Impressions of New Orleans

In August 2005, 80 per cent of New Orleans was devastated by flood damage precipitated by Hurricane Katrina. Christiana Spens was on a college exchange in Memphis when the hurricane hit. Here she gives her impressions of the city in the wake of the storm. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Microbial pollution characterization at a TMDL site in Michigan: Source identification

Communities throughout the Great Lakes basin are developing and implementing watershed management plans to address non-point sources of pollution and meet Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) requirements. Investigating sources of microbial contamination in key streams and creeks is critical for the development of effective watershed management plans. This work aims to present an approach that will facilitate source identification. In addition to conventional indicator analysis, the approach includes molecular analysis of species-specific markers and microbial community diversity analysis. We characterized microbial pollution in the Sloan Creek subwatershed in Ingham County MI, an impaired area, located in the Great Lakes Basin. To identify pollution sources (human or animal) and major sites of origin (tributaries with highest pollution loads) water samples were collected from three locations in the subwatershed representing the main creek upstream, main creek downstream, and tributary. A fecal indicator (E. coli) and host-specific human and bovine-associated Bacteroides genetic markers were quantified in all water samples. Results indicated that 54% of the samples from the three locations exceeded the recreational E.coli water quality guidelines. High concentrations of both human and bovine associated-Bacteroides indicated influence of multiple sources of fecal contamination. Statistical tests showed significantly different water characteristics between two of the sampling locations. Whole genome shotgun sequencing indicated fecal and sewer signatures, wastewater metagenome, human gut metagenome, and rumen gut metagenome in the water samples. Results suggested that probable sources of contamination were leakage from septic systems and runoff from agriculture activities nearby to Sloan Creek.     

Topical phenytoin nanostructured lipid carriers: design and development

Phenytoin (PHT) is an antiepileptic drug that was reported to exhibit high wound healing activity. Nevertheless, its limited solubility, bioavailability, and inefficient distribution during topical administration limit its use. Therefore, this study aims to develop, characterize nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs), and evaluate their potential in topical delivery of PHT to improve the drug entrapment efficiency and sustained release. The NLCs were prepared by hot homogenization followed by ultra sonication method using 2³ factorial design. NLC formulations were characterized regarding their particle size (PS), zeta potential (ZP), entrapment efficiency percent (%EE), surface morphology, physicochemical stability, and in vitro release studies. The optimized NLC (F7) was further incorporated in 1%w/v carbopol gel and then characterized for appearance, pH, viscosity, stability, and in vitro drug release. The prepared NLCs were spherical in shape and possessed an average PS of 121.4–258.2?nm, ZP of (?15.4)–(–32.2)?mV, and 55.24–88.80 %EE. Solid-state characterization revealed that the drug is dispersed in an amorphous state with hydrogen bond interaction between the drug and the NLC components. NLC formulations were found to be stable at 25?°C for six months. The stored F7-hydrogel showed insignificant changes in viscosity and drug content (p>.05) up to six?months at 25?°C that pave a way for industrial fabrication of efficient PHT products. In vitro release studies showed a sustained release from NLC up to 48?h at pH 7.4 following non-Fickian Higuchi kinetics model. These promising findings encourage the potential use of phenytoin loaded lipid nanoparticles for future topical application.     

Investigation of the Contents of Natural Radionuclides in Coal and Ashes from Tuzla Coal-Fired Power Plants

The basic aim of this work was investigation of the contents of natural radionuclides in the samples of coal and in the products of its burning in Tuzla coal power plants （CPP）, as the beginning steps to estimate total radioactive effects on the surrounding, having in mind that coal power plants are one of the more influential source of the redistribution of natural radionuclides. Coal power plants are backbone of the energy production in Bosnia and Herzegovina accounting for the 75% of the total produced energy. Gamma spectrometric analysis of samples was performed using the most modern high-resolution, low background gamma spectrometric Canberra I-IPGe （high purity germanium） system, with the relative efficiency of 70% at 1.33 MeV, FWHM （full width at half maximum） resolution of 2.3 keV at 1.33 MeV, 1,200 eV at 122 keV. The activity concentration of natural radionuclides in measured samples of coal, ashes and slag were from 4,4 to 56 Bq/kg for Z26Ra, from 4.5 to 38 Bq/kg for 232Th, from 0.3 to 2.7 Bq/kg for Z35U, from 3.1 to 57 Bq/kg for ^238U and from 35 to 333 Bq/kg for ^40K.     

The effect of surfactants in the silsesquioxane solution for LbL films assembly

The interaction of surfactants and hydrophobic polymers in solution has attracted substantial interest due to the broad application in industry. In this study, the interactions of the nonionic surfactant polyethylene glycol-p-(1,1,3,3 tetramethylbutyl)-phenyl ether (Triton X) and anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) with a cationic polymer 3-chloride-n-propylpyridinium silsesquioxane (SiPy⁺Cl^?) and their effects on the layer-by-layer (LbL) film assembly with nickel tetrasulfonated phthalocyanine (NiTsPc) have been analyzed by surface tension, viscosity, and Brewster angle microscopy. As Triton X and SDS surfactants are inserted in the solution containing the polycation SiPy⁺Cl^?, they are immediately incorporated in the hydrophobic nanodomains present in the silsesquioxane skeleton. The association between polyelectrolytes and oppositely charged surfactants starts at very low surfactant concentrations far below the critical micelle concentration, named critical aggregation concentration (cac), which was determined for both surfactants in the presence of SiPy⁺Cl^? (cac Triton X = 2.4 × 10^?6 and SDS = 8.2 × 10^?7 mol L^?1). The coexistence of mixed and pure micelles containing only Triton X and SDS also occurs in higher surfactant concentrations. The implication of these aggregates adsorption on the surface was analyzed in thin films by using the LbL technique. Multilayered films were obtained in presence of surfactants, (T-SiPy/NiTsPc) _n or (S-SiPy/NiTsPc) _n to compare with LbL films in absence of surfactant (SiPy/NiTsPc) _n , and these films were characterized by UV–Vis, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopies to analyze the molecular interactions and to investigate the presence of specific interactions between the polyelectrolytes. The formation of LbL film in the architectures (T-SiPy/NiTsPc) _n or (S-SiPy/NiTsPc) _n is more efficient in relation to (SiPy/NiTsPc) _n LbL films since the presence of the surfactants causes a greater amount of material to be deposited on each bilayer formed. The results of UV–Vis indicate that the film in the presence of SDS has a higher amount of material added to each bilayer. The electrochemical studies of (S-SiPy/NiTsPc)₃ film show that the charge transfer resistance is lower than the one observed for the other architectures. Thus, the characteristic hopping electron effect of LbL film may be responsible for lower capacitance and lower resistance of the films. When the surfactant SDS is present, a higher oxidation peak current of dopamine is seen.     

A Committee Machine Gas Identification System Based on Dynamically Reconfigurable FPGA

This paper proposes a gas identification system based on the committee machine (CM) classifier, which combines various gas identification algorithms, to obtain a unified decision with improved accuracy. The CM combines five different classifiers: K nearest neighbors (KNNs), multilayer perceptron (MLP), radial basis function (RBF), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and probabilistic principal component analysis (PPCA). Experiments on real sensors' data proved the effectiveness of our system with an improved accuracy over individual classifiers. Due to the computationally intensive nature of CM, its implementation requires significant hardware resources. In order to overcome this problem, we propose a novel time multiplexing hardware implementation using a dynamically reconfigurable field programmable gate array (FPGA) platform. The processing is divided into three stages: sampling and preprocessing, pattern recognition, and decision stage. Dynamically reconfigurable FPGA technique is used to implement the system in a sequential manner, thus using limited hardware resources of the FPGA chip. The system is successfully tested for combustible gas identification application using our in-house tin-oxide gas sensors.     

Effect of Al Substitution on Structural and Electrical Properties of Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2CaCu2−x M x O8+δ Superconducting Ceramics

In this work we study the effect on structural and electrical properties of superconducting compound Bi_1.6Pb_0.4Sr₂CaCu_2?y M _y O_8+δ were M=Al (with y=0–0.6). The samples were prepared by the solid-state reaction method. The samples have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), direct current (DC) resistivity versus temperature ρ(T) and alternative current (AC) susceptibility measurements. Structural analysis shows that the crystalline lattice structure of the prepared sample belongs, mainly, to the superconductive tetragonal phase Bi(Pb)2212. The SEM micrographs show that in the undoped sample the grain size has a random distribution with few grains greater than 5 μm. The grains are very dense and well connected. A quite different microstructure is obtained for the doped samples of which grains are more connected with a flat characteristic shape of Bi(Pb)2212 superconductors. All samples exhibit a superconducting character and T _c and the superconducting volume fraction decrease with increasing rate of aluminum.     

Mechanism of the polarographic reduction of some sulphonphthaleins in aqueous and alcoholic buffers

The polarographic reduction of cresol red, thymol blue, bromo-cresol purple, bromophenol blue and bromocresol green are studied in buffered aqueous solutions and alcohol—water mixtures of pH 2–11.5. It was found that in solutions of pH values ? 10 the five depolarizers are reduced along two one-electron waves of equal heights. In solutions of pH values <7, bromo-cresol purple and bromophenol blue are reduced through a single two-electron wave. Whereas cresol red, thymol blue and bromo-cresol green are reduced in two one-electron steps. Medium and substituent effects on i₁ and E_{$\text{1}\text{2}$} are discussed.     

Smart UWB System Based on STC and TR Techniques for BER Performance Enhancement and Interference Rejection

In this research, a novel smart UWB system is introduced. The proposed system is based on using an adaptive maximum ratio combining (MRC) Rake receiver. The proposed adaptive Rake receiver uses Genetic algorithm (GA) to adaptively select the delays of the fingers of the Rake receiver depending on the channel impulse response. It adaptively selects the delays that will allow the Rake receiver to capture most of the energy in the multipath components with minimum complexity. This adaptive Rake receiver is referred to as a GA Rake. The adaptive GA Rake is applied to a single-input single-output and space time coding (STC) multi-input single-output UWB systems. The performance of those systems using a GA Rake is compared to their performance when using a conventional MRC-Rake receiver and showed a great enhancement in performance with less receiver complexity. Also, in this paper, the smart UWB system using STC is modified by using the time reversal (TR) pre-coding technique. The modified system is referred to as a TR smart UWB system. This modification leads to more enhancements in performance and more reduction in receiver complexity over the smart UWB system. Moreover, this paper also shows the ability a TR smart UWB system in combating interference from other UWB systems.     

Novel FPGA implementations of Walsh-Hadamard transforms for signalprocessing

The paper describes two approaches suitable for a field-programmable gate-array (FPGA) implementation of fast Walsh-Hadamard transforms. These transforms are important in many signal-processing applications including speech compression, filtering and coding. Two novel architectures for the fast Hadamard transforms using both a systolic architecture and distributed arithmetic techniques are presented. The first approach uses the Baugh-Wooley multiplication algorithm for a systolic architecture implementation. The second approach is based on both a distributed arithmetic ROM and accumulator structure, and a sparse matrix-factorisation technique. Implementations of the algorithms on a Xilinx FPGA board are described. The distributed arithmetic approach exhibits better performances when compared with the systolic architecture approach