Thermoregulatory morphodynamics of honeybee swarm clusters

During reproductive swarming, honeybees clusters of more than 10,000 individuals that hang from structures in the environment (e.g., tree branches) are exposed to diurnal variations in ambient temperature for up to a week. Swarm clusters collectively modulate their morphology in response to these variations (i.e., expanding/contracting in response to heating/cooling) to maintain their internal temperature within a tolerable range and to avoid exhausting their honey stores prematurely. To understand the spatiotemporal aspects of thermoregulatory morphing, we measured the change in size, shape and internal temperature profiles of swarm clusters in response to dynamic temperature ramp perturbations. We see that swarm clusters show a two-fold variation in their volume/density when heated from 15°C to 30°C. However, they do not reach an equilibrium size or shape when held at 30°C for 5 hours, long after the core temperature of the cluster has stabilized. Furthermore, the changes in cluster shape and size are hysteretic, contracting in response to cooling faster than expanding in response to heating. Although the base contact diameter of the cluster increased continuously when the swarm is heated, the change in length of the swarm (base totip) over time is non-monotonic. Consequently, the aspect ratio of the swarm fluctuated continuously even when held at a constant temperature. Taken together, our results quantify the hysteretic and anisotropic morphological responses of swarm clusters to ambient temperature variations while suggesting that both mechanical constraints and heat transfer govern their thermoregulatory morphodynamics.

A Max-Margin Model for Predicting Residue—Base Contacts in Protein–RNA Interactions

Protein–RNA interactions (PRIs) are essential for many biological processes, so understanding aspects of the sequences and structures involved in PRIs is important for unraveling such processes. Because of the expensive and time-consuming techniques required for experimental determination of complex protein–RNA structures, various computational methods have been developed to predict PRIs. However, most of these methods focus on predicting only RNA-binding regions in proteins or only protein-binding motifs in RNA. Methods for predicting entire residue–base contacts in PRIs have not yet achieved sufficient accuracy. Furthermore, some of these methods require the identification of 3D structures or homologous sequences, which are not available for all protein and RNA sequences. Here, we propose a prediction method for predicting residue–base contacts between proteins and RNAs using only sequence information and structural information predicted from sequences. The method can be applied to any protein–RNA pair, even when rich information such as its 3D structure, is not available. In this method, residue–base contact prediction is formalized as an integer programming problem. We predict a residue–base contact map that maximizes a scoring function based on sequence-based features such as k-mers of sequences and the predicted secondary structure. The scoring function is trained using a max-margin framework from known PRIs with 3D structures. To verify our method, we conducted several computational experiments. The results suggest that our method, which is based on only sequence information, is comparable with RNA-binding residue prediction methods based on known binding data.

Contact Surfaces Preparation in Manufacturing of Bimetallic Strips CuZn10 Brass - C22E Steel - CuZn10 Brass

Contact surfaces preparation before cold cladding is one of the most important technological operations. A joint plastic components deformation of the of bimetal 1 according to OST 3-6648-91 and bimetal 3 according to OST 3-6649-91 CuZn10 brass - C22E steel - CuZn10 brass (according to EN standard) should be performed with the strongest possible compression to obtain the required layers connection strength, ensuring strip winding into a roll without delamination. We investigated influence of some factors on the bond strength of bimetal layers: surface hardening of contact surfaces, presence of an underlayer on a steel base, contact surfaces micro geometry, components heating temperature in the deformation zone, diffusion annealing after cladding and a bimetal layers thicknesses ratio effect. Cold cladding technological recommendations have been developed for manufacturing of bimetal 1 according to OST 3-6648-91 and bimetal 3 according to OST 3-6649-91 (CuZn10 brass - C22E steel - CuZn10 brass).

Landing gear hard impact: Preliminary study on optic monitoring system

With the prospective of developing an integrated monitoring system aimed at assessing whether a landing gear has experienced hard impact during the approach, a dedicated method is developed aimed at determining vertical speed by means of strain measurement via FBG strain sensors. Representative impacts on simple structural elements have been reproduced in laboratory, as aluminum slender beams of different lengths were dropped from given heights onto a steel plate base. Contact velocities have been estimated by deformations detection.