The putative transformation of a-helices into b-sheets has been studied for more than 50 years in the case of hard a-keratin. In a previous study of stretched keratin fibers, we specified the conditions for b-sheet appearance within horsehair: the formation of b-sheets requires at least 30% relative humidity. However, this phenomenon was observed in the whole tissue. Then there was no clear che...

Several human diseases are associated with the formation of amyloid aggregates, but experimental characterization of these amyloid fibrils and their oligomeric precursors has remained challenging. Experimental and computational analysis of simpler model systems has therefore been necessary, for instance, on the peptide fragment GNNQQNY7−13 of yeast prion protein Sup35p. Expanding on a previous ...

Droplets splash around when a fluid volume is quickly compressed. This phenomenon has been observed during common activities such as kids clapping with wet hands. The underlying mechanism involves a fluid volume being compressed vertically between two objects. This compression causes the fluid volume to be ejected radially and thereby generate fluid threads and droplets at a high speed. In this...

The auroral substorm is an organized sequence of events seen in the aurora near midnight. It is a manifestation of the magnetospheric substorm which is a disturbance of the magnetosphere brought about by the solar wind transfer of magnetic flux from the dayside to the tail lobes and its return through the plasma sheet to the dayside. The most dramatic feature of the auroral substorm is the sudd...

research rated 3a and 3b. A statement released by the council said, “The overall improvement in research ratings, combined with the limited amount of funds, means that there will inevitably be some reduction in levels of funding for departments rated below 5*.” Newby has estimated that an extra £200 million a year would have to be found if departments were to be funded on the same basis as befo...

Using a numerical implementation of the Cowley and Lockwood (1992) model of flow excitation in the magnetosphere–ionosphere (MI) system, we show that both an expanding (on a ∼12-min timescale) and a quasiinstantaneous response in ionospheric convection to the onset of magnetopause reconnection can be accommodated by the Cowley–Lockwood conceptual framework. This model has a key feature of time ...

BACKGROUND To evaluate the utility of expanding the number and precision of injury categories used in previous occupational mortality studies, this study reanalyzed data from four previous studies of unionized construction workers (construction laborers, ironworkers, sheet metal workers, and operating engineers), by expanding the number of injury categories from 6 to 33. METHODS Proportionate...

Title of Document: Analysis of the Initial Spray from Canonical Fire Suppression Nozzles Ning Ren, Master of Science, 2007 Directed By: Professor André Marshall, Department of Fire Protection Engineering The performance of a fire suppression spray is governed by injector discharge characteristics. An atomization model based on the theoretical evolution of a radially expanding sheet generated by...