Investigation of the effects of inlet shapes on fan noise radiation

The effect of inlet shape on forward radiated fan tone noise directivities was investigated under experimentally simplified zero flow conditions. Simulated fan tone noise was radiated to the far field through various shaped zero flow inlets. Baseline data were collected for the simplest baffled and unbaffled straight pipe inlets. These data compared well with prediction. The more general inlet shapes tested were the conical, circular, and exponential surfaces of revolution and an asymmetric inlet achieved by cutting a straight pipe inlet at an acute angle. Approximate theories were developed for these general shapes and some comparisons with data are presented. The conical and exponential shapes produced directivities that differed considerably from the baseline data while the circular shape produced directivities similar to the baseline data. The asymmetric inlet produced asymmetric directivities with significant reductions over the straight pipe data for some angles

Diversity of membrane transport proteins for vitamins in bacteria and archaea

BACKGROUND: All organisms use cofactors to extend the catalytic capacities of proteins. Many bacteria and archaea can synthesize cofactors from primary metabolites, but there are also prokaryotes that do not have the complete biosynthetic pathways for all essential cofactors. These organisms are dependent on the uptake of cofactors, or at least their precursors that cannot be synthesized, from the environment. Even in those organisms that contain complete biosynthetic pathways membrane transporters are usually present, because the synthesis of cofactors is more costly than uptake.SCOPE OF REVIEW: Here we give an overview of bacterial and archaeal transport systems for B-type vitamins, which are either cofactors or precursors thereof.MAJOR CONCLUSIONS: Prokaryotic vitamin transporters are extremely diverse, and found in many families of transporters. A few of these transport systems have been characterized in detail, but for most of them mechanistic insight is lacking.GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE: The lack of structural and functional understanding of bacterial vitamin transporters is unfortunate because they may be targets for new antibiotics. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Structural biochemistry and biophysics of membrane proteins. Guest Editor: Bjorn Pedersen.</p

The structure of glutamate transporters shows channel-like features

AbstractNeuronal and glial glutamate transporters remove the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate from the synaptic cleft and thus prevent neurotoxicity. The proteins belong to a large family of secondary transporters, which includes transporters from a variety of bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic organisms. The transporters consist of eight membrane-spanning α-helices and two pore-loop structures, which are unique among secondary transporters but may resemble pore-loops found in ion channels. Another distinctive structural feature is the presence of a highly amphipathic membrane-spanning α-helix that provides a hydrophilic path through the membrane. The unusual structural features of the transporters are discussed in relation to their function