Silica fume admixture effect on the dynamic properties of concrete

The construction of concrete structures using silica fume (SF) additions is a common practice because it is well known that this pozzolanic material improves the compressive strength of concrete, among many other mechanical and physical properties. The response of a structure under dynamic actions is highly determined by the dynamic mechanical properties of its building material. In this work, it has been studied the influence of SF additions in quantities ranging from 0% to 15% of cement mass on the dynamic and static mechanical properties of concrete, such as: resonant frequencies, dynamic and static modulus of elasticity, damping ratio, compressive strength and flexural strength. The results prove that SF additions or replacements reduce both the dynamic modulus of elasticity and damping ratio of concrete. The dynamic elastic properties of concrete, with and without SF, present higher values than their static counterparts. These differences are smaller in concretes containing SF.     

Effective chemical control of psychrotrophic Bacillus cereus EPSO-35AS and INRA TZ415 spore outgrowth in carrot broth

The growth kinetic parameters of germinated cells from heat-activated spores of the psychrotrophic Bacillus cereus EPSO-35AS strain in nutrient broth (NB) and in tyndallized carrot broth (TCB) were evaluated at different temperatures (8, 12, and 16 degrees C) for control samples and for samples acidified with citric acid or lemon juice at pH values between 4.7 and 5.5. Lowering the pH from 7.4 or 6.2 to 5.2 inhibited bacterial growth in both tested media after 60 days at 12 degrees C and lower temperatures, confirming the effectiveness of acidification in association with refrigeration to control B. cereus proliferation in minimally processed foods (MPFs) based on carrot. The activities of selected concentrations of cinnamon essential oil, cinnamaldehyde, carvacrol, and eugenol against B. cereus EPSO-35AS and INRA TZ415 strains in both media over the same temperature range were also studied. Addition of either cinnamon essential oil or cinnamaldehyde at concentrations of 5 and 2 microL 100mL(-1), respectively, caused complete inhibition of the growth of both psychrotrophic strains even if mild temperature abuse occurred (12 degrees C). Hence, a combination of one of these compounds and refrigerated storage may be useful for preservation of MPFs in which major ingredient was carrot. On the contrary, carvacrol and eugenol were not able to prevent B. cereus growth in TCB during storage at 8 degrees C. Their effects on the organoleptic characteristics of TCB are discussed.     

Effect of antioxidants and proteins on the quality of Israeli Jaffa red and blond grapefruits

Some biochemical characteristics of Israeli Jaffa Star Ruby (red) and blond grapefruits were defined using atomic absorption spectrometry, antioxidant tests and the protein electrophoretic technique. It was found that the contents of dietary fibers, major and minor minerals, phenolic and ascorbic acids in both grapefruits were without significant differences. The contents of total polyphenols, anthocyanins and flavonoids were higher in red grapefruits, but also these differences were not significant. The antioxidant capacity was determined by two modified antioxidant methods, 2,2-azinobis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) radical cation (ABTS⁺) and scavenging activity against nitric oxide, and was compared with the Folin–Ciocalteu assay. The two antioxidant assays used have shown that the antioxidant potential of the Star Ruby (red) grapefruit is higher than of the blond (P<0.05) grapefruit. Proteins were extracted and separated. Some small differences were found in the sodium dodecyl sulfate–protein bands in the region of 36 kDa. Antioxidants and proteins can be used for characterization of the quality of grapefruits as a fruit diet.S. Gorinstein: Affiliated with David R. Bloom Center for Pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel     

Optimal Design of Pre‐control Plans

Pre‐control is a quality tool for quick set‐up approvals, especially used in short‐run processes. It is based on specifications instead of the natural variability of the process and uses cumulative counts in order to yield a conclusion. Its main drawbacks are a high false alarm rate and a low power to detect process deviations, under certain circumstances. These issues can be addressed by making the technique more flexible, as shown in previous works. In this paper, we introduce a Mathematical Programming approach in order to optimally determine the value of the pre‐control parameters, so that it can meet the user's requirements while minimizing the sample size of the technique as much as possible. We propose and develop a mathematical model for optimal pre‐control and perform some numerical experiments in order to show its effectiveness. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An approximate analysis of TDMA out-of-slot random access protocols for microcellular mobile communications

In this paper, out-of-slot random access protocols for voice services that operate in microcellular environment are studied and simulated. The bearer service is assumed to be structured as time division multiple access/frequency division multiple access/frequency division duplex (TDMA/ FDMA/FDD). According to a stratification of information flow ascall, talkspurt, andpacket, the protocols are implemented at the talkspurt level. During a call, talkspurts generate a stream of packets. Each talkspurt has to reserve a voice time slot with a special control packet sent in a dedicate control slot (out of slot signaling). After a successful access, a voice slot is assigned for the duration of the talkspurt. This work concentrates on the out of slot random access method. When a transition from the idle state to the active state occurs, a voice terminal starts generating a talkspurt. Access for a voice slotV is then initiated via a dedicated control slotC. The time spent in gaining aV slot depends on the kind of random access protocol used in theC slots. Once the access reservation phase is successful, the talkspurt starts the second phase of information transmission in a freeV slot. If allV slots are occupied by other talkspurts, the new talkspurt is queued until aV slot becomes free. If the sum of the access and queueing times exceeds a thresh-old, a portion of the talkspurt is clipped. In our work we define an analytical model to evaluate the percentage of clipped voice packets. Simulations validate the analytical model.The second version of this work was rewritten while the author was a visiting scholar at WINLABThe IS-54 standard itself has the TDMA/FDMA structure. The ETDMA enhancement appears to be very much like what is described in this paper.     

BROSEMWEB: A brokerage service for e-Procurement using Semantic Web Technologies

The Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA) development paradigm has emerged to make an improvement in critical situations such as creating, modifying and extending solutions in the domain of business processes integration. Web services technologies are considered as the main units for SOA, for both intra- and inter-enterprise communication. Nevertheless, SOA does not have information about the events that occurs in business processes, which represents the main characteristics of supply chain management. Taking this into account, this paper proposes a middleware-oriented integrated architecture with the use of semantic features (concretely with the use of Linked Data) as data provider to offer a brokerage service for the procurement of products in a Supply Chain Management (SCM). As main contributions, our system provides a hybrid architecture that combines features of both SOA and EDA between several others.     

MobiCloUP!: a PaaS for cloud services-based mobile applications

The integration of cloud computing and mobile computing has recently resulted in the Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) paradigm which is defined as the availability of \(c\) loud services over a mobile ecosystem. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a model of cloud computing that refers to high-level software systems delivered over Internet. This model typically enables developers to deliver Web applications as Software as a Service. With the aim of providing support to the MCC, in this work a PaaS called MobiCloUP! is proposed for mobile Web and native applications based on third-party cloud services such as Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest, to mention but a few. Unlike other commercial solutions such as force.com, Google \(^{\mathrm{TM}}\) App Engine and other academic proposals like MOSAIC, MobiCloUP! implements an automatic code generation programming model targeting rich mobile applications based on both Web standards such as HTML5, CSS3 and AJAX and Rich Internet Application frameworks like Adobe \(^{\textregistered }\) Flex. The MobiCloUP! core is a wizard tool that covers design, publish/deployment, development and maintenance phases for mobile development life-cycle. In order to validate our proposal, Web 2.0 services-based Web and native mobile applications were developed and deployed to the Cloud using MobiCloUP!. Finally, a qualitative-comparative evaluation was performed in order to validate the legitimacy of our proposal against other similar commercial proposals.     

On the use of acrylated epoxidized soybean oil as a reactive compatibilizer in injection‐molded compostable pieces consisting of polylactide filled with orange peel flour

Novel green composites made of polylactide (PLA) and orange peel flour (OPF) were melt‐compounded using twin‐screw extrusion and shaped into pieces by injection molding. Orange peel, a major by‐product of the juice industry, was first ground to flour and then incorporated as a lignocellulosic filler into the biopolymer at 10, 20 and 30 wt%. Since both components of the green composite presented low compatibility, the resultant injection‐molded pieces showed poor ductility and impaired thermomechanical performance. As a new bio‐based reactive compatibilizer, acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) was added at five parts per hundred resin to the PLA/OPF formulations during the extrusion process. The addition of AESO increased the filler–biopolymer adhesion and led to compostable green composite pieces with improved physical properties. The enhancement achieved was related to a dual effect of plasticization and melt grafting of the OPF particles onto the PLA chains provided by the multiple acrylate and epoxy groups present in AESO. The use of multi‐functionalized vegetable oils to improve the performance of green composites certainly opens up new opportunities for the expansion of fully bio‐based and biodegradable materials that are partially obtained from agro‐food waste. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry