Water system virus detection

The performance of a waste water reclamation system is monitored by introducing a non-pathogenic marker virus, bacteriophage F2, into the waste-water prior to treatment and, thereafter, testing the reclaimed water for the presence of the marker virus. A test sample is first concentrated by absorbing any marker virus onto a cellulose acetate filter in the presence of a trivalent cation at low pH and then flushing the filter with a limited quantity of a glycine buffer solution to desorb any marker virus present on the filter. Photo-optical detection of indirect passive immune agglutination by polystyrene beads indicates the performance of the water reclamation system in removing the marker virus. A closed system provides for concentrating any marker virus, initiating and monitoring the passive immune agglutination reaction, and then flushing the system to prepare for another sample

Electric-arc heater Patent

Magnetically diffused radial electric arc heate

Early stages of phase selection in MOF formation observed in molecular Monte Carlo simulations

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) comprising metal nodes bridged by organic linkers show great promise because of their guest-specific gas sorption, separation, drug-delivery, and catalytic properties. The selection of metal node, organic linker, and synthesis conditions in principle offers engineered control over both structure and function. For MOFs to realise their potential and to become more than just promising materials, a degree of predictability in the synthesis and a better understanding of the self-assembly or initial growth processes is of paramount importance. Using cobalt succinate, a MOF that exhibits a variety of phases depending on synthesis temperature and ligand to metal ratio, as proof of concept, we present a molecular Monte Carlo approach that allows us to simulate the early stage of MOF assembly. We introduce a new Contact Cluster Monte Carlo (CCMC) algorithm which uses a system of overlapping "virtual sites" to represent the coordination environment of the cobalt and both metal-metal and metal-ligand associations. Our simulations capture the experimentally observed synthesis phase distinction in cobalt succinate at 348 K. To the best of our knowledge this is the first case in which the formation of different MOF phases as a function of composition is captured by unbiased molecular simulations. The CCMC algorithm is equally applicable to any system in which short-range attractive interactions are a dominant feature, including hydrogen-bonding networks, metal-ligand coordination networks, or the assembly of particles with "sticky" patches, such as colloidal systems or the formation of protein complexes.</p

Method of fan sound mode structure determination computer program user's manual: Modal calculation program

A computer user's manual describing the operation and the essential features of the Modal Calculation Program is presented. The modal Calculation Program calculates the amplitude and phase of modal structures by means of acoustic pressure measurements obtained from microphones placed at selected locations within the fan inlet duct. In addition, the Modal Calculation Program also calculates the first-order errors in the modal coefficients that are due to tolerances in microphone location coordinates and inaccuracies in the acoustic pressure measurements

Method of fan sound mode structure determination computer program user's manual: Microphone location program

A computer user's manual describing the operation and the essential features of the microphone location program is presented. The Microphone Location Program determines microphone locations that ensure accurate and stable results from the equation system used to calculate modal structures. As part of the computational procedure for the Microphone Location Program, a first-order measure of the stability of the equation system was indicated by a matrix 'conditioning' number

Water system virus detection

A monitoring system developed to test the capability of a water recovery system to reject the passage of viruses into the recovered water is described. A nonpathogenic marker virus, bacteriophage F2, is fed into the process stream before the recovery unit and the reclaimed water is assayed for its presence. Detection of the marker virus consists of two major components, concentration and isolation of the marker virus, and detection of the marker virus. The concentration system involves adsorption of virus to cellulose acetate filters in the presence of trivalent cations and low pH with subsequent desorption of the virus using volumes of high pH buffer. The detection of the virus is performed by a passive immune agglutination test utilizing specially prepared polystyrene particles. An engineering preliminary design was performed as a parallel effort to the laboratory development of the marker virus test system. Engineering schematics and drawings of a fully functional laboratory prototype capable of zero-G operation are presented. The instrument consists of reagent pump/metering system, reagent storage containers, a filter concentrator, an incubation/detector system, and an electronic readout and control system

LaCo2B2: A Co-based layered superconductor with a ThCr2Si2-type structure

LaCo2B2 with a ThCr2Si2-type structure composed of alternately stacked La and CoB layers exhibits metallic electrical conductivity and Pauli paramagnetic behavior down to 2K. Bulk superconductivity with a Tc of ~4K emerges upon substitution with dopant elements; i.e., isovalent substitution to form (La1-xYx)Co2B2, or aliovalent substitution to form La(Co1-xFex)2B2. Highly covalent bonding between Co 3d and B 2p levels in the CoB layers, which is caused by the B 2p level being shallower than the Fermi level, removes magnetic ordering from Co 3d electrons even in the undoped samples.Comment: 3 figure

A magnetically rotated electric arc air heater employing a strong magnetic field and copper electrodes

Magnetically rotated electric arc air heater using strong magnetic field and copper electrode

Rigidity analysis of HIV-1 protease

We present a rigidity analysis on a large number of X-ray crystal structures of the enzyme HIV-1 protease using the 'pebble game' algorithm of the software FIRST. We find that although the rigidity profile remains similar across a comprehensive set of high resolution structures, the profile changes significantly in the presence of an inhibitor. Our study shows that the action of the inhibitors is to restrict the flexibility of the beta-hairpin flaps which allow access to the active site. The results are discussed in the context of full molecular dynamics simulations as well as data from NMR experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Conference proceedings for CMMP conference 2010 which was held at the University of Warwic

Comparison of electric dipole moments and the Large Hadron Collider for probing CP violation in triple boson vertices

CP violation from physics beyond the Standard Model may reside in triple boson vertices of the electroweak theory. We review the effective theory description and discuss how CP violating contributions to these vertices might be discerned by electric dipole moments (EDM) or diboson production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Despite triple boson CP violating interactions entering EDMs only at the two-loop level, we find that EDM experiments are generally more powerful than the diboson processes. To give example to these general considerations we perform the comparison between EDMs and collider observables within supersymmetric theories that have heavy sfermions, such that substantive EDMs at the one-loop level are disallowed. EDMs generally remain more powerful probes, and next-generation EDM experiments may surpass even the most optimistic assumptions for LHC sensitivities.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, published version with more argument