Continuous microwave assisted flow synthesis and characterization of calcium deficient hydroxyapatite nanorods

Synthetic calcium deficient hydroxyapatite (CDHA) nanorods (<100?nm) were rapidly prepared with the help of a new continuous microwave assisted flow synthesis (CMFS) reactor in 5?min only from aqueous solution of calcium hydroxide and orthophosphoric acid at pH 8.5. The effect of various reaction parameters like, pH, concentration, temperature, residence time, degree of crystallinity and particle surface area were studied in detail. The phase purity, particle size and morphology of the powder samples were characterised by techniques such as X-ray diffraction analysis, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and FTIR and Raman spectroscopy. With the help of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, the chemical analysis was completed. Measurements were taken into account to estimate the particle size following the dynamic light scattering. The results showed that the employed synthesis procedure offered an efficient and economical route to achieve high quality nano-sized products with suitable size and low level of impurities.     

Spatially Adaptive Image Restoration Using Fuzzy Punctual Kriging

We present a general formulation based on punctual kriging and fuzzy concepts for image restoration in spatial domain. Gray-level images degraded with Gaussian white noise have been considered. Based on the pixel local neighborhood, fuzzy logic has been employed intelligently to avoid unnecessary estimation of a pixel. The intensity estimation of the selected pixels is then carried out by employing punctual kriging in conjunction with the method of Lagrange multipliers and estimates of local semi-variances. Application of such a hybrid technique performing both selection and intensity estimation of a pixel demonstrates substantial improvement in the image quality as compared to the adaptive Wiener filter and existing fuzzykriging approaches. It has been found that these filters achieve noise reduction without loss of structural detail information, as indicated by their higher structure similarity indices, peak signal to noise ratios and the new variogram based quality measures.     

The applicability of using a protease extracted from cashew fruits (Anacardium occidentale), as possible meat tenderizer: An experimental design approach

Meat tenderness is one of the most important organoleptic properties in determining consumer acceptance in meat product marketability. Therefore, an effective meat tenderization method is sought after by exploring plant-derived proteolytic enzymes as meat tenderizer. In this study, a novel protease from Cashew was identified as a new alternative halal meat tenderizer. The extraction of cashew protease was optimized using response surface methodology (R² = 0.9803) by varying pH, CaCl₂ concentration, mixing time, and mass. pH 6.34, 7.92 mM CaCl₂ concentration, 5.51 min mixing time, and 19.24 g sample mass were the optimal extraction conditions. There was no significant difference (n = 3; p < 0.05) between the calculated (6.302 units/ml) and experimental (6.493 ± 0.229 units/ml) protease activity. The ascending order of the effects was pH < mixing time < CaCl₂ < sample mass. In meat tenderizing application, the meat samples treated with 9% (v/w) crude protease extract obtained the lowest shear force (1.38 ± 0.25 N) to cause deformation on the meat. An electrophoretic analysis showed that protein bands above ~49.8 kDa were completely degraded into protein bands below ~22.4 kDa. Scanning electron microscopy shows the disruption of the muscle fibers after being treated by the Cashew protease. The results of this study show the Cashew (Anacardium occidentale) crude extract can be used as an alternative of the animal and microbial protease as meat tenderizer and subsequently overcome the shortcoming of the halal industrial protease.     

Deep localization of subcellular protein structures from fluorescence microscopy images

Neural Computing and Applications - Accurate localization of proteins from fluorescence microscopy images is challenging due to the inter-class similarities and intra-class disparities introducing...     

Development and validation of a deep learning-based algorithm for drowsiness detection in facial photographs

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Drowsiness is a feeling of sleepiness before the sleep onset and has severe implications from a safety perspective for the individuals involved in industrial...     

Optimal asset allocation of wind energy units in conjunction with demand response for a large‐scale electric grid

Demand response is considered to be a realistic and comparatively inexpensive solution aimed at increasing the penetration of renewable generations into the bulk electricity systems. The work in this paper highlights the demand response in conjunction with the optimal capacity of installed wind energy resources allocation. Authors proposed a total annual system cost model to minimize the cost of allocating wind power generating assets. This model contains capacity expansion, production, uncertainty, wind variability, emissions, and elasticity in demand to find out cost per hour to deliver electricity. A large‐scale electric grid (25 GW) is used to apply this model. Authors discovered that demand response based on interhourly system is not as much helpful as demand response grounded on intrahourly system. According to results, 32% wind generation share will provide the least cost. It is also worth noting that optimal amount of wind generation is much sensitive to installation cost as well as carbon tax.     

Self-heating and trapping effects on the RF performance of GaN MESFETs

RF power performances of GaN MESFETs incorporating self-heating and trapping effects are reported. A physics-based large-signal model is used, which includes temperature dependences of transport and trapping parameters. Current collapse and dc-to-RF dispersion of output resistance and transconductance due to traps have been accounted for in the formulation. Calculated dc and pulsed I-V characteristics are in excellent agreement with the measured data. At 2 GHz, calculated maximum output power of a 0.3 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m GaN MESFET is 22.8 dBm at the power gain of 6.1 dB and power-added efficiency of 28.5% are in excellent agreement with the corresponding measured values of 23 dBm, 5.8 dB, and 27.5%, respectively. Better thermal stability is observed for longer gate-length devices due to lower dissipation power density. At 2 GHz, gain compressions due to self-heating are 2.2, 1.9, and 0.75 dB for 0.30 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m, 0.50 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m, and 0.75 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m GaN MESFETs, respectively. Significant increase in gain compression due to thermal effects is reported at elevated frequencies. At 2-GHz and 10-dBm output power, calculated third-order intermodulations (IM3s) of 0.30 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m, 0.50 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m, and 0.75 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m GaN MESFETs are -61, -54, and - 45 dBc, respectively. For the same devices, the IM3 increases by 9, 6, and 3 dBc due to self-heating effects, respectively. Due to self-heating effects, the output referred third-order intercept point decreases by 4 dBm in a 0.30 /spl mu/m/spl times/100 /spl mu/m device.     

Effect of substrate temperature and film thickness on the surface structure of some thin amorphous films of MoO3 studied by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ESCA)

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) core level spectra of MoO₃ substoichiometric amorphous thin films in the thickness range 100 to 670 nm were studied as a function of thickness. Some samples 500 nm thick were studied for different substrate temperatures in the range 293 to 543 K. It was observed that with the increase of thickness of the samples no change in the electron spectrum was observed in the material. Under vacuum conditions, MoO₃ turned blue when the substrate temperature was higher than 373 K. XPS spectra supported the formation of the Mo⁵⁺ oxidation state in the blue samples. Blue coloration was observed after heating in vacuum and this was attributed to an internal electron transfer from oxygen to metallic orbitals by thermal ionization creating an Mo⁵⁺ oxidation state.