Impact of adhesive ingredients on adhesion between rubber and brass-plated steel wire in tire

Proficiency on underlying mechanism of rubber-metal adhesion has been increased significantly in the last few decades. Researchers have investigated the effect of various ingredients, such as hexamethoxymethyl melamine, resorcinol, cobalt stearate, and silica, on rubber-metal interface. The role of each ingredient on rubber-metal interfacial adhesion is still a subject of scrutiny. In this article, a typical belt skim compound of truck radial tire is selected and the effect of each adhesive ingredient on adhesion strength is explored. Out of these ingredients, the effect of cobalt stearate is found noteworthy. It has improved adhesion strength by 12% (without aging) and by 11% (humid-aged), respectively, over control compound. For detailed understanding of the effect of cobalt stearate on adhesion, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy are utilized to ascertain the rubber coverage and distribution of elements. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results helped us to understand the impact of Cu_XS layer depth on rubber-metal adhesion. The depth profile of the Cu_XS layer was found to be one of the dominant factors of rubber-metal adhesion retention. Thus, this study has made an attempt to find the impact of different adhesive ingredients on the formation of Cu_XS layer depth at rubber-metal interface and establish a correlation with adhesion strength simultaneously.     

Hamiltonian of a Slightly Asymmetric Molecules with a Three Fold Internal Rotor and Its Applications to Optically Pumped FIR Lasers: Theoretical Aspects

In this paper, a Model of the Hamiltonian function is reviewed for the slightly asymmetric class of molecules, which is the most successful so far, according to our present knowledge. This model does not have the redundancy problem suffered by previous models. The observed frequencies are calculated to within experimental accuracy. In our subsequent papers we will show the application of this model for the prediction and quantum number assignments of optically pumped far infrared lasers and thereby increasing the possibility of new lines in the region of the spectrum which severely lacks enough monochromatic sources. We will also show that this model is capable of calculating even MMW transitions for the second excited state of methanol. All the previous models consider transitions up to the first excited torsional state.     

Prolonged tamoxifen exposure selects a breast cancer cell clone that is stable in vitro and in vivo

The effects of long-term tamoxifen exposure on cell growth and cell cycle kinetics were compared between oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive (MCF-7) and ER-negative (MDA-MB-231) cell lines. In the MCF-7 cell line, prolonged tamoxifen exposure (0.5 mumol/l for > 100 days) blocked cells in G0-G1 of the cell cycle, and slowed the doubling time of cells from 30 to 59 h. These effects corresponded to an increase in the cellular accumulation of tamoxifen over time [mean area under concentration curve (AUC) = 77.92 mumoles/10(6)/cells/day]. In contrast, in the MDA-MB-231 cell line, long-term tamoxifen exposure had no obvious effect on the doubling time, and reduced cellular tamoxifen accumulation (mean AUC = 50.50 mumoles/10(6)/cells/day) compared to the MCF-7 cells. Flow cytometric analysis of MDA-MB-231 cells demonstrated that a new tetraploid clone emerged following 56 days of tamoxifen exposure. Inoculation of the MDA-MB-231 tetraploid clone and MDA-MB-231 wildtype cells into the opposite flanks of athymic nude mice resulted in the rapid growth of tetraploid tumours. The tetraploid tumours maintained their ploidy following tamoxifen treatment for nine consecutive serial transplantations. Histological examination of the fifth transplant generation xenografts revealed that the tetraploid tumour had a 25-30 times greater mass, area of haemorrhage and necrosis, a slightly higher mitotic index and was more anaplastic than the control neoplasm. The control wildtype MDA-MB-231 tumours maintained a stable ploidy following tamoxifen treatment until the eighth and ninth transplantation, when a tetraploid population appeared, suggesting that tamoxifen treatment may select for this clone in vivo. These studies suggest that prolonged tamoxifen exposure may select for new, stable, fast growing cell clones in vitro as well as in vivo.     

Binding free energy calculations of galectin-3-ligand interactions

Galectins show remarkable binding specificity towards ß-galactosides.A recently developed method for calculating binding free energiesbetween a protein and its substrates has been used to evaluatethe binding specificity of galectin-3. Five disaccharides anda tetrasaccharide were used as the substrates. The calculatedbinding free energies agree quite well with the experimentaldata and the ranking of binding affinities is well reproduced.For all the six protein–ligand complexes it was observedthat electrostatic interactions oppose binding whereas the non-polarcontributions drive complex formation. The observed bindingspecificity of galectin-3 for galactosides rather than glucosidesis discussed in light of our results.     

Adaptive cell division for ray tracing

In ray tracing the two most commonly used data structures are the octree and uniform cell division. The octree structure allows efficient adaptive subdivision of space, while taking care of the spatial coherence of the objects in it; however, the tree structure locating the next node in the path of a ray is complex and time consuming. The cell structure, on the other hand, can be stored in a three-dimensional array, and each cell can be efficiently accessed by specifying three indices. However, such a uniform cell division does not take care of object coherence. The proposed data structure combines the positive features of the above data structures while minimising their disadvantages. The entire object space is implicitly assumed to be a three-dimensional grid of cells. Initially, the entire object space is a single voxel which later undergoes “adaptive cell division.” But, unlike in the octree structure, where each voxel is divided exactly at the middle of each dimension, in adaptive cell division, each voxel is divided at the nearest cell boundary. The result is that each voxel contains an integral number of cells along each axis. Corresponding to the implicit cell division we maintain a three-dimensional array, with each array element containing the voxel number which is used to index into the voxel array. The voxel array is used to store information about the structure of each voxel, in particular, the objects in each voxel. While a ray moves from one voxel to another we always keep track of the cell through which the ray is currently passing. Since only arrays are involved in accessing the next voxel in the path of the ray, the operation is very efficient.