Kinetics of combined noncatalytic and catalytic hydrolysis of jute fiber under ultrasonic–far infrared energy synergy

Hydrolysis of pretreated waste jute fiber was intensified for maximizing reducing sugar (RS) yield deploying a novel reactor equipped with ultrasonic–far-infrared-waves (US–FIRW). At optimal 70°C temperature, 2.5 wt% Amberlyst-15 catalyst concentration, 15 min hydrolysis time and 10 (wt/wt) water loading; US–FIRW rendered significantly greater RS yield (74.82 mol%) compared to other reactors provided with far-infrared-wave (69.63 mol%), ultrasonication (50.34 mol%), and conventional thermal system (48.16 mol%). Kinetic models were developed considering noncatalytic-pseudo-homogenous (NCPH) in addition to the combined catalytic-pseudo-homogeneous (CPH) and catalytic heterogeneous (CHE) hydrolysis pathways. The results revealed that pseudo-homogenous–heterogeneous Eley–Rideal (PHHER) model could represent the hydrolysis kinetics most accurately. Remarkably, the lowest activation energy [16.75 kJ mol⁻¹ (NCPH), 13.82 kJ mol⁻¹ (CPH), 40.01 kJ mol⁻¹ (CHE)] required in US–FIRW evidently established its greater energy-efficiency among investigated reactors. The novel reactor and the simulated kinetic models can be applicable to other lignocellulosic biomass conversion for sustainable biorefinery.     

Design of Dual Band and Tri-band Bandpass Filter (BPF) with Improved Inter-band Isolation Using DGS Integrated Coupled Microstrip Lines Structures

Wireless Personal Communications - A novel approach to design dual-band as well as a triple-band BPF with improved isolation is ventured in this paper. In dual-band filter, dual mode property of...     

Bread fortified with dietary fibre extracted from culinary banana bract: its quality attributes and in vitro starch digestibility

The effect of fortification of dietary fibre (DF) on dough rheology, quality characteristics and in vitro starch digestibility of bread was studied. Bread was prepared incorporating DF (2–4 g per 100 g of flour mixture). Rheological study of dough showed an increase in dough stiffness and elasticity with higher incorporation of the DF. The results of chemical composition revealed that addition of DF increased total DF (19.65 g per 100 g) content of bread. However, incorporation of 2 g per 100 g DF of flour mixture with 66 g per 100 g moisture showed higher water retention and specific volume of 86.76% and 5.83 cm³ g⁻¹, respectively, which was close to control bread. Improved textural property with acceptable sensory attributes was observed for bread fortified with 2 g per 100 g DF of flour mixture and 66 g per 100 g moisture content. Incorporation of DF (2–4 g per 100 g of flour mixture) showed a decrease in rapidly digestible starch (RDS) and an increase in slowly digestible starch (SDS) content with lower predicted glycaemic index (pGI) than control bread.     

An Approach Towards Amelioration of an Efficient VM Allocation Policy in Cloud Computing Domain

Cloud computing is on the horizon of the domain of information technology over the recent few years, giving different remotely accessible services to the cloud users. The quality-of-service (QoS) maintaining of a cloud service provider is the most dominating research issue today. The QoS embraces with different issues like virtual machine (VM) allocation, optimization of response time and throughput, utilizing processing capability, load balancing etc. VM allocation policy deals with the allocation of VMs to the hosts in different datacenters. This paper highlights a new VM allocation policy that distributes the load of VMs among hosts which improves the utilization of hosts’ processing capability as well as makespan and throughput of cloud system. The experimental results are obtained by utilizing trace based simulation in CloudSim 3.0.3 and compared with existing VM allocation policies.     

New control allocation algorithms in fixed point framework for overactuated systems with actuator saturation

In this paper, two control allocation algorithms have been proposed for overactuated systems. The algorithms are developed by formulating constrained control allocation problem into an equivalent fixed point framework. The first algorithm follows sequential solving method while the other one involves a zero finding technique by the Newton method. In order to consider limiting constraints, the saturation function has been taken into account that leads to a nonsmooth zero finding problem and the proposed method guarantees superlinear convergence. The second algorithm is easy to implement and faster than the algorithm developed based on the sequential solving technique. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms, a detail simulation study has been carried out, in which one example considers both the actuator rate and amplitude constraints.     

Response of OceanSat II scatterometer winds in the Bay of Bengal circulation

Surface wind is one of the major forcing factors in any ocean circulation model. The response of satellite-derived OceanSat II scatterometer (OSCAT) winds during spring (February and March) 2010 in the Bay of Bengal (BOB) surface circulation is described in this study. Wind stress is calculated from wind speed derived from OSCAT by the bulk-aerodynamic formula. The Regional Ocean Modeling System is used in this study because it is a free-surface, terrain-following, primitive-equations ocean model widely used by the scientific community for a diverse range of applications. The model is used after a climatological simulation with Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) forcing when the model simulation reached the annual cycle. The paper also carried out a comparative study of National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) forcing over the same time period. The comparison of model-simulated surface temperature to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sea surface temperature (SST) indicates that meso-scale features in the BOB are resolved due to the finer resolution of this model. Comparisons of water mass characteristics to the available ARGO floats show good agreement in different locations within the BOB. This study confirms the usefulness of OSCAT winds in simulating the meso-scale feature in the BOB.     

Nematic DNA Thermotropic Liquid Crystals with Photoresponsive Mechanical Properties

Over the last decades, water‐based lyotropic liquid crystals of nucleic acids have been extensively investigated because of their important role in biology. Alongside, solvent‐free thermotropic liquid crystals (TLCs) from DNA are gaining great interest, owing to their relevance to DNA‐inspired optoelectronic applications. Up to now, however, only the smectic phase of DNA TLCs has been reported. The development of new mesophases including nematic, hexagonal, and cubic structures for DNA TLCs remains a significant challenge, which thus limits their technological applications considerably. In this work, a new type of DNA TLC that is formed by electrostatic complexation of anionic oligonucleotides and cationic surfactants containing an azobenzene (AZO) moiety is demonstrated. DNA–AZO complexes form a stable nematic mesophase over a temperature range from ?7 to 110 °C and retain double‐stranded DNA structure at ambient temperature. Photoisomerization of the AZO moieties from the E‐ to the Z‐ form alters the stiffness of the DNA–AZO hybrid materials opening a pathway toward the development of DNA TLCs as stimuli‐responsive biomaterials.     

Fabrication of two sites hydrophobicity on cotton surface – a fluoropolymerization approach

Cotton fabric on both surfaces was coated with polymerization of fluoromonomer followed by adsorption of fluorosurfactant by a new technique admicellar polymerization to obtain durable hydrophobicity. Water repellence properties were determined in terms of simple drop test contact angles. The coating on cotton fabric exhibited the right water contact angle of 137.23° and left contact angle 138.35° (an average value of 137.79°). However, the durability of the coatings was decreased after simple home laundering with a decrease in water contact angle value. The surface morphology was evaluated by scanning electron microscopy before and after polymerization. Beside this chemical composition on the cotton, the surface was evaluated by EDS analysis to determine the number of fluorine moieties deposited on the cotton surface by this technique.     

Testing and Diagnosis of Digital Microfluidic Biochips using Multiple Droplets

Digital microfluidic biochip is a promising alternative to the traditional cumbersome laboratory equipment. Such automated biochips are used in many critical applications. Hence dependability is an essential attribute before the chip is in use. Due to mixed integration technologies, these chips have some unique failures. Hence robust offline and online tests are proposed to check the health of the biochips. When a chip undergoes a test in offline mode, then the entire biochip should be available for testing, whereas for the online mode test droplet might be stalled due to unavailability of the next cell in the routing path. However, in both the scenarios one or more droplets route across the chip and the arrival time is also recorded at the destination. So here we have proposed two test schemes to know the correctness of any biochip. Diagnosability is an important feature to find the exact position of the faulty electrode. Our proposed scheme reduces the overall testing and diagnosis time significantly. It also provides an alternative routing path in biochip for fault tolerance.

     

Modeling of Gel Layer-Controlled Fruit Juice Microfiltration in a Radial Cross Flow Cell

An analysis of gel layer-controlled microfiltration in a radial cross flow cell is presented in this study. Clarification of a real fruit juice, i.e., cactus pear juice is considered. An expression of Sherwood number is derived using an integral method under the framework of boundary layer theory. The effects of viscosity and temperature are incorporated in the Sherwood number relationship through the Sieder–Tate type correction factor and Stokes–Einstein equation, respectively. The transient flux behavior is modeled successfully both for the total recycle mode and batch concentration mode of operation. The model parameters are evaluated from the total recycle mode and are used in the predictive calculation of the batch concentration mode. In batch concentration mode of filtration, the model predicted results match excellently with the experimental data.