Police may underuse Section 136

A one-year prospective study comparing Section 136 patients (39) and the severe Section 2 or 4 patients (29) of the Mental Health Act 1983 in a hospital with inner London catchment areas. The assessments were clinical, nurses' ratings and socio-demographic. The results showed that clinical and nursing ratings did not differentiate the two groups. Most social/demographic data showed similar trends with both groups being disadvantaged but Section 136 patients slightly more so. The differences were smaller than anticipated, suggesting a recent shift of patients admitted under Section 2 or 4 towards a more socially disadvantaged position. In conclusion, police did not overuse Section 136. Our comparison suggests: (a) police may underuse Section 136, and (b) Section 136 acts as a valuable 'back-up' for those patients who would otherwise fail to benefit from the Mental Health Act.     

Computerized Layout Design: A Branch and Bound Approach

This paper presents a computerized procedure for layout design. The layout problem is formulated as a quadratic set covering problem. A branch and bound method for optimizing the resulting problem is devised. As a result, optimal and suboptimal layouts can be provided to the layout engineer for consideration and modification.     

COCOA: COnversation-based service COmposition in pervAsive computing environments with QoS support

Pervasive computing environments are populated with networked services, i.e., autonomous software entities, providing a number of functionalities. One of the most challenging objectives to be achieved within these environments is to assist users in realizing tasks that integrate on the fly functionalities of the networked services opportunely according to the current pervasive environment. Towards this purpose, we present COCOA, a solution for COnversation-based service COmposition in pervAsive computing environments with QoS support. COCOA provides COCOA-L, an OWL-S based language for the semantic, QoS-aware specification of services and tasks, which further allows the specification of services and tasks conversations. Moreover, COCOA provides two mechanisms: COCOA-SD for the QoS-aware semantic service discovery and COCOA-CI for the QoS-aware integration of service conversations towards the realization of the user task’s conversation. The distinctive feature of COCOA is the ability of integrating on the fly the conversations of networked services to realize the conversation of the user task, by further meeting the QoS requirements of user tasks. Thereby, COCOA allows the dynamic realization of user tasks according to the specifics of the pervasive computing environment in terms of available services and by enforcing valid service consumption.     

Automatic motion detection for surveillance

Automatic motion detection features are able to enhance surveillance efficiency and quality. The aim of this research is to recognize and detect motion automatically around a robot's environment in order to equip a mobile robot for a surveillance task. The required information is based on the input obtained from a charge coupled device (CCD) camera mounted on the mobile robot. As the first step toward achieving the goal, it is necessary to have a stationary mobile robot and moving objects. Experiments in a different environment, such as different movements, size of moving objects, and lighting conditions, have also been conducted. The “adjacent pixels comparison” is the proposed method to detect motion in this experiment. The results have verified that the motion detection experiments operate as expected. This work was presented in part at the 11^th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 23–25, 2006     

A Triple-Channel Encrypted Hybrid Fusion Technique to Improve Security of Medical Images

Assuring medical images protection and robustness is a compulsory necessity nowadays. In this paper, a novel technique is proposed that fuses the wavelet-induced multi-resolution decomposition of the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) with the energy compaction of the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DCT). The multi-level Encryption-based Hybrid Fusion Technique (EbhFT) aims to achieve great advances in terms of imperceptibility and security of medical images. A DWT disintegrated sub-band of a cover image is reformed simultaneously using the DCT transform. Afterwards, a 64-bit hex key is employed to encrypt the host image as well as participate in the second key creation process to encode the watermark. Lastly, a PN-sequence key is formed along with a supplementary key in the third layer of the EbHFT. Thus, the watermarked image is generated by enclosing both keys into DWT and DCT coefficients. The fusions ability of the proposed EbHFT technique makes the best use of the distinct privileges of using both DWT and DCT methods. In order to validate the proposed technique, a standard dataset of medical images is used. Simulation results show higher performance of the visual quality (i.e., 57.65) for the watermarked forms of all types of medical images. In addition, EbHFT robustness outperforms an existing scheme tested for the same dataset in terms of Normalized Correlation (NC). Finally, extra protection for digital images from against illegal replicating and unapproved tampering using the proposed technique.     

MHD conjugate heat transfer and entropy generation analysis of MWCNT/water nanofluid in a partially heated divided medium

The aim of this article is to conduct the lattice Boltzmann simulation of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) natural conjugate heat transfer in an apportioned cavity loaded with a multiwalled carbon nanotube/water nanofluid. The divided cavity is, to some extent, heated and cooled at the upright walls, whereas the horizontal walls are adiabatic. The nanofluid properties are evaluated on the basis of experimental correlations. The parameters ranges in the study are as follows: nanoparticles' volume fraction (%): 0 ≤ ? ≤ 0.5, temperature (°C): T = 27, Rayleigh number (Ra): 10³ ≤ Ra ≤ 10⁵, Hartmann number (Ha): 0 ≤ Ha ≤ 90, and the magnetic field inclination angle (γ): 0 ≤ γ ≤ π/2. The current outcomes are observed to be in great concurrence with the numerical results introduced in the literature. The impacts of the aforesaid parameters on local and average heat transfer, entropy generation, and Bejan number (Be) are explored and discussed. Indeed, the transfer of heat increases linearly with ? for a low Ra. As Ra increases, the average Nusselt number decreases for a high value of ?. The increase of nanoparticles' volume fraction leads to a reduction in the entropy generation and an increase in the Bejan number for a high Ra, but at low Ra, these functions remain constant. As the Ha increases, the transfer of heat and the entropy generation decreases, whereas there is an increase in Be. The transfer of heat, total entropy generation, and the Be depends strongly on the direction of the magnetic field. The increase of heater and cooler size has a great influence on the transfer of heat, entropy generation, and Be.     

Chemical composition and nutritive value of lantana and sweet pepper seeds and nabak seed kernels

Abstract: Chemical analysis was carried out on lantana (Lantana camara) and sweet pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) seeds and nabak (Zizyphus spina‐christi) seed kernels. The proximate analysis (on dry weight basis) of sweet pepper seeds, lantana seeds, and nabak seed kernels showed the following composition: moisture 70.95%, 17.27%, and 4.22%; ash 4.88%, 1.81%, and 3.51%; fat 19.57%, 11.0%, and 30.19%; crude protein 19.28%, 6.3%, and 38.2%; and carbohydrate 56.3%, 80.9%, and 28.1%, respectively. For minerals, potassium was the most abundant element, followed by phosphorus and sodium. Also, zinc, iron, copper, and manganese were detected. Analysis of amino acids revealed that the first limiting amino acid was valine, for both lantana and sweet pepper seeds, but it was threonine for nabak seed kernels. Antinutritional compounds, including, phytic acid, trypsin inhibitor, and tannins, were detected in all seeds. Results of fatty acid compositions showed that the major fatty acid was oleic acid in both lantana (48.73%) and nabak oils (53.25%), but it was linoleic acid in sweet pepper oil (71.55%). Moreover, the degree of unsaturation of these oils was close to that of common vegetable oils. In all oils, there was absorbance in the ultraviolet (UV)‐B and UV‐C ranges with potential for use as broad spectrum UV protectants. It can be inferred that the seeds investigated are good sources of crude fat, crude protein, ash, carbohydrate, and some minerals. Furthermore, the oil extracts could be useful as edible oils and for industrial applications. Practical Application: The nutritional composition of the investigated seeds suggested that they could be used to meet part of the nutritional requirements of animal feeds. Also, they could be regarded as good sources of food ingredients and as new sources of edible oils.     

Preparation and characterization of organo-montmorillonites. Application in adsorption of the 2,4,5-trichlorophenol from aqueous solution

X-ray diffraction has been used to study the changes in the surface properties of montmorillonitic clay through the changes in the basal spacings of sodium-montmorillonite (NaMt), acid-activated montmorillonite (AMt), pillared-montmorillonite (AlMt) and surfactant-intercalated organoclays. The basal spacing value of the NaMt increased from 12.01 to 18.1 Å by pillaring with Keggin ions ((hydroxyaluminum polycation) and until 21 Å by intercalation of the cationic surfactant in the interlayer space of the clay. Confirmations of the intercalated cationic surfactant have been characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Thermogravimetric analysis shows that the thermal decomposition of montmorillonites modified with the cationic surfactant hexadecyltrimethylammonium (HDTMA) takes place in four steps. The surface areas of organo-montmorillonites were found to be much lower than that of raw montmorillonite. Surface areas of pillared and acid-activated montmorillonite are very high. This was explained by the emergence of the micropores and mesopores in the structure of the sample resulting from treatment. Adsorption of the 2,4,5-trichlorophenol (2,4,5-TCP) onto samples was studied. The greatest value of adsorption capacity of samples is attributed to the organo-montmorillonite (MtC16).     

Salt effects on Origanum majorana fatty acid and essential oil composition

BACKGROUND: The effects of salt on the essential oil yield and fatty acid composition of aerial parts of two marjoram varieties were investigated. Plants with 6 leaves were treated with NaCl (75mM). RESULTS: Salt treatment led to a reduction in aerial part growth. Salinity increased the fatty acid content more significantly in Tunisian variety (TV) than in Canadian variety (CV). CV showed an increase in double‐bond index (DBI) and a decrease in malondialdehyde content under salt stress, while the opposite was observed in TV. The DBI was mainly affected by a strong reduction in oleic and linoleic acids in TV, whereas a strong stimulation of linoleic acid in CV was observed. Salt decreased and increased the essential oil yield in TV and CV respectively. The main constituents of the essential oil of TV were trans‐hydrate sabinene and terpinen‐4‐ol, which showed a significant decrease under salt stress. In contrast, the main constituents of the essential oil of CV were sabinene and trans‐hydrate sabinene, which showed a significant decrease and increase respectively under salt stress. CONCLUSION: Marjoram oil is a rich source of many compounds such as essential oils and fatty acids, but the distribution of these compounds differed significantly between the two varieties studied. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Laboratory investigation on the condensation and corrosion rates of top of line corrosion in carbon steel: a case study from pipeline transporting wet gas in elevated temperature

A glass cell was designed to simulate the condition for top of line corrosion encountered in wet gas transportation pipelines. Aqueous solution of 3 wt-% NaCl saturated with CO₂ at atmospheric pressure was employed. Effect of temperature gradient in the formation of condensation and its rate was investigated. API 5L Grade X65 carbon steel material was used as the working electrode for the experiment. The condensation rate was measured for the temperature gradient of 20°C, 30°C and 50°C under atmospheric condition for 24?h duration of the experiment. The corrosion rate of the specimens was measured using weight loss and Linear Polarisation Resistance (LPR) techniques. The LPR probe was immersed in the collected condensed water from the experiment to calculate the corrosion rate. The measured corrosion rate from the weight loss technique was in agreement with the corrosion rate measured from LPR. The corrosion rate measurement was repeated with the addition of 1000?ppm of pH modifying agent. This study indicates that the corrosion rate of pipeline and piping when subject to temperature gradient of 50°C and above is very high and alarming.