Underwater noise abatement panel and resonator structure

A system for reducing noise emissions in underwater environments is presented. The system can be extended to applications in any two-fluid environments where one fluid (gas) is contained in an enclosed resonator volume connected to the outside environment at an open end of the resonator body. The resonators act as gas-containing (e.g., air) Helmholtz resonators constructed into solid panels that are submerged in the fluid medium (e.g., sea water) in the vicinity of a noise generating source. The oscillations of the trapped air volume in the resonators causes reduction of certain noise energy and a general reduction in the transmitted noise in the environment of the system.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Emerging Era of Biomolecular Membrane Simulations: Automated Physically-Justified Force Field Development and Quality-Evaluated Databanks

Peer reviewe

Synthesis, characterization, and electrocatalytic ability of γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles for sensing acetaminophen

Maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) nanoparticles have been synthesized using co-precipitation method followed by chemically induced transition process. As prepared nanoparticles have been analyzed by X-ray diffraction, Raman and FTIR spectroscopies which reveal the γ-Fe2O3 phase. These γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticles have been used to modify the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) to form nano γ-Fe2O3 modified GC electrode for electrochemical sensing of acetaminophen (C6H9NO2) using potential controlled cyclic voltammetric (CV) technique. The obtained modified electrode shows an excellent electrocatalytic ability to sense acetaminophen in 0.1 M KCl supporting electrolyte. In addition, a significant enhancement in anodic peak current has been observed using nano γ-Fe2O3 modified GC electrode than the bare electrode. The CV plots reveal that redox peaks have been linearly co-related to the acetaminophen concentration in the range of 0.031 mM to 1 mM with sensitivity ~30.78 µA/mM

Content analysis of nutritional information in paediatric oral health education leaflets

Background: The aim of this study was to determine if paediatric oral health education leaflets with a food and nutritional focus provide messages that are clear and consistent with the current Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Infant Feeding Guidelines. Methods: Forty-three leaflets aimed at parents were sourced from Australian state and territory Health Departments, oral health industry partners and commercial organisations, and a content analysis was performed. Recommendations on food and drink type, consumption frequency and general diet and nutrition advice were considered and cross-referenced with the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Infant Feeding Guidelines to identify areas of consistency and discrepancy. Results: Twenty leaflets recommended reducing the consumption of sugary and/or acidic food, while 23 leaflets recommended reducing the consumption of sugary and/or acidic drinks. The majority of the leaflets advised water (n = 35) and milk (n = 23) to drink. Although 33 leaflets encouraged a healthy diet, seven of these did not specify what a healthy diet was. Twenty-eight leaflets provided early childhood-related (0-2 years) feeding advice. Confusing messages were found in nine leaflets, with ambiguous recommendations that were open to individual interpretation. Conclusions: There were some inconsistencies between the leaflets and the dietary and infant feeding guidelines in Australia; and across the leaflets, as not all important messages were included in any one leaflet. Government Health Departments and other relevant agencies should ensure that advisory messages regarding diet, particularly those with dental implications, are clear, complete and consistent across all dental educational leaflets. © 2017 The Author(s)

Reformulating the direct convolution for high-performance deep learning inference on ARM processors

We present two high-performance implementations of the convolution operator via the direct algorithm that outperform the so-called lowering approach based on the im2col transform plus the gemm kernel on an ARMv8-based processor. One of our methods presents the additional advantage of zero-memory overhead while the other employs an additional yet rather moderate workspace, substantially smaller than that required by the im2col+gemm solution. In contrast with a previous implementation of a similar zero-memory overhead direct convolution, this work exhibits the key advantage of preserving the conventional NHWC data layout for the input/output activations of the convolution layers.Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Jaume

Echinoderms have bilateral tendencies

Echinoderms take many forms of symmetry. Pentameral symmetry is the major form and the other forms are derived from it. However, the ancestors of echinoderms, which originated from Cambrian period, were believed to be bilaterians. Echinoderm larvae are bilateral during their early development. During embryonic development of starfish and sea urchins, the position and the developmental sequence of each arm are fixed, implying an auxological anterior/posterior axis. Starfish also possess the Hox gene cluster, which controls symmetrical development. Overall, echinoderms are thought to have a bilateral developmental mechanism and process. In this article, we focused on adult starfish behaviors to corroborate its bilateral tendency. We weighed their central disk and each arm to measure the position of the center of gravity. We then studied their turning-over behavior, crawling behavior and fleeing behavior statistically to obtain the center of frequency of each behavior. By joining the center of gravity and each center of frequency, we obtained three behavioral symmetric planes. These behavioral bilateral tendencies might be related to the A/P axis during the embryonic development of the starfish. It is very likely that the adult starfish is, to some extent, bilaterian because it displays some bilateral propensity and has a definite behavioral symmetric plane. The remainder of bilateral symmetry may have benefited echinoderms during their evolution from the Cambrian period to the present

Dynamical renormalization group approach to transport in ultrarelativistic plasmas: the electrical conductivity in high temperature QED

The DC electrical conductivity of an ultrarelativistic QED plasma is studied in real time by implementing the dynamical renormalization group. The conductivity is obtained from the realtime dependence of a dissipative kernel related to the retarded photon polarization. Pinch singularities in the imaginary part of the polarization are manifest as growing secular terms that in the perturbative expansion of this kernel. The leading secular terms are studied explicitly and it is shown that they are insensitive to the anomalous damping of hard fermions as a result of a cancellation between self-energy and vertex corrections. The resummation of the secular terms via the dynamical renormalization group leads directly to a renormalization group equation in real time, which is the Boltzmann equation for the (gauge invariant) fermion distribution function. A direct correspondence between the perturbative expansion and the linearized Boltzmann equation is established, allowing a direct identification of the self energy and vertex contributions to the collision term.We obtain a Fokker-Planck equation in momentum space that describes the dynamics of the departure from equilibrium to leading logarithmic order in the coupling.This determines that the transport time scale is given by t_{tr}=(24 pi)/[e^4 T \ln(1/e)}]. The solution of the Fokker-Planck equation approaches asymptotically the steady- state solution as sim e^{-t/(4.038 t_{tr})}.The steady-state solution leads to the conductivity sigma = 15.698 T/[e^2 ln(1/e)] to leading logarithmic order. We discuss the contributions beyond leading logarithms as well as beyond the Boltzmann equation. The dynamical renormalization group provides a link between linear response in quantum field theory and kinetic theory.Comment: LaTex, 48 pages, 14 .ps figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Cholesterol Induces Specific Spatial and Orientational Order in Cholesterol/Phospholipid Membranes

In lipid bilayers, cholesterol facilitates the formation of the liquid-ordered phase and enables the formation of laterally ordered structures such as lipid rafts. While these domains have an important role in a variety of cellular processes, the precise atomic-level mechanisms responsible for cholesterol's specific ordering and packing capability have remained unresolved

Cholesterol Induces Specific Spatial and Orientational Order in Cholesterol/Phospholipid Membranes

In lipid bilayers, cholesterol facilitates the formation of the liquid-ordered phase and enables the formation of laterally ordered structures such as lipid rafts. While these domains have an important role in a variety of cellular processes, the precise atomic-level mechanisms responsible for cholesterol's specific ordering and packing capability have remained unresolved