Antioxidant constituents from Lawsonia inermis leaves: Isolation,structure elucidation and antioxidative capacity

The antioxidant potential of different fractions of Lawsonia inermis (Lythraceae) was investigated. The n-butanolic fraction showed the highest yield of extraction; it also exhibited a strong antioxidant activity in the DPPH assay and a potent capacity in preventing linoleic acid oxidation. Five phenolic glycosides were identified in this fraction. The structure of a new compound was established as 1,2,4-trihydroxynaphthalene-1-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside. In addition, the known 2,4,6-trihydroxyacetophenone-2-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside was described for the first time in this species. The three other compounds, lalioside (2,3,4,6-tetrahydroxyacetophenone-2-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside), lawsoniaside (1,2,4-trihydroxynaphthalene-1,4-di-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside) and luteolin-7-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside, have been previously reported in L. inermis. The antioxidant activity of these glycosides was evaluated by DPPH and β-carotene assays, and compared to those of commercial standards. 1,2,4-Trihydroxynaphthalene-1-Ο-β-d-glucopyranoside was the most active in the DPPH free-radical scavenging test (EC₅₀ = 6.5 μg/ml) and showed a moderate inhibition in the β-carotene bleaching assay. Chemical components of L. inermis have good antioxidant capacities and this species could be used as a potential source of new natural antioxidants.     

H∞ control for uncertain one‐sided Lipschitz nonlinear systems in finite frequency domain

The current article discusses the H_∞ disturbance attenuation control design problem for one‐sided Lipschitz systems in finite frequency domain. Models containing norm‐bounded parameter uncertainties, disturbances, and input nonlinearities are considered. By contrast to existing full frequency methods, the H_∞ controller is computed depending on the frequency ranges of disturbances. The finite frequency disturbance attenuation index is initially defined. Thanks to Finsler's lemma, sufficient and less conservative analysis conditions are also derived for the closed‐loop system. Then, synthesis conditions in the low, middle, and high frequency ranges as well as the whole frequency range, are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities. At last, to prove the effectiveness and the superiority of the proposed approach, a physical example is used and a comparative study is done.     

A general method for analysing the accessibility of features using concentric spherical shells

This paper presents a general method for features accessibility analysis used in the dimensional inspection of mechanical parts by CMMs (coordinates measuring machines). It is based on the intersection of concentric spherical shells (ICSS) centred at the measurement point. This method can be applied to any type of solid or surface and is not limited by continuity or derivability constraints. Accessibility domains can be generated easily as a limit case of the ICSS. This method has been generalised to include inspection with bent probes to take into account the actual shape of the probe. It may be used to analyse the accessibility or probe approach directions for any point within or outside any object. It is also possible to determine the common accessibility domain for a set of points directly or by comparing the accessibility domain of each point. This method has potential applications in fields such as machining and robotics.     

Electrode roughness effects on the breakdown of air-insulatedapparatus

The dielectric breakdown of air insulating systems is believed to be sensitive to local irregularity of the electric field which may result from the presence of defects such as contaminants adhering to electrode surfaces and surface roughness. Normally metal machining methods are used to eliminate such electrode surfaces irregularities. However, system aging and harsh operating conditions create and sustain such rough surface conditions which may, in turn, lead to the failure of insulation under the resulting enhanced electric stresses. Electrode surface roughness causes a large reduction in the breakdown strengths of gas insulated apparatus. Surface roughness leads to the existence of localized microscopic regions with local field intensities larger than the average field in the gas near the electrodes. This paper models the insulation breakdown mechanism in the presence of such surface roughness, or protrusions, taking into account their random nature which lends the problem to probabilistic treatment. In order to generalize the surface roughness effect on the dielectric withstand of air-insulated systems, surface roughness is simulated by using a random event generator. The perturbations which these protrusions inflict on the field distribution in a nearly-uniform field gap are assessed. The corresponding breakdown voltages are estimated for different patterns of surface roughness. The results are statistically formulated     

Investigating optical,electrical, and mechanical traits of thiourea admixtured KDP single crystals to explore NLO device applications

The 0.5 and 1 mol% thiourea “mixed” potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystals have been developed by conventional slow solution evaporation method. The crystallographic parameters of grown crystals have been determined by employing single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. The functional groups of grown crystals were successfully identified by means of FTIR spectral analysis. The optical transmittance is 79%, 84%, and 89% for KDP, 0.5 mol thiourea mixed KDP, and 1 mol thiourea mixed KDP crystal. The energy band gap (E_g) of KDP, 0.5 mol thiourea mixed KDP, and 1 mol thiourea mixed KDP crystal is 3.71 eV, 3.61 eV, and 3.75 eV, respectively. The Kurtz–Perry test has been employed to determine the SHG efficiency and SHG efficiency of 0.5 and 1 mol thiourea mixed KDP crystal is 2.09 and 2.22 times superior to KDP crystal. Effect of thiourea mixing on hardness properties of KDP crystal have been scrutinized using the Vickers microhardness studies. The frequency dependent dielectric behavior of grown crystals has been analyzed at room temperature.

     

Distributed Learning Automata-based S-learning scheme for classification

Pattern Analysis and Applications - This paper proposes a novel classifier based on the theory of Learning Automata (LA), reckoned to as PolyLA. The essence of our scheme is to search for a...     

Parameter estimation in abruptly changing dynamic environments using stochastic learning weak estimator

Many real-life dynamical systems experience abrupt changes followed by almost stationary periods. In this paper, we consider streams of data exhibiting such abrupt behavior and investigate the problem of tracking their statistical properties in an online manner. Wedevise a tracking procedure where an estimator that is suitable for a stationary environment is combined together with an estimator suitable for a dynamic environment. The current estimate is based on the stationary estimator unless a statistically significant difference is observed between both estimators. The stationary estimate is deemed off track and a large update (jump) is given to get the stationary estimate back on track. We use the Stochastic Learning Weak Estimator (SLWE) as the dynamic estimator. The SLWE is known to be the state-of-the art solution to tracking the properties of non-stationary environments, due to its multiplicative update form. Therefore, the SLWE is a better choice to accompany a stationary estimator than the far more common sliding window based approach. A theoretically well founded statistical testing procedure is developed to detect a significant difference between the stationary and dynamical estimators. Although our procedure bears similarities to the event detection procedure suggested by Ross et al. (Pattern Recogn Lett, 33(2):191–198, 2012), it is rather well founded theoretically. First, Ross et al. ignore the uncertainty in the stationary estimator in the detection procedure. Second, the detection threshold is determined based on heuristics and therefore lacks a solid statistical foundation. Extensive simulation results, based on both synthetic and real-life data related to news topic classification, demonstrate that our estimation procedure is easy to tune and outperforms legacy works.     

An analytical hierarchy process-based approach to solve the multi-objective multiple traveling salesman problem

We consider the problem of assigning a team of autonomous robots to target locations in the context of a disaster management scenario while optimizing several objectives. This problem can be cast as a multiple traveling salesman problem, where several robots must visit designated locations. This paper provides an analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based approach to this problem, while minimizing three objectives: the total traveled distance, the maximum tour, and the deviation rate. The AHP-based approach involves three phases. In the first phase, we use the AHP process to define a specific weight for each objective. The second phase consists in allocating the available targets, wherein we define and use three approaches: market-based, robot and task mean allocation-based, and balanced-based. Finally, the third phase involves the improvement in the solutions generated in the second phase. To validate the efficiency of the AHP-based approach, we used MATLAB to conduct an extensive comparative simulation study with other algorithms reported in the literature. The performance comparison of the three approaches shows a gap between the market-based approach and the other two approaches of up to 30%. Further, the results show that the AHP-based approach provides a better balance between the objectives, as compared to other state-of-the-art approaches. In particular, we observed an improvement in the total traveled distance when using the AHP-based approach in comparison with the distance traveled when using a clustering-based approach.     

Kernelized relative entropy for direct fault detection in industrial rotary kilns

The objective of this work is to use a 1‐dimensional signal that reflects the dissimilarity between multidimensional probability densities for detection. With the modified Kullback‐Leibler divergence, faults can be directly detected without any normality assumption or joint monitoring of related test statistics in different subspaces such as the T² and SPE in principal component analysis–based methods. To relieve the difficulty associated with asymptotic high‐dimensional density estimates, we have estimated the density ratio rather than the densities themselves. This can be done by approximating the density ratio with kernel basis functions and learn the weights from the available data. The developed algorithm is generic and can be applied to any industrial system as long as process historical data is available. As a case study, we apply this algorithm to a real rotary kiln in operation, which is an integral part of the cement manufacturing plant of Ain El Kebira, Algeria.     

Stearic Acid Modified Stearyl Alcohol Oleogel: Analysis of the Thermal,Mechanical and Drug Release Properties

The present study delineates the effect of stearic acid on the properties of stearyl alcohol oleogel. Herein, a series of oleogels were prepared by mixing different proportions of fatty alcohol (Stearyl alcohol; gelator) and fatty acid (stearic acid; co‐gelator). The characterization of the oleogels was done by thermal, macro‐scale stress relaxation, drug release, and antimicrobial studies. The oleogels were formed by the self‐assembly of stearyl alcohol/stearic acid. Thermal studies indicated that the stearic acid alters the crystal morphology, polymorphic transition and rate of crystallization of stearyl alcohol. The firmness of the oleogels with higher stearic proportion was better, which was due to the formation of a rigid network structure of stearyl alcohol in the presence of stearic acid. The release of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride, model drug, from the oleogels was better from the oleogels with higher stearic acid content. The release of the drug from the oleogels was Fickian diffusion‐mediated; except the oleogel with the highest stearic acid proportion. The antimicrobial study showed that the drug loaded oleogels were able to resist the growth of Escherichia coli, model microbe.