Effects of foundation damage and water-level change on vibration modal parameters of gravity-type caisson structure

In this paper,the effects of foundation damage and water-level change on vibration characteristics of gravity-type caisson structure are examined by analyzing modal parameters extracted from output-only information.To achieve the objective,the following approaches are implemented.Firstly,vibration response analysis methods are selected to estimate power spectral density and modal parameters such as natural frequency,damping ratio and mode shape of a lab-scale caisson structural system.Secondly,vibration tests on the lab-scale caisson system are performed under a series of test scenarios which include three water-level changes and three damage levels.Thirdly,experimental modal parameters corresponding to the damaging cases as well as the water level cases are extracted by frequency domain decomposition method and stochastic subspace identification method.Finally,the effects of the water-level variation and foundation damage on the extracted modal parameters are examined to assess the feasibility of the vibration-based damage detection in gravity-type caisson structures under water-level uncertainty.     

Scalable digital hardware for a trapped ion quantum computer

Quantum Information Processing - Many of the challenges of scaling quantum computer hardware lie at the interface between the qubits and the classical control signals used to manipulate them....     

Effect of far-infrared radiation and heat treatment on the antioxidant activity of water extracts from peanut hulls

The antioxidant activities of peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) hull extracts were evaluated after far-infrared (FIR) radiation or heat treatment. Peanut hulls in petri dishes were FIR-irradiated or heat-treated (150 °C) for 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 or 60 min. The water extracts (300 mg/10 mL) of peanut hulls (WEPH) were prepared and their total phenol contents (TPC), radical scavenging activity (RSA), and reducing power were determined. The antioxidant activities of WEPH increased as the time of heating or FIR-radiation increased. When peanut hulls were FIR-irradiated at 150 °C for 60 min, the values of TPC, RSA, and reducing power of WEPH increased from 72.9 to 141.6 μM, 2.34% to 48.83%, and 0.473 to 0.910, respectively, compared to the untreated controls. Heat treatment of peanut hull under the same conditions (150 °C for 60 min) also increased the TPC, RSA, and reducing power of WEPH from 72.9 to 90.3 μM, 1.90% to 23.69%, and from 0.471 to 0.718, respectively. The result indicated that FIR-radiation or heat treatment on peanut hulls increased the antioxidant activities of WEPH.     

Purification, characterization, and steady-state kinetics of a meta-cleavage compound hydrolase from Pseudomonas fluorescens IPO1

2-Hydroxy-6-oxo-7-methylocta-2,4-dienoate (6-isopropyl-HODA) hydrolase (CumD), an enzyme of the cumene biodegradation pathway encoded by the cumD gene of Pseudomonas fluorescens IP01, was purified to homogeneity from an overexpressing Escherichia coli strain. SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and gel filtration demonstrated that it is a dimeric enzyme with a subunit molecular mass of 32 kDa. The pH optima for activity and stability were 8.0 and 7.0-9.0, respectively. The enzyme exhibited a biphasic Arrhenius plot of catalysis with two characteristic energies of activation with a break point at 20 degrees C. The enzyme has a K(m) of 7.3 microM and a k(cat) of 21 s(-1) for 6-isopropyl-HODA (150 mM phosphate, pH 7.5, 25 degrees C), and its substrate specificity covers larger C6 substituents compared with another monoalkylbenzene hydrolase, TodR Unlike TodF, CumD could slightly hydrolyze 2-hydroxy-6-oxo-6-phenylhexa-2,4-dienoate (6-phenyl-HODA). A mutant enzyme as to a putative active site residue, S103A, had 10(5)-fold lower activity than that of the wild-type enzyme.     

A novel retrieval approach reflecting variability of syntactic phrase representation

In this paper, we introduce variability of syntactic phrases and propose a new retrieval approach reflecting the variability of syntactic phrase representation. With variability measure of a phrase, we can estimate how likely a phrase in a given query would appear in relevant documents and control the impact of syntactic phrases in a retrieval model. Various experimental results over different types of queries and document collections show that our retrieval model based on variability of syntactic phrases is very effective in terms of retrieval performance, especially for long natural language queries.     

Effect of heat and autoclave on allergenicity of porcine serum albumin

This study was performed to investigate the effects of heat and autoclave treatment on the binding ability of porcine serum albumin (PSA) to IgG and the serum of patients who were allergic to pork. Heat treatment at 100°C for 20 min on PSA was able to decrease the binding ability of PSA to IgG to 52%. The binding ability of PSA to IgG was also reduced to 29% by autoclave treatment of PSA at 121°C for 30 min. The binding ability of PSA autoclaved for 30 min to serum also decreased to 10%. SDS-PAGE and immunoblotting of PSA heated at 100°C for 20 min revealed that the intensity of the PSA band decreased and its presence was barely recognized by IgG. In the case of autoclave treatment (for 5 min), PSA was degraded to low-molecular-weight peptides and IgG and serum did not recognize them. Therefore, autoclave treatment can effectively reduce the allergenicity of PSA.     

Influence of modification method and starch concentration on the stability and physical properties of modified potato starch as wall materials

The object of this study was to investigate the stability of flavor encapsulated in modified starches, and the potentiality of modified starch as wall material. For the flavor encapsulation using freeze-drying technique, native potato starch (NP), β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), maltodextrin (MD) and acid-treated potato starch (ATPS), succinated potato starch (SPS) were used as wall materials and d-limonene was a core material. The properties of wall materials were evaluated by the physicochemical properties such as pasting property, microstructure, moisture absorption ratio and peroxide value of encapsulated d-limonene. The peak viscosity (RVU) of modified potato starch was lower values (299 and 375 RVU) compared to that (579 RVU) of NP. The microstructure of product with SPS showed homogeneous distribution of pore with a regular size in contrast to the irregular arrangement of pore of NP and ATPS, and the microcapsule stabilized by β-CD and MD had smaller pore size than modified starches. Overall the yield of encapsulated products was an increasing trend as the concentration of wall materials was increased from 5 to 10%, and the product with SPS had the highest value (93.35%). The moisture absorption ratio of products with β-CD and SPS did not affected by starch concentration. The peroxide value of encapsulated d-limonene during storage for 16 days had low values below 2.0 meq/kg of oil at all samples except for sample with ATPS. These results indicate that the encapsulated d-limonene with SPS by freeze drying showed the highest flavor retention and the oxidation stability of d-limonene.     

Microbial community analysis of Korean soybean pastes by next-generation sequencing

Soybean pastes, doenjang, have long been consumed as a fortified protein source in Korea. The quality of doenjang is determined by fermentation and Bacillus subtilis is suspected to be the main microorganism responsible. In the current culture-independent analysis, 17,675 bacterial sequences were derived from nine local and two commercial brands of doenjang samples by a barcoded pyrosequencing method targeting the hyper-variable regions V1/V2 of the 16S rRNA gene. In contrast to what has previously been found using plating or conventional molecular biology based methods, doenjang contains a diversity of bacterial species (total 208 species) and each doenjang reflects a region-specific bacterial community. While the Bacillus species was thought to be dominant in soybean pastes, we found that they were in high abundance (58.3-91.6%) only in samples from the central region of Korea, whereas lactic acid bacteria (LAB) (39.8-77.7%) were the dominant bacterial members of other doenjang samples. Compared to local brands of doenjang, commercial brands contain simple microbial communities dominated by Tetragenococcus and Staphylococcus that resemble the microbial communities of Japanese miso; this suggests that artificial inoculation was used for the quality control and standardization of doenjang. In this study, a massive sequencing approach was applied for the first time to analyze the microbial communities of different doenjang samples. Thus, we have determined that massive sequencing is a valid approach for assessing the overall microbial community of Korean fermented soybean pastes.     

Steady and dynamic shear rheological properties of sweet potato flour dispersions

Korean sweet potato flour dispersions at different concentrations (6, 7, 8, 9, and 10%) were evaluated for their steady and dynamic shear rheological properties. The steady shear rheological properties showed that sweet potato flour dispersions at 25 °C showed a shear-thinning fluid (n=0.31–0.41) exhibiting a yield stress. The magnitudes of Casson yield stress (σ_oc), consistency index (K) and apparent viscosity (η_a,100) increased with an increase in concentration. Within the temperature range of 25–70 °C, the apparent viscosity obeyed the Arrhenius temperature relationship with high determination coefficient (R ²=0.97–0.99) with activation energies (Ea) ranging 0.015–0.024 KJ/mol. Both power law and exponential type models were used to establish the relationship between concentration and apparent viscosity (η_a). Magnitudes of G′ and G″ increased with an increase in concentration. G′ values were higher than G″ over the most of the frequency range (0.63–63 rad/s), being frequency dependent. The sweet potato flour dispersions did not closely follow the Cox–Merz rule at concentrations lower than 10%.     

Free radical-scavenging and inhibition of nitric oxide production by four grades of pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake Sing.)

Fractions from methanol extracts of four grades of pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsutake Sing.) were evaluated for their free radical-scavenging and inhibition of nitric oxide production, and the underlying mechanisms were elucidated. The fractions from first-grade pine mushroom exhibited the highest degree of free radical-scavenging and inhibition of nitric oxide production among the various grades of mushroom tested, and free radical-scavenging and inhibition of nitric oxide production by the second-, third-, and fourth-grade mushroom fractions were successively lower. The degree of free radical-scavenging by each fraction decreased in the order ethyl acetate > butanol > diethyl ether > water. Inhibition of nitric oxide production by each fraction decreased in the order ethyl acetate > butanol > water. The ethyl acetate and butanol fractions of methanol-extracted pine mushroom samples exhibited potential anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects that might be attributable to phenolics or flavonoids.