Synthesis of chemically cross-linked hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose hydrogels and their application in controlled release of 5-amino salicylic acid

The objective of this study was to achieve the colon-specific delivery of an anti-ulcerative colitis drug using hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) hydrogels. HPMC hydrogels containing poly ethylene glycol (PEG) as cross-links have been prepared by reacting HPMC sodium salt with polyethylene glycol dichloride.

The effect of cross-linking agent on swelling behavior of HPMC-PEG hydrogels, were investigated. Swelling parameters such as equilibrium degree of swelling, swelling ratio and network parameter such as molecular mass between cross-links (M_c) were determined. The cross-linking concentrations were 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2% (based on weight of HPMC). The equilibrium swelling ratio (Q) of cross-linked HPMC hydrogels increases from 13.2 to 27.1 as the cross-linker percentage increases from 0.5% to 2%. 5-Aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) was used as a model of an anti-inflammatory drug. Cross-linked HPMC hydrogels were found to be a promising drug delivery system for the drugs to be delivered to the colon.     

纳米TiQ/炭黑改性PET织物及其导电与光活性的表征

对聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯(PET)织物进行碱性水解预处理.通过浸渍法以十二烷基硫酸钠作为分散剂在原始的和经预处理的PET中加入纳米炭黑(CB1515和CB156),纳米二氧化钛(NTO)-NCBs(CB1515或CB156)混合物.以柠檬酸(CA)和次磷酸钠(SHP)分别为交联剂和催化剂,分别在预处理前后的PETs中加入NTO+CB1515和NTO+CB156作对比研究.结果表明,CB156比CB1515更能有效地降低样品的电阻率.加入NTO后,由原始PET所制样品比预处理PET所制样品具有更低的电阻率.然而,这与不加NTO所制样品结果相反.通过增加添加量和改善NCBs和NTO在织物中的分散均匀性,采用CA和SHP可明显降低样品的电阻率.发现NCBs与NTO的协同效应可提高预处理织物的紫外吸收.由原始PET中加入NCB和NTO所制样品比预处理的PET对亚甲基蓝降解具有更高活性.通过添加NTO或CA-SHP可提高活性,前者比后者更有效.     

Effect of Heat Transfer on the First and Second Law Efficiency Analysis and Optimization of an Air-standard Atkinson Cycle

In this paper, the first and second-law analysis for the thermodynamic air-standard Atkinson cycle with an account for heat transfer is performed using finite-time thermodynamics. In order to have more accurate evaluations, the effects of thermodynamic and design key parameters on the performance characteristics of Atkinson cycle are shown. Further, artificial neural network and imperialist competition algorithm are employed to predict and optimize the net work output value versus the minimum cycle temperature and also the compression ratio. The results obtained show that the heat loss is an effective factor of the performance of the cycle and it should be considered in the analysis and comparison of practical internal combustion engines.     

Reviewing the transport domain: an evolutionary bibliometrics and network analysis

Tracing the trajectory of scientific fields has been recognized by informaticians, nonetheless, little effort has been dedicated to understanding the evolution of the fast-moving research field of transport, quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper identifies intellectual turning points and emerging trends in the area of transport. Using bibliometric methods, co-keyword networks, journal co-citation networks, highly cited categories, and country and institute networks are detected, visualized and discussed. To conduct this analysis, all publications (35,712) in 23 top journals in the field of transport are extracted from the Institute for Scientific Information (Web of Science). The output of this article could be a valuable source for academics and practitioners working in the field of transport planning and those who work in the areas having a strong relationship with transport issues including mathematicians, economics, operation research, management and geography.     

Synthesis of Chemically Cross-Linked Hydroxypropyl Methyl Cellulose Hydrogels and their Application in Controlled Release of 5-Amino Salicylic Acid

The objective of this study was to achieve the colon-specific delivery of an anti-ulcerative colitis drug using hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) hydrogels. HPMC hydrogels containing poly ethylene glycol (PEG) as cross-links have been prepared by reacting HPMC sodium salt with polyethylene glycol dichloride.

The effect of cross-linking agent on swelling behavior of HPMC-PEG hydrogels, were investigated. Swelling parameters such as equilibrium degree of swelling, swelling ratio and network parameter such as molecular mass between cross-links (M_c) were determined. The cross-linking concentrations were 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, and 2% (based on weight of HPMC). The equilibrium swelling ratio (Q) of cross-linked HPMC hydrogels increases from 13.2 to 27.1 as the cross-linker percentage increases from 0.5% to 2%. 5-Aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) was used as a model of an anti-inflammatory drug. Cross-linked HPMC hydrogels were found to be a promising drug delivery system for the drugs to be delivered to the colon.     

Increasing image compression rate using steganography

The goal of image compression is to remove the redundancies for minimizing the number of bits required to represent an image while steganography works by embedding the secret data in redundancies of the image in invisibility manner. Our focus in this paper is the improvement of image compression through steganography. Even if the purposes of digital steganography and data compression are by definition contradictory, we use these techniques jointly to compress an image. Hence, two schemes exploring this idea are suggested. The first scheme combines a steganographic algorithm with the baseline DCT-based JPEG, while the second one uses this steganographic algorithm with the DWT-based JPEG. In this study data compression is performed twice. First, we take advantage of energy compaction using JPEG to reduce redundant data. Second, we embed some bit blocks within its subsequent blocks of the same image with steganography. The embedded bits not only increase file size of the compressed image, but also decrease the file size further more. Experimental results show for this promising technique to have wide potential in image coding.     

Transforming Vulnerability Indexing for Saltwater Intrusion into Risk Indexing through a Fuzzy Catastrophe Scheme

Mapping vulnerability to Saltwater Intrusion (SWI) in coastal aquifers is studied in this paper using the GALDIT framework but with a novelty of transforming the concept of vulnerability indexing to risk indexing. GALDIT is the acronym of 6 data layers, which are put consensually together to invoke a sense of vulnerability to the intrusion of saltwater against aquifers with freshwater. It is a scoring system of prescribed rates to account for local variations; and prescribed weights to account for relative importance of each data layer but these suffer from subjectivity. Another novelty of the paper is to use fuzzy logic to learn rate values and catastrophe theory to learn weight values and these together are implemented as a scheme and hence Fuzzy-Catastrophe Scheme (FCS). The GALDIT data layers are divided into two groups of Passive Vulnerability Indices (PVI) and Active Vulnerability Indices (AVI), where their sum is Total Vulnerability Index (TVI) and equivalent to GALDIT. Two additional data layers (Pumping and Water table decline) are also introduced to serve as Risk Actuation Index (RAI). The product of TVI and RAI yields Risk Indices. The paper applies these new concepts to a study area, subject to groundwater decline and a possible saltwater intrusion problem. The results provide a proof-of-concept for PVI, AVI, RAI and RI by studying their correlation with groundwater quality samples using the fraction of saltwater (f_sea), Groundwater Quality Indices (GQI) and Piper diagram. Significant correlations between the appropriate values are found and these provide a new insight for the study area.

     

Proposing improved meta-heuristic algorithms for clustering and separating users in the recommender systems

Electronic Commerce Research - To offer an appropriate recommendation to customers in recommender systems, the issue of clustering and separating users with different tastes from the rest of people...     

The role of nanoclay partitioning and fibril formation on dyeability of blend nanocomposite fibres

The aim of the present work was to study the effect of microstructure and microfibril formation on dyeability of polypropylene/poly(butylene terephthalate)/organoclay blend nanocomposite fibres. The blend nanocomposite samples with the same blend ratio but varying in organoclay content were prepared via melt compounding by using a co‐rotating twin screw extruder. The microfibrillar morphology and nanoclay partitioning were studied using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy together with rheological results. The presence of nanoclay in the form of tactoids in the polypropylene matrix accelerated the dye sorption but much greater ultimate dye uptake could be achieved for the sample in which the major part of the platelets were preferentially located inside the poly(butylene terephthalate) fibrils. Although increasing the organoclay concentration increased the ultimate dye uptake, it limited the fibril formation at higher organoclay concentration. The utilisation of a compatibiliser was found to have an enhancing effect on ultimate dye uptake. This could be explained in terms of the interfacial role of the compatibiliser in improving microfibril formation as well as partitioning a fraction of nanoclay platelets inside the polypropylene matrix.     

The effect of functionalisation method on the stability and the thermal conductivity of nanofluid hybrids of carbon nanotubes/gamma alumina

Based on our previous studies that focused on the synthesis of a nanohybrid of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and gamma alumina (γ-Al₂O₃) particles, this paper reports the heat transfer properties and dispersion behaviour of the hybrid. In this study, functionalised CNTs were synthesised via a solvothermal process with various concentrations of carboxylic acid groups (–COOH). The microstructure of the synthesised nanohybrids was characterised via high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The MWCNT/γ-Al₂O₃ nanofluid was prepared using a two-step method. The thermal conductivities of different nanohybrids were measured with a KD2 probe using a modified transient hot wire method. The zeta potential and particle size distribution were determined to investigate the stability of the nanofluid.The results showed that the functional groups had a significant influence on the thermal conductivity of the hybrid nanofluid. The data showed that the enhancement in thermal conductivity reached up to 20.68% at a 0.1% volume fraction of hybrid, for a gum arabic (GA) based nanofluid.