• Journal of Plant Biology
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.173-177
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• 1996

A novel calcium binding protein (CaBP) was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity from Dunaliella salina. In the course of purification experiment, this CaBP was identified as a monomer and its molecular weight was about 21 kDand isoelectric point (pI) value was about 4.1 using isoelectrofocusing. This CaBP was able to bind Ca2+ even in the pressence of an excess MgCl2 and KCI both in solution. In the SDS-PAGE, the Ca2+-bound form was slower than the Ca2+-free form in the nondenaturing PAGE. This means that the CaBP undergoes conformational change in the Ca2+-bound condition. Furthermore, UV absorption spectrum and fluorescence intensity of this CaBP was investigated. UV absorption peak was appeared at about 258 nm and decreased somewhat in Ca2+-bound condition. In the measurement of fluorescence, maximum intensity was appeared at 303 nm and decreased in Ca2+-bound state, similarly as UV absorption spectrum. These show distinct changes upon Ca2+-binding, which indicate of structural and/or dynamic changes largely reminiscent of other members of the EF-hand Ca2+-binding protein family.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.981-995
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• 2015

This paper presents a finite element procedure for dynamic analysis of non-uniform Timoshenko beams made of axially Functionally Graded Material (FGM) under multiple moving point loads. The material properties are assumed to vary continuously in the longitudinal direction according to a predefined power law equation. A beam element, taking the effects of shear deformation and cross-sectional variation into account, is formulated by using exact polynomials derived from the governing differential equations of a uniform homogenous Timoshenko beam element. The dynamic responses of the beams are computed by using the implicit Newmark method. The numerical results show that the dynamic characteristics of the beams are greatly influenced by the number of moving point loads. The effects of the distance between the loads, material non-homogeneity, section profiles as well as aspect ratio on the dynamic responses of the beams are also investigated in detail and highlighted.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.66 no.6
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• pp.729-736
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• 2018

This paper studies thermal buckling and post-buckling behaviors of functionally graded materials (FGM) tubes subjected to a uniform temperature rise and resting on elastic foundations via a refined beam model. Compared to the Timoshenko beam theory, the number of unknowns of this model are the same and no correction factors are required. The material properties of the FGM tube vary continuously in the radial direction according to a power function. Two ends of the tube are assumed to be simply supported and in-plane boundary conditions are immovable. Energy variation principle is employed to establish the governing equations. A two-step perturbation method is adopted to determine the critical thermal buckling loads and post-buckling paths of the tubes with arbitrary radial non-homogeneity. Through detailed parametric studies, it can be found that the tube has much higher buckling temperature and post-buckling strength when it is supported by an elastic foundation.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.270-274
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• 2007

To characterize the polysaccharides which exist as soluble forms in fruit wines, crude polysaccharides were isolated from red, white, raspberry, wild grape, and pear wine, respectively. Among them, the crude polysaccharide (RW-0) in red wine showed the highest yield and considerable amounts of thiobarbituric acid (TBA)-positive materials. The pectic polysaccharide RW-2 was purified to homogeneity from RW-0 by subsequent size-exclusion chromatography using Sephadex G-75 and its structure was characterized. RW-2 consisted of 14 different monosaccharides which included rarely observed sugars in general polysaccharides, such as 2-O-methyl-fucose, 2-O-methyl-xylose, apiose (Api), 3-C-carboxy-5-deoxy-L-xylose (aceric acid, AceA), 3-deoxy-D-manno-2-octulosonic acid (Kdo), and 3-deoxy-D-lyxo-2-heptulosaric acid (Dha). Methylation analysis indicated that RW-2 comprised at least 20 different glycosyl linkages such as 3,4-linked fucose, 2,3,4-linked rhamnose, 3'-linked apiose, and 2,3,3'-linked apiose, being characteristic in rhamnogalacturonan II (RG-II). High performance size-exclusion chromatography indicated that RW-2 mainly comprised RG-II of higher molecular weight (12,000), and that the changes of molecular weight to apparent 7,000 under less than pH 2.0 were observed. These analyses indicated that the higher molecular weight polysaccharide in RW-2 was mainly present as a RG-II dimer.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.215-231
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• 2011

As a brittle and heterogeneous material, concrete behaves differently under different stress conditions and its bulk strength is loading rate dependent. To a large extent, the varying behavioural properties of concrete can be explained by the mechanical failure processes at a mesoscopic level. The development of a computational mesoscale model in a general finite element environment, as presented in the preceding companion paper (Part 1), makes it possible to investigate into the underlying mechanisms governing the bulk-scale behaviour of concrete under a variety of loading conditions and to characterise the variation in quantitative terms. In this paper, we first present a series of parametric studies on the behaviour of concrete material under quasi-static compression and tension conditions. The loading-face friction effect, the possible influences of the non-homogeneity within the mortar and ITZ phases, and the effect of randomness of coarse aggregates are examined. The mesoscale model is then applied to analyze the dynamic behaviour of concrete under high rate loading conditions. The potential contribution of the mesoscopic heterogeneity towards the generally recognized rate enhancement of the material compressive strength is discussed.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.772-776
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• 2007

In order to study the role of residue in the active site of glutathione S-transferase (GST), Arg13 residue in human GST P1-1 was replaced with alanine, lysine and leucine by site-directed mutagenesis to obtain mutants R13A, R13K and R13L. These three mutant enzymes were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by affinity chromatography on immobilized GSH. Mutation of Arg13 into Ala caused a substantial reduction of the specific activity by 10-fold. Km GSH, Km DCNB and Km EPNP values of R13A were approximately 2-3 fold larger than those of the wild type. Mutation of Arg13 into Ala also significantly affected I50 values of S-methyl-GSH that compete with GSH and ethacrynic acid, an electrophilic substrate-like compound. These results appeared that the substitution of Arg13 with Ala resulted in significant structural change of the active site. Mutation of Arg13 into Leu reduced the catalytic activity by approximately 2-fold, whereas substitution by Lys scarcely affected the activity, indicating the significance of a positively charged residue at position 13. Therefore, arginine 13 participates in catalytic activity as mainly involved in the construction of the proper electrostatic field and conformation of the active site in human GST P1-1.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.4169-4172
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• 2012

To elucidate the roles of cysteine residues in rice Phi-class GST F3, in this study, all three cysteine residues were replaced with alanine by site-directed mutagenesis in order to obtain mutants C22A, C73A and C77A. Three mutant enzymes were expressed in Escherichia coli and purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by affinity chromatography on immobilized GSH. The substitutions of Cys73 and Cys77 residues in OsGSTF3 with alanine did not affect the glutathione conjugation activities, showing non-essentiality of these residues. On the other hand, the substitution of Cys22 residue with alanine resulted in approximately a 60% loss of specific activity toward ethacrynic acid. Moreover, the ${K_m}^{CDNB}$ value of the mutant C22A was approximately 2.2 fold larger than that of the wild type. From these results, the evolutionally conserved cysteine 22 residue seems to participate rather in the structural stability of the active site in OsGSTF3 by stabilizing the electrophilic substrates-binding site's conformation than in the substrate binding directly.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.723-736
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• 2014

Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic (GFRP) structures are primarily manufactured using hand lay-up or vacuum infusion techniques, which are cost-effective for the construction of marine vessels. This paper aims to investigate the mechanical properties and failure mechanisms of the hybrid GFRP composites, formed by applying the hand lay-up processed exterior and the vacuum infusion processed interior layups, providing benefits for structural performance and ease of manufacturing. The hybrid GFRP composites contain one, two, and three vacuum infusion processed layer sets with consistent sets of hand lay-up processed layers. Mechanical properties assessed in this study include tensile, compressive and in-plane shear properties. Hybrid composites with three sets of vacuum infusion layers showed the highest tensile mechanical properties while those with two sets had the highest mechanical properties in compression. The batch homogeneity, for the GFRP fabrication processes, is evaluated using the experimentally obtained mechanical properties.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.153-186
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• 2016

This paper addresses temperature-dependent nonlinear vibration and instability of embedded functionally graded (FG) pipes conveying viscous fluid-nanoparticle mixture. The surrounding elastic medium is modeled by temperature-dependent orthotropic Pasternak medium. Reddy third-order shear deformation theory (RSDT) of cylindrical shells are developed using the strain-displacement relations of Donnell theory. The well known Navier-Stokes equation is used for obtaining the applied force of fluid to pipe. Based on energy method and Hamilton's principal, the governing equations are derived. Generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM) is applied for obtaining the frequency and critical fluid velocity of system. The effects of different parameters such as mode numbers, nonlinearity, fluid velocity, volume percent of nanoparticle in fluid, gradient index, elastic medium, boundary condition and temperature gradient are discussed. Numerical results indicate that with increasing the stiffness of elastic medium and decreasing volume percent of nanoparticle in fluid, the frequency and critical fluid velocity increase. The presented results indicate that the material in-homogeneity has a significant influence on the vibration and instability behaviors of the FG pipes and should therefore be considered in its optimum design. In addition, fluid velocity leads to divergence and flutter instabilities.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2019

A copper tetracumylphenoxy phthalocyanine (CuPccp) thin film was formed on an organic insulator film by Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) deposition for gas sensor fabrication. To increase the reproducibility of film transfer, stearyl alcohol was used as a transfer promoter. The structural properties of the CuPccp layers were optically monitored through attenuated total reflection and polarization-modulated ellipsometry techniques. The average thickness of a single layer of the CuPccp LB film was measured to be 2.5 nm. Despite the role of the transfer promoter, the stability of the layer transfer was not sufficient to ensure homogeneity of the LB film. This was probably due to the presence of aggregates in the molecular structure of the CuPccp LB film. Nevertheless, copper phthalocyanine polymorphism can be greatly suppressed by the LB arrangement, which appears to contribute to the improvement of electrical conductivity. The p-type semiconductor characteristics were confirmed by Hall measurements from the CuPccp LB films.