• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.45-49
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• 2011

The performance of five newly evolved cross breeds were evaluated across seasons to understand the genotype and environment interactions and their stability under fluctuating tropical environmental conditions along with control hybrids $PM{\times}CSR2$ and $APM1{\times}APS8$. The data was collected on eight economic traits namely fecundity, yield per 10,000 larvae by number, yield per 10,000 larvae by weight, survival rate, cocoon weight, cocoon shell weight, cocoon shell ratio and filament length. The data was subjected for Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and relevant statistical methods. The performance data obtained was further subjected for multiple trait evaluation index method. The ranks were adjudicated based on the index values. The two hybrids viz., $MSO3{\times}APS45$ and $MSO1{\times}APS12$ performed well under diversified environmental conditions indicating their overall stability and superiority. These hybrids revealed highly significant (p < 0.01) improvement for the majority of the traits over the control hybrids.

• Current Applied Physics
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.1507-1512
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• 2018

The development of an organic-based aqueous redox flow battery (RFB) using quinone as an electroactive material has attracted great attention recently. This is because this battery is inexpensive, produces high energy density, and is environment friendly in stationary electrical energy storage applications. Herein, we investigate the redox potentials and solubilities of indole-5,6-quinone and indole-4,7-quinone derivatives in terms of the substituent effects of functional groups using theoretical calculations. Our results indicate that full-site substituted derivatives of indolequinone are more useful as active materials compared to single-site substituted derivatives. In particular, our calculations reveal that the substitution of $-PO_3H_2$ and $-SO_3H$ functional groups with multiple polar bonds is very effective in increasing the activity of the aqueous RFB. As a strategy to overcome the limitation that the aqueous solubility is intrinsically low because they are organic molecules, we suggest the substitution of functional groups with multiple polar bonds to the backbones of active organic materials. Among 180 indolequinone derivatives, 17 candidates that meet the redox potential standards ($${\leq_-}0.2V$$ or $${\geq_-}0.9V$$) and eight candidates with solubility exceeding 2 mol/L are identified. Three indolequinone derivatives that satisfy both conditions are finally presented as promising electroactive candidates for an aqueous RFB.

• Journal of Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2021

In this study, the potential toxicity of isoprocarb was demonstrated using zebrafish embryos. We treated isoprocarb (0, 29, and 58 mg/L) to the zebrafish embryos for 72 h then, we estimated morphological changes and apoptotic cell numbers. The increasing extent of apoptosis from the anterior to posterior region of developing zebrafish larvae was correlated with toxicity in the overall development process, including growth and normal organ formation. The appearance of abnormalities in the isoprocarb-treated groups in comparison to normal developing zebrafish larvae was verified using quantitative image analysis based on ImageJ software program. The vascular system comprising a complex interconnection of blood vessels was visualized in vessel-fluorescent transgenic zebrafish (fli1:eGFP). The main vasculature was malformed on isoprocarb treatment, and this was also related to cardiac defects. Taken together, normal embryonic development in zebrafish was interrupted owing to the acute toxicity of isoprocarb.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1560-1569
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• 2022

Liquid fueled molten salt reactors (MSRs) have seen renewed interest because of their inherent safety features, higher thermal efficiency and potential for efficient thorium utilisation for power generation. Thorium fluoride is one of the salts used in liquid fueled MSRs employing Th-U cycle. In the present study, ThF₄ was prepared by hydro-fluorination of ThO₂ using anhydrous HF gas. Process parameters viz. bed depth, hydrofluorination time and hydrofluorination temperature, were optimized for the preparation of ThF₄ in a static bed reactor setup. The products were characterized with X-Ray diffraction and experimental conditions for complete conversion to ThF₄ were established which also corroborated with the yield values. Hydrofluorination of ThO₂ at 450 ℃ for half an hour at a bed depth of 6 mm gave the best result, with a yield of about 99.36% ThF₄. No unconverted oxide or any other impurity was observed. Rietveld refinement was performed on the XRD data of this ThF₄, and Chi2 value of 3.54 indicated good agreement between observed and calculated profiles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Magnestics Society Conference
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• 2003.06a
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• pp.24-24
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• 2003

Metallic magnetoelectronic devices have studied intensively and extensively for last decade because of the scientific interest as well as great technological importance. Recently, the scientific activity in spintronics field is extending to the hybrid devices using ferromagnetic/semiconductor heterostructures and to new ferromagnetic semiconductor materials for future devices. In case of the hybrid device, conductivity mismatch problem for metal/semiconductor interface will be able to circumvent when the device operates in ballistic regime. In this respect, spin-valve transistor, first reported by Monsma, is based on spin dependent transport of hot electrons rather than electron near the Fermi energy. Although the spin-valve transistor showed large magnetocurrent ratio more than 300%, but low transfer ratio of the order of 10$\^$-5/ prevents the potential applications. In order to enhance the collector current, we have prepared magnetic tunneling transistor (MTT) with single ferromagnetic base on Si(100) collector by magnetron sputtering process. We have changed the resistance of tunneling emitter and the thickness of baser layer in the MTT structure to increase collector current. The high transfer ratio of 10$\^$-4/ range at bias voltage of more than 1.8 V, collector current of near l ${\mu}$A, and magnetocurrent ratio or 55% in Si-based MTT are obtained at 77K. These results suggest a promising candidate for future spintronic applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4084-4094
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• 2022

The Advanced Fuels Campaign Fission Accelerated Steady-state Test (FAST) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) completed its first irradiation cycle within the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). The test focused on the irradiation of alloy fuel forms for use in sodium fast reactors. The first cycle of FAST testing was completed and four rodlets were removed for the initial post irradiation examination (PIE). The rodlet design and irradiation conditions were evaluated using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) for as-run power history and COMSOL for temperature analysis. These rodlets include a set of low burnups (~2.5 % fissions per initial metal atoms [%FIMA]), control rodlets, and a helium-bonded annular rodlet (4.7 %FIMA). Nondestructive PIE has been completed and includes visual inspection, neutron radiography and gamma scanning of the FAST capsules and rodlets. Radiography confirmed the integrity of the experiments, revealed that the annulus in the annular fuel was filled at a modest burnup (4.7 %FIMA), and indicated potential slumping of the cooler rodlets at lower burnup. Precision gamma scanning indicated mostly usual fission product behavior, except for cesium in the He-bonded annular fuel. Future destructive PIE will be necessary to fully interpret the effects of accelerated irradiation on U-Zr metallic fuel behavior.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.603-622
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• 2023

Human error (HE) is an important concern in safety-critical systems such as nuclear power plants (NPPs). HE has played a role in many accidents and outage incidents in NPPs. Despite the increased automation in NPPs, HE remains unavoidable. Hence, the need for HE detection is as important as HE prevention efforts. In NPPs, HE is rather rare. Hence, anomaly detection, a widely used machine learning technique for detecting rare anomalous instances, can be repurposed to detect potential HE. In this study, we develop an unsupervised anomaly detection technique based on generative adversarial networks (GANs) to detect anomalies in manually collected surveillance data in NPPs. More specifically, our GAN is trained to detect mismatches between automatically recorded sensor data and manually collected surveillance data, and hence, identify anomalous instances that can be attributed to HE. We test our GAN on both a real-world dataset and an external dataset obtained from a testbed, and we benchmark our results against state-of-the-art unsupervised anomaly detection algorithms, including one-class support vector machine and isolation forest. Our results show that the proposed GAN provides improved anomaly detection performance. Our study is promising for the future development of artificial intelligence based HE detection systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.801-813
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• 2023

The events at Three Mile Island in the United States brought about fundamental changes in the ways that simulation would be used in nuclear operations. The need for research simulators was identified to scientifically study human-centered risk and make recommendations for process control system designs. This paper documents the human factors research conducted at the Human Systems and Simulation Laboratory (HSSL) since its inception in 2010 at Idaho National Laboratory. The facility's primary purposes are to provide support to utilities for system upgrades and to validate modernized control room concepts. In the last decade, however, as nuclear industry needs have evolved, so too have the purposes of the HSSL. Thus, beyond control room modernization, human factors researchers have evaluated the security of nuclear infrastructure from cyber adversaries and evaluated human-in-the-loop simulations for joint operations with an integrated hydrogen generation plant. Lastly, our review presents research using human reliability analysis techniques with data collected from HSSL-based studies and concludes with potential future directions for the HSSL, including severe accident management and advanced control room technologies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.8
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• pp.3397-3404
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• 2024

The shield building of the AP1000 nuclear power plant serves as a crucial protective barrier against radioactive substances. However, past research indicates that structures are susceptible to experiencing aftershocks, which may lead to unforeseeable damage and potential radioactive material leakage. To address this issue, a finite element model of the shield building was established with the damage indexes of the tensile and compressive damage selected for further model analysis. According to the fundamental theory of reliability, the traditional incremental dynamic analysis method was used to analyze the seismic fragility of the shield building by inputting mainshock and aftershock sequences with three strength ratios. The results indicate that the seismic fragility of shield building may be underestimated without considering the influence of aftershocks and the damage state presents an upward tendency as the strength ratio increases. However, the cumulative damage caused by aftershocks is unlikely to exceed the initial damage induced by the corresponding mainshock. Overall, the aggravation of the compressive damage is less pronounced than the increase of the tensile damage as the strength ratio increases.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.655-661
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and associated mechanisms of arctiin, a lignan compound found in burdock, on adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells. Also, the effects of arctiin supplementation in obese mice fed a high-fat diet on adiposity were examined. MATERIALS/METHODS: 3T3-L1 cells were treated with arctiin (12.5 to $100{\mu}M$) during differentiation for 8 days. The accumulation of lipid droplets was determined by Oil Red O staining and intracellular triglyceride contents. The expressions of genes related to adipogenesis were measured by real-time RT-PCR and Western blot analyses. For in vivo study, C57BL/6J mice were first fed either a control diet (CON) or high-fat diet (HF) to induce obesity, and then fed CON, HF, or HF with 500 mg/kg BW arctiin (HF + AC) for four weeks. RESULTS: Arctiin treatment to 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes markedly decreased adipogenesis in a dose-dependent manner. The arctiin treatment significantly decreased the protein levels of the key adipogenic regulators $PPAR{\gamma}$ and $C/EBP{\alpha}$, and also significantly inhibited the expression of SREBP-1c, fatty acid synthase, fatty acid-binding protein and lipoprotein lipase. Also, arctiin greatly increased the phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and its downstream target phosphorylated-acetyl CoA carboxylase. Furthermore, administration of arctiin significantly decreased the body weight in obese mice fed with the high-fat diet. The epididymal, perirenal or total visceral adipose tissue weights of mice were all significantly lower in the HF + AC than in the HF. Arctiin administration also decreased the sizes of lipid droplets in the epididymal adipose tissue. CONCLUSIONS: Arctiin inhibited adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes through the inhibition of $PPAR{\gamma}$ and $C/EBP{\alpha}$ and the activation of AMPK signaling pathways. These findings suggest that arctiin has a potential benefit in preventing obesity.