Potential of pulsed electric field to control Aspergillus parasiticus,aflatoxin and mutagenicity levels: Sesame seed quality

Seed processing technologies are essential for seed safety and functionality through protection of physicochemical quality, pathogen inactivation, aflatoxin detoxification and alleviation of mutagenicity. Design of a pilot-scale unit of pulsed electric fields (PEF) to treat sesame seeds with respect to quality parameters, Aspergillus parasiticus inactivation and aflatoxin reduction as well as alleviation of aflatoxin mutagenicity were prompted in this study. PEF energy ranged from 0.97 to 17.28 J achieved maximum reductions of peroxide value and acidity number of 67.4 and 85.7%, respectively, and did not change color L*, a*, b* and hue values. A 60% reduction of A. parasiticus counts occurred at the maximum PEF energy. Aflatoxins G1, G2, B1, and B2 contents decreased by 94.7, 92.7, 86.9, and 98.7%, respectively. Except for the samples treated by 2.16 J with 100 μg/plate and by 6.80 J with 10 μg/plate, PEF treatment provided elimination of aflatoxin mutagenity. It is concluded that PEF treatment can be used to treat sesame seeds with preservation of physicochemical properties, inactivation of A. parasiticus and decomposition of aflatoxins with reduced mutagenicity.     

Flexible poly(styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene) hybrid nanofibers for bioengineering and water filtration applications

Among the thermoplastic elastomers that play important roles in the polymer industry due to their superior properties, styrene-based species and polyurethane block copolymers are of great interest. Poly(styrene-ethylene-butadiene-styrene) (SEBS) as a triblock copolymer seems to have the potential to meet many demands in different applications due to various industrial requirements where durability, biocompatibility, breaking elongation, and interfacial adhesion are important. In this study, the SEBS triblock copolymer was functionalized with natural (Satureja hortensis, SH) and synthetic (nanopowder, TiO₂) agents to obtain composite nanofibers by electrospinning and electrospraying methods for use in biomedical and water filtration applications. The results were compared with thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composite nanofibers, which are commonly used in these fields. Here, functionalized SEBS nanofibers exhibited antibacterial effect while at the same time improving cell viability. In addition, because of successful water filtration by using the SEBS composite nanofibers, the material may have a good potential to be used comparably to TPU for the application.     

Hazardous waste management problem: The case for incineration

We define the hazardous waste management problem as the combined decisions of selecting the disposal method, siting the disposal plants and deciding on the waste flow structure. The hazardous waste management problem has additional requirements depending on the selected disposal method. In this paper we focus on incineration, for which the main additional requirement is to satisfy the air pollution standards imposed by the governmental restrictions. We propose a cost-based mathematical model in which the satisfaction of air pollution standards is also incorporated. We used the Gaussian Plume equation in measuring the air pollution concentrations at population centers. A large-scale implementation of the proposed model within Turkey is provided.     

Unified full wave solutions to interpret Apollo lunar surface data

Bistatic radar experiments carried out by Tyler and Howard during the Apollo 14, 15, and 16 missions provide a very useful dataset with which to compare theoretical models and experimental data. Vesecky et al. (1988) report that their model for near grazing angles compares favorably to experimental data. However, for angles of incidence around 80°, all the analytical models considered by Vesecky et al. predict values for the quasi-specular cross sections that are about half the corresponding values taken from the Apollo 16 data. In this work, questions raised by this discrepancy between the reported analytical and experimental results are addressed. The unified full wave solutions are shown to be in good agreement with the bistatic radar data taken during Apollo 14 and 16 missions. Using the full wave approach, the quasi-specular contributions to the scattered field from the large scale surface roughness as well as the diffuse Bragg-like scattering from the small scale surface roughness are accounted for in a unified self-consistent manner. Since the full wave computer codes for the scattering cross sections contain ground truth data only, it is shown how it can be readily used to predict the rough surface parameters, based on the measured data     

Architectures for Silicon Nanoelectronics and Beyond

Although nanoelectronics won't replace CMOS for some time, research is needed now to develop the architectures, methods, and tools to maximally leverage nanoscale devices and terascale capacity. Addressing the complementary architectural and system issues involved requires greater collaboration at all levels. The effective use of nanotechnology calls for total system solutions     

Influence of ethanol/water ratio in ultrasound and high‐pressure/high‐temperature phenolic compound extraction from agri‐food waste

The valorisation and management of agri‐food waste are currently hot investigation topics which probe the recovery of valuable compounds, such as polyphenols. In this study, high‐pressure/high‐temperature extraction (HPTE) and ultrasound‐assisted extraction (UAE) have been used to study the recovery of phenolic compounds from grape marc and olive pomace in hydroalcoholic solutions. The main phenolic compounds in both extracts were identified by HPLC‐DAD. Besides extraction yield (total polyphenol and flavonoid content) and the antiradical power, polyphenol degradation under HPTE and UAE has also been studied. HPTE with ethanol 75% gave higher phenolic extraction yields: 73.8 ± 1.4 mg of gallic acid equivalents per gram of dried matter and 60.0 mg of caffeic acid equivalents per gram of dried matter for grape marc and olive pomace, respectively. In this study, the efficient combination of ethanol/water mixture with HPTE or UAE has been used to enhance the recovery of phenolic compounds from grape marc and olive pomace. HPLC‐DAD showed that UAE prevents phenolic species degradation damage because of its milder operative conditions.     

Exploring network-level performances of wireless nanonetworks utilizing gains of different types of nano-antennas with different materials

Wireless nanonetworks are not a simple extension of traditional communication networks at the nano-scale. Owing to being a completely new communication paradigm, existing research in this field is still at an embryonic stage. Furthermore, most of the existing studies focus on performance enhancement of nanonetworks via designing new channel models and routing protocols. However, the impacts of different types of nano-antennas on the network-level performances of the wireless nanonetworks remain still unexplored in the literature. Therefore, in this paper, we explore the impacts of different well-known types of antennas such as patch, dipole, and loop nano-antennas on the network-level performances of wireless nanonetworks. We also investigate the performances of nanonetworks for different types of traditional materials (e.g., copper) and for nanomaterials (e.g., carbon nanotubes and graphene). We perform rigorous simulation using our customized ns-2 simulation to evaluate the network-level performances of nanonetworks exploiting different types of nano-antennas using different materials. Our evaluation reveals a number of novel findings pertinent to finding an efficient nano-antenna from its several alternatives for enhancing network-level performances of nanonetworks. Our evaluation demonstrates that a dipole nano-antenna using copper material exhibits around 51% better throughput and about 33% better end-to-end delay compared to other alternatives for large-size nanonetworks. Furthermore, our results are expected to exhibit high impacts on the future design of wireless nanonetworks through facilitating the process of finding the suitable type of nano-antenna and suitable material for the nano-antennas.