Parboiling of rice. Part I: Effect of hot soaking time on quality of milled rice

This study investigated the effect of soaking time on the quality of parboiled rice. The paddy was soaked in water at 25 and 80 °C for 15, 30, 45, 60 and 120 min. The soaked paddy was steamed, dried, stored and milled. With increasing soaking time a significant increase in water absorption and milling and head rice yield (hence reduction in broken rice) was observed. A significant difference in milling yield, at the 1% level, was obtained between the raw rice control and the hot soaked parboiled samples. A large reduction in fissured grain was observed after soaking. It is suggested that parboiling fills the void spaces and cements the cracks inside the endosperm, making the grain harder and minimizing internal fissuring and thereby breakage during milling.     

A new three-stage method for solving unit commitment problem

This paper presents a new Three-Stage (THS) approach for solving Unit Commitment (UC) problem. The proposed method has a simple procedure to get at favorite solutions in a feasible duration of time by producing a primal schedule of status of units at the first step. In the second step the operating units take hourly values by doing Economic Dispatch (ED) on them via a hybrid serial algorithm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Nelder–Mead (NM) algorithms. In spite of the acceptable solutions obtained by these two stages, the presented method takes another step called the solution modification process (SMP) to reach a more suitable solution. The simulation results over some standard cases of UC problem confirm that this method produces robust solutions and generally gets appropriate near-optimal solutions.     

Synthesis of polymer/MWCNT nanocomposite catalyst supporting materials for high-temperature PEM fuel cells

In this study, the polymer/MWCNT nanocomposites were synthesized from the pristine MWCNT and polymer binders using functionalization with solution processing methods. The synthesized polymer/MWCNT nanocomposites exhibited high specific surface areas than the pristine MWCNT. The MWCNT/Nafion nanocomposite attributed to the maximum peak current at 5.795 × 10^?5 (A) while the peak current of MWCNT/PBI was obtained at 3.662 × 10^?5 (A). Moreover, polymer/MWCNT based electrocatalysts performed better electrochemical activity because of polymers binders can assist electrochemical interaction using the high surface areas of the catalyst supporting material. Also, the MEAs fabricated using the hot pressing method, while the acid doped PBI membrane sandwiched between the electrodes. The fabricated MEAs were successfully demonstrated in a single cell and found capable of measuring a maximum power density of 112.10 mW/cm² under 150 °C temperature. In conclusion, the synthesized catalyst-supporting materials enhanced the electrochemical activity and catalyst stability which fulfilling the main objective of this study.     

Mixed convective heat transfer enhancement in a ventilated cavity by flow modulation via rotating plate

The present study numerically explores the mixed convection phenomena in a differentially heated ventilated square cavity with active flow modulation via a rotating plate. Forced convection flow in the cavity is attained by maintaining external fluid flow through an opening at the bottom of the left cavity wall while leaving it through another opening at the right cavity wall. A counter-clockwise rotating plate at the center of the cavity acts as an active flow modulator. Moving mesh approach is used for the rotation of the plate and the numerical solution is achieved using arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element formulation with a quadrilateral discretization scheme. Transient parametric simulations have been performed for various frequency of the rotating plate for a fixed Reynolds number (Re) of 100 based on maximum inlet flow velocity while the Richardson number (Ri) is maintained at unity. Heat transfer performance has been evaluated in terms of spatially averaged Nusselt number and time-averaged Nusselt number along the heated wall. Power spectrum analysis in the frequency domain obtained from the fast Fourier transform analysis indicates that thermal frequency and plate frequency start to deviate from each other at higher values of velocity ratio (>4).     

Ageing-induced solubility loss in milk protein concentrate powder: effect of protein conformational modifications and interactions with water

BACKGROUND: Protein conformational modifications and water‐protein interactions are two major factors believed to induce instability of protein and eventually affect the solubility of milk protein concentrate (MPC) powder. To test these hypotheses, MPC was stored at different water activities (a_w 0.0–0.85) and temperatures (25 and 45 °C) for up to 12 weeks. Samples were examined periodically to determine solubility, change in protein conformation by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and water status (interaction of water with the protein molecule/surface) by measuring the transverse relaxation time (T₂) with proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR). RESULTS: The solubility of MPC decreased significantly with ageing and this process was enhanced by increasing water activity (a_w) and temperature. Minor changes in protein secondary structure were observed with FTIR which indicated some degree of unfolding of protein molecules. The NMR T₂ results indicated the presence of three distinct populations of water molecules and the proton signal intensity and T₂ values of proton fractions varied with storage condition (humidity) and ageing. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that protein/protein interactions may be initiated by unfolding of protein molecules that eventually affects solubility. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Characterization of Slag Flow in Fixed Packed Bed of Coke Particles

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B - The static and dynamic holdups of liquid slag flow in a packed coke bed were investigated at a temperature of 1723 K by using the...     

Dynamic energy efficient routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - Currently, IEEE 802.11 standard for ad-hoc wireless mode is inadequate for multi-hop network. Recent efforts for the advancement of 802.11 standards, such as 11e for QoS support...     

Further slot antenna miniaturization and bandwidth enhancement

In this work, antenna miniaturization using slits and metallic strips fed by microstrip line has been demonstrated. It has been noticed that slot antenna fed by microstrip line provides more miniaturization and in some cases enhanced bandwidth in comparison with the slot antenna fed by other feeding mechanism, keeping the same length and width of the radiating slots, slits and metallic strips. We have achieved 51.67% reduction in resonant frequency and 74.72% improvement in ?10 dB bandwidth compared with 37.73% and no bandwidth improvement of either side slits loaded slot antenna topology. Further, it has been shown 63.52% reduction in resonant frequency and 2.23% improvement in ?10 dB bandwidth in comparison with 42.33% reduction in resonant frequency of only one side slits loaded slot antenna topology. The current work highlighted not only greater miniaturization and enhanced bandwidth but also almost unperturbed radiation pattern compared to reference antenna topology and low cross‐pol level even slot antenna loaded by only one side slits, which was not demonstrated in earlier works.