Analysis of water absorbency into knitted spacer structures

The absorbency properties of knitted structures are very important in designing garments that both remove liquid sweat from the skin and provide tactile and sensorial comfort to the wearer. Water absorbency by knitted spacer structures was experimentally investigated using a gravimetric absorbency tester to record absorbency rate, total absorbency, and time taken to saturate the structure. The geometry of spacer structures was analyzed and a model created to define the capillary characteristic in the spacer yarn. Absorbency into the spacer structures was modeled using the fabric parameters, the capillary radius, and the properties of water. Experimental and theoretical results were compared to validate the models

Rutting assessment of crumb rubber modifier modified warm mix asphalt incorporating warm asphalt additive

Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) as a green technology, permits production of asphalt mixtures at lower temperatures compared to conventional HMA; emissions and energy consumption reduction, were among the key success of this technology, thus, enhancing social, economic, and environmental sustainability. But due to the reduced production temperature, WMA are more prone to rutting, to improve the rutting resistance of WMA mixtures and minimize pollution resulting from waste rubber tire. Therefore, the effect of wet processed Crumb Rubber Modifier (CRM) on rutting depth of WMA mixtures incorporating 2.5% Sasobit by weight of base binders were assessed in the laboratory. In this study, the asphalt mixtures were fabricated in accordance with Superpave, using; crush granite aggregate of 9.5mm NMAS and the four binders that were produced by blending the PG 64 binder with different contents of 40 mesh size CRM (0%, 5%, 10%, and 15%, by weight of the base binder). Rutting depths of the mixtures were assessed on 150mm diameter and 70mm thick cylindrical samples using wheel tracker, the wheel tracking test were carried out at 45oC and 60oC, in accordance with BS 598 Part 110 (1998). Based on the results of wheel tracking tests, CRM could improve the resistance of the WMA mixtures to rutting. It was also found from statistical Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), that the two influence factors; CRM, and the test temperature both having p-values less than the assumed significance at 95% confidence level, therefore they have significant effect on rutting in WMA

Standardization of Anaesthesia Ready Time and reasons of delay in induction of anaesthesia

Objective: Anaesthesia-Ready Time (ART) is the time taken by the anaesthetist to provide sufficient anaesthetic depth for start of surgery. Our aim was to set benchmark timings for ART and compare it with our current practice.Methods: Benchmark ART time of 15 minutes was set for American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) class I and II patients, 30 minutes for ASA III and IV patients, 20 minutes for spinal and 30 minutes for epidural anaesthesia. An additional 15 minutes was added for each invasive procedure.Results: Three hundred elective cases were audited. Seventy eight percent of the cases were within benchmark timings. The main causes of delay included undergraduate students performing procedures (24.6%), teaching invasive lines to postgraduates (21.3%) and paediatric patients (16.4%).CONCLUSION: The introduction of benchmark timings and its regular auditing can help standardize operating room booking time and reducing patient cost

Activation of α(1A)-adrenergic receptor promotes differentiation of rat-1 fibroblasts to a smooth muscle-like phenotype

BACKGROUND: Fibroblasts, as connective tissue cells, are able to transform into another cell type including smooth muscle cells. α(1A)-adrenergic receptor (α(1A)-AR) stimulation in rat-1 fibroblasts is coupled to cAMP production. However, the significance of an increase in cAMP produced by α(1A)-AR stimulation on proliferation, hypertrophy and differentiation in these cells is not known. RESULTS: Activation of the α(1A)-AR in rat-1 fibroblasts by phenylephrine (PE) inhibited DNA synthesis by 67% and blocked the re-entry of 81% of the cells into S phase of the cell cycle. This cell cycle blockage was associated with hypertrophy characterized by an increase in protein synthesis (64%) and cell size. Elevation of cAMP levels decreased both DNA and protein synthesis. Inhibition of adenylyl cyclase or protein kinase A reversed the antiproliferative effect of cAMP analogs but not PE; the hypertrophic effect of PE was also not altered. The functional response of rat-1 cells to PE was accompanied by increased expression of cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitors p27(kip1 )and p21(cip1/waf1), which function as negative regulators of the cell cycle. Stimulation of α(1A)-AR also upregulated the cell cycle regulatory proteins pRb, cyclin D1, Cdk 2, Cdk 4, and proliferating cell nuclear antigen. The antiproliferative effect of PE was blocked by p27(kip1 )antisense but not sense oligonucleotide. PE also promoted expression of smooth muscle cell differentiation markers (smooth muscle alpha actin, caldesmon, and myosin heavy chain) as well as the muscle development marker MyoD. CONCLUSIONS: Stimulation of α(1A)-AR promotes cell cycle arrest, hypertrophy and differentiation of rat-1 fibroblasts into smooth muscle-like cells and expression of negative cell cycle regulators by a mechanism independent of the cAMP/PKA signaling pathway

A new peak detection algorithm for MALDI mass spectrometry data based on a modified Asymmetric Pseudo-Voigt model

Background Mass Spectrometry (MS) is a ubiquitous analytical tool in biological research and is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of bio-molecules. Peak detection is the essential first step in MS data analysis. Precise estimation of peak parameters such as peak summit location and peak area are critical to identify underlying bio-molecules and to estimate their abundances accurately. We propose a new method to detect and quantify peaks in mass spectra. It uses dual-tree complex wavelet transformation along with Stein's unbiased risk estimator for spectra smoothing. Then, a new method, based on the modified Asymmetric Pseudo-Voigt (mAPV) model and hierarchical particle swarm optimization, is used for peak parameter estimation. Results Using simulated data, we demonstrated the benefit of using the mAPV model over Gaussian, Lorentz and Bi-Gaussian functions for MS peak modelling. The proposed mAPV model achieved the best fitting accuracy for asymmetric peaks, with lower percentage errors in peak summit location estimation, which were 0.17% to 4.46% less than that of the other models. It also outperformed the other models in peak area estimation, delivering lower percentage errors, which were about 0.7% less than its closest competitor - the Bi-Gaussian model. In addition, using data generated from a MALDI-TOF computer model, we showed that the proposed overall algorithm outperformed the existing methods mainly in terms of sensitivity. It achieved a sensitivity of 85%, compared to 77% and 71% of the two benchmark algorithms, continuous wavelet transformation based method and Cromwell respectively. Conclusions The proposed algorithm is particularly useful for peak detection and parameter estimation in MS data with overlapping peak distributions and asymmetric peaks. The algorithm is implemented using MATLAB and the source code is freely available at http://mapv.sourceforge.net