open_access
Refine
Year of publication
- 2019 (25) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (25) (remove)
Keywords
- DOAJ (9)
- E-Elearning (1)
- Latin hypercube sampling (1)
- Mediation (1)
- Mental health (1)
- Older workers (1)
- Physical health (1)
- Physical work demands (1)
- Psychosocial work demands (1)
- aeroacoustics (1)
Department/institution
Actin droplet machine
(2019)
The actin droplet machine is a computer model of a three-dimensional network of actin bundles developed in a droplet of a physiological solution, which implements mappings of sets of binary strings. The actin bundle network is conductive to travelling excitations, i.e. impulses. The machine is interfaced with an arbitrary selected set of k electrodes through which stimuli, binary strings of length k represented by impulses generated on the electrodes, are applied and responses are recorded. The responses are recorded in a form of impulses and then converted to binary strings. The machine's state is a binary string of length k: if there is an impulse recorded on the ith electrode, there is a '1' in the ith position of the string, and '0' otherwise. We present a design of the machine and analyse its state transition graphs. We envisage that actin droplet machines could form an elementary processor of future massive parallel computers made from biopolymers.
Actin filaments are conductive to ionic currents, mechanical and voltage solitons. These travelling localisations can be utilised to generate computing circuits from actin networks. The propagation of localisations on a single actin filament is experimentally unfeasible to control. Therefore, we consider excitation waves propagating on bundles of actin filaments. In computational experiments with a two-dimensional slice of an actin bundle network we show that by using an arbitrary arrangement of electrodes, it is possible to implement two-inputs-one-output circuits.
In the present contribution, the utilization of steel-mill gases for an industrial methanol synthesis process is described. The focus of this work is on the influence of syngas compositions derived from steel-mill gases on an industrial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst. Elevated CO2 and H2O concentrations seem to have an irreversible impact on the activity of the catalyst. In order to obtain realistic gas composition for the catalyst tests, a process simulation of the methanol synthesis was conducted. The calculated gas compositions at the reactor inlet were applied in a practical test in order to evaluate the catalyst stability under steel mill gas conditions. No noticeable deactivation was observed.
Computational investigation of hemodynamics in hardshell venous reservoirs: A comparative study
(2019)
Extracorporeal circulation using heart‐lung‐machines is associated with a profound activation of corpuscular and plasmatic components of circulating blood, which can also lead to deleterious events such as systemic inflammatory response and hemolysis. Individual components used to install the extracorporeal circulation have an impact on the level of activation, most predominantly membrane oxygenators and hardshell venous reservoirs as used in extracorporeal systems. The blood flows in two different hardshell reservoirs are computationally investigated. A special emphasis is placed on the prediction of an onset of transition and turbulence generation. Reynolds‐averaged numerical simulations (RANS) based on a transitional turbulence model, as well as large eddy simulations (LES) are applied to achieve an accurate prediction. In the LES analysis, the non‐Newtonian behavior of the blood is considered via the Carreau model. Blood damage potential is quantified applying the Modified Index of Hemolysis (MIH) based on the predicted flow fields. The results indicate that the flows in both reservoirs remain predominantly laminar. For one of the reservoirs, considerable turbulence generation is observed near the exit site, caused by the specific design for the connection with the drainage tube. This difference causes the MIH of this reservoir to be nearly twice as large as compared to the alternative design. However, a substantial improvement of these performance criteria can be expected by a local geometry modification.
Rituals, such as gazing at faces, are common in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and appear in cognitive-behavioral models as a maintaining factor. Rituals are also common in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In contrast to OCD, the proposed associations between rituals and intrusive thoughts/appearance preoccupation have not been empirically investigated for BDD. We examined if the assumed effect of gazing rituals on attractiveness ratings exists and if it is associated with dissociation. In an experiment, we asked N = 65 non-clinical females to focus on the nose of a photographed face at pre- and post-test. In between, participants gazed at the nose of either the same (relevant gazing) or another face (irrelevant gazing). We found increasing dissociation after gazing in both conditions and a differentially stronger decrease of attractiveness ratings in the relevant gazing condition. Our findings support the hypothesized effect of gazing rituals on attractiveness evaluation in cognitive-behavioral models for BDD.
Der Beitrag stellt am Beispiel von studentischen Projekt- und Praxisarbeiten aus den bibliothekswissenschaftlichen Studiengängen der TH Köln Möglichkeiten der Erstellung von E-Learning-Angeboten vor, die sich in kurzer Zeit und ohne finanzielles Budget realisieren lassen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf unkonventionellen Darstellungsformen wie bspw. Comic-artigen Animationsfilmen oder der Präsentation bibliothekarischer Inhalte nach dem Modell von „Sommers Weltliteratur“. Der Beitrag möchte Bibliotheken dazu anregen, im Kontext des E-Learning mit neuen Formaten zu experimentieren, die dazu beitragen können, die Attraktivität der bibliothekarischen Angebote zu erhöhen und die sich gleichzeitig mit geringem zeitlichem und finanziellem Aufwand realisieren lassen.
Music listening has become a highly individualized activity with smartphones and music streaming services providing listeners with absolute freedom to listen to any kind of music in any situation. Until now, little has been written about the processes underlying the selection of music in daily life. The present study aimed to disentangle some of the complex processes among the listener, situation, and functions of music listening involved in music selection. Utilizing the experience sampling method, data were collected from 119 participants using a smartphone application. For 10 consecutive days, participants received 14 prompts using stratified-random sampling throughout the day and reported on their music-listening behavior. Statistical learning procedures on multilevel regression models and multilevel structural equation modeling were used to determine the most important predictors and analyze mediation processes between person, situation, functions of listening, and music selection. Results revealed that the features of music selected in daily life were predominantly determined by situational characteristics, whereas consistent individual differences were of minor importance. Functions of music listening were found to act as a mediator between characteristics of the situation and music-selection behavior. We further observed several significant random effects, which indicated that individuals differed in how situational variables affected their music selection behavior. Our findings suggest a need to shift the focus of music-listening research from individual differences to situational influences, including potential person-situation interactions.