Content of antinutritional factors and HCl-extractability of minerals from white bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) cultivars: Influence of soaking and/or cooking

White bean seeds were subjected to soaking in distilled water for 1, 2 and 3 days. In order to perform complete processing, the seeds were cooked until soft. Effects of soaking and/or cooking of white bean seeds on antinutritional factors, mineral contents and HCl-extractability were studied. Phytic acid and polyphenol contents of all cultivars were reduced. Soaking alone and soaking, followed by cooking, reduced mineral contents of the cultivars, but HCl-extractability was significantly (P ? 0.01) improved to varying extents, depending on cultivar type. Soaking and/or cooking treatment was thus found to be an effective technique and caused further improvement in the availability of both major and trace minerals in white bean.     

Thermoeconomic optimization for a finned‐tube evaporator configuration of a roof‐top bus air‐conditioning system

This paper presents a methodology of a design optimization technique that can be useful in assessing the best configuration of a finned‐tube evaporator, using a thermoeconomic approach. The assessment has been carried out on a direct expansion finned‐tube evaporator of a vapor compression cycle for a roof‐top bus air‐conditioning (AC) system at a specified cooling capacity. The methodology has been conducted by studying the effect of some operational and geometrical design parameters for the evaporator on the entire cycle exergy destruction or irreversibility, AC system coefficient of performance (COP), and total annual cost. The heat exchangers for the bus AC system are featured by a very compact frontal area due to the stringent space limitations and structure standard for the system installation. Therefore, the current study also takes in its account the effect of the variation of the design parameters on the evaporator frontal area. The irreversibility due to heat transfer across the stream‐to‐stream temperature difference and due to frictional pressure drops is calculated as a function of the design parameters. A cost function is introduced, defined as the sum of two contributions, the investment expense of the evaporator material and the system compressor, and the operational expense of AC system that is usually driven by an auxiliary engine or coupled with the main bus engine. The optimal trade‐off between investment and operating cost is, therefore, investigated. A numerical example is discussed, in which a comparison between the commercial evaporator design and optimal design configuration has been presented in terms of the system COP and evaporator material cost. The results show that a significant improvement can be obtained for the optimal evaporator design compared with that of the commercial finned‐tube evaporator that is designed based on the conventional values of the design parameters. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Detection and quantification of palm mid‐fraction in a chocolate model system

The tocopherol and tocotrienol compositions of the genuine cocoa butter (CB) and palm mid‐fraction (PMF) were investigated to introduce a more reliable indicator in detecting PMF in CB. The results suggested that the α‐tocotrienol data presented could be utilised for the detection of the PMF admixture to CB. The PMF was added to CB at different levels. HPLC was used to detect the presence of PMF admixture to CB using α‐tocotrienol as an indicator. The results derived from the model system indicated that increasing the PMF amount at 0–15% to CB resulted in an increase in the concentration of the α‐tocotrienol significantly (P < 0.05). The addition of PMF amount more than 15% did not have any effect on the α‐tocotrienol concentration. A linear plot with a high correlation of 0.9967 was obtained with SE of 1.527. The high correlation obtained indicated good accuracy, reflecting a close relationship between experimental and theoretical predicted value.     

The electronic band structure of InN,InAs and InSb compounds

The electronic band structure of InN, InAs and InSb has been investigated by ETB. The ETB method has been formulated for sp³d² basis and nearest neighbor interactions of the compounds and its energy parameters have been derived from the results of the present first principles calculations carried on InN, InAs and InSb. It has been found that the present ETB parameters can produce the band structure of the compounds successfully.     

Impacts of impregnation with Timbercare Aqua on the red and yellow color tone of some woods and varnishes

This study has been performed for determining the effects of impregnation with Timbercare Aqua (Tc) on the red and yellow color tone of some woods and varnishes. For this purpose, the test samples prepared from Oriental beech, European oak, Scotch pine, Oriental spruce, and Uludag fir woods, which met the requirements of ASTM D 358, was impregnated with Tc according to ASTM D 1413 and producer's definition. After impregnation, wood surfaces have been coated by Sayerlack parquet varnish (Sp), Sayerlack interior varnish (Si), and Sayerlack exterior varnish (Se) varnishes in accordance with the ASTM D 3023 standards. According to ASTM D 2244, the red and yellow color tone of samples after varnishing process was determined. As a result, the value of red color tone was the highest in Oriental beech (15.21) and the lowest in Uludag fir (5.38). For the wood material, impregnation material, and varnish interaction, the red color tone value was the highest in Oriental beech + Tc + Sp (18.43) and the lowest in Uludag fir + Tc + Si (3.92). The value of the yellow color tone was the highest in pine (34.45) and the lowest in Oriental beech (26.50). For the wood material, impregnation material, and varnish interaction, the yellow color tone value was the highest in Oriental spruce + Tc + Sp (42.12) and the lowest in Oriental beech + Tc + Si (21.47). This effect may be due to the impacts of impregnation chemical on wood extractives and color pigments in varnish. Accordingly, it should be taken into care for applications where the red and yellow color tone value is important. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

Software-reliability engineering: technology for the 1990s

It argued that software engineering is about to reach a new stage, the reliability stage, that stresses customers' operational needs and that software-reliability engineering will make this stage possible. Software-reliability engineering is defined as the applied science of predicting, measuring, and managing the reliability of software-based systems to maximize customer satisfaction. The basic concepts of software reliability-engineering and the reasons why it is important are examined. The application of software-reliability engineering at each stage of the life cycle is described     

Effect of collection time on chemical composition of the essential oil of Foeniculum vulgare subsp. piperitum growing wild in Turkey

The essential oils of Foeniculum vulgare subsp. piperitum were subjected to detailed GC-MS analysis in order to determine possible similarities and differences in their chemical compositions, depending on growth years (2001 and 2002). In both oils, methyl chavicol (40.29 and 21.69%), limonene (17.66 and 22.24%), fenchone (16.90 and 12.98%), α-pinene (1.86 and 34%) and α-phellandrene (2.30 and 2.74%) were the main components, respectively. A total of 32 components were identified accounting for 85.01 and 67.14% of the oils of F. vulgare, respectively. The main characteristic of the oils is the high content of the limonene, fenchone and estragol. Our findings indicated that the oil of Turkish bitter fennel belonged to methyl chavicol rich type.     

Comparative seismic design optimization of spatial steel dome structures through three recent metaheuristic algorithms

Steel dome structures, with their striking structural forms, take a place among the impressive and aesthetic load bearing systems featuring large internal spaces without internal columns. In this paper, the seismic design optimization of spatial steel dome structures is achieved through three recent metaheuristic algorithms that are water strider (WS), grey wolf (GW), and brain storm optimization (BSO). The structural elements of the domes are treated as design variables collected in member groups. The structural stress and stability limitations are enforced by ASD-AISC provisions. Also, the displacement restrictions are considered in design procedure. The metaheuristic algorithms are encoded in MATLAB interacting with SAP2000 for gathering structural reactions through open application programming interface (OAPI). The optimum spatial steel dome designs achieved by proposed WS, GW, and BSO algorithms are compared with respect to solution accuracy, convergence rates, and reliability, utilizing three real-size design examples for considering both the previously reported optimum design results obtained by classical metaheuristic algorithms and a gradient descent-based hyperband optimization (HBO) algorithm.     

Multifractal analysis of Mg-doped ZnO thin films deposited by sol–gel spin coating method

A multifractal analysis has been performed on the 3D (three-dimensional) surface microtexture of magnesium-doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Mg) thin films with doping concentration of 0, 2, 4, and 5%. Thin films were deposited onto the glass substrates via the sol–gel spin coating method. The effect of magnesium doping, on the crystal structure, morphology, and band gap for ZnO:Mg thin films has been analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and UV–Vis spectroscopy. It has been observed that the surface of ZnO thin films is multifractal in nature. However, multifractality and complexity observed to decrease with increasing content of Mg in ZnO thin films due to formation of islands on the surface in accordance with Volmer–Weber growth mechanism. The investigations revealed that crystallinity, microtexture, morphology, and optical properties of the thin films can be tuned by controlling the Mg content within the ZnO lattice. In particular, their optical band gap energies were 3.27, 3.31, 3.34, and 3.33 eV at 0, 2, 4, and 5%, respectively. The prepared thin films of ZnO:Mg with tuned characteristics would have promising applications in optoelectronic devices.