Thermal buckling of cross-ply laminated composite and sandwich plates according to a global higher-order deformation theory

A two-dimensional global higher-order deformation theory is presented for thermal buckling of cross-ply laminated composite and sandwich plates. By using the method of power series expansion of continuous displacement components, a set of fundamental governing equations which can take into account the effects of both transverse shear and normal stresses is derived through the principle of virtual work. Several sets of truncated Mth-order approximate theories are applied to solve the eigenvalue problems of a simply supported multilayered plate. Modal transverse shear and normal stresses can be calculated by integrating the three-dimensional equations of equilibrium in the thickness direction, and satisfying the continuity conditions at the interface between layers and stress boundary conditions at the external surfaces. Numerical results are compared with those of the published three-dimensional layerwise theory in which both in-plane and normal displacements are assumed to be C⁰ continuous in the continuity conditions at the interface between layers. Effects of the difference of displacement continuity conditions between the three-dimensional layerwise theory and the global higher-order theory are clarified in thermal buckling problems of multilayered composite plates.     

Multi-modal Information Integration for Interactive Multi-agent Systems

This paper proposes a multi-agent system that carries out cooperative work. To achieve this, we use Fuzzy Associative Memory Organizing Unit Systems (FAMOUS) and Conceptual Fuzzy Sets (CFS). By using these proposed methods, each agent robot can decide its own behaviour to suit the situation in its environment. We apply this system to an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) and do simulations.     

Effect of O2 on NO removal by ammonia radical injection using one-cycle sinusoidal power source

NO reduction experiment was performed by injecting ammonia radicals, which were externally generated by flowing the NH₃ gas diluted with Ar gas through a dielectric barrier discharge with a one-cycle sinusoidal-wave power source. The discharge was intermittently formed between coaxial cylindrical electrodes with a space of 1.5 mm at an applied peak-to-peak voltage of 3-25 kV. The generated radicals were injected into simulation gas (NO/O₂/N₂). The simulation gas contained 0-5.6% O₂, and the effect of O₂ on NO_x removal was discussed. The minimum reaction temperature for NO reduction was low when simulation gas contained O₂. High O₂ concentration (O₂=5.6%) in simulation gas, high repetition rate to NH₃, and high applied power to NH₃ decreased NO removal efficiency.     

What Does a Pigeon (Columba livia) Brain Look Like During Homing? Selective Examination of ZENK Expression.

Lesion studies have shown that the avian hippocampus plays a crucial role in homing pigeon (Columba livia) navigation. Using the expression of the immediate early gene protein ZENK in intact pigeons, the authors found regional variation in hippocampal activation as a consequence of homing and, necessarily, the behavior and internal states that accompany it. Specifically, pigeons that homed displayed a significant increase in the number of ZENK-labeled cells in the lateral hippocampal formation compared with pigeons that did not home, whereas no difference was seen in the medial hippocampus. Significant changes in ZENK expression were also found in the medial striatum, which resembles the mammalian ventral striatum. The results identify portions of the hippocampal formation and the medial striatum as sites of plasticity associated with homing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive-realness analysis of sampled-data systems and its applications

In this paper, we first study strong positive-realness of sampled-data systems and introduce a measure called positive-realness gap index. We show that this index can be computed efficiently with a bisection method, and provide state space formulas for its computation. The importance of this index lies in that it is useful for robust stability analysis of sampled-data systems. An iterative procedure for computing an exact robust stability margin is given and illustrated through a numerical example.     

Dynamic Power Integrity Control of ATE for Eliminating Overkills and Underkills in Device Testing

This paper proposes a power integrity control technique for dynamically controlling power supply voltage fluctuations for a device under test (DUT), and demonstrates its effectiveness for eliminating the overkills/underkills due to the difference of power supply impedance between an automatic test equipment (ATE) and a practical operating environment of the DUT. The proposed method injects compensation currents into the power supply nodes on the ATE system in a feed-forward manner such that the ATE power supply waveform matches with the one on the customer’s operating environment of the DUT. A method for calculating the compensation current is also described. Experimental results show that the proposed method can emulate the power supply voltage waveform under a customer’s operating condition and eliminate 95 % of overkills/underkills in the maximum operating frequency testing with 105 real silicon devices. Limitations and applications of the proposed method are also discussed.     

Structure,transport properties,and dielectric properties of lactic acid/pyruvic acid aqueous solution in a biofuel cell: A molecular simulation study

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of lactic acid (L‐acid) and pyruvic acid (P‐acid) in a physiological salt solution has been performed, which is used as the electrolyte in a sort of biofuel cell working on a human skin. The structure, frequency distribution of molecules, dielectric properties, rotational correlation functions, and diffusion coefficients have been calculated. The anomalous behavior of dielectric constants for the lower concentration of L‐acid and P‐acid has been obtained from MD. The anomalous dielectric constant is discussed in relation with the various physical properties of the solution including the life time of the interaction in the solution. MD results suggest that the anomalous behavior is supposed to be attributed to the difference of interactions between ions in the lower and higher concentration region. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:2474–2478, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Accelerated Discovery of Potent Bioactive anti-TNFα Aptamers by Microbead-Assisted Capillary Electrophoresis (MACE)-SELEX

Dysregulation of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, causes several diseases, making it an important therapeutic target. Here, we identified a novel DNA aptamer against human TNFα using in vitro selection, which included a high exclusion pressure process against non-binding and weak binders through microbead-assisted capillary electrophoresis (MACE) in only three rounds. Among the 15 most enriched aptamers, Apt14 exhibited the highest inhibitory activity for the interaction between TNFα and its cognate receptor in mouse L929 cells. For further improving the bioactivity of the aptamer, dimerization programed by hybridization was evaluated, resulting in the Apt14 dimer exhibited a twofold higher binding affinity and stronger inhibition compared to the monomer counterpart. Rapid identification of bioactive aptamers using MACE in combination with facile dimerization by hybridization accelerates the discovery of novel bioactive aptamers, paving the way toward replacing current monoclonal antibody therapy with the less expensive and non-immunogenic aptamer therapy.