Design and process selection for joints in flexible materials

The application of high performance textiles has grown significantly in the last 10 to 15 years. Various research groups throughout the United Kingdom, such as the Department of Trade and Industry, have identified technical textiles as a field for future development. There is little design guidance for joining of flexible materials or general property models that can be applied to theses materials. This lack is due to the large diversity of properties, structures and resulting behaviours of the materials that are classified as "Flexible Materials". This dissertation explores the issues that are involved in characterising the materials at the fibre, bulk and textile levels. Different units of measurement are used for each stage of the manufacturing process of flexible materials and this disparity creates problems when trying to make general comparisons (e.g. comparing textiles to polymer films). Thus, a possible solution to this is to create selection charts that allow designers to compare the strength of materials for a given mass per unit area. A design tool was created using the Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES) software to enable the selection of joining processes for material. The tool is effective in selecting a reduced number of viable joining processes. Through case studies it was shown that designers are required to examine the selected processes (identified by the software) in greater detail - in particular the economics and geometry of the joint - in order to identify the optimum joining process.

Extraction, purification and analysis of conotoxin of Conus textile captured from Persian Gulf and the investigation of analgesic effects of conotoxins in an animal model

Identification of venomous species of Persian Gulf cone snails and characterization of venom composition and their features is so important from the point of medical importance. Marine cone snails from the genus Conus are estimated to consist of up to 700 species. The venom of cone snails has yielded a rich source of novel neuroactive peptides or conotoxins. The present study was aimed to study the analgesic effect of Persian Gulf Conus textile and its comparison with morphine in mouse model. The specimens of Conus textile were collected of Larak Island from depth of 7 m. The collected samples were transferred to laboratory alive and were stored at -700 c. he veno s ducts were separated and ho ogenized with deionized water he ixture centrifuged at rp for inutes upernatant was considered as extracted veno and stored at - C after lyophylization. The protein profile of venom determined by using SDS-PAGE and HPLC used to investigate the extracted venom and to evaluate the analgesic activity, formalin test was carried out. SDS-PAGE indicated several bands ranged between 6 and 250 kDa. Chromatogram of the venom demonstrated more than 44 large and small fractions. The amount of 10 ng of Conus crude venom and analgesic peptide showed the best anti-pain activity in formalin test. No death observed up to 100 mg/kg, which is 250,000 times higher than the effective dose.Venom characterization of Persian Gulf Conus textile may be of medical importance and potential for new pharmaceutical drugs as well.