Magnetoelastic Sensor Studies on Amorphous Magnetic FeSiB Wire and the Application in Viscosity Measurement

In this work, possible use of FeSiB amorphous magnetic wire as a magnetoelastic sensor was investigated. As-received wire did not show any magnetoelastic change. But, the wire annealed in a furnace at 465 ^°C for various times showed good magnetoelastic change. A very large change in the resonance frequency of annealed FeSiB wire as a function of DC magnetic field was obtained. This large change was explained on the basis of the high value of magnetostriction of FeSiB wire and the increase in the rotational magnetization process. It was also found that resonance frequency of FeSiB wire changes when the wire was in a liquid with different viscosities.     

Screening of the antioxidant potentials of six Salvia species from Turkey

This study was designed to examine the in vitro antioxidant activities of the methanol extracts of six Salvia species [Salvia caespitosa Montbret & Aucher ex Bentham (ENDEMIC), Salvia hypargeia Fisch. & Mey. (ENDEMIC), Salvia euphratica subsp. euphratica Montbret & Aucher ex Bentham (ENDEMIC), Salvia sclarea L., Salvia candidissima subsp. candidissima Montbret & Aucher ex Bentham and Salvia aethiopis L.] from Turkey. The extracts were screened for their possible antioxidant activities by two complementary test systems, namely DPPH free radical-scavenging and β-carotene/linoleic acid systems. Non-polar subfractions of the methanol extracts of Salvia species studied did not show any antioxidant activity in both test systems. In the first case, the most active plant was S. euphratica subsp. euphratica, an endemic species, with an IC₅₀ value of 20.7 ± 1.22 μg/ml, followed by S. sclarea (IC₅₀ = 23.4 ± 0.97 μg/ml) among the polar subfractions. In the β-carotene/linoleic acid test system, polar extract of S. hypargeia was superior to the polar extracts of other Salvia species studied (69.2% ± 1.90%). This activity was followed by S. sclarea with 63.5% ± 4.24% inhibition rate. The inhibition rate of the synthetic antioxidant, buthylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), was also determined to be 96%. Since the polar extracts of Salvia species dealt with here exhibited excellent antioxidant activities when compared to BHT, it seems possible to keep perishable fat-containing food longer by direct addition of an extract of sage.     

Effect of B-doping on the structural, magnetotransport and magnetocaloric properties of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 compounds

In this study, the effect of Mn site substitution of B on the structural, electrical and magnetocaloric properties of manganites was investigated. Polycrystalline manganites with the chemical composition La_0.67Ca_0.33Mn_1−xB_xO₃ (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3) were prepared by the standard solid-state process. It was found that the magnetisation, the Curie temperature and the maximum value of the magnetic entropy change |ΔS_m| decrease with increasing concentration of B.     

Discriminative common vectors for face recognition

In face recognition tasks, the dimension of the sample space is typically larger than the number of the samples in the training set. As a consequence, the within-class scatter matrix is singular and the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) method cannot be applied directly. This problem is known as the "small sample size" problem. In this paper, we propose a new face recognition method called the discriminative common vector method based on a variation of Fisher's linear discriminant analysis for the small sample size case. Two different algorithms are given to extract the discriminative common vectors representing each person in the training set of the face database. One algorithm uses the within-class scatter matrix of the samples in the training set while the other uses the subspace methods and the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure to obtain the discriminative common vectors. Then, the discriminative common vectors are used for classification of new faces. The proposed method yields an optimal solution for maximizing the modified Fisher's linear discriminant criterion given in the paper. Our test results show that the discriminative common vector method is superior to other methods in terms of recognition accuracy, efficiency, and numerical stability.     

The in vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of the essential oil and various extracts of Origanum syriacum L var bevanii

The present work examines the in vitro antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of the essential oil and various extracts from the herbal parts of Origanum syriacum L var bevanii. Polar subfractions of methanol extracts from both deodorised and non‐deodorised materials showed the highest DPPH (2,2‐diphenyl‐l‐picrylhydrazyl) radical‐scavenging activity, with IC₅₀ values of 21.40 and 26.98 µg ml^?1 respectively, whereas the IC₅₀ of the essential oil was 134.00 µg ml^?1. The antioxidant potential of the extracts appeared to be closely related to the presence of polar phenolics. However, the inhibitive effect on linoleic acid oxidation might be promoted by the presence of non‐polar phenolics, as both hexane and dichloromethane extracts showed high antioxidant activities. The antimicrobial activity of the essential oil was superior to those of the other extracts. Nineteen compounds representing 962 g kg^?1 of the essential oil were identified; carvacrol (669 g kg^?1) was the main component. Overall, the results suggest that the essential oil and extracts from the herbal parts of O syriacum could be used as natural preservative ingredients in the food industry. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Efficient mineralization of sugar industry wastewater by catalytic wet air oxidation as an eco-friendly method and its kinetic modelling

In this study, catalytic wet air oxidation using lanthanum cobalt oxide (LaCoO₃) as catalyst was employed for the efficient treatment of synthetic sugar industry wastewater in a single process. A parametric study was performed to determine the optimum conditions. The results showed that reaction temperature and theoretical air percentage were the most effective parameters. Sugar derivatives were almost completely destroyed at the optimum conditions and total organic carbon (TOC) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removals were determined as 91% and 87%, respectively, indicating a high mineralization degree, which was the main goal of advanced oxidation. The reaction kinetics were investigated by pseudo-homogeneous and heterogeneous models based on two different parameters: sucrose and TOC concentration. The degree of fit showed that the reaction order was determined as two for the pseudo-homogeneous approach. According to the surface concentration calculations for heterogeneous models, the presence of mass transfer limitations was only observed for oxygen as gas reactant. All heterogeneous models also fitted the reaction rate data accurately, but the Mars–van Krevelen was the selected model for sucrose and TOC oxidation with the best fit.     

D2 receptor imaging with iodine-123-iodobenzamide brain SPECT in infants with hypoxic-ischemic brain injury

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the striatal dopamine D2 receptor density in infants with perinatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HIBI) using 123I-iodobenzamide (IBZM) brain SPECT and to correlate the findings with the severity of HIBI and neurologic outcome. METHODS: Twenty infants who were diagnosed to have perinatal HIBI were included in this study. They were classified as having mild (n = 6), moderate (n = 10) or severe (n = 4) HIBI according to their neurologic findings at birth using the criteria of Sarnat and Sarnat. Neurologic outcome of these infants was determined by serial neurologic examinations and the Denver developmental screening test; 10 infants recovered without any deficit and the remaining 10 were affected to a degree varying from motor impairment to cerebral palsy. All 20 infants were examined using 123I-IBZM brain SPECT at age 7.8 +/- 2.3 mo. Transaxial slices were obtained 2 hr after intravenous injection of 300 micro ci (11.1 MBq) 123I-IBZM and the activity ratios of striatal to occipital cortex (ST/OC) were calculated. RESULTS: The mean ST/OC ratios in patients with mild, moderate and severe HIBI (1.219 +/- 0.078, 1.097 +/- 0.069 and 0.813 +/- 0.140, respectively) were significantly different from each other (p = 0.001). The infants who recovered from HIBI without any neurologic sequelae had higher mean ST/OC ratios than the others (1.184 +/- 0.010 versus 0.969 +/- 0.160, p = 0.002). CONCLUSION: The results of this study show that in infants with HIBI, striatal D2 receptor density decreases as the severity of injury increases. The D2 receptor density is higher in infants who recover without neurologic deficits compared to those who are affected neurologically. Dopamine D2 receptor imaging can be used to assess the severity of HIBI in children.     

Quantum chemical computational studies on bis-thiourea zinc acetate

In this study, quantum chemical calculations of vibrational spectra, Raman spectra, electronic properties (total energy, dipole moment, electronegativity, chemical hardness and softness), Mulliken atomic charges and thermodynamic parameters of bis-thiourea zinc acetate (BTZA) have been performed using Gaussian 09 program. Additionally, nonlinear optical (NLO), conformational, natural bond orbital (NBO) analyses of BTZA have been carried out using the same program. The structural and spectroscopic data of the molecule in the ground state have been calculated using Hartree-Fock (HF) and density functional method (DFT/B3LYP) with the 6-311++G(d,p) basis set. In addition, the molecular frontier orbital energies (HOMO, HOMO-1, LUMO and LUMO+1) of the title compound have been calculated at the HF and B3LYP levels. The calculated HOMO and LUMO energies show that charge transfer occurs within the molecule. Finally, the calculated results were applied to simulate infrared and Raman spectra of the title compound which showed good agreement with the experimental ones.     

Study of adsorption characteristics of long chain alkyl amine and petroleum sulfonate on silicates by electrokinetic potential,microflotation, FTIR,and AFM analyses

The long-chain alkyl amines and petroleum sulfonates are mostly used to remove unwanted minerals from feldspar ores in acidic pHs. In this study, their adsorption characteristics on pure albite and quartz were investigated by electrokinetic potential measurements, microflotation tests, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy studies. According to the results, amine had strong influence on zeta potentials of both albite and quartz turning them positive and resulting over 90% flotation recovery at certain pH values. Petroleum sulfonate, on the other hand, was less effective in terms of both zeta potential values and flotation recovery responses of albite. Although albite and quartz had different zeta potentials and flotation recovery responses with each collector, they displayed similar adsorption bands of CH₂ group over fingerprint region and adsorption layers with different intensities after being treated with the collectors. However, the adsorption of each collector on the minerals was altered by rinsing with acetone indicating that the interaction of the collectors with albite and quartz surfaces were mostly by Coulombic forces and hydrogen bonding.