Technique for optimal placement of transducers for fault detection in rotating machines

Online fault detection and diagnosis of rotating machinery requires a number of transducers that can be significantly expensive for industrial processes. The sensitivity of various transducers and their appropriate positioning are dependent on different types of fault conditions. It is critical to formulate a method to systematically determine the effectiveness of transducer locations for monitoring the condition of a machine. In this article, number of independent sources analysis is used as an effective tool for reducing the number of vibration sources within the system, which is then followed by prin- cipal component analysis to identify the incoherent transducers to be employed for fault detection. This experiment is conducted on a machine fault simulator for unbalanced rotor, misaligned shaft, and cracked shaft. The validation of the proposed selection process is illustrated using spectral analysis for each defect.Peer reviewe

Structure of 9α,19-dihydroxy-4-androstene-3,17-dione

C19H26O4, M1 = 318.41, orthorhombic, P212121, a = 10.591 (1), b = 11.133 (1), c = 13.657 (2) Å, V – 1610.29 Å3, Z = 4, Dm (flotation in KI) = 1.301, Dx = 1.313 g cm-3, Mo Kα, Å = 0.7107 Å, μ = 0.85 cm-1, F(000) = 688, T = 293 K, R – 0.057 for 1253 significant reflections. The Å ring is disordered with atoms C(2) and O(19) occupying two possible sites. The molecules are held together by a hydrogen bond [O(9)…O(17) = 2.89 Å]

2-[2-Benzoyl-3,3-bis­(methyl­sulfan­yl)prop-2-enyl­idene]malononitrile

The title compound, C15H12N2OS2, is an example of a push–pull butadiene in which the electron-releasing methyl­sulfanyl groups and electron-withdrawing nitrile groups on either end of the butadiene chain enhance the conjugation in the system. Short intra­molecular C—H⋯S inter­actions are observed. In the crystal structure, an O⋯C short contact of 2.917 (3) Å is observed

Synergistic antibacterial activity of mycosynthesized AgNPs with antibiotics against multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and investigation of protein profile

842-848Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been identified as promising bactericidal agents especially towards multidrug resistant bacteria (MDR). Fungi are excellent biogenic sources for synthesizing AgNPs with antibacterial activity. In the present study, AgNPs were synthesized using Aspergillus niger extract and characterized. Individual and synergistic antibacterial activities of AgNPs were tested against isolated hospital strain of MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa by disc diffusion assay. SDS-PAGE analysis was performed to analyse the protein expression before and after treatment with AgNPs. Results revealed the successful synthesis of AgNPs using A. nigerby 24 hrs and the average particle size was measured as 18.72±0.2 nm. AgNPs were predominantly spherical and monodispersed. 18±0.05 mm zone of inhibition was observed for P. aeruginosa when treated with AgNPs alone whereas synergistic treatment of synthesized AgNPs along with Tetracycline showed impressive antibacterial activity (27.32±2 mm). Protein expression of P. aeruginosa varied before and after treatment which was evident from the results. This indicated the effective breakdown of cell wall and cellular proteins on the synergistic treatment of AgNPs and antibiotics. Thus the study demonstrates a feasible and eco-friendly approach to synthesize AgNPs with enhanced antibacterial activity against MDR bacterial strains

Synergistic antibacterial activity of mycosynthesized AgNPs with antibiotics against multidrug resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and investigation of protein profile

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been identified as promising bactericidal agents especially towards multidrug resistant bacteria (MDR). Fungi are excellent biogenic sources for synthesizing AgNPs with antibacterial activity. In the present study, AgNPs were synthesized using Aspergillus niger extract and characterized. Individual and synergistic antibacterial activities of AgNPs were tested against isolated hospital strain of MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa by disc diffusion assay. SDS-PAGE analysis was performed to analyse the protein expression before and after treatment with AgNPs. Results revealed the successful synthesis of AgNPs using A. nigerby 24 hrs and the average particle size was measured as 18.72±0.2 nm. AgNPs were predominantly spherical and monodispersed. 18±0.05 mm zone of inhibition was observed for P. aeruginosa when treated with AgNPs alone whereas synergistic treatment of synthesized AgNPs along with Tetracycline showed impressive antibacterial activity (27.32±2 mm). Protein expression of P. aeruginosa varied before and after treatment which was evident from the results. This indicated the effective breakdown of cell wall and cellular proteins on the synergistic treatment of AgNPs and antibiotics. Thus the study demonstrates a feasible and eco-friendly approach to synthesize AgNPs with enhanced antibacterial activity against MDR bacterial strains

Automatic identification of epileptic and background EEG signals using frequency domain parameters

The analysis of electroencephalograms continues to be a problem due to our limited understanding of the signal origin. This limited understanding leads to ill-defined models, which in turn make it hard to design effective evaluation methods. Despite these shortcomings, electroencephalogram analysis is a valuable tool in the evaluation of neurological disorders and the evaluation of overall cerebral activity. We compared different model based power spectral density estimation methods and different classification methods. Specifically, we used the autoregressive moving average as well as from Yule-Walker and Burg's methods, to extract the power density spectrum from representative signal samples. Local maxima and minima were detected from these spectra. In this paper, the locations of these extrema are used as input to different classifiers. The three classifiers we used were: Gaussian mixture model, artificial neural network, and support vector machine. The classification results are documented with confusion matrices and compared with receiver operating characteristic curves. We found that Burg's method for spectrum estimation together with a support vector machine classifier yields the best classification results. This combination reaches a classification rate of 93.33%, the sensitivity is 98.33% and the specificy is 96.67%

Urban stream microbial communities show resistance to pharmaceutical exposure

Residues of pharmaceuticals are increasingly detected in surface waters throughout the world. In four streams in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, we detected analgesics, stimulants, antihistamines, and antibiotics using passive organic samplers. We exposed biofilm communities in these streams to the common drugs caffeine, cimetidine, ciprofloxacin, and diphenhydramine. Respiration rates in the least urban stream were suppressed when exposed to these drugs, but biofilm functioning in the most urban stream was resistant to drug exposure. Exposure to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin altered bacterial community composition at all sites, with the greatest change occurring in the most urban stream. These results indicated that continuous exposure to drugs in urban streams may select for sub-populations of highly resistant bacteria that maintain community function in response to urban contaminants

Stream Microbial Communities Show Resistance to Pharmaceutical Exposure

Residues of pharmaceuticals are increasingly detected in surface waters throughout the world. In four streams in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, we detected analgesics, stimulants, antihistamines, and antibiotics using passive organic samplers. We exposed biofilm communities in these streams to the common drugs caffeine, cimetidine, ciprofloxacin, and diphenhydramine. Respiration rates in the least urban stream were suppressed when exposed to these drugs, but biofilm functioning in the most urban stream was resistant to drug exposure. Exposure to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin altered bacterial community composition at all sites, with the greatest change occurring in the most urban stream. These results indicated that continuous exposure to drugs in urban streams may select for sub‐populations of highly resistant bacteria that maintain community function in response to urban contaminants

Towards a career in bioinformatics

The 2009 annual conference of the Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet), Asia's oldest bioinformatics organisation from 1998, was organized as the 8th International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB), Sept. 9-11, 2009 at Biopolis, Singapore. InCoB has actively engaged researchers from the area of life sciences, systems biology and clinicians, to facilitate greater synergy between these groups. To encourage bioinformatics students and new researchers, tutorials and student symposium, the Singapore Symposium on Computational Biology (SYMBIO) were organized, along with the Workshop on Education in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (WEBCB) and the Clinical Bioinformatics (CBAS) Symposium. However, to many students and young researchers, pursuing a career in a multi-disciplinary area such as bioinformatics poses a Himalayan challenge. A collection to tips is presented here to provide signposts on the road to a career in bioinformatics. An overview of the application of bioinformatics to traditional and emerging areas, published in this supplement, is also presented to provide possible future avenues of bioinformatics investigation. A case study on the application of e-learning tools in undergraduate bioinformatics curriculum provides information on how to go impart targeted education, to sustain bioinformatics in the Asia-Pacific region. The next InCoB is scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 26-28, 2010

Impact of remittances on economic growth in developing countries: The role of openness

The paper examines the empirical relationship between remittances and economic growth for a sample of 62 developing countries over the time period 1990–2014. Remittances seem to promote growth only in the ‘more open’ countries. That is because remittances are in themselves not sufficient for growth. The extent of the benefit depends on domestic institutions and macroeconomic environment in the receiving country. Unlike the ‘less open’ countries, ‘more open’ countries have better institutions and better financial markets to take advantage of the remittances income and channelise them into profitable investments which, in turn, accelerates the rate of economic growth in these countries.N/