Fruit cracking has long been a topic of great concern for growers and researchers of litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.). To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying fruit cracking, high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was first used for de novo assembly and characterization of the transcriptome of cracking pericarp of litchi. Comparative transcriptomic analyses were performed on non-crac...

The cracking and delamination of TiN-coated hardmetals (WC-Co cemented carbides) when subjected to Brale indentation were studied. Experimental variables were substrate microstructure related to low (6%wt. Co) and medium (13%wt. Co) binder content, and surface finishes associated with grinding and polishing stages before film deposition. Brale indentation tests were conducted on both coated and...

This paper considers the explicit solutions of free-edge stresses near circumferential cracks in surface coatings of circular torsion bars and their application in determining the progressive cracking density in the coating layers. The problem was formulated within the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). The free-edge stresses near crack tip and the shear stresses in the cros...

Tar removal from biomass gasification gas is a crucial problem in applying syngas from biomass for its downstream applications. Catalytic biomass gasification has given promising results for tar cracking. A few research groups have investigated the use of olivine for tar cracking [2,3,4,7,8,9,10]. The presence of oxides of iron and magnesium in the mineral olivine give it the ability to crack h...

The relation of habitual knuckle cracking to osteoarthrosis with functional impairment of the hand has long been considered an old wives' tale without experimental support. The mechanical sequelae of knuckle cracking have been shown to produce the rapid release of energy in the form of sudden vibratory energy, much like the forces responsible for the destruction of hydraulic blades and ship pro...

OBJECTIVES This study sought to evaluate whether the permanent fluoropolymer-coated Xience Xpedition everolimus-eluting stent (Xience-EES) exhibits lower acute thrombogenicity compared with contemporary drug-eluting stents (DES) with biodegradable polymer coatings in an acute swine shunt model. BACKGROUND Previous pre-clinical and clinical experience suggests that several factors may influenc...

The Columbus knee system is designed as a standard knee implant to allow high flexion without additional bone resection. Between August, 2004 and March, 2010 we performed 109 total knee arthroplasties of the Columbus knee system in 101 consecutive patients suffering from primary arthrosis of the knee. Mean age was 72.4 years in women and 70.3 years in men. Mean followup was 47.3 months. The 4-y...

Originally, MapReduce implementations such as Hadoop employed First In First Out (fifo) scheduling, but such simple schemes cause job starvation. The Hadoop Fair Scheduler (hfs) is a slot-based MapReduce scheme designed to ensure a degree of fairness among the jobs, by guaranteeing each job at least some minimum number of allocated slots. Our prime contribution in this paper is a different, fle...

The tube in flow rigs used for testing Doppler ultrasound instruments can attenuate and distort the beam and sample volume by refraction, reflection, absorption and mode conversion. The attenuation and degree of distortion has been measured by using a moving string test object and candidate tubes have been compared. Tubes of rubber, TFE-Teflon, Perspex, heatshrink and C-Flex have been tested le...

Thing is a robotic hand with three digits, a pronating opposable thumb, and a 2 D.O.F. wrist. Designed to more accurately model human hand positioning and grasping capabilities than previous models, Thing is controlled by a flex-sensor-equipped glove which relays the user’s finger positions by means of flex sensors. It will also, by time of publication, incorporate an image-processing system fo...