Geotechnical Problems and Performance Studies - Chilla Power Scheme, Hardwar

Thin plastic clay seams existing in the upper Shivalik formations caused hazardous geotechnical problems during the construction of 144 MW capacity Chilla Power House Scheme, Hardwar, India by initiating several land slides. In addition, serious seepage problems occurred with the commissioning of the scheme. The paper describes in detail, the events of slides & seepage problems faced and the remedial measures adopted to counteract them. The data observed on the instruments installed to keep a vigil on the performance of the structure has also been analysed and discussed

Post-operative deep brain stimulation assessment: Automatic data integration and report generation.

BACKGROUND: The gold standard for post-operative deep brain stimulation (DBS) parameter tuning is a monopolar review of all stimulation contacts, a strategy being challenged by recent developments of more complex electrode leads. OBJECTIVE: Providing a method to guide clinicians on DBS assessment and parameter tuning by automatically integrating patient individual data. METHODS: We present a fully automatic method for visualization of individual deep brain structures in relation to a DBS lead by combining precise electrode recovery from post-operative imaging with individual estimates of deep brain morphology utilizing a 7T-MRI deep brain atlas. RESULTS: The method was evaluated on 20 STN DBS cases. It demonstrated robust automatic creation of 3D-enabled PDF reports visualizing electrode to brain structure relations and proved valuable in detecting miss placed electrodes. DISCUSSION: Automatic DBS assessment is feasible and can conveniently provide clinicians with relevant information on DBS contact positions in relation to important anatomical structures

Adding transparency to uncertainty: An argument-based method for evaluative opinions

Over the past 15 years, digital evidence has been identified as a leading cause, or contributing factor, in wrongful convictions in England and Wales. To prevent legal decision-makers from being misled about the relevance and credibility of digital evidence and to ensure a fair administration of justice, adopting a balanced, systematic and transparent approach to evaluating digital evidence and disseminating results is crucial. This paper draws on general concepts from argumentation theory, combined with key principles and concepts from probabilistic and narrative/scenario approaches to develop arguments and analyse evidence. We present the “Argument-Based Method for Evaluative Opinions”, which is a novel method for producing argument-based evaluative opinions in the context of criminal investigation. The method may be used stand-alone or in combination with other qualitative or quantitative/statistical methods to produce evaluative opinions, highlighting the logical relationships between the components making up the argument supporting a hypothesis. To facilitate a structured assessment of the credibility and relevance of the individual argument components, we introduce an Argument Evaluation Scale and, ultimately, an Argument Matrix for a holistic determination of the probative value of the evidence

Access to side-chain carbon information in deuterated solids under fast MAS through non-rotor-synchronized mixing.

We demonstrate the accessibility of aliphatic 13C side chain chemical shift sets for solid-state NMR despite perdeuteration and fast MAS using isotropic, non-rotor-synchronized 13C-13C mixing. Combined with amide proton detection, we unambiguously and sensitively detect whole side chain to backbone correlations for two proteins using around 1 mg of sample

Kraft's number and ideal word packing

N. M. Dragomir, S. S. Dragomir, C. E. M. Pearce and J. Sund

Introduction to Nordic Mediation Research

Non peer reviewe

Discrete molecular dynamics simulations of peptide aggregation

We study the aggregation of peptides using the discrete molecular dynamics simulations. At temperatures above the alpha-helix melting temperature of a single peptide, the model peptides aggregate into a multi-layer parallel beta-sheet structure. This structure has an inter-strand distance of 0.48 nm and an inter-sheet distance of 1.0 nm, which agree with experimental observations. In this model, the hydrogen bond interactions give rise to the inter-strand spacing in beta-sheets, while the Go interactions among side chains make beta-strands parallel to each other and allow beta-sheets to pack into layers. The aggregates also contain free edges which may allow for further aggregation of model peptides to form elongated fibrils.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Prediction of peptide and protein propensity for amyloid formation

Understanding which peptides and proteins have the potential to undergo amyloid formation and what driving forces are responsible for amyloid-like fiber formation and stabilization remains limited. This is mainly because proteins that can undergo structural changes, which lead to amyloid formation, are quite diverse and share no obvious sequence or structural homology, despite the structural similarity found in the fibrils. To address these issues, a novel approach based on recursive feature selection and feed-forward neural networks was undertaken to identify key features highly correlated with the self-assembly problem. This approach allowed the identification of seven physicochemical and biochemical properties of the amino acids highly associated with the self-assembly of peptides and proteins into amyloid-like fibrils (normalized frequency of β-sheet, normalized frequency of β-sheet from LG, weights for β-sheet at the window position of 1, isoelectric point, atom-based hydrophobic moment, helix termination parameter at position j+1 and ΔGº values for peptides extrapolated in 0 M urea). Moreover, these features enabled the development of a new predictor (available at http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/appnn/index.html) capable of accurately and reliably predicting the amyloidogenic propensity from the polypeptide sequence alone with a prediction accuracy of 84.9 % against an external validation dataset of sequences with experimental in vitro, evidence of amyloid formation