Effect of type of processing on the microstructural features and mechanical properties of Al-Cu/SiC metal matrix composites

In this study, an aluminum based metallic matrix (Al-2wt.% Cu) was reinforced with SiC particulates using a conventional casting technique and a new disintegrated melt deposition technique. Microstructural characterization studies conducted on the samples taken from disintegrated melt deposition technique revealed a more uniform distribution of SiC particulates and good interfacial integrity between SiC particulates and metallic matrix when compared to the conventionally cast composite samples. Results of ambient temperature mechanical tests demonstrate an increase in 0.2% YS and ultimate tensile strength of samples taken from disintegrated melt deposition technique when compared with the unreinforced and conventionally cast composite samples. The results of microstructural characterization and mechanical testing were finally rationalized in terms of the nature of processing technique employed to reinforce Al-2wt.% Cu metallic matrix with SiC particulates.     

Quantitation of Cefaclor in Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography for the quantitation of cefaclor in pharmaceutical dosage forms has been developed. The method is accurate and precise with a percent relative standard deviation of 1.2 based on 5 readings. A number of inactive ingredients present in the capsules and suspensions did not interfere with the assay procedure. The extraction procedure from the dosage forms is very simple. The recovery from the synthetic mixtures was quantitative. The capsules which had expired 3 years ago lost only 3% of the potency. The drug appears to be very sensitive to strong acids or bases since a 5 minute boiling caused 100% degradation of drug in both the solutions.     

Modeling energy and agriculture interactions—I: A rural energy systems model

Since many of the factors related to rural energy systems are gradually being quantified, there is a need to construct a model that integrates a number of these factors simultaneously in a consistent framework. Therefore, a general linear programming model is developed to capture energy and agricultural interactions existing in the rural areas of developing countries. Energy used for agriculture includes fertilizers, irrigation, and mechanization. Several technological choices of each of the above are considered and so are several crop commodities, several types of livestock, and farmers of different income groups along with their assets, i.e. land holdings, livestock, etc. The by-products of agriculture, i.e. biomass, such as crop residues, animal dung, wood, etc., can be used to generate energy. On the demand side the use of them for feed, fuel, and fertilizer must be considered. Thus, the household sector (which is the largest user of noncommercial energy), as well as the rural industries sector, is intimately related to the agriculture sector. Twelve different energy sources and several conversion technologies, such as biogas, charcoal kilns, alcohol distilleries, etc., are considered. The model is applicable to low-income, biomass-scarce developing countries. However, different types of countries will require different approximations, and their needs for detailing some aspects or other may vary. The model is suitable for policy purposes because it considers several income groups separately and considers how different changes affect each of them.     

Quantitation of Sulfacetamide, Sulfadiazine, Sulfamerazine and Sulfame Thazine in Various Cominations Dsing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

A reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for the quantitation of sulfacetamide, sulfadiazine, sulfamerazine, and sulfamethazine in various combinations has been developed. The method is simple, accurate, precise and reproducible. The percent relative standard deviations based on 6 injections were 2.1, 0.6, 1.9, and 1.6 for sulfacetamide, sulfadiazine, sulfamerazine, and sulfamethazine, respectively. The ratio of peak heights (drug/internal standard) wer closely related (r value 0.99 or better) to concentrations (± 20% of the standard solution concentrations). The results of synthetic mixtures showed quantitative recovery and method was successfully applied to commercial dosage forms (tablets and suspension). Extraction of sulfa drugs from the dosage forms required a very simple procedure.     

The schnittaxiom and unions of fuzzy subgroups

A necessary and sufficient condition for the union of an arbitrary family of fuzzy subgroups of a group to be a fuzzy group has been proposed. The criterion which gives a cut of the unit interval is called the Schnittaxiom. It has been applied successfully to investigate fuzzy subgroupness of arbitrary unions of homomorphic images and preimages.     

Wavelet domain-based video noise reduction using temporal discrete cosine transform and hierarchically adapted thresholding

A novel spatio-temporal filter for video denoising, which operates entirely in the wavelet domain, is proposed. For effective noise reduction, the spatial and temporal redundancies that exist in the wavelet domain representation of a video signal are exploited. First, a 2D discrete wavelet transform is applied to the input noisy frames. This is followed by a discrete cosine transform (DCT), which is applied to the temporal subband coefficients to minimise the redundancy among the consecutive frames. The DCT transformed, noise-free coefficients in the different wavelet domain subbands for the original image sequence are modelled using a prior having a generalised Gaussian distribution. On the basis of this prior, filtering of the noisy wavelet coefficients in each subband is carried out using a new, low-complexity wavelet shrinkage method, which utilises the correlation that exists between subsequent resolution levels. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme outperforms several state-of-the-art spatio-temporal filters in terms of both the peak signal-to-noise ratio and the visual quality     

Pulsed underwater corona discharges as a source of strong oxidants: *OH and H2O2.

Because of undesirable side effects of chemical methods pulsed underwater corona discharges are emerging as a potential future advanced oxidation process (AOP) for water disinfection. In pulsed corona discharges a discharge channel is created, which contains a non-thermal plasma with a low degree of ionisation and low electron densities, but with electron energies of up to 10 eV. It has been demonstrated that electrons with this energy can dissociate water and oxygen molecules and produce various reactive radicals (*OH, H*, O*, HO2*), molecular species (H2O2, H2, O2), ultraviolet radiation and shock waves. It is supposed that the combination of all effects leads to a very efficient killing of microorganisms. To understand this in detail and to improve the efficiency of the overall system there is the need to develop suitable diagnostic methods for the quantitative determination of the various oxidants produced during the discharge. In this paper we present preliminary experimental results obtained with different chemical probes for *OH radicals, and H2O2 produced by pulsed corona discharges.