Search results for: Chemical Processing Facility

Authors: R. S. Giraddi, C. M. Poleshi

Abstract:

Organic cultivation of crops is gaining importance consumer awareness towards pesticide residue free foodstuffs is increasing globally. This is also because of high costs of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, making the conventional farming non-remunerative. In India, organic manures (such as vermicompost) are an important input in organic agriculture.  Though vermicompost obtained through earthworm and microbe-mediated processes is known to comprise most of the crop nutrients, but they are in small amounts thus necessitating enrichment of nutrients so that crop nourishment is complete. Another characteristic of organic manures is that the pest infestations are kept under check due to induced resistance put up by the crop plants. In the present investigation, deoiled neem cake containing azadirachtin, copper ore tailings (COT), a source of micro-nutrients and microbial consortia were added for enrichment of vermicompost. Neem cake is a by-product obtained during the process of oil extraction from neem plant seeds. Three enriched vermicompost blends were prepared using vermicompost (at 70, 65 and 60%), deoiled neem cake (25, 30 and 35%), microbial consortia and COTwastes (5%). Enriched vermicompost was thoroughly mixed, moistened (25+5%), packed and incubated for 15 days at room temperature. In the crop response studies, the field trials on chili (Capsicum annum var. longum) and soybean, (Glycine max cv JS 335) were conducted during Kharif 2015 at the Main Agricultural Research Station, UAS, Dharwad-Karnataka, India. The vermicompost blend enriched with neem cake (known to possess higher amounts of nutrients) and vermicompost were applied to the crops and at two dosages and at two intervals of crop cycle (at sowing and 30 days after sowing) as per the treatment plan along with 50% recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF). 10 plants selected randomly in each plot were studied for pest density and plant damage. At maturity, crops were harvested, and the yields were recorded as per the treatments, and the data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tools and procedures. In the crops, chili and soybean, crop nourishment with neem enriched vermicompost reduced insect density and plant damage significantly compared to other treatments. These treatments registered as much yield (16.7 to 19.9 q/ha) as that realized in conventional chemical control (18.2 q/ha) in soybean, while 72 to 77 q/ha of green chili was harvested in the same treatments, being comparable to the chemical control (74 q/ha). The yield superiority of the treatments was of the order neem enriched vermicompost>conventional chemical control>neem cake>vermicompost>untreated control.  The significant features of the result are that it reduces use of inorganic manures by 50% and synthetic chemical insecticides by 100%.

Keywords: Humic acid, azadirachtin, vermicompost, insect-pest.

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Authors: C. Lodato, S. Lopes

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The image segmentation method described in this paper has been developed as a pre-processing stage to be used in methodologies and tools for video/image indexing and retrieval by content. This method solves the problem of whole objects extraction from background and it produces images of single complete objects from videos or photos. The extracted images are used for calculating the object visual features necessary for both indexing and retrieval processes. The segmentation algorithm is based on the cooperation among an optical flow evaluation method, edge detection and region growing procedures. The optical flow estimator belongs to the class of differential methods. It permits to detect motions ranging from a fraction of a pixel to a few pixels per frame, achieving good results in presence of noise without the need of a filtering pre-processing stage and includes a specialised model for moving object detection. The first task of the presented method exploits the cues from motion analysis for moving areas detection. Objects and background are then refined using respectively edge detection and seeded region growing procedures. All the tasks are iteratively performed until objects and background are completely resolved. The method has been applied to a variety of indoor and outdoor scenes where objects of different type and shape are represented on variously textured background.

Keywords: Image Segmentation, Motion Detection, Object Extraction, Optical Flow

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Authors: A. H. Kheireddine, A. A. Khalil, A. H. Ammouri, G. T. Kridli, R. F. Hamade

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Solidification cracking and hydrogen cracking are some defects generated in the fusion welding of ultrahigh carbon steels. However, friction stir welding (FSW) of such steels, being a solid-state technique, has been demonstrated to alleviate such problems encountered in traditional welding. FSW include different process parameters that must be carefully defined prior processing. These parameters included but not restricted to: tool feed, tool RPM, tool geometry, tool tilt angle. These parameters form a key factor behind avoiding warm holes and voids behind the tool and in achieving a defect-free weld. More importantly, these parameters directly affect the microstructure of the weld and hence the final mechanical properties of weld. For that, 3D finite element (FE) thermo-mechanical model was developed using DEFORM 3D to simulate FSW of carbon steel. At points of interest in the joint, tracking is done for history of critical state variables such as temperature, stresses, and strain rates. Typical results found include the ability to simulate different weld zones. Simulations predictions were successfully compared to experimental FSW tests. It is believed that such a numerical model can be used to optimize FSW processing parameters to favor desirable defect free weld with better mechanical properties.

Keywords: Carbon Steels, DEFORM 3D, FEM, Friction stir welding.

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Authors: Qais M. Yousef, Yasmeen A. Alshaer

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Over the last few years, the amount of data available on the globe has been increased rapidly. This came up with the emergence of recent concepts, such as the big data and the Internet of Things, which have furnished a suitable solution for the availability of data all over the world. However, managing this massive amount of data remains a challenge due to their large verity of types and distribution. Therefore, locating the required file particularly from the first trial turned to be a not easy task, due to the large similarities of names for different files distributed on the web. Consequently, the accuracy and speed of search have been negatively affected. This work presents a method using Electroencephalography signals to locate the files based on their contents. Giving the concept of natural mind waves processing, this work analyses the mind wave signals of different people, analyzing them and extracting their most appropriate features using multi-objective metaheuristic algorithm, and then classifying them using artificial neural network to distinguish among files with similar names. The aim of this work is to provide the ability to find the files based on their contents using human thoughts only. Implementing this approach and testing it on real people proved its ability to find the desired files accurately within noticeably shorter time and retrieve them as a first choice for the user.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, data contents search, human active memory, mind wave, multi-objective optimization.

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Authors: Jamal S. Yassin

Abstract:

This paper is to formulate a mathematical model to predict the amounts of the emissions produced from the combustion process of the gas turbine unit of the jet engine. These emissions have bad impacts on the environment if they are out of standards, which cause real threats to all type of life on the earth. The amounts of the emissions from the gas turbine engine are functions to many operational and design factors. In landing-takeoff (LTO) these amounts are not the same as in taxi or cruise of the plane using jet engines, because of the difference in the activity period during these operating modes. These emissions can be affected by several physical and chemical variables, such as fuel type, fuel to air ratio or equivalence ratio, flame temperature, combustion pressure, in addition to some inlet conditions such as ambient temperature and air humidity. To study the influence of these variables on the amounts of these emissions during the combustion process in the gas turbine unit, a computer program has been developed by using the visual basic 6 software. Here, the analysis of the combustion process is carried out by considering it as a chemical reaction with shifting equilibrium to find the products of the combustion of the octane fuel, at different equivalence ratios, compressor pressure ratios (CPR) and combustion temperatures. The results obtained have shown that there is noticeable influence of the equivalence ratio, CPR, and the combustion temperature on the amounts of the main emissions which are considered pollutants, such as CO, CO₂ and NO.

Keywords: Mathematical model, gas turbine unit, equivalence ratio, emissions, shifting equilibrium.

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Authors: Hazem M. El-Bakry

Abstract:

In this paper, a new technique for fast painting with different colors is presented. The idea of painting relies on applying masks with different colors to the background. Fast painting is achieved by applying these masks in the frequency domain instead of spatial (time) domain. New colors can be generated automatically as a result from the cross correlation operation. This idea was applied successfully for faster specific data (face, object, pattern, and code) detection using neural algorithms. Here, instead of performing cross correlation between the input input data (e.g., image, or a stream of sequential data) and the weights of neural networks, the cross correlation is performed between the colored masks and the background. Furthermore, this approach is developed to reduce the computation steps required by the painting operation. The principle of divide and conquer strategy is applied through background decomposition. Each background is divided into small in size subbackgrounds and then each sub-background is processed separately by using a single faster painting algorithm. Moreover, the fastest painting is achieved by using parallel processing techniques to paint the resulting sub-backgrounds using the same number of faster painting algorithms. In contrast to using only faster painting algorithm, the speed up ratio is increased with the size of the background when using faster painting algorithm and background decomposition. Simulation results show that painting in the frequency domain is faster than that in the spatial domain.

Keywords: Fast Painting, Cross Correlation, Frequency Domain, Parallel Processing

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Authors: M. Sivakumar, D. Chamundeeswari

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Glycosmis pentaphylla is one of the medicinally important plants belonging to the family Rutaceae, commonly known as “Anam or Panal” in Tamil. Traditionally, leaves are useful in fever, hepatopathy, eczema, skin disease, helminthiasis, wounds, and erysipelas. The fruits are sweet and are useful in vitiated conditions of vata, kapha, cough, and bronchitis. The roots are good for facial inflammations, rheumatism, jaundice, and anemia. The preliminary phytochemical investigations indicated the presence of alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, tannins, sugar, glycoside, and phenolic compounds. In the present study, the root part of Glycosmis pentaphylla was used, and the root was collected from Western Ghats of South India. The root was sun/shade dried and pulverized to powder in a mechanical grinder. The powder was successively extracted with various solvents, and the ethyl acetate extract of Glycosmis pentaphylla has been subjected to the GC-MS analysis. Amongst the 46 chemical constituents identified from this plant, three major phytoconstituents were reported for the first time. Marmesin, a furanocumarin compound with the chemical structure 7H-Furo (3,2-G) (1)Benzopyran-7-one,2,3–dihydro–2 - (1-Hydroxy-1methylethyl)-(s) is one of the three compounds identified for the first time at the concentration of 11-60% in ethyl acetate extract of Glycosmis pentaphylla. Others include, Beta.-Fagarine (4.71%) and Paverine (13.08%).

Keywords: Ethyl acetate extract, Glycosmis pentaphylla, GC-MS analysis, phytochemicals.

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Authors: Jiménez Villanueva Mayra Alejandra, Ortíz Casallas Diana Carolina, Luengas Contreras Lely Adriana

Abstract:

This document details the process of developing a wireless device that captures the basic movements of the foot (plantar flexion, dorsal flexion, abduction, adduction.), and the knee movement (flexion). It implements a motion capture system by using a hardware based on optical fiber sensors, due to the advantages in terms of scope, noise immunity and speed of data transmission and reception. The operating principle used by this system is the detection and transmission of joint movement by mechanical elements and their respective measurement by optical ones (in this case infrared). Likewise, Visual Basic software is used for reception, analysis and signal processing of data acquired by the device, generating a 3D graphical representation in real time of each movement. The result is a boot in charge of capturing the movement, a transmission module (Implementing Xbee Technology) and a receiver module for receiving information and sending it to the PC for their respective processing. The main idea with this device is to help on topics such as bioengineering and medicine, by helping to improve the quality of life and movement analysis.

Keywords: abduction, adduction, A / D converter, Autodesk 3DMax, Infrared Diode, Driver, extension, flexion, Infrared LEDs, Interface, Modeling OPENGL, Optical Fiber, USB CDC(Communications Device Class), Virtual Reality.

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Authors: M. Ahmadi, M. Kafil, H. Ebrahimi

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Nowadays, induction motors have a significant role in industries. Condition monitoring (CM) of this equipment has gained a remarkable importance during recent years due to huge production losses, substantial imposed costs and increases in vulnerability, risk, and uncertainty levels. Motor current signature analysis (MCSA) is one of the most important techniques in CM. This method can be used for rotor broken bars detection. Signal processing methods such as Fast Fourier transformation (FFT), Wavelet transformation and Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) are used for analyzing MCSA output data. In this study, these signal processing methods are used for broken bar problem detection of Mobarakeh steel company induction motors. Based on wavelet transformation method, an index for fault detection, CF, is introduced which is the variation of maximum to the mean of wavelet transformation coefficients. We find that, in the broken bar condition, the amount of CF factor is greater than the healthy condition. Based on EMD method, the energy of intrinsic mode functions (IMF) is calculated and finds that when motor bars become broken the energy of IMFs increases.

Keywords: Broken bar, condition monitoring, diagnostics, empirical mode decomposition, Fourier transform, wavelet transform.

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Authors: S. Techaoei, K. Jarmkom, P. Eakwaropas, W. Khobjai

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The objective of this research was focused on investigating in vitro antimicrobial activity of Phellinus linteus fruiting body extracts on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Phellinus linteus fruiting body was extracted with ethanol and ethyl acetate and was vaporized. The disc diffusion assay was used to assess antimicrobial activity against tested bacterial strains. Primary screening of chemical profile of crude extract was determined by using thin layer chromatography. The positive control and the negative control were used as erythromycin and dimethyl sulfoxide, respectively. Initial screening of Phellinus linteus crude extract with the disc diffusion assay demonstrated that only ethanol had greater antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The MIC assay showed that the lower MIC was observed with 0.5 mg/ml of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and 0.25 mg/ml. of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. TLC chemical profile of extract was represented at R_f ≈ 0.71-0.76.

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus, Phellinus linteus, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, antimicrobial activity, Escherichia coli.

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Authors: Yao-Tien Wang, Hsiang-Fu Yu, Dung Chen Chiou

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In wireless and mobile communications, this progress provides opportunities for introducing new standards and improving existing services. Supporting multimedia traffic with wireless networks quality of service (QoS). In this paper, a grey-fuzzy controller for radio resource management (GF-RRM) is presented to maximize the number of the served calls and QoS provision in wireless networks. In a wireless network, the call arrival rate, the call duration and the communication overhead between the base stations and the control center are vague and uncertain. In this paper, we develop a method to predict the cell load and to solve the RRM problem based on the GF-RRM, and support the present facility has been built on the application-level of the wireless networks. The GF-RRM exhibits the better adaptability, fault-tolerant capability and performance than other algorithms. Through simulations, we evaluate the blocking rate, update overhead, and channel acquisition delay time of the proposed method. The results demonstrate our algorithm has the lower blocking rate, less updated overhead, and shorter channel acquisition delay.

Keywords: radio resource management, grey prediction, fuzzylogic control, wireless networks, quality of service.

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Authors: Maryam Vafadar, Alireza Behrad, Saeed Akbari

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Nowadays, with the emerging of the new applications like robot control in image processing, artificial vision for visual servoing is a rapidly growing discipline and Human-machine interaction plays a significant role for controlling the robot. This paper presents a new algorithm based on spatio-temporal volumes for visual servoing aims to control robots. In this algorithm, after applying necessary pre-processing on video frames, a spatio-temporal volume is constructed for each gesture and feature vector is extracted. These volumes are then analyzed for matching in two consecutive stages. For hand gesture recognition and classification we tested different classifiers including k-Nearest neighbor, learning vector quantization and back propagation neural networks. We tested the proposed algorithm with the collected data set and results showed the correct gesture recognition rate of 99.58 percent. We also tested the algorithm with noisy images and algorithm showed the correct recognition rate of 97.92 percent in noisy images.

Keywords: Back propagation neural network, Feature vector, Hand gesture recognition, k-Nearest Neighbor, Learning vector quantization neural network, Robot control, Spatio-temporal volume, Visual servoing

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Authors: Nafe Moradkhani, Frederick Benaben, Benoit Montreuil, Ali Vatankhah Barenji, Dima Nazzal

Abstract:

In the context of the global pandemic, the practical management of the 2020 presidential election in the USA was a strong concern. To anticipate and prepare for this election accurately, one of the main challenges was to confront: (i) forecasts of voter turnout, (ii) capacities of the facilities and, (iii) potential configuration options of resources. The approach chosen to conduct this anticipative study consists of collecting data about forecasts and using simulation models to work simultaneously on resource allocation and facility configuration of polling places in Fulton County, Georgia’s largest county. This article presents the results of the simulations of such places facing pre-identified potential risks. These results are oriented towards the efficiency of these places according to different criteria (health, trust, comfort). Then a dynamic framework is introduced to describe risks as physical forces perturbing the efficiency of the observed system. Finally, the main benefits and contributions resulting from this simulation campaign are presented.

Keywords: performance, decision support, simulation, artificial intelligence, risk management, election, pandemics, information system

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Authors: Martin Lisý, Marek Baláš, Michal Špiláček, Zdeněk Skála

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This paper deals with the issue of biomass and sorted municipal waste gasification and cogeneration using hot-air turbo-set. It brings description of designed pilot plant with electrical output 80 kWe. The generated gas is burned in secondary combustion chamber located beyond the gas generator. Flue gas flows through the heat exchanger where the compressed air is heated and consequently brought to a micro turbine. Except description, this paper brings our basic experiences from operating of pilot plant (operating parameters, contributions, problems during operating, etc.). The principal advantage of the given cycle is the fact that there is no contact between the generated gas and the turbine. So there is no need for costly and complicated gas cleaning which is the main source of operating problems in direct use in combustion engines because the content of impurities in the gas causes operation problems to the units due to clogging and tarring of working surfaces of engines and turbines, which may lead as far as serious damage to the equipment under operation. Another merit is the compact container package making installation of the facility easier or making it relatively more mobile. We imagine, this solution of cogeneration from biomass or waste can be suitable for small industrial or communal applications, for low output cogeneration.

Keywords: Biomass, combustion, gasification, microcogeneration.

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Authors: Gaetano Zazzaro, Angelo Martone, Roberto V. Montaquila, Luigi Pavone

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Seizure is the main factor that affects the quality of life of epileptic patients. The diagnosis of epilepsy, and hence the identification of epileptogenic zone, is commonly made by using continuous Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal monitoring. Seizure identification on EEG signals is made manually by epileptologists and this process is usually very long and error prone. The aim of this paper is to describe an automated method able to detect seizures in EEG signals, using knowledge discovery in database process and data mining methods and algorithms, which can support physicians during the seizure detection process. Our detection method is based on Artificial Neural Network classifier, trained by applying the multilayer perceptron algorithm, and by using a software application, called Training Builder that has been developed for the massive extraction of features from EEG signals. This tool is able to cover all the data preparation steps ranging from signal processing to data analysis techniques, including the sliding window paradigm, the dimensionality reduction algorithms, information theory, and feature selection measures. The final model shows excellent performances, reaching an accuracy of over 99% during tests on data of a single patient retrieved from a publicly available EEG dataset.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Data Mining, Electroencephalogram, Epilepsy, Feature Extraction, Seizure Detection, Signal Processing.

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Authors: N. Guru Prasath, Sangjin Ma, Chang-Wan Kim

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A butterfly valve is a quarter turn valve which is used to control the flow of a fluid through a section of pipe. Generally, butterfly valve is used in wide range of applications such as water distribution, sewage, oil and gas plants. In particular, butterfly valve with larger diameter finds its immense applications in hydro power plants to control the fluid flow. In-lieu with the constraints in cost and size to run laboratory setup, analysis of large diameter values will be mostly studied by computational method which is the best and inexpensive solution. For fluid and structural analysis, CFD and FEM software is used to perform large scale valve analyses, respectively. In order to perform above analysis in butterfly valve, the CAD model has to recreate and perform mesh in conventional software’s for various dimensions of valve. Therefore, its limitation is time consuming process. In-order to overcome that issue, python code was created to outcome complete pre-processing setup automatically in Salome software. Applying dimensions of the model clearly in the python code makes the running time comparatively lower and easier way to perform analysis of the valve. Hence, in this paper, an attempt was made to study the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) of butterfly valves by varying the valve angles and dimensions using python code in pre-processing software, and results are produced.

Keywords: Butterfly valve, fluid-structure interaction, automatic CFD analysis, flow coefficient.

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Authors: José Neves, M. Rosário Martins, Fátima Candeias, Diana Ferreira, Sílvia Arantes, Júlio Cruz-Morais, Guida Gomes, Joaquim Macedo, António Abelha, Henrique Vicente

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Some plants of genus Schinus have been used in the folk medicine as topical antiseptic, digestive, purgative, diuretic, analgesic or antidepressant, and also for respiratory and urinary infections. Chemical composition of essential oils of S. molle and S. terebinthifolius had been evaluated and presented high variability according with the part of the plant studied and with the geographic and climatic regions. The pharmacological properties, namely antimicrobial, anti-tumoural and anti-inflammatory activities are conditioned by chemical composition of essential oils. Taking into account the difficulty to infer the pharmacological properties of Schinus essential oils without hard experimental approach, this work will focus on the development of a decision support system, in terms of its knowledge representation and reasoning procedures, under a formal framework based on Logic Programming, complemented with an approach to computing centered on Artificial Neural Networks and the respective Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such an occurrence.

Keywords: Artificial neuronal networks, essential oils, knowledge representation and reasoning, logic programming, Schinus molle L, Schinus terebinthifolius raddi.

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Authors: Young Kwon Yang, In Sung Kang, Jung Ha Hwang, Jin Chul Park

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The present study is a foundational study for performance improvements on isolation wards to prevent proliferation of secondary infection of infectious diseases such as SARS, H1N1, and MERS inside hospitals. Accordingly, the present study conducted an analysis of the effect of sealing mechanisms and filling of openings on ensuring air tightness performance in isolation wards as well as simulation on air currents in improved isolation wards. The study method is as follows. First, previous studies on aerial infection type and mechanism were reviewed, and the review results were utilized as basic data of analysis on simulation of air current. Second, national and international legislations and regulations in relation to isolation wards as well as case studies on developed nations were investigated in order to identify the problems in isolation wards in Korea and improvement plans. Third, construction and facility plans were compared and analyzed between general and isolation wards focusing on large general hospitals in Korea, thereby conducting comparison and analysis on the performance and effects of air-tightness of general and isolation wards through CFD simulations. The study results showed that isolation wards had better air-tightness performance than that of general wards.

Keywords: AII Room, air-borne infection, CFD, computational fluid dynamics.

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Authors: W. Suksombat, P. Suksombat, R. Mirattanaphrai

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The effects of commercial or bovine yeasts on the performance and blood variables of broiler chickens intoxicated with aflatoxin were investigated in broilers. Four hundred eighty broilers (Arbor Acres; 3-wk-old) were randomly assigned to 4 groups. Each group (120 broiler chickens) was further randomly divided into 6 replicates of 20 chickens. The treatments were control diet without additives (treatment 1), 250 ppb AFB1 (treatment 2), commercial yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, (CY 2.5 x 107 CFU/g) + 250 ppb AFB1 (treatment 3) and bovine yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, (BY 2.5 x 107 CFU/g + 250 ppb AFB1 (treatment 4). Complete randomized design (CRD) was used in the experiment. Feed consumption and body weight were recorded at every five-day period. On day 42, carcass compositions were determined from 30 birds per treatment. While chicks were sacrificed, 3-4 ml blood sample was taken and stored frozen at (-20°C) for serum chemical analysis to determine effects of consumption of diets on blood chemistry (total protein, albumin, glucose, urea, cholesterol and triglycerides). There were no significant differences in ADFI among the treatments(P>0.05). However, BWG, FCR and mortality were highly significantly different (P<0.01) between treatments. ADG was significantly reduced (P<0.05) by aflatoxin but was unaffected by aflatoxin supplemented with either commercial or bovine yeasts (P>0.05). In terms of carcass portions, percentage of carcass was unaffected by the treatments, however, percentages of drumstick were reduced by aflatoxin and aflatoxin supplemented commercial yeast. Abdominal fat was significantly reduced (P<0.01) when commercial or bovine yeasts were added to the aflatoxin contaminated diets. Percentage of liver were significantly increased by aflatoxin contamination but were unaffected when yeasts were added to the diets. Blood chemical parameters, i.e. albumin, blood urea nitrogen and glucose were unaffected the treatments, while total protein, cholesterol and triglycerides were significantly decreased by aflatoxin. When yeasts were supplemented, such effect was not differed from the control. It is clearly indicated in the present study that supplementation of either commercial or bovine yeasts had beneficial effects on performance of broiler chickens intoxicated with aflatoxins.

Keywords: Aflatoxin, Commercial yeast, Bovine yeast, Growth performance, Blood chemical parameters, Broilers

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Authors: Chung-Yao Yang, Lin-Ya Huang, Tang-Long Shen, J. Andrew Yeh

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The importance for manipulating an incorporated scaffold and directing cell behaviors is well appreciated for tissue engineering. Here, we developed newly nano-topographic oxidized silicon nanosponges capable of being various chemical modifications to provide much insight into the fundamental biology of how cells interact with their surrounding environment in vitro. A wet etching technique is exerted to allow us fabricated the silicon nanosponges in a high-throughput manner. Furthermore, various organo-silane chemicals enabled self-assembled on the surfaces by vapor deposition. We have found that Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells displayed certain distinguishable morphogenesis, adherent responses, and biochemical properties while cultured on these chemical modified nano-topographic structures in compared with the planar oxidized silicon counterparts, indicating that cell behaviors can be influenced by certain physical characteristic derived from nano-topography in addition to the hydrophobicity of contact surfaces crucial for cell adhesion and spreading. Of particular, there were predominant nano-actin punches and slender protrusions formed while cells were cultured on the nano-topographic structures. This study shed potential applications of these nano-topographic biomaterials for controlling cell development in tissue engineering or basic cell biology research.

Keywords: Nanosponge, Cell adhesion, Cell morphology

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Authors: Maninder Pal

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Medical digital images usually have low resolution because of nature of their acquisition. Therefore, this paper focuses on zooming these images to obtain better level of information, required for the purpose of medical diagnosis. For this purpose, a strategy for selecting pixels in zooming operation is proposed. It is based on the principle of analog clock and utilizes a combination of point and neighborhood image processing. In this approach, the hour hand of clock covers the portion of image to be processed. For alignment, the center of clock points at middle pixel of the selected portion of image. The minute hand is longer in length, and is used to gain information about pixels of the surrounding area. This area is called neighborhood pixels region. This information is used to zoom the selected portion of the image. The proposed algorithm is implemented and its performance is evaluated for many medical images obtained from various sources such as X-ray, Computerized Tomography (CT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). However, for illustration and simplicity, the results obtained from a CT scanned image of head is presented. The performance of algorithm is evaluated in comparison to various traditional algorithms in terms of Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), maximum error, SSIM index, mutual information and processing time. From the results, the proposed algorithm is found to give better performance than traditional algorithms.

Keywords: Zooming, interpolation, medical images, resolution.

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Authors: R. Kamali, A. R. Binesh, S. Hossainpour

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To understand working features of a micro combustor, a computer code has been developed to study combustion of hydrogen–air mixture in a series of chambers with same shape aspect ratio but various dimensions from millimeter to micrometer level. The prepared algorithm and the computer code are capable of modeling mixture effects in different fluid flows including chemical reactions, viscous and mass diffusion effects. The effect of various heat transfer conditions at chamber wall, e.g. adiabatic wall, with heat loss and heat conduction within the wall, on the combustion is analyzed. These thermal conditions have strong effects on the combustion especially when the chamber dimension goes smaller and the ratio of surface area to volume becomes larger. Both factors, such as larger heat loss through the chamber wall and smaller chamber dimension size, may lead to the thermal quenching of micro-scale combustion. Through such systematic numerical analysis, a proper operation space for the micro-combustor is suggested, which may be used as the guideline for microcombustor design. In addition, the results reported in this paper illustrate that the numerical simulation can be one of the most powerful and beneficial tools for the micro-combustor design, optimization and performance analysis.

Keywords: Numerical simulation, Micro-combustion, MEMS, CFD, Chemical reaction.

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Authors: Paola Lecca, Lorenzo Dematte

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Reactiondiffusion systems are mathematical models that describe how the concentration of one or more substances distributed in space changes under the influence of local chemical reactions in which the substances are converted into each other, and diffusion which causes the substances to spread out in space. The classical representation of a reaction-diffusion system is given by semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations, whose general form is ÔêétX(x, t) = DΔX(x, t), where X(x, t) is the state vector, D is the matrix of the diffusion coefficients and Δ is the Laplace operator. If the solute move in an homogeneous system in thermal equilibrium, the diffusion coefficients are constants that do not depend on the local concentration of solvent and of solutes and on local temperature of the medium. In this paper a new stochastic reaction-diffusion model in which the diffusion coefficients are function of the local concentration, viscosity and frictional forces of solvent and solute is presented. Such a model provides a more realistic description of the molecular kinetics in non-homogenoeus and highly structured media as the intra- and inter-cellular spaces. The movement of a molecule A from a region i to a region j of the space is described as a first order reaction Ai k- → Aj , where the rate constant k depends on the diffusion coefficient. Representing the diffusional motion as a chemical reaction allows to assimilate a reaction-diffusion system to a pure reaction system and to simulate it with Gillespie-inspired stochastic simulation algorithms. The stochastic time evolution of the system is given by the occurrence of diffusion events and chemical reaction events. At each time step an event (reaction or diffusion) is selected from a probability distribution of waiting times determined by the specific speed of reaction and diffusion events. Redi is the software tool, developed to implement the model of reaction-diffusion kinetics and dynamics. It is a free software, that can be downloaded from http://www.cosbi.eu. To demonstrate the validity of the new reaction-diffusion model, the simulation results of the chaperone-assisted protein folding in cytoplasm obtained with Redi are reported. This case study is redrawing the attention of the scientific community due to current interests on protein aggregation as a potential cause for neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: Reaction-diffusion systems, Fick's law, stochastic simulation algorithm.

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Authors: Paula M. R. Correia, Marta Gonzaga, Luis M. Batista, Luísa Beirão-Costa, Raquel F. P. Guiné

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The purpose of the present work was to develop an innovative food product with good textural and sensorial characteristics. The product, a new type of bread, was prepared with wheat (90%) and lupin (10%) flours, without the addition of any conservatives. Several experiences were also done to find the most appropriate proportion of lupin flour. The optimized product was characterized considering the rheological, physical-chemical and sensorial properties. The water absorption of wheat flour with 10% of lupin was higher than that of the normal wheat flours, and Wheat Ceres flour presented the lower value, with lower dough development time and high stability time. The breads presented low moisture but a considerable water activity. The density of bread decreased with the introduction of lupin flour. The breads were quite white, and during storage the colour parameters decreased. The lupin flour clearly increased the number of alveolus, but the total area increased significantly just for the Wheat Cerealis bread. The addition of lupin flour increased the hardness and chewiness of breads, but the elasticity did not vary significantly. Lupin bread was sensorially similar to wheat bread produced with WCerealis flour, and the main differences are the crust rugosity, colour and alveolus characteristics.

Keywords: Lupin flour, physical-chemical properties, sensorial analysis, wheat flour.

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Authors: M.S. Mazăre, A. M. Pană, L. M. Ştefan, M. Silion, M. Bălan, G. Bandur, L. M. Rusnac

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In the last decade, carbohydrates have attracted great attention as renewable resources for the chemical industry. Carbohydrates are abundantly found in nature in the form of monomers, oligomers and polymers, or as components of biopolymers and other naturally occurring substances. As natural products, they play important roles in conferring certain physical, chemical, and biological properties to their carrier molecules.The synthesis of this particular carbohydrate glycomonomer is part of our work to obtain biodegradable polymers. Our current paper describes the synthesis and characterization of a novel carbohydrate glycomonomer starting from D-glucose, in several synthesis steps, that involve the protection/deprotection of the D-glucose ring via acetylation, tritylation, then selective deprotection of the aromaticaliphatic protective group, in order to obtain 1,2,3,4-tetra-O-acetyl- 6-O-allyl-β-D-glucopyranose. The glycomonomer was then obtained by the allylation in drastic conditions of 1,2,3,4-tetra-O-acetyl-6-Oallyl- β-D-glucopyranose with allylic alcohol in the presence of stannic chloride, in methylene chloride, at room temperature. The proposed structure of the glycomonomer, 2,3,4-tri-O-acetyl-1,6-di- O-allyl-β-D-glucopyranose, was confirmed by FTIR, NMR and HPLC-MS spectrometry. This glycomonomer will be further submitted to copolymerization with certain acrylic or methacrylic monomers in order to obtain competitive plastic materials for applications in the biomedical field.

Keywords: allylation, D-glucose, glycomonomer, trityl chloride

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Authors: Vijaya Prakash.A.M, K.S.Gurumurthy

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In Image processing the Image compression can improve the performance of the digital systems by reducing the cost and time in image storage and transmission without significant reduction of the Image quality. This paper describes hardware architecture of low complexity Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) architecture for image compression[6]. In this DCT architecture, common computations are identified and shared to remove redundant computations in DCT matrix operation. Vector processing is a method used for implementation of DCT. This reduction in computational complexity of 2D DCT reduces power consumption. The 2D DCT is performed on 8x8 matrix using two 1-Dimensional Discrete cosine transform blocks and a transposition memory [7]. Inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT) is performed to obtain the image matrix and reconstruct the original image. The proposed image compression algorithm is comprehended using MATLAB code. The VLSI design of the architecture is implemented Using Verilog HDL. The proposed hardware architecture for image compression employing DCT was synthesized using RTL complier and it was mapped using 180nm standard cells. . The Simulation is done using Modelsim. The simulation results from MATLAB and Verilog HDL are compared. Detailed analysis for power and area was done using RTL compiler from CADENCE. Power consumption of DCT core is reduced to 1.027mW with minimum area[1].

Keywords: Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Inverse DiscreteCosine Transform (IDCT), Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG), Low Power Design, Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) .

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Authors: U. Bawa

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Macro invertebrates have been used to monitor organic pollution in rivers and streams. Several biotic indices based on macro invertebrates have been developed over the years including the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP). A new biotic index, the Gammarus:Asellus ratio has been recently proposed as an index of organic pollution. This study tested the validity of the Gammarus:Asellus ratio as an index of organic pollution, by examining the relationship between the Gammarus:Asellus ratio and physical chemical parameters, and other biotic indices such as BMWP and, Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT) from lakes and streams at Markeaton Park, Allestree Park and Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. Macro invertebrates were sampled using the standard five minute kick sampling techniques physical and chemical environmental variables were obtained based on standard sampling techniques. Eighteen sites were sampled, six sites from Markeaton Park (three sites across the stream and three sites across the lake). Six sites each were also sampled from Allestree Park and Kedleston Hall lakes. The Gammarus:Asellus ratio showed an opposite significant positive correlations with parameters indicative of organic pollution such as the level of nitrates, phosphates, and calcium and also revealed a negatively significant correlations with other biotic indices (BMWP/ASPT). The BMWP score correlated positively significantly with some water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen and flow rate, but revealed no correlations with other chemical environmental variables. The BMWP score was significantly higher in the stream than the lake in Markeaton Park, also The ASPT scores appear to be significantly higher in the upper Lakes than the middle and lower lakes. This study has further strengthened the use of BMWP/ASPT score as an index of organic pollution. But additional application is required to validate the use of Gammarus:Asellus as a rapid bio monitoring tool.

Keywords: Asellus, Biotic index, Gammarus, Organic pollution, Macro invertebrate.

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Authors: Moatlhodi Wise Letshwenyo, Lesedi Lebogang

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Botswana is an arid country that needs to start reusing wastewater as part of its water security plan. Pilot scale slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter was investigated for the treatment of effluent from Botswana International University of Science and Technology to meet Botswana irrigation standards. The system was operated at hydraulic loading rates of 0.04 m/hr and 0.12 m/hr. The results show that the system was able to reduce turbidity from 262 Nephelometric Turbidity Units to a range between 18 and 0 Nephelometric Turbidity Units which was below 30 Nephelometric Turbidity Units threshold limit. The overall efficacy ranged between 61% and 100%. Suspended solids, Biochemical Oxygen Demand, and Chemical Oxygen Demand removal efficiency averaged 42.6%, 45.5%, and 77% respectively and all within irrigation standards. Other physio-chemical parameters were within irrigation standards except for bicarbonate ion which averaged 297.7±44 mg L^-1 in the influent and 196.22±50 mg L^-1 in the effluent which was above the limit of 92 mg L^-1, therefore averaging a reduction of 34.1% by the system. Total coliforms, fecal coliforms, and Escherichia coli in the effluent were initially averaging 1.1 log counts, 0.5 log counts, and 1.3 log counts respectively compared to corresponding influent log counts of 3.4, 2.7 and 4.1, respectively. As time passed, it was observed that only roughing filter was able to reach reductions of 97.5%, 86% and 100% respectively for faecal coliforms, Escherichia coli, and total coliforms. These organism numbers were observed to have increased in slow sand filter effluent suggesting multiplication in the tank. Water quality index value of 22.79 for the physio-chemical parameters suggests that the effluent is of excellent quality and can be used for irrigation purposes. However, the water quality index value for the microbial parameters (1820) renders the quality unsuitable for irrigation. It is concluded that slow sand filtration in combination with roughing filter is a viable option for the treatment of secondary effluent for reuse purposes. However, further studies should be conducted especially for the removal of microbial parameters using the system.

Keywords: Irrigation, roughing filter, slow sand filter, turbidity, water quality index.

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Authors: G.Vinitha, A.Ramalingam

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TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by hydrothermal method at 180°C from TiOSO4 aqueous solution with1m/l concentration. The obtained products were coated with silica by means of a seeded polymerization technique for a coating time of 1440 minutes to obtain well defined TiO2@SiO2 core-shell structure. The uncoated and coated nanoparticles were characterized by using X-Ray diffraction technique (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) to study their physico-chemical properties. Evidence from XRD and FTIR results show that SiO2 is homogenously coated on the surface of titania particles. FTIR spectra show that there exists an interaction between TiO2 and SiO2 and results in the formation of Ti-O-Si chemical bonds at the interface of TiO2 particles and SiO2 coating layer. The non linear optical limiting properties of TiO2 and TiO2@SiO2 nanoparticles dispersed in ethylene glycol were studied at 532nm using 5ns Nd:YAG laser pulses. Three-photon absorption is responsible for optical limiting characteristics in these nanoparticles and it is seen that the optical nonlinearity is enhanced in core-shell structures when compared with single counterparts. This effective three-photon type absorption at this wavelength, is of potential application in fabricating optical limiting devices.

Keywords: hydrothermal method, optical limiting devicesseeded polymerization technique, three-photon type absorption

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Authors: Mohammad Asif

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Heterogeneous catalysis is vital for a number of chemical, refinery and pollution control processes. The use of catalyst pellets of hollow cylindrical shape provide several distinct advantages over other common shapes, and can therefore help to enhance conversion levels in reactors. A better utilization of the catalytic material is probably most notable of these features due to the absence of the pellet core, which helps to significantly lower the effect of the internal transport resistance. This is reflected in the enhancement of the effectiveness factor. For the case of the first order irreversible kinetics, a substantial increase in the effectiveness factor can be obtained by varying shape parameters. Important shape parameters of a finite hollow cylinder are the ratio of the inside to the outside radii (κ) and the height to the diameter ratio (γ). A high value of κ the generally helps to enhance the effectiveness factor. On the other hand, lower values of the effectiveness factors are obtained when the dimension of the height and the diameter are comparable. Thus, the departure of parameter γ from the unity favors higher effectiveness factor. Since a higher effectiveness factor is a measure of a greater utilization of the catalytic material, higher conversion levels can be achieved using the hollow cylindrical pellets possessing optimized shape parameters.

Keywords: Finite hollow cylinder, Catalyst pellet, Effectiveness factor, Thiele Modulus, Conversion

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