Spontaneous rupture of the oesophagus (author's transl)

During the last 4 years three so-called spontaneous perforations of the oesophagus were treated, twice by surgical intervention 12 anys after the rupture. Two patients survived. The classical history of retching or vomiting and retrosternal splitting pain is indicative, wht medium, amidotrizoate sodium (Gastrografin), from the oesophagus. Prognosis depends decisively on the time of operation after the rupture. Direct suture of the rupture with plastic coverage of the defect by sewing on of the gastric fundus or by plication of the fundus have proved valuable.     

Facile Synthesis of 7-Aryl-benzo[h]tetrazolo[5,1-b]quinazoline-5,6-dione Fused Polycyclic Compounds by Using a Novel Magnetic Polyurethane Catalyst

Novel Brönsted acid functionalized magnetic polymeric nanocomposite, Ba_0.5Sr_0.5Fe₁₂O₁₉@PU-SO₃H, has been successfully synthesized and characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) techniques. The catalytic activity of the nanocomposite was tested in the regioselective synthesis of 7-aryl-benzo[h]tetrazolo [5,1-b] quinazoline-5,6-diones in an eco-friendly and recyclable media, deep eutectic solvent (DES), based on choline chloride and urea. This novel method offers several advantages, such as high yields, short reaction time, environmentally friendly reaction media, easy isolation of the product, and also offers an easy method for the synthesis of nanocatalysts. The catalyst was readily recycled by the use of an external magnetic field and could be reused 6 times without significant loss of activity or mass. DES as one of the most promising environmentally benign and cost-effective alternatives to conventional ionic liquids and volatile organic solvents was recovered from the aqueous filtrate by evaporating the water under vacuum. The recycled DES was used up to 4 runs without any loss in activity.     

New Approaches for Estimation of Monthly Rainfall Based on GEP-ARCH and ANN-ARCH Hybrid Models

Accurate estimation of rainfall has an important role in the optimal water resources management, as well as hydrological and climatological studies. In the present study, two novel types of hybrid models, namely gene expression programming-autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GEP-ARCH) and artificial neural networks-autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ANN-ARCH) are introduced to estimate monthly rainfall time series. To fulfill this purpose, five stations with various climatic conditions were selected in Iran. The lagged monthly rainfall data was utilized to develop the different GEP and ANN scenarios. The performance of proposed hybrid models was compared to the GEP and ANN models using root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R²). The results show that the proposed GEP-ARCH and ANN-ARCH models give a much better performance than the GEP and ANN in all of the studied stations with various climates. Furthermore, the ANN-ARCH model generally presents better performance in comparison with the GEP-ARCH model.     

All-optical 6- and 8-channel demultiplexers based on photonic crystal multilayer ring resonators in Si/C rods

In this paper, we employed multilayer ring resonators in a silicon rod base structure to realize 6-channel and 8-channel demultiplexers based on two-dimensional photonic crystals. Both the main rings and basic structures are composed of silicon rods, and the interior rings of the multilayer rings are composed of carbon. Employing silicon and carbon rods of different radii in multilayer ring resonators enhanced the coupling efficiency between the rings and waveguides. The average quality factor and power transmission efficiency were 4320 and 93%, respectively. Crosstalk values from \(-11\) to ?46 dB in conjunction with the mentioned characteristics suggest the use of the device for optical communication applications. The compact size of the proposed structure and the materials used make the proposed demultiplexer suitable for optical integrated circuits.     

Chemical composition,antibacterial and antifungal activities of seed essential oil of Ferulago angulata

The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition and the in vitro antimicrobial effects of seed essential oil of Ferulago angulata. The oil analyses by GC and GC/MS resulted in the identification of 39 compounds representing 91.07% of the oil. The major constituents were (Z)-β-ocimene (19.93%), α-pinene (15.50%), p-cymene (7.67%), sabinene (7.49%), β-phellandrene (5.5%), and α-phellandrene (4.95%). The oil was also screened for its antimicrobial properties against six bacteria (Erwinia amylovora, Xanthomonas oryzae, Pseudomonas syringae, Pectobacterium carotovorum, Ralstonia solanacearum, Bacillus thuringiensis) and six fungi (Alternaria alternata, Culvularia fallax, Macrophomina phaseolina, Fusarium oxysporum, Cytospora sacchari, Colletotrichum tricbellum). According to the results of antibacterial activity, B. thuringiensis (with 8 µL mL^?1 minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and 15 µL mL^?1 minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC)) was the most sensitive bacterium; P. carotovorum and R. solanacearum (with 20 µL mL^?1 MIC and 30< MBC) were the most resistant bacteria. Additionally, a broad differentiation against all of the tested fungi showed that the most susceptible and resistant fungi after 6 days at the highest concentration (800 µL L^?1) were F. oxysporum (100.0 ± 0.00%) and C. tricbellum (52.50 ± 1.67%) of growth inhibition, respectively.     

Modeling the free convection heat transfer in a partitioned cavity using ANFIS

In this paper, an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) is used to predict the free convection in a partitioned cavity consisting of an adiabatic partition. The main focus of the present paper is to consider the effects of partition angle and Rayleigh number variation on average heat transfer in the partitioned cavity. The training data for optimizing the ANFIS structure is obtained experimentally. For the best ANFIS structure obtained in this study, the mean relative errors of the train and test data were found to be 0.055% and 1.735% respectively, which shows that ANFIS can predict the experimental results precisely.     

Fuzzy modeling of the forced convection heat transfer from a V‐shaped plate exposed to an air slot jet

This paper focuses on the application of fuzzy logic (FL) to predict the forced convection heat transfer from V‐shaped plate internal surfaces exposed to an air impingement slot jet. The aim of the present paper is to consider the effects of the angle of a V‐shaped plate (Φ), slot‐to‐plate spacing ratio (Z/W), and Reynolds number (Re) variation on average heat transfer from the V‐shaped plate internal surfaces. The data used for developing the FL structure was obtained experimentally by a Mach‐Zehnder interferometer. The proposed FL was developed using MATLAB functions. It was observed that the average Nusselt number will be decreased with an increase in jet spacing and be increased with an increase in Reynolds number and angle of V‐shaped plate. Moreover, it is also shown that fuzzy logic is a powerful technique to use for predicting heat transfer due to its low error rate. The average error of the fuzzy predictions compared with experimental data was found to be 0.33% for this study. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.21009     

Radiation dose to neonates undergoing X-ray imaging in special care baby units in Iran

Radiographic imaging has a significant role in the timely diagnosis of the diseases of neonates in intensive care units. The estimation of the dose received by the infants undergoing radiographic examination is of great importance, due to greater more radiosensitivity and longer life expectancy of the neonates and premature babies. In this study, the values of entrance skin dose (ESD), dose area products (DAPs), energy imparted (EI), whole-body dose, effective dose and risk of childhood cancer were estimated using three methods including direct method [using thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) chips], indirect method (using tube output) and Monte Carlo (MC) method (using MCNP4C code). In the first step, the ESD of the neonates was directly measured using TLD-100 chips. Fifty neonates, mostly premature, with different weights and gestational ages in five hospitals mostly suffering from respiratory distress syndrome and pneumonia were involved in this study. In the second step, the values of ESD to neonates were indirectly obtained from the tube output in different imaging techniques. The imaging room, incubator, neonates and other components were then simulated in order to obtain the ESD values using the MCNP4C code. Finally, the values of ESD assessed by the three methods were used for calculation of DAP, EI, whole-body dose, effective dose and risk of childhood cancer. The results indicate that the mean ESD per radiograph estimated by the direct, indirect and MC methods are 56.6±4.1, 50.1±3.1 and 54.5±3.3 μGy, respectively. The mean risk of childhood cancer estimated in this study varied between 4.21×10(-7) and 2.72×10(-6).     

Numerical simulation of thermofluid characteristics of two-phase slug flow in microchannels

A fundamental study of heat transfer characteristics of two-phase slug flow in microchannels is carried out employing the Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) method. Despite of the fact that numerical simulations of two-phase flows in microchannels have been attempted by many investigators, most efforts seem to have failed in correctly capturing the flow physics, especially those pertaining to the slug flow regime characteristics. The presence of a thin liquid film in the order of 10 μm around the bubble is a contributing factor to the above difficulty. Typically, liquid films have a significant effect on the flow field and heat transfer characteristics. In the simulations reported in this paper, the film is successfully captured and a very high local convective heat transfer coefficient is observed in the film region. A strong coupling between the conductive heat transfer in the solid wall and the convective heat transfer in the flow field is observed and characterized. Results showed that unsteady heat transfer through the solid wall in the axial direction is comparable to that in the radial direction. Results also showed that a fully developed condition could be achieved fairly quickly compared to single-phase flows. The fully developed condition is defined based on the Peclet number (Pe) and a dimensionless length of the liquid slug. Local and time-averaged Nusselt numbers for slug flows are reported for the first time. It was found that significant improvements in the heat transfer coefficient could be achieved by short slugs where the Nusselt number was found to be 610% higher than in single-phase flows. The study revealed new findings related to slug flow heat transfer in microchannels with constant wall heat flux.     

Assessment of egg freshness by prediction of Haugh unit and albumen pH using an artificial neural network

Eggs are a good source of high quality protein and knowing their quality (physical and chemical properties) during storage is of great importance. Thus, the aim of this research was to design a computer vision system to assess egg freshness during storage time. To this end, 210 intact eggs were collected and stored for 30 days under room conditions (25?±?2 °C and 20?±?3%). After imaging, every other day, some internal and external quality characteristics including yolk height, yolk and albumen pH, yolk and albumen density and Haugh unit (HU) were measured as destructive parameters and area index (D) egg weight as non-destructive parameters. Based on Pearson correlation coefficients, area index were significantly correlated with all destructive variables (p?<?0.05). In order to predict egg freshness, artificial neural network was trained by Levenberg–Marquardt, scaled conjugate gradient, Bayesian regulation, resilient and radial basis algorithms. The best result of artificial neural network for HU and albumen pH prediction was achieved by the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm with the correlation coefficient of 0.93 and 0.87, respectively.