Structures In Turn Research Articles

Hot air–assisted radio frequency drying of corn kernels: the effect on structure and functionality properties of corn starch

Hot air (HA) drying caused quality damage of grains with long treatment time. Radio frequency (RF) heating as an emerging technology was applied to improve drying quality of cereals effectively. The effects of HA-RF drying (50 °C, 70 °C, 90 °C) of corn kernels on the morphology, structure, and physicochemical properties of starch were investigated and compared with HA drying. The surface of treated starch became rough, along with fragments and pores. Drying treatments increased the amylose content from 10.59 % to 23.88 % and the residual protein content of starch from 0.58 % to 1.23 %, and reduced the crystallinity from 31.95 % to 17.15 % and short–range order structures of starch from 0.918 to 0.868. The change of structures in turn resulted in the increase of pasting viscosity, gelatinization temperature, storage modulus and loss modulus. Furthermore, the HA-RF dried starch displayed stronger thermal stability, higher gelatinization degree and better gelation properties than the HA-treated starch at the same temperature. The data proved that the synergistic effects of HA and RF were more effective in modulating the starch structure and improving the functional characteristics of corn starch. This paper would like to provide potential reference for better application of HA-RF technologies to corn.

Impact polypropylene copolymers containing multifold H-shape long-chain-branching structures: Synthesis and properties

ω -Alkenylmethyldichlorosilane as a proven in-situ long-chain-branching agent particularly effective with olefin polymerization by Ziegler-Natta catalysts was seamlessly fit into fully implemented impact copolymerization of propylene exercised by polymerization, steam-treatment of afforded polymer granules, and twin-screw extrusion in a row to deliver, for the first time, long-chain-branched impact polypropylene copolymers (LCB-IPCs). Multifold H-type LCB structures were revealed with the LCB-IPCs, including two homologous structures based on polypropylene (PP- H -PP) and ethylene-propylene copolymer (EPC- H -EPC) individually, and a heterologous structure mixed of PP and ethylene-propylene copolymer (PP– H -EPC). Though all in minute amount, the LCB structures induced significant improvement in IPCs on many fronts. On melt properties, LCB-IPCs gained the unprecedented strain hardening property in extensional flow. On phase morphology, the LCB structures helped reduce the dispersion dimension of ethylene-propylene copolymer and the tendency of grain coarsening in post-preparation processing. On melt crystallization, the LCB structures enhanced the crystallization in an all-round way by prompting self-nucleation. On mechanical properties, by reinforcing the PP matrix and strengthening the interface to facilitate stress transfer between PP and EP copolymer, the LCB structures enabled an all-out promotion of mechanical properties with simultaneous reinforcement on stiffness and toughness. Fully implemented impact copolymerization of propylene preparing impact polypropylene copolymers was engaged with LCB agent 5-hexenylmethyldichlorosilane, which prompted formation of multifold H-shape LCB structures in the copolymers. The multifold LCB structures in turn induced profound improvement on multiple fronts of the copolymer properties. • ω -Alkenylmethyldichlorosilane is used as a LCB agent in impact copolymerization of propylene. • The new IPC polymers contain multifold H-type LCB structures. • The LCB structures induced significant improvement in properties of IPC on many fronts.

Forms of Poetic Attention

Forms of Poetic Attention

Modulation of the Molecular Structure of Tri-aryl Amine Fibrils in Hybrid Poly[vinyl chloride] Gel/Organogel Systems

This paper reports on the thermodynamics through mapping out temperature–concentration phase diagrams and the molecular structure and the morphology of binary organogels prepared with trisamide triarylamine (TATA) in tetrachloroethane and on their ternary thermoreversible hybrid gels formed with polyvinyl chloride (PVC). For low PVC contents, the TATA organogel moiety behaves as in the binary systems, while for higher PVC contents, the thermal behavior is significantly altered with the appearance of a nonvariant event. The molecular structure of the TATA assemblies is compared with that observed in the bulk solid state. Three molecular packings are observed in the bulk, whose crystalline lattices are tentatively derived. Structure I obtained after the crystallization–purification process is seen to transform at higher temperature into structure II. By cooling, structure III is obtained, which transforms reversibly into structure II on heating. The metastability of structure I leads one to contemplate the possible formation of molecular compounds during the crystallization–purification process in the presence of chlorinated solvents, the more so as the crystalline structures in the gels turn out to exhibit high similarities. Finally, the morphology observation reveals that the TATA fibrils and the PVC matrix can be well identified for low PVC contents, while for higher PVC contents, one essentially observes the TATA fibrils

Cross-Sectoral Zoonotic Disease Surveillance in Western Kenya: Identifying Drivers and Barriers Within a Resource Constrained Setting.

Background: Collaboration between the human and animal health sectors, including the sharing of disease surveillance data, has the potential to improve public health outcomes through the rapid detection of zoonotic disease events prior to widespread transmission in humans. Kenya has been at the forefront of embracing a collaborative approach in Africa with the inception of the Zoonotic Disease Unit in 2011. Joint outbreak responses have been coordinated at the national level, yet little is currently documented on cross-sectoral collaboration at the sub-national level.Methods: Key informant interviews were conducted with 28 disease surveillance officers from the human and animal health sectors in three counties in western Kenya. An inductive process of thematic analysis was used to identify themes relating to barriers and drivers for cross-sectoral collaboration.Results: The study identified four interlinking themes related to drivers and barriers for cross-sectoral collaboration. To drive collaboration at the sub-national level there needs to be a clear identification of “common objectives,” as currently exemplified by the response to suspected rabies and anthrax cases and routine meat hygiene activities. The action of collaboration, be it integrated responses to outbreaks or communication and data sharing, require “operational structures” to facilitate them, including the formalisation of reporting lines, supporting legislation and the physical infrastructure, from lab equipment to mobile phones, to facilitate the activities. These structures in turn require “appropriate resources” to support them, which will be allocated based on the “political will” of those who control the resources.Conclusions: Ongoing collaborations between human and animal disease surveillance officers at the sub-national level were identified, driven by common objectives such as routine meat hygiene and response to suspected rabies and anthrax cases. In these areas a suitable operational structure is present, including a supportive legislative framework and clearly designated roles for officers within both sectors. There was support from disease surveillance officers to increase their collaboration, communication and data sharing across sectors, yet this is currently hindered by the lack of these formal operational structures and poor allocation of resources to disease surveillance. It was acknowledged that improving this resource allocation will require political will at the sub-national, national and international levels.

Does Institutional Ownership Affect Accounting Conservatism in Portuguese Capital Market?

Ownership structures vary among entities. These different ownership structures can result in variation in governance structures, which would reflect the different rights associated with various types of owners. These governance structures in turn could lead a greater or lesser degree of influence over the financial reporting process by large owners and/or managers. In this sense, existing literature suggests that conservatism is related to institutional ownership. For a sample of 26 non-financial listed Portuguese firms-year from 2002 to 2017, we examine the association between accounting conservatism and institutional ownership. The study’s results show that the coefficient institutional ownership variable is positive but not statistically significant. Thus, it is not possible to conclude that monitoring institutions are an important class of investors that demands conservatism as a governance device.

Supplier Encroachment, Marketplace and Counterfeiting

We study the impact of counterfeiting on a brand-name supply chain’s strategic choice of channel structures and how these structures in turn affect the counterfeiting market. In our model, the supplier can practice costly encroachment by launching a direct channel to sell brand-name products, and the retailer can choose between traditional wholesaling of buying from the supplier and reselling to customers and marketplace which matches the supplier with interested buyers and charges a commission fee for each product sold through this matching. The presence of counterfeiting creates two levels of competition that occur not only between the supplier’s and retailer’s respective channels in the brand-name market, but across the markets of brand-name products and counterfeits. These two levels of competition drive novel insights not present in a market without counterfeiting. Our results show that supplier encroachment and marketplace serve similar roles in counteracting counterfeiting but have different payoff implications. Specifically, for retailers operating brick-and-mortar stores with wholesaling being a more realistic option, supplier encroachment, given that it exists, has a more pronounced effect of curbing counterfeiting when counterfeits are highly competitive, although these counterfeits in turn reduce the supplier’s incentive of encroaching. Moreover, the retailer’s adoption of marketplace can also curb counterfeiting, and can often curb it so much that results in Pareto gains for both the retailer and supplier, which otherwise would not be possible should counterfeiting not exist. Our finding thus highlights the strength of marketplace in eliminating double marginalization within the decentralized supply chain to expand the market share. Such strength leads to higher channel profits and makes the supplier potentially better off too, despite the fact that the supplier has to give up the first-mover advantage as the retailer switches from wholesaling to marketplace.

Radiologists in the Matrix: Serving Multiple Masters in Complex Organizations

The traditional model of a single, pyramid-shaped organizational structure does not suffice in describing the complex institutions in which many contemporary radiologists work. In the academic arena, some of the 179 US medical schools have more than one academic medical center (AMC) and many have complicated relationships between the academic hierarchy and the clinical or hospital side. These diverse organizational structures in turn have a spectrum of short- and long-term impacts upon the professional lives of their radiologists.

Shared Tasks, but Separated Controls: Building the System of Control for Shared Administration in an EU Multi-Jurisdictional Setting

In order to address “wicked problems”, complex, multi-level governance structures must be established. These structures in turn require sophisticated systems of controls over public power to safeguard the rule of law. This seems to have been ignored in EU legislative practice and relevant research. This article argues that future research and legislative design of controls over public power in the EU need to be guided by the principle of connecting, aligning and making interplay between relevant concepts, institutions, procedures and scopes of different types of control belonging to the many jurisdictions, whose actors are involved in the executing of (shared) tasks in the EU. Connecting the disciplines that study these issues is a necessary prerequisite to this endeavour.

Strategies for Fabrication of Hydrophobic Porous Materials Based on Polydimethylsiloxane for Oil-Water Separation

In recent years, the challenge of efficient oil-water separation has become the subject of immense fundamental research, with significant impact in the development of industrial applications. This article reviews the recent progress in the fabrication of porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) materials, which are the most widely investigated materials for oil-water separation. Various strategies for the fabrication of porous PDMS have produced a diversity of bulk and surface structures, where these structures in turn determine the performance of the materials for oil-water separation. Understanding the interrelationship governing the fabrication strategy, structure, and performance is essential for the development of future selective oil absorbents with improved commercial potential. The separation of organic contaminants from industrially produced wastewater is a serious environmental challenge, and the preparation of superior oil absorbents is critical for overcoming this challenge. To address the issues in the development of promising candidates as oil absorbents, the current strategies for the design of low-surface energy coatings of three-dimensionally (3-D) interconnected porous materials are also discussed. The reusability, surface roughness, and superhydrophobic properties are discussed as vital parameters.

Does religion always help the poor? Variations in religion and social class in the west and societies in the global south

From Marx’s famous dictum that religion is “the opium of the people” to Weber’s recognition of the dignity reaped by the “religiously musical,” disagreement about both the prosocial and deleterious—even violent—effects of religious beliefs and practices has been a long discussion in social theory. The social scientific literature shows that religion is shaped by social structures—including economic and political structures—and also that, as an integral element of many cultures, it can shape those same structures in turn. This article discusses the dialectical relationship between religion and social structures to consider when and how religion has the capacity to alleviate poverty and where it might figure in inequality’s endurance or exacerbation. The range of the empirical cases considered here not only suggests the power of religion to address poverty, but also and importantly, the ways in which religion can be co-opted in sustaining the status quo for poor and politically subjugated groups. Taking a global view in case selection, this article shows that although differences in these processes do exist based on global location, there are many similarities that cross national and religious lines.

Emerging urban form – Emerging pollution: Modelling endogenous health and environmental effects of traffic on residential choice

Air pollution bears severe health and environmental impacts and is of increasing concern to urban planners but densification strategies have ambiguous impacts. We analyse how households’ aversion to generating and being exposed to traffic pollution at the residential place and during their commute influences emerging urban structures and how these structures in turn affect pollution exposure and the residential choice of households. Resulting spatial patterns are difficult to predict because of this feedback and the spatial form of urbanisation and road networks. We address this complexity with a micro-economic agent-based residential choice model dynamically coupled with a cellular automata model for pollution dispersion and its perception in neighbourhoods. Our simulation experiments on a theoretical grid suggest that the spatial scale of this perception is important. We also find that if both health and environmental concerns are to be addressed, a combination of reducing commuting distances and preserving local green spaces is necessary. In particular, locally dispersed urban development and intra-urban green spaces next to busy roads can mitigate pollution exposure.

Exploring the role of bureaucracy in the production of coastal risks, City of Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town is currently experiencing a range of coastal pressures consistent with a warming climate. Notably this includes evidence of a receding coastline in certain areas and shifting wind regimes. Coupled with an increasing demand for coastal development, the City of Cape Town as the administrative authority is presented with an unfolding scenario of uncharted waters. From a coastal management perspective this requires a reappraisal of its governance strategies. However, this paper demonstrates that various governance structures within the City, whilst designed to address these challenges, are instead competing with, and undermining each other. In the context of a coastal city these dissonant governance structures translate into conventional (Weberian) forms of bureaucracy that counter efforts at promoting Integrated Coastal Management, the key tenets being institutional learning, collaboration, deliberation, flexibility and adaptive management. The disjuncture between governance structures in turn is restricting the City's ability in achieving its own coastal adaption strategies, particularly the restoration and maintenance of dune systems as effective ‘buffers’ against climate change induced pressures such as sea-level rise and storm surges. The procedural rigidity delivered by the bureaucracy is instead leading to a ‘pathology’: risks are being created and their production perpetuated by the bureaucracy charged with mitigating these risks. We suggest that the role of informal networks are explored as a means to circumvent the ‘necessary evil’ of bureaucracy, towards enabling stronger degrees of Integrated Coastal Management and ultimately successful climate change adaptation responses.

Fitting Business Strategy and Organization Archetype to Create Organization Business Excellence

Strategic management’s perspective focus about how an organization creates competitive advantage to achieved performance excellence. As the core concept of strategic management, strategy defined as a way of adjusting the relationship between an organization and its environment, and that structures in turn must fit the strategy. In other statement, when this strategy linked with the perspective of organization theory, strategy can implement optimally if the organization structure designed to support the strategy and inefficiency in business process will be happen if the strategy and structure doesn’t connected. Based on this perspective, this paper focused to make proposition about the right alignment of business strategy concept and organizational archetype concept to create organization business excellence.

From reactor to rheology in industrial polymers

ABSTRACTThis article reviews current efforts towards quantitative prediction of rheological properties of industrial polymer resins, based upon their polydisperse branched molecular structure. This involves both an understanding of how reactor and reaction conditions influence the distribution of chain lengths and branch placement (which is the province of reactor engineering) and an understanding of how the molecular structures in turn give rise to the rheology (the province of polymer physics). Both fields are reviewed at an introductory level, focussing in particular on developments in theoretical prediction of rheology for both entangled model polymers and industrial polymers. Finally, we discuss three classes of reaction for which the fields of reactor engineering and polymer physics have been truly combined to produce predictions from reactor to rheology. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys.2015,53, 123–141

Lipid exposure prediction enhances the inference of rotational angles of transmembrane helices

BackgroundSince membrane protein structures are challenging to crystallize, computational approaches are essential for elucidating the sequence-to-structure relationships. Structural modeling of membrane proteins requires a multidimensional approach, and one critical geometric parameter is the rotational angle of transmembrane helices. Rotational angles of transmembrane helices are characterized by their folded structures and could be inferred by the hydrophobic moment; however, the folding mechanism of membrane proteins is not yet fully understood. The rotational angle of a transmembrane helix is related to the exposed surface of a transmembrane helix, since lipid exposure gives the degree of accessibility of each residue in lipid environment. To the best of our knowledge, there have been few advances in investigating whether an environment descriptor of lipid exposure could infer a geometric parameter of rotational angle.ResultsHere, we present an analysis of the relationship between rotational angles and lipid exposure and a support-vector-machine method, called TMexpo, for predicting both structural features from sequences. First, we observed from the development set of 89 protein chains that the lipid exposure, i.e., the relative accessible surface area (rASA) of residues in the lipid environment, generated from high-resolution protein structures could infer the rotational angles with a mean absolute angular error (MAAE) of 46.32˚. More importantly, the predicted rASA from TMexpo achieved an MAAE of 51.05˚, which is better than 71.47˚ obtained by the best of the compared hydrophobicity scales. Lastly, TMexpo outperformed the compared methods in rASA prediction on the independent test set of 21 protein chains and achieved an overall Matthew’s correlation coefficient, accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and precision of 0.51, 75.26%, 81.30%, 69.15%, and 72.73%, respectively. TMexpo is publicly available at http://bio-cluster.iis.sinica.edu.tw/TMexpo.ConclusionsTMexpo can better predict rASA and rotational angles than the compared methods. When rotational angles can be accurately predicted, free modeling of transmembrane protein structures in turn may benefit from a reduced complexity in ensembles with a significantly less number of packing arrangements. Furthermore, sequence-based prediction of both rotational angle and lipid exposure can provide essential information when high-resolution structures are unavailable and contribute to experimental design to elucidate transmembrane protein functions.

Structural differences between the western and eastern Qiongdongnan Basin: evidence of Indochina block extrusion and South China Sea seafloor spreading

Located at the intersection between a NW-trending slip system and NE-trending rift system in the northern South China Sea, the Qiongdongnan Basin provides key clues for us to understand the proposed extrusion of the Indochina Block along with Red River Fault Zone and extensional margins. In this paper we for the first time systematically reveal the striking structural differences between the western and eastern sector of the Qiongdongnan Basin. Influenced by the NW-trending slip faults, the western Qiongdongnan Basin developed E–W-trending faults, and was subsequently inverted at 30–21 Ma. The eastern sector was dominated by faults with NE orientation before 30 Ma, and thereafter with various orientations from NE, to EW and NW during the period 30–21 Ma; rifting display composite symmetric graben instead of the composite half graben or asymmetric graben in the west. The deep and thermal structures in turn are invoked to account for such deformation differences. The lithosphere of the eastern Qiongdongnan Basin is very hot and thinned because of mantle upwelling and heating, composite symmetric grabens formed and the faults varied with the basal plate boundary. However, the Southern and Northern Uplift area and middle of the central depression is located on normal lithosphere and formed half grabens or simple grabens. The lithosphere in the western sector is transitional from very hot to normal. Eventually, the Paleogene tectonic development of the Qiongdongnan Basin may be summarized into three stages with dominating influences, the retreat of the West Pacific subduction zone (44–36 Ma), slow Indochina block extrusion together with slab-pull of the Proto-South China Sea (36–30 Ma), rapid Indochina block extrusion together with the South China Sea seafloor spreading (30–21 Ma).

Complementary JFET Logic for Low-Power Applications in Extreme Environments

The static and dynamic characteristics of Complementary JFET (CJFET) logic inverter are studied across a range of temperatures and supply voltages to assess potential improvements in performance of digital logic functions for operation in extreme environments. The logic inverter is truly the core of all digital designs. The design and analysis of inverter enables the design of more complex structures, such as NAND, NOR and XOR gates. These complex structures in turn form the building blocks for modules, such as adders, multipliers and microprocessors. At 500 deg C and operating at a supply voltage of 1 V, the CJFET inverter have noise margin comparable to that of room temperature silicon and silicon on insulator CMOS inverters. Furthermore, the static power dissipation by CJFET inverter at 500 deg C is 20.6 nW which is six orders of magnitude lower than that by current SiC technologies, making CJFET technology ideal for achieving complex logic functions, far greater than a few-transistors ICs, in the nearer term.

Isolation of suberin from birch outer bark and cork using ionic liquids: A new source of macromonomers

Cholinium hexanoate, a biocompatible and biodegradable ionic liquid, was recently demonstrated to efficiently and selectively extract suberin domains from cork, combining high extraction efficiency with isolation of a partial depolymerised material. In the present paper, we report a comparative study of the characterisation of suberin extracted from birch outer bark and from cork using cholinium hexanoate. It became apparent that both extracted suberin samples showed still a cross-linked nature, i.e. likely to be closely related to in situ suberin. Suberin samples were mainly constituted by oligomeric or polymeric structures in turn essentially composed by long chain hydroxyacids monomers. Their high thermal stability together with the oligomeric/polymeric nature, open new perspectives for suberin use as macromonomers in the development of bio-based polymeric materials. This also contributes for the valorisation of suberin rich agro-forest residues.

Morphological and rheological responses to the transient and steady shear flow for a phase-separated polybutadiene/polyisoprene blend

The morphological and rheological responses to the transient and steady shear flow for a phase-separated polybutadiene (PB)/low vinyl content polyisoprene (LPI) blend have been investigated. Under steady shear flow where the applied shear rate is not too large, the steady sheared structures become increasingly anisotropic and interconnected with an “en route” to the formation of string phases as shear rate increases. After that, the further increase of shear rate leads to a blurred domain interface. These shear-induced complex structures in turn affect the rheological response greatly and both the shear thinning and shear thickening were observed in the steady shear behavior of the phase-separated PB/LPI blend. Under transient shear flow, the time (or strain) dependence of viscosity and morphology after a shear rate jump were extensively studied in order to obtain the insight into the steady state formation and found to be mainly determined by the final shear rates. Depending on whether the transient string phases which were formed by the transient shear flow can be stabilized and with clear domain interface, three kinds of transient shear viscosity changes have been observed. Some of the observations are quite different from the model immiscible blend and believed to be closely related to the significant shear-induced mixing effect happened in the PB/LPI blend.