Physical and Mechanical Properties of an Artificial Aggregate Made up of Ground Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag

Manufacturing artificial aggregate by utilizing waste materials has gained great importance as the aggregate occupies a high volume in concrete (60–70%). In this paper, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) is utilized in aggregate manufacturing. Cold bonding and sintering methods were used as production processes. The pellets were put through a series of tests like dry density, specific gravity, water absorption, and crushing strength. The results indicated that the density of pellets increased by increasing the GGBFS dosage while the water absorption capacity was reduced. Furthermore, the highest crushed strength was recorded at 50% addition of GGBFS

New histone deacetylase inhibitors as potential therapeutic tools for advanced prostate carcinoma

The anti-epileptic drug valproic acid is also under trial as an anti-cancer agent due to its histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitory properties. However, the effects of valproic acid (VPA) are limited and concentrations required for exerting anti-neoplastic effects in vitro may not be reached in tumour patients. In this study, we tested in vitro and in vivo effects of two VPA-derivatives (ACS2, ACS33) on pre-clinical prostate cancer models. PC3 and DU-145 prostate tumour cell lines were treated with various concentrations of ACS2 or ACS33 to perform in vitro cell proliferation 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays and to evaluate tumour cell adhesion to endothelial cell monolayers. Analysis of acetylated histones H3 and H4 protein expression was performed by western blotting. In vivo tumour growth was conducted in subcutaneous xenograft mouse models. Tumour sections were assessed by immunohistochemistry for histone H3 acetylation and proliferation. ACS2 and ACS33 significantly up-regulated histone H3 and H4 acetylation in prostate cancer cell lines. In micromolar concentrations both compounds exerted growth arrest in PC3 and DU-145 cells and prevented tumour cell attachment to endothelium. In vivo, ACS33 inhibited the growth of PC3 in subcutaneous xenografts. Immunohistochemistry and western blotting confirmed increased histone H3 acetylation and reduced proliferation. ACS2 and ACS33 represent novel VPA derivatives with superior anti-tumoural activities, compared to the mother compound. This investigation lends support to the clinical testing of ACS2 or ACS33 for the treatment of prostate cancer

On the size of two families of unlabeled bipartite graphs

Let Bu(n,r) denote the set of unlabeled bipartite graphs whose edges connect a set of n vertices with a set of r vertices. In this paper, we provide exact formulas for |Bu(2,r)| and |Bu(3,r)| using Polya's Counting Theorem. Extending these results to n≥4 involves solving a set of complex recurrences and remains open. In particular, the number of recurrences that must be solved to compute |Bu(n,r)| is given by the number of partitions of n that is known to increase exponentially with n by Ramanujan-Hardy-Rademacher's asymptotic formula. © 2017 Kalasalingam University

Ordinal evaluation and assignment problems

In many assignment problems, a set of documents such as research proposals, promotion dossiers, resumes of job applicants is assigned to a set of experts for ordinal evaluation, ranking, and classification. A desirable condition for such assignments is that every pair of documents is compared and ordered by one or more experts. This condition was modeled as an optimization problem and the number of pairs of documents was maximized for a given incidence relation between a set of documents and a set of experts using a set covering integer programming method in the literature[5]. In this paper, we use a combinatorial approach to derive lower bounds on the number of experts needed to compare all pairs of documents and describe assignments that asymptotically match these bounds. These results are not only theoretically interesting but also have practical implications in obtaining optimal assignments without using complex optimization techniques. ©2010 IEEE

Ordinal covering using block designs

A frequently encountered problem in peer review systems is to facilitate pairwise comparisons of a given set of documents by as few experts as possible. In [7], it was shown that, if each expert is assigned to review k documents then ⌈n(n-1)/k(k-1)⌉ experts are necessary and ⌈n(2n-k)/k 2⌉ experts are sufficient to cover all n(n-1)/2 pairs of n documents. In this paper, we show that, if √n ≤ k ≤ n/2 then the upper bound can be improved using a new assignnment method based on a particular family of balanced incomplete block designs. Specifically, the new method uses ⌈n(n+k)/k2⌉ experts where n/k is a prime power, n divides k2, and √n ≤ k ≤ n/2. When k = √n , this new method uses the minimum number of experts possible and for all other values of k, where √n < k ≤ n/2, the new upper bound is tighter than the general upper bound given in [7]. ©2010 IEEE

On The Number of Unlabeled Bipartite Graphs

This paper describes a result that has been obtained in joint work with Abdullah Atmaca of Bilkent University, Ankara, TurkeyLet $I$ and $O$ denote two sets of vertices, where $I\cap O =\Phi$, $|I| = n$, $|O| = r$, and $B_u(n,r)$ denote the set of unlabeled graphs whose edges connect vertices in $I$ and $O$. It is shown that the following two-sided equality holds. $\displaystyle \frac{\binom{r+2^{n}-1}{r}}{n!} \le |B_u(n,r)| \le 2\frac{\binom{r+2^{n}-1}{r}}{n!}

Investigation of the effects of late ignition time on the domestic hot water (DHW) comfort of a combi boiler type heating appliance

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.Natural gas combi boilers are one of the most common branches of the household goods used for space and domestic hot water (DHW) heating. Although most of the combi boilers in the market have reached considerably high space heating efficiency values via condensing technology, there is still a huge demand on increasing their DHW comfort level and efficiency. Broad definition of the comfort level in the combi boilers is the expectation of an end-user to have hot water in a very short time and without fluctuations. DHW expectancy differs from market to market, therefore resulting in wide product diversity and a challenging competition between the manufacturers. The present study has mainly focused on the investigation of one of the parameters which are particularly effective on the DHW comfort level. As the first step, 1D mathematical model is constructed for DHW function with the transient energy equations of the concerning components. The differential energy equations of the model are discretized implicitly with Finite Difference Scheme in order to solve them numerically in Matlab. Boundary and initial conditions are defined as closely as possible to the exact working conditions. Thermodynamic properties of the flue gas mixture and water are obtained via open source software Cantera [1]. Then, the numerical results are compared with the experimental data to validate the model. After obtaining a model for basic applications and rough results to estimate the behavior of an appliance, one of the software parameters affecting the comfort level of the end-users, late ignition time is investigated numerically.cf201