Interlocking Print Patterns

A new method for fastening materials together in additive manufacturing (AM) is proposed. The method can be performed by a software program such as a slicing program for preparing a design for printing. In our research we used an FFF printing technique to validate the new method

Loops and Threads in FFF manufactured products

This publication relates to toolpath generation and a method for material deposition. We suggest the creation of loops in FFF produced products together with cross-connections through those loops, in order to increase the adhesion strength in between layers either of the same material or of different and potentially incompatible materials. By chaining of such loops and their cross-connections an interlocking microstructure arises which increases the Z-strength of the FFF manufactured (multi-material) product

Reducing stress in 3D objects made using Fused Filament Fabrication

We propose a new 3D printing method to lessen the effects of tension in FFF printed objects. By simply changing the toolpaths of the outer wall traces we can print materials that otherwise would need a heated chamber and strict temperature control to avoid deformations

Protein structure analysis of mutations causing inheritable diseases. An e-Science approach with life scientist friendly interfaces

Contains fulltext : 89590.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Many newly detected point mutations are located in protein-coding regions of the human genome. Knowledge of their effects on the protein's 3D structure provides insight into the protein's mechanism, can aid the design of further experiments, and eventually can lead to the development of new medicines and diagnostic tools. RESULTS: In this article we describe HOPE, a fully automatic program that analyzes the structural and functional effects of point mutations. HOPE collects information from a wide range of information sources including calculations on the 3D coordinates of the protein by using WHAT IF Web services, sequence annotations from the UniProt database, and predictions by DAS services. Homology models are built with YASARA. Data is stored in a database and used in a decision scheme to identify the effects of a mutation on the protein's 3D structure and function. HOPE builds a report with text, figures, and animations that is easy to use and understandable for (bio)medical researchers. CONCLUSIONS: We tested HOPE by comparing its output to the results of manually performed projects. In all straightforward cases HOPE performed similar to a trained bioinformatician. The use of 3D structures helps optimize the results in terms of reliability and details. HOPE's results are easy to understand and are presented in a way that is attractive for researchers without an extensive bioinformatics background

Experiments and simulations on a cold-flow blast furnace hearth model

The blast furnace hearth plays an important role in the operational stability and lifetime of the reactor. The quasi-stagnant bed of coke particles termed the deadman undergoes complex interaction with the flowing hot metal, and remains largely ill-understood. In this work, a cold model blast furnace hearth is presented, and studied using both numerical and experimental techniques. Magnetic Particle Tracking (MPT) is used to investigate the individual particle behaviour within the cylindrical, opaque bed. At high liquid holdup, the particle bed was found to alternate between floating and sitting states, following the liquid level during the tapping and filling cycle. This bed motion was found to induce a migration of particles, thereby slowly renewing the deadman. The rate of horizontal migration increases with the vertical bed amplitude, and the renewal of particles is concentrated around the opening of the tap hole. No direct influence of the coke-free space on the tapping rate was found in these experiments. Instead, the disturbance of the packing in front of the tap hole was observed to lead to a higher tapping rate. Additionally, a coupled numerical framework is presented, in which Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method and the Discrete Element Method (DEM) are combined. A simulation set-up is presented which closely replicates the experimental conditions. The position and movement of the floating bed are found to be well-predicted by the VOF/CFD-DEM model. Particle trajectories are presented, and migration of particles within the deadman is observed. Alongside the particle motion, the liquid flow pattern during draining of the vessel is visualised. It is concluded that a coke-free space underneath the deadman significantly impacts the shape of the liquid flow pattern, which affects the erosion processes within the blast furnace hearth.</p

Experiments on floating bed rotating drums using magnetic particle tracking

Magnetic particle tracking (MPT) was employed to study a rotating drum filled with cork particles, using both air and water as interstitial medium. This noninvasive monitoring technique allows for the tracking of both particle translation and rotation in dry granular and liquid–solid systems. Measurements on the dry and floating bed rotating drum were compared and detailed analysis of the bed shape and velocity profiles was performed. It was found that the change of particle–wall and particle–particle interaction caused by the presence of water significantly affects the bed behavior. The decreased friction leads to slipping of the particles with respect to the wall, rendering the circulation rate largely insensitive to increased drum speed. It was also found that the liquid–particle interaction is determining for the behavior of the flowing layer. The well-defined experiments and in-depth characterization performed in this study provide an excellent validation case for multiphase flow models.</p

Optimized Suspension Trapping Method for Phosphoproteomics Sample Preparation

A successful mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics analysis relies on effective sample preparation strategies. Suspension trapping (S-Trap) is a novel, rapid, and universal method of sample preparation that is increasingly applied in bottom-up proteomics studies. However, the performance of the S-Trap protocol for phosphoproteomics studies is unclear. In the existing S-Trap protocol, the addition of phosphoric acid (PA) and methanol buffer creates a fine protein suspension to capture proteins on a filter and is a critical step for subsequent protein digestion. Herein, we demonstrate that this addition of PA is detrimental to downstream phosphopeptide enrichment, rendering the standard S-Trap protocol suboptimal for phosphoproteomics. In this study, the performance of the S-Trap digestion for proteomics and phosphoproteomics is systematically evaluated in large-scale and small-scale samples. The results of this comparative analysis show that an optimized S-Trap approach, where trifluoroacetic acid is substituted for PA, is a simple and effective method to prepare samples for phosphoproteomics. Our optimized S-Trap protocol is applied to extracellular vesicles to demonstrate superior sample preparation workflow for low-abundance, membrane-rich samples