Structure and properties of CdSe heterojunctions

Imperial Users onl

Hydrodynamic analysis of compliant journal bearings

Compliant journal bearings are commonly used to support radial loads at extreme operating speeds and conditions where conventional bearings cannot operate. The journal and bearing system are supported by a thin lubricant film (gas) due to the hydrodynamic pressure distribution. To predict the bearing performance parameters, the compressible Reynolds equation is solved based on Infinitely Long Approximation (ILA), Finite Analysis (FA) and a new Modified Parabolic Approximation (MPA). The MPA method reduces the classical Reynolds equation to an ordinary differential equation. Appropriate equations and numerical solution are developed for treating a compressible Reynolds equation using MPA. A series of parametric study is presented to validate the new method. This method can be extended to study the dynamic characteristics of a gas bearing considering the non-linearity of the equations which could further aid in design and understanding of newer generation of bearings

Use of pneumatics in a precision snap bean planter

Sowing seed in the soil has been practiced ever since man learned to raise plants for his food. The simplest practice he adopted for raising crops on fields was just to throw seeds or broadcast them on the land where the plants were intended to be grown. With this simple start of the art of sowing, as man learned more and more about the behavior, growth and the art of crop husbandry, he searched for better ways of seeding or sowing seeds in order to accomplish better yields. The growth of plant science and the demand for better seeding practices besides the requirements of seed bed preparation, manuring, weed control, etc., lead him to the investigation and use of several devices or applicances or say equipment for planting seeds. At present the plant science demands the planting of seeds in rows at specified width and at desired spaces between seeds in a row. Of course the distance between rows and spacing between seeds varies according to the nature of the crop. The plant science also demands that seeds to be placed either in groups (otherwise called hills) or single seeds. Placing of seeds in specified rows and at a given spacing is alone not sufficient. They have to be placed at desired depth and an environment of soil is to be created to obtain the desired stand of plants both in number and also in uniformity Seeds not only vary in shape and size with different crops but they also vary in size and shape within the same crop with different varieties and with the same variety crop in seeds. These variations in seeds and variations in the planting practices have lead to the development of various types of planting equipment that are now found in the market. The requirements of planting devices for most of the crops have been fairly accomplished as could be seen from the review of previous work briefly mentioned under Review of Literature. Coming to the requirements of snap beans, they are required to be planted as single seeds in rows as close as cultural operations permit and at uniform spacings within a row in order to have a uniform stand of crop foi\u27 obtaining maximum yields. The usual width between rows is three to five feet for pole beans and 28 to 38 inches for bush beans. The seed spacing within the row varies from 1-1/2 to 4 inches (17). Tests conducted in Pulaski County, Kentucky, with the same fertilizer level and with varied overall spacing of five, seven, and nine plants per foot showed that plants at seven per foot gave the maximum yield (18). Thus, the accuracy with which snap beans are to be planted for obtaining maximum yield is within a very small range. This demands the use of precision planting equipment which could meter beans in singles and plant them at correct spaces in the rows to get the desired stand of plants. The standard horizontal corn planter found in the market with certain modifications of equipment and use of specially designed plates is being used by some farmers for planting snap beans. As these cylindrical shaped snap beans of the same variety vary both in diameter and in length of seeds, they are required many times to be graded to obtain accurate metering. Often ungraded seeds cost less than graded seeds, it is desirable to have a planter which could meter and plant seeds with precision irrespective of the size and shape of the seeds. The requirement of metering seeds of various sizes and shapes needs an approach quite different from the conventional plate metering devices. In the present investigations the possibility of separating single seeds from a group of seeds in a hopper through the use of pneumatic vacuum pressure was explored. It was thought that it would be possible to catch a single seed and separate it from the group by holding the seed with pneumatic vacuum pressure at the end of a suitably designed nozzle, positioned on the periphery of a rotating vertical disc or plate

Spontaneous rectus sheath hematoma mimicking acute abdomen

Rectus sheath hematoma has been described in the past due to various etiologies with varying degrees of severity. It is a rare cause of acute abdomen. Clinical presentation may vary from person to person and based on site of collection and source of bleeding. Various management options including surgical and non-surgical measures have been described and generally present with tenderness with a mass of varying size based on the duration and amount of bleeding. Here, we present the case of a 72-year-old female with acute abdomen on presentation, unstable vitals, and severe pallor. A tender mass over the left lower part of the abdomen was found, and on further evaluation with imaging, the patient was found to have a rectus sheath hematoma. The hematoma was successfully treated with the evacuation of the hematoma and ligation of the bleeding vessel

Facilitating Multifunctional Green Infrastructure Planning in Washington, DC through a Tableau Interface

Multifunctional urban green infrastructure (UGI) can regulate stormwater, mitigate heat islands, conserve biodiversity and biocultural diversity, and produce food, among other functions. Equitable governance of UGI requires new tools for sharing pertinent information. Our goal was to develop a public-access geographic information system (GIS) that can be used for comprehensive UGI planning in Washington, DC (the District) and to create an e-tool for UGI in the form of Tableau dashboards. The dashboards allow stakeholders to identify (1) existing UGI and (2) potential areas for new UGI including urban agriculture (UA). They also allow users to manipulate the data and identify priority locations for equitable UGI development by applying population vulnerability indices and other filters. We demonstrate use of the dashboards through scenarios focusing on UA in the District, which currently has 150 ha of existing UGI in the form of documented projects and an additional 3012 ha potentially suitable for UGI development. A total of 2792 ha is potentially suitable for UA, with 58% of that area in Wards 5, 7, and 8, which are largely food deserts and whose residents are primarily Black and experience the greatest inequities. Our work can serve as a model for similar digital tools in other locales using Tableau and other platforms

Mapping plant metabolic pathways using PathVisio 2

The purpose of this presentation is to show the source, methods, and results of creating a computerized display of the metabolic pathways of model plants Oryza sativa (rice) and Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) using the computer program PathVisio2. The finished products may be viewed and modified for free on www.wikipathways.org by the registered community annotators

Proteinski profil i serološka dijagnostika invazije cisticercima Taenia solium u svinja

A study on the protein profi le of the bladder worms of Taenia solium was conducted. Three antigens, including whole cyst antigen (WCA), scolex antigen (SA) and excretory secretory antigen (ESA), were evaluated and the presence of 18, 15 and 12 polypeptides was observed, respectively. The WCA, SA and ESA had 11, 10 and 9 polypeptides respectively as immunodominant when these were allowed to react with homologous hyper immune sera. When infected pig sera were allowed to react, 4 bands in WCA, 2 in SA and 4 in ESA were found to be highly reactive.Provedeno je istraživanje proteinskog profi la cisticerka Taenia solium. Istražena su tri antigena, uključujući antigen cijele ciste (WCA) s utvrđenih 18 polipeptida, antigen skoleksa (SA) s 15 polipeptidai ekskretorno sekretorni antigen (ESA) s utvrđenih 12 polipeptida. Kod antigena WCA, SA i ESA kao imunodominantni su se pokazali polipeptidi 11, 10 i 9 u reakciji sa homolognim hiperimunim serumom. U reakciji sa serumima invadiranih svinja utvrđene su kao visoko reaktivne četiri trake kod WCA, dvije kod SA i četiri kod ESA antigena

Abdominal catastrophe secondary to paraduodenal hernia

An Internal hernia is a protrusion of abdominal viscera through the opening in the peritoneum or mesentery. We report the case of a left paraduodenal hernia (LPDH) combined with a small bowel obstruction in a 50-years-old male with pain abdomen and vomiting and no previous abdominal surgeries. An anteroposterior abdominal radiograph showed a clustered small bowel loops towards the left side of the abdomen and few air-fluid levels suggestive of obstruction. CECT abdomen showed a focal crowding of small bowel loops noted in the left anterior pararenal space with crowding of mesenteric vasculature and displacement of ascending left colic artery and inferior mesenteric vein anteriorly. The surgical intervention provided definitive diagnosis and treatment for LPDH. A paraduodenal hernia is a relatively rare cause of acute abdomen, and its diagnosis is often incorrect or delayed owing to its variable clinical manifestations. Therefore, it is important for the clinicians to recognize this condition, diagnose it early, and avoid making a wrong diagnosisowing to its high overall mortality rate

Bleeding jejunal metastases arising from primary alveolar soft part sarcoma of thigh

Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) is a rare tumor (0.5–1% of sarcomas) of unknown etiology with a highly characteristic morphology. It tends to occur more often in the younger age group with a predilection for the female sex. Prognosis is generally poor and it often presents with late metastases. Here, we report the case of a 48-year-old female, who presented to the emergency department with a complaint of giddiness and melena. She was a known case of sarcoma ASPS left thigh with pulmonary secondaries. On evaluation, a bleeding tumor in the upper jejunum was found on upper GI endoscopy. As the patient’s hemodynamics were unstable, she had to be operated without further imaging. Post-operative period was uneventful

WikiPathways for plants: a community pathway curation portal and a case study in rice and arabidopsis seed development networks

Background: Next-generation sequencing and 'omics' platforms are used extensively in plant biology research to unravel new genomes and study their interactions with abiotic and biotic agents in the growth environment. Despite the availability of a large and growing number of genomic data sets, there are only limited resources providing highly-curated and up-to-date metabolic and regulatory networks for plant pathways. Results: Using PathVisio, a pathway editor tool associated with WikiPathways, we created a gene interaction network of 430 rice (Oryza sativa) genes involved in the seed development process by curating interactions reported in the published literature. We then applied an InParanoid-based homology search to these genes and used the resulting gene clusters to identify 351 Arabidopsis thaliana genes. Using this list of homologous genes, we constructed a seed development network in Arabidopsis by processing the gene list and the rice network through a Perl utility software called Pathway GeneSWAPPER developed by us. In order to demonstrate the utility of these networks in generating testable hypotheses and preliminary analysis prior to more in-depth downstream analysis, we used the expression viewer and statistical analysis features of PathVisio to analyze publicly-available and published microarray gene expression data sets on diurnal photoperiod response and the seed development time course to discover patterns of coexpressed genes found in the rice and Arabidopsis seed development networks. These seed development networks described herein, along with other plant pathways and networks, are freely available on the plant pathways portal at WikiPathways (http://plants.wikipathways.org). Conclusion: In collaboration with the WikiPathways project we present a community curation and analysis platform for plant biologists where registered users can freely create, edit, share and monitor pathways supported by published literature. We describe the curation and annotation of a seed development network in rice, and the projection of a similar, gene homology-based network in Arabidopsis. We also demonstrate the utility of the Pathway GeneSWAPPER (PGS) application in saving valuable time and labor when a reference network in one species compiled in GPML format is used to project a similar network in another species based on gene homology.Keywords: Metabolic pathways, Stress response, Oryza sativa L., Gene expression, Coordinated transcriptional regulation, Use efficiency, Flowering time, Database, Identification, Genom