9 research outputs found
Effects of solvents in the depolymerization of lignin into value-added products: a review
No full textThe depolymerization of lignin to produce renewable value-added building block chemicals has received increased attention from both industry and academia, as its facilitation is a key in the development of future biorefinery technologies. The main challenge in lignin depolymerization relies on its complex structure. Numerous efforts have shown that catalysts, solvents, reaction parameters, and physiochemical properties of lignin significantly affect the depolymerization reaction of lignin. Solvents are crucial components of the reaction system and affect the performance of the lignin depolymerization process. A good solvent can promote the solubility of lignin and enhance the catalyst–lignin interactions, and could also stabilize the reactive intermediates. However, the relationship and dependence of the molecular structure of lignins with its solubility and reactivity in different solvents are poorly understood. Thus, it is important to understand the influence of solvents on the reaction mechanism, the thermodynamic state of lignin, intermediates, products, and catalysts’ stability. In this article, various solvents used in the depolymerization of different types of lignin reactions are extensively overviewed. Special attention is paid to comparing the conversion of lignin, yield of bio-oil, and yield of monomers in the presence of different polarity-categorized solvents and binary solvents. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
Assessing usability of full-body immersion in an interactive virtual reality environment
No full text2020 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.Improving immersion and playability has a direct impact on the effectiveness of certain Virtual Reality applications. This project looks at understanding how to develop an immersive soccer application with the intention to measure skills, particularly for the use of assessment and health promotion. This project will show the requirements to create a top-down immersive experience with commodity devices. The particular system serves the simulation of a soccer training environment to evade opponents, pass to teammates, and score goals with the objective of measuring the difficulty of single, double, and triple tasks. It is expected that the performance will go down as the level of tasks increases. This hypothesis is extremely relevant as it provides a system that could serve as an assessment tool for people with concussions to return to play (with an OK by a physician) or to promote exercise to non-athletes. This thesis provides all the necessary steps to explain the high-level details of highly immersive applications while providing a future-path for human-subject experiments
Unconventional powder method is a useful technique to determine the latent fingerprint impressions
No full textBackground: Fingerprint development techniques are being used for a long time and are considered one among the oldest methods in forensic science used to identify suspects. Fingerprints are one of the most significant types of physical evidence. There are various types of fingerprint patterns such as visible, plastic and latent. In criminal investigation cases, chance fingerprint impressions are mostly found at the crime scene. These prints are generally invisible and therefore require several development methods. The powder dusting technique of developing fingerprints involves the application of fine powder on the impression of the print with the help of a brush such as glass fiber or a camel hair brush. Main text: This paper rather focuses on various unconventional powder methods than the widely used conventional ones. This will help identify other cheaper, non-toxic powders that are commonly available as an alternative to the expensive, toxic ones. The author’s main aim is to provide a collective review of the work of other scientists in order to identify everyday materials, commonly available that can be used as possible means to develop a fingerprint impression. Conclusion: For a better result, the unconventional powder is used on different surfaces i.e. porous, non-porous, and semi-porous for latent fingerprint impressions. After developing impressions on different surfaces, we conclude our result that unconventional powder is very useful. 
CubeVR: Digital Affordances for Architecture Undergraduate Education using Virtual Reality
No full textLong-Term and Short-Term Traffic Forecasting Using Holt-Winters Method
No full textThe need of faster life has caused the exponential growth in No. of vehicles on streets. The adverse effects include frequent traffic congestion, less time efficiency, unnecessary fuel consumption, pollution, accidents, etc. One of most important solution for resolving these problems is efficient transportation management system. Data science introduces different techniques and tools for overcoming these problems and to improve the data quality and forecasting inferences. The proposed long-term forecasting model can predict numerical values of effective attributes for a particular day on half-hourly basis, at least 24 hours prior to the time of prediction. The proposed forecasting model for short-term analysis will be having access to data as close as 30-minute difference from the time of prediction. Our proposed solution has integrated use of Holt-Winters (HW) method along with comparability schemes for seasonal approach.</jats:p
Long-Term and Short-Term Traffic Forecasting Using Holt-Winters Method
No full textThe need of faster life has caused the exponential growth in No. of vehicles on streets. The adverse effects include frequent traffic congestion, less time efficiency, unnecessary fuel consumption, pollution, accidents, etc. One of most important solution for resolving these problems is efficient transportation management system. Data science introduces different techniques and tools for overcoming these problems and to improve the data quality and forecasting inferences. The proposed long-term forecasting model can predict numerical values of effective attributes for a particular day on half-hourly basis, at least 24 hours prior to the time of prediction. The proposed forecasting model for short-term analysis will be having access to data as close as 30-minute difference from the time of prediction. Our proposed solution has integrated use of Holt-Winters (HW) method along with comparability schemes for seasonal approach.</jats:p
Sexually Dimorphic Responses Reveal Multifaceted Benefits of Glibenclamide in Traumatic Brain Injury
No full textSex disparities in traumatic brain injury (TBI) remain poorly understood. Previous data suggest that males are more susceptible to acute secondary injury processes and cell death, whereas females are more vulnerable chronically. Additional sex-based differences have been reported depending on injury model/severity and post-traumatic neurodegeneration. This gap in understanding limits therapy translation. We previously demonstrated sex-based differences in genetic modulation of a key pathway of secondary injury in TBI, sulfonylurea-receptor 1 (SUR1). Glibenclamide (GLI, SUR1-inhibitor) has shown promise in pre-clinical and early clinical studies of TBI and stroke. Here, we evaluated GLI\u27s modulation of multifaceted TBI outcomes across sex for the first time. In total, 120 mice were randomized to controlled cortical impact (CCI) ± GLI or vehicle (dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO). Either vehicle or GLI treatment was administered post-CCI using an intraperitoneal (IP) loading dose (10 µg/mouse, 10 min post-TBI), followed by a 7-day subcutaneous maintenance infusion at 0.5 µL/h using ALZET mini-osmotic pumps (1007D, Durect Corp.). Mice were tested for cognitive function (Morris water maze, MWM), motor function (rotarod), anxiety (elevated plus maze, EPM), immunofluorescence markers of neurodegeneration (TAU, TDP43), neurogenesis (SOX2, Ki67), angiogenesis (VEGFA), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) to interrogate behavioral, molecular, and physiological effects of TBI and therapy. Different measures within behavioral, immunofluorescence, and CBF outcomes varied across sex, either post-CCI and/or in response to GLI. Motor impairment had baseline differences across sex post-CCI. In both sexes, behavioral deficits were improved by GLI. The effect of GLI on behavior was moderated by sex, with greater benefit in males versus females, including improved MWM latency (p \u3c 0.0001) and rotarod latency (p = 0.016, revolutions per minute, p = 0.03). Males had increased anxiety post-CCI (EPM); GLI was beneficial across sexes. TDP43 and TAU in several brain regions were increased 72 h post-CCI (males\u3efemales, all p \u3c 0.0001). These remained markedly elevated only in females by 21 days, whereas TAU in males decreased without treatment. GLI downregulated TDP43 and TAU across sex and brain region (all p \u3c 0.01-0.0001). In females only, DMSO had similar effects as GLI on TDP43 and TAU. SOX2 was increased in the dentate gyrus (DG) only in males post-CCI (p \u3c 0.01, p \u3c 0.001). GLI increased DG SOX2 in females (p \u3c 0.05, p \u3c 0.001). GLI increased VEGFA at 72 h across sexes. CCI reduced CBF acutely in both sexes; in males, GLI improved this by 21 days (p = 0.031). In females, both GLI and DMSO-vehicle benefited CBF versus untreated-CCI. We demonstrate novel sex-based differences post-CCI and GLI-response across several metrics. TAU was chronically elevated (and responsive to treatment) in females, not males, potentially providing a sex-specific target. DMSO may have previously unrecognized benefits on certain pathways (TAU, CBF) in females. Although GLI has multifaceted benefits across sexes, effects are more pronounced in males. This may have important implications for clinical trial study design and analysis
A single-cell atlas deconstructs heterogeneity across multiple models in murine traumatic brain injury and identifies novel cell-specific targets.
No full textTraumatic brain injury (TBI) heterogeneity remains a critical barrier to translating therapies. Identifying final common pathways/molecular signatures that integrate this heterogeneity informs biomarker and therapeutic-target development. We present the first large-scale murine single-cell atlas of the transcriptomic response to TBI (334,376 cells) across clinically relevant models, sex, brain region, and time as a foundational step in molecularly deconstructing TBI heterogeneity. Results were unique to cell populations, injury models, sex, brain regions, and time, highlighting the importance of cell-level resolution. We identify cell-specific targets and previously unrecognized roles for microglial and ependymal subtypes. Ependymal-4 was a hub of neuroinflammatory signaling. A distinct microglial lineage shared features with disease-associated microglia at 24 h, with persistent gene-expression changes in microglia-4 even 6 months after contusional TBI, contrasting all other cell types that mostly returned to naive levels. Regional and sexual dimorphism were noted. CEREBRI, our searchable atlas (https://shiny.crc.pitt.edu/cerebri/), identifies previously unrecognized cell subtypes/molecular targets and is a leverageable platform for future efforts in TBI and other diseases with overlapping pathophysiology
