Calculation of reactivity ratios of methacrylic acid-ethyl acrylate copolymer by on-line quantitative 1H NMR spectroscopy

The solution copolymerization of methacrylic acid (MAA) and ethyl acrylate (EA) was studied by online proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H NMR) using 2,2′–azobisisobutyronitrile as an initiator in deuterated dimethyl sulfoxide at 60 °C. The chemical compositions of the copolymer and the comonomer concentrations were determined from the conversion of comonomers to copolymer by quantitative in situ NMR monitoring to estimate the reactivity ratios of the comonomers at low conversion. This is a new and easy methodology to analyze radical copolymerization. In this research, it is shown that monomer reactivity ratios can be calculated by data collected only from one initial comonomer mixture composition via online monitoring progress of the copolymerization reaction. The reactivity ratios of MAA and EA are equal to 2.360 and 0.414, respectively. This approach is used to compute the monomer reactivity ratios in a nonlinear integrated form of the copolymerization equation which is described by Mayo and Lewis terminal model. The fairly good agreement between the results and the literature data reported for the emulsion system represent the accuracy of the reactivity ratios calculated by this new approach. The calculated reactivity ratios for emulsion copolymerization are r _MAA = 2.040 and r _EA = 0.470, and the previous literature data are r _MAA = 2.580 and r _EA = 0.157.     

Application of Ozone Post-Harvest Treatment on Kabkab Date Fruits: Effect on Mortality Rate of Indian Meal Moth and Nutrition Components

Methyl bromide (MB) was used for years to treat infested stored date fruits; however, MB is due to be phased out by 2015. In this study ozone is used for disinfestations of Kabkab date against Indian meal moth in three life stage. They were exposed to four ozone concentrations (300 ± 10, 1050 ± 40, 2000 ± 40, and 4000 ± 50 ppm) during four periods (2, 4, 6, and 8 h). The findings show 2000 ppm of ozone concentration within 8 h resulted in complete mortality of larvae and adult insects and over 90% mortality of eggs. The proposed ozone treatment is a promising approach replacing application of MB for disinfestations of examined date fruits, as no remarkable changes were observed on pH of the date fruits and its chemical compositions (total phenolic content, anti-oxidant activity and free radicals).     

Enhancing fractal image compression speed using local features for reducing search space

The encoding step in full-search fractal image compression is time intensive because a sequential search through a massive domain pool has to be executed to find the best-matched domain for every range block. To afford a fair encoding time, immaterial domain–range block comparisons should be prevented. In this paper, a new local binary feature resemble to local binary patterns method is introduced. This single local feature is robust to noise and can exploit the general structure of the block. Concerning similarity between range–domain blocks, a criterion is allocated dynamically by measuring the pixel diversity among the range block pixels. To avoid redundant calculations, the distance of the general pattern is assessed by the Hamming distance utilizing a pre-computed table. Experimental results show that the presented approach can make FIC a lot faster as opposed to the full-search method and outperform some other identical methods while preserving the quality of the decoded images. Indeed, the proposed method can be utilized inside identical applications that want a specific block size or blocks comparing.     

Development of micellar solid-phase microextraction fiber based on CTAB-templated mesoporous silica electrochemically assisted self-assembled on wire: Application to chromatographic determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

This paper describes the development of a new micellar solid-phase microextraction fiber based on cetyltrimethylammonium bromide-templated mesoporous silica electrochemically assisted self-assembled on copper wire for sensitive determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by HPLC. After optimization of experimental parameters, non-polar analytes of PAHs were successfully determined in water samples after microextraction by CTAB/MCM-41 copper fiber as micellar organic platform. The proposed method indicated good linearity in the range 0.01–82.5 µg L^?1 and limits of detection in the range 3–46 ng L^?1. Relative standard deviations of the method were obtained in the range 3.1–8.3%.     

Association of low vitamin D levels with metabolic syndrome in hemodialysis patients

Low vitamin D levels have been linked to metabolic syndrome in the general population. In the present study, the relationship between inadequate serum concentrations of vitamin D and metabolic syndrome in patients with end‐stage renal disease undergoing hemodialysis was explored. In a cross‐sectional setting, 145 patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis were enrolled. Metabolic syndrome was defined using the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Serum concentration of 25(OH) vitamin D was determined by a commercially available enzyme immunosorbent assay method. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 53.1%. The prevalence rate of severe vitamin D deficiency (<5 ng/mL) was 3.4%, mild vitamin D deficiency (5–15 ng/mL) 31.0%, vitamin D insufficiency (16–30 ng/mL) 36.6%, and vitamin D sufficiency (>30 ng/mL) 29.0%. With the increasing number of metabolic abnormalities, vitamin D levels significantly decreased (P for trend = 0.028). Among the components of metabolic syndrome, vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with central obesity (odds ratio [OR], 95% confident interval [CI] = 2.80, 1.11–7.04, P = 0.028). A positive, but nonsignificant association between vitamin D deficiency and raised fasting plasma glucose was noted (OR, 95% CI = 2.40, 0.94–6.11, P = 0.067). Both vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were significantly associated with an increased likelihood of having metabolic syndrome (P < 0.05). In a final model controlling for age, sex, and parathyroid hormone levels, vitamin D deficiency increased the odds of having metabolic syndrome by more than threefold (OR, 95% CI = 3.26, 1.30–8.20, P = 0.012). Low levels of vitamin D are frequent among hemodialysis patients and are associated with the metabolic syndrome.     

A dual-mode tunable bandpass filter for GSM,UMTS, WiFi,and WiMAX standards applications

This paper presents a dual-mode tunable bandpass filter (BPF) for global system for mobile communication, universal mobile telecommunications system, wireless fidelity, and worldwide interoperability for microwave access standard applications. The proposed filter consists of a stepped-impedance resonator, single resonator, and coupled line, which are loaded with varactors. The center frequency and bandwidth of the proposed filter can be tuned with tuning varactors. Furthermore, the measurement results show that the BPF can be tuned over the frequency range of 1.8 to 2.5 GHz. Moreover, the bandwidth can be changed at each certain frequency. Furthermore, using PIN diodes, a bandstop filter is added to the tunable BPF to reduce the out-of-band frequencies around the desired frequencies. The values of LC equivalent circuits are calculated, and the results are compared with those obtained from the layout of the proposed structure. Finally, the measurement results justify the simulation results.     

The effects of visualization and interaction techniques on feature model configuration

A Software Product Line is a set of software systems of a domain, which share some common features but also have significant variability. A feature model is a variability modeling artifact which represents differences among software products with respect to variability relationships among their features. Having a feature model along with a reference model developed in the domain engineering lifecycle, a concrete product of the family is derived by selecting features in the feature model (referred to as the configuration process) and by instantiating the reference model. However, feature model configuration can be a cumbersome task because: 1) feature models may consist of a large number of features, which are hard to comprehend and maintain; and 2) many factors including technical limitations, implementation costs, stakeholders’ requirements and expectations must be considered in the configuration process. Recognizing these issues, a significant amount of research efforts has been dedicated to different aspects of feature model configuration such as automating the configuration process. Several approaches have been proposed to alleviate the feature model configuration challenges through applying visualization and interaction techniques. However, there have been limited empirical insights available into the impact of visualization and interaction techniques on the feature model configuration process. In this paper, we present a set of visualization and interaction interventions for representing and configuring feature models, which are then empirically validated to measure the impact of the proposed interventions. An empirical study was conducted by following the principles of control experiments in software engineering and by applying the well-known software quality standard ISO 9126 to operationalize the variables investigated in the experiment. The results of the empirical study revealed that the employed visualization and interaction interventions significantly improved completion time of comprehension and changing of the feature model configuration. Additionally, according to results, the proposed interventions are easy-to-use and easy-to-learn for the participants.     

Optimal pricing model for electronic products

Electronic commerce encompasses all electronically conducted business activities, operations, and transaction processing. With the development of electronic commerce via Internet, during the past decade, many companies have changed the way they connect to and deal with their customers and partners. In this paper we introduce a Geometric Programming (GP) based model to analyze the pricing method and the service quality for E-business companies. The proposed method of this paper considers electronic products which are all kinds of products to be sold via web supermarkets. Therefore, they can cover pure digital and also non-digital products. The model proposed in this research work, deals with non-digital goods, which are supplied through web. The resulted non-linear model is directly solved by using Geometric Programming (GP) and a closed form of solution is presented. We assume that the demand is influenced by price, marketing and service expenditures. We also assume that the cost of production is affected by demand. We analyze the solution in different cases, in order to study the behavior of the model and for each case numerical examples are used to demonstrate the implementation of our analysis. The sensitivity analysis is also presented at the end to analyze the behavior of the model.     

Energy and exergy analysis of an indirect solar cabinet dryer based on mathematical modeling results

In the present study, using a previously developed dynamic mathematical model for performance analysis of an indirect cabinet solar dryer [1], a microscopic energy and exergy analysis for an indirect solar cabinet dryer is carried out. To this end, appropriate energy and exergy models are developed and using the predicted values for temperature and enthalpy of gas stream and the temperature, enthalpy and moisture content of the drying solid, the energy and exergy efficiencies are estimated. The validity of the model for predicting variations in gas and solid characteristics along the time and the length of the solar collector and/or dryer length was examined against some existing experimental data. The results show that in spite of high energy efficiency, the indirect solar cabinet dryer has relatively low exergy efficiency. Results show that the maximum exergy losses are in midday. Also the minimums of total exergy efficiency are 32.3% and 47.2% on the first and second days, respectively. Furthermore, the effect of some operating parameters, including length of the collector, its surface, and air flow rate was investigated on the exergy destruction and efficiency.