Assessment of Cubic Equations of State: Machine Learning for Rich Carbon-Dioxide Systems

YesCarbon capture and storage (CCS) has attracted renewed interest in the re-evaluation of the equations of state (EoS) for the prediction of thermodynamic properties. This study also evaluates EoS for Peng–Robinson (PR) and Soave–Redlich–Kwong (SRK) and their capability to predict the thermodynamic properties of CO2-rich mixtures. The investigation was carried out using machine learning such as an artificial neural network (ANN) and a classified learner. A lower average absolute relative deviation (AARD) of 7.46% was obtained for the PR in comparison with SRK (AARD = 15.0%) for three components system of CO2 with N2 and CH4. Moreover, it was found to be 13.5% for PR and 19.50% for SRK in the five components’ (CO2 with N2, CH4, Ar, and O2) case. In addition, applying machine learning provided promise and valuable insight to deal with engineering problems. The implementation of machine learning in conjunction with EoS led to getting lower predictive AARD in contrast to EoS. An of AARD 2.81% was achieved for the three components and 12.2% for the respective five components mixture

Attentional bias towards and away from fearful faces is modulated by developmental amygdala damage

The amygdala is believed to play a major role in orienting attention towards threat-related stimuli. However, behavioral studies on amygdala-damaged patients have given inconsistent results-variously reporting decreased, persisted, and increased attention towards threat. Here we aimed to characterize the impact of developmental amygdala damage on emotion perception and the nature and time-course of spatial attentional bias towards fearful faces. We investigated SF, a 14-year-old with selective bilateral amygdala damage due to Urbach-Wiethe disease (UWD), and ten healthy controls. Participants completed a fear sensitivity questionnaire, facial expression classification task, and dot-probe task with fearful or neutral faces for spatial cueing. Three cue durations were used to assess the time-course of attentional bias. SF expressed significantly lower fear sensitivity, and showed a selective impairment in classifying fearful facial expressions. Despite this impairment in fear recognition, very brief (100 msec) fearful cues could orient SF's spatial attention. In healthy controls, the attentional bias emerged later and persisted longer. SF's attentional bias was due solely to facilitated engagement to fear, while controls showed the typical phenomenon of difficulty in disengaging from fear. Our study is the first to demonstrate the separable effects of amygdala damage on engagement and disengagement of spatial attention. The findings indicate that multiple mechanisms contribute in biasing attention towards fear, which vary in their timing and dependence on amygdala integrity. It seems that the amygdala is not essential for rapid attention to emotion, but probably has a role in assessment of biological relevance

Amyloid and tau pathology associations with personality traits, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive lifestyle in the preclinical phases of sporadic and autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease

Background Major prevention trials for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are now focusing on multidomain lifestyle interventions. However, the exact combination of behavioral factors related to AD pathology remains unclear. In 2 cohorts of cognitively unimpaired individuals at risk of AD, we examined which combinations of personality traits, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive lifestyle (years of education or lifetime cognitive activity) related to the pathological hallmarks of AD, amyloid-β, and tau deposits. Methods A total of 115 older adults with a parental or multiple-sibling family history of sporadic AD (PREVENT-AD [PRe-symptomatic EValuation of Experimental or Novel Treatments for AD] cohort) underwent amyloid and tau positron emission tomography and answered several questionnaires related to behavioral attributes. Separately, we studied 117 mutation carriers from the DIAN (Dominant Inherited Alzheimer Network) study group cohort with amyloid positron emission tomography and behavioral data. Using partial least squares analysis, we identified latent variables relating amyloid or tau pathology with combinations of personality traits, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive lifestyle. Results In PREVENT-AD, lower neuroticism, neuropsychiatric burden, and higher education were associated with less amyloid deposition (p = .014). Lower neuroticism and neuropsychiatric features, along with higher measures of openness and extraversion, were related to less tau deposition (p = .006). In DIAN, lower neuropsychiatric burden and higher education were also associated with less amyloid (p = .005). The combination of these factors accounted for up to 14% of AD pathology. Conclusions In the preclinical phase of both sporadic and autosomal dominant AD, multiple behavioral features were associated with AD pathology. These results may suggest potential pathways by which multidomain interventions might help delay AD onset or progression

Chloroquine (antimalaria medication with anti SARS-CoV activity) solubility in supercritical carbon dioxide

Unfortunately, malaria still remains a major problem in tropical areas, and it takes thousands of lives each year and causes millions of infected cases. Besides, on December 2019, a new virus known as coronavirus appeared, that its rapid prevalence caused the World Health Organization (WHO) to consider it a pandemic. As a potential drug for controlling or treating these two undesired diseases at the cellular level, chloroquine and its derivatives are being investigated, although they possess side effects, which must be reduced for effective and safe treatments. With respect to the importance of this medicine, the current research aimed to calculate the solubility of chloroquine in supercritical carbon dioxide, and evaluated effect of pressure and temperature on the solubility. The pressure varied between 120 and 400 bar, and temperatures between 308 and 338 K were set for the measurements. The experimental results revealed that the solubility of chloroquine lies between 1.64 × 10−5 to 8.92 × 10−4 (mole fraction) with different functionality to temperature and pressure. Although the solubility was indicated to be strong function of pressure and temperature, the effect of temperature was more profound and complicated. A crossover pressure point was found in the solubility measurements, which indicated similar behaviour to an inflection point. For the pressures higher than the crossover point, the temperature indicated direct effect on the solubility of chloroquine. On the other hand, for pressures less than the crossover point, temperature enhancement led to a reduction in the solubility of chloroquine. Moreover, the obtained solubility results were correlated via semi-empirical density-based thermodynamic correlations. Five correlations were studied including: Kumar & Johnston, Mendez-Santiago-Teja, Chrastil, Bartle et al., and Garlapati & Madras. The best performance was obtained for Mendez-Santiago-Teja's correlation in terms of average absolute relative deviation percent (12.0%), while the other examined models showed almost the same performance for prediction of chloroquine solubility. © 2020 Elsevier B.V

Scale-freeness of dominant and piecemeal perceptions during binocular rivalry

When two eyes are simultaneously stimulated by two inconsistent images, the observer’s perception switches between the two images every few seconds such that only one image is perceived at a time. This phenomenon is named binocular rivalry (BR). However, sometimes the perceived image is a piecemeal mixed of two stimuli known as piecemeal perceptions. In this study, a BR task was designed in which orthogonal gratings are presented to the two eyes. The subjects were trained to report 3 states: dominant perceptions (two state matching to perceived grating orientation) and the piecemeal perceptions (third state). We explored the scale-freeness of the BR percept durations considering the two dominant monocular states as well as the piecemeal transition state using detrended fluctuation analysis. Our results reproduced the previous finding of memory in the perceptual switches between the monocular perception states. Moreover, we showed that such memory also exists in the transitory periods of dichoptic piecemeal perceptions. These results support our hypothesis that the pool of unstable piecemeal perceptions could be regarded as separate multiple low-depth basin in the perceptual state landscape. Likewise, the transitions from these piecemeal state basins and stable monocular state basins are faced with resistance. Therefore there is inertia and memory (i.e. positive serial correlation) for the piecemeal dichoptic perception states as well as the monocular states

Controlled release evaluation of paracetamol loaded amine functionalized mesoporous silica KCC1 compared to microcrystalline cellulose based tablets

In the pharmaceutical manufacturing, drug release behavior development is remained as one of the main challenges to improve the drug effectiveness. Recently, more focus has been done on using mesoporous silica materials as drug carriers for prolonged and superior control of drug release in human body. In this study, release behavior of paracetamol is developed using drug-loaded KCC-1-NH2 mesoporous silica, based on direct compaction method for preparation of tablets. The purpose of this study is to investigate the utilizing of pure KCC-1 mesoporous silica (KCC-1) and amino functionalized KCC-1 (KCC-1-NH2) as drug carriers in oral solid dosage formulations compared to common excipient, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), to improve the control of drug release rate by manipulating surface chemistry of the carrier. Diferent formulations of KCC-1 and KCC-NH2 are designed to investigate the efect of functionalized mesoporous silica as carrier on drug controlled-release rate. The results displayed the remarkable efect of KCC-1-NH2 on drug controlled-release in comparison with the formulation containing pure KCC-1 and formulation including MCC as reference materials. The pure KCC-1 and KCC-1-NH2 are characterized using diferent evaluation methods such as FTIR, SEM, TEM and N2 adsorption analysis

Influence of broiler breeder and laying hen breed on the apparent metabolizable energy of selected feed ingredients

Abstract: An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of genotype (meat-type or egg-type) on the AME digestibility of selected ingredients. The practice of using only one value for apparent metabolizable energy (AME) of feed ingredients for all classes of poultry has been questioned. The ability to convert nutrients to the final products depends on a variety of factors, such as age, sex, genetic and housing system. Some studies have indicated that broiler breeders are less able to metabolize diet energy, than are Leghorn birds. In this study, the ingredients included samples of cereals (corn, wheat and barley), one sample of plant protein (soybean meal) and one cereal by-product (wheat bran). Forty adult males (20 per breed) were randomly assigned to five feedstuffs. Each feedstuff was fed to four birds per breed. The AMEn values were determined using a classical total collection method (Sibbald method). The AME of each feed ingredient was calculated from the difference between GE intake and GE losses in the droppings. The AME values were corrected to zero nitrogen balance (AMEn). The results were showed the average AMEn digestibility in wheat (egg-type : 2785, Kcals/Kg ; meat-type : 2750 Kcals/Kg) and barley (egg-type : 2715 Kcals/Kg; meat-type : 2675 Kcals/Kg) samples were similar in two breeds. The AMEn digestibility in White Leghorn birds was significantly greater for corn (egg-type : 3065 kcals/Kg ; meat-type : 2842 kcals/Kg) , soybean (egg-type : 2185 Kcals/Kg ; meat-type : 2040 Kcals/Kg) and wheat bran (egg-type : 1440 Kcals/Kg ; meat-type : 1333 Kcals/Kg) compared to the broiler strain. In this study, considerable differences were also noted between the two breeds that were tested in their ability to utilize the AME of feed ingredients. In mature broiler breeder hens excess ME intake can cause fat deposition; consequently, accurate representation of the energy content of a breeder diet is important. On the other hand, deficiencies of energy around the time of peak egg production will likely reduce egg production at this time, or production will fall after peak by definition. Since tables concerning ingredient composition usually contain ME values determined with White Leghorn, further research is needed if energy content of broiler breeder diets is accurately represented

Adsorption behavior of uracil on external surface of MgO nanotubes: A new class of hybrid nano-bio materials

In this study, geometries, binding, optical and electronic features and charge-transfer characteristics of magnesium oxide nanotubes (MgONTs) interacting with uracil pyrimidine were evaluated in both vacuum and solvent (water and toluene) environments by using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations. The binding energy of uracil was estimated to be in a range of �0.543 to �1.864 eV in vacuum, �0.347 to �1.709 eV in toluene, and �0.193 to �1.592 eV in water environments. Furthermore, the values of the binding and reaction energies are all negative meaning that the binding of uracil on MgONT is energetically favorable and the synthesis of the complex structure is possible. The results illustrate that the adsorption energy values of uracil on MgONT also follow the order of vacuum > toluene > water. Our analysis demonstrates that solvent polarity is so significant on the stability and reactivity of uracil. In contrast to vacuum and toluene environments, the dipole moment value of MgONT in water environment was significantly increased upon adsorption of uracil. Our findings illustrate that MgONT was more sensitive for detecting the uracil in vacuum environment than water and toluene environments to exploit as a biochemical sensor. © 202