Monitoring the aging of beers using a bioelectronic tongue

This paper deals with the implementation and the application of a bioelectronic tongue including three enzymatic biosensors based on tyrosinase and phthalocyanines as electron mediators, to evaluate the changes that occur during the aging of beers. For this purpose, alcoholic and non alcoholic beers, packaged in can and bottle, have been analyzed using cyclic voltammetry. The electrochemical signals showed significant changes during the aging process. The features extracted from the cyclic voltammograms have been used to perform Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Data have revealed a clear discrimination among the beer classes in the aging process and the results were confirmed by Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNN) with Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and FeedForward Networks with Backpropagation (BP) learning method. The bioelectronic tongue has demonstrated a good capability to discriminate and classify the beer types satisfactorily in such a way, for all beer treatments, full classification accuracy was found.     

Bioactive lipids and antioxidant properties of wild Egyptian Pulicaria incise, Diplotaxis harra, and Avicennia marina

Fatty acids, sterols and tocopherols profile of Pulicaria incise, Diplotaxis harra and Avicennia marina grown wild in Egypt were investigated. Linoleic acid followed by palmitic and oleic acids were the major fatty acids in P. incise. Oleic followed by stearic were the main acids in D. harra, while palmitic followed by oleic were the major fatty acids found in A. marina. Sterol markers of P. incise were campesterol followed by stigmasterol and β-sitosterol. In D. harra β-sitosterol followed by stigmasterol and ?5-avensterol were the major sterols, while campesterol followed by β-sitosterol and ?7-avensterol were main sterols of A. marina. Tocopherols were also estimated in high levels, wherein δ-tocopherol was the main tocopherol in all plants. Antioxidant properties of methanolic extracts of the plants were compared with methanolic solution of butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and ascorbic acid during thiocyanate assay. Moreover, methanolic extracts of the whole plants exhibited strong antiradical potential against DPPH radicals. Information provided by the present study is of importance for further investigations of P. incise, D. harra and A. marina and utilization of these plants as a raw material of bioactive compounds.     

Variations in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) cultivars grown under heat stress

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill) is considered as important and economic agricultural crop all over the world. For improving the yield and yield attributes, varieties are often produced and evaluated under different growth condition. In the study presented morphological (growth and yield parameters), biochemical (oil, moisture content and radical scavenging activity) and molecular diversity (RAPD and ISSR) of eleven freshmarket tomato (L. esculentum) cultivars (Aledo VF, Carmeuco 201M, Castle-rock, Falkon, Money Maker, Peto 86, Red Star, Super Marmande, Super Queen, Super Strain B, and UC97–3) were analyzed under heat stress in Egypt to assist breeders in selecting heat tolerant cultivars and nutritional quality. Cultivars Aledo, Peto86 and Red Star were found to have the most vigorous growth habit, while cv. Super Queen has the most significant average fruit weight, yield/plant and total yield/m² under heat stress. For nutritional quality cv. Super marmande and cv. Aledo showed the highest oil content while cv. Aledo and cv. Money Maker showed the highest radical scavenging activities (RSA). Molecular polymorphism among cultivars was detected using two molecular markers systems, RAPD (random amplified polymorphic DNA) and ISSR (inter-simple sequence repeat), providing further facilities for molecular comparison.     

A NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR THE CRYSTALLIZATION OF DEAD SEA POTASSIUM CHLORIDE

The aim of this article is to introduce a new technology for the production of Dead Sea potassium chloride. The new technology depends on using the power of ultrasound waves during a crystallization process to enhance potassium chloride precipitation and to improve the end-use properties of the produced crystals. This environmentally clean technology, which is called sonocrystallization, has received very intensive research in the past few years. It was used in this study to modify the crystallization process of potassium chloride from the decomposition of Dead Sea carnallite. Two crystallization runs were done; the first was performed without the application of ultrasound waves and the second was performed with this application. The effect of sonication on the crystallization process time and on crystal size distribution as well as on the purity of the crystals was studied. It was found that the required time for the un-sonicated process was about 150 min. This time was reduced to about 50 min when sonication was applied. The produced crystals were sieved, and the crystal size distribution (CSD) was determined for the two runs. For the sonicated process, finer but more uniform crystals were obtained with a mean average size of 0.2643 mm in comparison with 0.5727 mm for the un-sonicated process. The produced crystals were found to be of 96.07% KCl for the un-sonicated process and this purity was improved to 97.31% KCl by the application of ultrasound waves. Based on the results of this study, it seems to be feasible and economical to scale up the proposed technology for industrial applications.     

Human perception of robot safe speed and idle time

Operators and users of robotic systems perform tasks which require close proximity to dangerous moving parts. Two experiments were performed to assess human perception of safe robot arm speed and idling times. Experiment 1 was designed to determine the maximum safe speed of robots. Subjects were asked to adjust the robot speeds. Perceived safe speeds were indicated for two different types of robots. Experiment 2 was designed to determine safe programmed idle time of robots. Subjects were asked to enter the robot work envelope when a programmed idle was perceived to be caused by a malfunction. Safe idle times were reported for two different robot speeds during operational cycles.     

Orientation by weighted randomness

This paper deals with the problem of how motion control can be achieved in very simple systems under a minimal number of preconditions. The system's design is therefore as minimal as possible, reflecting the basal reflex arc as observed in biological systems. The model for the movement of the agent is a multiplicatively modified random walk, and thus does not represent a diffusion process of the Langevin type. The mobile agent shows a fast, reliable homing behavior toward a defined area, and finally stays in some defined neighborhood of this area. Moreover, obstacle avoidance is shown to be an immediate result of the system's properties.     

Outcome of moderate carotid artery stenosis in patients who are asymptomatic

PURPOSE: The incidence rate of disease progression and stroke after the diagnosis of a moderate (50% to 79%) carotid stenosis was determined by means of color-flow duplex scanning. METHODS: During a 4-year period, 344 male veterans with moderate internal carotid artery stenoses, on one or both sides, were examined at regular intervals for a mean period of 25 months. Carotid color-flow scans were obtained semiannually. Clinical follow-up was performed to determine the incidence rate of amaurosis fugax, transient ischemic attacks, nonhemispheric symptoms, and strokes. RESULTS: New neurologic symptoms developed in 75 patients (21.8%). Fifty-one (14.8%) had ipsilateral symptoms during follow-up: 18 amaurosis fugax (5.2%), 14 transient ischemic attacks (4%), 5 nonhemispheric symptoms (1.4%), and 14 strokes (4%). Twenty-four patients (6.9%) had contralateral symptoms: 20 strokes (5.8%) and 4 transient ischemic attacks (1.2%). Life-table analysis showed that the annual rate of ipsilateral neurologic events was 8.1%, and the annual rate of stroke was 2.1%. Seventy-five patients (22%) died in the follow-up period. Disease progression to 80% to 99% stenosis or occlusion occurred in 71 of 458 vessels (15.5%). The internal carotid arteries that showed evidence of disease progression had a significantly higher initial peak systolic velocity (251 vs 190 cm/s; P <.0001) and end diastolic velocity (74 vs 52 cm/s; P < 0.0001). Black patients and patients with ischemic heart disease were at a higher risk for disease progression. We could not identify any atherosclerotic risk factors that reliably predicted patients in whom future ipsilateral neurologic symptoms were more likely to develop. However, there was an increased risk of stroke associated with progression of disease. CONCLUSION: Patients who are asymptomatic and who have moderate carotid stenoses are at significant risk for neurologic symptoms and death, but have a relatively low incidence rate of ipsilateral events. The initial flow characteristics in the stenotic vessel are predictive of future disease progression, but they are not helpful in identifying patients in whom symptoms will develop.     

La-Si-O-N glasses: Part II: Vickers hardness and refractive index

Vickers hardness and refractive index have been determined for a series of La-Si-O-N oxy-nitride glasses containing 30–62 e/o of La and 9–68 e/o of N. The hardness varies between 7.7 and 11.5 GPa at a load of 1 kg and is dependent of the N content, while the La content does not influence it significantly. The increase of the hardness with N content is, contrary to reported findings for other oxy-nitride glasses, found not to be linear over the whole compositional range. The refractive index varies between 1.8 and 2.3 and increases non-linearly with increasing N content. The compositional variations of hardness and refractive index are compared with previously published results.     

Multiobjective shape optimization of speed humps

This paper presents a new approach to the shape optimization of road speed humps. The proposed approach is based on multiobjective genetic optimization of the hump profile while taking into account the separation phenomenon, which occurs when the front tires of the vehicle momentarily lose contact with the road surface. The optimization is carried out for speeds up to twice the authorized speed (throughout this article, the term authorized speed refers to speed limits enforced in speed reduction [bump] areas of the roads) rather than for illegally high speeds as adopted by many of the previous works. A 6-degree of freedom non-linear dynamic model is used to identify the speeds at which separation occurs, and hump profiles associated with these speeds are discarded as infeasible solutions. Three independent objective functions are selected for optimization. They include the maximum vertical acceleration experienced by the driver when crossing the hump below the authorized speed limit (to be minimized), the same vertical acceleration at speeds above the authorized speed (to be maximized), and the ascending ratio of the “speed—vertical acceleration” curve (to be maximized). These objective functions are evaluated for more than 10,000 humps of two popular profile types (sinusoidal and flat top with straight ramps) and optimum profiles for three speed limits of 20, 25, and 30km/h are determined using the multiobjective nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II. As a result, a Pareto front of at least ten optimal points is achieved for each of the two hump profile types. Furthermore, to incorporate the economical aspects of the real-world problem, Pareto optimal points for the two profile types were compared based on their lateral section areas (an indication of the manufacturing cost). The comparison shows that sinusoidal humps more often than not outdo their flat top rivals economically.     

Prediction of H2 Content and Inert Gas Circulation Rate Effects on Batch Annealing Process

Steel strip coils need to be annealed after they leave the cold-rolling process. The purpose of annealing is to improve steel strip formability and to remove residual internal stresses imparted during rolling. Simultaneous increase of circulation rate and inert gas hydrogen content may have considerable effects on reducing the annealing process time. A mathematical model was developed to obtain a more accurate evaluation of the effects of these two parameters on heating and cooling cycles in the annealing process. The results from the simulation of an ordinary annealing process by the proposed model were compared with values measured at site and the accuracy of the model was confirmed. Finally, the effects of increasing hydrogen content and circulation rate were investigated, first independently from each other and then simultaneously. The predictions by the model showed that reduction of annealing time would be considerable when both parameters were simultaneously increased.