Changes in the pleasantness of caffeine-associated flavours consumed at home

Previous laboratory studies have reported that moderate caffeine consumers develop a liking for the flavour of a novel caffeinated drink. The present study tested whether results from laboratory studies are applicable to real-life situations. Forty moderate caffeine consumers were randomly allocated to four conditions (n = 10). Three of these conditions involved consumption of two novel flavoured fruit drinks, one caffeinated (100 mg) and one without caffeine, at different times of the participants’ daily routine (breakfast, anytime, night). Participants in the final (control) condition evaluated the drinks on the three test days only. Those participants who received the drinks at breakfast showed a significant increase in liking for the flavour of the caffeinated drink, whereas those who consumed the drinks at night showed a significant decrease in liking for the same flavour. Results imply that the post-ingestive effect of caffeine may depend on the time and condition during which the caffeinated flavour is consumed.     

Preparation of alginate and chitosan nanoparticles using a new reverse micellar system

Alginate and chitosan nanoparticles were prepared using a new reverse micelle system, composed of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant, isooctane as a solvent, and 1-hexananol as a co-solvent. The obtained nanoparticles were characterized by FTIR, DLS and TEM techniques. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effects of polymer concentration, water content, and volumetric ratio of co-solvent to solvent on the physical and morphological properties of the prepared nanoparticles. To evaluate the results, the design of experimental was initially carried out and then the obtained data were statistically analyzed using the Qualitek-4^? software. Results revealed that the size of the prepared alginate and chitosan nanoparticles varied in the range 220?C490 and 210?C1,050?nm, respectively. Furthermore, increasing either alginate or chitosan concentration increased the size of their nanoparticles. The results also showed that the size of nanoparticles was decreased with increasing the volumetric ratio of co-solvent/solvent. Finally, the size of alginate nanoparticles was increased by increasing the water content while it decreased the size of chitosan nanoparticles. Considering the statistical analysis of experiments, the polymer concentration is the major parameter affecting nanoparticles?? size. In contrast, water content has the smallest effect on the size of nanoparticles. However, the difference between the particle sizes of chitosan and alginate nanoparticles cab be attributed to the electrostatic repulsion between chitosan and CTAB.     

A fuzzy bi-criteria transportation problem

In this paper, a fuzzy bi-criteria transportation problem is studied. Here, the model concentrates on two criteria: total delivery time and total profit of transportation. The delivery times on links are fuzzy intervals with increasing linear membership functions, whereas the total delivery time on the network is a fuzzy interval with a decreasing linear membership function. On the other hand, the transporting profits on links are fuzzy intervals with decreasing linear membership functions and the total profit of transportation is a fuzzy number with an increasing linear membership function. Supplies and demands are deterministic numbers. A nonlinear programming model considers the problem using the max–min criterion suggested by Bellman and Zadeh. We show that the problem can be simplified into two bi-level programming problems, which are solved very conveniently. A proposed efficient algorithm based on parametric linear programming solves the bi-level problems. To explain the algorithm two illustrative examples are provided, systematically.     

An Adaptive and Cost-Based Intrusion Response System

An Adaptive and Cost-Based Intrusion Response System (ACBIRS) is presented in this paper. The designed system analyzes alerts from the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and evaluates the attack cost, based on the probable damage of attacks on the protected system. Later on, a response is deployed to thwart the attack and prevent the attacker from reaching his/her goals. The proposed response selection approach is a cost-based method that considers attack features, including type of the attack, severity of the attack, value of targeted host/hosts services, and their data to prioritize alerts. Alerts will be responded with respect to their priorities. The selected responses are based on a measure called Response Merit (RM). The balance between attack damage cost, response cost together with the effectiveness of the response to countermeasure previous attacks determine the RM. In contrast to other Intrusion Response Systems (IRS), ACBIRS not only consists of the attack and response measures but also includes response feedback supervision that is proposed in this paper for the first time. ACBIRS allows responses to be adaptive in changing environments through success and failure assessment of previously deployed responses. Experiments show that ACBIRS can successfully prevent 92% of intrusions with only 3% disruption on benign traffic.     

Additive manufacturing management: a review and future research agenda

Based on the phenomenal changes that additive manufacturing (AM) has brought to industries and markets, managerial approaches should be re-examined and developed to take advantage of emerging opportunities. This revolutionary technology is dramatically changing business and innovation models, shrinking supply chains and altering the global economy. For example, 3D printing shifts production locations closer to customers and leads to free-form product design as well as sustainable manufacturing. Several studies have been conducted on AM technology, but the research stream on AM management is still developing, with studies dispersed in journals across different research areas. Our study presents both systematic and quantitative analyses of the literature, including co-citation analysis, factor analysis and multidimensional scaling, to explore the structure of the AM research domains in the scope of management, business and economics. We found eight main research streams: AM technology selection, supply chain, product design and production cost models, environmental aspects, strategic challenges, manufacturing systems, open-source innovation and business models and economics. Finally, based on the results of our in-depth analysis of the literature, we found nine promising future research directions.     

Theoretical Analysis of the Underwater Incremental Adaptive Network Performance Based on the VLC Technology

In this paper, the underwater implementation of the incremental adaptive networks is proposed based on the visible light communication technology. The underwater distance between transmitter and receiver nodes and the salinity and temperature levels of the considered water determines the stochastical properties of the underwater link that is modeled with the Log-normal distribution. The incremental network performance can be expressed with the excess mean square error and mean square deviation values and we used them in this paper for our theoretical analysis. Our findings showed that the distances between the nodes must not be more than 10 m or the incremental network will diverge from its estimation goal. The network performance is analyzed through multiple link distances and the results are presented with several simulations. The simulation results are devised in order to elaborate the effects of the underwater turbulent links on the performances of estimating adaptive network. Also, the impacts of different salinity and temperature levels are analyzed theoretically and the results are compared with the simulation results.

     

Effects of cold work prior to aging on microstructure of AEREX™350 superalloy

The influence of different amounts of cold work on the evolution of microstructure during subsequent aging of AEREX™350 superalloy was investigated. Simple compression testing was used to impose desired plastic strain while microhardness testing, XRD, SEM and TEM techniques were used to characterize the response of the alloy following aging treatment. It was found that high levels of cold work followed by aging resulted in a drastic increase in the formation of Widmanstättan η phase and incidence of shear bands in the microstructure. Based on microstructural data, the effect of plastic strain on η phase formation and the physical origin of the localized shear bands are discussed.     

A dual-mode 802.11b/bluetooth radio in 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS

A fully integrated dual-mode CMOS transceiver tuned to 2.4 GHz consumes 65 mA in receive mode and 78 mA in transmit mode from a 3-V supply. The radio includes all the receive and transmit building blocks, such as frequency synthesizer, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), and power amplifier, and is intended for use in 802.11b and Bluetooth applications. The Bluetooth receiver uses a low-IF architecture for higher level of integration and lower power consumption, while the 802.11b receiver is direct conversion. The receiver achieves a typical sensitivity of -88 dBm at 11 Mb/s for 802.11b, and -83 dBm for Bluetooth mode. The receiver minimum IIP3 is -8 dBm. Both transmitters use a direct-conversion architecture, and deliver a nominal output power of 0 dBm, with a power range of 20 dB in 2-dB steps.