Convection in a Krogh cylinder: Putting back fluid flow in the extravascular tissue

Models for drug delivery are based on the use of stirred tanks to represent organs that contain no mass transfer resistances. In the original Krogh cylinder model, a mass transfer resistance shows up but there is no convection in the tissue where convection should matter. In the present study, a two-dimensional flow field is used to show that when a liquid enters the capillary, some leave through the walls into the tissue at the arterial end and then doubles back into the capillary at the venous end. Some flow does not return which is taken to be the flow to the lymphatic system. We can get the measured transcapillary pressure drop of about 2,666 Pa if in addition the compliance of the tube wall is taken into account. Very realistic flow fields have been shown for a model liver and a tumor.     

Fabrication of CeO2 microspheres by internal gelation process using flow-focusing droplet generator

Sphere-pac fuel is an alternative nuclear fuel technology in which microspheres of two or more sizes are utilized to fill the cladding tube in place of the more conventional single-size fuel pellets. This provides leeway for adjusting the fuel pellet packing density and resulting cladding tube porosity. The current investigation makes use of a flow-focusing droplet generator made from stainless steel (S.S.) 316 L, with a channel internal diameter (I.D.) of 0.5, 0.8, 1, and 3 mm. These microspheres were supposed to be of actinide oxide but here, cerium has been chosen as a surrogate of plutonium. Detailed information about the flow-focusing droplet generator, internal gelation process, and sphere-pac fuel has been provided. The size and size distribution of ceria microspheres were investigated by varying the flow rates of the continuous and dispersed phase. The characterization of ceria microspheres has been conducted using techniques such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analyses. The size of prepared monodisperse microspheres was controlled precisely (within ±2%) in the range of 498–2888 μm using four S.S. 316 L flow-focusing droplet generators with channel I.D. 0.5, 0.8, 1, and 3 mm, respectively, and the coefficient of variation of the size distribution was found to be less than 2%.     

Mixing Time in a Short Bubble Column

Mixing time measurements have been carried out in a 0.2m I.D. short bubble column (Hc/D ? 5) with different spargers and for different clear liquid height to diameter (H_C/D) ratios. Superficial gas velocity has been varied in the range of 0.01m/s to 0.1m/s. Effect of bulk fluid viscosity on the mixing time has also been studied. The circulation cell model, with two fitted parameters viz. number of circulation cells, S and the inter‐cell exchange velocity, V_e, has been used to predict and explain the variation in mixing time and the flow pattern in the short bubble column for different types of spargers.     

Biodegradable iron chelate for H2S abatement: Modeling and optimization using artificial intelligence strategies

A batch reactor process for the abatement of a common pollutant, namely, H₂S using Fe³⁺-malic acid chelate (Fe³⁺-MA) catalyst has been developed. Further, process modeling and optimization was conducted in the three stages with a view to maximize the H₂S conversion: (i) sensitivity analysis of process inputs was performed to select the most influential process operating variables and parameters, (ii) an artificial neural network (ANN)-based data-driven process model was developed using the influential process variables and parameters as model inputs, and H₂S conversion (%) as the model output, and (iii) the input space of the ANN model was optimized using the artificial immune systems (AIS) formalism. The AIS is a recently proposed stochastic nonlinear search and optimization method based on the human biological immune system and has been introduced in this study for chemical process optimization. The AIS-based optimum process conditions have been compared with those obtained using the genetic algorithms (GA) formalism. The AIS-optimized process conditions leading to high (≈97%) H₂S conversion, were tested experimentally and the results obtained thereby show an excellent match with the AIS-maximized H₂S conversion. It was also observed that the AIS required lesser number of generations and function evaluations to reach the convergence when compared with the GA.     

The Effects of Formulation Factors on the Moist Granulation Technique for Controlled-Release Tablets

Controlled-release tablets were prepared by the moist granulation technique (MGT), a granulating method that uses very limited amounts of liquid and requires microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) to absorb moisture. Acetaminophen (APAP) was the model drug, and the polymer hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) served as the controlled-release agent. The effects of varying drug, binder (polyvinylpyrrolidone, PVP), polymer, and MCC levels on granule properties and tablet dissolution were studied. Dissolution testing was carried out in distilled water using the USP paddle method. In all cases, the granules flowed and compressed well. The granule properties were evaluated by calculating the mean particle size for all batches from sieve analysis data. The results indicate that MGT can be applied to control drug release, and at a polymer content of 44.6% or more, the process is robust enough to allow slight variations in formulation factors without affecting drug release.     

Multiphysics modeling of carbon gasification processes in a well-stirred reactor with detailed gas-phase chemistry

Fuel synthesis through coal and biomass gasification has the potential to provide a solution to the increasing demand for energy and transportation fuels. To theoretically understand the complex chemical processes in a gasifier and to identify the most influential parameters for syngas production, we developed a multiphysics model to simulate the gasification processes in a well-stirred reactor. This model is the first of its kind and considers detailed gas-phase chemistry, particle-phase reactions, radiative heat transfer, as well as full coupling between the two phases at various scales for mass, species, and energy exchange. The gas-phase reactions use the detailed chemistry GRI-Mech 1.2, including 177 elementary reactions and 31 species, as well as variable thermodynamic and transport properties. Four surface reactions were considered and the reaction rates were simulated by the diffusion-kinetics model with consideration of boundary layer diffusion. A random pore model was used to account for the evolution of the char porous structure and its impact on gasification rates. A numerical code was developed to solve the gas-phase and the particle-phase governing equations. Numerical simulations were conducted to understand the gasification process and the effects of particle size, porous structure, radiative heat transfer, pressure, O₂ concentration, and H₂ addition on gasification performance.     

Water Resistance and Barrier Properties Improvement of Paperboard by Poly(Lactic Acid) Electrospraying

This research attempted to improve water resistance and barrier properties of paperboard by electrospraying the material with poly(lactic acid) (PLA). The focus was to reduce the amount of PLA in the coating process and to achieve the thinnest possible PLA coating layer. PLA solutions were prepared at 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3% and 4% (w/v) in chloroform. PLA solution (10 ml) was sprayed onto the paperboard. The results showed that water and oil contact angles of paperboard were significantly increased after electrospraying. Water and oil absorption was significantly reduced, especially when using PLA concentration of 1%. PLA concentrations below 1% produced too few PLA particles on the surface for full coverage, whereas concentrations above 1% led to an uneven agglomeration of PLA particles on the substrate. The results also showed that water vapour transmission rate and oxygen transmission rate of paperboard were significantly reduced at PLA concentration of at least 1%. On the basis of electrospraying technique, the amount of PLA can be significantly reduced to achieve results comparable to other common coating methods. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From Molecular Reconstruction of Mesoscopic Functional Conductive Silk Fibrous Materials to Remote Respiration Monitoring

Turning insulating silk fibroin materials into conductive ones turns out to be the essential step toward achieving active silk flexible electronics. This work aims to acquire electrically conductive biocompatible fibers of regenerated Bombyx mori silk fibroin (SF) materials based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) templated nucleation reconstruction of silk fibroin networks. The electronical conductivity of the reconstructed mesoscopic functional fibers can be tuned by the density of the incorporated CNTs. It follows that the hybrid fibers experience an abrupt increase in conductivity when exceeding the percolation threshold of CNTs >35 wt%, which leads to the highest conductivity of 638.9 S m^?1 among organic‐carbon‐based hybrid fibers, and 8 times higher than the best available materials of the similar types. In addition, the silk‐CNT mesoscopic hybrid materials achieve some new functionalities, i.e., humidity‐responsive conductivity, which is attributed to the coupling of the humidity inducing cyclic contraction of SFs and the conductivity of CNTs. The silk‐CNT materials, as a type of biocompatible electronic functional fibrous material for pressure and electric response humidity sensing, are further fabricated into a smart facial mask to implement respiration condition monitoring for remote diagnosis and medication.     

Synthesis of unlimited speech in Indian languages using formant-based rules

Synthesis of continuous and unlimited speech is a matter of theoretical as well as technological interest. Independent efforts are needed for synthesis in Indian languages which are substantially different from English and other European languages. The paper discusses basic synthesis issues like text-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-speech conversion and incorporation of prosody. The three commonly adopted methodologies of concatenation, formant and articulatory syntheses are compared. The TIFR phoneme-to-speech synthesizer which utilizes a standard formant synthesizer as a speech production model is described and the methodology for evolving and organizing formant-based rules to drive the used synthesizer is emphasized. The results of some perception tests are reported and a few potential applications are suggested. The direction of the future work for enhancing the quality and expanding the scope of the synthesizer is indicated. Deceased