Mine Blast Algorithm (MBA) is newly developed metaheuristic technique. It has outperformed Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and their variants when solving various engineering optimization problems. MBA has been improved by IMBA, which is modified in this paper to accelerate its convergence speed furthermore. The proposed variant, so called Accelerated MBA (AMBA), repla...

In this work, hydrogel nanocomposites were synthesized by solution polymerization of acrylic acid (AA) and itaconic acid (IA) in the presence of cotton fabric. Ammonium persulfate (APS) was used as the polymerization initiator in the presence of a crosslinker, methylene bisacrylamide (MBA). Insertion of Ag followed by reduction of Ag+ cations results in a hydrogel nanocomposite. The ...

We study the Maximum Budgeted Allocation problem, which is the problem of assigning indivisible items to players with budget constraints. In its most general form, an instance of the MBA problem might include many different prices for the same item among different players, and different budget constraints for every player. So far, the best approximation algorithms we know for the MBA problem ac...

Phenylboronic acids can form tight covalent bonds with diol-containing biomolecules. In this work, water-dispersed bifunctional gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) modified with ferrecene (Fc)-derivatized peptides and 4-mercaptophenylboronic acids (MBA) (denoted as Fc-MBA-AuNPs) were synthesized and characterized by UV/vis spectrometry and transmission electron microscopy. To demonstrate the application...

BACKGROUND The laboratory diagnosis of botulism in horses traditionally has relied upon the mouse bioassay (MBA). The accuracy of this test for the diagnosis of botulism in horses is unknown. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES Our goal was to determine the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the MBA on laboratory-processed fecal and gastrointestinal sample...

A PCR assay, using three primer pairs, was developed for the detection of Ureaplasma urealyticum, parvo biovar, mba types 1, 3, and 6, in cultured clinical specimens. The primer pairs were designed by using the polymorphic base positions within a 310- to 311-bp fragment of the 5' end and upstream control region of the mba gene. The specificity of the assay was confirmed with reference serovars ...

Long-term neuroprostheses for functional electrical stimulation must efficiently stimulate tissue without electrolyzing water and raising the extracellular pH to toxic levels. Comparison of the stimulation efficiency of tungsten wire electrodes (W wires), platinum microelectrode arrays (PtMEA), as-grown vertically aligned carbon nanofiber microbrush arrays (VACNF MBAs), and polypyrrole coated (...

Thermosensitive polymer hydrogel particles with size varying from 480 to 620 nm were prepared through precipitation copolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide with N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) in water with ammonium persulfate as the initiator. Only polymer hydrogels without any coagula were obtained when MBA concentration in the monomer mixture was kept between 2.5 and 10.0 wt%; with incre...

BACKGROUND Megaloblastic anemia (MBA), also known as macrocytic anemia, is a type of anemia characterized by decreased number of RBCs as well as the presence of unusually large, abnormal and poorly developed erythrocytes (megaloblasts), which fail to enter blood circulation due to their larger size. Lack of vitamin-B12 (VB12) and / or folate (Vitamin-B9, VB9) with elevated homocysteine is the k...

Suma Thomas, MD, MBA; Divyang Patel, MS; Barbara Bittel, BSN, RN; Kathy Wolski, MPH; Qiuqing Wang, Anirudh Kumar, Zachary J. Il’Giovine, MD; Reena Mehra, Carla McWilliams, Steve E. Nissen, Milind Y. Desai, MBA