Characterization of glow‐discharge–treated cellulose acetate membrane surfaces for single‐layer enzyme electrode studies

Cellulose acetate membranes (CA) were modified by means of plasma polymerization of ethylene diamine (EDA) and n‐butylamine (n‐BA). The motivation for this work was the application of a modified membrane for the single‐layer enzyme electrode. A tubular reactor with the external radiofrequency (13.56 MHz) excitation was used. Surface modification was performed at 5, 10, and 15 W power (at 27 Pa working pressure) for 5, 10, 15 min. Modified surfaces were characterized in detail by FTIR–ATR, XPS (ESCA), contact angle, and enzyme immobilization activity. The best treatment results were obtained for EDA with 5 W and 30 min and 15 W and 10 min. These results are discussed using surface analysis data. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 1341–1352, 2001     

Properties of self-compacting concretes made with binary,ternary, and quaternary cementitious blends of fly ash,blast furnace slag,and silica fume

Self-compacting concretes (SCCs) have brought a promising insight into the concrete industry to provide environmental impact and cost reduction. However, the use of ternary and especially quaternary cementitious blends of mineral admixtures have not found sufficient applications in the production of SCCs. For this purpose, an experimental study was conducted to investigate properties of SCCs with mineral admixtures. Moreover, durability based multi-objective optimization of the mixtures were performed to achieve an optimal concrete mixture proportioning. A total of 22 concrete mixtures were designed having a constant water/binder ratio of 0.44 and a total binder content of 450 kg/m³. The control mixture included only a Portland cement (PC) as the binder while the remaining mixtures incorporated binary, ternary, and quaternary cementitious blends of PC, fly ash (FA), ground granulated blast furnace slag (S), and silica fume (SF). Fresh properties of the SCCs were tested for slump flow diameter, slump flow time, L-box height ratio, and V-funnel flow time. Furthermore, the hardened properties of the concretes were tested for sorptivity, water permeability, chloride permeability, electrical resistivity, drying shrinkage, compressive strength, and ultrasonic pulse velocity. The results indicated that when the durability properties of the concretes were taken into account, the ternary use of S and SF provided the best performance.     

Antioxidative and antimicrobial activities of shrimp chitosan on gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) during refrigerated storage

This study aims to determine the effects of chitosan obtained from Metapenaeus stebbingi shells on the shelf life of refrigerated gilthead sea bream. It was determined that 1% chitosan‐coated samples had the lowest thiobarbituric acid (TBA) (3.05 mg malondialdehyde (MDA) kg^?1) and free fatty acids (FFA) value (2.79% oleic acid), while the control group had the highest TBA (5.08 mg MDA kg^?1) and FFA value (6.13% oleic acid) on the 27th day of storage. In the last day of storage, TVB‐N was found higher in control group (25.62 mg 100 g^?1) than chitosan‐coated samples (14.57 mg 100 g^?1). Total viable count value of the control group exceeded maximum permissible limit on the 27th day of storage. However, it was lower than 7.0 log CFU/g in chitosan‐coated samples during the refrigerated storage. As a result of this study, it was determined that shelf life of refrigerated gilthead sea bream can be increased up to 27 days with chitosan.     

Magnetic Interactions in Ni‐Mn‐Based Magnetic Shape‐Memory Heusler Alloys

Ni‐Mn‐based Heusler alloys exhibit a variety of features related to martensitic transformations and are materials that are sought to be employed in actuation applications. To be able to exploit their properties, it is necessary to understand the rich variety and subtle magnetic coupling mechanisms occurring in these alloys. We review complementary neutron polarization analysis and ferromagnetic resonance experiments and give an account on the complex magnetism of these alloys in the austenite and martensite states.     

艾哈迈德·阿德南·萨伊贡艺术中心,伊兹密尔,土耳其

<正>一座建筑的性能应当如何来衡量?除了通过统治当代建筑舆论的美学、技术以及经济价值来进行描述之外,我们还能够如何来阐释一座建筑,尤其是一座致力于庇护那些渴望展现自己的艺术家的建筑?有人会问成功的表演是如何实现的,表演者是如何进行伪装的、又是如何展现自己的?根据海德格尔的理论,当我们看不到钉子的时候,铁锤的表现才是成功的;钉子本身的出现通常表明出现了问题。     

The Case of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline System: A Review

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Main Export Oil Pipeline Project (MEP) is one of the very good demonstrations of how governments could come together for the same purpose and could promote the realization of the specific project. The BTC project, being the first leg of the East-West Energy Corridor and once treated as a “dream project” by some group of experts, has now almost turned in to a physical entity. Until now, detailed project studies confirmed the project is well within its previously estimated budget of 1.427 billion USD for the Turkish section of the pipeline. The next phase will be the Land Acquisition and Construction Phase, which will take 32 months onwards. BTC-MEP has a maximum capacity of 50 million tons/year (1 million barrels/year) and a total length of 1,743 km.     

LEED Implementation Guide for Construction Practitioners

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council for designing, constructing, and certifying green buildings. This paper presents a LEED implementation guide for construction practitioners to assist them in the certification process. The guide was formulated primarily through input, suggestions, and recommendations received from LEED accredited professionals including architects, engineers, commissioning authorities, general contractors, construction managers, and facility managers. Data were collected through four questionnaire surveys where two of which were used for guide development and the other two for modification and validation. General contractors, construction managers, and engineers can use the LEED implementation guide as a reference for managing their LEED certification process. The proposed guide can also assist owners interested in building a LEED certified facility.     

Early prostate cancer diagnosis by using artificial neural networks and support vector machines

The aim of this study is to design a classifier based expert system for early diagnosis of the organ in constraint phase to reach informed decision making without biopsy by using some selected features. The other purpose is to investigate a relationship between BMI (body mass index), smoking factor, and prostate cancer. The data used in this study were collected from 300 men (100: prostate adenocarcinoma, 200: chronic prostatism or benign prostatic hyperplasia). Weight, height, BMI, PSA (prostate specific antigen), Free PSA, age, prostate volume, density, smoking, systolic, diastolic, pulse, and Gleason score features were used and independent sample t-test was applied for feature selection. In order to classify related data, we have used following classifiers; scaled conjugate gradient (SCG), Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS), and Levenberg–Marquardt (LM) training algorithms of artificial neural networks (ANN) and linear, polynomial, and radial based kernel functions of support vector machine (SVM). It was determined that smoking is a factor increases the prostate cancer risk whereas BMI is not affected the prostate cancer. Since PSA, volume, density, and smoking features were to be statistically significant, they were chosen for classification. The proposed system was designed with polynomial based kernel function, which had the best performance (accuracy: 79%). In Turkish Family Health System, family physician to whom patients are applied firstly, would contribute to extract the risk map of illness and direct patients to correct treatments by using expert system such proposed.     

The preparation of core–shell Al2O3/Ni composite powders by electroless plating

Core–shell nanostructured Ni-coated Al₂O₃ composite powders were synthesised by using the electroless plating method. The influence of the chemical components and powder concentration in the Ni coating was investigated by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction techniques. The results show that the concentration of the plating components plays an important role in the formation of core–shell Al₂O₃/Ni composite powders. The nickel content in the composite powders could be effectively controlled by adjusting the nickel chloride content and the concentration of NaH₂PO₂·H₂O in the plating solution. The nanostructure of the crystalline Ni coatings was observed to be very attractive for achieving good bonding between ceramic particles and matrices for composite production.