Energy savings versus costs of implementation for demand side management strategies within an energy-efficient tropical residence

As renewable energy sources and net-zero energy homes become increasingly pervasive within the residential building industry, further reductions in consumption patterns will occur through demand side management (DSM). DSM can include measures such as energy-efficient system design, automated control and energy management systems, or policies and monitoring systems intended to alter user behavior. For an energy-efficient modern residence designed within a tropical context, several DSM strategies are considered for reductions in operational-phase energy consumption: a lightweight, thermally high-performing building envelope, installation of light dimmers to enhance user control of lighting, and comparison of a solar hot water system versus a point-of-use electric water heater to produce hot water for bathing demands. The energy-consumption savings associated with the three DSM strategies are simulated and normalized to an energy savings per cost of implementation basis in kWh per 1000 Thai Baht (THB) for comparison. The results show that financial investments in low-energy hot water heaters (i.e., solar water heating systems) result in relatively higher energy savings per unit financial investment than the other two strategies. Conversely, the installation of a lightweight, well-insulated envelope is highly expensive relative to its associated energy savings over a 25-year time frame. The savings associated with the insulated envelope, light dimmers, and hot water production strategies are evaluated at 80, 609 and 657 kWh/1000 THB investment, respectively.     

A Novel Devolatilization Technique of Pre-reduction of Iron Ore Using Lean Grade Coal

The problem of properly utilizing non-coking coals in alternative iron making processes dates back to long ago. Lean grade coals with higher ash and volatile matter content (e.g. boiler grade coals) have always challenged the metallurgists to develop a suitable process for their utilization. The aim of this work is to achieve an energy efficient method for the reduction of briquetted iron ore fines using ‘SYNGAS’—which is the gaseous product (enriched with reducing agents) generated by pyrolysis of coal along with fine sized carbon particles produced during pyrolysis. A laboratory scale reduction furnace with pyrolysis facility has been designed and fabricated after in depth thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTA), and gas chromatograph (GC) studies. A particular temperature profile has been maintained inside the furnace to achieve the optimum reduction temperature. The briquettes are reduced in the pyrolysis furnace and the extent of reduction has been calculated from the weight loss. The reduced specimens are characterized using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDX), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), and chemical analysis method. It is observed that iron ore can be significantly reduced to metallic iron by using the devolatilization product of lean grade coal.     

Evaluation of diclofenac prodrugs for enhancing transdermal delivery

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the approach of using diclofenac acid (DA) prodrugs for enhancing transdermal delivery.

Methods: Methanol diclofenac ester (MD), ethylene glycol diclofenac ester (ED), glycerol diclofenac ester (GD) and 1,3-propylene glycol diclofenac ester (PD) were synthesized and evaluated for their physicochemical properties such as solubilities, octanol/water partition coefficients, stratum corneum/water partition coefficients, hydrolysis rates and bioconversion rates. In vitro fluxes across human epidermal membrane (HEM) in the Franz diffusion cell were determined on DA-, MD-, ED-, GD- and PD-saturated aqueous solutions.

Results: The formation of GD and ED led to the prodrugs with higher aqueous solubilities and lower partition coefficients than those of the parent drug. Prodrugs with improved aqueous solubility showed better fluxes across HEM in aqueous solution than that of the parent drug, with GD showing the highest aqueous solubility and also the highest flux. There is a linear relationship between the aqueous solubility and flux for DA, ED and PD, but GD and MD deviated from the linear line.

Conclusion: Diclofenac prodrugs with improved hydrophilicity than the parent drug could be utilized for enhancing transdermal diclofenac delivery.     

EWMA Dispersion Control Charts for Normal and Non‐normal Processes

Process monitoring through control charts is a quite popular practice in statistical process control. This study is planned for monitoring the process dispersion parameter using exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart scheme. Most of the EWMA dispersion charts that have been proposed are based on the assumption that the parent distribution of the quality characteristic is normal, which is not always the case. In this study, we develop new EWMA charts based on a wide range of dispersion estimates for processes following normal and non‐normal parent distributions. The performance of all the charts is evaluated and compared using run length characteristics (such as the average run length). Extra quadratic loss, relative average run length, and performance comparison index measures are also used to examine the overall effectiveness of the EWMA dispersion charts.Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cellulose acetate membranes for transdermal delivery of scopolamine base

Transdermal delivery is one of the most convenient drug administration routes. In this study, the cellulose acetate membranes were cast with acetone as a solvent at 22 and 40 °C. Polyethylene glycol (PEG, MW 600) was used as a pore-forming agent. The in vitro release rates of scopolamine base as a model drug through the membranes were evaluated in phosphate buffer solution (PBS, pH 7.4) at 32 °C. The membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermal mechanical analysis (TMA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It was observed that the drug permeation through the cellulose acetate membranes was obviously affected by the incorporated PEG content and formed membrane morphology. There was no drug flux from the cellulose acetate membranes prepared without PEG. An increased PEG content resulted in a faster scopolamine release due to a more porous structure created. Both the membrane fabrication temperature and the PEG content can affect the thermal, mechanical and morphological properties of the resultant membranes. With the optimized fabrication conditions, linear in vitro release profiles of scopolamine over 3 days were achieved. The membranes developed would be useful for transdermal delivery of drugs.     

Macro- and Microstructural Studies of Laser-Processed WE43 (Mg-Y-Nd) Magnesium Alloy

The macro- and microstructural changes in the fusion zone (FZ) of WE43 magnesium alloy processed by a diode-pumped ytterbium (IPG YLS-3000) continuous wave fiber laser for specified processing conditions (from 4.17 to 12.5 × 10⁷ J/m²) were studied. With the aid of computational heat-transfer model, the temperature history and cooling rate were determined for different laser-processing conditions. The computational heat-transfer results of laser-processed samples were used to correlate with microstructures characterized using optical, scanning, and transmission electron microscopies, and electron backscatter and X-ray diffraction analyses. The microhardness measurement was carried out to establish the structure–property relationship, and the results indicated that the minimal hardness variation (1 pct) within laser FZ was due to a constant heat extraction time (0.1 second), narrow variation in grain size (4 to 7 μm), and the type of precipitate (β-phase) formation.     

Multifocus and multispectral image fusion based on pixel significance using multiresolution decomposition

Image fusion has been receiving increasing attention in the research community with the aim of investigating general formal solutions to a wide spectrum of applications. The objective of this work is to formulate a method that can efficiently fuse multifocus as well as multispectral images for context enhancement and thus can be used by different applications. We propose a novel pixel fusion rule based on multiresolution decomposition of the source images using wavelet, wavelet-packet, and contourlet transform. To compute fused pixel value, we take weighted average of the source pixels, where the weight to be given to the pixel is adaptively decided based on the significance of the pixel, which in turn is decided by the corresponding children pixels in the finer resolution bands. The fusion performance has been extensively tested on different types of images viz. multifocus images, medical images (CT and MRI), as well as IR ? visible surveillance images. Several pairs of images were fused to compare the results quantitatively as well as qualitatively with various recently published methods. The analysis shows that for all the image types into consideration, the proposed method increases the quality of the fused image significantly, both visually and quantitatively, by preserving all the relevant information. The major achievement is average 50% reduction in artifacts.     

A note on proper affine vector fields in non-static plane symmetric space-times

Themost general form of non-static plane symmetric space-times is considered to study proper affine vector fields by using holonomy and decomposability, the rank of the 6 × 6 Riemannmatrix and direct integration techniques. Studying proper affine vector fields in each nonstatic case of the above space-times it is shown that very special classes of the above space-times admit proper affine vector fields. We also discuss the Lie algebra in each case.     

A note on proper projective collineation in special Bianchi type I space-times

We investigate proper projective collineations in special Bianchi type I space-times using direct integration and algebraic techniques. We have found that when the above space-time admits a proper projective collineation, it turns out to be a special class of Friedmann Robertson—Walker k=0 model.