Further studies of stall flutter and nonlinear divergence of two-dimensional wings

An experimental investigation is made of the purely torsional stall flutter of a two-dimensional wing pivoted about the midchord, and also of the bending-torsion stall flutter of a two-dimensional wing pivoted about the quarterchord. For the purely torsional flutter case, large amplitude limit cycles ranging from + or - 11 to + or - 160 degrees were observed. Nondimensional harmonic coefficients were extracted from the free transient vibration tests for amplitudes up to 80 degrees. Reasonable nondimensional correlation was obtained for several wing configurations. For the bending-torsion flutter case, large amplitude coupled limit cycles were observed with torsional amplitudes as large as + or - 40 degrees. The torsion amplitudes first increased, then decreased with increasing velocity. Additionally, a small amplitude, predominantly torsional flutter was observed when the static equilibrium angle was near the stall angle

Transient Thermal Diffusion in Conical Bodies

A numerical solution has been obtained for transient thermal diffusion in a cone in which chemical, electrical or nuclear energy at a constant rate. An implicit method is used to set up the finite difference equations and detailed analysis is carried out to trace the time history of the temperature distribution from the initial stages to the steady state. The effect of the rate of heat generation on the time required to reach steady state thermal distribution has also been depicted

Transient Heat Transfer in Composite Solids with Non-Linear Boundary Condition

Transient heat transfer in composite media with non-linear radiation boundary condition has been studied by implicit finite difference scheme. It is observed that as the diffusivity ratio decreases there is more transfer of heat from radiating surface towards the non-radiating surface

Growth of Hydromagnetic Shock Waves

In this technical note we consider the influence of a transverse magnetic field on the formation of a shocks wave in an electrically conducting field. We conclude that the presence of a transverse magnetic field is Conducive to the growth of compression waves and the decay of the expansion waves

Transient Heat Transfer in Cylinpers.

A numerical solution has been obtained for transient heat transfer in cylinders by appropriate choice of body ,conforming grid points. The physical domain is transformed to computational domain using elliptic partial differential equation technique, wherein the grid spacing becomes uniform. The advantage of this method is that the discretisation of transformed equations. and accompanying boundary conditipns becdme very simple. The applicability of this method is very broad, as it can beused for carryinI giout study of any comple'x domain in contrast to finite difference methods, which have limited applicability. Detailedcalculations have been carried out to trace the evolution of temperaturedistribution frpm the initiial stages to the steadystate for circular cylinder, elliptical cylinder and square block with circular hole. This paper is aimed for general-shaped bodies and it has been applied to studytransient heat transfer in combustion-driven shock tube

Broad boron sheets and boron nanotubes: An ab initio study of structural, electronic, and mechanical properties

Based on a numerical ab initio study, we discuss a structure model for a broad boron sheet, which is the analog of a single graphite sheet, and the precursor of boron nanotubes. The sheet has linear chains of sp hybridized sigma bonds lying only along its armchair direction, a high stiffness, and anisotropic bonds properties. The puckering of the sheet is explained as a mechanism to stabilize the sp sigma bonds. The anisotropic bond properties of the boron sheet lead to a two-dimensional reference lattice structure, which is rectangular rather than triangular. As a consequence the chiral angles of related boron nanotubes range from 0 to 90 degrees. Given the electronic properties of the boron sheets, we demonstrate that all of the related boron nanotubes are metallic, irrespective of their radius and chiral angle, and we also postulate the existence of helical currents in ideal chiral nanotubes. Furthermore, we show that the strain energy of boron nanotubes will depend on their radii, as well as on their chiral angles. This is a rather unique property among nanotubular systems, and it could be the basis of a different type of structure control within nanotechnology.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, Versions: v1=preview, v2=first final, v3=minor corrections, v4=document slightly reworke

Lithium alters expression of RNAs in a type-specific manner in differentiated human neuroblastoma neuronal cultures, including specific genes involved in Alzheimer's disease.

Lithium (Li) is a medication long-used to treat bipolar disorder. It is currently under investigation for multiple nervous system disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). While perturbation of RNA levels by Li has been previously reported, its effects on the whole transcriptome has been given little attention. We, therefore, sought to determine comprehensive effects of Li treatment on RNA levels. We cultured and differentiated human neuroblastoma (SK-N-SH) cells to neuronal cells with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA). We exposed cultures for one week to lithium chloride or distilled water, extracted total RNA, depleted ribosomal RNA and performed whole-transcriptome RT-sequencing. We analyzed results by RNA length and type. We further analyzed expression and protein interaction networks between selected Li-altered protein-coding RNAs and common AD-associated gene products. Lithium changed expression of RNAs in both non-specific (inverse to sequence length) and specific (according to RNA type) fashions. The non-coding small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) were subject to the greatest length-adjusted Li influence. When RNA length effects were taken into account, microRNAs as a group were significantly less likely to have had levels altered by Li treatment. Notably, several Li-influenced protein-coding RNAs were co-expressed or produced proteins that interacted with several common AD-associated genes and proteins. Lithium's modification of RNA levels depends on both RNA length and type. Li activity on snoRNA levels may pertain to bipolar disorders while Li modification of protein coding RNAs may be relevant to AD

Chemical approaches to targeted protein degradation through modulation of the ubiquitin proteasome pathway

Manipulation of the ubiquitin-proteasome system to achieve targeted degradation of proteins within cells using chemical tools and drugs has the potential to transform pharmacological and therapeutic approaches in cancer and other diseases. An increased understanding of the molecular mechanism of thalidomide and its analogues following their clinical use has unlocked small-molecule modulation of the substrate specificity of the E3 ligase cereblon (CRBN), which in turn has resulted in the advancement of new immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs) into the clinic. The degradation of multiple context-specific proteins by these pleiotropic small molecules provides a means to uncover new cell biology and to generate future drug molecules against currently undruggable targets. In parallel, the development of larger bifunctional molecules that bring together highly specific protein targets in complexes with CRBN, von Hippel-Lindau, or other E3 ligases to promote ubiquitin-dependent degradation has progressed to generate selective chemical compounds with potent effects in cells and in vivo models, providing valuable tools for biological target validation and with future potential for therapeutic use. In this review, we survey recent breakthroughs achieved in these two complementary methods and the discovery of new modes of direct and indirect engagement of target proteins with the proteasome. We discuss the experimental characterisation that validates the use of molecules that promote protein degradation as chemical tools, the preclinical and clinical examples disclosed to date, and the future prospects for this exciting area of chemical biology

Regularizing Portfolio Optimization

The optimization of large portfolios displays an inherent instability to estimation error. This poses a fundamental problem, because solutions that are not stable under sample fluctuations may look optimal for a given sample, but are, in effect, very far from optimal with respect to the average risk. In this paper, we approach the problem from the point of view of statistical learning theory. The occurrence of the instability is intimately related to over-fitting which can be avoided using known regularization methods. We show how regularized portfolio optimization with the expected shortfall as a risk measure is related to support vector regression. The budget constraint dictates a modification. We present the resulting optimization problem and discuss the solution. The L2 norm of the weight vector is used as a regularizer, which corresponds to a diversification "pressure". This means that diversification, besides counteracting downward fluctuations in some assets by upward fluctuations in others, is also crucial because it improves the stability of the solution. The approach we provide here allows for the simultaneous treatment of optimization and diversification in one framework that enables the investor to trade-off between the two, depending on the size of the available data set