Modulus Enhancement of Hydrogels of Squid Ring Teeth Proteins

The mechanical properties of the esoteric squid ring teeth (SRT) proteins, or suckerins, were analyzed. Hydrogels were made by mixing heated gelatin with crushed SRT proteins in solution, which was reacted with ammonium persulfate (APS) and Tris(2,2’-bipyridyl)dichlororuthenium hexahydrate (Ru). The compression moduli of the gels were determined using a contact mechanics method1 derived from the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts theory2. In this study, the native SRT proteins were used to generate some preliminary results. The addition of native SRT proteins to a gelatin can increase the Young’s modulus of the formed gels. Since proteins derived from SRT, i.e., suckerins, were found to be one of the strongest proteins discovered to date, they can be used as an additive that can add strength and flexibility to applications such as synthetic bone, cartilage, or tendon tissue, textiles, and specialty polymers. Taokaew, S.; Phisalaphong, M.; and Newby, B.Z. In vitro behaviors of rat mesenchymal stem cells on bacterial cellulose with different moduli. Materials Science and Engineering C, 38, pg 263-271, 2014. Johnson, K.L.; Kendall, K.; and Roberts, A.D. Surface energy and the contact of elastic solids. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 324, pg 301-313, 1971

Υπολογιστική μοντελοποίηση πρότυπου συστήματος μη καταλυτικής αναμόρφωσης για παραγωγή αερίου σύνθεσης, με προηγμένες μεθοδολογίες σύζεξης τυρβώδους ροής και λεπτομερούς χημείας

140 σ.Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο--Μεταπτυχιακή Εργασία. Διεπιστημονικό-Διατμηματικό Πρόγραμμα Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών (Δ.Π.Μ.Σ.) “Υπολογιστική Μηχανική

Ground deformation measurements over Lake Trichonis based on SAR interferometry.

Ο σκοπός της παρούσας μελέτης είναι o εντοπισμός της παραμόρφωση του εδάφους στην ευρύτερη περιοχή της Λίμνης Τριχωνίδας (Δυτική Ελλάδα), εστιάζοντας κυρίως στο σεισμικό φαινόμενο του Απριλίου 2007 με την σμήνοσειρά σεισμών που σημειώθηκε στην περιοχή της λίμνης. Η περιοχή συνιστά μία pull-apart λεκάνη, η οποία παρουσιάζει γενικότερα μία έντονη σεισμική δραστηριότητα λόγο των δύο ενεργών ρηγμάτων κατά μήκος του βόρειου και νότιου περιθωρίου της. Η σμηνοσειρά ξεκίνησε με μικρού μεγέθους σεισμούς, στις 9 Απριλίου 2007 ενώ ακλούθησαν τρία ισχυρότερα σεισμικά γεγονότα στις 10 Απριλίου 2007, με μεγέθη που κυμαίνονται από 5,0 έως 5,2 Mw, τα οποία και αποτέλεσαν τα μεγαλύτερα ολόκληρης της ακολουθίας. Η σεισμική δραστηριότητα συνεχίστηκε για περισσότερο από ένα μήνα με μικρότερα σεισμικά γεγονότα. Βάσει των σεισμολογικών δεδομένων οριοθετήθηκαν δύο νέα κανονικά ρήγματα ΒΔ-ΝΑ διεύθυνσης κατά μήκος της νοτιοανατολικής όχθης της λίμνης. Χρησιμοποιώντας ένα σύνολο 28 εικόνων Ραντάρ, του δορυφόρου ENVISAT για την περίοδο από το Φεβρουάριο του 2003 μέχρι τον Φεβρουάριο του 2010 εφαρμόστηκε η τεχνική της διαφορικής συμβολομετρίας και πιο συγκεκριμένα διαφορετικές τεχνικές σώρευσης συμβολογραφημάτων με σκοπό την ανίχνευση και χαρτογράφηση των παραμορφώσεων του εδάφους που προκλήθηκε από την «σμηνοσειρά σεισμών». Σύμφωνα με τα αποτελέσματά των συγκεκριμένων τεχνικών αποδεικνύεται ότι η περιοχή παρουσιάζει εντελώς διαφορετικό καθεστώς εδαφικής παραμόρφωση κατά τη διάρκεια της προ-σεισμικής και μετα-σεισμικής περιόδου σε σχέση με την συν-σεισμική.The aim of this study is to detect and measure ground deformation over the broader area of Lake Trichonis (Western Greece), focusing mainly on the April 2007 earthquake swarm which occurred at the vicinity of the Lake. The area, forming a pull-apart basin, presented historically an intense seismic activity along the two active normal faults at the northern and southern part of the Lake. The swarminitiated by small magnitude events on the 8th of April 2007 followed by the three strongest events of the entire sequence on the 10th of April 2007, with magnitudes ranging from 5.0 to 5.2 Mw. The seismic activity continued for longer with smaller seismic events. Based on seismological data this activity was attributed to two unmapped NW SE trending normal faults that bounds the SE bank of the Lake. Using a dataset of 28 ENVISAT ASAR scenes covering the period from February 2003 until February 2010 (~7 yr), different Interferometric Stacking techniques was applied in order to quantify the ground deformation induced by the earthquake swarm as well as its effect on the inter-seismic deformation pattern of the area. Our results indicate that co-seismic motion differs significantly from that observedduring the pre- and post- swarm periods. The co-seismic pattern reveals subsidence at the northern and uplift at the southern lake sides, consistent with the structural model already proposed for the area. For the pre- and post-seismic periods both sides of the Lake show stability or low rates of subsidence with higher deformationvelocity rates for the period after the seismic activity, possibly attributed to postseismic relaxation. Our findings imply that inter-seismic ground deformation does not necessary follow the deformation pattern observed during seismic triggering, thus, long-term geodetic observations such as those provided by SAR interferometry are valuable in order to fully characterize the geodynamic behavior of an active region

Impacts of misalignment effects on the Muon Spectrometer Performance

The ATLAS detector, currently being installed at CERN, is designed to exploit the full potential of the LHC, identifying and providing highly accurate energy and momentum measurements of particles emerging from the LHC protonproton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy at 14 TeV, starting in 2007. High-momentum final-state muons are among the most promising signatures at the LHC, thanks to a high-resolution Muon Spectrometer with standalone triggering and momentum measurement. As well known, muons interact primarily trough their electromagnetic charge, but since they are 200 times more massive than the electrons they are less affected by the electric fields of the nuclei they encounter. Muons with an energy of more than a few GeV penetrate the calorimeter and can reach the Muon Spectrometer, which consists out of more than 1.200 single drift-tubes chambers. The correct alignment of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is crucial to ensure its design performance. This note documents the first attempt at using various misaligned Muonspectrometer layouts to study their impacts Muon Spectrometer performance

Overall quality optimization for DQM stage in High Energy Physics experiments

Data Acquisition (DAQ) and Data Quality Monitoring (DQM) are key parts in the HEP data chain, where the data are processed and analyzed to obtain accurate monitoring quality indicators. Such stages are complex, including an intense processing work-flow and requiring a high degree of interoperability between software and hardware facilities. Data recorded by DAQ sensors and devices are sampled to perform live (and offline) DQM of the status of the detector during data collection providing to the system and scientists the ability to identify problems with extremely low latency, minimizing the amount of data that would otherwise be unsuitable for physical analysis. DQM stage performs a large set of operations (Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), clustering, classification algorithms, Region of Interest, particles tracking, etc.) involving the use of computing resources and time, depending on the number of events of the experiment, sampling data, complexity of the tasks or the quality performance. The objective of our work is to show a proposal with aim of developing a general optimization of the DQM stage considering all these elements. Techniques based on computational intelligence like EA can help improve the performance and therefore achieve an optimization of task scheduling in DQM.(MINECO - Gov. of Spain) P12-TIC-2958 TIN2016-81113-

A review of key environmental and energy performance indicators for the case of Renewable Energy Systems when integrated with storage solutions.

During the last years a variety of numerical tools and algorithms have been developed aiming at quantifying and measuring the environmental impact of multiple types of energy systems, as those based on Renewable Energy Sources. Plenty of studies have proposed the use of a Life Cycle Assessment methodology, to determine the environmental impact of renewable installations when coupled with storage solutions, based on a pre-selected repository of Key Performance Indicators. The main scope of this paper is to propose a limited number of best fitting, and at the same time easily adaptable to various configurations, list of KPIs for the case of renewable energy systems. This is done by capitalizing on the environmental and energy performance KPIs tracked in the open literature (e.g. “Global Warming Potential”, “Energy Payback Time”, “Battery Total Degradation”, “Energy Stored on Invested”, “Cumulative Energy Demand”) and/or other proposing new simple, scalable and adaptable ones, (e.g. “Embodied Energy for Infrastructure of Materials and for the building system”, “Life Cycle CO2 Emissions”, “Reduction of the Direct CO2 emissions”, “Avoided CO2 Emissions”, “CO2 equivalent Payback Time”). Moreover, the proposed KPIs are distributed according to the individual phases of the entire life-cycle of a related component of a renewable energy system, each time the environmental impact refers to, i.e. manufacturing, operational and end-of-life. Apart from that, the current paper presents a necessary base grounded approach, which can be followed for a holistic approach in environmental point of view of renewable-based technologies, by addressing the potential competing interests of the relevant stakeholders (e.g. profit for the market operator in contrast to low-cost services for the consumer). All in all, the scalar quantification of the environmental impact of multiple energy systems, through a list of proposed assessment criteria, being evaluated in terms of the selected repository of KPIs, enables the comparison on a fair basis of the available energy systems, irrespective if they are fossil-fuel or RES based ones. As a typical example, a simple standard model of a photovoltaic integrated with an electric battery is selected, for which indicative indicators are provide

Over-expression of a specific soybean GmGSTU4 isoenzyme improves chloroacetanilide herbicide tolerance of transgenic tobacco plants

Plant glutathione transferases (GSTs) have a major role in herbicide detoxification. Soybean (Glycine max L.) GmGSTs have been well studied for their correlation in herbicides selectivity towards diphenyl ether, chloroacetanilide and sulfonylurea herbicides. Chloroacetanilide herbicide tolerance was assayed in vitro by measuring the growth inhibition of wild type (wt) and transgenic tobacco seedlings from cultivars (Basmas, Virginia, Burley) in the presence of 7.5 and 15 mg/L of alachlor and metolachlor. Alachlor caused strong inhibition of shoot and root growth of wt tobacco plants. All the transgenic Basmas lines showed significantly higher shoot and root elongation at 7.5 mg/L alachlor, with line BAGST-3 exhibiting the greatest tolerance. However, at 15 mg/L alachlor, growth was highly reduced in transgenic and wt plants. In Burley, only line BUGST-2 has statistically significant greater mean of root and shoot length compared to wt under the two doses. On the contrary, Virginia has reduced growth which was similar to the wt. Metolachlor toxicity was less severe compared to alachlor. Growth of the transgenic lines of the three cultivars was not significantly greater in either metolachlor concentrations tested, compared to wt plants, except line BAGST-3 which exhibited significantly greater mean of shoot and root elongation at 7.5 mg/L. Transgene expression was determined quantitatively using Real Time qPCR, lines BAGST-3 and BUGST-2 showed greater expression of Gmgstu4 in shoot compared to root. These results confirm that overexpression of GmGSTU4 in tobacco provides higher catalytic activities towards xenobiotics, resulting for future use in environmental cleanup of alachlor

Implementation of chamber misalignments and deformations in the ATLAS muon spectrometer simulation

"The implementation of run-time dependent corrections for alignment and distortions in the detector description of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is discussed, along with the strategies for studying such effects in dedicated simulations."http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64214/1/jpconf8_119_032010.pd