Impact of Firefighting Sprays on the Fire Performance of Structural Steel Members

Fire Technology - The feasibility of coupled computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element (FE) simulations to aid the planning of fire intervention tactics and the effectiveness of...     

Chemical desulfurization of petroleum fractions for ultra-low sulfur fuels

An improved desulfurization process for removing sulfur from hydro treated diesel oil based on the oxidation of thiophenic type sulfur-containing compounds with H₂O₂ and acetic acid (AcOH) using H₂SO₄ as catalyst has been studied. The experimental results show that the sulfone content in the oxidation product increased rapidly with an increase in acetic acid and sulfuric acid ratios from 1:0 to 2:1 mole ratios. The maximum DBT conversion (wt.%) was at 2:1 mole ratio of acetic acid/sulfuric acid. This oxidation process is found to be capable of removing up to 90% of the sulfur compounds in hydro treated real fuels and can provide an alternative way to meet the future sulfur environmental requirements.     

A new hybrid approach for the solution of nonconvex economic dispatch problem with valve-point effects

Economic dispatch (ED) generally formulated as convex problem using optimization techniques by approximating generator input/output characteristic curves of monotonically increasing nature results in an inaccurate dispatch. The genetic algorithm has previously been used for the solution of problem for economic dispatch but takes longer time to converge to near optimal results. The hybrid approach is one of the methodologies used to fine tune the near optimal results produced by GA. This paper proposes new hybrid approach to solve the ED problem by using the valve-point effect. The approach we propose combines the genetic algorithm (GA) with active power optimization (APO) based on the Newton's second order approach (NSO). The genetic algorithm acts as a global optimizer giving near optimal generation schedule, which becomes the input for generation buses in APO algorithm. This algorithm acting as local search technique dispatching the generated active power of units for minimization of cost and gives optimum generation schedule. Three machines 6-bus, IEEE 5-machines 14-bus, and IEEE 6-mchines 30-bus systems have been tested for validation of our approach. Results of the proposed scheme compared with results obtained from GA alone give significant improvements in the generation cost showing the promise of the proposed approach.     

Anticarcinogenecity of microbiota and probiotics in breast cancer

Breast cancer is one of the most important causes of cancer related morbidity and mortality in the world. Along with genetic, environmental factors also play a multifaceted role in the development of disease. Breast contains several bacterial species performing specialized functions. Probiotics, as functional food, play pivotal role against breast cancer development in vivo and in vitro. Current review summarized all the available data related to diet, probiotics, and their association with breast cancer risk along with underlying mechanisms. Presently, it was believed that many of the commercially available probiotic products were safe to use and had some beneficial health effects for the host. Probiotics had a potential to act against breast cancer progression evidenced by many animal model and cell-based experiments. Some probiotics strains may be useful as an adjuvant therapy for breast cancer prevention or treatment, by modulating immune response or breast microbial community. However, large-scale clinical trials and intense research are mandatory to explore probiotics-related metabolic and molecular mechanisms in breast cancer.     

Development of Polyoxyethylene Zwitterionic Surfactants for High-Salinity High-Temperature Reservoirs

Substantial efforts are underway to improve the recovery factor from existing oil reserves to meet the ever-growing global oil demand. Surfactants are known to increase oil recovery through reducing interfacial tension (IFT) and/or altering the rock wettability. The selection of surfactants for high-salinity high-temperature oil fields is a challenging task owing to poor thermal stability, precipitation, and adsorption of surfactants on reservoir rocks. Sulfobetaine-based polyoxyethylene zwitterionic surfactants have shown excellent thermal and surface properties. However, their solubility in high-salinity brines becomes poor particularly with a long hydrophobic tail (>C17). Recently, we synthesized such types of surfactants by incorporating ethylene oxide (EO) units into the hydrophobic tail, which improved the solubility in formation water (213,734 ppm) and seawater (SW) (57,643 ppm). In this work, we investigated the IFT, thermal stability, rheological behavior, and foaming properties of two polyoxyethylene zwitterionic surfactants having different degrees of ethoxylation. Aging experiments exhibited excellent thermal stability and no change in the chemical structure was detected. The surfactant with lesser EO units (EASB-1a) showed a lower IFT compared to the surfactant with higher EO units (EASB-1b). Rheological studies revealed that the addition of both surfactants reduced the viscosity of the acrylamide copolymer. However, the effect of EASB-1a was more prominent compared to that of EASB-1b. The surfactant with a higher degree of ethoxylation showed lower adsorption compared to the surfactant with a lesser degree of ethoxylation. Both surfactants showed excellent foamability and foam stability compared to the commercial surfactants. Excellent thermal stability, water solubility under harsh reservoir conditions, foaming properties, and lower adsorption make them a suitable choice for high-temperature, high-salinity reservoirs.     

Magneto-resistance and Excess Conductivity Studies of Tl(Ba2−y Mg y )Ca 2 Cu 3 O 10−δ Samples

The flux pinning characteristics of T l(B a _2?y M g _y )C a ₂ C u ₃ O _10?δ(0.0≤y≤ 1.5) samples have been studied under the influence of various dc magnetic fields in the light of thermally activated flux flow model. It was observed form the magneto resistivity measurements that the activation energy U has been increased in the sample with Mg incorporation of y=0.5, however, it is decreased in the samples with higher Mg doping. This shows that lower Mg doping concentration promotes enhancement, whereas its higher concentration suppresses the flux pinning characteristics of Tl(Ba _2?yMg _y )Ca ₂Cu ₃ O _10?δ (0.0 ≤y≤1.5) samples. The excess conductivity analysis of Tl(Ba _2?yMg _y )Ca ₂Cu ₃ O _10?δ (0.0 ≤ y ≤ 1.5) samples has shown that the coherence length along the c-axis ξ _c(0), the interlayer coupling J, the phase relaxation time of the carriers τ _? , and the Fermi velocity v _F of the carriers are suppressed with Mg doping. However, the values of B _c0(T), B _c1(T), and J _c(0) are enhanced which complement the magnetoresistivity analysis. These results showed that the flux pinning characteristics are enhanced for lower doping concentration of Mg at the charge reservoir layer sites.     

Tree-based partitioning of date for association rule mining

The most computationally demanding aspect of Association Rule Mining is the identification and counting of support of the frequent sets of items that occur together sufficiently often to be the basis of potentially interesting rules. The task increases in difficulty with the scale of the data and also with its density. The greatest challenge is posed by data that is too large to be contained in primary memory, especially when high data density and/or low support thresholds give rise to very large numbers of candidates that must be counted. In this paper, we consider strategies for partitioning the data to deal effectively with such cases. We describe a partitioning approach which organises the data into tree structures that can be processed independently. We present experimental results that show the method scales well for increasing dimensions of data and performs significantly better than alternatives, especially when dealing with dense data and low support thresholds. Shakil Ahmed received a first class BSc (Hons) degree from Dhaka University, Bangladesh, in 1990; and an MSc (first class), also Dhaka University, in 1992. He received his PhD from The University of Liverpool, UK, in 2005. From 2000 onwards he is a member of the Data Mining Group at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests include data mining, Association Rule Mining and pattern recognition. Frans Coenen has been working in the field of Data Mining for many years and has written widely on the subject. He received his PhD from Liverpool Polytechnic in 1989, after which he took up a post as a RA within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. In 1997, he took up a lecturing post within the same department. His current Data Mining research interests include Association rule Mining, Classification algorithms and text mining. He is on the programme committee for ICDM'05 and was the chair for the UK KDD symposium (UKKDD'05). Paul Leng is professor of e-Learning at the University of Liverpool and director of the e-Learning Unit, which is responsible for overseeing the University's online degree programmes, leading to degrees of MSc in IT and MBA. Along with e-Learning, his main research interests are in Data Mining, especially in methods of discovering Association Rules. In collaboration with Frans Coenen, he has developed efficient new algorithms for finding frequent sets and is exploring applications in text mining and classification.     

Synthesis,Characterization and Surface Properties of Amidosulfobetaine Surfactants Bearing Odd-Number Hydrophobic Tail

Three amidosulfobetaine surfactants were synthesized namely: 3-(N-pentadecanamidopropyl-N,N-dimethyl ammonium) propanesulfonate (2a); 3-(N-heptadecanamidopropyl-N,N-dimethyl ammonium) propanesulfonate (2b), and 3-(N-nonadecanamidopropyl-N,N-dimethyl ammonium) propanesulfonate (2c). These surfactants were prepared by direct amidation of commercially available fatty acids with 3-(dimethylamino)-1-propylamine and subsequent reaction with 1,3-propanesultone to obtain quaternary ammonium salts. The synthesized surfactants were characterized by IR, NMR and mass spectrometry. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed that the synthesized surfactants have excellent thermal stability with no major thermal degradation below 300 °C. The critical micelle concentration (CMC) values of the surfactants 2a and 2b were found to be 2.2 × 10^?4 and 1.04 × 10^?4 mol/L, and the corresponding surface tension (γ_CMC) values were 33.14 and 34.89 mN m^?1, respectively. The surfactants exhibit excellent surface properties, which are comparable with conventional surfactants. The intrinsic viscosity of surfactant (2b) was studied at various temperatures and concentrations of multi-component brine solution. The plot of natural logarithm of relative viscosity versus surfactant concentration obtained from Higiro et al. model best fit the surfactant behavior. Due to good salt resistance, excellent surface properties and thermal stability, the synthesized surfactant has potential to be used in various oil field applications such as enhanced oil recovery, fracturing, acid diversion, and well stimulation.     

Antimicrobial Peptides from Plants: A cDNA-Library Based Isolation,Purification, Characterization Approach and Elucidating Their Modes of Action

Even in a natural ecosystem, plants are continuously threatened by various microbial diseases. To save themselves from these diverse infections, plants build a robust, multilayered immune system through their natural chemical compounds. Among the several crucial bioactive compounds possessed by plants’ immune systems, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) rank in the first tier. These AMPs are environmentally friendly, anti-pathogenic, and do not bring harm to humans. Antimicrobial peptides can be isolated in several ways, but recombinant protein production has become increasingly popular in recent years, with the Escherichia coli expression system being the most widely used. However, the efficacy of this expression system is compromised due to the difficulty of removing endotoxin from its system. Therefore, this review suggests a high-throughput cDNA library-based plant-derived AMP isolation technique using the Bacillus subtilis expression system. This method can be performed for large-scale screening of plant sources to classify unique or homologous AMPs for the agronomic and applied field of plant studies. Furthermore, this review also focuses on the efficacy of plant AMPs, which are dependent on their numerous modes of action and exceptional structural stability to function against a wide range of invaders. To conclude, the findings from this study will be useful in investigating how novel AMPs are distributed among plants and provide detailed guidelines for an effective screening strategy of AMPs.