Antimicrobial Property,Antioxidant Capacity,and Cytotoxicity of Essential Oil from Cumin Produced in Iran

ABSTRACT: Cumin (Cuminum cyminum) is one of the commonly used spices in food preparations. It is also used in traditional medicine as a stimulant, a carminative, and an astringent. In this study, we characterized the antimicrobial, antioxidant, and cytotoxic activities of cumin. E. coli, S. aureus, and S. faecalis were sensitive to various oil dilutions. The total phenol content of the essential oil was estimated to be 33.43 μg GAE/mg of the oil. The oil showed higher antioxidant activity compared with that of BHT and BHA. The cumin essential oil exhibited a dose-dependent scavenging of DPPH radicals and 5.4 μg of the oil was sufficient to scavenge 50% of DPPH radicals/mL. At a concentration of 0.1 μL/mL, oil destructed Hela cells by 79%. The antioxidant activity of cumin essential oil might contribute to its cytotoxic activity. Acute and subchronic toxicity was studied in a 30-d oral toxicity study by administration to Wistar rats of the essential oil. A 17.38% decrease in WBCs count, and 25.77%, 14.24%, and 108.81% increase in hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit, and platelet count, respectively, were noted. LDL/HDL ratio was reduced to half, which adds to the nutritional effects of cumin. Thus, cumin with a high phenolic content and good antioxidant activity can be supplemented for both nutritional purposes and preservation of foods.     

A CUSUM-based method for monitoring simple linear profiles

In most statistical process control applications, the quality of a process or product is characterized by univariate or multivariate quality characteristics and monitored by the corresponding univariate and multivariate control charts, respectively. However, sometimes, the quality of a process or a product is better characterized by a relationship between a response variable and one or more explanatory variables. This relationship, which can be linear, nonlinear, or even a complicated model, is referred to as a profile. So far, several methods have been proposed for monitoring simple linear profiles. In this paper, a new method based on cumulative sum statistics is proposed to enhance monitoring of linear profiles in phase II. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by average run length criterion. A comprehensive comparison is also conducted between the performance of the proposed method and the existing methods for monitoring simple linear profiles. The results show that the proposed method performs satisfactorily. In addition, the effects of reference value, sample size, and corrected sum of squares of explanatory variables on the performance of the proposed method are investigated.     

A two-phase linear programming methodology for fuzzy multi-objective mixed-model assembly line problem

We develop a fuzzy multi-objective linear programming (FMOLP) model for solving multi-objective mixed-model assembly line problem. In practice, vagueness and imprecision of the goals in this problem make the fuzzy decision-making complicated. The proposed model considers minimizing total utility work, total production rate variation, and total setup cost, using a two-phase linear programming approach. In the first phase, the problem is solved using a max–min approach. The max–min solution not being efficient, in general, we propose a new model in the second phase to maximize a composite satisfaction degree at least as good as the degrees obtained by phase one. To show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a numerical example is solved and the results are compared with the ones obtained by the fuzzy mixed integer goal programming and weighted additive methods. The computational results show that the proposed FMOLP model achieves lower objective functions as well as higher satisfaction degrees.     

Coupling active and passive techniques to control the flow past the square back Ahmed body

Several active and passive control techniques are used to reduce the drag coefficient of the square back Ahmed body. The results are carefully analyzed and compared to each other. The final goal of this paper is to show that it is possible to couple passive and active control techniques to improve the flow control. In the present study, a drag reduction of 30% is achieved, almost corresponding to the goal of automotive industry.     

Polyoxometalate–molybdenylacetylacetonate hybrid complex: A reusable and efficient catalyst for oxidation of alkenes with tert-butylhydroperoxide

The hybrid complex consist of molybdenylacetylacetonate complex covalently linked to a lacunary Keggin-type polyoxometalate, K₈[SiW₁₁O₃₉] (POM), was synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, SEM, XRD, diffuse reflectance UV–Vis and FT-IR spectroscopic methods. The hybrid complex, [MoO₂(acac)–POM] (1), was used for alkene epoxidation with tert-BuOOH in 1,2-dichloroethane as solvent. The complex (1) can catalyze epoxidation of various olefins including non-activated terminal olefins. The effect of reaction parameters such as oxidant, solvent, and temperature on the epoxidation of cyclooctene was also investigated. This heterogeneous catalyst was reused several times in the oxidation of cyclooctene.     

Simultaneous minimization of total tardiness and waiting time variance on a single machine by genetic algorithms

This paper considers a single machine scheduling problem, with the objective of minimizing a linear combination of total tardiness and waiting time variance in which the idle time is not allowed. Minimizing total tardiness is always regarded as one of the most significant performance criteria in practical systems to avoid penalty costs of tardiness, and waiting time variance is an important criterion in establishing quality of service (QoS) in many systems. Each of these criteria is known to be non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard); therefore, the linear combination of them is NP-hard too. For this problem, we developed a genetic algorithm (GA) by applying its general structure that further improves the initial population, utilizing some of heuristic algorithms. The GA is shown experimentally to perform well by testing on various instances.     

A new link function in GLM-based control charts to improve monitoring of two-stage processes with Poisson response

In this paper, a new procedure is developed to monitor a two-stage process with a second stage Poisson quality characteristic. In the proposed method, log and square root link functions are first combined to introduce a new link function that establishes a relationship between the Poisson variable of the second stage and the quality characteristic of the first stage. Then, the standardized residual statistic, which is independent of the quality characteristic in the previous stage and follows approximately standardized normal distribution, is computed based on the proposed link function. Then, Shewhart and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) cause-selecting charts are utilized to monitor standardized residuals. Finally, two examples and a case study with a Poisson response variable are investigated, and the performance of the charts is evaluated by using average run length (ARL) criterion in comparison with the best literature method.     

A High Throughput Configurable SDR Detector for Multi-user MIMO Wireless Systems

Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) in MIMO technology significantly increases the spectral efficiency, and hence capacity, of a wireless communication system: it is a core component of the next generation wireless systems, e.g. WiMAX, 3GPP LTE and other OFDM-based communication schemes. Moreover, spatial division multiple access (SDMA) is one of the widely used techniques for sharing the wireless medium between different mobile devices. Sphere detection is a prominent method of simplifying the detection complexity in both SDM and SDMA systems while maintaining BER performance comparable with the optimum maximum-likelihood (ML) detection. On the other hand, with different standards supporting different system parameters, it is crucial for both base station and handset devices to be configurable and seamlessly switch between different modes without the need for separate dedicated hardware units. This challenge emphasizes the need for SDR designs that target the handset devices. In this paper, we propose the architecture and FPGA realization of a configurable sort-free sphere detector, Flex-Sphere, that supports 4, 16, 64-QAM modulations as well as a combination of 2, 3 and 4 antenna/user configuration for handsets. The detector provides a data rate of up to 857.1 Mbps that fits well within the requirements of any of the next generation wireless standards. The algorithmic optimizations employed to produce an FPGA friendly realization are discussed.