Design of a traveling wave thermo‐acoustic engine based on genetic algorithm

This paper presents a novel design scheme for traveling wave thermo‐acoustic Stirling engines (TASEs) based on a target frequency using genetic algorithm (GA). First, the effects of engine design parameters on the system performance are studied via root locus method. Accordingly, it is found that the resonator length, the inertance diameter, and the hot gas temperature are the most effective parameters in the engine design procedure. Next, the relation between the closed‐loop poles positions of the thermo‐acoustic system and the effective design variables are described parametrically. Consequently, in order to estimate the optimum values of the effective design parameters as well as the unknown positions of the nondominant poles, an appropriate fitness function based on the desired engine frequency is proposed. Subsequently, a GA is used to achieve the optimal values of design parameters so as to minimize the considered cost function. Finally, the validity of the proposed design technique is verified by comparing the obtained results with the available data of an experimental case study.     

Kinetic-spectrophotometry method for determination of ultra trace amounts of aluminum in food samples

A simple and sensitive kinetic-spectrophotometry method is developed for the determination of trace amounts of aluminum in food samples based on its catalytic effect on the oxidation of Nile Blue A by potassium bromate in sulfuric acid medium. The absorbance is measured at 595.5 nm with the fixed-time method. The optimization of the operating conditions regarding concentrations of the reagents, temperature and interferences are also investigated. The calibration curve is linear over the concentration range 0.07–0.9 μg ml⁻¹ of aluminum with good precision and accuracy and the detection limit was down to 0.034 μg ml⁻¹. The relative standard deviation for a standard solution of 0.4 μg ml⁻¹ of aluminum is 1.73% (n = 10). The proposed method proved highly sensitive, selective and relatively rapid for the assay of aluminum at ultra trace level without any pre-concentration and separation step. The method was applied to the determination of aluminum in food samples (rice, tea and potato). The analytical results of the real samples were in good agreement with the standard method.     

Image Encryption Using Dynamic S-Box Substitution in the Wavelet Domain

A number of image encryption techniques have been proposed in recent years. These techniques use either spatial or transform domain image processing. A major challenge when designing an image encryption scheme is to conceal the pixel of the input image, especially when the image has a low texture region. Another problem is the encryption computational time. In this paper, these two issues are addressed. As the use of a single substitution box (S-box) to encrypt digital images does not work well for greater as well as a lower number of gray levels. To solve this problem, a new substitution technique using multiple S-boxes with dynamic substitution is proposed. In the second part of this paper, the proposed discrete wavelet transform based scheme is employed to reduce the encryption computational time. A number of parameters like correlation, entropy, energy, contrast, homogeneity, MSE and PSNR are used to analyze the quality of cipher images.

     

Optimizing the H.264/AVC Video Encoder Application Structure for Reconfigurable and Application-Specific Platforms

The H.264/AVC video coding standard features diverse computational hot spots that need to be accelerated to cope with the significantly increased complexity compared to previous standards. In this paper, we propose an optimized application structure (i.e. the arrangement of functional components of an application determining the data flow properties) for the H.264 encoder which is suitable for application-specific and reconfigurable hardware platforms. Our proposed application structural optimization for the computational reduction of the Motion Compensated Interpolation is independent of the actual hardware platform that is used for execution. For a MIPS processor we achieve an average speedup of approximately 60× for Motion Compensated Interpolation. Our proposed application structure reduces the overhead for Reconfigurable Platforms by distributing the actual hardware requirements amongst the functional blocks. This increases the amount of available reconfigurable hardware per Special Instruction (within a functional block) which leads to a 2.84× performance improvement of the complete encoder when compared to a Benchmark Application with standard optimizations. We evaluate our application structure by means of four different hardware platforms.     

C9ORF72 Repeat Expansion Affects the Proteome of Primary Skin Fibroblasts in ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive degeneration of the corticospinal motor neurons, which ultimately leads to death. The repeat expansion in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72) represents the most common genetic cause of ALS and it is also involved in the pathogenesis of other neurodegenerative disorders. To offer insights into C9ORF72-mediated pathogenesis, we quantitatively analyzed the proteome of patient-derived primary skin fibroblasts from ALS patients carrying the C9ORF72 mutation compared with ALS patients who tested negative for it. Differentially expressed proteins were identified, used to generate a protein-protein interaction network and subjected to a functional enrichment analysis to unveil altered molecular pathways. ALS patients were also compared with patients affected by frontotemporal dementia carrying the C9ORF72 repeat expansion. As a result, we demonstrated that the molecular pathways mainly altered in fibroblasts (e.g., protein homeostasis) mirror the alterations observed in C9ORF72-mutated neurons. Moreover, we highlighted novel molecular pathways (nuclear and mitochondrial transports, vesicle trafficking, mitochondrial bioenergetics, glucose metabolism, ER-phagosome crosstalk and Slit/Robo signaling pathway) which might be further investigated as C9ORF72-specific pathogenetic mechanisms. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with the identifier PXD023866.     

Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Automation Planning,Its Impact on Customer Satisfaction & Cost-Effectiveness

Wireless Personal Communications - The use of automated network planning systems is crucial for reducing the deployment cost and planning time of passive optical telecommunication networks....     

A Combo Smart Model of Blockchain with the Internet of Things (IoT) for the Transformation of Agriculture Sector

Wireless Personal Communications - Nowadays traditional techniques of living and earning are being transformed to modern smart technologies, taking their inspiration from the emerging trends....     

Quantification of oxytocin residues in dairy milk from Sindh,Pakistan

In this study, a total of 84 milk samples (60 nonbranded and 24 branded) were analysed for occurrence of oxytocin (OT) residues by ELISA. OT level was detected in the range of 39.29–456.55 pg mL^?1 with mean value of 138.53 ng L^?1. In branded milk samples, OT residues were minimal as compared to nonbranded milk samples. Nonbranded milk samples had higher prevalence of OT residues; 16.67% had OT level in the range of ≤500 ng L^?1. The average daily intake of OT was found 0.087 μg day^?1 per person. It was concluded that the OT concentration was relatively higher in samples obtained from dairy farm, dairy shop and milk man than that in ultra‐high temperature (UHT) and powder milk samples. In addition, there are no reports subjected to standardising a permissible OT level in dairy milk category, although OT is considered detrimental to both human and animal life.