Energy Conservation Using The Closed Water Loop Heat Pump

The closed water loop heat pump (CWLHP) system has been shown to be an energy conserving building heating and cooling system. Such systems are most applicable where simultaneous heating and cooling needs occur. In these systems, internally generated space heat is used to meet heating needs before external heat is provided from a heating plant. The water loop is the transport system moving heat from where it is not wanted to where it is required. Addition of water storage gives an option to store thermal energy for later use. In the common arrangement for the closed water loop heat pump system, each perimeter zone is served by individual heat pumps while the cores zones are served by a central air handler. This paper reports the results of a study on the effect of component arrangement and system control strategy on the energy saving potential of the water loop heat pump used for heating and cooling of a commercial office building

Anti-chaperone [eszett]A3/A1102-117 peptide interacting sites in human aB-crystallin

Purpose: Our previous work identified 23 low molecular weight (<3.5 kDa) crystallin peptides in the urea-soluble fractions of normal young, normal aged, and aged cataract human lenses. We found that one of these crystallin fragments, [beta]A3/ A1102-117 peptide (SDAYHIERLMSFRPIC), that are present in aged and cataract lens, increased the scattering of light by [beta]- and [gamma]-crystallins and alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and also reduced the chaperone-like activity of [alpha][beta]-crystallin. The present study was performed to identify the interacting sites of the [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide in [alpha]B-crystallin. Methods: [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide was first derivatized with sulfo-succinimidyl-2-[6-(biotinamido)-2-{pazidobenzamido}- hexanoamido] ethyl-1-3 dithio propionate (sulfo-SBED), a photoactivable, heterotrifunctional biotincontaining cross-linker. The biotin-derivatized peptide was then incubated with [alpha]B-crystallin at 37 [degrees]C for 2 h to allow complex formation followed by photolysis to facilitate the transfer of the biotin label from the peptide to [alpha]B-crystallin. Label transfer was confirmed by western blot, and the labeled [alpha]B-crystallin was digested with trypsin. Tryptic peptides from [alpha]B-crystallin carrying the biotin label were purified by avidin affinity chromatography, and [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide interacting sites in [alpha]B-crystallin were identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and nanospray quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (QqTOF MS/MS). Results: We found that the [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide interacted with [alpha]B-crystallin regions 70LEKDR74, 83HFSPEELKVK92, 91VKVLGDVIEVHGK103, 93VLGDVIEVHGKHEER107, and 121KYR123, which are part of the [alpha]-crystallin domain, and were previously shown to be part of the functional chaperone site in [alpha]B-crystallin. The [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide also interacted with regions at the COOH-terminal extension of [alpha]B-crystallin, 150KQVSGPER157, 164EEKPAVTAAPK174, and 164EEKPAVTAAPKK175. When two of the hydrophobic residues of [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide were replaced with hydrophilic residues, the resulting substituted peptide, SDADHGERLMSFRPIC, did not show the anti-chaperone property. Conclusions: This study confirmed the interactions between a low molecular weight peptide derived from [beta]A3/A1- crystallin found in aged and cataract lenses and [alpha]B-crystallin. The binding of [beta]A3/A1102-117 peptide to the chaperone site and the COOH-terminal extension of [alpha]B-crystallin may explain its anti-chaperone property

Identification and Analysis of Novel Amino-Acid Sequence Repeats in Bacillus anthracis str. Ames Proteome Using Computational Tools

We have identified four repeats and ten domains that are novel in proteins encoded by the Bacillus anthracis str. Ames proteome using automated in silico methods. A “repeat” corresponds to a region comprising less than 55-amino-acid residues that occur more than once in the protein sequence and sometimes present in tandem. A “domain” corresponds to a conserved region with greater than 55-amino-acid residues and may be present as single or multiple copies in the protein sequence. These correspond to (1) 57-amino-acid-residue PxV domain, (2) 122-amino-acid-residue FxF domain, (3) 111-amino-acid-residue YEFF domain, (4) 109-amino-acid-residue IMxxH domain, (5) 103-amino-acid-residue VxxT domain, (6) 84-amino-acid-residue ExW domain, (7) 104-amino-acid-residue NTGFIG domain, (8) 36-amino-acid-residue NxGK repeat, (9) 95-amino-acid-residue VYV domain, (10) 75-amino-acid-residue KEWE domain, (11) 59-amino-acid-residue AFL domain, (12) 53-amino-acid-residue RIDVK repeat, (13) (a) 41-amino-acid-residue AGQF repeat and (b) 42-amino-acid-residue GSAL repeat. A repeat or domain type is characterized by specific conserved sequence motifs. We discuss the presence of these repeats and domains in proteins from other genomes and their probable secondary structure

Custom Design & Fabrication of 3D printed cast for ankle immobilisation

Management of bone and joint injuries is commonly done by immobilisation using plaster/fibreglass casts. This study describes design and fabrication of patient specific cast using 3D printing.  The 3D printed cast while being patient friendly is superior to earlier casts in healing efficacy and hence redefines the joint immobilisation practice. We present here a case of “walk on brace” design and fabrication using 3D printing. The custom design of ankle immobilisation cast was done for an 18-year-old boy having tibia bone fracture during gymnastic activity. The workflow comprises of anatomical data acquisition, CAD, 3D printing, post processing and clinical approval for use. Additional features such as straps, anti-slip inner surface and tread for floor grip were incorporated in the design.

High sensitivity C-reactive protein levels across spectrum and severity of coronary artery disease

Background: C-reactive protein (CRP) is an acute-phase reactant protein synthesized by the liver in response to acute\ud stress in a wide range of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions. In healthy subjects and patients presenting with\ud coronary artery disease (CAD), elevated levels of CRP has repeatedly been demonstrated to predict future cardiovascular\ud events.\ud Methods: We measured high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels in 382 consecutive patients with CAD and 60 healthy controls by immunoturbidimetry method. Risk factors like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia,smoking, obesity and family history of premature CAD were assessed.\ud Results: The mean age of patients with CAD was 53.5±11.8 years (303 males) and that of control group was 50.83±8.07(28 males). The patient group had significant higher concentration of mean hs-CRP levels when compared\ud with the healthy control group (1.8±1.9 mg/L vs 0.35±1.1 mg/L, p<0.001). The mean hs-CRP levels of unstable angina\ud (USA) and myocardial infarction (MI) patients was higher than chronic stable angina (CSA) patients (p<0.05). Based\ud on the disease severity, we found a significantly higher hs-CRP levels in patients of triple vessel disease when compared\ud to patients with single vessel disease (p=0.01).\ud Conclusions: Elevated serum hs-CRP levels provide a useful marker for cardiovascular risk which, when combined\ud with traditional risk factors, may help improve global risk prediction. Our study showed a significant contribution of\ud hs-CRP to coronary risk prediction with better discrimination

Monitoring and Visualization of Crystallization Processes Using Electrical Resistance Tomography: CaCO3 and Sucrose Crystallization Case Studies

In the current research work, electrical resistance tomography (ERT) was employed for monitoring and visualization of crystallization processes. A first-of-its-kind MATLAB-based interactive GUI application "ERT-Vis" is presented. Two case studies involving varied crystallization methods were undertaken. The experiments were designed and performed involving calcium carbonate reactive (precipitative) crystallization for the high conductivity solution-solute media, and the cooling crystallization of sucrose representing the lower conductivity solution-solute combination. The software successfully provided key insights regarding the process in both crystallization systems. It could detect and separate the solid concentration distributions in the low as well as high conductivity solutions using the visual analytics tools provided. The performance and utility of the software were studied using a software evaluation case study involving domain experts. Participant feedback indicated that ERT-Vis software helps by reconstructing images instantaneously, interactively visualizing, and evaluating the output of the crystallization process monitoring data

Federated Representation Learning for Automatic Speech Recognition

Federated Learning (FL) is a privacy-preserving paradigm, allowing edge devices to learn collaboratively without sharing data. Edge devices like Alexa and Siri are prospective sources of unlabeled audio data that can be tapped to learn robust audio representations. In this work, we bring Self-supervised Learning (SSL) and FL together to learn representations for Automatic Speech Recognition respecting data privacy constraints. We use the speaker and chapter information in the unlabeled speech dataset, Libri-Light, to simulate non-IID speaker-siloed data distributions and pre-train an LSTM encoder with the Contrastive Predictive Coding framework with FedSGD. We show that the pre-trained ASR encoder in FL performs as well as a centrally pre-trained model and produces an improvement of 12-15% (WER) compared to no pre-training. We further adapt the federated pre-trained models to a new language, French, and show a 20% (WER) improvement over no pre-training.Comment: Accepted at ISCA SPSC Symposium 3rd Symposium on Security and Privacy in Speech Communication, 202

Cloning and functional characterization of a vertebrate low-density lipoprotein receptor homolog from eri silkmoth, Samia ricini

The lipophorin receptor (LpR) is the insect lipoprotein receptor and belongs to the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) superfamily. It has a vital role in the uptake of lipophorin (Lp) into various tissues. Here we report the full length cloning and functional characterization of an LpR from eri silkmoth, Samia ricini. The full length cDNA of SrLpR7-1 is 4132 bp including an open reading frame (ORF) of 2595 bp. The deduced amino acid sequence revealed well structured ligand binding, epidermal growth factor, glycosylation, transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains. The ligand binding domain consisted of seven cysteine repeats instead of the common eight cysteine repeats indicating it as a homolog of human LDLR. We identified another splice variant, SrLpR7-2 with a deletion of 27 amino acids in the O-glycosylation domain. Apart from the fat body, both isoforms are expressed in ovary, brain and other tissues at different developmental stages of the silkworm. RNAi experiments did not show any marked effects except that the adult emergence was delayed compared to controls. In addition, the SrLpR7 cDNA was recombinantly expressed and ligand binding experiments confirmed that the receptor protein binds not only to SrLp but also to Bombyx mori Lp