One-step purification of lactoperoxidase from bovine milk by affinity chromatography

Sulphanilamide was determined to be a new inhibitor of lactoperoxidase (LPO) with an IC₅₀ of 0.848.10⁻⁵ M. The K_i for sulphanilamide was determined to be 3.57.10⁻⁵ M and sulphanilamide showed competitive inhibition, which makes it a suitable ligand for constructing a Sepharose 4B-l-tyrosine affinity matrix. The affinity matrix was synthesised by coupling sulphanilamide as the ligand and l-tyrosine as the spacer arm to a cyanogen bromide (CNBr)-activated-Sepharose 4B matrix. Lactoperoxidase was purified 409-fold from the synthesized affinity matrix in a single step, with a yield of 62.3% and a specific activity of 40.9 EU/mg protein. The enzyme activity was measured using ABTS as a chromogenic substrate (pH 6.0). The degree of LPO purification was monitored by SDS–PAGE and its R_z (A₄₁₂/A₂₈₀) value. The R_z value for the purified LPO was found to be 0.7. Maximum binding was achieved and K_m and V_max values were determined.     

Consistency management in Deno

We describe a new replicatedobject protocol designed for use in mobile and weaklyconnected environments. The protocol differs from previous protocols in combining epidemic information propagation with voting, and in using fixed perobject currencies for voting. The advantage of epidemic protocols is that data movement only requires pairwise communication. Hence, there is no need for a majority quorum to be available and simultaneously connected at any single time. The protocols increase availability by using voting, rather than primarycopy or primarycommit schemes. Finally, the use of perobject currencies allows voting to take place in an entirely decentralized fashion, without any server having complete knowledge of group membership. We show that currency allocation can be used to implement diverse policies. For example, uniform currency distributions emulate traditional voting schemes, while allocating all currency to a single server emulates a primarycopy scheme. We present simulation results showing both schemes, as well as the performance advantages of using currency proxies to temporarily reallocate currency during planned disconnections. Furthermore, we discuss an initial design of the underlying replicatedobject system and present a basic API.     

Studies of floating dosage forms of furosemide: in vitro and in vivo evaluations of bilayer tablet formulations

For the purpose of enhancement the bioavailability of furosemide (FR), a floating dosage form with controlled release of FR was designed in this study. Because of the lower solubility of active material in the gastric medium, it was first enhanced by preparing an inclusion complex of FR with beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) in a 1:1 proportion using the kneading method. Following the design of dosage form, bilayer floating tablets were prepared. After dissolution rate studies were performed using the continuous flow-through cell method, the formulation that provided delivery of active material near the target profile was given to six healthy male volunteer subjects, and in vivo tests were performed. It was determined by radiographs that floating tablets prepared by adding BaSO4 stayed in the stomach for 6 hr. Further, values of the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) obtained with the floating dosage form were about 1.8 times those of the conventional FR tablet in blood analyses; maximum and minimum plasma concentrations were also found to be between the desired limits. In urine analyses, the peak diuretic effect seen in classical preparations was decreased and prolonged in floating dosage forms. Also, a considerably significant correlation was detected between in vivo results and in vitro data of the dissolution rate, and it was concluded that the modified continuous flow-through cell method is usable for in vitro dissolution rate tests of floating dosage forms.     

Structural characterization of basalt-based glass–ceramic coatings

There are a lot of technologically interesting characteristics of glass–ceramics, which are hard, wear resistant, oxidation and corrosion resistant ceramic materials. In the present study, the production of the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating by atmospheric plasma spray technique and their structural characterization were reported. Basalt-based glass coating was performed on AISI 1040 steel substrate which was pre-coated with Ni–5 wt% Al by using plasma spray gun. Basalt coatings of the glass form were crystallized at 800, 900 and 1000 °C for 1–4 h in orders to transform to the glass–ceramic structure. The presence of augite [(CaFeMg)SiO₃], diopside [Ca(Mg_0.15Fe_0.85)(SiO₃)₂] and aluminian diopside [Ca(Mg,Al)(Si,Al)₂O₆] crystalline phases formed in the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating layer was detected by X-ray diffraction analysis. Optical microscopy with micrometer was used for metallographic examinations. Differential scanning calorimeter was used for determining the crystallization temperature of glass form basalt-based coatings. Microhardness measurements were carried out on the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating layer with Vickers indenter. The hardness of coating layers is changing between 1009 and 1295 HV_0.05 depending on crystallization temperature and process times. It was found that, the higher the crystallization temperature, the more the crystalline phases were resulted. In addition, the lower the crystallization temperature and the longer the treatment time, the harder the coating layer became.     

A compact high-speed (31,5) parallel counter circuit based oncapacitive threshold-logic gates

A novel high-speed circuit implementation of the (31,5)-parallel counter (i.e., population counter) based on capacitive threshold logic (CTL) is presented. The circuit consists of 20 threshold logic gates arranged in two stages, i.e., the parallel counter described here has an effective logic depth of two. The charge-based CTL gates are essentially dynamic circuits which require a periodic refresh or precharge cycle, but unlike conventional dynamic CMOS gates, the circuit can be operated in synchronous as well as in asynchronous mode. The counter circuit is implemented using conventional 1.2 μm double-poly CMOS technology, and it occupies a silicon area of about 0.08 mm². Extensive post-layout simulations indicate that the circuit has a typical input-to-output propagation delay of less than 3 ns, and the test circuit is shown to operate reliably when consecutive 31-b input vectors are applied at a rate of up to 16 Mvectors/s. With its demonstrated data processing capability of about 500 Mb/s, the CTL-based (31,5) parallel counter offers a number of application possibilities, e.g., in high-speed parallel multiplier arrays and data encoding circuits     

Aurora: a new model and architecture for data stream management

This paper describes the basic processing model and architecture of Aurora, a new system to manage data streams for monitoring applications. Monitoring applications differ substantially from conventional business data processing. The fact that a software system must process and react to continual inputs from many sources (e.g., sensors) rather than from human operators requires one to rethink the fundamental architecture of a DBMS for this application area. In this paper, we present Aurora, a new DBMS currently under construction at Brandeis University, Brown University, and M.I.T. We first provide an overview of the basic Aurora model and architecture and then describe in detail a stream-oriented set of operators.Received: 12 September 2002, Accepted: 26 March 2003, Published online: 21 July 2003Edited by Y. Ioannidis     

On labeling in graph visualization

When visualizing graphs, it is essential to communicate the meaning of each graph object via text or graphical labels. Automatic placement of labels in a graph is an NP-Hard problem, for which efficient heuristic solutions have been recently developed. In this paper, we describe a general framework for modeling, drawing, editing, and automatic placement of labels respecting user constraints. In addition, we present the interface and the basic engine of the Graph Editor Toolkit - a family of portable graph visualization libraries designed for integration into graphical user interface application programs. This toolkit produces a high quality automated placement of labels in a graph using our framework. A brief survey of automatic label placement algorithms is also presented. Finally we describe extensions to certain existing automatic label placement algorithms, allowing their integration into this visualization tool.     

Formation of chromium nitride layers on AISI 1010 steel by nitro-chromizing treatment

In this study, chromium nitride coating was realized on AISI 1010 steels by nitro-chromizing treatment. Steel samples were tufftrided at 575 °C for 2 h in the first step of the coating process, and then chromized by pack method in the powder mixture consisting of ferro-chromium, ammonium chloride and alumina at 1000 °C for 1-4 h. Samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and Vickers micro-hardness tests. Coating layer formed on the steel samples is smooth and compact and well bonded to the steel matrix. The thickness of chromium nitride layer formed on the steel samples ranged from 5.16±1.48 to 13.45±1.73 μm, depending on the treatment time. The average micro-hardness value of the layer was 1789±59 HV_0.05. The layer consisted of Cr₂N and (Cr,Fe)₂N_(1−x) phases, according to XRD. EDS results showed that coating layer includes chromium and nitrogen.     

Compact low voltage high-Q CMOS active inductor suitable for RF applications

A compact active inductor circuit is proposed. The circuit is based on the gyrator-C approach with both transconductance stages realized by MOS transistors in common-source configuration. The circuit has minimal number of transistors, is suitable for low voltage operation, offers a wide inductive band, high quality factor and low power dissipation. Simulation results are provided for a 0.13 μm CMOS process with 1.2 V supply voltage.     

Convergence of an implicit algorithm for two families of nonexpansive mappings

In this paper, we study an implicit iterative algorithm for two nonexpansive mappings and two finite families of nonexpansive mappings in Banach spaces. We prove some weak and strong convergence theorems for these iterative algorithms. Our results extend some existing results.