Effects of gamma-aminobutyric acid, progesterone and ionophore A23187 on acrosome reaction of tree shrew sperm in vitro: examination of acrosome reaction with an improved fluorescence microscopy

A number of acrosome reaction (AR) initiators have been found to be effective in inducing AR of human, laboratory and domestic animal sperm. Using an improved simple fluorescence microscopy, effects of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), progesterone and ionophore A23187 on sperm AR of tree shrew, a useful animal model in biomedical research, have been investigated. Spontaneous AR in 4.92-7.53% of viable sperm was observed. Complete AR in 10.31-18.25% of viable tree shrew sperm was obviously induced by 5 mu M and 10 mu M calcium ionophore A23187, 1 mM GABA, and 5 mu M progesterone, and there were no significant differences between their abilities to initiate complete AR. No significant differences of AR percentages between 1- and 2-h treatments with A23187, progesterone and/or GABA were observed. These results suggested that the responses of tree shrew sperm to these AR initiators are similar to that of human and other mammalian sperm. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

Multiple color reflection in a single unit cell using double-layer electrochromic reaction

Multiple color states have been realized in single unit cell using double electrochromic (EC) reaction. The precise control of bistability in EC compounds which can maintain several colors on the two separated electrodes allows this new type of pixel to be realized. The specific electrical driving gives a way to maintain both sides in the reduced EC states and this colors overlapping in the vertical view direction can achieve the black state. The four color states (G, B, W, BK) in one cell/pixel can make a valuable progress to achieve a high quality color devices such like electronic paper, outdoor billboard, smart window and flexible display using external light source. © 2012 Optical Society of America.

A priori assessment of algebraic flame surface density models in the context of large eddy simulation for nonunity lewis number flames in the thin reaction zones regime

The performance of algebraic flame surface density (FSD) models has been assessed for flames with nonunity Lewis number (Le) in the thin reaction zones regime, using a direct numerical simulation (DNS) database of freely propagating turbulent premixed flames with Le ranging from 0.34 to 1.2. The focus is on algebraic FSD models based on a power-law approach, and the effects of Lewis number on the fractal dimension D and inner cut-off scale η i have been studied in detail. It has been found that D is strongly affected by Lewis number and increases significantly with decreasing Le. By contrast, η i remains close to the laminar flame thermal thickness for all values of Le considered here. A parameterisation of D is proposed such that the effects of Lewis number are explicitly accounted for. The new parameterisation is used to propose a new algebraic model for FSD. The performance of the new model is assessed with respect to results for the generalised FSD obtained from explicitly LES-filtered DNS data. It has been found that the performance of the most existing models deteriorates with decreasing Lewis number, while the newly proposed model is found to perform as well or better than the most existing algebraic models for FSD. © 2012 Mohit Katragadda et al.

Topologically invariant reaction coordinates for simulating multistate chemical reactions.

Evaluating free energy profiles of chemical reactions in complex environments such as solvents and enzymes requires extensive sampling, which is usually performed by potential of mean force (PMF) techniques. The reliability of the sampling depends not only on the applied PMF method but also the reaction coordinate space within the dynamics is biased. In contrast to simple geometrical collective variables that depend only on the positions of the atomic coordinates of the reactants, the E(gap) reaction coordinate (the energy difference obtained by evaluating a suitable force field using reactant and product state topologies) has the unique property that it is able to take environmental effects into account leading to better convergence, a more faithful description of the transition state ensemble and therefore more accurate free energy profiles. However, E(gap) requires predefined topologies and is therefore inapplicable for multistate reactions, in which the barrier between the chemically equivalent topologies is comparable to the reaction activation barrier, because undesired "side reactions" occur. In this article, we introduce a new energy-based collective variable by generalizing the E(gap) reaction coordinate such that it becomes invariant to equivalent topologies and show that it yields more well behaved free energy profiles than simpler geometrical reaction coordinates.

Effects of turbulent reynolds number on the performance of algebraic flame surface density models for large eddy simulation in the thin reaction zones regime: A direct numerical simulation analysis

A direct numerical simulation (DNS) database of freely propagating statistically planar turbulent premixed flames with a range of different turbulent Reynolds numbers has been used to assess the performance of algebraic flame surface density (FSD) models based on a fractal representation of the flame wrinkling factor. The turbulent Reynolds number Ret has been varied by modifying the Karlovitz number Ka and the Damköhler number Da independently of each other in such a way that the flames remain within the thin reaction zones regime. It has been found that the turbulent Reynolds number and the Karlovitz number both have a significant influence on the fractal dimension, which is found to increase with increasing Ret and Ka before reaching an asymptotic value for large values of Ret and Ka. A parameterisation of the fractal dimension is presented in which the effects of the Reynolds and the Karlovitz numbers are explicitly taken into account. By contrast, the inner cut-off scale normalised by the Zel'dovich flame thickness ηi/δz does not exhibit any significant dependence on Ret for the cases considered here. The performance of several algebraic FSD models has been assessed based on various criteria. Most of the algebraic models show a deterioration in performance with increasing the LES filter width. © 2012 Mohit Katragadda et al.

Reconstruction of arbitrary biochemical reaction networks: A compressive sensing approach

Reconstruction of biochemical reaction networks (BRN) and genetic regulatory networks (GRN) in particular is a central topic in systems biology which raises crucial theoretical challenges in system identification. Nonlinear Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) that involve polynomial and rational functions are typically used to model biochemical reaction networks. Such nonlinear models make the problem of determining the connectivity of biochemical networks from time-series experimental data quite difficult. In this paper, we present a network reconstruction algorithm that can deal with ODE model descriptions containing polynomial and rational functions. Rather than identifying the parameters of linear or nonlinear ODEs characterised by pre-defined equation structures, our methodology allows us to determine the nonlinear ODEs structure together with their associated parameters. To solve the network reconstruction problem, we cast it as a compressive sensing (CS) problem and use sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) algorithms as a computationally efficient and robust way to obtain its solution. © 2012 IEEE.

Numerical simulation of post-flame oxidation of hydrocarbons in spark ignition engines

About 50-90 percent of the hydrocarbons that escape combustion during flame passage in spark-ignition engine operation are oxidized in the cylinder before leaving the system. The process involves the transport of unreacted fuel from cold walls towards the hotter burned gas regions and subsequent reaction. In order to understand controlling factors in the process, a transient one-dimensional reactive-diffusive model has been formulated for simulating the oxidation processes taking place in the reactive layer between hot burned gases and cold unreacted air/fuel mixture, with initial and boundary conditions provided by the emergence of hydrocarbons from the piston top land crevice. Energy and species conservation equations are solved for the entire process, using a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism for propane. Simulation results show that the post-flame oxidation process takes place within a reactive layer where intermediate hydrocarbon products are formed at temperatures above 1100-1200 K, followed by a carbon monoxide conversion region closer to the hot burned gases. Model results show that most of hydrocarbons leaving the crevice are completely oxidized inside the cylinder. The largest contribution of remaining hydrocarbons are those leaving the crevice at temperatures below 1400 K. The largest fraction of non-fuel (intermediate) hydrocarbons results from hydrocarbons leaving the crevice when core temperatures are around 1400 K Copyright © 1997 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.

Effect of95 241Am(n, γ) reaction branching ratio on fuel cycle and reactor design characteristics

The growing interest in innovative reactors and advanced fuel cycle designs requires more accurate prediction of various transuranic actinide concentrations during irradiation or following discharge because of their effect on reactivity or spent-fuel emissions, such as gamma and neutron activity and decay heat. In this respect, many of the important actinides originate from the 241Am(n,γ) reaction, which leads to either the ground or the metastable state of 242Am. The branching ratio for this reaction depends on the incident neutron energy and has very large uncertainty in the current evaluated nuclear data files. This study examines the effect of accounting for the energy dependence of the 241Am(n,γ) reaction branching ratio calculated from different evaluated data files for different reactor and fuel types on the reactivity and concentrations of some important actinides. The results of the study confirm that the uncertainty in knowing the 241Am(n,γ) reaction branching ratio has a negligible effect on the characteristics of conventional light water reactor fuel. However, in advanced reactors with large loadings of actinides in general, and 241Am in particular, the branching ratio data calculated from the different data files may lead to significant differences in the prediction of the fuel criticality and isotopic composition. Moreover, it was found that neutron energy spectrum weighting of the branching ratio in each analyzed case is particularly important and may result in up to a factor of 2 difference in the branching ratio value. Currently, most of the neutronic codes have a single branching ratio value in their data libraries, which is sometimes difficult or impossible to update in accordance with the neutron spectrum shape for the analyzed system.

Statistics of reaction progress variable and mixture fraction gradients from DNS of turbulent partially premixed flames

Statistically planar turbulent partially premixed flames for different initial intensities of decaying turbulence have been simulated for global equivalence ratios = 0.7 and 1.0 using three-dimensional, simplified chemistry-based direct numerical simulations (DNS). The simulation parameters are chosen such that the flames represent the thin reaction zones regime combustion. A random bimodal distribution of equivalence ratio is introduced in the unburned gas ahead of the flame to account for the mixture inhomogeneity. The results suggest that the probability density functions (PDFs) of the mixture fraction gradient magnitude |Δξ| (i.e., P(|Δξ|)) can be reasonably approximated using a log-normal distribution. However, this presumed PDF distribution captures only the qualitative nature of the PDF of the reaction progress variable gradient magnitude |Δc| (i.e., P(|Δc|)). It has been found that a bivariate log-normal distribution does not sufficiently capture the quantitative behavior of the joint PDF of |Δξ| and |Δc| (i.e., P(|Δξ|, |Δc|)), and the agreement with the DNS data has been found to be poor in certain regions of the flame brush, particularly toward the burned gas side of the flame brush. Moreover, the variables |Δξ| and |Δc| show appreciable correlation toward the burned gas side of the flame brush. These findings are corroborated further using a DNS data of a lifted jet flame to study the flame geometry dependence of these statistics. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

The effect of clearance on shrouded and unshrouded turbines at two levels of reaction

In this paper, the effect of seal clearance on the efficiency of a turbine with a shrouded rotor is compared with the effect of the tip clearance when the same turbine has an unshrouded rotor. The shrouded versus unshrouded comparison was undertaken for two turbine stage designs one having 50% reaction, the other having 24% reaction. Measurements for a range of clearances, including very small clearances, showed three important phenomena. Firstly, as the clearance is reduced, there is a "break-even clearance" at which both the shrouded turbine and the unshrouded turbine have the same efficiency. If the clearance is reduced further, the unshrouded turbine performs better than the shrouded turbine, with the difference at zero clearance termed the "offset loss." This is contrary to the traditional assumption that both shrouded and unshrouded turbines have the same efficiency at zero clearance. The physics of the break-even clearance and the offset loss are discussed. Secondly, the use of a lower reaction had the effect of reducing the tip leakage efficiency penalty for both the shrouded and the unshrouded turbines. In order to understand the effect of reaction on the tip leakage, an analytical model was used and it was found that the tip leakage efficiency penalty should be understood as the dissipated kinetic energy rather than either the tip leakage mass flow rate or the tip leakage loss coefficient. Thirdly, it was also observed that, at a fixed flow coefficient, the fractional change in the output power with clearance was approximately twice the fractional change in efficiency with clearance. This was explained by using an analytical model. © 2014 by ASME.