Thermal conductivity of refractory glass fibres

In the present study, the current international standards and corresponding apparatus for measuring the thermal conductivity of refractory glass fibre products have been reviewed. Refractory glass fibres are normally produced in the form of low-density needled mats. A major issue with thermal conductivity measurements of these materials is lack of reproducibility in the test results due to transformation of the test material during the test. Also needled mats are inherently inhomogeneous, and this poses additional problems. To be able to compare the various methods of thermal conductivity measurement, a refractory reference material was designed which is capable of withstanding maximum test temperatures (1673 K) with minimum transformation. The thermal conductivity of this reference material was then measured using various methods according to the different standards surveyed. In order to compare different materials, samples have been acquired from major refractory glass fibre manufacturers and the results have been compared against the newly introduced reference material. Materials manufactured by melt spinning, melt blowing and sol–gel have been studied, and results compared with literature values

Comparative genomics of Pseudomonas fluorescens subclade III strains from human lungs

Abstract Background While the taxonomy and genomics of environmental strains from the P. fluorescens species-complex has been reported, little is known about P. fluorescens strains from clinical samples. In this report, we provide the first genomic analysis of P. fluorescens strains in which human vs. environmental isolates are compared. Results Seven P. fluorescens strains were isolated from respiratory samples from cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. The clinical strains could grow at a higher temperature (>34 °C) than has been reported for environmental strains. Draft genomes were generated for all of the clinical strains, and multi-locus sequence analysis placed them within subclade III of the P. fluorescens species-complex. All strains encoded type- II, −III, −IV, and -VI secretion systems, as well as the widespread colonization island (WCI). This is the first description of a WCI in P. fluorescens strains. All strains also encoded a complete I2/PfiT locus and showed evidence of horizontal gene transfer. The clinical strains were found to differ from the environmental strains in the number of genes involved in metal resistance, which may be a possible adaptation to chronic antibiotic exposure in the CF lung. Conclusions This is the largest comparative genomics analysis of P. fluorescens subclade III strains to date and includes the first clinical isolates. At a global level, the clinical P. fluorescens subclade III strains were largely indistinguishable from environmental P. fluorescens subclade III strains, supporting the idea that identifying strains as ‘environmental’ vs ‘clinical’ is not a phenotypic trait. Rather, strains within P. fluorescens subclade III will colonize and persist in any niche that provides the requirements necessary for growth.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116129/1/12864_2015_Article_2261.pd

Toward a new generation of log pre-processing methods for process mining

Real-life processes are typically less structured and more complex than expected by stakeholders. For this reason, process discovery techniques often deliver models less understandable and useful than expected. In order to address this issue, we propose a method based on statistical inference for pre-processing event logs. We measure the distance between different segments of the event log, computing the probability distribution of observing activities in specific positions. Because segments are generated based on time-domain, business rules or business management system properties, we get a characterisation of these segments in terms of both business and process aspects. We demonstrate the applicability of this approach by developing a case study with real-life event logs and showing that our method is offering interesting properties in term of computational complexity

Detection and Differentiation of Threonine- and Tyrosine-Monophosphorylated Forms of ERK1/2 by Capillary Isoelectric Focusing-Immunoassay.

The extracellular signal regulated kinases ERK1/2 play important roles in the regulation of diverse cellular functions and have been implicated in several human diseases. In addition to the fully activated, diphosphorylated ERK1/2 protein, monophosphorylated forms of ERK1/2 have been observed, which may have distinct biological functions. We report here on the highly sensitive detection and differentiation of unphosphorylated, threonine-phosphorylated (pT), tyrosine-phosphorylated (pY) and diphosphorylated ERK1 and ERK2 by capillary isoelectric focusing followed by immunological detection (CIEF-immunoassay). Eight different phosphorylated and unphosphorylated forms of ERK1/2 were resolved according to charge. The unequivocal identification and differentiation of ERK1 and ERK2 forms monophosphorylated at either threonine or tyrosine was achieved by competitive blocking with specific phospho-peptides and different phosphorylation-sensitive antibodies. The suitability of the additional pT-ERK1/2 and pY-ERK1/2 differentiation for the time-resolved in-depth study of phospho-form distribution in response to specific stimuli is demonstrated in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y and monocytic THP-1 cell lines, and in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells.Open-Access Publikationsfonds 2015peerReviewe

Evaluation of climatological tropical cyclone activity over the western North Pacific in the CORDEX-East Asia multi-RCM simulations

The ability of five regional climate models (RCMs), within the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) for East Asia, to simulate tropical cyclone (TC) activity over the western North Pacific is evaluated. All RCMs are performed at ~50 km resolution over the CORDEX-East Asia domain, and are driven by the ECMWF Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) for the period 1989-2008. ERA-Interim sea surface temperature is prescribed as the lower boundary. Performances of the individual RCMs and multi-RCM ensemble mean are investigated in detail for 20-year climatology, intensity, and interannual variability of TC activity compared to observational datasets. Although most of the individual RCMs show significant biases and underestimate TC intensity due to horizontal resolutions still too low to resolve the most intense observed TCs, they reasonably capture the observed climatological spatial distribution and interannual variability of TC activity. The multi-RCM ensemble mean based on the model performance generally outperforms most of the individual models with smaller biases and higher correlation on the spatial and temporal variation of TC activity. This ensemble mean reduces the uncertainty in the simulated TC activity by a single RCM. These analyses suggest that the multi-RCM ensemble within CORDEX-East Asia can be applied to provide more reliable and credible estimation of future TC activity over the western North Pacific due to climate change. © 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberclose