Utilization of hazelnut pellicle in low-fat beef burgers

Hazelnut pellicle was used as a dietary fiber in the production of beef burgers. The effects of hazelnut pellicle addition on proximate composition, pH, cook loss, dimensional changes, color and sensory characteristics of beef burgers were evaluated. Hazelnut pellicle addition affected some quality parameters of beef burgers. The control samples had the lowest moisture and protein contents (P<0.05). The cooking yield and reduction in diameter and thickness of beef burgers improved by the addition of hazelnut pellicle. Beef burgers formulated with hazelnut pellicle had lower L, a and b values than control samples (P<0.05). There were differences among beef burger samples in respect to sensory properties, control samples and 1% and 2% pellicle added samples had high acceptability. The results indicate that, 1-2% hazelnut pellicle can be used as a suitable dietary fiber source in low-fat beef burger production.     

Modifications to COBRA-TF to model dispersed flow film boiling with two flow,four field Eulerian–Eulerian approach – Part 2

In the first part of the paper, the modifications performed to improve the dispersed flow film boiling model in COBRA-TF have been described. The improvements were achieved by adding a small droplet field to the code’s solution scheme. The conservation equations, the source terms for the equations and the models developed were summarized. In this paper, the effects of spacer grids on the dispersed flow heat transfer and COBRA-TF modifications for the spacer grid models are presented. The results of the code predictions are presented by comparing the experimental data from Rod Bundle Heat Transfer experiments with the results of code simulations performed with original and modified code. Measurements and calculations for the spacer grid temperature have been compared. The results of the analysis performed with the modified code indicate the improvement in code predictions for the spacer grid temperature.     

Statistical Tolerance Analysis for Assured Analog Test Coverage

Increasing numbers of analog components in today's systems necessitate system level test composition methods that utilize on-chip capabilities rather than solely relying on costly DFT approaches. We outline a tolerance analysis methodology for test signal propagation to be utilized in hierarchical test generation for analog circuits. A detailed justification of this proposed novel tolerance analysis methodology is undertaken by comparing our results with detailed SPICE Monte-Carlo simulation data on several combinations of analog modules. The results of our experiments confirm the high accuracy and efficiency of the proposed tolerance analysis methodology.     

Antimicrobial Activity of Ozone against Pathogenic Oral Microorganisms on Different Denture Base Resins

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial effect of gaseous ozone against specific oral pathogens on denture base resins. 1080 round samples were prepared (10mm-diameter, 2mm-thickness). Candida albicans, Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus gordonii, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, polyamide-Deflex, heat-cured polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA)-QC-20, and cold-cured-PMMA-Meliodent. The doses and durations: 25, 50 and 100µg/ml, 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes. For Cell viability (CV) MTT was used. 100µg/ml was most effective dose for C. albicans, S .gordonii, and A. actinomycetemcomitans were in heat-cured-PMMA and polyamide for S.mutans. For polyamide, lowest CV was 43% in S.mutans and A.actinomycetemcomitans. CV of heat-cure and cold-cure PMMA were 31% and 32% in S.gordonii, respectively. CV was similar for all resins and durations in S.mutans and A.actinomycetemcomitans and for polyamide for C.albicans and for heat-cure PMMA for S.gordonii. 30-min ozone application killed 80% of all microorganisms in all resins except for C.albicans in polyamide (65% cell death) and cold-cure PMMA (57% cell death). Optimal dose/duration combination was 100 µg/ml-10 min. Gaseous ozone can be considered as an effective cleansing agent for denture base resins.     

Automated signal pattern evaluation of a bladder cancer specific multiprobe-fish assay applying a user-trainable workstation

OBJECTIVE: Signal pattern enumeration of Urovysion Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization test is tedious and requires great experience. Our aim was to eliminate human interaction by automating the process, using an adoptable, automated image acquisition, and analysis system. METHODS: For extensive analytical analysis control, cell populations were used, while preliminary clinical study was performed on 21 patients with clinical suspicion for bladder cancer. All investigations were carried out using an automated user‐trainable workstation (Metafer4‐Metacyte). RESULTS: The system identified nuclei with a specificity and sensitivity of 92.7 and 96.6%, respectively, while signal detection accuracy was 81.1% on average. Both analytical and diagnostic accuracy of automated analysis was comparable to manual approach (94.8 and 71% vs. 97.9 and 76%, respectively), but classification accuracy increased with degree of polysomy, thus diagnostic sensitivity in low grade, low stage cases was poor. CONCLUSION: It is possible to automate signal enumeration of Urovysion using a user‐trainable system, and achieve efficiency comparable to manual analysis. Previously introduced automated immunophenotypic targeting should further increase diagnostic sensitivity, while resulting in a comprehensively automated method. However, the problem of reduced detection accuracy in cases featured with low polysomy is likely to remain a great challenge of automated signal enumeration. Microsc. Res. Tech. 75:814–820, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Estimated environmental loads of alpha-amylase from transgenic high-amylase maize

Environmental exposure of plants bioengineered to improve efficiencies of biofuel production is an important consideration for their adoption. High-amylase maize genetically engineered to produce thermostable alpha-amylase in seed endosperm is currently in development, and its successful adoption will entail >1000 km² of annual production in the USA. Environmental exposure of thermostable amylase will occur in production fields from preharvest and harvest dropped grain, with minor additional contributions from stover and root biomass. Mass loadings of thermostable alpha-amylase are projected to be 16 kg km⁻² and represent a potential source of increased alpha-amylase activity in receiving soils. An understanding of the degradation, persistence, accumulation, and activity of thermostable alpha-amylase introduced from transgenic high-amylase maize will be necessary in order to effectively manage transgenic crop systems intended or biofeedstock production.     

RF plasma modified W5O14 and MoS2 hybrid nanostructures and photovoltaic properties

Modification of W₅O₁₄ and MoS₂ nanostructures was carried out using 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene monomer in a capacitively coupled, RF rotating plasma reactor. Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements were used for structural characterization. The surface morphologies of nanomaterials were investigated using transmission electron microscopy. Polymer coated (W₅O₁₄/PEDOT, MoS₂/PEDOT) and untreated (W₅O₁₄, MoS₂) nanostructures were used as the counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells. Photovoltaic performances of W₅O₁₄/PEDOT and MoS₂/PEDOT hybrid nanostructures were higher than those of W₅O₁₄ and MoS₂ inorganic nanostructures. Our results indicate that plasma polymer coated W₅O₁₄ and MoS₂ nanostructures of the device for cathode increase both its fill factor and its energy conversion efficiency.     

A task‐oriented priority queue for telephone switch design: with modified FCFS and forking

When developing a telephone switch, it is useful to know how long it will take to process the various tasks associated with call processing. The model developed in this paper gives expected sojourn times for those tasks. It is a priority queueing model with a modified firstcome firstserved (FCFS) service discipline, which mimics the treatment of tasks in actual system software. The model is an M/G/1 queueing model with preemption (preemptive resume). It consists of multiple queues, one for each distinct priority, where each task has been preassigned a constant priority. Within each priority queue, the tasks are further grouped by type. An arriving task will join the back of the group of tasks of its type, regardless of where this group is positioned in the queue. Upon completion of a task, several tasks of different types can enter the priority queues. This is referred to as forking. Call processing involves many ordered sets of tasks (jobs or classes), some of which will contain forks. The model produces results that compare favorably with those obtained by simulation.     

Optimal (N,T)-policy for M/G/1 system with cost structures

In this paper, the optimal (N,T)-policy for M/G/1 system with cost structure is studied. The system operates only intermittently. It is shut down when no customers are present. A fixed set-up cost of K>0 is incurred each time the system is reopened. Also, a holding cost of h>0 per unit time is incurred for each customer present. The (N,T)-policy studied for this system is as follows: the system reactivates as soon as N customers are present or the waiting time of the leading customer reaches a predefined time T (see A.S. Alfa, I. Frigui, Eur. J. Oper. Res. 88 (1996) 599-613; Y.N. Doganata, in: E. Arikan (Ed.), Communication, Control, and Signal Processing, 1990, pp. 1663–1669). Later on, as a comparison, the start of the timer count is relaxed as follows: the system reactivates as soon as N customers are present or the time units after the end of the last busy period reaches a predefined time T. For both cases, the explicit optimal policy (N^*,T^*) for minimizing the long-run average cost per unit time are obtained. As extreme cases, we include the simple optimal policies for N-and T-polices. Several counter-intuitive results are obtained about the optimal T-policies for both types of models.     

A queueing model with time‐varying QoS and call dropping for evaluating the performance of CDMA cellular systems

In this paper, we present a queueing model to evaluate the performance of CDMA reverse link in a multiple cell environment. Since CDMA capacity is interference limited, both the communication quality of ongoing calls and the admission condition of new arriving calls for each cell depend on the time‐varying signal‐to‐interference ratio (SIR). We use a quasi‐birth‐and‐death process to capture the variation of traffic loads in cells. After obtaining the stationary distribution of the system, we study some important performance indices such as the outage probability of existing calls, the blocking probability of new calls, the average carried traffic in a cell and the dropping frequency of ongoing calls. Numerical results reveal the effects of system parameters on its performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.