The diversity and distribution of freshwater macrophytes in the wedian of the mountainous northern Oman

The paper reports the first study of diversity and distribution of freshwater macrophytes in the wedian (plural of wadi = seasonal river) of the northern Al Hajar Mountain range in Oman. Fifteen lentic habitats in the wedian were surveyed. The number of species, their growth forms and abundance were recorded in the studied habitat of each wadi. In all, 41 species belonging to 14 families and 32 genera were collected. Of these 37 species were emergent and four were submergent. Poaceae was the most diverse emergent family with 17 species. Phragmites australis was the most common emergent followed by Typha domingensis. Among submerged macrophytes, Chara vulgaris had higher frequency of occurrence with low abundance followed by Potamogeton distinctus with relatively high abundance. Floristic diversity was estimated using species richness (Margalef’s D), general diversity (Shannon–Wiener H′), evenness (Pielous’s EH), and dominance (Berger–Parker d) indices for each study habitat. Principal component analysis was used to evaluate the variability using four indices. PC1 and PC2 explained 98.18% of the variability. Some habitats in different watersheds exhibited similar species diversity, but some in the same watershed were different. Baseline data on the freshwater macrophytes in northern Oman are provided here.     

Benefits of oxygen enrichment in sponge iron rotary kiln emerging from data-driven modelling

Optimal oxygen enrichment conditions for sponge iron rotary kiln have been successfully explored on an industrial scale using a data-driven model. A multi-objective optimisation by genetic algorithm (MOGA) is employed to find the favourable conditions. The objective function for MOGA is derived from neural networks using pre-processed operational data. From industrial experimentations guided by the optimum conditions predicted by the present model, it emerged that when the coal fines injection is maintained at 1.75?tph and the oxygen enrichment is 8 Nm³?t^?1 of sponge iron, a reduction in the specific air requirement from 2609 to 2150?Nm³?t^?1 was obtained, while the end-zone bed temperature remained under control at 1132°C. These conditions resulted in a reduction of specific coal consumption by 6%, an enhancement in the sponge iron production by 6% and an increase in the rotary kiln campaign life from 50 to 100 days.     

G-FANET: an ambient network formation between ground and flying ad hoc networks

In wireless communications, both control information and payload (user-data) are concurrently transmitted and required to be successfully recovered. This paper focuses on block-level detection, which is applicable for detecting transmitted control information, particularly when this information is selected or chosen from a finite set of information that are known at both transmitting and receiving devices. Using an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing architecture, this paper investigates and evaluates the performance of a time-domain decision criterion in comparison with a form of Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation method. Unlike the ML method, the proposed time-domain detection technique requires no channel estimation as it uses the correlation (in the time-domain) that exists between the received and the transmitted selective information as a means of detection. In comparison with the ML method, results show that the proposed method offers improved detection performance, particularly when the control information consists of at least 16. However, the implementation of the proposed method requires a slightly increased number of mathematical computations.     

UHT milk contains multiple forms of αS1-casein that undergo degradative changes during storage

Milk proteins are susceptible to chemical changes during processing and storage. We used proteomic tools to analyse bovine α_S1-casein in UHT milk. 2-D gels of freshly processed milk α_S1-casein was presented as five or more spots due to genetic polymorphism and variable phosphorylation. MS analysis after phosphopeptide enrichment allowed discrimination between phosphorylation states and genetic variants. We identified a new alternatively-spliced isoform with a deletion of exon 17, producing a new C-terminal sequence, K¹⁶⁴SQVNSEGLHSYGL¹⁷⁷, with a novel phosphorylation site at S¹⁷⁴. Storage of UHT milk at elevated temperatures produced additional, more acidic α_S1-casein spots on the gels and decreased the resolution of minor forms. MS analysis indicated that non-enzymatic deamidation and loss of the N-terminal dipeptide were the major contributors to the changing spot pattern. These results highlight the important role of storage temperature in the stability of milk proteins and the utility of proteomic techniques for analysis of proteins in food.     

Conjugation of curcumin with PVP capped gold nanoparticles for improving bioavailability

Curcumin, a natural polyphenolic compound, has astounding therapeutic applications but lacks in bioavailability mainly due to its poor solubility in water. Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) which is a proven drug carrier has been used to facilitate the conjugation of curcumin with gold nanoparticles and to improve the solubility of curcumin in water. In this conjugate diaryl heptanoid chromophore group of curcumin which is a much needed group in biomedical applications remains intact as observed from FTIR and UV–vis spectroscopy analysis. The work shows good promise for such conjugates as therapeutic-cum-imaging materials in biomedical field.     

Adaptive Group Teaching Based Clustering and Data Aggregation with Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Personal Communications - Nowadays, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is enhancing for different applications. Simultaneously, energy consumption for processing the tasks in most of the...     

Effect of type and percentage of reinforcement for optimization of the cutting force in turning of Aluminium matrix nanocomposites using response surface methodologies

Aluminium matrix composites (AMCs) now hold a significant share of raw materials in many applications. It is of prime importance to study the machinability of such composites so as to enhance their applicability. Sufficient work has been done for studying the machining of AMCs with particle reinforcements of micron range. This paper presents the study of AMCs with particle reinforcement of under micron range i.e. nanoparticles. This paper brings out the results of an experimental investigation of type and weight percent of nanoparticles on the tangential cutting force during turning operation. SiC, Gr and SiC-Gr (in equal proportions) were used with Al-6061 alloy as the matrix phase. The results indicate that composites with SiC require greater cutting force followed by hybrid and then Gr. Increase in the weight percent also significantly affected the magnitude of cutting force. RSM was used first to design and analyze the experiments and then to optimize the turning process and obtain optimal conditions of weight and type of reinforcements for turning operation.     

Fabrication of dense Ce0.9Mg0.1P2O7-PmOn composites by microwave heating for application as electrolyte in intermediate-temperature fuel cells

In the present work, we report a method of fabrication of dense 10 mol% Mg²⁺-doped cerium pyrophosphate-phosphate (Ce_0.9Mg_0.1P₂O₇-P_mO_n; CMP-P) composites by microwave heat-treatment of the preformed Ce_0.9Mg_0.1P₂O₇ substrates in the presence of phosphoric acid. The composite was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The microwave heating at 375 °C for 5 min resulted in the formation of dense CMP-P composites which retained most of the pyrophosphate phase. The electrical conductivity was extracted from the EIS data and for the CMP-P composite prepared by H₃PO₄ loading for 10 h and microwave heat-treatment for 5 min it was found to be >10^?2 S m^?1 in 100–250 °C range with a maximum of 0.062 S cm^?1 at 190 °C, which was significant for its application as electrolyte in intermediate temperature fuel cells.     

Three-Dimensional Study of Multiple-Jet Cross Flow Cooling System with Single Array of Heat Sources

The objective of this study is to predict fluid flow and thermal characteristics associated with forced convection cooling of an array of heat sources mounted in a three-dimensional duct by impinging jets in the presence of cross flow. The equations governing fluid flow and heat transfer are solved using Streamline Upwind / Petrov - Galerkin based finite element method. The role of three dimensional flow structures, horseshoe vortex and counter rotating vortex pair in overall heat transfer distribution is examined. A parametric study is performed to analyze the performance of jets in cross flow for various Reynolds numbers (Re = 100, 250, 500) and velocity ratios (VR = 1.0, 5.0, 10.0). It is observed that with the increase in velocity ratio, the enhancement of heat transfer from heat sources occurs due to increase in the dominance of jet flow accompanied by an unfavorable reduction in heat transfer owing to the increase in size of horseshoe vortex. From numerical studies, it can be concluded that VR = 5.0 exhibits higher overall surface averaged Nusselt number (51.7% over VR = 1.0 and 44.1% over VR = 10.0 for Re = 500) compared to other velocity ratios considered in this study.