Microencapsulation of Nigella sativa seeds oil containing thymoquinone by spray‐drying for functional yogurt production

The present work reports on the microencapsulation of Nigella sativa seeds oil containing thymoquinone (TQ) by spray‐drying, using modified starch (MS) and maltodextrin (MD) mixture as wall materials aimed at producing functional yogurt. First, the impact of different ratios of MS/MD on microencapsulation efficiency (ME) and TQ retention was investigated. The highest ME (90.10%) was found in microcapsules prepared from emulsion with 80/20 ratio of MS/MD; however, the microcapsules prepared with 50/50 ratio was selected for considering TQ stability under storage conditions and functional yogurt production due to an acceptable ME (89.48%) and better TQ retention (61.12%). The results showed that the microcapsules stored at refrigerator temperature had the highest content of TQ after 4 weeks. Moreover, the results of chemical and sensory analysis suggest that N. sativa seeds oil microcapsules can be used for producing functional yogurt due to high stability of TQ and proper chemical and sensory properties.     

Improved Superorthogonal Codes Through Generalized Rotations

Concatenation of orthogonal space-time block codes (OSTBC) with an outer trellis has led to simple and powerful codes, known as superorthogonal codes or space-time block trellis-coded modulation. In this letter, we generalize these codes by finding new code supersets and corresponding set partitioning, resulting in improved coding gain. We provide design guidelines for the labeling of the generalized code trellises and demonstrate the gains by several example designs for two and four transmit antennas     

A review on hydrogen generation,explosion, and mitigation during severe accidents in light water nuclear reactors

Progress of severe accident (SA) can be divided into core degradation and post core meltdown. An important phenomena during severe accidents is the hydrogen generation from exothermal reaction between oxidation of core components, and molten core concrete interaction (MCCI). During the severe accidents, a large amounts of hydrogen is produced, deflagrated and consequently the containment integrity is violated. Therefore, the main objectives of this study is to highlight the source of hydrogen production during SA. First, a thorough literature review and main sources of hydrogen production, hydrogen reduction systems are introduced and discussed. Based on the available results, the amount of produced hydrogen in a typical pressurized water reactor (PWR) and a boiling water reactor (BWR) are estimated to be 1000 and 4000 kg, respectively during in-vessel phase. The average rate of hydrogen production is about 1 kg/s during reflooding of a degraded core. Also, about 2000 kg hydrogen is produced during MCCI for a PWR. The lower and upper range of hydrogen required to initiate combustion is 4.1 and 74 vol percent, respectively. In this paper a review is provided of what has been done in the literature with regard to hydrogen generation in severe accidents of nuclear power plants. In addition, the review identifies the literature gaps and underlines the need of developing a systematic hydrogen management strategy. A hydrogen management strategy is proposed in order to maintain the containment integrity against the probable combustion or hydrogen explosion loads.     

Multi-Objective Surface Water Resource Management Considering Conflict Resolution and Utility Function Optimization

In the present research, a multi-objective model is developed for surface water resource management in the river basin area which is connected to the lake. This model considers different components of sustainable water resource management including economic, social and environmental aspects, and simultaneously tries to resolve conflicts between different stakeholders by means of non-symmetric Nash bargaining, which is linked to the multi-objective optimization method. This study proposes a new methodology to improve Nash Conflict Resolution through finding the optimum degree of the utility function. The proposed model is examined in the Zarrineh River basin in Iran. The results show that the amount of available resources or volume of reservoirs play a significant role in determining the optimal degree of the utility function and efficiency of the proposed method in such a way that the higher amount of resources or the larger reservoirs will result in the higher optimal degree of the utility function. In the proposed multi-objective model, two different amounts of surface water inflow are considered. The first assumed amount is the long-term average flow rate and the second one is equal to 80% of the first mode, which is reduced based on the estimated impacts of climate changes. This multi-objective allocation model could supply 100 and 97.5% of the environmental demand of Lake Urmia in the first and second situations, respectively.     

High Performance Removal of Anionic and Cationic Dye Pollutants with Co<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript> Modified Nanoclinoptilolite: Kinetics and Adsorption Equilibrium Studies

In this paper Co₃O₄ doped nanoclinoptilolite was synthesized and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) techniques. The adsorption efficiency for removing of methylene blue was about 95% in 10 min. The effect of some factors such as adsorbent dose, concentration of analyte and pH was investigated for enhancing the removing efficiency. Moreover Freundlich and Langmuir patterns were plotted for this new nanocomposite. Maximum of adsorption capacity was obtained from slope of Langmuir and was about 25 mg/g. The kinetic study for methylene blue shows a second order kinetic with rate constant about 0.02 g/mg/min. The prepared nanocomposite was successfully applied for removing some color compounds such as methylene blue, methyl green, and methyl red and also binary dye mixtures.