Lipolytic bacterial strains mediated transesterification of non-edible plant oils for generation of high quality biodiesel

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In vitro antioxidant and bioactive properties of raw and roasted wattle (Acacia victoriae Bentham) seed extracts

Protease inhibitors (PIs) from raw wattle (Acacia victoriae) seeds as well as phenolic extracts from raw and roasted wattle seeds were analysed for antioxidant, angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) inhibition, cytotoxicity, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, antitumor and insecticidal activities. Progressive purification of the PIs resulted in increases in their ACE inhibitory activity and cytotoxicity, but decreases in antioxidant activity. Roasting of wattle seed significantly increased the antioxidant activity of the phenolic extracts as did alkaline hydrolysis of wattle seed flour, but the treatment destroyed their ACE inhibitory activity and reduced the level of cytotoxicity. A moderate degree of synergism between the PIs and phenolic extracts of wattle seed was observed for ACE inhibition activity, but not for antioxidant activity or cytotoxicity. Wattle seed PIs exhibited moderate cytotoxicity, but did not possess any significant antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antitumour or insecticidal activities.     

Heat and mass transport impact on MHD second-grade fluid: A comparative analysis of fractional operators

The effect of the magnetic flux plays a major role in convective flow. The process of heat transfer is accompanied by a mass transfer process; for instance, condensation, evaporation, and chemical process. Due to the applications of the heat and mass transfer combined effects in different fields, the main aim of this paper is to do a comprehensive analysis of heat and mass transfer of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) unsteady second-grade fluid in the presence of ramped conditions. The new governing equations of MHD second-grade fluid have been fractionalized by means of singular and nonsingular differentiable operators. To have an accurate physical significance of imposed conditions on the geometry of second-grade fluid, the constant concentration with ramped temperature and ramped velocity is considered. The fractional solutions of temperature, concentration, and velocity have been investigated by means of integral transform and inversion algorithm. The influence of physical parameters and flow is analyzed graphically via computational software (MATHCAD-15). The velocity profile decreases by increasing the Prandtl number. The existence of a Prandtl number may reflect the control of the thickness and enlargement of the thermal effect.     

Influence of partial substitution of wheat flour with vetch (Lathyrus sativus L) flour on quality characteristics of doughnuts

Partial substitution of wheat flour (Triticum aestivum) with vetch flour (Lathyrus sativus L) at the levels of 5, 10, 15 and 20 g/100 g was carried out to determine its influence on physico-chemical, rheological, nutritional and sensory characteristics of composite flour doughnuts. Commercial wheat variety, Inqlab-91 was found suitable for the preparation of doughnuts. Sensory and objective evaluations (weight, volume and specific volume) of doughnuts were carried out to evaluate the acceptability of doughnuts. Protein, lysine and trypsin inhibitor contents increased significantly (P<0.05) from 12.10 to 13.84 g/100 g, 2.46-3.58 g/100 g protein and 173 to 187 TIU/g on increasing the level of vetch flour from 0 to 15 g/100 g in the doughnuts, respectively. In vitro protein digestibility of doughnuts was also found to increase (71.8-76.3 g/100 g). It was inferred that doughnuts supplemented with vetch flour up to the level of 15 g/100 g were sensorily acceptable.     

Multi-area Environmental Economic Dispatch with Reserve Constraints Using Enhanced Particle Swarm Optimization

In this paper, the multi-area environmental economic dispatch (MAEED) problem with reserve constraints is solved by proposing an enhanced particle swarm optimization (EPSO) method. The objective of MAEED problem is to determine the optimal generating schedule of thermal units and inter-area power transactions in such a way that total fuel cost and emission are simultaneously optimized while satisfying tie-line, reserve, and other operational constraints. The spinning reserve requirements for reserve-sharing provisions are investigated by considering contingency and pooling spinning reserves. The control equation of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) is modified by improving the cognitive component of the particle's velocity using a new concept of a preceding experience. In addition, the operators of PSO are dynamically controlled to maintain a better balance between cognitive and social behavior of the swarm. The effectiveness of the proposed EPSO has been investigated on four areas, 16 generators and four areas, 40 generators test systems. The application results show that EPSO is very promising to solve the MAEED problem.     

Multilayered coated infra-red surface plasmon resonance fibre sensors for aqueous chemical sensing

A series of surface plasmonic fibre devices were fabricated by depositing multiple thin coatings on a lapped section of a standard single mode telecoms fibre forming a D-shaped section and then inscribing a grating-type structure using UV light. The coatings consisted of base coatings of semi-conductor (germanium) and dielectric (silicon dioxide) materials, followed by different metals. These fibre devices showed high spectral refractive index sensitivity with high coupling efficiency in excess of 40 dB for indices in the aqueous regime and below, with estimated index sensitivities of Δλ/Δn = 90–800 nm from 1 to 1.15 index range and Δλ/Δn = 1200–4000 nm for refractive indices from 1.33 to 1.39.     

Evolutionary game of end-of-life vehicle recycling groups under government regulation

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - This paper studies the competition between the illegal recycling group and the legitimate recycling group in the recycling market of end-of-life...     

Automatic melanoma detection and segmentation in dermoscopy images using deep RetinaNet and conditional random fields

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Melanoma is one of the major causes of death around the world and is also known as malignant skin cancer. Melanoma detection is possible at an early stage by...     

Origins and minimization of intermodulation distortion in a pseudo-differential CMOS beamforming receiver

Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing - This paper studies how nonlinear distortion is generated in the combination of an inverter-based low-noise amplifier and a passive mixer. The...