Ultrafine conducting fibers: metallization of poly(acrylonitrile-co-glycidyl methacrylate) nanofibers

Electrospun poly(glycidylmethacrylate) (PGMA) and poly(acrylonitrile-co-glycidyl methacrylate) (P(AN-GMA)) nanofibers were coated with monodisperse silver nanoparticles by using an electroless plating technique at ambient conditions. Oxirane groups on the surface of nanofibers were replaced with reducing agent, hydrazine. Surface modified nanofibers were allowed to react with ammonia solution of AgNO3. A redox reaction takes place and metallic silver nucleate on fibers surface. Parameters affecting the particle size were determined

Investigation of Vitamin D Levels in Patients with Vitiligo Vulgaris

The aim of the study was to investigate serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH) D3) levels in patients with vitiligo vulgaris in terms of causal relation and extension of the disorder.This study is a clinical cross-sectional study carried out in order to determine 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels among 25 patients with vitiligo vulgaris and in 41 controls. Fitzpatrick skin phototypes, history of autoimmune disease, family history of vitiligo, and duration of the disease were also evaluated.The mean levels of vitamin D in patient and the control group were 15.2±5.2 ng/dL and 14.4±6.2 ng/dL respectively (P&gt;0.05). In our study, 48% of the patients had insufficient (&lt;30 ng/mL) and 52% had very low (&lt;15 ng/mL) levels of vitamin D. There was no correlation between age, duration of the disease, and body surface area affected with vitamin D levels. There was no significant difference in vitamin D levels between patients who had family history of vitiligo (5 patients, 20%) and those that did not.Vitamin D levels were found to be insufficient (&lt;30 ng/mL) or very low (&lt;15 ng/mL) in most of the patients with vitiligo vulgaris, but not statistically significantly different as a group when compared to the controls. More studies are needed to differentiate between the effects of low vitamin D levels on pathogenesis of vitiligo vulgaris and lower vitamin D levels as a result of the disease. </p

RACK1 is an interaction partner of ATG5 and a novel regulator of autophagy

Autophagy is biological mechanism allowing recycling of long-lived proteins, abnormal protein aggregates, and damaged organelles under cellular stress conditions. Following sequestration in double- or multimembrane autophagic vesicles, the cargo is delivered to lysosomes for degradation. ATG5 is a key component of an E3-like ATG12-ATG5-ATG16 protein complex that catalyzes conjugation of the MAP1LC3 protein to lipids, thus controlling autophagic vesicle formation and expansion. Accumulating data indicate that ATG5 is a convergence point for autophagy regulation. Here, we describe the scaffold protein RACK1 (receptor activated C-kinase 1, GNB2L1) as a novel ATG5 interactor and an autophagy protein. Using several independent techniques, we showed that RACK1 interacted with ATG5. Importantly, classical autophagy inducers (starvation or mammalian target of rapamycin blockage) stimulated RACK1-ATG5 interaction. Knockdown of RACK1 or prevention of its binding to ATG5 using mutagenesis blocked autophagy activation. Therefore, the scaffold protein RACK1 is a new ATG5-interacting protein and an important and novel component of the autophagy pathways

Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the United States

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org/) collected, disseminated, and synthesized tens of millions of specific predictions from more than 90 different academic, industry, and independent research groups. A multimodel ensemble forecast that combined predictions from dozens of groups every week provided the most consistently accurate probabilistic forecasts of incident deaths due to COVID-19 at the state and national level from April 2020 through October 2021. The performance of 27 individual models that submitted complete forecasts of COVID-19 deaths consistently throughout this year showed high variability in forecast skill across time, geospatial units, and forecast horizons. Two-thirds of the models evaluated showed better accuracy than a naïve baseline model. Forecast accuracy degraded as models made predictions further into the future, with probabilistic error at a 20-wk horizon three to five times larger than when predicting at a 1-wk horizon. This project underscores the role that collaboration and active coordination between governmental public-health agencies, academic modeling teams, and industry partners can play in developing modern modeling capabilities to support local, state, and federal response to outbreaks

The United States COVID-19 Forecast Hub dataset

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages

Alpha induced reaction cross section calculations of tantalum nucleus

The fusion energy is attractive as an energy source because the fusion will not produce CO2 or SO2 and so fusion will not contribute to environmental problems, such as particulate pollution and excessive CO 2 in the atmosphere. The fusion reaction does not produce radioactive nuclides and it is not self-sustaining, as is a fission reaction when a critical mass of fissionable material is assembled. Since the fusion reaction is easily and quickly quenched the primary sources of heat to drive such an accident are heat from radioactive decay and heat from chemical reactions. Both the magnitude and time dependence of the generation of heat from radioactive decay can be controlled by proper selection and design of materials. Tantalum is one of the candidate materials for the first wall of fusion reactors and for component parts of irradiation chambers. Accurate experimental cross-section data of alpha induced reactions on Tantalum are also of great importance for thermonuclear reaction rate determinations since the models used in the study of stellar nucleosynthesis are strongly dependent on these rates (Santos et al. in J Phys G 26:301, 2000). In this study, neutron-production cross sections for target nuclei 181Ta have been investigated up to 100 MeV alpha energy. The excitation functions for (?, xn) reactions (x = 1, 2, 3) have been calculated by pre-equilibrium reaction mechanism. And also neutron emission spectra for 181Ta (?, xn) reactions at 26.8 and 45.2 MeV have been calculated. The mean free path multiplier parameters has been investigated. The pre-equilibrium results have been calculated by using the hybrid model, the geometry dependent hybrid (GDH) model. Calculation results have been also compared with the available measurements in literature. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Article Analysis of Land Use Change and Urbanization in the Kucukcekmece Water Basin (Istanbul, Turkey) with Temporal Satellite Data using Remote Sensing and GIS

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Alpha emission spectra of 27Al, 50,52Cr, 55Mn, 54,56Fe, 58,60Ni nucleus for neutron induced reaction

The design of novel nuclear facilities, fusion as well as fission reactors, requires the knowledge of all properties of relevant materials, including the nuclear differential cross sections for a careful selection. The nuclear cross sections data for gas production via particle (neutron, proton, alpha, etc.) induced reactions are great importance in the domain in the fusion reactor technology, particularly in the calculation of nuclear transmutation rates, nuclear heating and radiation damage due to gas formation. In fusion reactor structures, a serious damage mechanism has been gas production in the metallic resulting from diverse nuclear reactions, mainly through (n, p) and (n, ?), (n, d), (n, t). In the present study, by using equilibrium reaction mechanisms, the (n, x?) reaction alpha emission spectra for 27Al, 50,52Cr, 55Mn, 54,56Fe, 58,60Ni isotopes were investigated from 9 to 15 MeV incident neutron energy. The equilibrium results have been calculated by using the hybrid model, the geometry dependent hybrid model. Calculation results have been also compared with the available measurements in literature. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York

A Study on F-19(n,alpha) Reaction Cross Section

WOS: 000317973500017In this study, cross sections of neutron induced reactions have been investigated for fluorine target nucleus. The calculations have been made on the excitation functions of F-19 (n,alpha), F-19(n,x alpha) reactions. Fluorine (F) and its molten salt compounds (LiF) can serve as a coolant which can be used at high temperatures without reaching a high vapor pressure and also the molten salt compounds are also a good neutron moderator. In these calculations, the pre-equilibrium and equilibrium effects have been investigated. The pre-equilibrium calculations involve the full exciton model and the cascade exciton model. The equilibrium effects are calculated according to the Weisskopf-Ewing model. Also in the present work, reaction cross sections have calculated by using evaluated empirical formulas developed by Tel et al. at 14-15 MeV energy. The obtained results have been discussed and compared with the available experimental data