Adhesively-bonded GFRP-glass sandwich components for structurally efficient glazing applications

Composite sandwich structures made of thick glass face sheets adhesively-bonded to glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) core profiles have the potential to outperform existing non-composite glazing configurations but their feasibility has yet to be investigated and there are no analytical models that describe their structural response. This paper presents the new analytical models for predicting deflections and strains in adhesively-bonded GFRP-glass sandwich beams. The new analytical models successfully account for: the shear deformations of the core and adhesive layers; the local bending of the constituent parts about their centroidal axes; and the global bending of the sandwich component as a whole. The deflections and strains predicted by analytical models are validated by finite element simulations and compared with the results of destructive tests performed on adhesively-bonded GFRP-glass beams in a four-point bending configuration. The analytical models were also evaluated for alternative GFRP-glass configurations tested by others. The GFRP-glass beams specially assembled in this study confirm the physical feasibility of constructing these proposed components.The authors would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council – United Kingdom for the financial support of the project

Giant capacitance of a plane capacitor with a two-dimensional electron gas in a magnetic field

If a clean two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) with small concentration $n$ comprises one (or both) electrodes of a plane capacitor, the resulting capacitance $C$ can be larger than the "geometric capacitance" $C_g$ determined by the physical separation $d$ between electrodes. A recent paper [1] argued that when the effective Bohr radius $a_B$ of the 2DEG satisfies $a_B << d$, one can achieve $C >> C_g$ at low concentration $nd^2 << 1$. Here we show that even for devices with $a_B > d$, including graphene, for which $a_B$ is effectively infinite, one also arrives at $C >> C_g$ at low electron concentration if there is a strong perpendicular magnetic field.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; updated discussion about bilayer systems; added discussion of fractional quantum Hall state

FluoroSpot assay to analyze SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses

Monitoring antigen-specific T cell frequency and function is essential to assess the host immune response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Here, we present a FluoroSpot assay for concurrently detecting ex vivo antiviral cytokine production by SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells following peptide stimulation. We then detail intracellular cytokine staining by flow cytometry to further validate the FluoroSpot assay results and define the specific T cell subpopulations. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Tiezzi et al. (2023).

Electrostatic Tuning of the Ligand Binding Mechanism by Glu27 in Nitrophorin 7.

Nitrophorins (NP) 1-7 are NO-carrying heme proteins found in the saliva of the blood-sucking insect Rhodnius prolixus. The isoform NP7 displays peculiar properties, such as an abnormally high isoelectric point, the ability to bind negatively charged membranes, and a strong pH sensitivity of NO affinity. A unique trait of NP7 is the presence of Glu in position 27, which is occupied by Val in other NPs. Glu27 appears to be important for tuning the heme properties, but its influence on the pH-dependent NO release mechanism, which is assisted by a conformational change in the AB loop, remains unexplored. Here, in order to gain insight into the functional role of Glu27, we examine the effect of Glu27 → Val and Glu27 → Gln mutations on the ligand binding kinetics using CO as a model. The results reveal that annihilation of the negative charge of Glu27 upon mutation reduces the pH sensitivity of the ligand binding rate, a process that in turn depends on the ionization of Asp32. We propose that Glu27 exerts a through-space electrostatic action on Asp32, which shifts the pKa of the latter amino acid towards more acidic values thus reducing the pH sensitivity of the transition between open and closed states

Clinical Processes - The Killer Application for Constraint-Based Process Interactions?

For more than a decade, the interest in aligning information systems in a process-oriented way has been increasing. To enable operational support for business processes, the latter are usually specified in an imperative way. The resulting process models, however, tend to be too rigid to meet the flexibility demands of the actors involved. Declarative process modeling languages, in turn, provide a promising alternative in scenarios in which a high level of flexibility is demanded. In the scientific literature, declarative languages have been used for modeling rather simple processes or synthetic examples. However, to the best of our knowledge, they have not been used to model complex, real-world scenarios that comprise constraints going beyond control-flow. In this paper, we propose the use of a declarative language for modeling a sophisticated healthcare process scenario from the real world. The scenario is subject to complex temporal constraints and entails the need for coordinating the constraint-based interactions among the processes related to a patient treatment process. As demonstrated in this work, the selected real process scenario can be suitably modeled through a declarative approach.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Increased production of inflammatory cytokines by circulating monocytes in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy: A possible role in drug resistance

: We analyzed peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum inflammatory biomarkers in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (drug-resistant - DR, vs. drug-sensitive - DS). Patients with epilepsy showed higher levels of serum CCL2, CCL3, IL-8 and AOPP, and lower levels of FRAP and thiols compared to healthy controls (HC). Although none of the serum biomarkers distinguished DR from DS patients, when analysing intracellular cytokines after in vitro stimulation, DR patients presented higher percentages of IL-1β and IL-6 positive monocytes compared to DS patients and HC. Circulating innate immune cells might be implicated in DR epilepsy and constitute potential new targets for treatments

Genetic Evidence for a Tacaribe Serocomplex Virus, Mexico

We isolated arenavirus RNA from white-toothed woodrats (Neotoma leucodon) captured in a region of Mexico in which woodrats are food for humans. Analyses of nucleotide and amino acid sequence data indicated that the woodrats were infected with a novel Tacaribe serocomplex virus, proposed name Real de Catorce virus

Handling Conflicts in Depth-First Search for LTL Tableau to Debug Compliance Based Languages

Providing adequate tools to tackle the problem of inconsistent compliance rules is a critical research topic. This problem is of paramount importance to achieve automatic support for early declarative design and to support evolution of rules in contract-based or service-based systems. In this paper we investigate the problem of extracting temporal unsatisfiable cores in order to detect the inconsistent part of a specification. We extend conflict-driven SAT-solver to provide a new conflict-driven depth-first-search solver for temporal logic. We use this solver to compute LTL unsatisfiable cores without re-exploring the history of the solver.Comment: In Proceedings FLACOS 2011, arXiv:1109.239