Antimicrobial activity on the copolymers of 2,4‐dichlorophenyl methacrylate with methyl methacrylate: Synthesis and characterization

Copolymers of monomers 2,4‐dichlorophenyl methacrylate (2,4‐DMA) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) were synthesized with different monomer feed ratios using toluene as a solvent and 2,2′‐azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator at 70 °C. The copolymers were characterized by IR‐spectroscopy, and copolymer composition was determined with UV‐spectroscopy. The linearization method of Fineman–Ross was employed to obtain the monomer reactivity ratios. The molecular weights and polydispersity indexes were determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Thermogravimetric analyses of polymers were carried out in nitrogen atmosphere. The homo‐ and copolymers were tested for their antimicrobial properties against selected microorganisms. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 5227–5234, 2004     

承受拉-扭组合载荷的薄壁圆筒屈服时产生塑性流动的条件

提出了在无外力作功的情况下，具有Bauschinger效应的弹塑性材料处于屈服状态产生自发的塑性流动时应满足的条件．这个条件不仅与材料的力学性能有关，而且还处决于材料的具体的载荷边界条件和变形．举例说明了承受拉一扭组合的薄壁圆筒中，采用组合强化模型时，产生塑性流动的具体条件．     

Emission characteristics of high-powered microwave induced plasma optical emission spectrometry by using nitrogen–oxygen mixture gas

A high-powered, microwave-induced nitrogen–oxygen plasma (N₂–O₂–MIP) generated by using an Okamoto cavity at atmospheric pressure was investigated when the observation height, the flow rate of carrier gas, and the oxygen content were varied as the experimental parameters. The emission characteristics of the plasma were evaluated with regard to the excitation temperature and the intensity ratio of atomic line to ionic line. The excitation temperature of the N₂–O₂–MIP was in the range of 5100–5700 K when the oxygen content was varied from 0 to 30% at the observation height of 7 mm and the carrier gas flow rate of 0.6 l/min. The intensity ratio of atomic line to ionic line was elevated with an increase in the oxygen content.     

Use of a Dual-Marker Form of Analysis to Estimate Binding Constants Between Receptors and Ligands by Affinity Capillary Electrophoresis

This work describes the use of a dual-standard analysis approach termed the time-average ratio (TAR) in affinity capillary electrophoresis (ACE) to estimate binding constants of receptors to ligands. In this form of analysis the TAR is the migration time of the receptor divided by the average of the sum of the migration times of two non-interacting standards. This change in TAR as a function of the concentration of ligand yields a value for the binding constant. This concept is demonstrated using three model systems: carbonic anhydrase B (CAB, EC 4.2.1.1) and arylsulfonamides, vancomycin (Van) and ristocetin (Rist) from Streptomyces orientalis and Nocardia lurida, respectively, and d-Ala- d-Ala terminus peptides. Three ACE techniques are used to examine the three systems: standard ACE, flow-through partial-filling ACE (FTPFACE), and on-column derivatization coupled to ACE. The findings described here demonstrate that ACE data analyzed using the TAR form of analysis yield binding constants between receptors and ligands comparable to those estimated using other ACE forms of analysis. A comparison to three other forms of analysis is described.     

用电子散斑干涉法测量材料热膨胀系数

 利用双光束电子散斑干涉法（ESPI）对试件受热变形进行了实时观测，针对一次实验过程中得到的图片较多（300～500幅）的特点，在图像处理时摒弃了以往的手动识别等位移线的办法，用MATLAB语言编写了批处理程序，能够在采集的大量散斑图片中自动快速准确地标定等位移线，得到相应的位移和应变，并结合实时测量的温度值，获得了45钢和LY12铝合金在不同温升率下的热膨胀系数及其随温度的变化。实验结果表明，在涉及的温升率范围内，温升率的改变对材料热膨胀系数的影响不明显，材料的热膨胀系数随温度的升高略有上升。     

微波大气吸收衰减特性分析及分层数值算法

 给出了微波在大气中传输受气体分子吸收导致衰减的较精确计算模型，该模型扩展了传统计算模式忽略温度、湿度、压力变化及传播距离受限制的近似算法。结合我国某地区的实测气象数据模拟计算了该地区的大气吸收衰减，最后根据数值计算结果分析了微波随频率、发射角度以及月份（季度）变化的传播特性，并简要说明了此研究在微波遥感中的实际意义。     

Intelligent Fault Diagnosis of Industrial Robot Based on Multiclass Mahalanobis-Taguchi System for Imbalanced Data

One of the biggest challenges for the fault diagnosis research of industrial robots is that the normal data is far more than the fault data; that is, the data is imbalanced. The traditional diagnosis approaches of industrial robots are more biased toward the majority categories, which makes the diagnosis accuracy of the minority categories decrease. To solve the imbalanced problem, the traditional algorithm is improved by using cost-sensitive learning, single-class learning and other approaches. However, these algorithms also have a series of problems. For instance, it is difficult to estimate the true misclassification cost, overfitting, and long computation time. Therefore, a fault diagnosis approach for industrial robots, based on the Multiclass Mahalanobis-Taguchi system (MMTS), is proposed in this article. It can be classified the categories by measuring the deviation degree from the sample to the reference space, which is more suitable for classifying imbalanced data. The accuracy, G-mean and F-measure are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach on an industrial robot platform. The experimental results show that the proposed approach’s accuracy, F-measure and G-mean improves by an average of 20.74%, 12.85% and 21.68%, compared with the other five traditional approaches when the imbalance ratio is 9. With the increase in the imbalance ratio, the proposed approach has better stability than the traditional algorithms.     

In Vitro Evaluation of Curcumin Encapsulation in Gum Arabic Dispersions under Different Environments

Biopolymers, especially polysaccharides (e.g., gum Arabic), are widely applied as drug carriers in drug delivery systems due to their advantages. Curcumin, with high antioxidant ability but limited solubility and bioavailability in the body, can be encapsulated in gum Arabic to improve its solubility and bioavailability. When curcumin is encapsulated in gum Arabic, it is essential to understand how it works in various conditions. As a result, in Simulated Intestinal Fluid and Simulated Gastric Fluid conditions, we investigated the potential of gum Arabic as the drug carrier of curcumin. This study was conducted by varying the gum Arabic concentrations, i.e., 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40%, to encapsulate 0.1 mg/mL of curcumin. Under both conditions, the greater the gum Arabic concentration, the greater the encapsulation efficiency and antioxidant activity of curcumin, but the worse the gum Arabic loading capacity. To achieve excellent encapsulation efficiency, loading capacity, and antioxidant activity, the data advises that 10% is the best feasible gum Arabic concentration. Regarding the antioxidant activity of curcumin, the findings imply that a high concentration of gum Arabic was effective, and the Simulated Intestinal Fluid brought an excellent surrounding compared to the Simulated Gastric Fluid solution. Moreover, the gum Arabic releases curcumin faster in the Simulated Gastric Fluid condition.     

A Testable Theory for the Emergence of the Classical World

The transition from the quantum to the classical world is not yet understood. Here, we take a new approach. Central to this is the understanding that measurement and actualization cannot occur except on some specific basis. However, we have no established theory for the emergence of a specific basis. Our framework entails the following: (i) Sets of N entangled quantum variables can mutually actualize one another. (ii) Such actualization must occur in only one of the 2^N possible bases. (iii) Mutual actualization progressively breaks symmetry among the 2^N bases. (iv) An emerging “amplitude” for any basis can be amplified by further measurements in that basis, and it can decay between measurements. (v) The emergence of any basis is driven by mutual measurements among the N variables and decoherence with the environment. Quantum Zeno interactions among the N variables mediates the mutual measurements. (vi) As the number of variables, N, increases, the number of Quantum Zeno mediated measurements among the N variables increases. We note that decoherence alone does not yield a specific basis. (vii) Quantum ordered, quantum critical, and quantum chaotic peptides that decohere at nanosecond versus femtosecond time scales can be used as test objects. (viii) By varying the number of amino acids, N, and the use of quantum ordered, critical, or chaotic peptides, the ratio of decoherence to Quantum Zeno effects can be tuned. This enables new means to probe the emergence of one among a set of initially entangled bases via weak measurements after preparing the system in a mixed basis condition. (ix) Use of the three stable isotopes of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen and the five stable isotopes of sulfur allows any ten atoms in the test protein to be discriminably labeled and the basis of emergence for those labeled atoms can be detected by weak measurements. We present an initial mathematical framework for this theory, and we propose experiments.     

Folding Free Energy Determination of an RNA Three-Way Junction Using Fluctuation Theorems

Nonequilibrium work relations and fluctuation theorems permit us to extract equilibrium information from nonequilibrium measurements. They find application in single-molecule pulling experiments where molecular free energies can be determined from irreversible work measurements by using unidirectional (e.g., Jarzynski’s equality) and bidirectional (e.g., Crooks fluctuation theorem and Bennet’s acceptance ratio (BAR)) methods. However, irreversibility and the finite number of pulls limit their applicability: the higher the dissipation, the larger the number of pulls necessary to estimate ΔG within a few kBT. Here, we revisit pulling experiments on an RNA three-way junction (3WJ) that exhibits significant dissipation and work-distribution long tails upon mechanical unfolding. While bidirectional methods are more predictive, unidirectional methods are strongly biased. We also consider a cyclic protocol that combines the forward and reverse work values to increase the statistics of the measurements. For a fixed total experimental time, faster pulling rates permit us to efficiently sample rare events and reduce the bias, compensating for the increased dissipation. This analysis provides a more stringent test of the fluctuation theorem in the large irreversibility regime.