MUTAGENICITY OF HEATED COTTONSEED FRYING OIL

A control experiment showed that cottonseed oil used in frying falafel developed significant mutagenic activity. As a result, one hundred samples of fresh and used cottonseed oil employed commercially for frying falafel were collected from restaurants in thirteen major cities of Egypt. Samples were examined for mutagenic activity using the Salmonella typhimurium assay with and without S9. Six of the heated oil samples showed significant mutagenic activity. None of the fresh unheated oil samples were mutagenic. Salmonella typhimurium TA 102 gave a higher response than did either TA 100 or TA 98.
Peroxide, hydroxyl, acid and conjugated diene values were much higher for mutagenic samples. Iodine values, however, were lower. Liquid chromatography fractionation revealed that the mutagenicity was concentrated in the polar fraction. The column fraction having the highest mutagenic activity was further examined by chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques.     

Resistance to acid degradation,sorptivity, and setting time of geopolymer mortars

Experimental evaluations were conducted to determine the water sorptivity, setting time, and resistance to a highly acidic environment, of mortar with alkali-activated ground granulated blast furnace slag (GBS) binder and also of combinations of fly ash and GBS binders. Binders were activated using mixtures of NaOH and Na₂SiO₃ solutions. The molarity of NaOH in the mixtures ranged from 10 mol·L⁻¹ to 16 mol·L⁻¹, and the Na₂SiO₃/NaOH ratio was varied from 1.5 to 2.5. Mortar samples were produced using three binder combinations: 1) GBS as the only binder; 2) blended binder with a slag-to-fly ash ratio of 3:1; and 3) mixed binder with 1:1 ratio of slag to fly ash. Mortar samples were mixed and cured at (22 ± 2) °C till the day of the test. The impact of activator solution alkalinity, activator ratio Na₂SiO₃/NaOH, GBS content on the rate of water absorption were evaluated. After 7, 28, and 90 d of immersion in a 10% sulfuric acid solution, the resistance of a geopolymer matrix to degradation was assessed by measuring the change in sample weight. The influence of solution alkalinity and relative fly ash content on setting times was investigated. Alkali-activated mortar with a slag-to-fly ash ratio of 3:1 had the least sorptivity compared to the two other binder combinations, at each curing age, and for mortars made with each of the NaOH alkaline activator concentrations. Mortar sorptivity decreased with age and sodium hydroxide concentrations, suggesting the production of geopolymerization products. No reduction in weight of sample occurred after immersion in the strong acid H₂SO₄ solution for three months, regardless of binder combination. This was due to the synthesis of hydration and geopolymerization products in the presence of curing water, which outweighed the degradation of the geopolymer matrix caused by sulfuric acid.     

Formal proof of integer adders using all-prefix-sums operation

Addition of two binary numbers is a fundamental operation in electronic circuits.Several integer adder architectures have been proposed.Their formal properties are well known,but the proofs are either incomplete or difficult to find.In this paper,we present a formal proof for the correctness of prefix adders.Both sequential and parallel algorithms are formalized and proved.In contrast to previous proofs using higher order functions and rewriting systems,our work is based on first order recursive equations,which are familiar to the computer arithmetic community and are therefore understandable by people working on VLSI circuit design.This study sets up a basis for further work on formal proofs of computer arithmetic algorithms.     

A floating point conversion algorithm for mixed precision computations

The floating point number is the most commonly used real number representation for digital computations due to its high precision characteristics. It is used on computers and on single chip applications such as DSP chips. Double precision (64-bit) representations allow for a wider range of real numbers to be denoted. However, single precision (32-bit) operations are more efficient. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in mixed precision computations which take advantage of single precision efficiency on 64-bit numbers. This calls for the ability to interchange between the two formats. In this paper, an algorithm that converts floating point numbers from 64- to 32-bit representations is presented. The algorithm was implemented as a Verilog code and tested on field programmable gate array (FPGA) using the Quartus II DE2 board and Agilent 16821A portable logic analyzer. Results indicate that the algorithm can perform the conversion reliably and accurately within a constant execution time of 25 ns with a 20 MHz clock frequency regardless of the number being converted.     

QUALITY INSPECTION OF BAKERY PRODUCTS USING A COLOR-BASED MACHINE VISION SYSTEM

Muffins were evaluated for color by visual examination and by development of a machine‐reading system coupled with discriminant analysis of the data acquired. A classification algorithm separated light from dark‐colored muffins. The system's precision was assessed by evaluating the color of 4 cm diameter muffins pregraded prior to the evaluation of color and without pregrading. Applied to 200 samples, the automated system was able to correctly classify 96% of the pregraded and 79% of the ungraded muffins. The algorithm procedure was able to classify muffins at an accuracy level better than 88% in most cases whereas quality decisions among inspectors varied by 20 to 30%. Critical to precision by the machine‐read procedure was control of the illumination.     

THE OPTIMAL AND STRAIGHTFORWARD DESIGN OF BANDPASS WAVE DIGITAL LATTICE FILTERS WITH ARBITRARY LOSS SPECIFICATIONS

An efficient, simple and reliable design method is introduced for bandpass wave digital lattice filters exhibiting arbitrary loss responses. The main feature of this method is that the approximation is straightforward. Thus it is carried out without the need to apply frequency transformation techniques. The method relies on employing the relationship between the amplitude and the two branch phase functions of the filter. As a consequence, the whole problem reduces finally to constructing a polynomial specified by its phase. The generation of this polynomial is achieved through the use of interpolation recurrence formulae. By factorizing this polynomial into its Hurwitz and non-Hurwitz parts, the two branch allpass functions are determined and realized. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.