Manipulative Aspects of Music

Every sensory stimulus, be it visual, audio, or some other, generates a brain response in the area of the cortex where such information is received, and processed, and gives full meaning or perception of the experience. The cerebral reaction can be monitored by measuring cortical activity through the synchronized response of a large number of neurons, ie. the formed electric wave. EEG scans show that the waves of the brain response in the alpha and beta bands are synchronized around the carrier rhythm of the music track. The sinusoids of the brain waves move in phases so that the peak of the wave always occurs at a precisely defined interval at the point preceding the next beat in the rhythm of the drum. In this way, the rhythm actually synchronizes the brain waves. For centuries, people have used binaural rhythms at 4.5 beats per second and thus causing various mental states. Although unaware of binaural rhythms, shamans were unmistakably known to cause shamanic trance, playing the drum about 4 to 7 beats per second for 13 to 15 minutes. They knew how to recognize the power and positive effects of binaural stimuli. This paper is an attempt to shed light on some possibilities of the manipulative capacities of the phenomenon called music

Performance indicators for roadway bridges

Publicado em "Maintenance, monitoring, safety, risk and resilience of bridges and bridge networks". ISBN 978-1-138-02851-7The performance indicators should, by its definition, allow capturing the life-cycle degradation processes affecting maintenance plans or the remaining lifetime. The qualitative or quantitative performance indicators are obtained through visual inspections, non-destructive tests or monitoring systems. After their quantification and the comparison with the respective performance goals and thresholds, a Quality Control plan should be accomplished. The COST TU1406 Action aims to uniform the European performance indicators, systemize the knowledge on the Quality Control plans for bridges, establish quality specifications and finally to develop the guideline and recommendations for the assessment of performance indicators. This contribution focuses on the current work of the first Working Group, WG1, where the first step is a collection of the key performance indicators at a European level. First those key performance indicators which capture mechanical and technical properties and its degradation behavior are assessed, while the further consideration reflect on the natural aging, quality of the material, service life design methods, and sustainable, environmental, economic and social based indicators.COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)Project “LeCIE – Life-cycle assessment for railway construction – strategies and methods

Identification of a Domain which Affects Kinetics and Antagonistic Potency of Clozapine at 5-HT3 Receptors

The widely used atypical antipsychotic clozapine is a potent competitive antagonist at 5-HT3 receptors which may contribute to its unique psychopharmacological profile. Clozapine binds to 5-HT3 receptors of various species. However, the structural requirements of the respective binding site for clozapine remain to be determined. Differences in the primary sequences within the 5-HT3A receptor gene in schizophrenic patients may result in an alteration of the antipsychotic potency and/or the side effect profile of clozapine. To determine these structural requirements we constructed chimeras with different 5-HT3A receptor sequences of murine and human origin and expressed these mutants in human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells. Clozapine antagonises recombinant mouse 5-HT3A receptors with higher potency compared to recombinant human 5-HT3A receptors. 5-HT activation curves and clozapine inhibition curves yielded the parameters EC50 and IC50 for all receptors tested in the range of 0.6–2.7 µM and 1.5–83.3 nM, respectively. The use of the Cheng-Prusoff equation to calculate the dissociation constant Kb values for clozapine revealed that an extracellular sequence (length 86 aa) close to the transmembrane domain M1 strongly determines the binding affinity of clozapine. Kb values of clozapine were significantly lower (0.3–1.1 nM) for receptors containing the murine sequence and higher when compared with receptors containing the respective human sequence (5.8–13.4 nM). Thus, individual differences in the primary sequence of 5-HT3 receptors may be crucial for the antipsychotic potency and/or the side effect profile of clozapine

CUsched: multiprogrammed workload scheduling on GPU architectures

Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) are currently widely used in High Performance Computing (HPC) applications to speed-up the execution of massively-parallel codes. GPUs are well-suited for such HPC environments because applications share a common characteristic with the gaming codes GPUs were designed for: only one application is using the GPU at the same time. Although, minimal support for multi-programmed systems exist, modern GPUs do not allow resource sharing among different processes. This lack of support restricts the usage of GPUs in desktop and mobile environment to a small amount of applications (e.g., games and multimedia players). In this paper we study the multi-programming support available in current GPUs, and show how such support is not sufficient. We propose a set of hardware extensions to the current GPU architectures to efficiently support multi-programmed GPU workloads, allowing concurrent execution of codes from different user processes. We implement several hardware schedulers on top of these extensions and analyze the behaviour of different work scheduling algorithms using system wide and per process metrics.Postprint (published version

Ricinusovo ulje kao obnovljiva sirovina za dobijanje poliuretanskih materijala

Traditionally, polyurethanes (PU) are manufactured by reacting isocyanates with petroleum-based polyols (polyether or polyester). Because oil resources are diminishing and are becoming expensive to produce, engineers and scientist have discovered new technologies to fabricate plastics from renewable resources. The goal of this work was to determine mechanical properties of polyurethanes synthesized from castor oil and different isocyantes: isophorone diisocyanate IPDI, 1,6-diisocyanatohexane (HDI) and aliphatic polycyclotrimer (HDIt). The samples were prepared by a one-step reactive process with stoichiometric balance of reactive groups. The catalysed synthesis was performed at normal pressure. It was estimated that a mechanical properties of prepared samples were strongly influenced by the isocyanate type.Tradicionalno se poliuretani (PU) dobijaju reagovanjem izocijanata sa poliolima (polietarski i poliestarski) koji se uobičajeno dobijaju iz nafte. Pošto se ti resursi smanjuju i postaju sve skuplji inženjeri i naučnici su razvili nove tehnologije za proizvodnju plastike iz obnovljivih sirovina. Cilj ovog rada je bio da se odrede mehanička svojstva poluretanskih materijala dobijenih jednostepenim reaktivnim procesom od ricinusovog ulja i različitih izocijanata: izoforon diizocijanata (IPDI), 1,6-diisocianatoheksana (HDI) i alifatičnog poliizocijanata ciklotrimera (HDIt) sa stehiometrijskim balansom reaktivnih grupa. Katalitička sinteza se odvijala na normalnom pritisku. Ustanovljeno je da su mehanička svojstva dobijenih materijala bila uslovljena tipom izocijanata

Polilaktid kao komponenta ekološki prihvatljivih kompozitnih materijala

The biodegradable linear aliphatic thermoplastic polyester poly(L-lactide) (PLA) is producible from agricultural products, such as corn. This polymer has been widely used as a biocompatible material for applications in surgical suture, medical implants and controlled drug delivery. Owing to its good mechanical properties and versatile fabrication processes the PLA has tremendous potential in traditional applications such as food packages, industrial devices, fibers, and green composites The goal of this work was to modify the mechanical properties of composite materials based on different PLA types and silica nanoparticles using thermoplastic elastomer.Biodegradabli linearni alifatični termoplastični poliestar poli(L-laktid) (PLA) se dobija iz poljoprivrednih proizvoda kao što su kukuruz ili šećerna repa. Ovaj polimer se intenzivno upotrebljava kao biokompatibilni materijal za primene kao što su hirurški konci, medicinski implantati i sistemi za kontrolisano otpuštanje lekova. Zahvaljujući dobrim mehanickim svojstvima i mogućnostima različitih postupaka prerade, PLA ima ogroman potencijal u tradicionalnim primenama kao sto su ambalaža za hranu, industrijska oprema, vlakna i zeleni kompoziti. Cilj ovog rada je bio da se primenom termoplastičnog elastomera modifikuju mehanička svojstva kompozitnih materijala na osnovu različitih tipova PLA (za ekstruziju, za duvane filmove, za biaksijalno orijentisane filmove) i nano čestica silicijum dioksida

Strukturiranje i primena materijala na osnovu biopolimera hitozana

Derived from chitin, chitosan is a unique biopolymer that exhibits, beside biocompatibility and biodegradability, outstanding adsorption properties. The layer-by-layer (LBL) deposition technique is based on the alternated adsorption of materials bearing complementary charged or functional groups, in aqueous medium. As a consequence of the polycationic nature of chitosan, chitosan-based films can be used as sensors, drug delivery systems and in tissue engineering. The goal of work was to obtain innovative nano-composites beads based on hitosan, alginate and iron-oxide prepared using LBL deposition method, as magnetic adsorbents used for the separation of dyes from solutions and suspensions.Hitozan je jedinstveni biopolimer koji, pored biokompatibilnosti i biodegradabilnosti, pokazuje i odlična adsorpciona svojstva. Sloj po sloj tehnika (layer-by-layer, (LBL)) se zasniva na naizmeničnoj adsorpciji materijala sa komplementarno naelektrisanim ili funkcionalnim grupama, u vodenoj sredini. Polikatjonska priroda hitozana omogućava njihovu primenu u LBL procesima, i zbog toga se filmovi na osnovu hitozana koriste kao senzori, nosači lekova i u inženjerstvu tkiva. Cilj rada je strukturiranje inovativnih nanokompozitnih granula na osnovu hitozana, alginata i Fe2O3 primenom LBL tehnike radi njihove primene kao magnetnih adsorbenata za uklanjanje boja iz rastvora i iz suspenzija

Razvoj postupaka polimerizacije L-laktida

To determine the appropriate conditions for the polymerization of (Llactide), to obtain poly(L-lactide) a few different methods were applied: in closed vials under vacuum, in the reactor under high pressure, in the microwave reactor and in a reactor with solvent using the initiator. The molecular masses of prepared samples were determined using GPC method. It was assessed that by microwave synthesis method for the polymerization time less than 30 minutes the resulting polymer have the highest molecular mass, 178.000 g mol-1. It was estimated that the samples synthesized with trifluoromethanesulfonic acid as initiator have the best thermal stability.Za određivanje optimalnih uslova za polimerizacije (L- laktida), za dobijanje poli (L-laktida) (PLLA) primenjene su različite metode polimerizacije: u zatvorenim posudama pod vakumom, u reaktoru pod visokim pritiskom, mikrotalasnom polju i u rastvoru sa inicijatorom. Za određivanje molekulskih masa korišćena je GPC metoda. Ustanovljeno je da je mikrotalasna sinteza postupak sa najkraćim vremenom polimerizacije (manjim od 30 minuta) pri čemu je nastaje polimer koji ima najveću molarnu masu 178.000 g mol-1. Najbolju termičku stabilnost imao je uzorak PLLA sintetisan sa trifluorometansulfonskom kiselinom kao inicijatorom

Dobijanje razgranatih kopoliestara od ricinusovog ulja kao inicijatora

Using renewable feedstocks, such as biomass, for the production of polymers can have both environmental and economic benefits. The goal of this project was to synthesize the renewable copolymers from monomer l-lactide and castor oil as an initiator. In sample formulation the mass ratio of the monomer to the initiator was in the range from 4,53 to 21,5. The ring-opening polymerization was carried in a microwave reactor using tin(II)2- ethylhexanoate as a catalyst. The molar masses of obtained star-shaped polymers were assessed using SEC method. The thermal properties of the branched polymer were evaluated using differential scanning calorimetry. The molecular mass of the branched polymer increased with increasing the feed ratio of lactide and castor oil.Korišćenje obnovljivih sirovina, kao što je biomasa, za proizvodnju polimera može da ima i ekološke i ekonomske prednosti. Cilj ovog rada je bila sinteza obnovljivih kopolimera na osnovu monomera L-laktida i ricinusovog ulja kao inicijatora. U sirovinskom sastavu uzoraka maseni odnos monomera L-laktida i inicijatora ricinusovog ulja bio je u opsegu od 4,53 do 21,5. Polimerizacija otvaranjem prstena je izvršena u mikrotalasnom reaktoru primenom kalaj(II)etilheksanoata kao katalizatora. Molske mase dobijenih zvezdastih polimera su određene pomoću SEC metode. Toplotna svojstva razgranatih polimera određena su metodom diferencijalne skenirajuće kalorimetrije. Molske mase razgranatog polimera rastu sa porastom masenog odnosa laktida i ricinusovog ulja