Xuzhou Institute of Technology

About: Xuzhou Institute of Technology is a education organization based out in Xuzhou, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Adsorption. The organization has 1696 authors who have published 1521 publications receiving 13541 citations.

An approximate hybrid approach to maintenance optimisation for a system with multistate components

Abstract: The maintenance optimisation of a system with multistate components is a research topic with practical significance. When the dependence among the components is considered, the state of the system becomes the combinations of the states of components. The commonly used Markovian analysis is then not practical for the large system state space. This paper developed an approximate approach to perform the steady-state analysis of the system. The developed method is combined with the simulation-based method to optimise the maintenance strategy of a system with multistate components. The numerical study shows that the steady-state analysis results of the developed approximate method are close to that of the simulation-based method, though the approximate method is much more efficient than the simulation-based method. More importantly, the errors introduced by the approximate approach decrease with the number of components in the system. The numerical study also shows that the hybrid method of maintenance optimisation can find a balance between the efficiency and accuracy.

Mechanism of Uncoupled Carbocyclization and Epimerization Catalyzed by Two Non-Heme Iron/α-Ketoglutarate Dependent Enzymes.

Abstract: The non-heme iron/α-ketoglutarate dependent enzymes SnoK and SnoN from Streptomyces nogalater are involved in the biosynthesis of anthracycline nogalamycin. Although they have similar active sites, SnoK is responsible for carbocyclization whereas SnoN solely catalyzes the hydroxyl epimerization. Herein, we performed docking, molecular simulations, and a series of combined quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations to illuminate the mechanisms of two enzymes. The catalytic reactions of two enzymes occur on the quintet state surface. For SnoK, the whole reaction includes two separated hydrogen-abstraction steps and one radical addition, and the latter step is calculated to be rate limiting with an energy barrier of 21.7 kcal/mol. Residue D106 is confirmed to participate in the construction of the hydrogen bond network, which plays a crucial role in positioning the bulky substrate in a specific orientation. Moreover, it is found that SnoN is only responsible for the hydrogen abstraction of the intermediate, and no residue was suggested to be suitable for donating a hydrogen atom to the substrate radical, which further confirms the suggestion based on experiments that either a cellular reductant or another enzyme protein could donate a hydrogen atom to the substrate. Our docking results coincide with the previous structural study that the different roles of two enzymes are achieved by minor changes in the alignment of the substrates in front of the reactive ferryl-oxo species. This work highlights the reaction mechanisms catalyzed by SnoK and SnoN, which is helpful for engineering the enzymes for the biosynthesis of anthracycline nogalamycin.

Modified Bishop method for stability analysis of weakly sloped subgrade under centrifuge model test

Abstract: The sliding forms of weak sloped and horizontal subgrades during the sliding process differ. In addition, the sliding form of weakly sloped subgrades exhibits considerable slippage and asymmetry. The accuracy of traditional slice methods for computing the stability safety factor of weakly sloped subgrades is insufficient for a subgrade design. In this study, a novel modified Bishop method was developed to improve the accuracy of the stability safety factor for different inclination angles. The instability mechanism of the weakly sloped subgrade was considered in the proposed method using the “influential force” and “additional force” concepts. The “additional force” reflected the weight effect of the embankment fill, whereas the “influential force” reflected the effect of the potential energy difference. Numerical simulations and experimental tests were conducted to evaluate the advantages of the proposed modified Bishop method. Compared with the traditional slice method, the error between the proposed method and the exact value is less than 32.3% in calculating the safety factor.