Three-way junctions (3H) are the simplest and most commonly occurring branched nucleic acids. They consist of three double helical arms (A to C), connected at the junction point, with or without a number of unpaired bases in one or more of the three different strands. Three-way junctions with two unpaired bases in one strand (3HS2) have a high tendency to adopt either of two alternative stacked...

The paper illustrates the application of a combined adaptive particle swarm optimization (A-PSO) algorithm and the finite strip method (FSM) to the lay-up optimization of symmetrically fiber-metal laminated (FML) composite shallow shell panels for maximizing the fundamental frequency. To improve the speed of the optimization process, adaptive inertia weight was used in the particle swarm optimiz...

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is regarded as a suitable material for large, high-precision reflectors (mirrors) used in high-resolution space observatories because of its high specific elasticity and low coefficient thermal expansion. However, it was made clear that non-negligible out-of-plane deformation generated CFRP orientation errors occurring during manufacturing. In this study, ...

2D layered materials have recently attracted tremendous interest due to their fascinating properties and potential applications. The interlayer interactions are much weaker than the intralayer bonds, allowing the as-synthesized materials to exhibit different stacking sequences, leading to different physical properties. Here, we show that regardless of the space group of the 2D materials, the Ra...

Pb2Bi2Te5: a layered chalcogenide with thermoelectric figure of merit strongly affected by the change in stacking sequence.

The self-organization of three dimensional quantum dot superlattices that spontaneously form during heteroepitaxial growth is investigated by using a three dimensional kinetic model. The model predictions show that the multilayer arrays of quantum dots can be fully or partially aligned vertically, or completely misaligned with respect to the buried islands, depending on the thickness of the spa...

We suggest modified bi-level approach for finding the best stacking sequence of laminated composite structures subject to mechanical, blending and manufacturing constraints. We propose to use both the number of plies laid up at predefined angles and lamination parameters as independent variables at outer (global) stage of bi-level scheme aimed to satisfy buckling, strain and percentage constrai...

Two factors are mainly responsible for the stability of the DNA double helix: base pairing between complementary strands and stacking between adjacent bases. By studying DNA molecules with solitary nicks and gaps we measure temperature and salt dependence of the stacking free energy of the DNA double helix. For the first time, DNA stacking parameters are obtained directly (without extrapolation...