Abstract: An online cleaning system for tube and shell heat exchangers is presented. The system includes a positioner, a plunger, an umbilical cleaner, and a motor. The cleaning system cleans the tubes while the heat exchanger remains in operation. The cleaning system locates and isolates a single tube via rotating and translating mechanical actions and inserts the umbilical cleaner into the tube, which may clean the tube via rotational movement or via sonication. The cleaning system may further clean the outer surface of the tubes of the heat exchanger.

Abstract: A low-power, compact piezoelectric particle emitter for emitting particles such as X-rays and neutrons. A piezoelectric transformer crystal receives an input voltage at an input end and generates a higher output voltage at an output electrode disposed at an output end. The emitter is in a vacuum and the output voltage creates an electric field. A charged particle source is positioned relative a target such that charged particles from the charged particle source are accelerated by the electric field toward the target. Interaction between the accelerated charged particles and the target causes one of X-rays and neutrons to be emitted.

Abstract: Lipidated glycosaminoglycan particles, prepared by reacting a glycosaminoglycan with at least one lipid to cross-link the carboxylic acid groups in the glycosaminoglycan with a primary amine in the lipid, are used to encapsulate drugs for use in the treatment of pathological conditions in an animal.

Abstract: An opto-electronic sensor may provide one or more layers of atomically layered photo-sensitive materials. The sensor may include a gate electrode layer, a dielectric layer in contact with the gate electrode layer, and a working media layer that is photo-sensitive deposited on the dielectric layer. The working media layer may provide one or more layers of one or more materials where each of the one or more layers is an atomic layer. The sensor may also include side electrodes in contact with the working media layer.

Abstract: Disclosed are devices, systems, apparatus, methods, products, and other implementations, including a method that includes receiving a block of information from non-processor memory at an interface between the non-processor memory and processor memory comprising two or more processor memory levels, determining whether the block of information received from the non-processor memory at the interface corresponds to encrypted instruction code, and decrypting the block of information at the interface between the non-processor memory and the processor memory for storage in one of the two or more levels of the processor memory in response to a determination that the received block of information corresponds to the encrypted instruction code. The block of information is stored at the one of the two or more levels of the processor memory without being decrypted when the received block of information is determined to correspond to data.

Abstract: Polymeric ionic liquids, methods of making and methods of using the same are disclosed.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a method for preparing ultrathin silver nanowires. It may comprise (a) dissolving a silver salt (Ag salt) and a capping agent in a reducing solvent to give a mixture solution; (b) adding a halide compound to the mixture solution to yield a silver seed; (c) heating the mixture solution and then allowing the heated mixture solution to grow ultrathin silver nanowires from the silver seed under a pressure in an inert gas atmosphere; and (d) cooling the mixture solution in which the ultrathin silver nanowires have grown, followed by purification and separation to obtain the ultrathin silver nanowires. The silver nanowires are restrained from growing in thickness under a certain pressure, so that they are 30 nm or less in thickness and have a narrow diameter distribution, which leads to an improvement in aspect ratio.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a recombinant microorganism metabolizing 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose and a use thereof, and, more particularly, can produce ethanol from a recombinant microorganism expressing an enzyme group involved in a metabolic pathway of 3,6-AHG.

Abstract: The present invention discloses a method for fabricating a quasi-SOI source/drain field effect transistor device, which comprises the steps of forming an active region of the device; forming a gate stack structure of the device; doping a source/drain extension region, and forming a first layer of side wall at two sides of the gate stack structure; forming a recessed source/drain structure; forming a quasi-SOI source/drain isolation layer; in-situ doping an epitaxial second semiconductor material source/drain, and activating by annealing; removing the previous dummy gate and re-depositing a high-k metal gate, if a post-gate process is employed; and forming contacts and metal interconnections.

Abstract: Modified PYR/PYL receptors activated by orthogonal ligands are provided.

Abstract: Described herein are compositions and methods which produce hydrolytically stable resin monomers, bioactive fillers, phosphorus coupling agent and surface coating method, which can be combined to produce new generation dental composites; compositions comprising the same, as well as methods of making and using the same are also described.

Abstract: Recommendation systems are widely used in Internet applications. In current recommendation systems, users only play a passive role and have limited control over the recommendation generation process. As a result, there is often considerable mismatch between the recommendations made by these systems and the actual user interests, which are fine-grained and constantly evolving. With a user-powered distributed recommendation architecture, individual users can flexibly define fine-grained communities of interest in a declarative fashion and obtain recommendations accurately tailored to their interests by aggregating opinions of users in such communities. By combining a progressive sampling technique with data perturbation methods, the recommendation system is both scalable and privacy-preserving.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides stimuli-responsive magnetic nanoparticles, methods of making the magnetic nano-particles, and methods of using the magnetic nanoparticles. The magnetic nanoparticles include a metal oxide core; and a shell that includes a stimuli-responsive polymer having a terminal group that directly coordinates to the metal oxide core. The stimuli-responsive polymer does not include a micelle-forming group, at least at a proximal terminus of the polymer, with respect to the metal oxide core.

Abstract: Compounds and methods of inhibiting corrosion of mild steel. Compounds disclosed herein are cationic and contain multiple functional motifs such as propargyl, cinnamaldehyde, isoxazolidine and hydrophobe. These compounds are found to be effective in inhibiting mild steel corrosion in HCl, H2SO4, NaCl and CO2-saturated environments.

Abstract: A method of screening a blood sample for the presence of prions. The method includes the steps of collecting the blood sample in heparin, contacting the sample with a solution comprising recombinant prion protein (rPrP) and Thioflavin T (ThT), and measuring the resulting ThT fluorescence in the sample. The method can further include the step of freezing and thawing the sample prior to contacting the sample with a solution comprising recombinant prion protein (rPrP) and Thioflavin T (ThT). The method can also include the step of precipitating the prions in sodium phosphotungstic acid (NaPTA) prior to contacting the sample with a solution comprising recombinant prion protein (rPrP) and Thioflavin T (ThT).

Abstract: A battery charging and discharging apparatus includes power converters connected in series and configured to convert respective output voltages of batteries corresponding to the power converters. Each of the power converters may include direct current to direct current (DC/DC) converters connected in parallel. The apparatus may further include a controller configured to control magnitudes of respective output voltages of the power converters based on respective states of the batteries.

Abstract: This invention provides a fusion protein comprising a signal peptide, an extracellular domain of human Notch receptor protein and an Fc portion of an antibody bound thereto. This invention also provides a method for treating a subject having a tumor, a method for inhibiting angiogenesis in a subject, a method for treating a subject having ovarian cancer, and a method for treating a subject having a metabolic disorder, comprising administering to the subject an amount of the above fusion protein effective to treat the subject. This invention further provides uses of the above fusion protein for the preparation of a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of a subject having a tumor, for inhibiting angiogenesis in a subject, for treating a subject having ovarian cancer, and for treating a subject having a metabolic disorder.

Abstract: Compositions, methods and systems are provided that enable light-controlled hybridization between two nucleic acid sequences and further enable the characterization of one or more sequence variations between the nucleic acids.

Abstract: A catalyst system and a process for methanol to light olefin conversion with enhanced selectivity towards propylene. The catalyst system comprises a honeycomb monolith catalyst support coated with nanozeolite catalysts on the edges and inside the channels of the support structure. The nanozeolite catalysts have been pre-modified with metal. The catalyst system gives higher hydrothermal stability to the catalyst compared to randomly packed pellet catalyst and allows methanol to be converted to predominantly propylene at a low temperature, with decreased selectivity towards C2, higher olefins and paraffinic hydrocarbons.

Abstract: A method for making a low-alkali fly ash cement includes forming a mixture of class C fly ash and an aqueous solution and forming low-alkali fly ash cement from the mixture. The aqueous solution has an alkali at a molar concentration between about 0.002 M and about 2 M. A low-alkali fly ash cement includes class C fly ash and an alkali activating agent. The low-alkali fly ash cement contains between about 3×10?4 wt % alkali activating agent and about 2 wt % alkali activating agent. A method for making fly ash cement includes forming a mixture of class C fly ash and water, wet pressing the mixture and forming fly ash cement from the mixture by curing the mixture at a temperature between about 60° C. and about 90° C.