Nanostructured advanced ceramics for armour applications

Ceramics have been widely used for personnel and vehicle armour because of their desirable properties such as high hardness and low density. However the brittle nature associated with the ceramic materials, i.e. low toughness, reduces their ability to withstand multiple ballistic hits. The present work is focused on ceramic armour materials made from alumina and zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA). The effects of grain size and zirconia phase transformation toughening on the mechanical and high strain rate properties in both materials were investigated in detail. Alumina, 10%, 15% and 20% nano ZTA with 1.5 mol% yttria stabiliser were produced with various grain sizes. The processing of the materials started from suspension preparation, spray freeze drying of the suspension and die pressing to produce homogeneous green bodies with densities above 54%. Then, the green bodies were sintered using conventional single stage and/or two-stage sintering to produce the samples with full density and a range of grain sizes (0.5 to 1.5 μm alumina grains and 60 to 300 nm zirconia grains). The effects of the processing conditions on the microstructures were studied and the optimum processing route for each sample was determined. [Continues.

Elastic theory of unconstrained non-Euclidean plates

Non-Euclidean plates are a subset of the class of elastic bodies having no stress-free configuration. Such bodies exhibit residual stress when relaxed from all external constraints, and may assume complicated equilibrium shapes even in the absence of external forces. In this work we present a mathematical framework for such bodies in terms of a covariant theory of linear elasticity, valid for large displacements. We propose the concept of non-Euclidean plates to approximate many naturally formed thin elastic structures. We derive a thin plate theory, which is a generalization of existing linear plate theories, valid for large displacements but small strains, and arbitrary intrinsic geometry. We study a particular example of a hemispherical plate. We show the occurrence of a spontaneous buckling transition from a stretching dominated configuration to bending dominated configurations, under variation of the plate thickness

Protein engineering of Pseudomonas fluorescens peroxidase Dyp1B for oxidation of phenolic and polymeric lignin substrates

Directed evolution was applied to dye-decolourizing peroxidase Dyp1B from Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf-5, in order to enhance the activity for oxidation of phenolic and lignin substrates. Saturation mutagenesis was used to generate focused libraries at 7 active site residues in the vicinity of the heme cofactor, and the libraries were screened for activity towards 2,6-dichlorophenol. Mutants N193 L and H169 L were found to show 7–8 fold enhanced kcat/KM towards DCP, and replacements at Val205 and Ala209 also showed enhanced activity towards alkali Kraft lignin. Residues near the predicted Mn(II) binding site were also investigated by site-directed mutagenesis, and mutants S223 N and H127R showed 4-7-fold increased kcat/KM for Mn(II) oxidation. Mutant F128R also showed enhanced thermostability, compared to wild-type Dyp1B. Testing of mutants for low molecular weight product release from Protobind alkali lignin revealed that mutant H169 L showed enhanced product release, compared with WT enzyme, and the formation of three low molecular weight metabolites by this mutant was detected by reverse phase HPLC analysis

We Didn’t Fear the Reader: Embracing New Service Models With Staff and Patron Input

The book Transforming Acquisitions and Collection Services: Perspectives on Collaboration Within and Across Libraries explores new ways libraries can reach new standards in service, quality, and efficiency through cross-functional collaboration in acquisitions. Within libraries, the library acquisitions function can be combined with other units through close working relationships to support each group\u27s work. This chapter, titled We Didn\u27t Fear the Reader: Embracing New Service Models with Staff and Patron Input, details the organizational change and shifts in collection development philosophy at the Lehigh Libraries that led to more patron-centered policies and programs

Time Use Study of Urban School Psychologists

The current study employed Eitel et al.'s (1984) observation and self-recording methodology to measure the time use of four school psychologists in an urban school district across two school days. Knowledge of the daily time psychologists spend in key activities and domains provides information about how school psychologists supply urban children with quality psychological services. Results indicated that the Logistical and Other domain consumed more time (54.9%) than the Assessment domain (29.9%), unlike Eitel et al.'s (1984) study. In contrast, the Consultation, Counseling and Meetings domain occupied a modest amount of the psychologists' time (6.2%). Most activities in the "Other" category (35.6%) consisted of time spent waiting for others (lag time), while less than 1% of the psychologists' time was spent in essential intervention or professional development activities. Results have implications for the implementation of building-based assignments, a consultation model, and role expansion

Cross-identity Video Motion Retargeting with Joint Transformation and Synthesis

In this paper, we propose a novel dual-branch Transformation-Synthesis network (TS-Net), for video motion retargeting. Given one subject video and one driving video, TS-Net can produce a new plausible video with the subject appearance of the subject video and motion pattern of the driving video. TS-Net consists of a warp-based transformation branch and a warp-free synthesis branch. The novel design of dual branches combines the strengths of deformation-grid-based transformation and warp-free generation for better identity preservation and robustness to occlusion in the synthesized videos. A mask-aware similarity module is further introduced to the transformation branch to reduce computational overhead. Experimental results on face and dance datasets show that TS-Net achieves better performance in video motion retargeting than several state-of-the-art models as well as its single-branch variants. Our code is available at https://github.com/nihaomiao/WACV23_TSNet.Comment: WACV 202

Screening Child Social-emotional and Behavioral Functioning in Low-Income African Country Contexts

Background: children in low-income countries (LICs). Currently, there is little information available on the use of brief screening instruments Increased attention is being paid to identifying and responding to the social-emotional and behavioral needs of in LICs. The lack of psychometrically sound brief assessment tools creates a challenge in determining the population prevalence of child social-emotional and behavioral risk burden in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) country contexts. This study sought to determine the reliability and validity of three brief parent-rated screening tools-the Social Competence Scale (SCS), Pictorial Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PPSC), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)-in Uganda. These tools consider both strength- and pathology-based dimensions of child outcomes. Methods: Parents of 154 Ugandan 5-9 year-old children who were enrolled in Nursery to Primary 3 in Kampala (the capital city of Uganda) and part of a school-based mental health intervention trial were recruited and interviewed. About 54% of parents had educational attainment of primary school level or less. One hundred and one of these parents were interviewed a second time, about 5 months after the first/baseline assessment. Data from both time points were utilized to assess reliability and validity. Results: Inspection of psychometric properties supports the utility of these three brief screening measures to assess children\u27s social-emotional and behavioral functioning as demonstrated by adequate internal consistency, temporal stability, discriminant validity, concurrent validity, and predictive validity. Subscales from three screening measures were inter-related and associated with family characteristics, such as parental depression and food insecurity, in the expected directions. Conclusion: This study provides evidence supporting the appropriateness of using three tools and applying the developmental and behavioral constructs measured in each assessment in a low-income African setting

NeRF-Enhanced Outpainting for Faithful Field-of-View Extrapolation

In various applications, such as robotic navigation and remote visual assistance, expanding the field of view (FOV) of the camera proves beneficial for enhancing environmental perception. Unlike image outpainting techniques aimed solely at generating aesthetically pleasing visuals, these applications demand an extended view that faithfully represents the scene. To achieve this, we formulate a new problem of faithful FOV extrapolation that utilizes a set of pre-captured images as prior knowledge of the scene. To address this problem, we present a simple yet effective solution called NeRF-Enhanced Outpainting (NEO) that uses extended-FOV images generated through NeRF to train a scene-specific image outpainting model. To assess the performance of NEO, we conduct comprehensive evaluations on three photorealistic datasets and one real-world dataset. Extensive experiments on the benchmark datasets showcase the robustness and potential of our method in addressing this challenge. We believe our work lays a strong foundation for future exploration within the research community

Development of anti-infectives using phage display: biological agents against bacteria, viruses, and parasites

The vast majority of anti-infective therapeutics on the market or in development are small molecules; however, there is now a nascent pipeline of biological agents in development. Until recently, phage display technologies were used mainly to produce monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) targeted against cancer or inflammatory disease targets. Patent disputes impeded broad use of these methods and contributed to the dearth of candidates in the clinic during the 1990s. Today, however, phage display is recognized as a powerful tool for selecting novel peptides and antibodies that can bind to a wide range of antigens, ranging from whole cells to proteins and lipid targets. In this review, we highlight research that exploits phage display technology as a means of discovering novel therapeutics against infectious diseases, with a focus on antimicrobial peptides and antibodies in clinical or preclinical development. We discuss the different strategies and methods used to derive, select, and develop anti-infectives from phage display libraries and then highlight case studies of drug candidates in the process of development and commercialization. Advances in screening, manufacturing, and humanization technologies now mean that phage display can make a significant contribution in the fight against clinically important pathogens

Expected seismicity and the seismic noise environment of Europa

Seismic data will be a vital geophysical constraint on internal structure of Europa if we land instruments on the surface. Quantifying expected seismic activity on Europa both in terms of large, recognizable signals and ambient background noise is important for understanding dynamics of the moon, as well as interpretation of potential future data. Seismic energy sources will likely include cracking in the ice shell and turbulent motion in the oceans. We define a range of models of seismic activity in Europa's ice shell by assuming each model follows a Gutenberg-Richter relationship with varying parameters. A range of cumulative seismic moment release between $10^{16}$ and $10^{18}$ Nm/yr is defined by scaling tidal dissipation energy to tectonic events on the Earth's moon. Random catalogs are generated and used to create synthetic continuous noise records through numerical wave propagation in thermodynamically self-consistent models of the interior structure of Europa. Spectral characteristics of the noise are calculated by determining probabilistic power spectral densities of the synthetic records. While the range of seismicity models predicts noise levels that vary by 80 dB, we show that most noise estimates are below the self-noise floor of high-frequency geophones, but may be recorded by more sensitive instruments. The largest expected signals exceed background noise by $\sim$50 dB. Noise records may allow for constraints on interior structure through autocorrelation. Models of seismic noise generated by pressure variations at the base of the ice shell due to turbulent motions in the subsurface ocean may also generate observable seismic noise.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, Added in supplementary information from revision submission, including 3 audio files with sonification of Europa noise records. To view attachments, please download and extract the gzipped tar source file listed under "Other formats