Monotonic behaviour of beam-to-column connections with double channel cold-formed steel sections

Cold-formed steel is a lightweight construction material generally in C or Z shaped produced by cold rolling from strip steel. It can be applied in the Industrialized Building System (IBS) in order to reduce the time and cost in construction project. Partial strength connection is a connection whereby the moment resistance of the connection is less than that of the moment capacity of the connected beam. In this paper, Numerical simulation is conducted by using ANSYS Workbench 14.0 in order to predict the structural behaviors of cold formed steel partial strength connection. The objective of this study is to develop moment rotation curve for flange-web-cleat connection using double channel cold formed steel section under monotonic loading. Experiment test results are then used to compare and validate the results from the finite element modeling. This study aims to understand the behaviour of cold-formed steel connections under monotonic loading. The beam section of 1.5-meter length and column of 3-meter length is modeled in this study. Three different beam depth have been selected in this study, which is 150mm, and the depth of column section is fix to 250mm. Brackets connections were chosen and all connections were formed using bolts. The monotonic load is applied at 1000mm from the column surface. The stiffness and moment capacity is obtained from the moment rotation curve which plotted from the modeling results. As a conclusion, The FEM initial results showed good agreement with experimental results

Purification of His-tagged hepatitis B core antigen from unclarified bacterial homogenate using immobilized metal affinity-expanded bed adsorption chromatography

Hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) is used as a diagnostic reagent for the detection of hepatitis B virus infection. In this study, immobilized metal affinity-expanded bed adsorption chromatography (IMA-EBAC) was employed to purify N-terminally His-tagged HBcAg from unclarified bacterial homogenate. Streamline Chelating was used as the adsorbent and the batch adsorption experiment showed that the optimal binding pH of His-tagged HBcAg was 8.0 with a binding capacity of 1.8 mg per ml of adsorbent. The optimal elution condition for the elution of His-tagged HBcAg from the adsorbent was at pH 7 in the presence of 500 mM imidazole and 1.5 M NaCl. The IMA-EBAC has successfully recovered 56% of His-tagged HBcAg from the unclarified E. coli homogenate with a purification factor of 3.64. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) showed that the antigenicity of the recovered His-tagged HBcAg was not affected throughout the IMA-EBAC purification process and electron microscopy revealed that the protein assembled into virus-like particles (VLP)

Potential of energy recovery from an integrated palm oil mill with biogas power plant

The Malaysian palm oil industry has made significant contribution to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) due to the increasing global demand of palm oil over the past decades. However, it is undoubtedly a sector that consumes enormous energy and water. With the uprising concerns of the energy resource shortage and global warming, several green technology policies such as the feed-in-tariff policy have been implemented by government to accelerate the sustainable development of palm oil industry in Malaysia. The establishment of feed-in-tariff has successfully increased the number of palm oil mills that are completed with biogas facilities. Recent studies indicate that there are significant amounts of waste heat released from biogas power plant are utilisable as heat source for palm oil mill processes. As an initiative to develop the research of optimizing the energy efficiency of integrated palm oil mill with the biogas power plant, this study is directed toward the analysis of energy balance and material balance of an integrated palm oil mill with biogas power plant which covered both the palm oil milling process energy demand and the biogas power plant waste heat potential analysis. An integrated palm oil mill with biogas power plant running with 120 t/h fresh fruit bunches input was evaluated. The result indicates that there were a total of 3491.66 kW waste heat which corresponded to 46.82 % of the total biogas engine energy input could be recovered for process heating. By fully utilising the biogas plant waste heat as process heating for palm oil mill processes, it is estimated that up to 9.46 % of the total energy supplied could be saved

An N-terminal extension to the hepatitis B virus core protein forms a poorly ordered trimeric spike in assembled virus-like particles

Virus-like particles composed of the core antigen of hepatitis B virus (HBcAg) have been shown to be an effective platform for the display of foreign epitopes in vaccine development. Heterologous sequences have been successfully inserted at both amino and carboxy termini as well as internally at the major immunodominant epitope. We used cryogenic electron microscopy (CryoEM) and three-dimensional image reconstruction to investigate the structure of VLPs assembled from an N-terminal extended HBcAg that contained a polyhistidine tag. The insert was seen to form a trimeric spike on the capsid surface that was poorly resolved, most likely owing to it being flexible. We hypothesise that the capacity of N-terminal inserts to form trimers may have application in the development of multivalent vaccines to trimeric antigens. Our analysis also highlights the value of tools for local resolution assessment in studies of partially disordered macromolecular assemblies by cryoEM

N-terminally His-tagged hepatitis B core antigens: construction, expression, purification and antigenicity

The core antigen of the hepatitis B virus (HBcAg) has been used widely as a diagnostic reagent for the identification of the viral infection. However, purification using the conventional sucrose density gradient ultracentrifugation is time consuming and costly. To overcome this, HBcAg particles displaying His-tag on their surface were constructed and produced in Escherichia coli. The recombinant His-tagged HBcAgs were purified using immobilized metal affinity chromatography. Transmission electron microscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) revealed that the displayed His-tag did not impair the formation of the core particles and the antigenicity of HBcAg

Display of the antigenic region of Nipah virus nucleocapsid protein on hepatitis B virus capsid

The C-terminal domain of Nipah virus (NiV) nucleocapsid protein (NP 401-532) was inserted at the N-terminus and the immunodominant loop of hepatitis B core antigen (HBc). The stability of NP 401-532 increased tremendously when displayed on the HBc particles. These particles reacted specifically with the swine anti-NiV and the human anti-HBc antisera

Hydrogen-rich Syngas Production from Ethanol Dry Reforming on La-doped Ni/Al2O3 Catalysts: Effect of Promoter Loading

Ethanol dry reforming has been studied over La-promoted Ni catalysts supported on Al2O3 with different promoter loadings at varying CO2 partial pressure of 20-50 kPa. Catalysts were prepared via co-impregnation technique and characterized using BET surface area, X-ray diffraction measurement, temperature-programmed calcination and scanning electron microscopy. Doped and undoped catalysts possessed high surface area of about 86-108 m2 g-1 and La promoter was well-dispersed on support surface. Xray diffraction measurements indicated the formation of La2O3, NiO and NiAl2O4 phases in line with temperature-programmed calcination results. La-addition enhanced the dispersion of NiO particles and reduced the agglomeration of metal oxides. Both C2H5OH and CO2 conversions improved with increasing CO2 partial pressure rationally due to the growing secondary CO2 reforming of CH4 reaction. The ratio of H2/CO produced from ethanol dry reforming varied from 1.1 to 1.4 favored for usage as feedstocks of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The yield of H2 and CO also enhanced with increasing CO2 partial pressure whilst the optimal La loading in terms of C2H5OH conversion was observed at 3%La and catalytic activity increased with promoter addition reasonably owing to the redox properties of La promoter. CO2 reforming of ethanol reaction appeared via ethanol decomposition to CH4 intermediate product, which was subsequently converted to CO and H2 mixture through CH4 dry reforming reaction

Comparative evaluation of different cell disruption methods for the release of recombinant hepatitis B core antigen from Escherichia coli

A comparative evaluation of five different cell-disruption methods for the release of recombinant hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) from Escherichia coli was investigated. The cell disruption techniques evaluated in this study were high-pressure homogenization, batch-mode bead milling, continuous-recycling bead milling, ultrasonication, and enzymatic lysis. Continuous-recycling bead milling was found to be the most effective method in terms of operating cost and time. However, the highest degree of cell disruption and amounts of HBcAg were obtained from the high-pressure homogenization process. The direct purification of HBcAg from the unclarified cell disruptate derived from high-pressure homogenization and bead milling techniques, using batch anion-exchange adsorption methods, showed that the conditions of cell disruption have a substantial effect on subsequent protein recovery steps

Src Family Kinases and p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases Regulate Pluripotent Cell Differentiation in Culture

Multiple pluripotent cell populations, which together comprise the pluripotent cell lineage, have been identified. The mechanisms that control the progression between these populations are still poorly understood. The formation of early primitive ectoderm-like (EPL) cells from mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells provides a model to understand how one such transition is regulated. EPL cells form from mES cells in response to l-proline uptake through the transporter Slc38a2. Using inhibitors of cell signaling we have shown that Src family kinases, p38 MAPK, ERK1/2 and GSK3β are required for the transition between mES and EPL cells. ERK1/2, c-Src and GSK3β are likely to be enforcing a receptive, primed state in mES cells, while Src family kinases and p38 MAPK are involved in the establishment of EPL cells. Inhibition of these pathways prevented the acquisition of most, but not all, features of EPL cells, suggesting that other pathways are required. L-proline activation of differentiation is mediated through metabolism and changes to intracellular metabolite levels, specifically reactive oxygen species. The implication of multiple signaling pathways in the process suggests a model in which the context of Src family kinase activation determines the outcomes of pluripotent cell differentiation