The influence of some vegetable extracts on the in vitro adherence of mouse and human lymphocytes to nylon fibers

We found that the total watery extracts obtained from roots of various plants such as Symphytum officinale, Phytolacca americana etc, precipitate human glycoproteins, agglutinate sheep red blood cells (SRBC) and stimulate lymphocyte adherence to nylon fibers. Five out of seven extracts precipitated human gammaglobulins and one of seven obviously agglutinate SRBC. If these cells were pretreated with rabbit antibodies against SRBC, all extracts agglutinated the cells at various degrees of intensity, the most active being Phytolacca americana. The adherence of mouse but not human lymphocytes to nylon fibers was stimulated by extracts of Symphytum officinale and Phytolacca americana. This process was neither stimulated nor inhibited by Mannose (Man), Galactose (Gal), Glucose (Glc), N-acethyl Galactose (GalNAc) and N-acethyl Glucose (Glc-NAc). These biological effects of the plant extracts could be the expression of a lectin-like ability to bind various sugars other than those mentioned. The results suggest the possibility of using different extracts as means to point out the presence in serum or at the cellular level of some carbohydrates influencing the cellular adhesion, phenomenon which plays an important role in the functions of hematopoietic cells.     

Self-identification algorithm for zeolite-based thermal capacity gas sensor

Microsystem Technologies - We demonstrate a new operation mode of thermal gas sensor based on thermal capacity extraction with identification algorithm. The system is a silicon microstructure...     

Evaluating the impact of AND/OR search on 0-1 integer linear programming

AND/OR search spaces accommodate advanced algorithmic schemes for graphical models which can exploit the structure of the model. We extend and evaluate the depth-first and best-first AND/OR search algorithms to solving 0-1 Integer Linear Programs (0-1 ILP) within this framework. We also include a class of dynamic variable ordering heuristics while exploring an AND/OR search tree for 0-1 ILPs. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these search algorithms on a variety of benchmarks, including real-world combinatorial auctions, random uncapacitated warehouse location problems and MAX-SAT instances.     

Facile Microwave Assisted Synthesis of Silver Nanostars for Ultrasensitive Detection of Biological Analytes by SERS

We report a very simple, rapid and reproducible method for the fabrication of anisotropic silver nanostars (AgNS) that can be successfully used as highly efficient SERS substrates for different bioanalytes, even in the case of a near-infra-red (NIR) excitation laser. The nanostars have been synthesized using the chemical reduction of Ag⁺ ions by trisodium citrate. This is the first research reporting the synthesis of AgNS using only trisodium citrate as a reducing and stabilizing agent. The key elements of this original synthesis procedure are rapid hydrothermal synthesis of silver nanostars followed by a cooling down procedure by immersion in a water bath. The synthesis was performed in a sealed bottom flask homogenously heated and brought to a boil in a microwave oven. After 60 s, the colloidal solution was cooled down to room temperature by immersion in a water bath at 35 °C. The as-synthesized AgNS were washed by centrifugation and used for SERS analysis of test molecules (methylene blue) as well as biological analytes: pharmaceutical compounds with various Raman cross sections (doxorubicin, atenolol & metoprolol), cell lysates and amino acids (methionine & cysteine). UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscopy ((S)TEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) have been employed for investigating nanostars’ physical properties.     

The effect of water treeing on the electric field distribution ofXLPE. Consequences for the dielectric strength

This paper describes the influence of water trees on dielectric properties of flat samples cut from a HV crosslinked polyethylene (XLPE) cable insulation. In order to obtain experimental results in a short period of time, we used accelerated aging conditions of voltage and frequency as well as different techniques for producing a multitude of artificial water tree inception points. The average value of the water tree permittivity and a law for the time-dependence of permittivity inside the treed degraded areas were deduced from measurements of capacitance and water tree lengths. On the basis of the experimental knowledge of permittivity and water tree length, we determined with analytical numerical methods, the distribution of the electric field for different shapes of treed regions. Because of the increase in length and permittivity of the water tree, the electric field in front of the degraded area is amplified, which is an important factor of risk leading to the electric breakdown     

New Linkage with Linear Actuator for Tracking PV Systems with Large Angular Stroke

This paper focuses on the development of an optimized photovoltaic tracking system involving low-cost, relative simple mechanisms, with linear actuators able to insure strokes comparable with those resulted when using gear rotary actuators. Starting with a rhombus linkage, with a linear actuator on the diagonal used for the elevation motion till 90°, a new performance solution is generated. This new linkage allows large angular strokes by using an asymmetric rhombus and an eccentrically positioned linear ac...     

Quantisation-based video watermarking in the wavelet domain with spatial and temporal redundancy

In this article we introduce a new public digital watermarking technique for video copyright protection working in the discrete wavelet transform domain. The scheme uses binary images as watermarks. These are embedded in the detail wavelet coefficients of the middle wavelet sub-bands. The method is a combination of spread spectrum and quantisation-based watermarking. Every bit of the watermark is spread over a number of wavelet coefficients with the use of a secret key. The resilience of the watermarking algorithm was tested against a series of eight different attacks using different videos. To improve the resilience of the algorithm we use error correction codes and embed the watermark with spatial and temporal redundancy. The proposed method achieves a very good perceptual quality with mean peak signal-to-noise ratio values of the watermarked videos of more than 40 dB and high resistance to a large spectrum of attacks.