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The prediction of compressive strength in concrete holds essential significance within the construction industry, maintaining the structural reliability of important infrastructure like buildings. In the present study, a thorough investigation has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using various fly ash and admixtures as input factors to forecast compressive strength at 7, 14 and 28 days. Two machine-learning algorithms, namely classification and regression trees (CART) and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks, are used in this investigation. The dataset has  been partitioned into 80% training subset and 20% testing subset. The performance evaluation of each model has been assessed by key performance metrics such as root mean squared error (RMSE), mean squared error (MSE), and the coefficient of determination (R2). Among the two machine-learning models studied, LSTM shows superior predictive capabilities; with an R2value of 0.9975 and 0.9948 for training and testing respectively and an impressively low root mean squared error value of 1.9175. Therefore, LSTM has demonstrated superior accuracy and predictive capabilities compared to CART; establishing it as a viable and effective technique for forecasting compressive strength of concrete. This research contributes to the progression of predictive modeling in concrete engineering, enabling more precise estimations of compressive strength using LSTM based machine learning (ML) modeling.

This research examines the feasibility of using washed recycled fine aggregates (WRFA) as a substitute for natural virgin aggregates in concrete. The aim is to develop novel models, based on Response Surface Method (RSM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN), for predicting compressive strength and optimizing the results in concrete pavement development. The Central Composite Design (CCD) approach is utilized to optimize the concrete's strength parameters, considering WRFA, Zirconia Silica Fume (ZSF), and Steel Slag (SS) content. The RSM model does not perform well for compressive strength and split tensile strength, prompting the development of an ANN model to enhance prediction accuracy. The optimal proportion of training, testing, and validation datasets is determined as 70%, 15%, and 15% respectively. The ANN model, evaluated using Coefficient of Determination (R2) and Mean Square Error (MSE), outperforms the RSM model with higher prediction accuracy and better model fit. The findings highlight the potential of WRFA in concrete mixes, offering the ability to achieve desired strength levels surpassing conventional concrete. This research underscores the viability of WRFA as a sustainable construction material, supporting the development of environmentally friendly concrete pavements.

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a versatile construction material known for its ability to consolidate naturally under its own weight, making it well suited for challenging placements and reinforced sections. Incorporating a minimal amount of glass fiber into self-compacting concrete augments its benefits during the fresh state and translates to enhanced performance in the hardened state. In this present study, an experimental investigation has been carried out to examine the effects of glass fiber of varying proportions 3%, 6%, and 9% with a constant 10% of fly ash as mineral admixture used as partial replacement of ordinary portland cement (OPC) in SCC. The experimental result reveals that the introduction of 3% glass fiber has a substantial impact on the compressive strength. To forecast compressive strength, three machine learning algorithms AdaBoost, XGBoost, and Gradient Boost regressor were employed to interpret the experimental data and predict the anticipated outcomes of compressive strength. Among the three models, XGBoost shows higher accuracy with R2of 0.9918 and 0.9797 in training and testing in comparison to the other two models due to its adeptness in managing complex interaction relationships. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted using both Sobol and SHAP methods. The results revealed that glass fiber and fly ash exerted substantial influence on the compressive strength, as indicated by their greater impacts identified through both sensitivity analysis techniques. This study significantly contributes to bridging the gaps that were present in prior research not only enhances our understanding of the factors influencing compressive strength but also provides a comprehensive approach to sensitivity analysis, thus making a meaningful contribution to the field.

A problem faced in proteomics studies is the recovery of tagged protein complexes in their native and active form. Here we describe a peptide, Bio-Ox, that mimics the immunoglobulin G (IgG) binding interface of Staphylococcus aureus Protein A, and competitively displaces affinity-purified Protein A fusion proteins and protein complexes from IgG-Sepharose. We show that Bio-Ox elution is a robust method for the efficient and rapid recovery of native tagged proteins, and can be applied to a variety of structural genomics and proteomics studies. Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus • Protein A • affinity purification • proteomics • fusion protein

Isolation of protein complexes via affinity-tagged proteins provides a powerful tool for studying biological systems, but the technique is often compromised by co-enrichment of nonspecifically interacting proteins. We describe a new technique (I-DIRT) that distinguishes contaminants from bona fide interactors in immunopurifications, overcoming this most challenging problem in defining protein complexes. I-DIRT will be of broad value for studying protein complexes in biological systems that can be metabolically labeled. Keywords: immunoisolation • immunopurification • background • contamination • protein complex • affinity tag • pol epsilon

The relationship between flour quality or processing conditions and pretzel quality has not been extensively investigated. The objective of this study was to elucidate the role of water in pretzel dough development and the consequent impact on pretzel integrity. Control pretzel and pretzels made with lower or higher levels of added water in the dough were produced under standard processing conditions at Reading Bakery Systems' pilot plant in Robesonia, PA. Dough samples were evaluated for their appearance, moisture content, and extensibility and were viewed under a microscope to evaluate the gluten network. Pretzels before and after the kiln were evaluated for moisture content, pasting properties, and hardness and were viewed under a microscope to evaluate the extent of starch gelatinization. The structural and functional attributes of dough and pretzels were significantly different for the three treatments. The degrees of gluten development during mixing and starch gelatinization during baking were influenced by the levels of water added and consequently influenced pretzel quality. Pretzels made using low-water treatment were brittle due to a lack of gluten development in the dough and inadequate starch gelatinization during baking, while pretzels made using high water treatment were unacceptable due to extensive gelatinization and retrogradation of starch. Pretzel quality therefore appeared to be a function of appropriate gluten development and starch gelatinization in the product.

The 26 kD basic subunit of 280 kD buckwheat grain legumin has been partially characterized by measurement of its fluorescence and CD spectra. The protein has 22% α‐helix, 36% β‐sheet, 12% β‐turn and 30% random coil secondary structure. In comparison with the basic subunits of other legumin‐type proteins, the buckwheat legumin subunit has a high content of lysine and methionine. The protein also has higher ratios of lysine to arginine and methionine to arginine.

Rooting in terminal shoot and lateral shoot cuttings from 10-year-old elite trees of Casuarina equisetifolia L. in different sex groups was achieved after 20 days when the basal ends of the cuttings were dipped for 3 h in 20 ppm indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). Shoots derived from male plants rooted better than their female and monoecious counterparts, and the lateral shoots were more responsive to rooting than the terminal shoots. During rooting, the metabolic activities varied in both lateral shoot and terminal shoot cuttings derived from plants under different sex groups. Peroxidase and polyphenoloxidase activities were high during root initiation and showed a sharp decline thereafter. The polyphenoloxidase activity was higher in the lateral shoot than the terminal shoot cuttings. The rooted plantlets survived and established well in the field.

The ortho effect and the additivity of substituent parameters in the reaction between phenols and poly(vinyl acetate) radicals have been investigated in the light of theories postulated by Swain and Lupton on substituent constants Fk and Rk and that of Williams and Norrington on the unique positional weighting factors fj and rj. The present correlation studies show that while Charton's theory that the ortho-substituent effect is primarily electrical is true for most of the substituents, some steric considerations have to be invoked while dealing with groups like o-tert-butyl. The additivity of fjFk and rjRk is much less satisfactory than that of Hammett's s`or Brown-Okamoto's electrophilic s`+ substituent constants.

The present investigation describes the kinetics and the mechanism of the inhibiting action of chalcone on the rate of Ce(IV)-initiated polymerization of acrylonitrile in the temperature range 30-40°C. The effect of monomer, metal ion, chalcone, perchloric acid, acetic acid, sodium sulfate, and manganese sulfate on the rate of polymerization has been studied. The most striking observation in the present investigation was the rate mechanism. The plot of [M]/Rp versus 1/[M] gave a negative intercept which appears to be a general phenomenon for all inhibiting substrates. The activation parameters were calculated, and a suitable reaction scheme is proposed.

Summary In the present study, a new approach for the determination of s', that is, radical substituent parameter, has been described. The technique is based on two equations, one reported byYamamoto andOtsu and the other byStreitwieser andPerrin. The system used for the determination of the radical substituent parameter (s') was Ce(IV) — substituted toluenes — acrylonitrile system. To explain inhibition, it has been suggested that the reaction scheme involves initiation of polymerization by Ce(IV) and termination by primary radical of the substrate. The kinetic expression based on the reaction scheme formulated could explain the unusual observation of a negative intercept found in the plot of [M]/Rp versus 1/[M]. Whereas a plot of log ?/?0 against s+ did not give a straight line, a good linear plot with zero intercept was obtained when log ?/?0 was plotted against (s+ + s'). This proves the validity of s' values which have been determinded.

Substituent effects in some autoxidation and hydrogen abstraction reactions have been studied in terms of the field (Fk) and resonance (Rk) components proposed by Swain and Lupton and the unique positional weighting factors fjand rjincorporated by Williams and Norrington with the aid of the following equation:where Pi's are the rate parameters, Pi0being that for a standard reference compound. The correlations are found to be quite satisfactory, showing the general validity of the above equation for the types of reactions considered. From the information obtained from the present correlation studies, an attempt has been made to resolve the conflict with regard to the nature of the transition state involved in the hydrogen abstraction reactions – that is, whether or not there is charge separation in the transition state. The results of the present studies seem to suggest that both the differences in the resonance stabilization energies of the ring-substituted benzyl radical and the contribution of polar structures to the transition state are to be invoked to explain the observed data.

The kinetics and the mechanism of retarding action of cinnamic acid on the Ce(IV)-initiated polymerization of acrylonitrile were studied in the temperature range 35-45°C. The rate of polymerization Rp was measured with respect to its dependence on time, monomer, metal ion, cinnamic acid, perchloric acid, acetic acid, sodium perchlorate, sodium sulfate, and manganese sulfate. The most significant observation was the rate mechanism. The process of polymerization was initiated by Ce(IV) alone and terminated essentially by the free radical produced by the interaction of Ce(IV) with cinnamic acid, which seems to be a general observation for all retarding substrates.

We have identified a novel family of yeast nuclear pore complex proteins. Three individual members of this family, NUP49, NUP100, and NUP116, have been isolated and then characterized by a combination of molecular genetics and immunolocalization. Employing immunoelectron and immunofluorescence microscopy on yeast cells, we found that the binding of a polyspecific monoclonal antibody recognizing this family was predominantly at the nuclear pore complexes. Furthermore, the tagging of NUP49 with a unique epitope enabled the immunolocalization of this protein to the nuclear pore complex by both fluorescence and electron microscopy. DNA sequence analysis has shown that the amino-terminal regions of NUP49, NUP100, and NUP116 share repeated "GLFG" motifs separated from each other by glutamine, asparagine, serine and threonine rich spacers. All three proteins lack a repetitive domain found in the two precisely described yeast nuclear pore complex proteins. Only NUP49 is essential for cell viability. NUP116-deficient cells grow very slowly and are temperature sensitive, whereas the lack of NUP100 has no detectable phenotype. NUP100 and NUP116 are homologous over their entire lengths. Interestingly, NUP100 and NUP116 are both flanked by a histidine tRNA gene and a transposon element suggesting that they may have arisen by gene duplication. We propose that subfamilies of pore complex proteins can be defined by their characteristic combinations of different modular domains.

We have identified a new yeast nucleoporin of 159 kDa that we term NUP159. Immunofluorescence microscopy with a monospecific monoclonal antibody against NUP159 gave the punctate nuclear rim staining characteristic of nucleoporins. Immunogold electron microscopy with isolated yeast NEs yielded decoration of only the cytoplasmic side of the nuclear pore complex. The gene encoding NUP159 is essential, and, like some other nucleoporins, NUP159 contains a coiled-coil domain as well as a domain of repeated motifs. Five segments of NUP159, covering its entire length, were expressed in Escherichia coli. The repeat motif-containing segment was found to bind a nuclear transport substrate in the presence of vertebrate cytosolic extract containing nuclear transport factors. This segment also bound 35S-labeled mammalian karyopherin beta, one such transport factor that mediates the docking of substrates to the nuclear pore complex. These data establish a direct biochemical link between the repeat motif domain of a yeast nucleoporin, transport factors, (specifically karyopherin beta), and nuclear transport substrates. Its cytoplasmic aspect implies a role for NUP159 in nuclear import.

Yeast spindle pole bodies (SPBs) with attached nuclear microtubles were enriched approximately 600-fold from yeast cell extracts. 14 mAbs prepared against this enriched SPB fraction define at least three components of the SPB and spindle. Immunofluorescent staining of yeast cells showed that throughout the cell cycle two of the components (110 and 90 kD) were localized exclusively to the SPB region, and the other (80 kD) was localized both to the SPB region and to particulate dots in short spindles. Immunoelectron microscopy confirmed and extended most of these findings. Thus the 110-kD component was localized to a layer in the SPB just to the nuclear side of the plane of the inner nuclear membrane. The 90-kD component was localized in a layer across the cytoplasmic face of intact SPBs, and, in SPBs where nuclear microtubules were removed by extraction with DEAE-dextran, the 90-kD component was also found in an inner nuclear layer close to where spindle microtubules emerge. In intact SPBs with attached nuclear microtubules the anit-80-kD mAb labels microtubules, particularly those close to the SPB. These results begin to provide a preliminary molecular map of the SPB and should also enable the corresponding genes to be isolated.

We have characterized a protein with an estimated molecular mass of 130 kDa that is contained in a highly enriched yeast nuclear pore complex (NPC) fraction. Partial amino acid sequence from this protein has led us to a previously identified open reading frame on chromosome XI of Saccharomyces cerevisiae encoding a protein of 133 kDa. Due to its coenrichment with NPCs during cell fractionation and the phenotype observed in the disrupted strain, we propose to term the gene encoding this protein NUP133. Cells carrying a disrupted copy of NUP133 were temperature sensitive for growth. In addition, abnormal clustering of NPCs was observed. This phenotype is similar to that previously observed in the disruption of another nucleoporin gene, NUP145. We speculate that the gene product of NUP133, Nup133p, may functionally overlap with the NUP145 gene product, Nup145p, and that these proteins may be involved in maintaining the position of the NPC within the nuclear envelope.

The reactivity of substituted acetophenones towards polyacrylonitrile radical has been correlated with Swain and Luptons field and resonance parameters inclusive of the unique positional weighting factors suggested by Williams and Norrington. From the sign and magnitude of the reaction dependent regression constants, the transition state has been found to be essentially ‘non-polar’ in character.

Thermal aggregation and gelation of oat globulin were studied by FT-NIR Raman spectroscopy. The buffer-soluble aggregates exhibited a Raman spectrum similar to that of the unheated control, whereas the insoluble aggregates showed intensity increases in the tryptophan, C–H bending and C–H stretching bands, and a decrease in the tyrosine doublet (I850 /I830), suggesting protein denaturation. However, analysis of the amide I region using Raman Spectral Analysis Package (RASP) program revealed marked decreases in α-helical and increases in β-sheet structure in both soluble and insoluble aggregates. Similar conformational changes were also observed in the heat-induced oat globulin gels, and may be attributed to realignment of molecular segments and formation of intermolecular β-sheet structures. Thermal gelation under the influence of different chaotropic salts showed some shifts in band positions and changes in band intensity, following the lyotropic series of anions. Several protein structure perturbants, including sodium dodecyl sulfate, dithiothreitol, urea and sodium laurate, were found to affect the Raman spectral characteristics of oat globulin gels. The data suggest that changes in gelling properties of oat globulin by these chemicals may be related to conformational changes of the protein during gelation.

In a three-year prospective study of acute cerebrovascular accident patients admitted to a geriatric unit within 72 hours of the onset, 12.7% had what was considered to be an associated acute myocardial infarction. In tbe majority of cases, 71%, there was no clinical indication of an acute myocardial infarction and, had it not been for electrocardiographic and enzyme studies, the concurrence of these two conditions might not have come to light. The possible explanations for the concurrence of these two conditions are explored. Patients were followed-up for five years. The mortality rate for the combined acute myocardial and cerebral infarction cases admitted to hospital was 53% in six weeks and 64% in one year, compared with 26% and 42%, respectively, in those strokes uncomplicated by a cardiac infarction. Only one patient hae survived for five years. The recognition of such cases is important in terms of management and prognosis and this may be achieved by ECG recordings followed by enzyme studies in all cases of acute stroke admitted to hospital.

IN the course of our studies on methods of synthesis of thiazole derivatives and their possible useful applications, it appeared of interest to examine their fungicidal properties, since these contain in a cyclic ring structure the grouping N—C—S which is present in known fungicides like tetramethyl thiuram disulphide, thioureas and thioacetamide. Some new mercurated derivatives of thiazoles have also been prepared by us, and since mercury is a powerful fungicidal element, phenyl mercuric acetate being actually used for such diseases as apple scab, it was considered worth while to test these mercurated thiazoles for their fungicidal action.