Removal of Nitrate from Aqueous Solutions by Electrodialysis

In this work the removal of the nitrate from water was carried out by electrodialysis. In the experiments the effect of the applied voltage, pH value, initial nitrate concentration and duration of treatment on the removal rate of nitrate have been investigated. The results obtained from experiments have indicated that nitrate can be removed effectively applying electrodialysis.     

Spectral characterization and classification of Carpentier-Edwardsheart valves implanted in the aortic position

This paper demonstrates an improvement in the performance of spectral phonocardiography, combined with pattern recognition techniques for monitoring the condition of bioprosthetic heart valves. The analysis of the heart sounds is performed using a modified forward-backward overdetermined Prony's method. Results show that the condition of the bioprosthesis affects mostly the higher part of the spectrum (i.e., above 250 Hz) where no frequency components were found for malfunctioning cases. Therefore, the amplitudes of the three highest frequency components are used as the input vector of an adaptive single layer perceptron-based classifier to identify normal and malfunctioning classes. For the sample set examined, this method gives 100% correct discrimination between normal and malfunctioning Carpentier-Edwards (C-E) valves     

Strategies for combining decision procedures

Implementing efficient algorithms for combining decision procedures has been a challenge and their correctness precarious. In this paper we describe an inference system that has the classical Nelson–Oppen procedure at its core and includes several optimizations: variable abstraction with sharing, canonization of terms at the theory level, and Shostak's streamlined generation of new equalities for theories with solvers. The transitions of our system are fine-grained enough to model most of the mechanisms currently used in designing combination procedures. In particular, with a simple language of regular expressions we are able to describe several combination algorithms as strategies for our inference system, from the basic Nelson–Oppen to the very highly optimized one recently given by Shankar and Rueß. Presenting the basic system at a high level of generality and non-determinism allows transparent correctness proofs that can be extended in a modular fashion when new features are introduced in the system.     

Optical and dielectric properties of double helix DNA thin films

In this work, the thin film of wheat DNA was deposited by spin-coating technique onto glass substrate, and the optical and dielectric properties of the double helix DNA thin film were investigated. The optical constants such as refractive index, extinction coefficient, dielectric constant, dissipation factor, relaxation time, and optical conductivity were determined from the measured transmittance spectra in the wavelength range 190–1100 nm. Meanwhile, the dispersion behavior of the refractive index was studied in terms of the single oscillator Wemple–DiDomenico (W–D) model, and the physical parameters of the average oscillator strength, average oscillator wavelength, average oscillator energy, the refractive index dispersion parameter and the dispersion energy were achieved. Furthermore, the optical band gap values were calculated by W–D model and Tauc model, respectively, and the values obtained from W–D model are in agreement with those determined from the Tauc model. The analysis of the optical absorption data indicates that the optical band gap E_g was indirect transitions. These results provide some useful references for the potential application of the DNA thin films in fiber optic, solar cell and optoelectronic devices.     

Acid‐formed pectin gel delays major incomplete kiwi fruit allergen Act c 1 proteolysis in in vitro gastrointestinal digestion

BACKGROUND: It is thought that food sensitisers must be able to reach the intestine in order to sensitise patients. Pectin is a gel‐forming plant polysaccharide that can protect allergens from in vivo gastric digestion and in vitro pepsin digestion. The aim of this study was to examine if pectin gel formed in the acidic environment of the stomach can protect labile allergen from in vitro gastrointestinal digestion. RESULTS: Pectin forms a gel in the acidic conditions of gastric fluid up to a concentration of 1.0 ± 0.14 g L^?1. Four allergenic fruits (kiwi, cherry, apple and banana) form gels in the same manner at the dilutions 14.8 ± 0.4; 8.4 ± 0.2, 9.4 ± 0.35 and 29.1 ± 0.2, respectively. The time necessary for dissolution of 50 g L^?1 pectin gel in intestinal fluid was found to be 70 ± 0.2 min. Pectin gel formed in situ was able to protect Act c 1 from pepsin digestion for 1 h and from further intestinal digestion for one additional hour. CONCLUSION: Pectin gel in an acidic environment protects Act c 1 from pepsin digestion and dissolves slowly in the slightly basic environment of the intestine allowing the survival of fruit allergen for additional time and possible interaction with the gut immune system. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Public key cryptography based privacy preserving multi-context RFID infrastructure

In this paper, we propose a novel radio frequency identification (RFID) infrastructure enabling multi-purpose RFID tags realized by the use of privacy preserving public key cryptography (PKC) architecture. The infrastructure ensures that the access rights of the tags are preserved based on the spatial and temporal information collected from the RFID readers. We demonstrate that the proposed scheme is secure with respect to cryptanalytic, impersonation, tracking, replay, and relay attacks. We also analyze the feasibility of PKC implementation on passive class 2 RFID tags, and show that the requirements for PKC are comparable to those of other cryptographic implementations based on symmetric ciphers. Our numerical results indicate PKC based systems can outperform symmetric cipher based systems, since the back end servers can identify RFID tags with PKC based systems approximately 57 times faster than the best symmetric cipher based systems.     

Synthesis and thermal,mechanical and gas permeation properties of aromatic polyimides containing different linkage groups

Two series of aromatic polyimides containing various linkage groups based on 2,7‐bis(4‐aminophenoxy)naphthalene or 3,3′‐dimethyl‐4,4′‐diaminodiphenylmethane and different aromatic dianhydrides, namely 4,4′‐(4,4′‐isopropylidenediphenoxy)bis(phthalic anhydride), 4,4′‐(hexafluoroisopropylidene)bis(phthalic anhydride), 3,3′,4,4′ benzophenonetetracarboxylic dianhydride, 9,9‐bis[4‐(3,4‐dicarboxyphenoxy)phenyl]fluorene dianhydride and 4,4′‐(4,4′‐hexafluoroisopropylidenediphenoxy)bis(phthalic anhydride), were synthesized and compared with regard to their thermal, mechanical and gas permeation properties. All these polymers showed high thermal stability with initial decomposition temperature in the range 475–525 °C and glass transition temperature between 208 and 286 °C. Also, the polymer films presented good mechanical characteristics with tensile strength in the range 60–91 MPa and storage modulus in the range 1700–2375 MPa. The macromolecular chain packing induced by dianhydride and diamine segments was investigated by examining gas permeation through the polymer films. The relationships between chain mobility and interchain distance and the obtained values for gas permeability are discussed. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

A fuzzy ID3 induction for linguistic data sets

In real life, humans communicate by means of words. Computing with words enables flexibility via fuzzy logic to reach more informative results for the classification and decision‐making. Fuzzy logic handles the imprecise information. In our paper, we propose a novel fuzzy ID3 algorithm for the classification on linguistic data set, where data can be given as linguistic variables. Linguistic variables are defined by using triangular fuzzy numbers given as LR (left‐right) fuzzy numbers. And weighted averaging based on levels (WABL) method is used as the defuzzification method for each data. Then, fuzzy c‐means algorithm is performed to handle the membership degrees for each variable given in each data set used in an experimental study. At last, the fuzzy ID3 algorithm is applied. The rules are generated, and the reasoning is done by different T‐operators. Our study is encouraged by (using) statistical analysis. In conclusion, it is seen that our algorithm proposed for linguistic data is as good as the proposed approach for numeric data. Also, it is shown that the proposed linguistic approach by using different T‐operators on linguistic data gives better results than numerical approach on some data sets.