Rayleigh–Bénard convection of a viscoplastic liquid in a trapezoidal enclosure

.The objective of this paper is to clarify the role of sloping walls on convective heat transport in Rayleigh–Bénard convection within a trapezoidal enclosure filled with viscoplastic fluid. The rheology of the viscoplastic fluid has been modeled with Bingham fluid model. The system of coupled nonlinear differential equations was solved numerically by Galerkin's weighted residuals scheme of finite element method. The numerical experiments are carried out for a range of parameter values, namely, Rayleigh number (5.103 ≤ Ra ≤ 105), yield number (0 ≤ Y ≤ Yc), and sidewall inclination angle (ϕ = 0,  π/6,  π/4,  π/3) at a fixed Prandtl number (Pr = 500). Effects of the inclination angle on the flow and temperature fields are presented. The results reveal that inclination angle causes a multicellular flow and appears as the main parameter to govern heat transfer in the cavity. The heat transfer rate is found to increase with the increasing angle of the sloping wall for both Newtonian and yield stress fluids. On the other hand, the plug regions also found to increase with increasing φ, which is unusual but perhaps not unexpected behavior. In the yield stress fluids, the flow becomes motionless above a critical yield number Yc because the plug regions invade the whole cavity. The critical yield number Yc is also affected by the change of inclination angle and increases significantly with the increase of φ

Behavioral and electrophysiological aspects of cognition in neonate rats lactated by morphine addicted mothers

Objective(s): In addition to genetic factors, environmental phenomena during postnatal age highly affect development and, in turn, function of the brain. The present work evaluates if morphine consumption during lactation period influences the spatial performances and synaptic plasticity in rats at neonatal period of age. Materials and Methods: Three groups of mothers were subcutaneously administered by 5 (M5), 10 (M10) or 20 (M20) mg/kg morphine every 12 hours during the lactation period. At 45 days old, their offspring were introduced to Morris water maze for assessment of spatial learning and memory. Basic field excitatory post-synaptic potentials (fEPSPs) were recorded in the CA1 area of hippocampus and, then, long term potentiation (LTP) was induced by tetanic stimulation. Results: We found that the M10 and M20 rats spent more time and traveled longer distance to find the hidden platform of maze when compared to the control animals (P<0.05 for all comparisons). Similarly, these two morphine-exposed groups were inferior in the memory consolidation compared to their control counterparts. Comparing control and M20 rats revealed that morphine exposure decreases the mean amplitude and slope 10-90 of fEPSPs about 30 percent (P<0.001 for both comparisons) and inhibits the LTP induction in the CA1 area circuits. Conclusion: The present study provides behavioral and electrophysiological proofs for negative effect of morphine on the hippocampal-related function in the neonatally morphine-exposed rats. © 2019, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

OpenPNM: A Pore Network Modeling Package

Pore network modeling is a widely used technique for simulating multiphase transport in porous materials, but there are very few software options available. This work outlines the OpenPNM package that was jointly developed by several porous media research groups to help address this gap. OpenPNM is written in Python using NumPy and SciPy for most mathematical operations, thus combining Python's ease of use with the performance necessary to perform large simulations. The package assists the user with managing and interacting with all the topological, geometrical, and thermophysical data. It also includes a suite of commonly used algorithms for simulating percolation and performing transport calculations on pore networks. Most importantly, it was designed to be highly flexible to suit any application and be easily customized to include user-specified pore-scale physics models. The framework is fast, powerful, and concise. An illustrative example is included that determines the effective diffusivity through a partially water-saturated porous material with just 29 lines of code

Retinoic acid and 17β-estradiol improve male germ cell differentiation from mouse-induced pluripotent stem cells

This research aimed to explore the impacts of retinoic acid (RA)/17β-estradiol (E) induction and embryoid body formation to enhance differentiation of mouse-induced pluripotent stem cells (miPSCs) into male germ cells in vitro. Flow cytometry and qPCR were conducted to describe miPSCs differentiation process. Various temporal expression profiles of germ cell-related genes were traced. Stra8 gene expression increased in the RA group on the 4th day compared to other groups. The RA group experienced a more significant increase than E group. The expression of Sycp3 increased in RA + E group on 4th day compared with other groups. Expression of AKAP3 enhanced in the RA + E group than other groups on day 4. Moreover, miPSCs showed that this gene expression in the RA + E group was increased in comparison to RA and E groups on day 7. AKAP3 gene expression on day 7 of miPSCs decreased in RA and E groups. Flow cytometry data indicated that 3–8 of the cells in sub-G1 stage were haploid after RA and E induction compared to other groups on day 4. This study showed that miPSCs possess the power for differentiating into male germ cells in vitro via formation of embryoid body by RA with/or E induction. © 2019 Blackwell Verlag Gmb

Refining complexity analyses in planning by exploiting the exponential time hypothesis

The use of computational complexity in planning, and in AI in general, has always been a disputed topic. A major problem with ordinary worst-case analyses is that they do not provide any quantitative information: they do not tell us much about the running time of concrete algorithms, nor do they tell us much about the running time of optimal algorithms. We address problems like this by presenting results based on the exponential time hypothesis (ETH), which is a widely accepted hypothesis concerning the time complexity of 3-SAT. By using this approach, we provide, for instance, almost matching upper and lower bounds onthe time complexity of propositional planning.Funding Agencies|National Graduate School in Computer Science (CUGS), Sweden; Swedish Research Council (VR) [621-2014-4086]</p

Characterization of Actinomycetes Antagonist Fusariumoxysporum f.sp.passiflora Isolated from Rhizosphere Soil ofPurple Passion Fruit Plants, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

To survey rhizosphere actinomycetes as potential biocontrol against fungal diseaseof passion fruits, rhizosphere soil of the plant were used as an isolation sources. Twenty fivestrains were assigned to Streptomyces-like strain based on morphological properties of sporechain. Four strain with distinguishing characteristic based on the macroscopic appearance ofcolonies on different media, were recovery from rhizosphere soil of passion fruits plantsuggesting that various Streptomyces spp. grow surrounding of plant roots. On an agarmedium, four strains (11.43%) commonly formed a clear growth-inhibition zone against fungal pathogen of passion fruits, Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. radicalix passiflori (FORP), indicatingthat this strains can produce antifungal substances. The present results indicate that four strainare a suitable candidate for the biocontrol of fusarium wilt. Keywords: Actinomycetes, AntifungalFusarium oxysporum f.sp.passiflora Rhizosphere, Purple Passion Fruit Plants, South Sulawesi, Indonesi

Dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children's worldwide, 1995 to 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Early childhood caries (ECC) is a type of dental caries in the teeth of infants and children that is represented as one of the most prevalent dental problems in this period. Various studies have reported different types of prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children worldwide. However, there has been no comprehensive study to summarize the results of these studies in general, so this study aimed to determine the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world during a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: In this review study, articles were extracted by searching in the national and international databases of SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, Cochrane, Embase, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, and Web of Science (ISI) between 1995 and December 2019. Random effects model was used for analysis and heterogeneity of studies was evaluated by using the I2 index. Data were analyzed by using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) software. Findings: In this study, a total of 164 articles (81 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth and 83 articles on the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth) were entered the meta-analysis. The prevalence of dental caries in primary teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 80,405 was 46.2% (95% CI: 41.6–50.8%), and the prevalence of dental caries in permanent teeth in children in the world with a sample size of 1,454,871 was 53.8% (95% CI: 50–57.5%). Regarding the heterogeneity on the basis of meta-regression analysis, there was a significant difference in the prevalence of dental caries in primary and permanent teeth in children in different continents of the world. With increasing the sample size and the year of study, dental caries in primary teeth increased and in permanent teeth decreased. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the prevalence of primary and permanent dental caries in children in the world was found to be high. Therefore, appropriate strategies should be implemented to improve the aforementioned situation and to troubleshoot and monitor at all levels by providing feedback to hospitals

Double-diffusive natural convection of Casson fluids in an enclosure

This study investigates the double-diffusive natural convection of the non-Newtonian Casson fluid in a square cavity based on the original viscoplastic stress model without simplification. Therefore, yield stress plays an essential role in understanding fluid behavior. The finite element approach provided a numerical solution to continuity, momentum, energy, and species governing equations. The governing parameters for this problem are Rayleigh number, Ra, yield number, Y, buoyancy ratio number, Nr, and Lewis number, Le. The influence of these parameters on heat and mass transfer, the morphology of yielded/unyielded regions, and fluid flow are thoroughly examined. The results show that unyielded regions increase at high Rayleigh numbers, despite the increase in buoyancy force and consequently increased heat and mass transfer. On the other hand, as the buoyancy ratio drops, the flow’s strength and heat and mass transmission diminish, leading to an increase in plug regions. Accordingly, the mechanisms influencing the growth of unyielded regions are complex and follow different patterns. However, the plug regions always grow with increasing Y. The results indicate that increasing the Lewis number (mass transfer) reduces the effect of the buoyancy ratio on flow, heat transfer, and the unyielded regions in every case. Quantitative analysis of the results indicates that, while buoyancy ratio affects heat and mass transfer almost equally, the Lewis number increases mass transfer up to three times the heat transfer. Meanwhile, changing the buoyancy ratio can increase the maximum yield stress to 400%, while changing the Lewis number has a maximum effect of 20%