A mixed integer linear programming formulation for optimal balancing of mixed-model U-lines

The mixed-model U-line balancing problem was first studied by Sparling and Miltenburg (Sparling, D. and Miltenburg, J., 1998. The mixed-model U-line balancing problem. International Journal of Production Research, 36(2), 485–501) but has not been mathematically formulated to date. This paper presents a mixed integer programming formulation for optimal balancing of mixed-model U-lines. The proposed approach minimises the number of workstations required on the line for a given model sequence. The proposed formulation is illustrated and tested on an example problem and compared with an existing approach. This paper also proposes a new heuristic solution procedure to handle large scale mixed-model U-line balancing problems. A comprehensive experimental analysis is also conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed heuristic. The results show the validity and usefulness of the proposed integer formulation and effectiveness of the proposed heuristic procedure.     

UHF RF Front-End Circuits in 0.35-μm Silicon on Insulator (SOI) CMOS

In this work, design and measurement results of UHF RF frontend circuits to be used in low-IF and subsampling receiver architectures are presented. We report on three low noise amplifiers (LNA) (i) single-ended (ii) differential (iii) high-gain differential and a double-balanced mixer all implemented in 0.35-μ m SOI (Silicon on Insulator) CMOS technology of Honeywell. These circuits are considered as candidate low-power building blocks to be used in the two fully-integrated receiver chips targeted for deep space communications. Characteristics of square spiral inductors with high quality (Q) factors (as high as 10.8) in SOI CMOS are reported. Single-ended and fully-differential LNA's provide gains of 17.5 dB and 18.74 dB at 435 MHz, respectively. Noise figure of the single-ended LNA is 2.91 dB while the differential LNA's noise figure is 3.25 dB. These results were obtained for the power dissipations of 12.5 mW and 16.5 mW from a 2.5-V supply for the single-ended and differential LNA's, respectively. High-gain low-power differential LNA provides a small-signal gain of 45.6 dB with a noise figure of 2.4 dB at 435 MHz. Total power dissipation of the high gain LNA is 28 mW from a 3.3-V supply. The double-balanced mixer provides a conversion gain of 5.5 dB with a noise figure of 13 dB at 2 MHz IF. The power dissipation of the mixer is 11.5 mW from a 2.5-V supply. The measured responses and the power dissipations of the building blocks meet the requirements of the communications system. The die areas occupied by the single-ended LNA, differential LNA, high-gain LNA and the mixer are 0.6 mm × 1.4 mm, 1 mm × 1.4 mm, 1.4 mm × 1.2 mm and 0.6 mm × 0.9 mm, respectively. Ertan Zencir received the B.Sc. and M.S. degrees in electrical and electronics engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY in 1995, 1997, and 2003, respectively. He joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as an Assistant Professor in August 2004. 2003). His current research focuses on RFIC and transceiver design for wireless communications. Douglas Te-Hsin Huang was born in Chia-yi Taiwan. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from National Taiwan Ocean University, Kee-lung, Taiwan in 1993, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. In 2004, he joined Skyworks Solutions Inc., where he is currently an RFIC Design Engineer. His research deals mainly with low-power, infrastructure, analog RFIC, and microwave integrated circuit designs. Besides microwave and semiconductor engineering, Dr. Huang has broad interest in art, music, and philosophy. Ahmet Tekin received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2002 and MS degree in Electrical engineering form North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC. He is currently working towards his PhD degree at University of California, Santa Cruz, CA. He was a Research Assistant at RF Microelectronic Laboratory, North Carolina A&T State University, from 2002 to 2004. He worked on the design of low power UHF transceiver circuits for space applications. He is currently a Research Assistant at Bio-mimetic Microelectronic Systems Laboratory, University of California at Santa Cruz, working on implantable very low power UHF frequency transceiver for a body sensor network. Numan S. Dogan received the B.Sc. degree from Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey, in 1975, the M.Sc. degree from Polytechnic University, New York, in 1979, and the PhD degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1986, all in electrical engineering. Since 1998, he has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, North Carolina, where he is an Associate Professor. He was a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in 1998, and General Electric Corporate Research and Development Laboratory, Schenectady, New York, in 1999. His earlier research interests included microwave and millimeter-wave solid-state devices and circuits, high-temperature electronics, and silicon micromachining. His recent research interests include RF CMOS Integrated Circuits and low-power Medical Implant Communication Systems (MICS) transceivers. Currently he serves as the Chair of the IEEE Central North Carolina Section. In April 2004, he organized “a walking robot competition” for High School Students. He enjoys hiking to Alpine Lakes in the Pacific Northwest and fishing. Ercument Arvas (M'85–SM'89) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from METU, Ankara, Turkey, in 1976 and 1979, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, in 1983, all in Electrical Engineering. Between 1984 and fall of 1987, he was with the Electrical Engineering Department of Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. He joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Syracuse University in 1987, where he is currently a Professor. His research interests include numerical electromagnetics, antennas, and microwave circuits and devices.     

Artificial intelligence approach to classify unipolar and bipolar depressive disorders

Machine learning approaches for medical decision-making processes are valuable when both high classification accuracy and less feature requirements are satisfied. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) successfully meet the first goal with its adaptive engine, while nature-inspired algorithms are focusing on the feature selection (FS) process in order to eliminate less informative and less discriminant features. Besides engineering applications of ANN and FS algorithms, medical informatics is another emerging field using similar methods for medical data processing. Classification of psychiatric disorders is one of the major focus of medical informatics using artificial intelligence approaches. Being one of the most debilitating psychiatric diseases, bipolar disorder (BD) is frequently misdiagnosed as unipolar disorder (UD), leading to suboptimal treatment and poor outcomes. Thus, discriminating UD and BD at earlier stages of illness could therefore help to facilitate efficient and specific treatment. The use of quantitative electroencephalography (EEG) cordance as a biomarker has greatly enhanced the clinical utility of EEG in psychiatric and neurological subjects. In this context, the paper puts forward a study using two-step hybridized methodology: particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for FS process and ANN for training process. The noteworthy performance of ANN–PSO approach stated that it is possible to discriminate 31 bipolar and 58 unipolar subjects using selected features from alpha and theta frequency bands with 89.89 % overall classification accuracy.     

Alkaline neutralization of crude soybean oil by various adsorbents

The effect of sodium hydroxide in neutralization was increased by using various adsorbents. NaOH in various concentrations was attached to the particles of Kieselguhr, Celite and Bentonite. The neutralization reaction was performed at ambient temperature, and different reaction times were applied. The soap formed after reaction was removed by centrifugation; thus, washing and drying steps were omitted. The amount of remaining soap, the acidity and color of oils were determined after each treatment. According to the results, free fatty acid neutralization in crude oil was achieved by Kieselguhr application. In this process, 9.5% NaOH was applied for 60 min of reaction time. The free fatty acid content of crude oil was decreased from 0.56 to 0.14%, and the remaining soap was found at 34 mg/kg after centrifugation. The use of adsorbents increased the efficiency of NaOH in the neutralization reaction and in the removal of soap from the neutralized oil. Neutralization with support material is a new and promising approach. The application is energy saving, more practical and in accordance with the strict environmental legislation about waste disposal.     

A comparative study for boron removal from seawater by two types of polyamide thin film composite SWRO membranes

In this paper, field performance of a small-scale seawater reverse osmosis unit installed in Urla Bay-Izmir, Turkey was analyzed and presented. The design of SWRO system in Urla consists of two types of FilmTec polyamide thin film composite spiral wound seawater reverse osmosis membranes (high rejection FILMTEC XUS SW30XHR-2540 RO membrane and FILMTEC SW30-2540 RO membrane) which could be operated in parallel. To make a comparative study between two types of membranes regarding their desalination performances and boron rejections, each membrane was operated individually for each set of experiments. This comparison was made via investigation of the effects of feed seawater temperature (10–16 °C), operating pressure (55, 60 and 62 bar), and pH adjustment on the feed side (pH 7.0–7.5).     

Response surface approach for optimization of Hg(II) adsorption by 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane-modified kaolin minerals from aqueous solution

The optimization of Hg(II) adsorption conditions from aqueous solutions with 3-mercaptopropyl trimethoxysilane-modified kaolin (MMK) used as a new adsorbent was analyzed by response surface methodology (RSM) approach. The MMK adsorbent was characterized by means of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). According to the quadratic model obtained from central composite design (CCD) in RSM, the optimal conditions for adsorption were found to be 30.83 mg/L, 0.1 g, 7.44 and 31.41 °C for C _o , adsorbent dosage, initial pH, and T (°C), respectively. With the obtained model, the maximum amount of adsorbed Hg(II) and %Hg(II) removed was calculated to be 30.10 mg/g and 98.01%, respectively. Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms fitted well the experimental results. Thermodynamic studies revealed that the adsorption was physical, exothermic, spontaneous. The results indicate that MMK a new adsorbent has great potential for the removal of Hg(II) from aqueous media.     

Removal of As(V) using liquid-phase polymer-based retention (LPR) technique with regenerated cellulose membrane as a filter

In this study, regenerated cellulose membrane was used as a filter in liquid-phase polymer-based retention technique. The poly(4-vinyl-1-methylpyridinium bromide), P(BrVMP), was used as extracting reagent of As(V). The role of pH, polymer:As(V) molar ratio, and influence of regenerated cellulose membrane were investigated by washing method. It was observed that the efficient retention was obtained at pH 9 with 20:1 polymer:As molar ratio and it was about 100 % at Z = 10 for P(BrVMP). Experimental data showed that the regenerated cellulose membrane, compared to poly(ethersulfone) membrane, has a capacity to interact with As(V). The maximum retention capacity of P(BrVMP) was determined by enrichment method, and then, using alternately washing and enrichment methods, the charge–discharge process and recovery of P(BrVMP) were performed.     

Separation of squalene from olive oil deodorizer distillate using short-path molecular distillation

Squalene was recovered from an olive oil deodorizer distillate (OODD) containing 40% of squalene by a two-step process. The first step was to esterify the free fatty acids (FFAs) to make them less volatile. The second step was to separate the squalene by molecular distillation. The best esterification conditions were found to be 190°C and 360 min, where FFA content of the reaction mixture was reduced from 49.3% to 7.9%, however, an inevitable squalene loss (30%) was also observed due to a discontinuous operation. The remaining squalene (28%) in the esterified mixture was then distilled using a molecular distillation unit at elevated temperatures (190–230°C) and pressures (0.05–5 mmHg). When the temperature and vacuum during distillation increased, FFA content in the distillate reduced while distillate yield and squalene purity increased. The highest distillate yield (27.7%) and squalene purity (98.1%) were obtained at the highest applied temperature (230°C) under the lowest absolute pressure (0.05 mmHg), where FFA content of distillate was measured as 1.8%. High percentage of squalene (95%–98%) could be distilled at 230°C between 0.05 and 0.5 mmHg absolute pressures. The overall squalene recovery after all treatments was calculated as 68%.     

A hydrophilic matrix for boron isolation: Monodisperse-porous poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene dimethacrylate) particles carrying diol functionality

The novel chelating adsorbent has been synthesized by functionalization of monodisperse-porous poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene dimethacrylate) particles with N-methylglucamine (NMDG) as a boron selective ligand. The resulting resin can adsorb boron in almost all pH range (pH 4–10) and its maximum capacity is ca. 12 mg/g. The adsorption behavior of poly(GMA-co-EDM)NMDG resin obeyed Langmuir isotherm well.