Correction to: Double Vision Model Using Space-Time Function Control within Silicon Microring System

Silicon - The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake in the “Acknowledgments” section.     

Effect of Different Cosolvents on Transesterification of Waste Cooking Oil in a Microreactor

Biodiesel was prepared from waste cooking oil combined with methanol. The process was performed via transesterification in a microreactor using kettle limescale as a heterogeneous catalyst and various cosolvents under different conditions. n‐Hexane and tetrahydrofuran were selected as cosolvents to investigate fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs). To optimize the reaction conditions, the main parameters affecting FAME% including reaction temperature, catalyst concentration, oil‐to‐methanol volumetric ratio, and cosolvent‐to‐methanol volumetric ratio were studied via response surface methodology. Under optimal reaction conditions and in the presence of the cosolvents n‐hexane and tetrahydrofuran, high FAME purities were achieved. Considering the experimental results, the limescale catalyst is a unique material, and the cosolvent method can reduce significantly the reaction time and biodiesel production cost.     

Removal of impurities from liquid solutions by vacuum desorption with solvent evaporation

Mass transfer with solvent evaporation in the vapor-liquid two-phase film evaporators used for the removal of undesirable impurities from liquid solutions at low pressure is studied. The average concentrations of solution components in the falling liquid film are determined. The most efficient operating conditions for impurity removal, in which the resistance to mass transfer is concentrated in the liquid phase, are found. Original Russian Text ? V.N. Babak, T.B. Babak, L.P. Kholpanov, 2008, published in Teoreticheskie Osnovy Khimicheskoi Tekhnologii, 2008, Vol. 42, No. 6, pp. 654–670.     

Binders for jute-reinforced unsaturated polyester resin

Reinforcement of polyester resin with jute cloth under constant load is studied, The pretreatment of jute cloth with tetrahydrofuran and the effect of binding properties of poly(vinyl acetate) and acrylic acid and their effect on the impact, tensile, and water absorptions of jute cloth polyester composites are reported and their chemical reactions are discussed.     

On the modal incremental dynamic analysis

In this article a new technique for the dynamic response of structures is investigated. This applied procedure can predict the approximate seismic performance of the structures and it is fast, inexpensive and results are reasonably acceptable. In fact, this novel method logically combines two different techniques, ‘incremental dynamic analysis (IDA)’ and ‘modal pushover analysis (MPA)’, presented by other researchers. This method will take advantage of both methodical ideas such as equivalent single degree of freedom of multi‐degree structures and the implementation of different scaled level of an earthquake record to the provided equivalent SDF structure. Using this procedure, simple approximate curves that present a realistic linear and non‐linear seismic behaviour of the structure due to the applied scaled level of earthquakes can easily be extracted. In this investigation, several four‐, eight‐ and 12‐storey structures are specified as the example models and are dynamically analysed. Next, three different scaled earthquakes, El Centro, Northridge and San Fernando, are applied to each example problem. The results of the presented technique, modal incremental dynamic analysis (MIDA), are then compared with the IDA method. Comparison of the results reveals good accuracy in building seismic demands evaluation. Finally, it is also shown that the MIDA method is simple enough to be carried out on most personal computers and the authors believe this technique will serve design engineers working in real design conditions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Agent-oriented techniques for network supervision

This paper presents the results of the Réseau futé (smart net) project, the goal of which is to use distributed AI and multi-agent techniques for network management and supervision. More precisely, these techniques have been applied to the partial automation of the dynamic processing (what is known about a network is always incomplete and can change at any time) of alarms and of various event notifications received by network management platforms. The system that we propose is able for example to automatically handle some alarms or to filter events of no-interest for a given operator. To achieve this goal, an assistant, or interface agent according to the model proposed by Patti Maes [MK93], has been realized. The goal of the assistant is first to learn, by observation, the behavior of the network supervision operator and second to reproduce such a behavior when the conditions in which the behavior has been learned are detected again. The learned information are stored using chronicles [Gha94]. A chronicle is a data-structure allowing programmers to represent sequences of events while taking temporal knowledge into account. Our assistant has been implemented and tested within Magenta which is a program, written in Smalltalk, that simulates (in a simplified way) a network management platform. This program respects roughly the gdmo and cmis standards.     

Analytical Modeling of Short-Channel Fully-Depleted Triple Work Function Metal Gate (TWFMG) SOI MESFET

Silicon - In this paper, a new structure: triple work function metal gate SOI MESFET, intended for integration into the deep-submicron CMOS technology, is proposed. The gate of the device consists...     

An Engineered sgsh Mutant Zebrafish Recapitulates Molecular and Behavioural Pathobiology of Sanfilippo Syndrome A/MPS IIIA

Mucopolysaccharidosis IIIA (MPS IIIA, Sanfilippo syndrome type A), a paediatric neurological lysosomal storage disease, is caused by impaired function of the enzyme N-sulfoglucosamine sulfohydrolase (SGSH) resulting in impaired catabolism of heparan sulfate glycosaminoglycan (HS GAG) and its accumulation in tissues. MPS IIIA represents a significant proportion of childhood dementias. This condition generally leads to patient death in the teenage years, yet no effective therapy exists for MPS IIIA and a complete understanding of the mechanisms of MPS IIIA pathogenesis is lacking. Here, we employ targeted CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis to generate a model of MPS IIIA in the zebrafish, a model organism with strong genetic tractability and amenity for high-throughput screening. The sgsh^Δex5−6 zebrafish mutant exhibits a complete absence of Sgsh enzymatic activity, leading to progressive accumulation of HS degradation products with age. sgsh^Δex5−6 zebrafish faithfully recapitulate diverse CNS-specific features of MPS IIIA, including neuronal lysosomal overabundance, complex behavioural phenotypes, and profound, lifelong neuroinflammation. We further demonstrate that neuroinflammation in sgsh^Δex5−6 zebrafish is largely dependent on interleukin-1β and can be attenuated via the pharmacological inhibition of Caspase-1, which partially rescues behavioural abnormalities in sgsh^Δex5−6 mutant larvae in a context-dependent manner. We expect the sgsh^Δex5−6 zebrafish mutant to be a valuable resource in gaining a better understanding of MPS IIIA pathobiology towards the development of timely and effective therapeutic interventions.     

A new intelligent algorithm for dynamic facility layout problem in state of fuzzy constraints

In the present paper, the dynamic facilities layout problem is studied in presence of ambiguity of information flow. Product demand (and consequently material flow) is defined as fuzzy numbers with different membership functions. The problem is modeled in fuzzy programming. Three models of expected value, chance-constrained programming and dependent-chance programming and two hybrid intelligent algorithms are then presented. At the end, efficiency of algorithms for solving fuzzy models of dynamic facilities layout is shown through some numerical examples.