Effect of acetylation and oxidation on some properties of breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) seed starch

Starch extracted from seeds of Artocarpus altilis (Breadfruit) was chemically modified by acetylation and oxidation, and its functional properties were evaluated and compared with these of native starch. Analysis of the chemical composition showed that moisture content was higher for modified starches. Ash, protein, crude fiber and amylose contents were reduced by the modifications, but did not alter the native starch granules' irregularity, oval shape and smooth surface. Acetylation produced changes in water absorption, swelling power and soluble solids, these values were higher for acetylated starch, while values for native and oxidized starches were similar. Both modifications reduced pasting temperature; oxidation reduced maximum peak viscosity but it was increased by acetylation. Hot paste viscosity was reduced by both modifications, whereas cold paste viscosity was lower in the oxidized starch and higher in the acetylated starch. Breakdown was increased by acetylation and reduced with oxidation. Setback value was reduced after acetylation, indicating it could minimize retrogradation of the starch.     

FP-APW + lo study of the elastic, electronic and optical properties of the filled skutterudites CeFe4As12 and CeFe4Sb12

Using a full-relativistic version of the full-potential augmented plane wave plus local orbitals (FP-APW + lo) method within the local density approximation (LDA), we have studied the elastic, electronic and optical properties of the filled skutterudites CeFe₄As₁₂ and CeFe₄Sb₁₂. Structural parameters, including lattice constant, internal free parameters and, bulk modulus and its pressure derivative were calculated. We have determined the full set of first-order elastic constants, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and the Debye temperature of these compounds. Band structures, density of states, pressure coefficients of energy band gaps are also given. It is found that both CeFe₄As₁₂ and CeFe₄Sb₁₂ are indirect band gap semiconductors. The valence band maximum (VBM) is located at Γ point, whereas the conduction band minimum (CBM) is located at N point. Optical constants, including the dielectric function, optical reflectivity, refractive index and electron energy loss were calculated for radiation up to 30 eV. This is the first quantitative theoretical prediction of the elastic and optical properties for these compounds, and it still awaits experimental confirmation.     

Renyi's divergence and entropy rates for finite alphabet Markovsources

In this work, we examine the existence and the computation of the Renyi divergence rate, lim_n→∞ 1/n D_α (p⁽ⁿ⁾∥q⁽ⁿ⁾), between two time-invariant finite-alphabet Markov sources of arbitrary order and arbitrary initial distributions described by the probability distributions p⁽ⁿ⁾ and q⁽ⁿ⁾, respectively. This yields a generalization of a result of Nemetz (1974) where he assumed that the initial probabilities under p⁽ⁿ⁾ and q⁽ⁿ⁾ are strictly positive. The main tools used to obtain the Renyi divergence rate are the theory of nonnegative matrices and Perron-Frobenius theory. We also provide numerical examples and investigate the limits of the Renyi divergence rate as α→1 and as α↓0. Similarly, we provide a formula for the Renyi entropy rate lim_n→∞ 1/n H _α(p⁽ⁿ⁾) of Markov sources and examine its limits as α→1 and as α↓0. Finally, we briefly provide an application to source coding     

Higher order composite beam theory built on Saint-Venant’s solution. Part-II: Built-in effects influence on the behavior of end-loaded cantilever beams

The higher order composite beam theory (HOCBT), established in Part-I, is a refinement of the one-dimensional beam-like theory related to 3D Saint-Venant’s solution. HOCBT is based on a displacement model including in/out-of plane warpings and is devoted to symmetric and orthotropic composite beams.     

Structural and Magnetocaloric Properties of ErFe 2 . 4 Al 0 . 6 Compound

The structural and magnetic properties of the single-phase pseudobinary ErFe _2.4Al _0.6 compound, obtained under arc-melting conditions, have been investigated. Single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that this compound is stabilized with a hexagonal CeNi ₃-type structure (space group P6 ₃ /mmc). The partial substitution of Fe by Al in this compound occurring at all the metallic sites is reflected in the decrease of the Curie temperature Tc. Magnetization curves (2–450 K; 0–5 T) indicate a ferrimagnetic ordering with four magnetic phases induced by competitional interactions between magnetic moments of both Er and Fe. The magnetocaloric effect has been estimated from the magnetic isotherms. The relative cooling power (RCP) value indicates relatively promising magnetic refrigerant material.     

Cast Metal-Matrix Composites

The metal casting route offers considerable potential for the production of metal-matrix composites (MMC's) because of its near-net shaping capability which minimises machining requirements. The authors consider the metal-casting route in context with other shaping methods for MMC manufacture. Factors of importance, such as melt preparation and solidification processing, are reviewed before experimental details are described. The properties of MMC's based on the Al-Cu, Al-Mg and ZA alloy systems, and produced by squeeze casting, are discussed.     

Design of telecommunication electronic systems using a hardware/software co-design methodology

Design of real-time electronic systems is critical since these systems include performance constraints as part of their requirements. The goal is to map all functions of such systems on to distributed hardware/software architecture in such a way that all performance constraints can be met. Hardware/software codesign approaches are an important issue. The aim of this paper is to discuss a case study of an X25 system design using a hardware/software co-design methodology. Several alternatives are discussed with respect to their performance. A prototype of the X25 system, which correctly implements the system functionality while meeting real-time requirements, has been experimentally checked.     

Emotion recognition in Arabic speech

Automatic emotion recognition from speech signals without linguistic cues has been an important emerging research area. Integrating emotions in human–computer interaction is of great importance to effectively simulate real life scenarios. Research has been focusing on recognizing emotions from acted speech while little work was done on natural real life utterances. English, French, German and Chinese corpora were used for that purpose while no natural Arabic corpus was found to date. In this paper, emotion recognition in Arabic spoken data is studied for the first time. A realistic speech corpus from Arabic TV shows is collected. The videos are labeled by their perceived emotions; namely happy, angry or surprised. Prosodic features are extracted and thirty-five classification methods are applied. Results are analyzed in this paper and conclusions and future recommendations are identified.     

A Methodology for a Semi-Automatic Evaluation of the Lexicons of Machine Translation Systems

The lexicon is a major part of any Machine Translation (MT) system. If the lexicon of an MT system is not adequate, this will affect the quality of the whole system. Building a comprehensive lexicon, i.e., one with a high lexical coverage, is a major activity in the process of developing a good MT system. As such, the evaluation of the lexicon of an MT system is clearly a pivotal issue for the process of evaluating MT systems. In this paper, we introduce a new methodology that was devised to enable developers and users of MT Systems to evaluate their lexicons semi-automatically. This new methodology is based on the idea of the importance of a specific word or, more precisely, word sense, to a given application domain. This importance, or weight, determines how the presence of such a word in, or its absence from, the lexicon affects the MT system's lexical quality, which in turn will naturally affect the overall output quality. The method, which adopts a black-box approach to evaluation, was implemented and applied to evaluating the lexicons of three commercialEnglish–Arabic MT systems. A specific domain was chosen in which the various word-sense weights were determined by feeding sample texts from the domain into a system developed specifically for that purpose. Once this database of word senses and weights was built, test suites were presented to each of the MT systems under evaluation and their output rated by a human operator as either correct or incorrect. Based on this rating, an overall automated evaluation of the lexicons of the systems was deduced.