Chemoselective Reduction of α,β‐Unsaturated Carbonyls over Novel Mesoporous CoHMA Molecular Sieves under Hydrogen Transfer Conditions

Chemoselective reduction of α,β‐unsaturated carbonyls to the corresponding alcohols was achieved by a catalytic transfer hydrogenation (CTH) method using cobalt(II)‐substituted hexagonal mesoporous aluminophosphate (CoHMA) molecular sieve catalyst. Further, the catalyst was found to be promising as a heterogeneous catalyst as the yield was practically unchanged after up to six cycles.     

An ensemble classifier system for early diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in blood microscopic images

Leukemia is a malignant neoplasm of the blood or bone marrow that affects both children and adults and remains a leading cause of death around the world. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common type of leukemia and is more common among children and young adults. ALL diagnosis through microscopic examination of the peripheral blood and bone marrow tissue samples is performed by hematologists and has been an indispensable technique long since. However, such visual examinations of blood samples are often slow and are also limited by subjective interpretations and less accurate diagnosis. The objective of this work is to improve the ALL diagnostic accuracy by analyzing morphological and textural features from the blood image using image processing. This paper aims at proposing a quantitative microscopic approach toward the discrimination of lymphoblasts (malignant) from lymphocytes (normal) in stained blood smear and bone marrow samples and to assist in the development of a computer-aided screening of ALL. Automated recognition of lymphoblasts is accomplished using image segmentation, feature extraction, and classification over light microscopic images of stained blood films. Accurate and authentic diagnosis of ALL is obtained with the use of improved segmentation methodology, prominent features, and an ensemble classifier, facilitating rapid screening of patients. Experimental results are obtained and compared over the available image data set. It is observed that an ensemble of classifiers leads to 99 % accuracy in comparison with other standard classifiers, i.e., naive Bayesian (NB), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basis functional network (RBFN), and support vector machines (SVM).     

Biogas reforming for hydrogen enrichment by ceria decorated over nickel catalyst supported on titania and alumina

Catalytic dry reforming of biogas for hydrogen enrichment was studied over cerium oxide promoted nickel catalysts supported on titanium dioxide and aluminium oxide. The catalysts were prepared by wet impregnation method and characterized by H₂-TPR, XRD, BET and FESEM techniques. Their catalytic performance in the biogas dry reforming reaction was studied at temperature ranges from 650 to 850 °C, with a CH₄/CO₂ ratio of 1.5:1. The H₂-TPR results revealed that 11 wt % Ni impregnation on TiO₂ support makes the catalyst with strong metal-support interaction which moderates the metal sintering. Also, the addition of CeO₂ effectively improved the CH₄ and CO₂ conversions as well as H₂ enrichment. At 850 °C, 11 wt % Ni/TiO₂ catalyst leads to 70.5% CH₄ conversion with 32.0% H₂ enrichment, whereas, Ni_0·11/Ce_0.20 (Al₂O₃TiO₂) yielded high CH₄ conversion (84.9%) with 40.6% of H₂ enrichment. No significant change in the activity of the catalyst was observed with 8.8 wt % of carbon deposited on the Ni_0·11/Ce_0.20 (Al₂O₃TiO₂) catalyst, after 7 h of continuous reforming. Moreover, under combined (dry and oxidative) reforming of biogas, the stoichiometric H₂/CO ratio (1.2) was observed at 0.47 O₂/CH₄ ratios with negligible carbon deposition. Thus, Ni_0·11/Ce_0.20 (Al₂O₃TiO₂) catalyst exhibited better activity and selectivity with high catalyst stability at 850 °C.     

Biodiesel production from waste cooking oil using heterogeneous catalysts and its operational characteristics on variable compression ratio CI engine

In the present work, the optimum biodiesel conversion from waste cooking oil to biodiesel through transesterification method was investigated. The base catalyzed transesterification under different reactant proportions such as the molar ratio of alcohol to oil and mass ratio of catalyst to oil was studied for optimum production of biodiesel. The optimum condition for base catalyzed transesterification of waste cooking oil was determined to be 12:1 and 5 wt% of zinc doped calcium oxide. The fuel properties of the produced biodiesel such as the calorific value, flash point and density were examined and compared to conventional diesel. The properties of produced biodiesel and their blend for different ratios (B20, B40, B60, B80 and B100) were comparable with properties of diesel oil and ASTM biodiesel standards. Tests have been conducted on CI engine which runs at a constant speed of 1500 rpm, injection pressure of 200 bar, compression ratio 15:1 and 17.5, and varying engine load. The performance parameters include brake thermal efficiency, brake specific energy consumption and emissions parameters such as Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrocarbon (HC), Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) and smoke opacity varying with engine load (BP). Diesel engine's thermal performance and emission parameters such as CO, HC, and NOx on different biodiesel blends demonstrate that biodiesel produced from waste cooking oil using heterogeneous catalyst was suitable to be used as diesel oil blends and had lesser emissions as compared to conventional diesel.     

Numerical study on heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of fluid flow in an inserted coiled tube type three fluid heat exchanger

The paper presents numerical investigations of a three fluid heat exchanger (TFHE), which is an improvement on the double pipe heat exchanger, where a helical tube is inserted in the annular space between two straight pipes. The helical tube side fluid, that is, hot water continuously transfers heat to the outer annulus side fluid and innermost tube side fluid. The heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of the TFHE are assessed for different flow rates and inlet temperatures. With an increment in the volumetric flow rate of the helical tube side fluid and outer annulus side fluid, the overall heat transfer coefficient increases, and the effectiveness decreases for heat transfer from the helical tube side fluid to outer annulus side fluid in both parallel flow and counter flow configurations. It is also observed that with increment in the helical tube side fluid inlet temperature, the overall heat transfer coefficient and effectiveness increases for heat transfer from the helical tube side fluid to outer annulus side fluid in both flow configurations. The parameter, JF factor, has been proposed to evaluate the thermohydraulic behavior of the TFHE, where it is obtained that the behavior of the TFHE is better at a lower helical tube side fluid velocity and higher outer annulus side fluid velocity.     

A methodology for the assessment of nuclear power development scenario

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has initiated an International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles (INPRO) in the year 2000. The main objective of INPRO is to help the world community to ensure that clean and safe nuclear energy is available to contribute in fulfilling the energy needs in the 21st century in a sustainable manner. This paper demonstrates a methodology as an application of INPRO assessment for constructing nuclear power development scenarios by the use of IAEA energy optimisation models MESSAGE and DESAE. The scenario for the overall growth of energy and electricity in India is considered as a case study since for several decades India is vigorously pursuing nuclear power development program to meet its growing energy needs. It is evident from this study that in order to develop a realistic nuclear power scenario, it is necessary to generate an overall energy and electricity scenario at first. Within the overall energy-electricity picture it can be envisaged how the nuclear power technology would contribute to supply the future energy needs.     

A survey and classification of XML based attacks on web applications

ABSTRACT

XML based attacks are executed in web applications through crafted XML document that forces XML parser to process un-validated documents. This leads to disclosure of sensitive information, malicious code execution and disruption of services. OWASP has included XML based attacks at number four in its top 10 list of vulnerabilities published in 2017. Most of the vulnerabilities reported using the XML document range from high to critical and require to be addressed immediately. As per the National Vulnerability Database, 152 vulnerabilities have already been reported in the first five months of the year 2019. A varied number of XML vulnerabilities and their classification exist but are limited to a specific vulnerability. In this paper, the authors have proposed a classification of XML based vulnerabilities based on exhaustive literature survey. The approach/strategies to mitigate these vulnerabilities are also presented. The work will help the web developers for proposing secure parsers that will thwart such attacks.     

Folate receptor-mediated cancer cell specific gene delivery using folic acid-conjugated oligochitosans

Chitosan-mediated gene delivery has gained an increasing interest due to its ability to treat cancers and genetic diseases. However, low transfection efficiency and lack of target specificity limit its application for gene and drug delivery. In the present work, folic acid was covalently conjugated to chitosan as a targeting ligand in an attempt to specifically deliver DNA to folate receptor-overexpressing cancer cells. Folic acid-conjugated chitosan (FACN) was successfully synthesized and characterized by 1H-NMR and is biocompatible. In vitro gene transfer potential of FACN was evaluated in human epithelial ovarian cancer OV2008 cells and human breast cancer MCF-7 cells. FACN at a weight ratio of 10:1 exhibited significantly (< 0.01) enhanced gene transfer potential in folate receptor-overexpressing cancer cells as compared to unmodified chitosan. Transfection of FACN/pDNA nanocomplexes is competitively inhibited by free folic acid, suggesting the specific gene delivery of FACN/pDNA nanocomplexes is achieved through folate receptor-mediated endocytosis. Taken together, these results demonstrate that FACN provides a promising carrier for cancer gene therapy.     

Efficient admission control algorithms for multimedia servers

In this paper, we have proposed efficient admission control algorithms for multimedia storage servers that are providers of variable-bit-rate media streams. The proposed schemes are based on a slicing technique and use aggressive methods for admission control. We have developed two types of admission control schemes: Future-Max (FM) and Interval Estimation (IE). The FM algorithm uses the maximum bandwidth requirement of the future to estimate the bandwidth requirement. The IE algorithm defines a class of admission control schemes that use a combination of the maximum and average bandwidths within each interval to estimate the bandwidth requirement of the interval. The performance evaluations done through simulations show that the server utilization is improved by using the FM and IE algorithms. Furthermore, the quality of service is also improved by using the FM and IE algorithms. Several results depicting the trade-off between the implementation complexity, the desired accuracy, the number of accepted requests, and the quality of service are presented.     

LBP and CNN feature fusion for face anti-spoofing

Pattern Analysis and Applications - Face anti-spoofing has been attracting attention because of its prominent role in the security of face recognition systems. A face spoofing attack is launched on...