Fabrication of soy oil epoxy resin based composites

A renewable resource derived epoxidized ester - Epoxidized Allyl Soyate (EAS) yields a versatile epoxy resin system that can be used in pure form combination with bis-phenol epoxy systems to obtain high strength composite materials. EAS containing composites materials exhibit higher toughness and impact resistance than the traditional bis-phenol epoxy composites. These resin systems were found to be compatible with different fibers and screens such as glass fibers, glass mats, carbon fibers and metallic wire screens including those obtained from an automobile tire recycling process. The materials were tested for mechanical properties including tensile and flexure strengths. The highest tensile strength was observed with stainless steel screen incorporated composites, the ultimate tensile strength of such material was found to be ~ 39 MPa. Tensile strengths of material obtained by incorporating glass fiber, aluminum screen, stainless steel screen and steel wire mesh comprised of steel wires recovered from scrap tires were evaluated. Tensile strengths of materials with stainless screen and screen made from scrap tire steel were an order of magnitude higher than the materials with glass fiber or aluminum screens --Abstract, page iii

Parameter Study on Topology Optimization of Constrained Layer Damping Treatments

This study investigates the optimal topology of a constrained layer damping treatment involving viscoelastic materials under a static load for different boundary conditions in order to maximize the damping loss factor for the first vibrating mode of the base structure. Different parameter studies are carried out for the two boundary conditions and conclusions are drawn based on the loss factor results and the novel topologies that emerge from these optimization results. The novel topologies are then used to interpret shapes that are more reasonable to manufacture. Tremendous improvement in the loss factor (up to 1250%) is obtained by topology optimization in many of the cases. Also this study develops fundamental understanding of the optimal topologies that are required to maximize the loss factor

Amritmahal: Need for Conserving the Living Pastoral Heritage of Karnataka

Karnataka is home to the biodiversity-rich Western Ghats with its range of habitats spanning from scrub forest in the lower elevations to the wet evergreen forests in the higher elevations. In stark visual contrast, the Deccan Plateau is blanketed by arid plains dominated by scrub jungles and dry grasslands. These plains are a melting pot of rich biodiversity, culture and associated traditional knowledge. They have also been important centres for breeding livestock and have supported local livelihoods. In spite of this cultural and ecological importance, these arid plains, especially grasslands with sparse woody vegetation, are increasingly being termed as wastelands. The current scenario is much the same in different regions with vast tracts being diverted for industrial use, unscrupulous developmental activity or for afforestation programmes. These short-sighted measures have adverse effects on biodiversity and the livelihoods of people depending on it. This study looks into the expansive traditional grazing pastures of the Amritmahal breed of cattle in Karnataka which are undergoing a spate of similar changes. This draft breed unique to Karnataka was known for its speed, strength, loyalty and ability to withstand droughts. Due to these qualities, it was used not only for agriculture but also in warfare and thus patronised by the royalty. The cattle were raised in exclusive pastures known as Amritmahal Kaval in local parlance. The Kaval traditionally managed by means of social fencing. Grazing and extraction of resources such as firewood and fodder was regulated (Pai, 2012). These practices seem to have led to conservation of biodiversity as is evident from the fact that these Kavals are inhabited by rare and endangered species such as blackbuck, wolves, Indian fox, leopards and several species of rare birds including Indian Courser (Centre for Ecological Sciences, 2011). Recognising the richness of biodiversity, in 2011 the Karnataka State Government declared one of the Kavals as a ‘conservation reserve’ under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Today, these Kavals are spread over an estimated 65,925 acres in 62 villages of six districts - Tumkur, Hassan, Chitradurga, Chikmagalur, Shimoga and Mandya (Ashisar, 2011). In this paper, we make a case for conserving this unique breed and thus, the grazing pastures they have been traditionally dependent on

Abstract 803: Targeting β-catenin/CBP signaling in OSCC

OBJECTIVES: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is an aggressive malignancy characterized by molecular heterogeneity and locoregional spread associated with high morbidity. Aggressive cancers are thought to arise from populations of cancer initiating cells (CICs) that exhibit the properties of stem cells and drive tumor development, recurrence and resistance to therapy. The transcriptional regulator, β-catenin, has been implicated in OSCC CICs. Nuclear β-catenin has been shown to recruit the chromatin remodeling CREB binding protein (CBP) to drive expression of proliferation and survival genes, as well as genes that maintain stem-like phenotypes. We hypothesized that targeting β-catenin-CBP interaction will inhibit CICs in oral tumors and restore an epithelial phenotype. METHODS: To test tumor aggressive potential of OSCC CICs, we used zebrafish as a model system. We isolated CD44+CD24hiCD29hi cells fom aggressive HSC-3 OSCC cells by FACS and assayed their ability to drive tumor growth and metastases in zebrafish compared to unsorted and CD44+CD24lowCD29low cells. In addition, we examined the role of the β-catenin/CBP axis in the aggressive phenotype of these cells. We also assessed whether the β-catenin/CBP axis affected CICs in tumors from immune competent HPV+ mice. RESULTS: Zebrafish injected with subpopulation of cells co-expressing CD44+CD24hiCD2hi primitive cell surface markers drove rapid tumor growth and metastases, followed by unsorted and sorted CD44+CD24lowCD29low. Treatment of CD44+CD24hiCD29hi cells with a small molecule inhibitor of the β-catenin-CBP interaction, ICG-001, interfered with tumor growth and metastases in zebrafish. Further, ICG-001 inhibited tumor growth in immunocompetent HPV+ murine model. On a cellular level, ICG-001 promoted membrane localization of β-catenin, enhanced E-cadherin adhesion and restored epithelial phenotype. Significantly, ICG-001 gene signatures tracked with reduced overall patient survival in the cancer genome atlas, TCGA. Conclusion: Our studies indicate that the β-catenin/CBP axis promotes OSCC CICs and that ICG-001 may be an effective therapeutic agent for this malignancy.Support: Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research ARC funding AU 5303015 8000000

Functional diversity and co-operativity between subclonal populations of paediatric glioblastoma and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma cells

The failure to develop effective therapies for pediatric glioblastoma (pGBM) and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is in part due to their intrinsic heterogeneity. We aimed to quantitatively assess the extent to which this was present in these tumors through subclonal genomic analyses and to determine whether distinct tumor subpopulations may interact to promote tumorigenesis by generating subclonal patient-derived models in vitro and in vivo. Analysis of 142 sequenced tumors revealed multiple tumor subclones, spatially and temporally coexisting in a stable manner as observed by multiple sampling strategies. We isolated genotypically and phenotypically distinct subpopulations that we propose cooperate to enhance tumorigenicity and resistance to therapy. Inactivating mutations in the H4K20 histone methyltransferase KMT5B (SUV420H1), present in <1% of cells, abrogate DNA repair and confer increased invasion and migration on neighboring cells, in vitro and in vivo, through chemokine signaling and modulation of integrins. These data indicate that even rare tumor subpopulations may exert profound effects on tumorigenesis as a whole and may represent a new avenue for therapeutic development. Unraveling the mechanisms of subclonal diversity and communication in pGBM and DIPG will be an important step toward overcoming barriers to effective treatments

Performance analysis of parallel I/O models for external mergesort

Since the I/O subsystem is the bottleneck in external mergesort, I/O parallelism can result in substantial performance improvements. Concurrency can be introduced by overlapping I/O requests at different disks, and the average service time can be reduced by reading several blocks on each I/O operation. However, a RAM-based cache is required to support this prefetching. A prefetching strategy is proposed in which one block from each run is read on every I/O operation, and a Markov model is developed to analyze the dynamic behavior of the system. The steady-state probabilities and a closed-form expression for the average parallelism are derived as functions of the cache size and the number of runs. Several related prefetching strategies are also investigated for both single-disk and multiple-disk cases. For each strategy, the total execution time and the cache behavior are studied by simulating the merge and deriving analytic expressions for the average service time

Chainsaw: Eliminating Trees from Overlay Multicast

In this paper, we present Chainsaw, a p2p overlay multicast system that completely eliminates trees. Peers are notified of new packets by their neighbors and must explicitly request a packet from a neighbor in order to receive it. This way, duplicate data can be eliminated and a peer can ensure it receives all packets. We show with simulations that Chainsaw has a short startup time, good resilience to catastrophic failure and essentially no packet loss. We support this argument with real-world experiments on Planetlab and compare Chainsaw to Bullet and Splitstream using MACEDON