Aluminium content of some foods and food products in the USA, with aluminium food additives.

The primary objective was to determine the aluminium (Al) content of selected foods and food products in the USA which contain Al as an approved food additive. Intake of Al from the labeled serving size of each food product was calculated. The samples were acid or base digested and analysed for Al using electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Quality control (QC) samples, with matrices matching the samples, were generated and used to verify the Al determinations. Food product Al content ranged from <1-27,000 mg kg(-1). Cheese in a serving of frozen pizzas had up to 14 mg of Al, from basic sodium aluminium phosphate; whereas the same amount of cheese in a ready-to-eat restaurant pizza provided 0.03-0.09 mg. Many single serving packets of non-dairy creamer had approximately 50-600 mg Al kg(-1) as sodium aluminosilicate, providing up to 1.5 mg Al per serving. Many single serving packets of salt also had sodium aluminosilicate as an additive, but the Al content was less than in single-serving non-dairy creamer packets. Acidic sodium aluminium phosphate was present in many food products, pancakes and waffles. Baking powder, some pancake/waffle mixes and frozen products, and ready-to-eat pancakes provided the most Al of the foods tested; up to 180 mg/serving. Many products provide a significant amount of Al compared to the typical intake of 3-12 mg/day reported from dietary Al studies conducted in many countries.     

120 keV Ar ion-induced red and blue shift of SPR Wavelength of Au nanoparticles in fullerene C60

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Au nanoparticles are synthesized in a fullerene C60 matrix using the thermal co-evaporation technique. Fullerene C60 is chosen due to its...     

High-field single electron emission rates and their influence onthe Paschen characteristics in compressed gases

By means of a newly developed statistical avalanche counting technique which enables high-field, single electron emission rates (SEERS) to be measured from unsparked freshly prepared surfaces having various thicknesses of oxide film, it is established for the first time that SEERS increases, for a given electric field, with an increase in the bulk modulus (hardness) of the material cathodes; also remarkably the thicker the oxide layer, the higher the SEERS. These trends are reflected in the Paschen sparking characteristics which show that the gaseous electric strength decreases with increase in the bulk modulus and increase of oxide layer thickness of the cathode material; and thus the increase in SEERS. This former trend is opposite to that established more than forty years ago. Other hitherto unobserved phenomena like a gas pressure effect, switching from a low to a high electron emission mode and vice versa, the influence of deliberate sparking and the total absence of spark conditioning are reported. Analysis of SEERS by the more successful Richardson-Schottky rather than the Fowler-Nordheim equation shows that the low electric field intensification factors derived increase with the bulk modulus of the cathode material and ultimately are determined by the polishing procedure     

Estimation of motion vector parameter using hexagon-diamond search algorithm

A simple block-matching algorithm based on hexagon-diamond search (HEXDS) is proposed in this paper to estimate motion vector parameter. HEXDS is designed based on search points to estimate the motion vector parameter coordinate. The motion vector parameter coordinate point is used as a reference point to analyze the area of interest. HEXDS also has fewer search points to reduce the computational complexity which increases the elapsed processing time. Based on the experimental results, HEXDS produces similar performances as it is in other algorithms in terms of the image quality.     

Remote sensing used to detect moisture status of pecan orchards grown in a desert environment

Remote-sensing techniques can detect and up-scale leaf-level physiological responses to large areas, and provide significant and reliable information on water use and irrigation management. The objectives of this study were to screen leaf-level physiological changes that occur during the cyclic irrigation of pecan orchards to determine which responses best represent changes in moisture status of plants and link plant physiological changes to remotely sensed surface reflectance data derived from the Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). The study was conducted simultaneously on two southern New Mexico mature pecan orchards. For both orchards, plant physiological responses and remotely sensed surface reflectance data were collected from trees that were either well watered or in water deficit. Remotely sensed variables included reflectance in band 1, the ratio between shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands (B5:B7), the normalized difference vegetation index, and SWIR moisture indices. Midday stem water potential (Ψ_smd) was the best performing leaf-level physiological response variable for detecting moisture status in pecans. The B5:B7 ratio positively and significantly correlated with Ψ_smd in five of six irrigation cycles while multiple linear regression weighted with six remotely sensed surface reflectance variables revealed a significant relationship with moisture status in all cycles in both orchards (R² > 0.73). Because changes in the B5:B7 band ratio and multiple regression of spectral variables correlate with the moisture status of pecan orchards, we conclude that remotely sensed data hold promise for detecting the moisture status of pecans.     

Using genetic algorithms to optimize the design parameters of generalized predictive controllers

Generalized predictive control algorithms are a powerful control design method widely applied to industrial processes. However, there is no easy way to tune the design parameters, mainly prediction and control horizons, in order to achieve optimal performance. In this work, a genetic algorithm is proposed whose aim is to find on line the optimal values for the tuning parameters.     

Observer design for discrete-time systems subject to time-delay nonlinearities

In this paper, we address the problem of designing nonlinear observers for dynamical discrete-time systems with both constant and time-varying delay nonlinearities. The nonlinear system is assumed to verify the usual Lipschitz condition that permits us to transform the nonlinear system into a linear time-delay system with structured uncertainties. The existence of the observer-gain is ensured by the solution of a one linear matrix inequality. An illustrative example is included to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed observation technique.     

Process and conduction of interferometric phase for satellite images

The Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is used in many fields of earth science. It is generated from interferometry SAR (InSAR) using two co-registered radar Single Look complex (SLC) [1], [2] and [3]. This work concerns the exploitation of radar images SLC of the Algiers area acquired on 03 January and 04 January 1994. The former is taken as a master image and the latter as a slave image. We have developed an interferometric process starting with the implementation of a co-registration algorithm for our images, then the elimination of flat-earth phase from the interferogram and at the end we developed a filter in order to minimize the existing noise to have good results after the unwrapping step using our own developed method.     

The effects of melt grafted maleated polybutylene succinate on the properties of poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyhexanoate)/polybutylene succinate blends

Poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyhexanoate) (PHBHH)/poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) blends were prepared using a melt blending technique. A compatibilizer of maleated PBS (PBSgMA) was produced using reactive melt grafting by varying the maleic anhydride (MA) monomer concentration ranging from 3 to 10 parts per hundred resin (phr). Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy analyses confirmed the grafting reaction of the PBSgMA. The PBSgMA was incorporated in the 80PHBHH/20PBS and 50PHBHH/50PBS blends to investigate the effect of maleated compatibilizer on the tensile, flexural, drop weight impact, and water absorption properties of the blends with droplets dispersed and co-continuous morphology. The incorporation of PBSgMA increased the tensile and flexural strength of both the 80PHBHH/20PBS and 50PHBHH/50PBS blends, where the optimum properties achieved at 5 phr concentration of MA. The drop weight impact test results showed that uncompatibilized and compatibilized 50PHBHH/50PBS blends had higher critical strain energy release rate (G_c) than the neat PHBHH. However, blending and compatibilizing did not have a positive effect on the critical stress intensity factor (K_c) of the neat PHBHH. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) confirmed the improvement of interfacial adhesion and PBS polymer dispersion in PHBHH/PBS blends when incorporated with 5PBSgMA. The water absorption test results demonstrated that compatibilized blends absorbed slightly more water than uncompatibilized blends due to the presence of hygroscopic carboxyl groups of the PBSgMA. However, water absorption effects were reversible and did not result in severe permanent damage to the blends.