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The article discusses research which examined the suction pile capacity due to seabed trenching. Topics discussed include the factors that influence the capacity of suction pile which is a geotechnical solution in the offshore industry, main features of the finite element (FE) techniques, modeling of the soil behavior and assessment of reverse end bearing (REB).

The myriad of patterns in neuronal dynamics in response to the changes in the microenvironment is a result of comprehensive and collective information processing. Variability in spike patterns gives us an insight into the complexity of the neuronal dynamics. In the present work, the spiking and bursting patterns in response to time varying threshold and external input have been analyzed in simulated excitable space clamped FHN neuron. The effect of periodic, noisy periodic and mixed-mode forms of dynamic threshold on the response patterns of FHN neuron have been analyzed. The probability density function of the number of spikes per burst has been found to depend on the dynamic threshold frequency and the associated fluctuation. Tonic spiking and quiescent phases of bursting under different situation result in firing complexities as shown in their respective bifurcation diagrams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Dark Matter Science Project is being developed in the context of the ESCAPE (European Science Cluster of Astronomy and Particle physics ESFRI research infrastructure) project as a collaboration between scientists in European Research Infrastructures and experiments seeking to explain the nature of dark matter (such as HL-LHC, KM3NeT, CTA, DarkSide). The goal of this ESCAPE Science Project is to highlight the synergies between different dark matter communities and experiments, by producing new scientific results as well as by making the necessary data and software tools fully available. As part of this Science Project, we use experimental data and software algorithms from selected direct detection, indirect detection, and particle collider experiments involved in ESCAPE as prototypes for end-to-end analysis pipelines on a Virtual Research Environment that is being prepared as one of the building blocks of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This contribution focuses on the implementation of the workflows on the Virtual Research Environment using ESCAPE tools (such as the Data Lake and REANA), and on the prospects for data management, data analysis and computing in the EOSC-Future project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conference paper on nonwoven fabrics and their air and water permeability properties. Using Darcy's law of fluid flow, the study examines the relationship between air and water permeability properties which are important in the quality control of fabric products. The study found a linear correlation between air and water permeabilities. It also determined that fabric porosity and pressure head can be used in measuring permeabilities.

Creating Ultra-fine grains by severe plastic Deformation has been made by various researchers as demand of lightweight materials increases in various industries. SPD techniques have been utilised by researchers for producing UFGs. But to maintain the overall properties of the material at the same time is very difficult. To enrich the overall properties of the materials as well as alloys, Liquid nitrogen processes are involved. Processes at Cryogenic temperature improved the strengthen of the material. Comparison has been also made by various researchers and it has been noted, the properties of the materials after Liquid nitrogen improved as it compared with room temperature processes. The microstructure Evolution has also been made and it has been noticed the properties enhancement by liquid nitrogen is much more preferable than conventional processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice husk is found in rice milling industries during the process of milling. Out of total content, 22% of paddy is founded as husk and the other 78% of paddy is found as bran, rice, and another form. Rice husk is made up of 33% cellulose, 26% hemicellulose, and the other 7% as lignin. Cellulose is found largely as an organic polymer on earth. It has various uses such as in drug delivery, nanofibers based on cellulose, micro sheets of cellulose, nanocrystals of cellulose used in gelatin hydrogels, and so on. Generally, extraction of cellulose can be done with rice husk by treating it chemically with sodium hydroxide which is in aqueous form. After extraction, cellulose undergoes the process of bleaching by 2% H2O2. It can also be extracted as an environmentally friendly process which makes it chlorine-free. After the whole process of extraction and bleaching of cellulose, X-ray diffraction (XRD); Scanning electron microscopy (SEM); Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) or thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and so on are the various techniques for characterization of cellulose and its applications. Cellulose has its various applications in the field of pharmaceuticals, nanocrystals, cellulose acetate, cellulose fiber, and so on. Some of the applications are discussed in this paper. Rice husk is believed to be the primary source of cellulose production due to the presence of higher content of cellulose content in its composition. Cellulose exhibits special preference as it is widely recycled and most abundant on earth. That's why cellulose is a topic of attraction for scientists in various areas of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

iBuddy is a narrative game-based simulation session inspired by research evidence and designed to enhance secondary school and higher education students' privacy awareness. Students enter the simulation through storytelling and are asked to install the iBuddy app. Later in the simulation, students discover that some of their personal information have been extracted from their devices and manipulated - and this generates a wow-effect that sparks questions and discussions. The simulation is backed-up by a lively debriefing phase, supported by original animation videos, interactive activities, and small group games. To overcome privacy issues, iBuddy sessions are played on a local network and the collected data, which are anonymous, are deleted before the end of the session. iBuddy exploits an original software, released as open source, with a layered architecture composed by app, server and operator interface. The system also includes an Artificial Intelligence filter for inappropriate content. Multilingual class materials are published under a Creative Commons license and are available on the www.protectyourdata.ch platform. Post-session assessments collected from over 970 students indicate that they enjoy iBuddy sessions and learn from it. Follow-up assessment data, collected on a portion of the participants, also suggest that iBuddy sessions are effective and conducive to medium-term behavioral change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silk from Bombyx mori has been used extensively as biomaterial due to its biocompatibility, mechanical performance and degradability. Silk was composed of two major proteins: silk fibroin (SF) and sericin (SS). SF based biomaterial has been found suitable for various applications such as drug delivery, skin wound dressing and tissue scaffolds. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a water-soluble, nontoxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable polymer. To improve the mechanical properties of PVA, SF was used in this study. SF was blended with PVA to obtain the SF/PVA nanofibers. SF and PVA was dissolved in distilled water. The ratios between SF and PVA were varied from 8:2, 7:3 and 6:4. Electrospinning process was used to obtain SF/PVA nanofiber. Morphology of the electrospun nanofibers was studied by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM). SF/PVA nanofibers were successfully fabricated using electrospinning with the average smallest diameter of the nanofibers obtained at 121 nm. The formation of functional groups of SF, PVA, and SF/PVA blends was examined using the FTIR spectra. The data confirmed the presence of SF and PVA in the prepared electrospun nanofibers. Thermal decomposition temperature of electrospun nanofibers was analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The thermogram of all samples showed thermal stability does not change with the addition of SF in PVA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider a minimal vectorlike extension of the Standard Model that naturally contains two types of stable neutral particles. They can be interpreted as the Dark Matter candidates. Here, the SM is supplemented by a new fermion (H-quark) sector that is in confilnement providing by the SU(2)HC gauge group. H-quarks interact with the SM particles via standard electroweak bosons. In analogy with the conventional QCD, H-quarks can form bound states, H-hadrons, that emerge in the σ− model framework. Along with the stable neutral H-pion, there is one more pseudo-goldstone (diquark) state, B0, which is stable and also can be a component of the DM. Mass splittings both for components of the H-pion triplet and for neutral H-pion and B0 have been calculated, it is shown that this splittings can be small. The relic abundance for this composition of the DM is analyzed as well as the DM particles scattering off nucleons. A feature of this scenario is that Dark Matter turns out to consist of particles which are close in mass but have different origin and interact differently with ordinary matter. So, the model predicts two-component structure of the DM together with some specifilc manifestations of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microorganisms are ubiquitous in nature and possess unique biochemical possibilities to assimilate a vast array of available substrates and produce unique se metabolit and biotransformation pathways. Long-term exposure to elevated arsenic and antimony concentrations has led to the selection of specifically resistant autochthonous microorganisms. In the cultivable component of isolated bacterial microorganisms, Bacillus was identified as the dominant genus, which has been represented by nine species. Interesting phenotypic properties have been confirmed in isolated species, which have been tested the Biolog system. The Biolog GEN III MicroPlateTM, based on the company's Phenotype Array Technology, was recently introduced for rapid identification and characterization of microorganisms (Biolog Inc., USA). The biochemical characterization of isolated bacteria leading to their successful identification is important for evaluating differences between individual bacterial strains. The high incidence of Bacillus species affects the mobility of the metals and semi-metals present, the diversity of their metabolic pathways promotes the gradual reduction of metals in soil contaminated by mining and industrial activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis has a significant effect on healthcare resources. The management of limited and shared resources such as operating rooms and beds is challenged by the uncertainty of demand, which can lead to unbalanced utilization of the resources through the healthcare units and decrease the satisfaction of the patients in terms of waiting Time in the hospital and the quality of the service. Therefore, healthcare services need a conceptual tool to clarify the complexity of the interactions between resources and their effects on each other. A conceptual model based on system dynamics tools is developed to figure out the factors affect the behavior of operating room theatre in a healthcare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low flux of the ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) at the highest energies provides a challenge to answer the long standing question about their origin and nature. A significant increase in the number of detected UHECR is expected to be achieved by employing Earth's moon as detector, and search for short radio pulses that are emitted when a particle interacts in the lunar rock. Observation of these short pulses with current and future radio telescopes also allows to search for the even lower fluxes of neutrinos with energies above 1022 eV, that are predicted in certain Grand-Unifying-Theories (GUTs), and e.g. models for super-heavy dark matter (SHDM). In this contribution we present the initial design for such a search with the LOFAR radio telescope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lunar technique is a method for maximising the collection area for ultrahigh-energy (UHE) cosmic ray and neutrino searches. The method uses either ground based radio telescopes or lunar orbiters to search for Askaryan emission from particles cascading near the lunar surface. While experiments using the technique have made important advances in the detection of nanosecond-scale pulses, only at the very highest energies has the lunar technique achieved competitive limits. This is expected to change with the advent of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the low-frequency component of which (SKA-low) is predicted to be able to detect an unprecedented number of UHE cosmic rays. In this contribution, the status of lunar particle detection is reviewed, with particular attention paid to outstanding theoretical questions, and the technical challenges of using a giant radio array to search for nanosecond pulses. The activities of SKA's High Energy Cosmic Particles Focus Group are described, as is a roadmap by which this group plans to incorporate this detection mode into SKA-low observations. Estimates for the sensitivity of SKA-low phases 1 and 2 to UHE particles are given, along with the achievable science goals with each stage. Prospects for near-future observations with other instruments are also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effective penetration lengths of UHE photons and related neutrinos production in the intergalactic space. Following the analytic method raised by Gould and Rephaeli (1978), the electromagnetic cascade initiated by a UHE photon would be studied, with paying particular attention to the leading particle in the cascade process. We obtain the effective penetration length of the leading particle by regarding the least energetic outgoing particles in the interaction processes as energy loss, as well as energy loss rate including the neutrino emission rate in the cascade process. Finally, we find that an extra component of UHE neutrinos will arise from the propagation of UHE cosmic rays due to the generated UHE photons and electron/positrons, with a flux reaching up to 10% of that of the conventional cosmogenic neutrino at a few EeV, in the absence of a strong intergalactic magnetic field and a strong cosmic radio background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pure β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP), Zn-doped (3wt %) β-TCP and Mg- doped (3wt %) β-TCP samples were prepared by using a wet chemical precipitation synthesis technique, followed by calcination at 800 °C in air. The developed materials were subjected to sintering at different temperatures. Density and porosity were compared. The X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectrometer were used to examine the changes in crystalline phases and presence of functional groups of TCP ceramics. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to study the pore formation, pore size, grain size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

XMASS is a single-phase liquid-xenon scintillation detector. Nearly two years of commissioning runs have been conducted until June 2012. The performance of the detector is summarized. Thanks to its excellent light yield and large target mass, competitive results were obtained in solar axion and low mass dark matter searches. In addition, the detection of galactic supernova bursts is realized to be possible. The detector is currently under refurbishment to reduce the surface contamination, and will be ready for data taking very soon. A larger scale experiment, named XMASS 1.5 is planned to be launched in the near future, where photomultiplier tubes with convex photocathodes may be used to identify surface events efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]