A predictive model for the inactivation of Listeria innocua in cooked poultry products during postpackage pasteurization

Contamination of Listeria monocytogenes in ready-to-eat poultry products poses potential risk of listeriosis to the public. To control the level of Listeria contamination, attention has been focused on the postpackage pasteurization of fully cooked poultry products. In this study, we sought to develop a model to predict the thermal inactivation of L. monocytogenes in chicken drumettes during postpackage hot water pasteurization. Fully cooked chicken drumettes were inoculated with Listeria innocua as a surrogate microorganism for Listeria monocytogenes, vacuum packaged, and treated in hot water baths at 60, 70, 80, and 90°C for different heating times. Experimental results showed that a 7-log CFU/g reduction of L. innocua occurred at 54, 28, 18, and 10 min at 60, 70, 80, and 90°C, respectively. The Weibull model was used to fit the survival curves of L. innocua at each heating temperature. The root mean square errors and residual plots indicated good agreements between the predicted and observed values. The predictive model was further validated by predicting a new data set generated in the pilot-plant tests. Model performance was evaluated by the acceptable prediction zone method, and the results indicated that the percentages of acceptable prediction errors were 100, 100, 82.4, and 87.5% at 60, 70, 80 and 90°C, respectively, which were all greater than the threshold acceptable value of 70% , indicating good performance of the model. The developed predictive model can be used as a tool to predict thermal inactivation behaviors of L. monocytogenes in ready-to-eat chicken drumettes products.     

Sensing and Field Data Capture for Construction and Facility Operations

Collection of accurate, complete, and reliable field data is not only essential for active management of construction projects involving various tasks, such as material tracking, progress monitoring, and quality assurance, but also for facility and infrastructure management during the service lives of facilities and infrastructure systems. Limitations of current manual data collection approaches in terms of speed, completeness, and accuracy render these approaches ineffective for decision support in highly dynamic environments, such as construction and facility operations. Hence, a need exists to leverage the advancements in automated field data capture technologies to support decisions during construction and facility operations. These technologies can be used not only for acquiring data about the various operations being carried out at construction and facility sites but also for gathering information about the context surrounding these operations and monitoring the workflow of activities during these operations. With this, it is possible for project and facility managers to better understand the effect of environmental conditions on construction and facility operations and also to identify inefficient processes in these operations. This paper presents an overview of the various applications of automated field data capture technologies in construction and facility fieldwork. These technologies include image capture technologies, such as laser scanners and video cameras; automated identification technologies, such as barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags; tracking technologies, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) and wireless local area network (LAN); and process monitoring technologies, such as on-board instruments (OBI). The authors observe that although applications exist for capturing construction and facility fieldwork data, these technologies have been underutilized for capturing the context at the fieldwork sites as well as for monitoring the workflow of construction and facility operations.     

Buckling analysis of single walled carbon nanotube on Winkler foundation using nonlocal elasticity theory and DTM

In the present work differential transformation method (DTM) is used to predict the buckling behaviour of single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) on Winkler foundation under various boundary conditions. Four different boundary conditions namely clamped–clamped, simply supported, clamped hinged and clamped free are used to study the critical buckling loads. Effects of (i) size of SWCNT (ii) nonlocal parameter and (iii) Winkler elastic modulus on nonlocal critical buckling loads are being investigated and discussed. The DTM is implemented for the nonlocal SWCNT analyses and this yields results with high degree of accuracy. Further, present method can be applied to linear and nonlinear problems.     

Engineered graphite oxide materials for application in water purification

Retaining the inherent hydrophilic character of GO (graphite-oxide) nanosheets, sp(2) domains on GO are covalently modified with thiol groups by diazonium chemistry. The surface modified GO adsorbs 6-fold higher concentration of aqueous mercuric ions than the unmodified GO. "Core-shell" adsorbent granules, readily useable in filtration columns, are synthesized by assembling aqueous GO over sand granules. The nanostructured GO-coated sand retains at least 5-fold higher concentration of heavy metal and organic dye than pure sand. The research results could open avenues for developing low-cost water purification materials for the developing economies.     

Magnetite powder and kaolinite derived from waste iron ore tailings for environmental applications

The present study demonstrated a feasible approach of utilizing waste iron ore tailings in synthesis of value added products for environmental applications. The ferric iron recovered from waste iron ore tailings via acid leaching followed by precipitation as ferric (hydr)oxide was used as feed stock to synthesis magnetite powder by its reductive-roasting with charcoal. Physicochemical characterizations revealed the formation of sufficiently pure magnetite powder with ferric (hydr)oxide to charcoal ratio 1:2 and calcined at 1200 °C for 4 h. The magnetic powder as such or coated with polyacrylic acid, was found efficient for removal of a model dye, methylene blue from its solution within 2 min. The acid insoluble residue, generated after iron recovery from iron ore tailings, was characterized as kaolinite. The residue with reasonably good surface area (119 m² g^− 1) was also found effective for adsorptive removal of dyes including methylene blue and can find large scale applications in wastewater treatment. Moreover the present study provided further inputs for possible alternative uses of waste iron ore tailings to partly reduce its associated disposal problems.     

Deep Insights of SiGe PNPN Tunnel FET Cavity Based Biosensors for Label Free Detection

Silicon - This paper reports a benchmark study on tunnel FET (TFET) biosensors by considering the effect of analyte conjugation in the nanogap cavity. A comparative investigation is carried out for...     

Microstructural, optical and quantum confinement effect study of mechanically synthesized ZnTe quantum dots

ZnTe quantum dots (QD) have been synthesized in a quick single-step process by mechanically alloying a stoichiometric mixture of elemental Zn and Te powders at room temperature under Ar with 1 h of milling. The detailed microstructure of these powdered QD has been characterized by both Rietveld analysis of X-ray powder diffraction data and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. The results reveal that almost monodispersed spherical QD of ∼5 nm size were synthesized after 15 h of milling. These QD all belong to the cubic (Zn blende) phase and contain different kinds of stacking faults but with low lattice strain. The UV-vis absorbance spectra of ZnTe QD depict a significant blue shift with decreasing size of QD and the band gap estimated taken from the sharp absorbance peak position is greater than that of the bulk counterpart. The band gap increases with increasing milling time up to 15 h with a continuous decrease in the size of these QD and, therefore, their optical properties can be fine tuned by varying the milling time.     

Computational analysis and comparison of reversible gates for design and test of logic circuits

Quantum computing is one of the most significant anticipation towards the accomplishment of interminable consumer demands of small, high speed, and low-power operable electronics devices. As reversible logic circuits have direct applicability to quantum circuits, design and synthesis of these circuits are finding grounds for emerging nano-technologies of quantum computing. Multiple Controlled Toffoli (MCT) and Multiple Controlled Fredkin (MCF) are the fundamental reversible gates that playing key role in this phase of development. A number of special reversible gates have also been presented so far, which were claimed superior for providing certain purposes like logic development and testing. This paper critically analyses a range of these gates to procure an optimal solution for design, synthesis and testing of reversible circuits. The experimentation is facilitated at three subsequent levels, i.e. gates properties, quantum cost and design & testability. MCT and MCF gates are found up to 50% more cost-effective than special gates at design level and 34.4% at testability level. Maximum reversibility depth (MRD) is included as a new measurement parameter for comparison. Special gates exhibit MRD up to 7 which ideally should be 1 for a system to be physically reversible as that of MCT and MCF gates.     

Zeolite from fly ash: synthesis and characterization

Coal fly ash was used to synthesize X-type zeolite by alkali fusion followed by hydrothermal treatment. The synthesized zeolite was characterized using various techniques such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, BET method for surface area measurement etc. The synthesis conditions were optimized to obtain highly crystalline zeolite with maximum BET surface area. The maximum surface area of the product was found to be 383 m²/g with high purity. The crystallinity of the prepared zeolite was found to change with fusion temperature and a maximum value was obtained at 823 K. The cost of synthesized zeolite was estimated to be almost one-fifth of that of commercial 13X zeolite available in the market.     

Spatial data analysis and application of evidential belief functions to shallow landslide susceptibility mapping at Mt. Umyeon,Seoul, Korea

Predictive mapping of landslide occurrence at the regional scale was performed at Mt. Umyeon, in the southern part of Seoul, Korea, using an evidential belief function (EBF) model. To generate the landslide susceptibility map, approximately 90 % of 163 actual landslide locations were randomly selected as a training set, and about 10 % of them were used as a validation set. Spatial data sets relevant to landslide occurrence (topographic factors, hydrologic factors, forest factors, soil factors, and geologic factors) were analyzed in a geographic information system environment. In this study, landslide susceptibility was assessed on the basis of mass function assignment (belief, disbelief, uncertainty, and plausibility) and integration within a data-driven approach. The most representative of the resulting integrated susceptibility maps (the belief map) was validated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method. The verification result showed that the model had an accuracy of 74.3 % and a predictive accuracy of 88.1 %. The frequency ratio (FR) model was also used for comparison with the EBF model. Prediction and success rates of 72.1 and 85.9 % were achieved using the FR model. The validation results showed satisfactory agreement between the susceptibility map and the existing landslide location data. The EBF model was more accurate than the FR model for landslide prediction in the study area. The results of this study can be used to mitigate landslide-induced hazards and for land-use planning.