Search

This study focuses on how soil's inherent variability, driven by environmental changes, introduces substantial uncertainty into geotechnical considerations. Voids forming underground are a key source of this uncertainty, affecting subsoil structures like piles. Using a two-dimensional discrete-element method and considering both fundamental (micro) and engineering (macro) approaches, this study investigates the influence of voids in sandy soil on a pile's behavior, especially on the pile's bearing capacity and lateral pressure coefficient acting upon its shaft. The results reveal a critical zone around the pile where voids can dramatically reduce the pile's bearing capacity, with load reductions of up to 63% in the most extreme cases. Surprisingly, voids have a minimal impact on the lateral pressure coefficient along the pile wall. Thus, it is deduced that the primary cause of the pile's load reduction in the presence of the void is the decreased resistance at the pile's tip. In summary, this research underscores how voids in sandy soil significantly affect the bearing capacity of piles, emphasizing the importance of understanding these effects for safe and efficient subsoil structure design in geotechnical engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jamu is an Indonesian traditional herbal medicine that has been practiced for generations. Jamu is made from various medicinal plants. Each plant has several compounds directly related to the target protein that are directly associated with a disease. A pharmacological graph can form relationships between plants, compounds, and target proteins. Research related to the prediction of Jamu formulas for some diseases has been carried out, but there are problems in finding combinations or compositions of Jamu formulas because of the increase in search space size. Some studies adopted the drug–target interaction (DTI) implemented using machine learning or deep learning to predict the DTI for discovering the Jamu formula. However, this approach raises important issues, such as imbalanced and high-dimensional dataset, overfitting, and the need for more procedures to trace compounds to their plants. This study proposes an alternative approach by implementing bipartite graph search optimization using the branch and bound algorithm to discover the combination or composition of Jamu formulas by optimizing the search on a plant–protein bipartite graph. The branch and bound technique is implemented using the search strategy of breadth first search (BrFS), Depth First Search, and Best First Search. To show the performance of the proposed method, we compared our method with a complete search algorithm, searching all nodes in the tree without pruning. In this study, we specialize in applying the proposed method to search for the Jamu formula for type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The result shows that the bipartite graph search with the branch and bound algorithm reduces computation time up to 40 times faster than the complete search strategy to search for a composition of plants. The binary branching strategy is the best choice, whereas the BrFS strategy is the best option in this research. In addition, the the proposed method can suggest the composition of one to four plants for the T2DM Jamu formula. For a combination of four plants, we obtain Angelica Sinensis, Citrus aurantium, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, and Mangifera indica. This approach is expected to be an alternative way to discover the Jamu formula more accurately.

Hidrological analysis is an important thing to do to support reservoir management activities. Hydrological data is needed as input in carrying out hydrological analysis. Quality of hudrological data is very dependent on the condition of the rainfall station network (number and location of rainfall stations). Therefore, a study is needed to review the rainfall station network in the Wonogiri Reservoir Water Catchment Area. The aim of this research is to obtain an effective and efficient rainfall station network in the catchment area to support Wonogiri Reservoir operational activities. This research uses the Kagan method for rationalization analysis of rainfall stations. Based on the analysi of the Kagan method in the Wonogiri Reservoir catchment area with an interpolation error of 5%, it produces eight recommended rainfall stations consisting of five existing rainfall stations and three new rainfall stations with a Kagan triangle length of 14.28 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mineralized, bio-inspired nanofibrous scaffolds with controllable architecture and capable of mimicking essential characteristics of bone extracellular matrix at the micro- and nanoscale offer a promising strategy to restore functions or elicit favorable responses for bone tissue regeneration and repair. In this study, a simple approach to fabricate a hybrid scaffold with porous fibers for bone tissue engineering is presented. Non-woven multifunctional nano- and microfibers were fabricated using a block copolymer of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) (PL-b-CL) as a matrix and hydroxyapatite (HA) as a functional agent, dissolved in a binary solvent mixture. Physicochemical and thermal characterization as well as biocompatibility analyses were carried out using SaOS-2 cells. The results showed fibers with highly porous surfaces whose pore diameters range in the nanometer scale and all scaffolds exhibited hydrophobicity. HA-modified scaffolds significantly improved cell metabolic activity and proliferation as compared to pristine scaffolds. The biodegradable and biocompatible scaffolds proposed in this study carry great potential for various biomedical applications and in the future, it is expected that they can be used for controlled drug delivery by incorporating growth factors, proteins, or drugs to reduce the inflammatory response and/or to promote bone repair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Periodic hybrid nanostructured materials based on aligned inorganic nanoparticles within self‐assembled copolymer matrixes aimed to harness the collective properties of generated functional nanomaterials. The nanoparticles are desirable for their useful magnetic, optical, catalytic, and electronic properties owed to the quantum confinement effect. For instance, gold, palladium and platinum as nanoparticles, have shown significant change in the physiochemical properties in comparison to their bulk materials. If the nanoparticles are aligned into well‐defined macroscopic periodic nanostructures in diverse of morphologies, the unique collective properties are significantly enhanced. These unique properties can be transformed to improve the performance of storage media, multi‐contact tracks solar panels and optoelectronic devices. Within this review, the nanofabrication tools will be presented as an alternative route to conventional top‐down methods for the fabrication of periodic nanostructured hybrid materials. A simple approach is reviewed to fabricate periodic nanostructured hybrid systems based on the directed assembly of inorganic nanoparticles into well‐defined periodic three‐dimensional nanostructures provided by the self‐assembling ability of block copolymers. The fabrications of varieties morphologies and the formation mechanism at different dimensions will be discussed as well as the characterization techniques. Finally, several applications of the proposed hybrid nanostructures are highlighted for the next generation of miniaturized devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart electrospun hybrid nanofibers represent a cutting‐edge class of functional nanostructured materials with unique collective properties. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the applications of smart electrospun hybrid nanofibers in the fields of energy, catalysis, and biomedicine. Electrospinning is a powerful tool to fabricate different types of nanofibers’ morphologies with precise control over structure and compositions. Through the incorporation of various functional components, such as nanoparticles, nanomoieties, and biomolecules, into the (co)polymer matrix, nanofibers can be tailored into smart hybrid materials exhibiting responsiveness to external stimuli such as temperature, pH, or light among others. Herein recent advancements in fabrication strategies for electrospun smart hybrid nanofibers are discussed, focusing on different electrospinning tools aimed at tailoring and developing smart hybrid nanofibers. These strategies include surface functionalization, doping, and templating, which enable fine‐tuning of mechanical strength, conductivity, and biocompatibility. The review explores the challenges and recent progress in the development of smart hybrid nanofibers. Issues such as scalability, reproducibility, biocompatibility, and environmental sustainability are identified as key for improvement. Furthermore, the applications of smart nanofibers in biomedicine, environment, energy storage, and smart textiles underscore their potential to address the challenges in development of nanostructured materials for emerging technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]