Excessive Settlement in Buildings

The paper deals with three case studies where the foundations of buildings in the coastal areas of South India settled from 10 to 100 Cms resulting in excessive tilt or cracks in the superstructure. Details of soil exploration work carried out, description of the soil characteristics and the analysis of the causes of settlement are dealt with in this paper. The remedial measures suggested for the possible rectification of the damages are also presented

Case Studies of Failure of Cast-In-Situ Piles

The paper deals with case studies of pile failure when cast-in-situ piling systems are adopted. The four commonly used methods of piling are the bailer, direct mud circulation, driven-cast-in-situ and rotary auger system. Failures in each of these cast-in-situ piling systems are discussed based on the failures noted in the initial testing or during execution. The causes for the failure are analyzed and the remedial measures adopted discussed

Failure of Foundation Systems Using Stone Columns

The paper presents the case history of the failure of a major foundation system comprising of ground improved by stone column technique. An in-depth analysis of the soil parameters, design and construction details, gives valuable lessons for the precautions to be adopted while implementing stone column technique

The nucleotide exchange factors of Hsp70 molecular chaperones.

Molecular chaperones of the Hsp70 family form an important hub in the cellular protein folding networks in bacteria and eukaryotes, connecting translation with the downstream machineries of protein folding and degradation. The Hsp70 folding cycle is driven by two types of cochaperones: J-domain proteins stimulate ATP hydrolysis by Hsp70, while nucleotide exchange factors (NEFs) promote replacement of Hsp70-bound ADP with ATP. Bacteria and organelles of bacterial origin have only one known NEF type for Hsp70, GrpE. In contrast, a large diversity of Hsp70 NEFs has been discovered in the eukaryotic cell. These NEFs belong to the Hsp110/Grp170, HspBP1/Sil1, and BAG domain protein families. In this short review we compare the structures and molecular mechanisms of nucleotide exchange factors for Hsp70 and discuss how these cochaperones contribute to protein folding and quality control in the cell

Redundancy relations and robust failure detection

All failure detection methods are based on the use of redundancy, that is on (possible dynamic) relations among the measured variables. Consequently the robustness of the failure detection process depends to a great degree on the reliability of the redundancy relations given the inevitable presence of model uncertainties. The problem of determining redundancy relations which are optimally robust in a sense which includes the major issues of importance in practical failure detection is addressed. A significant amount of intuition concerning the geometry of robust failure detection is provided

The Pro-inflammatory Markers and Cytokine Profile in Acute Chikungunya Virus Infections in a Rural Community from North India

Analysis of pro-inflammatory markers, i.e., nitrite, citrulline, tumor necrosis alfa (TNF-α ) and Th1 and Th2-specific cytokines, viz., IL-2 and IL-4 respectively were analyzed in 30 sera positive for IgM antibodies to Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) from a rural hospital-attending population in comparison to 40 sera from cases with other febrile illness (OFI) and 30 healthy controls. Levels of nitrite, citrulline, TNF-α and IL-4 were found to be increased in serum while serum level of IL-2 was found to be depressed in anti-CHIKV IgM positive cases compared to OFI and control groups. The serum nitrite levels in anti-CHIKV IgM positive cases showed positive correlation with citrulline, TNF-α and IL-2 and negative correlation with IL-4 level. The IL-2 level showed negative correlations with that of IL-4 level in serum.

Model reduction for analysis of cascading failures in power systems

In this paper, we apply a principal-orthogonal decomposition based method to the model reduction of a hybrid, nonlinear model of a power network. The results demonstrate that the sequence of fault events can be evaluated and predicted without necessarily simulating the whole system

Alternative mechanisms of structuring biomembranes: Self-assembly vs. self-organization

We study two mechanisms for the formation of protein patterns near membranes of living cells by mathematical modelling. Self-assembly of protein domains by electrostatic lipid-protein interactions is contrasted with self-organization due to a nonequilibrium biochemical reaction cycle of proteins near the membrane. While both processes lead eventually to quite similar patterns, their evolution occurs on very different length and time scales. Self-assembly produces periodic protein patterns on a spatial scale below 0.1 micron in a few seconds followed by extremely slow coarsening, whereas self-organization results in a pattern wavelength comparable to the typical cell size of 100 micron within a few minutes suggesting different biological functions for the two processes.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Energetics and Compatibility of Plasticizers in Composite Solid Propellants

In this paper a comparative analysis on the energetics of ester type plasticizers such as dioctyl adipate (DOA), dioctyl phthalate (DOP),dibutyl sebacate (DBS), isodecyl pelargonate (IDP), trioctylphosphate (TOF), diethyl phthalate (DEP), tricresyl phosphate (TCP)and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and hydrocarbon type plasticizers such as polybutene (PB), spindle oil, naphthenic oil, polymer extender oil(PEO) and poly isobutylene (PIB) and the impact of some of the plasticizers on the work ability, pot life and mechanical properties of propellants based on two selected polymeric binders namely polybutadiene-acrylic acid-acrylonitrile (PBAN) ter polymer andhydroxyl terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) have been reported. The compatibility of all the plasticizers on HTPB binder was also studied at different concentration levels and temperatures using Brookfield viscometer and reported. The mechanism of plasticization is also reviewed