On the Interplay of Parallelization, Program Performance, and Energy Consumption

This paper derives simple, yet fundamental formulas to describe the interplay between parallelism of an application, program performance, and energy consumption. Given the ratio of serial and parallel portions in an application and the number of processors, we derive optimal frequencies allocated to the serial and parallel regions in an application to either minimize the total energy consumption or minimize the energy-delay product. The impact of static power is revealed by considering the ratio between static and dynamic power and quantifying the advantages of adding to the architecture capability to turn off individual processors and save static energy. We further determine the conditions under which one can obtain both energy and speed improvement, as well as the amount of improvement. While the formulas we obtain use simplifying assumptions, they provide valuable theoretical insights into energy-aware processor resource management. Our results form a basis for several interesting research directions in the area of energy-aware multicore processor architectures.     

Circulating RNA Molecules as Biomarkers in Liver Disease

Liver disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. As in other fields of medicine, there is a stringent need for non-invasive markers to improve patient diagnostics, monitoring and prognostic ability in liver pathology. Cell-free circulating RNA molecules have been recently acknowledged as an important source of potential medical biomarkers. However, many aspects related to the biology of these molecules remain to be elucidated. In this review, we summarize current concepts related to the origin, transportation and possible functions of cell-free RNA. We outline current development of extracellular RNA-based biomarkers in the main forms of non-inherited liver disease: chronic viral hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma, non-alcoholic fatty liver, hepato-toxicity, and liver transplantation. Despite recent technological advances, the lack of standardization in the assessment of these markers makes their adoption into clinical practice difficult. We thus finally review the main factors influencing quantification of circulating RNA. These factors should be considered in the reporting and interpretation of current findings, as well as in the proper planning of future studies, to improve reliability and reproducibility of results.     

Comparative studies on the corrosion inhibition efficacy of ethanolic extracts of date palm leaves and seeds on carbon steel corrosion in 15% HCl solution

The work reports on the study carried out to comparatively assess the corrosion inhibition efficacy of crude ethanolic extracts of date palm leaves and seeds on X60 carbon steel corrosion in 15% HCl solution at 25–60 °C. The corrosion inhibition studies was carried out using weight loss and electrochemical (potentiodynamic polarization and linear polarization resistance) techniques. Preliminary phytochemical screening was performed in order to determine the phytoconstituents present in the crude extracts. The influence of extractive solvents on the corrosion inhibition performance of the extracts was also investigated. It is found that the crude extracts of both date palm leaves and seeds contain saponins, flavonoids, cardiac glycosides and reducing sugars. Tannins is only present in the leaves and absent in the seeds while anthraquinones is absent in both extracts. The crude ethanolic extracts inhibited the corrosion of X60 steel in the aggressive 15% HCl solution with the leaves extract showing superior performance. Inhibition efficiency increased with increase in concentration of the extracts and temperature. Potentiodynamic polarization results reveal that the extracts function as mixed type inhibitors. Corrosion inhibition occurs by virtue of adsorption of components of the extract on the steel surface and was found to follow Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. On the influence of the extractive solvents on the corrosion inhibition performance, the order of inhibition efficiency at 60 °C follows the trend DPLAE (73.6%) > DPLEE (62.5%) > DPSAE (59.9%) > DPSEE (55.9%) with the optimum extract concentration (2000 ppm) studied.     

Synthesis and SAR Studies of Isoquinoline and Tetrahydroisoquinoline Derivatives as Melatonin Receptor Ligands

In our constant search for new successors of agomelatine, we report herein a new series of compounds resulting from bioisosteric modulation of the naphthalene ring. The isoquinoline and tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives were synthesized and pharmacologically evaluated. This isosteric replacement of the naphthalene group of agomelatine has led to potent agonist and partial agonist compounds with nanomolar melatonergic binding affinities. Overall, the presence of a nitrogen atom was accompanied with a decrease in the binding affinity toward both MT₁ and MT₂ and the loss of 5HT_2C response, especially for tetrahydroisoquinoline in comparison with the parent compound. Interestingly, due to the presence of this nitrogen atom, a notable improvement in the pharmacokinetic properties was observed for all compounds.     

Simulated annealing and ant colony optimization algorithms for the dynamic throughput maximization problem

In many industries, inspection data is determined to merely serve for verification and validation purposes. It is rarely used to directly enhance the product quality because of the lack of approaches and difficulties of doing so. Given that a batch of subassembly items have been inspected, it is sometimes more profitable to exploit the data of the measured features of the subassemblies in order to further reduce the variation in the final assemblies so the rolled yield throughput is maximized. This can be achieved by selectively and dynamically assembling the subassemblies so we can maximize the throughput of the final assemblies. In this paper, we introduce and solve the dynamic throughput maximization (DTM) problem. The problem is found to have grown substantially by increasing the size of the assembly (number of subassembly groups and number of items in each group). Therefore, we resort to five algorithms: simple greedy sorting algorithm, two simulated annealing (SA) algorithms and two ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithms. Numerical examples have been solved to compare the performances of the proposed algorithms. We found that our ACO algorithms generally outperform the other algorithms.     

Effect of staling on viscoelastic properties of pastes prepared from arabic bread

Dynamic testing detected differences in the rheological properties of pastes prepared from progressively aged Arabic bread. The storage (G') and loss (G″) modulii decreased at different rates upon storage. The progress of textural changes responsible for the generation of the sensory ‘stale’ response was marked by the transition of Arabic bread pastes from viscoelastic solids (G′>G″) to elastoviscous liquids (G″>G′).     

Influence of 1,3-Butanediol on the Viscoelasticity of Surfactant Solutions

The rheological behavior of rodlike micelles in a 1,3-butanediol/water mixed solvent was investigated. The rodlike micelles were prepared by mixing sodium salicylate, with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. When water was replaced by 1,3-butanediol, the viscosity maxima decreased drastically. The viscosity minimum, on the other hand, increased at low 1,3-butanediol contents and decreased again at higher amounts of 1,3-butanediol. As a result of the opposite changes the two maxima were replaced by a single maxima when the content of 1,3-butanediol was 15 %. The change in the viscosity was a consequence of a change in the structural relaxation times while the storage moduli remained constant. The stress relaxation was due to a reptation mechanism at maximum points while at the minimum of the viscosity the mechanism was due to a kinetic controlled mechanism.     

A PC Program for Preliminary Design of a Continuous Well-Mixed Fluid Bed Dryer

ABSTRACT

This communication gives an outline of a user-friendly PC wde developed for preliminary design of a fluid bed dryer (FBD) and its essential ancillaies e.g. cyclone, fan etc.. The fluid bed dryer may have internal heat exchangers. Correlations used for design calculations are presented. The program permits estimation of the energy consumption as well as the installed and operating costs.