Production of bioethanol from waste money bills – A new cellulosic material for biofuels

Waste money bills that are no longer legal tender are non-recyclable and are usually destroyed. In this study, we used this cellulose-rich material for bioethanol fermentation for the first time. Glucose production was enhanced by using diluted H₂SO₄ during pretreatment. Different incubation periods were tested for saccharification and subsequent bioethanol fermentation. The highest yield of glucose (41.90 mg/ml) was shown to increase with 27.20% and 25.90% respectively by increasing the reaction period by 30 min and by increasing the acid concentration by 0.5%. Bioethanol production was enhanced by adding 0.4 mM benzoic acid under anoxic condition. In accordance with three different conditions, the highest amount of bioethanol (22.01 mg/ml) was obtained and bioethanol fermentation was increased by 59.38%, 110.02% and 64.13% respectively with 30 min of reaction periods, 0.5% of acid concentrations and under anoxic condition with benzoic acid. This procedure for the production of bioethanol from a waste material would reduce waste money bill management costs and make a profit from ethanol.     

Speech compression exploiting linear prediction coefficients codebook and hamming correction code algorithm

In this paper, a replacement algorithm for Linear Prediction Coefficients (LPC) along with Hamming Correction Code based Compressor (HCDC) algorithms are investigated for speech compression. We started with an CELP system with order 12 and with Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) based residual excitation. Forty coefficients with transmission rate of 5.14 kbps were first used. For each frame of the testing signals we applied a multistage HCDC, we tested the compression performance for parities from 2 to 7, we were able to achieve compression only at parity 4. This rate reduction was made with no compromise in the original CELP signal quality since compression is lossless. The compression approach is based on constructing dynamic reflection coefficients codebook, this codebook is constructed and used simultaneously using a certain store/retrieve threshold. The initial linear prediction codec we used is excited by a discrete cosine transform (DCT) residual, the results were tested using the MOS and SSNR, we had acceptable ranges for the MOS (average 3.6), and small variations of the SSNR (±5 db).     

Color center lasers passively mode locked by quantum wells

Using multiple-quantum-well (MQW) saturable absorbers, a NaCl color center was passively mode locked to produce 275-fs transform-limited, pedestal-free pulses with a peak power as high as 3.7 kW. The pulses are tunable from λ=1.59 to 1.7 μm by choosing MQWs with different bandgaps. The output pulses from the laser were shortened to 25 fs using the technique of soliton compression in a fiber. The steady-state operation of the laser requires the combination of a fast saturable absorber and gain saturation     

On the cooperative MIMO communication for energy-efficient cluster-to-cluster transmission at wireless sensor network

Energy-efficient data transmission is one of the key factors for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks (WSN). Cooperative multiple input multiple output (MIMO) explores the wireless communication schemes between multiple sensors emphasizing the MIMO structure. In this paper, an energy-efficient cooperative technique is proposed for a WSN where selected numbers of sensors at the transmitting end are used to form a MIMO structure wirelessly connected with a selected number of sensors at the receiving end. The selection of nodes in the transmitting end is based on a selection function, which is a combination of channel condition, residual energy, inter-sensor distance in a cluster, and geographical location, whereas the selection in the receiving side is performed on the basis of channel condition. Data are sent by the sensors in a cluster to a data-gathering node (DGN) using a multihop transmission. We are concentrating our design on the intermediate hop, where sensors in a cluster transmit their data to the sensors in another cluster with MIMO communication. Energy models are evaluated for both correlated and uncorrelated scenarios. The delay model of the proposed cooperative MIMO is also derived. Experimental results show that the selected MIMO structure outperforms the unselected MIMO in terms of total energy consumption. They also show energy-efficient performance by around 20% over unselected MIMO when they are compared with single-input-single-output structure. Also, the proposed approach takes around 50 more rounds than the geographically selected approach before dying at distance d?>?20 m.     

New Indices: An Application of Measuring the Aging Process of Some Asian Countries with Special Reference to Bangladesh

Commonly used aging measures such as the proportion of older people, the proportion of people aged less than 15 years, and the aging index (aged-child ratio) are based on a simple head count ratio (HCR). The HCR is a crude measure as it fails to give any idea about the tail distribution of the population age. Here an attempt has been made to develop new aging indices (age gap, age distribution sensitive and generalized) taking into account both tails of the population age distribution i.e., distribution of the population aged under fifteen and over sixty. These new indices have been applied to the Bangladesh population based on data collected from secondary sources: the international data base, US Census Bureau and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), for the years 1961, 1981 and 2001 and for some selected Asian countries for 1960, 1980 and 2000 using data from the international UN data base. Conventional aging indices have also been calculated and compared with new ones. Cross-country analysis has also been performed to study the sensitivity of aging indices. Analysis shows an increasing in the speed of aging and new indices indicate the process is faster than conventional ones. For example, relative increases in the speed of aging in 2001 compared to 1981 for conventional and new aging indices (aged-young age gap and aged-young distribution sensitive) are 28.97, 39.19 and 42.04% respectively. The findings also indicate that population aging at the peak is not clear but at the base it is evident. Again the aging process with respect to sex and urban-rural dwelling is also different. From cross-country analysis it is found that the new indices are more sensitive than conventional ones.     

Polyaniline matrix containing nickel ferromagnet

Metallic nickel (Ni) was successfully dispersed onto a polyaniline (PANI) matrix by a simple one‐step electrochemical method. Ni particles as deposited onto the polymer seemed to be much smaller compared to those deposited onto bare Pt. The size of the Ni deposits was found to be influenced by the electrolytic bath composition and potential sweep rate. The PANI matrix thus dispersed with Ni particles exhibited ferromagnetic behavior and a lower electrical conductance. The decrease in conductivity may be attributed to the partial blockage of the conductive path by the Ni particles thus embedded in the polymer matrix. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 321–327, 2006     

Double-Recessed High-Frequency AlInGaN/InGaN/GaN Metal–Oxide Double Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistors

We demonstrate a low-threshold AlInGaN/InGaN/GaN metal-oxide semiconductor double heterostructure field-effect transistor (MOS-DHFET) for high-frequency operation. A combination of an InGaN channel (for carrier confinement), a DRE process, and a new digital-oxide-deposition technique helped us to achieve MOS-DHFET devices with extremely low subthreshold leakage currents. This reduction in output conductance (short channel effect) resulted in a high cutoff gain frequency f_T of about 65 GHz and a current gain frequency f _max of 94 GHz. The devices exhibited high drain-currents of 1.3 A/mm and delivered RF powers of 3.1 W/mm at 26 GHz with a 35 V drain bias.     

Rat insulinoma-derived pancreatic beta-cells express a functional leptin receptor that mediates a proliferative response

In addition to its interaction at hypothalamic sites to affect feeding and energy expenditure, leptin has been shown to exhibit a proliferative response in erythropoietic cells. The functional leptin receptor is also present in pancreatic islets and we now demonstrate that a commonly used clonal insulin secreting beta-cell line, RINm5F, expresses high levels of the Ob-Rb mRNA. Leptin causes an increase in tyrosine phosphorylation of a number of intracellular proteins and a dose related (10 nM-200 nM) increase in expression of the immediate-early gene, c-fos. This precedes a leptin induced proliferative response in serum-deprived RINm5F cells, which suggests that leptin might be involved in the complex regulation of proliferation of the pancreatic beta-cell.     

A dimensioning and tolerancing methodology for concurrent engineering applications II: comprehensive solution strategy

Dimensioning and tolerancing (D&T) is a multidisciplinary problem which requires the fulfillment of a large number of dimensional requirements. However, almost all of the currently available D&T tools are only intended for use by the designer. In addition, they typically provide solutions for the requirements one at time. This paper presents a methodology for determining the dimensional specifications of the component parts and sub-assemblies of a product by satisfying all of its requirements. The comprehensive solution strategy presented here includes: a strategy for separating D&T problems into groups, the determination of an optimum solution order for coupled functional equations, a generic tolerance allocation strategy, and strategies for solving different types of D&T problems. A number of commonly used cost minimization strategies, such as the use of standard parts, preferred sizes, preferred fits, and preferred tolerances, have also been incorporated into the proposed methodology. The methodology is interactive and intended for use in a concurrent engineering environment by members of a product development team.     

Deactivation of ICI low temperature methanol catalyst in an industrial reactor

The deactivation behavior of one of the ICI low temperature methanol catalysts (ICI-51-Z) in a typical ICI multibed quench reactor has been studied in relation to methanol production with respect to time of operation, using some representative sets of plant data collected over two years time span. A pseudo-homogeneous first order model of the methanol synthesis reactor was formulated for this purpose. The best set of catalyst deactivation parameters for different beds was found using a nonlinear parametric estimation technique. Catalyst in the entering bed was found to deactivate most with the time of operation, while subsequent beds deactivate progressively less quickly.