outflow of superheated liquid from a pressure vessel were experimentally investigated. It has been found that power spectrum of the fluctuations has got a low frequency component corresponding to a 1/f law (flicker noise).The effect given is connected with the occurrence of nonequilibrium phase transitions in the systems: a crisis of heat transfer under the transition from nucleate to film boiling and a crisis of a flow in boiling-up of superheated liquid jet.     

Superconductivity in W-containing diamond-like nanocomposite films

Superconductivity in a tungsten-containing carbon-oxide film was reported. The film with 500 nm thickness was deposited onto polycrystalline silicon oxides using chemical vapor deposition and the co-sputtering of a tungsten metal target. The bonding state of the carbon atoms and the macroscopic and microscopic crystal structure of the film were investigated by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy measurements. From the experimental results, we determined that this film essentially had an amorphous structure. The temperature dependence on resistivity was measured in the temperature range of 2–300 K. Resistive superconducting transition was observed at 3.8 K. The dc magnetizations were measured in the temperature range of 1.8–6.5 K. The diamagnetism resulting from a superconductive state was observed below 3.75 K, which is consistent with a resistive superconducting transition. It is thought that the finite sized clusters of the different superconductive transition temperatures cooperatively produce a macroscopic superconducting phenomenon.     

The effect of probability of coalescence on the evolution of bubble sizes in a turbulent pipeline flow: A numerical study

A population balance method in which continuum and discrete phases are integrated is developed to simulate the evolution of polydisperse population of bubbles in a turbulent pipeline flow. The investigation is focused on the effect of the coalescence efficiency on this evolution. A dilute system of bubbles under microgravity conditions is considered. It is found that if the initial coalescence efficiency is low, a slight increase produces a significant effect on the bubble coalescence rate, and thus on the evolution of the population. If, however, the initial coalescence efficiency is high, its increase results in a marginal effect on the way the population evolves. The results of simulations are validated against experimental data on the population mean.     

Pre-Senescence Induction in Hepatoma Cells Favors Hepatitis C Virus Replication and Can Be Used in Exploring Antiviral Potential of Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors

Recent evidence suggests that fibrotic liver injury in patients with chronic hepatitis C correlates with cellular senescence in damaged liver tissue. However, it is still unclear how senescence can affect replication of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). In this work, we report that an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6, palbociclib, not only induced in hepatoma cells a pre-senescent cellular phenotype, including G1 arrest in the cell cycle, but also accelerated viral replicon multiplication. Importantly, suppression of HCV replication by direct acting antivirals (DAAs) was barely affected by pre-senescence induction, and vice versa, the antiviral activities of host-targeting agents (HTAs), such as inhibitors of human histone deacetylases (HDACi), produced a wide range of reactions—from a dramatic reduction to a noticeable increase. It is very likely that under conditions of the G1 arrest in the cell cycle, HDACi exhibit their actual antiviral potency, since their inherent anticancer activity that complicates the interpretation of test results is minimized.