New energy transfer dyes for DNA sequencing

We have synthesized a set of four energy transfer dyes and demonstrated their use in automated DNA sequencing. The donor dyes are the 5- or 6-carboxy isomers of 4'-aminomethylfluorescein and the acceptor dyes are a novel set of four 4,7-dichloro-substituted rhodamine dyes which have narrower emission spectra than the standard, unsubstituted rhodamines. A rigid amino acid linker, 4-aminomethylbenzoic acid, was used to separate the dyes. The brightness of each dye in an automated sequencing instrument equipped with a dual line argon ion laser (488 and 514 nm excitation) was 2-2.5 times greater than the standard dye-primers with a 2 times reduction in multicomponent noise. The overall improvement in signal-to-noise was 4- to 5-fold. The utility of the new dye set was demonstrated by sequencing of a BAC DNA with an 80 kb insert. Measurement of the extinction coefficients and the relative quantum yields of the dichlororhodamine components of the energy transfer dyes showed their values were reduced by 20-25% compared with the dichlororhodamine dyes alone.     

Synthesis, Microhardness, FT-IR, and Thermal Decomposition of Semiorganic Antimony Thiourea Bromide Monohydrate Single Crystals

Antimony thiourea bromide monohydrate (ATBM) single crystals were grown by a solution growth technique at room temperature. Microhardness studies on the grown crystal were carried out using the Vickers microhardness tester to estimate the mechanical strength of the crystal. The FT-IR analysis ascertains the presence of a metal–sulphur bond in ATBM crystals. The thermal decomposition of ATBM crystals was investigated by means of thermogravimetric analysis.     

Effect of deoxycholate on immunoglobulin G concentration in bile: studies in humans and pigs

Because an increase in biliary deoxycholate levels seems to be a risk factor for cholesterol gallstone formation, we determined the relationship between deoxycholate levels and levels of the pronucleating protein, immunoglobulin G (Ig) in human gallbladder bile. Patients with cholesterol gallstones had a higher concentration of biliary IgG compared with a pigmented stone group and control patients. This was associated with the simultaneous presence of two conditions in the cholesterol stone group, supersaturated bile and a high deoxycholate/cholate ratio. The other patient groups met only one of the two conditions. Next, animal studies were performed to determine if model biles mimicking the two conditions could affect IgG secretion by the gallbladder. Gallbladders were exposed in vivo and then in an Ussing chamber to model biles. The voltage clamp technique was used to monitor functional integrity of the preparation. Three different model biles were tested: (1) taurodeoxycholate (TDC), 80%; taurocholate (TC), 20%; and cholesterol saturation index (CSI), 1.2; (2) TDC, 20%; TC, 80%; and CSI, 1.2; and (3) TDC, 80%; TC, 20%; and CSI, 0.6. IgG concentrations became significantly higher in group 1 than in the other two groups. The concentration of mucous glycoprotein was also significantly greater in group 1 when compared with group 2. Plasma cells were increased in number in mucosal and submucosal layers in group 1. We conclude that cholesterol supersaturated model bile with high content of TDC induces gallbladder epithelial alterations, which increase the luminal concentration of IgG and mucous glycoprotein.     

The role of visualization in process simulation

A variety of computer simulation codes have recently emerged in the market, enabling up-front simulation of manufacturing processes such as casting, forging, welding, powder-injection molding, and powder consolidation. Typically, a computer simulation consists of three distinct steps: preprocessing, analysis, and postprocessing. Visualization plays a key role in preprocessing and especially postprocessing, where it assists in the intelligent and rapid interpretation of a huge amount of data. A good visualization capability has now become an essential part of any comprehensive process simulation code. This article discusses recent work in developing visualization tools for pre- and post-processing of casting and powder injection molding simulations. The essential features of these visualization tools are summarized and their applications are illustrated with the help of suitable examples showing details such as solid models, filling patterns, hot spots, porosity criteria functions, grain size, and weld line formation.     

Unsteady nonlinear convection on Eyring–Powell radiated flow with suspended graphene and dust particles

This research contemplates the flow and heat transport of MHD rheological Eyring–Powell fluid embedded with dust and graphene nanoparticles (GP) in an ethylene–glycol (EG) mixture in the presence of nonlinear convection, Cattaneo–Christov heat flux, and thermal radiation. Primarily existing PDEs (fluid and dust phase) are transferred to non-dimensional form by invoking similarity transformations then solved numerically through RKF-45 method. The graphene particles are significantly used in energy transmission in aerospace, power and propulsion generation etc. Through graphical illustrations, velocity and temperature profiles (fluid and dust phases) converse for various prominent parameters. The results of friction factor and heat transfer rate are presented and analyzed. Validation of the present result is made with the existing data. Results demonstrate that increasing nonlinear convection parameter has an inverse relationship with the Nusselt number and the velocity in the dust and fluid phases. This may happen due to the domination of unsteadiness in the flow.

     

Removal of phenols by adsorption on fly ash

Adsorption of phenol and cresol and their mixtures from aqueous solutions on activated carbon and fly ash has been investigated. The effects of contact time and initial solute concentration have been studied and isotherm parameters are evaluated. The Freundlich isotherm has been found to be more suitable for all the systems investigated.     

Multitaper perceptual linear prediction features of voice samples to discriminate healthy persons from early stage Parkinson diseased persons

The performance of multitaper perceptual linear prediction (PLP) features of speech samples to discriminate healthy and early stage Parkinson diseased subjects is investigated in this paper. The PLP features are conventionally obtained by computing the power spectrum using a single tapered Hamming window. This estimated spectrum exhibits large variance which can be reduced by computing the weighted average of power spectra obtained using a set of tapered windows, leading to multitaper spectral estimation. In this investigation, two multitaper techniques namely Sine wave taper and Thomson multitaper along with the conventional single taper windowing are investigated. Artificial Neural network is then used to classify the PLP features extracted by applying the three types of window tapers on the speech signals of healthy and early stage Parkinson affected people and their respective performances are compared. The results show more accuracy using the multitaper techniques when compared with the conventional single taper technique. It is seen that the accuracy obtained using Sine wave tapers as well as Thomson multitaper is maximum for five tapers. An improvement in the recognition accuracy by 7.5% using the Sine tapers and by 6.9% using the Thomson tapers is obtained when compared with the conventional method. An improvement in other performance measures like Equal error rate, False positive rate, False negative rate, Sensitivity and Specificity is also observed in the multitaper techniques.     

Modeling the evolution of equiaxed miorostructures in castings

With the goal of expanding the scope of solidification modeling, research initiatives have ranged from simply predicting the path of the isotherms to exploring the more complex problem of predicting microstructural evolution. This article presents the mathematical and physical principles involved in this type of modeling and provides examples for a number of Al-Si, Al-Cu, gray iron and ductile iron alloys. Clearly micro- and macrostructural modeling represents significant progress in the field of solidification and the subsequent cooling of castings.