A Comprehensive Review on Chemotaxonomic and Phytochemical Aspects of Homoisoflavonoids,as Rare Flavonoid Derivatives

Homoisoflavonoids (3-benzylidene-4-chromanones) are considered as an infrequent flavonoid class, possessing multi-beneficial bioactivities. The present study gives an overview on phytochemical aspects of homoisoflavonoids, including utilized plant species, parts, extracts, and separation techniques. Overall, these compounds have mainly been isolated and identified from bulbs and rhizomes of the plants belonging to Asparagaceae and Fabaceae families, particularly the genera of Ophiopogon, Dracaena, Scilla, Polygonatum, and Caesalpinia.     

Violence detection in videos using interest frame extraction and 3D convolutional neural network

Multimedia Tools and Applications - With the rapid development of detecting violent behaviors in surveillance cameras, requests on systems that automatically recognize violent events are expanded....     

Effect of fortification with asparagus powder on the qualitative properties of processed cheese

The qualitative properties of processed cheese (PC) fortified with different levels of asparagus powder (AP) (0.5%, 1% and 1.5% wt/wt) were evaluated during storage. AP decreased the pH and lipolysis indexes and increased the phenolic content, antioxidant activity and proteolysis of the processed cheeses. AP made the structure of the cheese more elastic, increased the rigidity and decreased the spreadability compared with the control sample, which corresponded to the results obtained using dynamic oscillatory rheometry. The results showed that AP as a rich source of bioactive components could be used for the fortification of processed cheeses.     

Transmission pricing and recovery of investment costs in the deregulated power system based on optimal circuit prices

Transmission pricing has become a major issue in the discussions about the deregulated electricity markets.Consequently,open access to the transmission system is one of the basic topics to allow competition among participants in the energy market.Transmission costs have an important impact on relative competition among participants in the energy market as well as on short-and long-term economic efficiencies of the whole electricity industry,although they represent only close to 10% of the energy market price.This paper deals with the design and tests of a transmission pricing method based on the optimal circuit prices derived from the economically adapted network(EAN).Prices derived from the EAN have the advantage of being in tune with the maximum revenue allowed to the owner of transmission assets and simplifying the optimal allocation of transmission costs among participants.Beginning from the conceptual design,the proposed method is tested on a three-bus network and on the IEEE 24-bus reliability test system.     

Theoretical and experimental analyses of rheological,compatibility and mechanical properties of PVMQ/XNBR-g GMA/XNBR/GO ternary hybrid nanocomposites

Iranian Polymer Journal - Effects of graphene oxide (GO) on various properties of rubber hybrid nanocomposites based on PVMQ/XNBR-g-GMA/XNBR (phenyl-vinyl-methyl-polysiloxane/carboxylated nitrile...     

Carbon nanotube based miniaturized electron gun and column assembly

We report on the application of silicon micromachining for the fabrication of miniaturized electron gun (MEG) assembly using vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. The proposed MEG consists of two main parts of electron gun and the accelerating column. While the electron gun consists of carbon nanotubes grown on a silicon substrate acting as an electron emission source, the accelerating column is made of micromachined silicon wafers with 5 μm thick membranes operating as objective lenses. These two wafers are placed together and sealed using a three-dimensional packaging technique. The simulation and experimental results show the evolution of a narrow electron beam by applying a proper voltage to the anodes and objective lens. The diverging and focusing of the beam can be controlled by applying the proper voltage on electrostatic lenses. This structure could be suitable for low energy SEM devices and surface physics applications.     

An improved Differential Evolution algorithm using learning automata and population topologies

A new variant of Differential Evolution (DE), called ADE-Grid, is presented in this paper which adapts the mutation strategy, crossover rate (CR) and scale factor (F) during the run. In ADE-Grid, learning automata (LA), which are powerful decision making machines, are used to determine the proper value of the parameters CR and F, and the suitable strategy for the construction of a mutant vector for each individual, adaptively. The proposed automata based DE is able to maintain the diversity among the individuals and encourage them to move toward several promising areas of the search space as well as the best found position. Numerical experiments are conducted on a set of twenty four well-known benchmark functions and one real-world engineering problem. The performance comparison between ADE-Grid and other state-of-the-art DE variants indicates that ADE-Grid is a viable approach for optimization. The results also show that the proposed ADE-Grid improves the performance of DE in terms of both convergence speed and quality of final solution.     

Estimation of the critical properties of compounds using volume-based thermodynamics

The importance, yet scarcity of the critical constants of thermally unstable fluids warrants the development of reliable methods for the estimation of these essential thermodynamic properties. A thorough investigation undertaken in this study on 1,589 compounds belonging to 83 chemical classes, indicated that the ratio of critical temperature to critical pressure of both low and high molecular weight compounds could be well expressed in terms of their volumetric properties. In addition, two new methodologies are presented for estimating V_c, as well as an indirect approach for prediction of T_c from surface tension data, altogether allowing the calculation of Z_c. Moreover, comparative studies are made with five group contribution methods. It is also demonstrated that by employing the Peng-Robinson EOS, and without prior knowledge of the critical properties, it is possible to calculate various thermophysical properties including P^sat., T_b, , ∆H^vap. , C_p, and even the T_c and P_c themselves.     

Quantifying nonclassicality of correlations based on the concept of nondisruptive local state identification

A bipartite state is classical with respect to party A if and only if party A can perform nondisruptive local state identification (NDLID) by a projective measurement. Motivated by this we introduce a class of quantum correlation measures for an arbitrary bipartite state. The measures utilize the general Schatten p-norm to quantify the amount of departure from the necessary and sufficient condition of classicality of correlations provided by the concept of NDLID. We show that for the case of Hilbert–Schmidt norm, i.e., \(p=2\), a closed formula is available for an arbitrary bipartite state. The reliability of the proposed measures is checked from the information-theoretic perspective. Also, the monotonicity behavior of these measures under LOCC is exemplified. The results reveal that for the general pure bipartite states these measures have an upper bound which is an entanglement monotone in its own right. This enables us to introduce a new measure of entanglement, for a general bipartite state, by convex roof construction. Some examples and comparison with other quantum correlation measures are also provided.     

Development of degradation model for urban asphalt pavement

There is a lack of a profound understanding of urban pavement deterioration pattern. This is due to the complexity of traffic conditions and the variety of pavement structures in urban roads. The lack of a suitable deterioration model for the urban pavements limits the possibility of making any scientific and cost-effective repair and maintenance strategy. There is a need for a better understanding of the long-term behaviour of urban pavements by which predictive pavement condition models can be derived and consequently a suitable maintenance management system can be built. In response to this need, a comprehensive field study was performed in three Iranian cosmopolitan cities. Pervasive pavement damages were defined and an urban pavement condition index was established. A deterioration model was developed by monitoring and analysing the conditions of road pavements in a period of four years. This model varies as the structural and loading conditions of the pavement change. The efficiency and practicability of the model in predicting the conditions of the pavements were illustrated.