Characterization of a 10- to 14-kilodalton protease-sensitive mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Ra antigen that stimulates human -yi T cells

gamma delta T-cell receptor-bearing T cells (gamma delta T cells) are readily activated by intracellular bacterial pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacterial antigens responsible for gamma delta T-cell activation remain poorly characterized. We have found that heat treatment of live M. tuberculosis bacilli released into the supernatant an antigen which stimulated human gamma delta T cells, gamma delta T-cell activation was measured by determining the increase in percentage of gamma delta T cells by flow cytometry in peripheral blood mononuclear cells stimulated with antigen and by proliferation of gamma delta T-cell lines with monocytes as antigen-presenting cells. Supernatant from heat-treated M. tuberculosis was fractionated by fast-performance liquid chromatography (FPLC) on a Superose 12 column. Maximal gamma delta T-cell activation was measured for a fraction of 10 to 14 kDa. Separation of the supernatant by preparative isoelectric focusing demonstrated peak activity at a pi of <4.0. On two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, the 10- to 14-kDa FPLC fraction contained at least seven distinct molecules, of which two had a pi of <4.5. Protease treatment reduced the bioactivity of the 10- to 14-kDa FPLC fraction for both resting and activated gamma delta T cells. Murine antibodies raised to the 10- to 14-kDa fraction reacted by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with antigens of 10 to 14 kDa in lysate of M. tuberculosis. In addition, gamma delta T cells proliferated in response to an antigen of 10 to 14 kDa present in M. tuberculosis lysate. gamma delta T-cell-stimulating antigen was not found in culture filtrate of M. tuberculosis but was associated,vith the bacterial pellet and lysate of M. tuberculosis. These results provide a preliminary characterization of a 10- to 14-kDa, cell-associated, heat-stable, low-pI protein antigen of M. tuberculosis which is a major stimulus for human gamma delta T cells.

Conjugate MHD flow past a flat plate

A boundary layer solution for the conjugate forced convection flow of an electrically conducting fluid over a semi-infinite flat plate in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is presented. The governing nonsimilar partial differential equations are solved numerically using the Keller box method. Values of the temperature profiles of the plate are obtained for various values of the parameters entering the problem and are given in a table and shown on graphs.

Dimple and nose coalescences in phase-separation processes

Coalescence processes are investigated during phase separation in a density-matched liquid mixture (partially deuterated cyclohexane and methanol) under near-critical conditions. As a result of the interplay between capillary and lubrication forces, ''nose'' coalescence appears to be always associated with the slow growth of isolated droplets (exponent almost-equal-to 1/3), whereas ''dimple'' coalescence corresponds to the fast growth of interconnected droplets (exponent almost-equal-to 1). At each stage of growth, the distribution of droplets trapped during dimple coalescence is reminiscent of all of the previous coalescence events.

Unsteady three-dimensional boundary layer flow due to a stretching surface

In this numerical study, the unsteady laminar incompressible boundary-layer flow over a continuously stretching surface has been investigated when the velocity of the stretching surface varies arbitrarily with time. Both the nodal and the saddle point regions of flow have been considered for the analysis. Also, constant wall temperature/concentration and constant heat/mass flux at the stretching surface have been taken into account. The quasilinearisation method with an implicit finite-difference scheme is used in the nodal point region (0 less-than-or-equal-to c less-than-or-equal-to 1) where c denotes the stretching ratio. This method fails in the saddle point region (-1 less-than-or-equal-to c less-than-or-equal-to 0) due to the occurrence of reverse flow in the y-component of velocity. In order to overcome this difficulty, the method of parametric differentiation with an implicit finite-difference scheme is used, where the values at c = 0 are taken as starting values. Results have been obtained for the stretching velocities which are accelerating and decelerating with time. Results show that the skin friction, the heat transfer and the mass transfer parameters respond significantly to the time dependent stretching velocities. Suction (A > 0) is found to be an important parameter in obtaining convergent solution in the case of the saddle point region of flow. The Prandtl number and the Schmidt number strongly affect the heat and mass transfer of the diffusing species, respectively.

Unsteady free convection flow under the influence of a magnetic field

The unsteady free convection boundary layer at the stagnation point of a two-dimensional body and an axisymmetric body with prescribed surface heat flux or temperature has been studied. The magnetic field is applied parallel to the surface and the effect of induced magnetic field has been considered. It is found that for certain powerlaw distribution of surface heat flux or temperature and magnetic field with time, the governing boundary layer equations admit a self-similar solution locally. The resulting nonlinear ordinary differential equations have been solved using a finite element method and a shooting method with Newton's corrections for missing initial conditions. The results show that the skin friction and heat transfer coefficients, and x-component of the induced magnetic field on the surface increase with the applied magnetic field. In general, the skin friction, heat transfer and x-component of the induced magnetic field for axisymmetric case are more than those of the two-dimensional case. Also they change more when the surface heat flux or temperature decreases with time than when it increases with time. The skin friction, heat transfer and x-component of the induced magnetic field are significantly affected by the magnetic Prandtl number and they increase as the magnetic Prandtl number decreases. The skin friction and x-component of the magnetic field increase with the dissipation parameter, but heat transfer decreases.

Flow Instabilities and fracture in Ti-6Al-4V deformed in compression at 298 K to 673 K

Uniaxial compression tests were conducted on Ti-6Al-4V specimens in the strain-rate range df 0.001 to 1 s(-1) and temperature range of 298 to 673 K. The stress-strain curves exhibited a peak flow stress followed by flow softening. Up to 523 K, the specimens cracked catastrophically after the flow softening started. Adiabatic shear banding was observed in this regime. The fracture surface exhibited both mode I and II fracture features. The state of stress existing in a compression test specimen when bulging occurs is responsible for this fracture. The instabilities observed in the present tests are classified as ''geometric'' in nature and are state-of-stress dependant, unlike the ''intrinsic'' instabilities, which are dependant on the dynamic constitutive behavior of the material.

Formation and propagation of bands in jerky flow:a coupled lattice map description

There has been revival of interest in Jerky flow from the point of view of dynamical systems. The earliest attempt in this direction was from our group. One of the predictions of the theory is that Jerky flow could be chaotic. This has been recently verified by us. We have recently extended the earlier model to account for the spatial aspect as well. Both these models are in the form of coupled set of nonlinear differential equations and hence, they are complicated in their structure. For this reason we wish to devise a model based on the results of these two theories in the form of coupled lattice map for the description of the formation and propagation of dislocation bands. We report here one such model and its results.

Measurement of complex optical flow with use of an augmented generalized gradient scheme

We present a method for measuring the local velocities and first-order variations in velocities in a timevarying image. The scheme is an extension of the generalized gradient model that encompasses the local variation of velocity within a local patch of the image. Motion within a patch is analyzed in parallel by 42 different spatiotemporal filters derived from 6 linearly independent spatiotemporal kernels. No constraints are imposed on the image structure, and there is no need for smoothness constraints on the velocity field. The aperture problem does not arise so long as there is some two-dimensional structure in the patch being analyzed. Among the advantages of the scheme is that there is no requirement to calculate second or higher derivatives of the image function. This makes the scheme robust in the presence of noise. The spatiotemporal kernels are of simple form, involving Gaussian functions, and are biologically plausible receptive fields. The validity of the scheme is demonstrated by application to both synthetic and real video images sequences and by direct comparison with another recently published scheme Biol. Cybern. 63, 185 (1990)] for the measurement of complex optical flow.

Measurement of complex optical flow with use of an augmented generalized gradient scheme

We present a method for measuring the local velocities and first-order variations in velocities in a time-varying image. The scheme is an extension of the generalized gradient model that encompasses the local variation of velocity within a local patch of the image. Motion within a patch is analyzed in parallel by 42 different spatiotemporal filters derived from 6 linearly independent spatiotemporal kernels. No constraints are imposed on the image structure, and there is no need for smoothness constraints on the velocity field. The aperture problem does not arise so long as there is some two-dimensional structure in the patch being analyzed. Among the advantages of the scheme is that there is no requirement to calculate second or higher derivatives of the image function. This makes the scheme robust in the presence of noise. The spatiotemporal kernels are of simple form, involving Gaussian functions, and are biologically plausible receptive fields. The validity of the scheme is demonstrated by application to both synthetic and real video images sequences and by direct comparison with another recently published scheme [Biol. Cybern. 63, 185 (1990)] for the measurement of complex optical flow.

Nonlinear effects on rotating disk flow in a cylindrical casing

The flow due to a finite disk rotating in an incompressible viscous fluid has been studied. A modified Newton-gradient finite difference scheme is used to obtain the solution of full Navier-Stokes equations numerically for different disk and cylinder sizes for a wide range of Reynolds numbers. The introduction of the aspect ratio and the disk-shroud gap, significantly alters the flow characteristics in the region under consideration, The frictional torque calculated from the flow data reveals that the contribution due to nonlinear terms is not negligible even at a low Reynolds number. For large Reynolds numbers, the flow structure reveals a strong boundary layer character.

Phase separation in critical and off-critical fluids: specific experimental behaviours at criticality

The phase separation in fluids close to a critical point can be observed in the form of either an interconnected pattern (critical case) or a disconnected pattern (off-critical case). These two regimes have been investigated in different ways. First, a sharp change in pattern is shown to occur very close to the critical point when the composition is varied. No crossover has been observed between the t1 behaviour (interconnected) and a t1/3 behaviour (disconnected), where t is time. This latter growth law, which occurs in the case of compact droplets, will be discussed. Second, it has been observed that a growing interconnected pattern leaves a signature in the form of small droplets. The origin of such a distribution will be discussed in terms of coalescence of domains. No distribution of this kind is observed in the off-critical case.

A study of over-reflection in Hartmann flow

It is observed that Hartmann flow sustains wave propagation in its centre region for waves whose phase speed is less than the maximum flow speed. Similar to the previous observations it is found that viscous boundary layers around the critical level and at the wall replace the exponential regions and wave sinks required for over-reflection in the inviscid flow. The uniform magnetic field stabilizes the flow for small-wave-number disturbances along thez-direction. Over-reflection is confined to a few ranges of phase speeds for which the two boundary layers are close together rather than widely separated. These ranges correspond exactly to those for which unstable eigenmodes exist. Over-reflection is associated with a wave phase tilt opposite in direction to the shear.