ALBERT

Description: This paper investigates the effect of considering soil-structure interaction (SSI) in seismic responses of reinforced concrete (RC) chimneys installed by distributed tuned vibration absorbers vertically (d-MTVAs). A multimode control approach is used to design the d-MTVAs. Two-dimensional (2D) RC chimney is the assembly of beam elements. Frequency-independent constants for the springs and dashpots are used for modeling the raft and the surrounding soil. The equations of motion for nonclassically damped systems are derived and solved using Newmark’s method. The effectiveness of the d-MTVAs is weighed against the case of single tuned vibration absorber (STVA), d-MTVAs suppressing the first modal responses (d-MTVAs-1), and randomly distributed MTVAs (ad-MTVAs). Additionally, parametric studies are conducted for varying mass and damping ratios in the STVA, d-MTVAs-1, ad-MTVAs, and d-MTVAs. In order to show the efficiency in the STVA, d-MTVAs-1, ad-MTVAs, and d-MTVAs cases, responses (displacement and acceleration) at top of the RC chimney while subjected to different real earthquake excitations are computed. It is concluded that the STVA, d-MTVAs-1, ad-MTVAs, and d-MTVAs are effective in response mitigation of the RC chimney; however, d-MTVAs are more efficient while considering equal total mass of the TVA(s). Moreover, the soil type significantly influenced the design parameters of the STVA/d-MTVAs-1/ad-MTVAs/d-MTVAs and seismic response of the RC chimney.

Description: In this study, we propose a modified predictor-corrector Newton-Halley (MPCNH) method for solving nonlinear equations. The proposed sixteenth-order MPCNH is free of second derivatives and has a high efficiency index. The convergence analysis of the modified method is discussed. Different problems were tested to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. Some are real life problems such as a chemical equilibrium problem (conversion in a chemical reactor), azeotropic point of a binary solution, and volume from van der Waals equation. Several comparisons with other optimal and nonoptimal iterative techniques of equal order are presented to show the efficiency of the modified method and to clarify the question, are the optimal methods always good for solving nonlinear equations?

Description: Currently, the demand of Pleurotus HK-37 (oyster mushroom) in Tanzania is growing rapidly due to the increasing of awareness on its nutrition, health, and economic benefits. Despite the increasing demand, the availability of strains of Pleurotus HK-37 species is still a challenge due to high cost of tissue culture technology. The high cost of importing agar seems to be among the factors for this failure. This study aimed at investigating the performance of low-cost agar from local Gracilaria salicornia on tissue culture of Pleurotus HK-37. Local extracted agars with different gel strengths ranging between 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 g/cm2 were used to make PDA media. The average mycelia growth rate (mm/day) ranged between 9.87 ± 1.44 and 14.9 ± 0.85 mm/day. Low-cost agar shows quite similar performance as that of standard agar on active growth of Pleurotus HK-37 mycelia. All PDA plates appeared white and feathery and showed to grow in a circular mode (radial extension). Mycelia growth on standard agar PDA took 5 days while on extracted local agar PDA took 5 to 7 days to fully colonize the plate at 27 ± 2°C. The present study shows that the production cost can be reduced by ∼35–78% by using local agar.

Description: Background. With the development of new drug combinations and targeted treatments for multiple types of cancer, the ability to stratify categories of patient populations and to develop companion diagnostics has become increasingly important. A panel of 325 RNA biomarkers was selected based on cancer-related biological processes of healthy cells and gene expression changes over time during nonmalignant epithelial cell organization. This “cancer in reverse” approach resulted in a panel of biomarkers relevant for at least 7 cancer types, providing gene expression profiles representing key cellular signaling pathways beyond mutations in “driver genes.” Objective. To further investigate this biomarker panel, the objective of the current study is to (1) validate the assay reproducibility for the 325 RNA biomarkers and (2) compare gene expression profiles side by side using two technology platforms. Methods and Results. We have mapped the 325 RNA transcripts and in a custom NanoString nCounter expression panel to be compared to all potential probe sets in the Affymetrix Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0. The experiments were conducted with 10 unique biological formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) breast tumor samples. Each site extracted RNA from four sections of 10-micron thick FFPE tissue over three different days by two different operators using an optimized standard operating procedure and quality control criteria. Samples were analyzed using mas5 in BioConductor and NanoStringNorm in R. Pearson correlation showed reproducibility between sites for all 60 samples with r=0.995 for Affymetrix and r=0.999 for NanoString. Correlation in multiple days and multiple users was for Affymetrix r=0.962−0.999 and for NanoString r=0.982−0.991. Conclusion. The 325 RNA biomarkers showed reproducibility in two technology platforms with moderate to high concordance. Future directions include performing clinical validation studies and generating rationale for patient selection in clinical trials using the technically validated assay.

Description: We use the cosine family of linear operators to prove the existence, uniqueness, and stability of the integral solution of a nonlocal telegraph equation in frame of the conformable time-fractional derivative. Moreover, we give its implicit fundamental solution in terms of the classical trigonometric functions.

Description: This research work was conducted to investigate the structural, molecular, electronic, and photophysical parameters of the fluorescein dye derivatives using the density functional theory (DFT) and time dependent-density functional theory (TD-DFT) computations. The organic donor-π-acceptor dye used for dye-sensitized solar cells, based on 2-(3-hydroxy-6-oxo-6H-xanthene-9-yl)benzoic acid (fluorescein) and its five derivatives, was investigated. The derivatives were formed by attaching different donor groups at para position. The excited state energies, electron absorption spectra, and oscillator strengths (f) were calculated using TD-DFT/B3LYP/6-311G basis set calculations on fully DFT-optimized geometries. The HOMO orbital, LUMO orbital, and energy gap values show that fluorescein attached with thiophene (FST) compound has a smaller energy gap compared to others and the fluorescein attached with an amine (FSA) have a larger energy gap than all compounds. The increasing order of the energy gap between HOMO and LUMO for the fluorescein and its derivatives is FST 

Description: New sufficient conditions for the oscillation of all solutions to a class of third-order Emden–Fowler differential equations with unbounded neutral coefficients are established. The criteria obtained essentially improve related results in the literature. In particular, as opposed to known results, new criteria can distinguish solutions of third-order differential equations with different behaviors. Examples are also provided to illustrate the results.