A Study on the FTIR Spectroscopy of Polylactide Doped with Nano-Aluminium Oxide and Nano-Cupric Oxide

Elucidation of the structure of naturally existing or synthesized substances is an important criterion in the study of materials to predict the application of the substance. In this study, polylactide was doped with nano-aluminium oxide and nano-cupric oxide with 1 and 3 mg of concentration variants. The interaction between the polymer matrix and the nanoparticles has been studied using Fourier transform infrared. Successful doping of the polymer has been observed. Attention has been drawn to check the intermolecular bonding in films having varying thicknesses, films prepared at higher sonication temperatures, and chemical homogeneity of the doped polymer films.     

Phase Transformations of α-Alumina Made from Waste Aluminum via a Precipitation Technique

We report on a recycling project in which α-Al₂O₃ was produced from aluminum cans because no such work has been reported in literature. Heated aluminum cans were mixed with 8.0 M of H₂SO₄ solution to form an Al₂(SO₄)₃ solution. The Al₂(SO₄)₃ salt was contained in a white semi-liquid solution with excess H₂SO₄; some unreacted aluminum pieces were also present. The solution was filtered and mixed with ethanol in a ratio of 2:3, to form a white solid of Al₂(SO₄)₃·18H₂O. The Al₂(SO₄)₃·18H₂O was calcined in an electrical furnace for 3 h at temperatures of 400–1400 °C. The heating and cooling rates were 10 °C/min. XRD was used to investigate the phase changes at different temperatures and XRF was used to determine the elemental composition in the alumina produced. A series of different alumina compositions, made by repeated dehydration and desulfonation of the Al₂(SO₄)₃·18H₂O, is reported. All transitional alumina phases produced at low temperatures were converted to α-Al₂O₃ at high temperatures. The X-ray diffraction results indicated that the α-Al₂O₃ phase was realized when the calcination temperature was at 1200 °C or higher.     

Parallel query execution over encrypted data in database-as-a-service (DaaS)

The Journal of Supercomputing - The main challenge in database-as-a-service is the security and privacy of data because service providers are not usually considered as trustworthy. So, the data...     

A novel finite rings based algebraic scheme of evolving secure S-boxes for images encryption

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Substitution-boxes have significant role in block ciphers as they are the only component which offers nonlinearity in the anticipated symmetric encryption...     

Interventions for long-term software security: Creating a lightweight program of assurance techniques for developers

Though some software development teams are highly effective at delivering security, others either do not care or do not have access to security experts to teach them how. Unfortunately, these latter teams are still responsible for the security of the systems they build: systems that are ever more important to ever more people. We propose that a series of lightweight interventions, six hours of facilitated workshops delivered over three months, can improve a team's motivation to consider security and awareness of assurance techniques, changing its security culture even when no security experts are involved. The interventions were developed after an Appreciative Inquiry and Grounded Theory survey of security professionals to find out what approaches work best. We tested the interventions in a participatory action research field study where we delivered the workshops to three software development organizations and evaluated their effectiveness through interviews beforehand, immediately afterwards, and after twelve months. We found that the interventions can be effective with teams with limited or no security experience and that improvement is long-lasting. This approach and the learning points arising from the work here have the potential to be applied in many development teams, improving the security of software worldwide.     

Extraction optimisation,antioxidant activity and inhibition on α-amylase and pancreatic lipase of polyphenols from the seeds of Syzygium cumini

The objectives of this study were to determine the optimal extraction conditions of polyphenols from Syzygium cumini seeds by response surface methodology and investigate their antioxidant activity and inhibition on α-amylase and pancreatic lipase. As results, the optimal extraction conditions in the ultrasonic extraction process which maximised total polyphenols content, minimised the IC₅₀ values of α-amylase and pancreatic lipase were determined as follows: extraction time 60 min, ethanol concentration 63% and solvent/solid ratio 44 mL g⁻¹. The main phenolic compounds in partially purified fraction of Syzygium cumini seeds were catechin, epicatechin, kaempferol, gallic, 5-caffeoylquinic, caffeic and ferulic acids. In addition, the partially purified fraction inhibited 87.66 ± 5.55 and 86.61 ± 3.15% of α-amylase and pancreatic lipase, respectively. The results suggested that Syzygium cumini seeds could be explored as a natural antioxidant and could be used as a source of highly antidiabetic and anti-obesity bioactive compounds.     

Heterogeneous Reactor Modeling of an Industrial Multitubular Packed‐Bed Ethylene Oxide Reactor

The one‐dimensional heterogeneous model of an industrial multitubular packed‐bed ethylene oxide (EO) reactor was developed using the equation‐oriented platform Aspen Custom Modeler. Reactor operation was optimized in terms of maximized EO production and selectivity and enhanced safety related to the presence of oxygen in the EO reactor. Good agreement was found between the model results during validation against the available information under identical operating conditions. The model predicts the behavior of the EO reaction and demonstrates the extent of catalyst utilization with product distribution, product yield, by‐product formation, temperature and concentration profiles, over time and along the length of the reactor or catalyst bed. The model sensitivity studies compute the optimum feed flow, oxygen concentration, feed pressure, etc. and suggest the best operational philosophy.     

Oil palm bunch ripeness classification using fluorescence technique

Oil palm is Malaysia’s major agriculture product and it covers approximately 5 million hectares of Malaysia’s land. Limited land resources have been an important factor that motivated the need to increase oil extraction rate (OER). OER of oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) depends highly on their maturity stage. The ripe oil palm FFB will produce high OER while the under ripe and over ripe oil palm FFB will produce less oil. Thus, this paper presents a method of classification between oil palm FFB into ripe, under-ripe and over-ripe categories. This research was done at an oil palm plantation in peninsular Malaysia. A total of two-hundred and ten oil palm FFB that consist of seventy bunches for each category of under-ripe, ripe and over-ripe had been used. Each bunch was scanned ten times randomly with a hand-held multi-parameter fluorescence sensor called Multiplex®3. The parameter measured was the Blue-to-Red Fluorescence Ratio (BRR_FRF) obtained from blue-green (447 nm) and far-red (685 nm) emission signal by using ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diode as excitation light source. The novel contribution of this research is to prove that the oil palm FFB maturity can be determined using the Blue-to-Red Fluorescence ratio index. This is based to our finding of a significant difference among the three categories of ripeness based on the parameter. Classification and Regression Tree (C&RT) method was proposed in this paper. Hundred-fifty samples were used to develop the model by trained it using C&RT method and the remaining sixty samples for the test component. By using the C&RT method, the results show the best accuracy of overall testing classification is 90%. This research will be useful for future development of non-destructive, automatic and real time oil palm FFB grading system.