Synthesis and Some Surface Properties of Glycine-Based Surfactants

A new group of anionic surfactants, namely sodium salts of secondary alkanesulfonamidoacetic acid, were synthesized using n-alkanesulfonyl chlorides as starting materials. These surfactants, having the formula: R–SO₂–NH–CH₂–COONa, with R = C₁₂, C₁₄, C₁₆ and C₁₈, were obtained in a simple way with quantitative yields. Different chain lengths and positional isomers of this new type of surfactants are expected to present differences in surface properties and foamability. The surface properties including critical micelle concentrations and minimal surface tensions γ_min were determined for each prepared surfactant using surface tension measurements with a Wilhelmy plate. Surface excess and minimum area per molecule at the air–water interface were determined for different concentrations at 25 and 50 °C using the Gibbs equation. The foaming power was also determined by the Bartsch method, and the results obtained were compared to those of a commercial surfactant, the linear alkylbenzenesulfonate. The stability of the foam formed was also evaluated. As expected, these surfactants exhibit good surface properties and show good foaming power.     

Wideband Rectangular and Circular Microstrip Antennas Loaded with U-Shaped Slot

In this paper, a dual frequency resonance antenna is analysed by introducing U-shaped slot in a rectangular and circular patch, the results in terms of return loss, input impedance and radiation pattern are given. It is observed that various antenna parameters are obtained as a function of frequency for different value of slot length and width; it is easy to adjust the upper and the lower band by varying these different antenna parameters. The coaxial feed is used to excite the patch antenna. All the theoretical results using Matlab are compared with the simulated results obtained from Ansoft HFSS which are in close agreement. Furthermore, comparative study between our results and those available in the literature is done and showed to be in good agreement.     

Dipper Throated Algorithm for Feature Selection and Classification in Electrocardiogram

Arrhythmia has been classified using a variety of methods. Because of the dynamic nature of electrocardiogram (ECG) data, traditional handcrafted approaches are difficult to execute, making the machine learning (ML) solutions more appealing. Patients with cardiac arrhythmias can benefit from competent monitoring to save their lives. Cardiac arrhythmia classification and prediction have greatly improved in recent years. Arrhythmias are a category of conditions in which the heart's electrical activity is abnormally rapid or sluggish. Every year, it is one of the main reasons of mortality for both men and women, worldwide. For the classification of arrhythmias, this work proposes a novel technique based on optimized feature selection and optimized K-nearest neighbors (KNN) classifier. The proposed method makes advantage of the UCI repository, which has a 279-attribute high-dimensional cardiac arrhythmia dataset. The proposed approach is based on dividing cardiac arrhythmia patients into 16 groups based on the electrocardiography dataset’s features. The purpose is to design an efficient intelligent system employing the dipper throated optimization method to categorize cardiac arrhythmia patients. This method of comprehensive arrhythmia classification outperforms earlier methods presented in the literature. The achieved classification accuracy using the proposed approach is 99.8%.     

Application of ZnO–NiO greenly synthesized nanocomposite adsorbent on the elimination of organic dye from aqueous solutions: Kinetics and equilibrium

Organic dyes are discharged into aquatic systems from several industries causing severe environmental problems and toxicity to aquatic life. Therefore, it should be removed from water with a suitable process. Among several treatment processes, adsorption is one of the most attractive because of its simplicity, efficiency, and low operating cost. Moreover, adsorption supports environmental sustainability if a suitable adsorbent is used. In this work, a green route was followed to prepare ZnO: NiO nanocomposites using the Neem leaf extract as a stabilizing agent instead of harmful chemicals. Four different samples with three different ZnO:NiO ratios were prepared, namely: 3Z:1 N, 1Z:1 N, 1Z:3 N and 1Z:1 N without extract. The samples were characterized by XRD, TEM, SEM, IR, and UV, which all confirmed the successful synthesis of the nanocomposites. The nanocomposites were used for the adsorption of methyl orange (MO) from aqueous solutions. The four nanocomposites prepared with the aid of the extract showed a high sensitivity with 100% removal of MO from 6.25 ppm solutions. Furthermore, all the samples have a relatively fast kinetic with an equilibrium time less than 1 h. Also, the three samples maintained 100% removal efficiency after 5 adsorption-desorption cycles. The difference in particle size distribution obtained for the 1Z:1 N prepared with and without the extract confirms the important rule of the extract as a capping agent with an average size of 18 nm for the sample with the extract and 88 nm for the sample prepared without the extract. This difference in the particle sizes has been reflected on the adsorption performance of the two samples with a maximum adsorption capacity of 33 mg/g for the sample prepared with the extract compared to 6 mg/g for the sample without the extract.     

Comparison of graphene films grown on 6H-SiC and 4H-SiC substrates

Abstract

Atomic force microscopy, Kelvin-probe microscopy and Raman spectroscopy have been used to examine graphene films grown by thermal decomposition of the Si face of semi-insulating substrates of 6H-SiC and 4H-SiC polytypes in the atmosphere of argon. It was demonstrated that the quality of graphene grown on substrates of various polytypes at identical technological growth regimes is about the same. A conclusion was made that the differences in crystal structure between 6H-SiC and 4H-SiC does not lead to significant dissimilarities in the mechanism of sublimation of silicon carbide components from the surface of a crystal and in that of graphene crystallization.     

New sulfonated aramide nanoparticles and their copper complexes with anomalous dielectric behavior

We report the preparation of thermally stable spherical sulfonated aramides nanoparticles and their copper(II) complexes. Metal chelation with copper ions furnished polymeric complexes in a 1 : 2 ratio with square planar geometries as judged by their IR, UV, electron spin resonance, and elemental analysis data. The direct‐current electrical conductivities demonstrated the semiconducting nature of the polymeric particles and their copper complexes. Dielectric loss analysis studies showed spectral peaks appearing at characteristic frequencies, which suggested the presence of relaxing dipoles in all of the polymers. All loss peaks were shown on a linear frequency scale and appeared in the range of 1 decade, and no overlap was observed in any of the samples, whereas in the normal polymer's dielectric loss behavior, each peak covered more than 1 decade. Moreover, the peak positions did not change with increasing temperature; this indicated a nonactivated process. The reported dielectric results revealed anomalous behavior, which has not been reported before for such polymeric analogues, as the polarization in these cases was limited by nonthermal forces, and a steady‐state constant polarization was produced by an applied field. A simple method for the formation of a microporous semiconducting thin film of a polymer derived from isophthalic acid and diaminodiphenylsulfone is described. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Evaluation of the genetic polymorphism among Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris strains using comparative genomic hybridization and multilocus sequence analysis

Genetic diversity of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris provides an important reservoir of industrial functions. Knowledge of strain diversity is an important step for the selection of starter cultures, because technological and sensorial attributes are strain-dependent and it may help to distinguish strains with particular technological properties and performances. In the present study, microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) were used to investigate the genetic variation among eight strains of Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris. The CGH analysis allows strain grouping and identification of absent or divergent genes involved in metabolism, amino acid biosynthesis, osmoregulation and proteolysis. The MLSA clustering of strains based on the partial sequence of eight genes shows good correlation with the CGH grouping. Strains HP, ATCC 19257 and Wg2 were clustered together, followed by E8, and finally SK11 was in a separate cluster. The combined information provides genetic markers for distinguishing between strains and their variants. By selecting strains according to their genetic profiles, compatible and complementary mixed starters can be formulated, opening new avenues for industrial applications.     

SAFT-VNDN: A Socially-Aware Forwarding Technique in Vehicular Named Data Networking

Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs) is the bridge of social networks and Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs). VSNs are promising as they allow the exchange of various types of contents in large-scale through Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication protocols. Vehicular Named Data Networking (VNDN) is an auspicious communication paradigm for the challenging VSN environment since it can optimize content dissemination by decoupling contents from their physical locations. However, content dissemination and caching represent crucial challenges in VSNs due to short link lifetime and intermittent connectivity caused by vehicles’ high mobility. Our aim with this paper is to improve content delivery and cache hit ratio, as well as decrease the transmission delay between end-users. In this regard, we propose a novel hybrid VNDN-VSN forwarding technique based on social communities, which allows requester vehicles to easily find the most suitable forwarder or producer among the community members in their neighborhood area. Furthermore, we introduce an effective caching mechanism by dividing the content store into two parts, one for community private contents and the second one for public contents. Simulation results show that our proposed forwarding technique can achieve a favorable performance compared with traditional VNDN, in terms of data delivery ratio, average data delivery delay, and cache hit ratio.     

Impact of Treated Wastewater Reuse on Agriculture and Aquifer Recharge in a Coastal Area: Korba Case Study

Treated wastewater (TWW) reuse has increasingly been integrated in the planning and development of water resources in Tunisia. The present study aimed the evaluation of the environmental and health impact that would have the reuse of TWW for crops direct irrigation or for the recharge of the local aquifer in Korba (Tunisia). For this purpose water analyses were carried on the TWW intended for the aquifer recharge and on underground water of this area. As for underground water before recharge, no contamination by organic matter or heavy metals is shown but high salinity, nitrate, potassium and chloride concentrations are detected. The bacteriological analyses show the occurrence of faecal streptococcus, thermo-tolerant coliforms, total coliforms and E coli, but absence of salmonella. These results indicate that this water is not suitable for irrigation worse still for drinking purpose. The monitoring of TWW pollutants has demonstrated that oxygen demands (COD and BOD) do not exceed the Tunisian standards for TWW used in agriculture (NT 106.03) except for August when samples reach high values (COD = 139 mg O₂ L^− 1, BOD = 34). It is also the case for temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), salinity and pH. Heavy metal concentrations are under the detection limit. The determination of nutrients shows relatively low concentrations of nitrates, nitrites and orthophosphate (the maxima in mg L^− 1 are respectively 6.6, 5.6 and 0.92) whereas the potassium levels are high (up to 48.8 mg L^− 1) and the ammonia levels very high, reaching 60.6 mg L^− 1. As for bacteriological pollution, while no salmonella and intestinal nematods are detected, high concentrations of total coliforms, thermo-tolerant coliforms, faecal streptococci and E. coli are analysed. Consequently, the better use of TWW in this region would be the use of infiltration basins for the recharge of the deteriorated aquifer by TWW. It would give the opportunity to better the quality of the TWW reaching the groundwater by an additional treatment for bacteriological and suspended solid (TSS) contaminants while being an alternative water for the aquifer recharge and a coastal barrier against seawater intrusion.