Thermal performance of dynamic,origami-inspired geometries: An experimental study

Origami has become an increasingly popular geometry in thermal engineering, namely, heat regulatory applications such as heat sinks and radiators. In this study, the radiative heating and radiative and natural convective cooling of three origami geometries (W-fold, Miura Ori (1), and Miura Ori (2)) made of heavy-duty aluminum foil under a radiative heater with different powers (800, 1600, and 2400 W) and different compression lengths (0.15, 0.25, 0.35, and 0.45 m) were investigated. It was found that the Miura Ori (1) and Miura Ori (2) geometries have three to four times high-temperature differences (the maximum temperature at the end of the heating process minus the initial temperature) than the W-fold geometry. The Miura Ori (2) and Miura Ori (1) geometries produced high heat capacity enhancements of 1.2–3.2 times at high compression lengths that showed great potential for applications such as solar steam generators. The overall heat transfer coefficient for cooling can be controlled by changing the compression length of the origami geometry, allowing for dynamic surface temperature controls. This parameter decreases by up to 25.3%, 22.6%, and 45.9% for W-fold, Miura Ori (1), and Miura Ori (2), respectively, in comparison to their flat states.     

Stabilizing Smoked Salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) Tissue after Extraction of Oil

ABSTRACT: Alaska salmon oils are rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and are highly valued by the food and pharmaceutical industries. However, the tissue that remains after oil extraction does not have an established market. Discarded pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) tissues were preserved using a combination of smoke-processing and acidification with lactic acid bacteria (LAB). All samples were analyzed for moisture, protein, ash, and lipid contents. Bacterial cell counts, pH, and lactic acid concentrations were recorded as a measure of LAB viability. Neither raw nor smoked salmon were free from spoilage during 60 d of storage. Only fermented samples successfully stabilized below pH 4.7, while retaining lactic acid concentrations over 15 g/L during storage. When smoked, fermented salmon head tissues were dried, the pH of the resulting high-protein “cracker” was significantly lower than when crackers were prepared only from the smoked (but not fermented) salmon material. Both cracker varieties retained valuable polyunsaturated fatty acids. This research suggests that salmon-head tissues discarded after oil extraction represent a good source of protein and high-value fatty acids in a shelf-stable form. Practical Application: Alaska salmon oils are rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and are highly valued by the food and pharmaceutical industries. However, the tissue that remains after oil extraction does not have an established market. Material produced from salmon tissue discarded after oil extraction may represent a valuable resource for preparing high-protein crackers and other fish-based food products. In addition to providing a unique smoke-flavoring, the smoked, fermented fish material may also impart antioxidant factors thereby extending the shelf life of the product.     

Multi-criteria-Based Mobile Hotspot Selection in IoT-Based Highly Dense Network

Wireless Personal Communications - One of the major challenges in Wireless Sensor Networks-based internet of things networks is to conserve energy and extend network lifetime. In order to provide...     

Enhanced stability and permeation potential of nanoemulsion containing sefsol-218 oil for topical delivery of amphotericin B

Aim: To characterize the enhanced stability and permeation potential of amphotericin B nanoemulsion comprising sefsol-218 oil at varying pH and temperature of aqueous continuous phase.

Methodology: Several batches of amphotericin B loaded nanoemulsion were prepared and evaluated for their physical and chemical stability at different pH and temperature. Also, a comparative study of ex vivo drug permeation across the albino rat skin was investigated with commercial Fungisome® and drug solution at 37?°C for 24?h. The extent of drug penetrated through the rat skin was thereby evaluated using the confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM).

Results and conclusions: The optimized nanoemulsion demonstrated the highest flux rate 17.85?±?0.5?µg/cm²/h than drug solution (5.37?±?0.01?µg/cm²/h) and Fungisome® (7.97?±?0.01?µg/cm²/h). Ex vivo drug penetration mechanism from the developed formulations at pH 6.8 and pH 7.4 of aqueous phase pH using the CLSM revealed enhanced penetration. Ex vivo drug penetration studies of developed formulation comprising of CLSM revealed enhanced penetration in aqueous phase at pH 6.8 and 7.4. The aggregation behavior of nanoemulsion at both the pH was found to be minimum and non-nephrotoxic. The stability of amphotericin B was obtained in terms of pH, optical density, globular size, polydispersity index and zeta potential value at different temperature for 90 days. The slowest drug degradation was observed in aqueous phase at pH 7.4 with shelf life 20.03-folds higher when stored at 4?°C (3.8 years) and 5-fold higher at 25?°C (0.951 years) than at 40?°C. The combined results suggested that nanoemulsion may hold an alternative for enhanced and sustained topical delivery system for amphotericin B.     

Mucoadhesive elementary osmotic pump tablets of trimetazidine for controlled drug delivery and reduced variability in oral bioavailability

The objectives of this work was preparation and evaluation of the mucoadhesive elementary osmotic pump tablets of trimetazidine hydrochloride to achieve desired controlled release action and augmentation of oral drug absorption. The drug-loaded core tablets were prepared employing the suitable tableting excipients and coated with polymeric blend of ethyl cellulose and hydroxypropyl methylethylcellulose E5 (4:1). The prepared tablets were characterized for various quality control tests and in vitro drug release. Evaluation of drug release kinetics through model fitting suggested the Fickian mechanism of drug release, which was regulated by osmosis and diffusion as the predominant mechanism. Evaluation of mucoadhesion property using texture analyzer suggested good mucoadhesion potential of the developed osmotic systems. Solid state characterization using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and powder X-ray diffraction spectroscopy confirmed the absence of any physiochemical incompatibilities between drug and excipients. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed the smooth surface appearance of the coated tablets with intact polymeric membrane without any fracture. In vivo pharmacokinetic studies in rabbits revealed 3.01-fold enhancement in the oral bioavailability vis-à-vis the marketed formulation (Vastarel MR®). These studies successfully demonstrate the bioavailability enhancement potential of the mucoadhesive elementary osmotic pumps as novel therapeutic systems for other drugs too.     

Interaction of Soil Air Permeability and Soil Vapor Extraction

A new theoretical model to analyze the measurements obtained from a typical soil column venting experiment is proposed. The principles of mass transfer, Darcy's law, and air compressibility in the form of pressure-volume relationships were coupled to calculate the contaminant concentration in the gas phase (air), and the rate of contaminant removal. The proposed model relates soil air permeability with the contaminant removal and is capable of calculating the variation of soil air permeability with time during the venting process. The contaminated sand sample was idealized as a system of straight capillary tubes in the direction of flow, lined by the liquid contaminant. A closed-form solution for radial diffusion of the contaminants in a cylinder, coupled with axial advection of air, was used to model contaminant removal. The results from the mass transfer model were then used to trace the change of soil air permeability with time. The model also uses, as an alternative approach, a modified form of Darcy's law for compressible flow.     

Zero Configuration Networking: Implementation, performance, and security

The ubiquitous access to wired and wireless networks is making information access possible from anywhere, anytime, and any device. Today, end-users are also highly mobile, often equipped with a range of portable devices, and they expect service availability when they require it. In addition, they do not want to be burdened by complex configurations before they can discover and use services. The Zero Configuration (Zeroconf) Networking technology promises to alleviate this configuration burden by allowing users to discover services and devices with little end-user intervention. We compare two popular implementations of Zeroconf namely, Avahi and Mono.Zeroconf running on Linux and Windows XP operating systems, respectively. We evaluate their performance using service discovery time as the performance metric. Our empirical results show that Linux Avahi yields almost 99% improvements in service discovery time over Windows Mono.Zeroconf. We also discuss security solutions that can be deployed to enhance the security of Zeroconf networks. We further investigate the performance of the IP Security (IPSec) protocol when used by our Mono.Zeroconf implementation running on the Windows XP platform. With IPSec, service discovery time increases by almost 45% with our prototype implementation.     

Efficient Tree Structures for High Utility Pattern Mining in Incremental Databases

Recently, high utility pattern (HUP) mining is one of the most important research issues in data mining due to its ability to consider the nonbinary frequency values of items in transactions and different profit values for every item. On the other hand, incremental and interactive data mining provide the ability to use previous data structures and mining results in order to reduce unnecessary calculations when a database is updated, or when the minimum threshold is changed. In this paper, we propose three novel tree structures to efficiently perform incremental and interactive HUP mining. The first tree structure, Incremental HUP Lexicographic Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {L}}}-Tree), is arranged according to an item's lexicographic order. It can capture the incremental data without any restructuring operation. The second tree structure is the IHUP Transaction Frequency Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {TF}}}-Tree), which obtains a compact size by arranging items according to their transaction frequency (descending order). To reduce the mining time, the third tree, IHUP-Transaction-Weighted Utilization Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {TWU}}}-Tree) is designed based on the TWU value of items in descending order. Extensive performance analyses show that our tree structures are very efficient and scalable for incremental and interactive HUP mining.