Response of a small-turboshaft-engine compression system to inlet temperature distortion

An experimental investigation was conducted into the response of a small-turboshaft-engine compression system to steady-state and transient inlet temperature distortions. Transient temperature ramps range from less than 100 K/sec to above 610 K/sec and generated instantaneous temperatures to 420 K above ambient. Steady-state temperature distortion levels were limited by the engine hardware temperature list. Simple analysis of the steady-state distortion data indicated that a particle separator at the engine inlet permitted higher levels of temperature distortion before onset of compressor surge than would be expected without the separator

Agent-based simulation of reactions in the crowded and structured intracellular environment: Influence of mobility and location of the reactants

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In this paper we apply a novel agent-based simulation method in order to model intracellular reactions in detail. The simulations are performed within a virtual cytoskeleton enriched with further crowding elements, which allows the analysis of molecular crowding effects on intracellular diffusion and reaction rates. The cytoskeleton network leads to a reduction in the mobility of molecules. Molecules can also unspecifically bind to membranes or the cytoskeleton affecting (i) the fraction of unbound molecules in the cytosol and (ii) furthermore reducing the mobility. Binding of molecules to intracellular structures or scaffolds can in turn lead to a microcompartmentalization of the cell. Especially the formation of enzyme complexes promoting metabolic channeling, e.g. in glycolysis, depends on the co-localization of the proteins.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While the co-localization of enzymes leads to faster reaction rates, the reduced mobility decreases the collision rate of reactants, hence reducing the reaction rate, as expected. This effect is most prominent in diffusion limited reactions. Furthermore, anomalous diffusion can occur due to molecular crowding in the cell. In the context of diffusion controlled reactions, anomalous diffusion leads to fractal reaction kinetics. The simulation framework is used to quantify and separate the effects originating from molecular crowding or the reduced mobility of the reactants. We were able to define three factors which describe the effective reaction rate, namely <it>f ^diff</it>for the diffusion effect, <it>f ^volume</it>for the crowding, and <it>f ^access</it>for the reduced accessibility of the molecules.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Molecule distributions, reaction rate constants and structural parameters can be adjusted separately in the simulation allowing a comprehensive study of individual effects in the context of a realistic cell environment. As such, the present simulation can help to bridge the gap between <it>in vivo </it>and <it>in vitro </it>kinetics.</p

Experimental study of ceramic coated tip seals for turbojet engines

Ceramic gas-path seals were fabricated and successfully operated over 1000 cycles from flight idle to maximum power in a small turboshaft engine. The seals were fabricated by plasma spraying zirconia over a NiCoCrAlX bond boat on the Haynes 25 substrate. Coolant-side substrate temperatures and related engine parameters were recorded. Post-test inspection revealed mudflat surface cracking with penetration to the ceramic bond-coat interface

Coarse-grained brownian dynamics simulation of rule-based models

International audienceStudying spatial effects in signal transduction, such as co-localization along scaffold molecules, comes at a cost of complexity. In this paper, we propose a coarse-grained, particle-based spatial simulator, suited for large signal transduction models. Our approach is to combine the particle-based reaction and diffusion method, and (non-spatial) rule-based modeling: the location of each molecular complex is abstracted by a spheric particle, while its internal structure in terms of a site-graph is maintained explicit. The particles diffuse inside the cellular compartment and the colliding complexes stochastically interact according to a rule-based scheme. Since rules operate over molecular motifs (instead of full complexes), the rule set compactly describes a combinatorial or even infinite number of reactions. The method is tested on a model of Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) cascade of yeast pheromone response signaling. Results demonstrate that the molecules of the MAPK cascade co-localize along scaffold molecules, while the scaffold binds to a plasma membrane bound upstream component, localizing the whole signaling complex to the plasma membrane. Especially we show, how rings stabilize the resulting molecular complexes and derive the effective dissociation rate constant for it

Development of semiconductor detectors for fast neutron radiography

A high-energy neutron detector has been developed using a semiconductor diode fabricated from bulk gallium arsenide wafers with a polyethylene neutron converter layer. Typical thickness of the diode layer is 250 to 300 μm with bias voltages of 30 to 150 volts. Converter thicknesses up to 2030 μm have been tested. GaAs neutron detectors offer many advantages over existing detectors including positional information, directional dependence, gamma discrimination, radiation hardness, and spectral tailoring. Polyethylene-coated detectors have been shown to detect 14 MeV neutrons directly from a D-T neutron generator without interference from gamma rays or scattered neutrons. An array of small diode detectors can be assembled to perform fast neutron radiography with direct digital readout and real-time display of the image produced. In addition, because the detectors are insensitive to gamma rays and low energy neutrons, highly radioactive samples (such as spent nuclear fuel or transuranic waste drums) could be radiographed. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87673/2/1118_1.pd

Inhibition of AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling Alleviates Impairments in Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity Induced by Amyloid beta

The AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a Ser/Thr kinase that is activated in response to low-energy states to coordinate multiple signaling pathways to maintain cellular energy homeostasis. Dysregulation of AMPK signaling has been observed in Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD), which is associated with abnormal neuronal energy metabolism. In the current study we tested the hypothesis that aberrant AMPK signaling underlies AD-associated synaptic plasticity impairments by using pharmacological and genetic approaches. We found that amyloid beta (A beta)-induced inhibition of long-term potentiation (LTP) and enhancement of long-term depression were corrected by the AMPK inhibitor compound C (CC). Similarly, LTP impairments in APP/PS1 transgenic mice that model AD were improved by CC treatment. In addition, A beta-induced LTP failure was prevented in mice with genetic deletion of the AMPK alpha 2-subunit, the predominant AMPK catalytic subunit in the brain. Furthermore, we found that eukaryotic elongation factor 2 (eEF2) and its kinase eEF2K are key downstream effectors that mediate the detrimental effects of hyperactive AMPK in AD pathophysiology. Our findings describe a previously unrecognized role of aberrant AMPK signaling in AD-related synaptic pathophysiology and reveal a potential therapeutic target for AD

Where Are My Intelligent Assistant's Mistakes? A Systematic Testing Approach

Intelligent assistants are handling increasingly critical tasks, but until now, end users have had no way to systematically assess where their assistants make mistakes. For some intelligent assistants, this is a serious problem: if the assistant is doing work that is important, such as assisting with qualitative research or monitoring an elderly parent’s safety, the user may pay a high cost for unnoticed mistakes. This paper addresses the problem with WYSIWYT/ML (What You See Is What You Test for Machine Learning), a human/computer partnership that enables end users to systematically test intelligent assistants. Our empirical evaluation shows that WYSIWYT/ML helped end users find assistants’ mistakes significantly more effectively than ad hoc testing. Not only did it allow users to assess an assistant’s work on an average of 117 predictions in only 10 minutes, it also scaled to a much larger data set, assessing an assistant’s work on 623 out of 1,448 predictions using only the users’ original 10 minutes’ testing effort

Coated Gallium Arsenide Neutron Detectors : Results of Characterization Measurements.

Effective detection of special nuclear materials (SNM) is essential for reducing the threat associated with stolen or improvised nuclear devices. Passive radiation detection technologies are primarily based on gamma-ray detection and subsequent isotope identification or neutron detection (specific to neutron sources and SNM). One major effort supported by the Department of Homeland Security in the area of advanced passive detection is handheld or portable neutron detectors for search and localization tasks in emergency response and interdiction settings. A successful SNM search detector will not only be able to confirm the presence of fissionable materials but also establish the location of the source in as short of time as possible while trying to minimize false alarms due to varying background or naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). For instruments based on neutron detectors, this translates to detecting neutrons from spontaneous fission or alpha-n reactions and being able to determine the direction of the source (or localizing the source through subsequent measurements). Polyethylene-coated gallium arsenide detectors were studied because the detection scheme is based on measuring the signal in the gallium arsenide wafers from the electrical charge of the recoil protons produced from the scattering of neutrons from the hydrogen nucleus. The inherent reaction has a directional dependence because the neutron and hydrogen nucleus have equivalent masses. The assessment and measurement of polyethylene-coated gallium arsenide detector properties and characteristics was the first phase of a project being performed for the Department of Homeland Security and the results of these tests are reported in this report. The ultimate goal of the project was to develop a man-portable neutron detection system that has the ability to determine the direction of the source from the detector. The efficiency of GaAs detectors for different sizes of polyethylene layers and different angles between the detector and the neutron source were determined. Preliminary measurements with a neutron generator based on a deuterium-tritium reaction ({approx}14 MeV neutrons) were performed and the results are discussed. This report presents the results of these measurements in terms of efficiency and angular efficiency and compares them to Monte Carlo calculations to validate the calculation scheme in view of further applications. Based on the results of this study, the polyethylene-coated gallium arsenide detectors provide adequate angular resolution based on proton recoil detection from the neutron scattering reaction from hydrogen. However, the intrinsic efficiency for an individual detector is extremely low. Because of this low efficiency, large surface area detectors ( or a large total surface area from many small detectors) would be required to generate adequate statistics to perform directional detection in near-real time. Large surface areas could be created by stacking the detector wafers with only a negligible attenuation of source neutrons. However, the cost of creating such a large array of GaAs is cost-prohibitive at this time

A parametric level-set method for partially discrete tomography

This paper introduces a parametric level-set method for tomographic reconstruction of partially discrete images. Such images consist of a continuously varying background and an anomaly with a constant (known) grey-value. We represent the geometry of the anomaly using a level-set function, which we represent using radial basis functions. We pose the reconstruction problem as a bi-level optimization problem in terms of the background and coefficients for the level-set function. To constrain the background reconstruction we impose smoothness through Tikhonov regularization. The bi-level optimization problem is solved in an alternating fashion; in each iteration we first reconstruct the background and consequently update the level-set function. We test our method on numerical phantoms and show that we can successfully reconstruct the geometry of the anomaly, even from limited data. On these phantoms, our method outperforms Total Variation reconstruction, DART and P-DART.Comment: Paper submitted to 20th International Conference on Discrete Geometry for Computer Imager