Determination of cost-effective operating condition for CO2 capturing using 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid

1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([BMIM][BF4]) ionic liquid (IL) is considered for CO₂ capturing in a typical absorption/stripper process. The use of ionic liquids is considered to be cost-effective because it requires less energy for solvent recovery compared to other conventional processes. A mathematical model was developed for the process based on Peng-Robinson (PR) equation of state (EoS). The model was validated with experimental data for CO₂ solubility in [BMIM][BF4]. The model is utilized to study the sorbent effect and energy demand for selected operating pressure at specific CO₂ capturing rates. The energy demand is expressed by the vapor-liquid equilibrium temperature necessary to remove the captured CO₂ from the spent solvent in the regeneration step. It is found that low recovery temperature can be achieved at specific pressure combination for the absorber/stripper units. In fact, the temperature requirement is less than that required by the typical monoethanolamine (MEA) solvent. The effect of the CO₂ loading in the sorbent stream on the process performance is also examined.     

Hot Isostatically Pressed (HIPed) fluorite glass-ceramic wasteforms for fluoride molten salt wastes

Molten pyroprocessing salts can be used to dissolve used nuclear fuel from a reactor allowing recovery of the actinides. Previously, ANSTO have demonstrated hot isostatically pressed (HIPed) sodalite glass-ceramic wasteforms for eutectic (Li,K)Cl salts containing fission products, but this system cannot be used for the analogous molten alkali fluoride salts (eg, FLiNaK), which have utility in the application of the next generation of nuclear reactors. In this work, a novel glass-ceramic composite wasteform has been prepared by HIPing, as a candidate for the immobilization of fission product-bearing FLiNaK salts. The wasteform has been tailored to immobilize the high fluoride content of the waste within fluorite, whereas the waste alkali elements are incorporated in a durable sodium aluminoborosilicate glass, with total waste loadings of ~17-21 wt% achieved. It was also demonstrated that the speciation of Mo- and Sb-simulated fission products was altered by adding Ti metal due to a controlled redox environment. The resulting candidate wasteform has been studied by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, including the HIP canister-wasteform interaction zone, and its performance assessed via leaching studies using the PCT and ASTM C1220 leaching protocols. Dr Vance very much enjoyed the challenge of wasteform design for problematic nuclear wastes, for which fission product-bearing FLiNaK salts are a clear example. His ability to hone in on a wasteform solution with viable waste loadings that meet performance requirements was testament to his nearly 40 years experience in nuclear waste immobilization. The samples discussed in this work represent the last wasteform materials that he prepared.     

Impact of pilot project of Rural Maintenance Programme (RMP) on destitute women: CARE, Bangladesh

BACKGROUND: The rate of malnutrition among women in Bangladesh is high, but historically there has not been a specific program focusing on the improvement of the nutritional status of Bangladeshi women. OBJECTIVE: To observe changes in the nutritional status of destitute women of the Rural Maintenance Programme (RMP) by incorporating a health and nutrition intervention package with RMP ongoing activities. METHODS: An intervention study involving 1,275 poor destitute women was conducted from July 2004 to June 2005 in 17 districts in Bangladesh under two field offices, Mymensingh and Jessore, covering 8 and 9 districts, respectively. The respondents were divided into intervention, comparison, and control groups. All participants in the intervention and comparison groups were paid as part of the RMP and received weekly 30-minute nutrition interventions for 7 weeks in addition to routine training. The comparison group also received RMP training. The control group consisted of women with similar demographic characteristics to the intervention and comparison groups who did not receive pay or any intervention. The intervention was a unique combination of the three components of the UNICEF triangle model (food security, caring practices, and disease control). Data on socioeconomic and anthropometric characteristics, immunization, and vitamin A capsule intake were also collected with the use of a structured questionnaire. RESULTS: After the intervention, the mean body weight had significantly increased by 1,333 g in the intervention group and had decreased by 277 g in the control group and 147 g in the comparison group. The body mass index of women in the intervention group had also significantly increased at the end of the study (p < .001). There was a significant increase in the intake of iodized salt in the intervention group as well as increased immunization coverage in all groups. Intake of the first vitamin A capsule by children increased (from 60% to 97%) in the intervention group only. CONCLUSIONS: The nutrition pilot intervention was highly effective in improving the nutritional status of women in the RMP.     

Enhancing Privacy and Security of RFID System with Serverless Authentication and Search Protocols in Pervasive Environments

One of the recent realms that gathered attention of researchers is the security issues of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems that have tradeoff between controlled costs and improved efficiency. Evolvement and benefits of RFID technology signifies that it can be low-cost, efficient and secured solution to many pervasive applications. But RFID technology will not intermingle into human lives until prevailing and flexible privacy mechanisms are conceived. However, ensuring strong privacy has been an enormous challenge due to extremely inadequate computational storage of typical RFID tags. So in order to relieve tags from responsibility, privacy protection and security assurance was guaranteed by central server. In this paper, we suggest serverless, forward secure and untraceable authentication protocol for RFID tags. This authentication protocol safeguards both tag and reader against almost all major attacks without the intervention of server. Though it is very critical to guarantee untraceability and scalability simultaneously, here we are proposing a scheme to make our protocol more scalable via ownership transfer. To the best of our knowledge this feature is incorporated in the serverless system for the first time in pervasive environments. One extension of RFID authentication is RFID tag searching, which has not been given much attention so far. But we firmly believe that in near future tag searching will be a significant issue RFID based pervasive systems. So in this paper we propose a serverless RFID tag searching protocol in pervasive environments. This protocol can search a particular tag efficiently without server’s intervention. Furthermore they are secured against major security threats.     

Bilateral filtering with adaptation to phase coherence and noise

In this paper, a bilateral filter with adaptive domain and range parameter is introduced for image denoising. Since the objective of denoising is to reduce noise as much as possible while preserving the perceptually important details, the parameters are adjusted in accordance with perceptual significance of pixels and noise level. The domain parameter is obtained by using the maximum and minimum moments of local phase coherence for being the representative of image details such as edges and corners of an image. The range parameter is estimated from the intensity-homogeneity measurements for their ability to represent the underlying noise. In addition, the filter is applied in an iterative manner to reduce the residual noise. Experiments are carried out using various standard images, and the results show that the proposed method is more effective in reducing additive white Gaussian noise as compared to several recently introduced denoising techniques in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio, structural similarity index and visual quality. In addition, experiments performed using real noisy images reveal the ability of the proposed filter to provide denoised images of better visual quality.     

A compact transmit/receive switch for 2.4 GHz reader-less active RFID tag transceiver

Radio frequency identification(RFID) is a ubiquitous identification technology nowadays. An on-chip high-performance transmit/receive(T/R) switch is designed and simulated in 0.13-μm CMOS technology for reader-less RFID tag. The switch utilizes only the transistor width and length(W/L) optimization, proper gate bias resistor and resistive body floating technique and therefore,exhibits 1 d B insertion loss, 31.5 d B isolation and 29.2 d Bm 1-d B compression point(P1d B). Moreover, the switch dissipates only786.7 n W power for 1.8/0 V control voltages and is capable of switching in 794 fs. Above all, as there is no inductor or capacitor used in the circuit, the size of the switch is 0.00208 mm2 only. This switch will be appropriate for reader-less RFID tag transceiver front-end as well as other wireless transceivers operated at 2.4 GHz band.     

Understanding the impact of social media usage among organizations

This study investigates the antecedents and impact of social media usage in organizations. This study uses the technology, organization, and environment framework and includes certain antecedent factors that are specific to social media usage in organizations. The items to measure different purposes of social media usage in organizations were developed, which contribute to the enhancement of social media usage measurement. This study develops and tests an integrated model that contributes to the scholarly research on social media and information systems. The study also helps organizations to understand the benefits of social media usage and provides a justification for investments in social media by organizations.     

Bayesian estimation and prediction for Burr‐Rayleigh mixture model using censored data

In this study, Burr‐XII and Rayleigh distributions are combined to form a new mixture model that is considered to model heterogeneous data. Our objective is to estimate parameters of the proposed mixture model using Bayesian technique under type‐I censoring. Bayesian parameter estimation for the said mixture model is conducted by using informative priors, ie, gamma and squared root inverted gamma (SRIG) as well as noninformative prior, ie, Jeffrey's prior. Squared error loss function (SELF) and quadratic loss function (QLF) are employed to obtain and Bayes estimators. Properties of the proposed Bayes estimators are highlighted through a simulation study. When prior distributions and loss functions utilized in the study are compared in terms of posterior risks, informative prior found to be more suitable and decision turns out to be in favor of QLF. Prediction limits for the single sample case and two sample case are obtained to provide an insight into future sample data. Application of the proposed model is also elaborated using a real‐life example.     

Characteristics of di- and tri-block copolymers: polymer disperse liquid crystal display

In the reported work the block copolymers are used in the polymer disperse liquid crystal (PDLC) films. The present work has been performed to investigate the effect of block copolymer addition and block ratios on the PDLC characteristics. From our experimental finding, addition of block copolymer in PDLC shows variation in droplet size, electro-optical properties, extent of phase separation, and phase transition temperature. These finding indicate the alteration in solubility parameters of solutions with the addition of block copolymers. Moreover, the tri-block copolymer shows enlarge droplet size, enhancement in the degree of phase separation, and predict improvement in electro-optical properties, as compared to di-block copolymer. Similarly upon such comparison, the study suggests the tri-block copolymer have a relative lower molecular interaction with the liquid crystal molecules.