Variable viscosity condition in the modeling of a slider bearing

To reduce tear and wear of machinery lubrication is essential. Lubricants form a layer between two surfaces preventing direct contact and reduce friction between moving parts and hence reduce wear. In this short letter the lubrication of two slider bearings with parallel and nonparallel is studied. First, we show that bearings with parallel plates cannot support any load. For bearings with nonparallel plates we are interested on how constant and temperature dependent viscosity affects the properties of the bearings. Also, a critical temperature for which the bearings would fail due to excess in temperature is found for both latter cases. If the viscosity is constant, the critical temperature is given by an explicit formula, while for the non-constant viscosity the critical temperature can be always found from a closed form formula involving Weber functionsComment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Investigating Bell Inequalities for Multidimensional Relevance Judgments in Information Retrieval

Relevance judgment in Information Retrieval is influenced by multiple factors. These include not only the topicality of the documents but also other user oriented factors like trust, user interest, etc. Recent works have identified and classified these various factors into seven dimensions of relevance. In a previous work, these relevance dimensions were quantified and user's cognitive state with respect to a document was represented as a state vector in a Hilbert Space, with each relevance dimension representing a basis. It was observed that relevance dimensions are incompatible in some documents, when making a judgment. Incompatibility being a fundamental feature of Quantum Theory, this motivated us to test the Quantum nature of relevance judgments using Bell type inequalities. However, none of the Bell-type inequalities tested have shown any violation. We discuss our methodology to construct incompatible basis for documents from real world query log data, the experiments to test Bell inequalities on this dataset and possible reasons for the lack of violation

What does Nepal's recent elections reveal about patriarchy in politics?

As Nepal successfully conducted historic local and parliamentary elections in 2017, considered as the end to the decade-long transition period, there are high hopes of improved democratic governance in the new, decentralised federal set up. Sudeep Uprety notes that it is a matter of serious concern for women as only a small number of female candidates won the direct elections

Do numbers tell the real story of gender based violence in Nepal?

A recent online survey carried out by Code for Nepal, with over thousand female respondents, presented a staggering figure: 98% women said they have experienced some form of harassment on streets. This clearly indicates an alarming situation of Gender Based Violence (GBV) in Nepal writes Sudeep Uprety

Presenting the Absence: A Contrapuntal Reading of the Māita in Nepali Tīj Songs

Much before the arrival of Western feminism in Nepal with its vocabulary of protest and polemics, the discourse of right and fight, Nepali women have had a long complex and ambivalent genealogy of protest in the genre of Tīj songs. However, such discourses have been rendered invisible by the dominant epistemology that derives its ideological sustenance from the Eurocentric and Enlightenment paradigm of knowledge production. The collusion of native patriarchy with the dominant epistemological system can be located in the absence of any systematic engagement with the Tīj songs in the indigenous academia. Through Nepali women’s complex and highly nuanced conceptualization of the māita (the parental home) and the ghar (the house where women get married into), the paper seeks to show how Nepali women problematize not only the Western construction of the silenced native subaltern, but also the erasure of Nepali women’s voice in the construction of ‘knowledge’ by the native patriarchy

Role of Bovine Ileal Sub-epithelial Myofibroblasts and Epithelial Cells in Innate Immunity

Gastro-intestinal (GI) tract harbors largest number of microbiota as well as the largest number of immune cells for a given tissue. The host needs to mount an effective immune response against invading pathogens and tolerance against commensals. Thus, regulatory mechanism and barrier function of the GI tract are of utmost importance for appropriate host microbe interaction and gut homeostasis. Intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) act as the first line of defense against invading pathogens. IECs recognize pathogens and commensals and mount an effective innate immune response. Such recognition of pathogens is mediated through germ line encoded pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). Intestinal sub-epithelial myofibroblasts (ISEMFs) reside just beneath the surface epithelium and are involved in maturation and differentiation of epithelium. ISEMFs protect from pathogens that breach surface epithelium by expressing PRRs. Lack of stable intestinal epithelial and sub-epithelial myofibroblast cell lines has slowed down scientific studies on these cells. In this study, we established and characterized ISEMF cells from the ileum of a 2-day old calf. We also had generated stable bovine ileal epithelial cell (BIEC-c4) cultures in our lab. On real time-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analysis both these cell types expressed Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 1-9. To investigate their responses to various pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), we stimulated both cell types for 3 hours and 24 hours with various PAMPs. The RT-qPCR assay was used to investigate changes in TLR gene expression and in cytokine genes following stimulation. Lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, and flagellin were used as bacterial ligands of surface PRRs. Similarly, γ-D-Glu-mDAP, muramyl dipeptide, polyinosonic:polycytidylic acid, poly I:C complexed with lyovec, and imiquimod were used as ligands of cytosolic and endosomal PRRs. Bovine ileal ISEMFs responded to bacterial PAMPs and to ligands of cytosolic and endosomal PRRs by significantly altering TLR gene expression. Unlike bovine ISEMFs, BIEC-c4 cells responded only to bacterial ligands. Thus, we conclude that bovine ileal ISEMF can be a good model to study innate immune responses and signaling pathways occurring at subepithelial compartment. However, BIEC-c4 cells may serve as a good in-vitro model to study enteric infectious disease pathogenesis and innate immune responses associated with them

Social Equity in Farmer-Managed Irrigation in the Terai of Nepal

Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology - Volume 9, 200

Master of Science

thesisWithin the aerospace industry the need to detect and locate impact events, even when no visible damage is present, is important both from the maintenance and design perspectives. This research focused on the use of Acoustic Emission (AE) based sensing technologies to identify impact events and characterize damage modes in composite structures for structural health monitoring. Six commercially available piezoelectric AE sensors were evaluated for use with impact location estimation algorithms under development at the University of Utah. Both active and passive testing were performed to estimate the time of arrival and plate wave mode velocities for impact location estimation. Four sensors were recommended for further comparative investigations. Furthermore, instrumented low-velocity impact experiments were conducted on quasi-isotropic carbon/epoxy composite laminates to initiate specific types of damage: matrix cracking, delamination and fiber breakage. AE signal responses were collected during impacting and the test panels were ultrasonically C-scanned after impact to identify the internal damage corresponding to the AE signals. Matrix cracking and delamination damage produced using more compliant test panels and larger diameter impactor were characterized by lower frequency signals while fiber breakage produced higher frequency responses. The results obtained suggest that selected characteristics of sensor response signals can be used both to determine whether damage is produced during impacting and to characterize the types of damage produced in an impacted composite structure

The role of Fosl1 in transdifferentiation of embryonic stem (ES) cells to trophoblast giant-like cells

During mammalian embryonic development, the first lineage commitment event gives rise to two distinct cell populations: the trophectoderm (TE) and the inner cell mass (ICM). The TE consists of outer cells of the blastocyst and ultimately forms the placenta while the ICM gives rise to all the embryonic tissues. Numerous transcription factors (TFs) guiding ICM differentiation into different embryonic tissues have been characterized. However, only a few TFs that are required for TE specification and differentiation have been identified, and much less is understood as to how these TFs interact with other TFs or with their chromosomal targets in order to drive cell fate towards TE lineage. Understanding TE development is crucial because cells in this lineage are required for proper embryo implantation in the uterus. Defects in TE lineage can cause early failure of pregnancy as well as other pregnancy related disorders such as preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). Here, we characterize the function of one of TE-specific TFs, Fosl1, which was previously suggested as having some roles in placental development. We utilized mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells (derived from ICM) and showed that ectopic expression of Fosl1 can transdifferentiate ES cells to trophoblast giant-like cells. We show that Fosl1 does so by directly binding and activating TE-specific genes and genes associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Using mouse trophoblast stem (TS) cells, we also establish that Fosl1 is required for specification of TS cells to trophoblast giant cells (TGCs) subtype. Therefore, our results suggest that Fosl1 serves as an important mediator of cell fate conversion from ES cells to trophoblast giant-like cells and that Fosl1 is a critical regulator of TS cell differentiation.Cellular and Molecular Biolog