α-Glucosidase, α-amylase inhibition kinetics,in vitro gastro-intestinal digestion,and apoptosis inducing abilities of Ficus microcarpa L. f. and Ficus racemosa L. fruit polysaccharides

Food Science and Biotechnology - A rich source of nutrients, figs have a number of clinically validated benefits. This study aimed to evaluate the in vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion, and...     

Coupled dynamical system based arm–hand grasping model for learning fast adaptation strategies

Performing manipulation tasks interactively in real environments requires a high degree of accuracy and stability. At the same time, when one cannot assume a fully deterministic and static environment, one must endow the robot with the ability to react rapidly to sudden changes in the environment. These considerations make the task of reach and grasp difficult to deal with. We follow a Programming by Demonstration (PbD) approach to the problem and take inspiration from the way humans adapt their reach and grasp motions when perturbed. This is in sharp contrast to previous work in PbD that uses unperturbed motions for training the system and then applies perturbation solely during the testing phase. In this work, we record the kinematics of arm and fingers of human subjects during unperturbed and perturbed reach and grasp motions. In the perturbed demonstrations, the target’s location is changed suddenly after the onset of the motion. Data show a strong coupling between the hand transport and finger motions. We hypothesize that this coupling enables the subject to seamlessly and rapidly adapt the finger motion in coordination with the hand posture. To endow our robot with this competence, we develop a coupled dynamical system based controller, whereby two dynamical systems driving the hand and finger motions are coupled. This offers a compact encoding for reach-to-grasp motions that ensures fast adaptation with zero latency for re-planning. We show in simulation and on the real iCub robot that this coupling ensures smooth and “human-like” motions. We demonstrate the performance of our model under spatial, temporal and grasp type perturbations which show that reaching the target with coordinated hand–arm motion is necessary for the success of the task.     

Synthesis and characterization of high molecular weight polyaniline for organic electronic applications

High molecular weight polyaniline (PANI) was synthesized by a combined procedure incorporating various synthesis methods. Temperature and open circuit potential of the reaction mixture were collected to monitor the reaction progress. The polymer is characterized by various techniques including gel permeation chromatography, dynamic light scattering, infrared spectroscopy, solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance, and differential scanning calorimetry for elucidating the molecular architecture obtained by this method. As‐synthesized PANI was found to possess high molecular weight, reduced branching, reduced cross‐linking, and to predominantly consist of linear polymer chains. This polymer was also found to be more stable in solution form. J–V characteristics of as‐synthesized PANI films indicate a high current density which is due to increased free pathways and less traps for the charge transport to occur in PANI films. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Machine learning in continuous casting of steel: a state-of-the-art survey

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing - Continuous casting is the most important route for the production of steel today. Due to the physical, mechanical, and chemical components involved in the...     

Core content and stability of n‐octadecane‐containing polyurea microencapsules produced by interfacial polymerization

Microencapsulation of phase change material (PCM) n‐octadecane was carried out by interfacial polymerization technique using core and bulk monomers as toluene‐2,4‐diisocyanate (TDI) and diethylene triamine (DETA), respectively. Cyclohexane was used as the solvent for TDI and n‐octadecane, which formed the oil phase. The effect of encapsulation procedure, core‐to‐monomer ratio (CM ratio) and PCM‐to‐cyclohexane (PC) ratio was investigated on core content, encapsulation efficiency, and stability of microcapsules. Using a modified procedure, the core content was found to increase with the increasing CM ratio and reached a maximum at 3.7, while the encapsulation efficiency continuously decreased with the increasing CM ratio. Also the encapsulation efficiency was found to have a strong dependence on PC ratio and a maximum encapsulation efficiency of 92%, along with the core content of 70% was obtained with CM ratio of 3.7 along with the PC ratio of 6. The microcapsules were well shaped, i.e., round and regular, with narrow size distribution at these conditions. The PCM microcapsules were found to be stable to heat treatment at 150°C for 8 h. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2007     

Correction: patil, a. Et Al. Hub promiscuity in protein-protein interaction networks. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2010, 11, 1930-1943

[This corrects the article on p. 1930 in vol. 11, PMID: 20480050.].