Mesoporous titanium dioxide nanocatalyst: a recyclable approach for one‐pot synthesis of 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural

The present study deals with the production of 5‐hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF) from fructose by chemo‐conversion method using chemical catalyst, conventionally achieved by microwave‐assisted dehydration process. Five different chemical catalysts, namely oxalic acid, phosphotungstic acid and mesoporous titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TNPs) were compared at constant conditions of which TNPs yielded a maxima of 33.95%. The optimum temperature and catalyst loading were found to be 200°C and 20%, respectively, at a 5% optimum substrate concentration during 15 min optimum reaction time to yield 61.53% HMF. The efficiency of synthesised TNPs was investigated further through reusability studies. TNPs were properly recycled and the catalytic activity recovery was good even after a 14 batch reactions. The specific surface area of the TNP obtained is about 105.46 m² /g and its pore‐volume is about 0.42 cm³ /g according to single point adsorption. A large accessible surface area combined with a minimal pore size (15.92 nm) obtained with mesoporous TNPs is desirable for better catalyst loading, high‐yield HMF, retention and reduced diffusion constraints.Inspec keywords: mesoporous materials, recycling, production management, dissociation, nanoparticles, nanotechnologyOther keywords: mesoporous titanium dioxide nanocatalyst, recyclable approach, one‐pot synthesis, 5‐hydroxymethyl furfural production, HMF, chemo‐conversion method, chemical catalyst, microwave‐assisted dehydration process, oxalic acid, phosphotungstic acid, mesoporous titanium dioxide nanoparticles, TNP     

Fault diagnosis of spur bevel gear box using discrete wavelet features and Decision Tree classification

The wavelet transform (WT) is used to represent all possible types of transients in vibration signals generated by faults in a gear box. It is shown that the transform provides a powerful tool for condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. The vibration signal of a spur bevel gear box in different conditions is used to demonstrate the application of various wavelets in feature extraction. In present work, a discrete wavelet, Daubechies wavelets (db1–db15) is used for feature extraction and their relative effectiveness in feature extraction is compared. The major steps in pattern classification are feature extraction and classification. This paper investigates the use of discrete wavelets for feature extraction and a Decision Tree for classification. J48 Decision Tree algorithm has been used for feature selection as well as for classification. This paper illustrates the powerfulness and flexibility of the discrete wavelet transform to decompose linear and non-linear processing of vibration signal.     

Human pathogenic streptococcal proteomics and vaccine development

Gram-positive streptococci are non-motile, chain-forming bacteria commonly found in the normal oral and bowel flora of warm-blooded animals. Over the past decade, a proteomic approach combining 2-DE and MS has been used to systematically map the cellular, surface-associated and secreted proteins of human pathogenic streptococcal species. The public availability of complete streptococcal genomic sequences and the amalgamation of proteomic, genomic and bioinformatic technologies have recently facilitated the identification of novel streptococcal vaccine candidate antigens and therapeutic agents. The objective of this review is to examine the constituents of the streptococcal cell wall and secreted proteome, the mechanisms of transport of surface and secreted proteins, and describe the current methodologies employed for the identification of novel surface-displayed proteins and potential vaccine antigens.     

Robust Estimation of GARMA Model Parameters with an Application to Cointegration among Interest Rates of Industrialized Countries

We review the literature on long memory ARFIMA and GARMA models andintroduce a new efficient estimator for GARMA models, which we show to berobust. Next we conduct a Monte Carlo study to demonstate the power of theDickie–Fuller test when the data are generated from a stationary GARMAprocess. We conclude with a brief discussion of cointegration in the contextof GARMA models with an application to international interest rates.     

Probabilistic Belief Contraction

Probabilistic belief contraction has been a much neglected topic in the field of probabilistic reasoning. This is due to the difficulty in establishing a reasonable reversal of the effect of Bayesian conditionalization on a probabilistic distribution. We show that indifferent contraction, a solution proposed by Ramer to this problem through a judicious use of the principle of maximum entropy, is a probabilistic version of a full meet contraction. We then propose variations of indifferent contraction, using both the Shannon entropy measure as well as the Hartley entropy measure, with an aim to avoid excessive loss of beliefs that full meet contraction entails.     

Thermal and structural properties of spray pyrolysed CdS thin film

Using photo acoustic technique, the thermal properties of CdS thin films grown by spray pyrolysis are measured. Thermal diffusivity and conductivity in these films decrease at least two orders compared with bulk. These results are compared with our study on nano CdS and the other available literature. The comparison is good. The dependence of thermal diffusivity on the thickness of the layer or the size of the particles on the glass substrate are analysed from the present measurement and discussed. The dependence of thermal diffusivity on the thickness of the layer on the glass substrate is discussed.     

Toward a more realistic performance evaluation of interconnectionnetworks

lnterconnection network design plays a central role in the design of parallel systems. Most of the previous research has evaluated the performance of interconnection networks in isolation. In this study, we investigate the relationship between application program characteristics and interconnection network performance using an execution driven simulation test bed: the Reconfigurable Architecture Workbench (RAW). We simulate five topological configurations of a k-ary n-cube interconnect and four different network link models for a 4,096 node SIMD machine, and quantify the impact of the network on two application programs. We provide experimental evidence that such “in-context” simulation provides a better view of the impact of network design variables on system performance. We show that recent results, indicating that low-dimensional designs provide better ICN performance, ignore application requirements that may favor high-dimensional designs. Furthermore, applications that would appear to favor low dimensional designs may not, in fact, be significantly impacted by the network's dimensionality. We experimentally test the results of published performance models comparing the use of a synthetic load to that of a load generated by a typical application program     

Phase transition in L-alaninium oxalate by photoacoustics

Phase transition in L-alaninium oxalate is studied by using TG, DTA and photoacoustic spectroscopy. A sharp transition at 378 K by photoacoustics is observed whereas at the same temperature the endothermic energy change observed by TG and DTA is not very sharp. This is discussed in detail with reference to the other known data for the organic crystals.     

Safety in robotic installations

The rapid growth of the robotic industry has made it imperative to consider more seriously the safety aspects of robotic installations. Some work has been initiated recently in this area; a standard proposed by the Robotic Industries Association is a step in the right direction. This paper is based on an investigation of the state of the art in robotic safety, and contains an analysis of the sources of accidents, and the accident-prone operational phases of robotic installations. It forms the groundwork (literature survey) of a research project at the University of Windsor to develop a hardware/software-based safety system. It is suggested that both the robot manufacturer and the user should regard robotic safety as an important consideration.     

Intelligent power management in micro grids with EV penetration

Large deployment of Electric Vehicles (EVs) adds new challenges in the operation of a microgrid. Assuming that a number of EV owners allow their batteries to charge when their cars are parked, this paper proposes an approach that aims to find suitable individual active power set-points corresponding to the hourly charging rate of each EV battery connected to the microgrid. A multi agent system based controller is designed to find these active power set points for optimal power management of EVs, distributed energy resources in the microgrid, and the loads.