Electrodeposition of lead dioxide on Fe electrode: application to the degradation of Indigo Carmine dye

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - The modification of an iron electrode was carried out according to the following two steps. In a first step, a cathodic reduction is performed to form a film...     

A hybrid knowledge and ensemble classification approach for prediction of venous thromboembolism

Clinical narratives such as progress summaries, lab reports, surgical reports, and other narrative texts contain key biomarkers about a patient's health. Evidence-based preventive medicine needs accurate semantic and sentiment analysis to extract and classify medical features as the input to appropriate machine learning classifiers. However, the traditional approach of using single classifiers is limited by the need for dimensionality reduction techniques, statistical feature correlation, a faster learning rate, and the lack of consideration of the semantic relations among features. Hence, extracting semantic and sentiment-based features from clinical text and combining multiple classifiers to create an ensemble intelligent system overcomes many limitations and provides a more robust prediction outcome. The selection of an appropriate approach and its interparameter dependency becomes key for the success of the ensemble method. This paper proposes a hybrid knowledge and ensemble learning framework for prediction of venous thromboembolism (VTE) diagnosis consisting of the following components: a VTE ontology, semantic extraction and sentiment assessment of risk factor framework, and an ensemble classifier. Therefore, a component-based analysis approach was adopted for evaluation using a data set of 250 clinical narratives where knowledge and ensemble achieved the following results with and without semantic extraction and sentiment assessment of risk factor, respectively: a precision of 81.8% and 62.9%, a recall of 81.8% and 57.6%, an F measure of 81.8% and 53.8%, and a receiving operating characteristic of 80.1% and 58.5% in identifying cases of VTE.     

The Effect of Ti Addition on Microstructure and Magnetic Properties of Nanocrystalline FeAl40 Alloy Powders Prepared by Mechanical Alloying

Powder Metallurgy and Metal Ceramics - Recent research on nanocrystalline FeAl alloys has shown that these alloys are of high importance due to their promising structural and mechanical properties,...     

Two-Phase Bidirectional Dual-Relay Selection Strategy for Wireless Relay Networks

In this article, we introduce a new bi-directional dual-relay selection strategy with its bit error rate (BER) performance analysis. During the first step of the proposed strategy, two relays out of a set of N relay-nodes are selected in a way to optimize the system performance in terms of BER, based on the suggested algorithm which checks if the selected relays using the max-min criterion are the best ones. In the second step, the chosen relay-nodes perform an orthogonal space-time coding scheme using the two-phase relaying protocol to establish a bi-directional communication between the communicating terminals, leading to a significant improvement in the achievable coding and diversity gain. To further improve the overall system performance, the selected relay-nodes apply also a digital network coding scheme. Furthermore, this paper discusses the analytical approximation of the BER performance of the proposed strategy, where we prove that the analytical results match almost perfectly the simulated ones. Finally, our simulation results show that the proposed strategy outperforms the current state-of-the-art ones.     

Induced Surface Austenitic-Martensitic Transition by Mechanical Deformation in Mn Steel.Effect of Surface Properties

For a lot of applications in the mechanical industry,both attractive and mechanical properties of materials and wear resistance are required.Usually such a combination is achieved only by performing surface treatments.The aim of this investigation is the consolidation of 12% Mn steel surface by treatment of impacts.We show by optical and scanning electron microscopy,X ray diffraction,X ray spectrometry analysis and also by the realization of micro hardness,the effect of this kind of treatment on the mechanical and structural stability of the surface zone.Among of many obtained results,we distinguish the clear surface consolidation induced by a modification of surface zone crystalline structure.The mechanical deformation causes the transformation from an austenitic structure to the martensitic structure.     

A simple but sound approach for processing crystal growth kinetic data

The effects of common data smoothing techniques, on the estimating of the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of the crystal growth process, were discussed in the light of birth and spread model. Adoption of the moving average, and filtration caused a noticeable misunderstanding of the real ruling growth mechanism, especially, during the early period of the crystal growth.In this work, a MATLAB routine was developed with standard, and reliable method to treat the prolonged concentration-time data sets, as obtained from continuous recording of refractometric °Brix readings of pure sucrose solutions in laboratory batch crystallization process. The method consists of finding the median of the residence time for every °Brix concentration, with and without interference of previous and post readings. In addition to 30% reduction in the evaluated interfacial free energies, up to 5-folds of increase in the estimates of the overall kinetic coefficients were reported using the common smoothing techniques instead of the proposed routine.     

Combined microwave and enzymatic treatments for ��-lactoglobulin and bovine whey proteins and their effect on the IgE immunoreactivity

Effect of combined microwave (MW) and enzymatic hydrolysis on the human immunoglobulin E (IgE)-binding properties of ??-lactoglobulin (??-lg) and other whey proteins (WP) was investigated. Separated ??-lg and full whey protein isolate (WPI) were hydrolyzed with trypsin, chymotrypsin, mixture of trypsin/chymotrypsin, and pepsin at three microwave power levels: 50?W during 1 and 5?min, 100 and 200?W during 1 and 3?min. The immunoreactivity of the obtained hydrolysates resulting from combined microwave protease treatment was assessed using sera of young patients allergic to bovine whey proteins. The application of microwave treatment at 200?W enhances the hydrolysis of ??-lg by pepsin in 3?min and decreases significantly its immunoreactivity. The extensive hydrolysis of the microwave-treated ??-lg and WPI with trypsin, chymotrypsin, and the mixture of trypsin with chymotrypsin did not have an impact on the IgE binding of the products obtained in all the studied conditions.     

Maximum power tracking for photovoltaic power system: Development and experimental comparison of two algorithms

This work presents an experimental comparison of two algorithms developed in order to maximize the output power from a photovoltaic (PV) system for the same given set of conditions. The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods proposed in this study are two extended algorithms: Perturb and Observe and Incremental Conductance. The numerical modelling of the PV system shows the MPPT interest and then the extended MPPT algorithms are highlighted. In this paper, a PV system based on a boost converter as MPPT device is considered. A programmable DC electronic load is fed by two identical PV systems in which the MPPT control converter algorithms are different. This experimental platform operates under the same conditions such as changing solar radiation and cell temperature. The experimental results obtained with a dSPACE controller board show the MPPT energy efficiency of the proposed algorithms.     

Detection of pathogenic Escherichia coli strains in groundwater in the Yaoundé region (Cameroon,Central Africa)

This study was aimed at assessing the prevalence of pathogenic Escherichia coli strains, relative to the total count of E. coli, faecal coliforms and other heterotrophic mesophilic aerobic bacteria (HMAB) isolated in groundwater in the equatorial region of Cameroon (Central Africa). Bacteria were isolated using standard methods. Pathogenic E. coli strains were then identified using haemagglutination and antisera tests. The maximum abundance of HMAB, faecal coliforms and E. coli strains were 4.9 × 10⁶, 5.6 × 10³ and 1 × 10³ colony‐forming units (CFU)/100 mL, respectively. The count of pathogenic E. coli strains reached 3 CFU/100 mL. The counts of commensal and pathogenic E. coli strains underwent temporal and spatial fluctuations. In 21% of sampling sites, the abundance of faecal coliforms was significantly correlated to that of E. coli (P < 0.05). However, the isolated bacterial count was not significantly correlated to that of the pathogenic E. coli strains (P > 0.05). The bacteria abundance dynamics may be impacted by many interacting factors.