Domestic Use of Irrigation Water: Health Hazard or Opportunity?

In an environment of growing scarcity and competition for water, there is increasing pressure on the irrigation sector to make irrigation for crop production more efficient and to transfer water to the urban, industrial and environmental sectors. However, irrigation water is extensively used for non-agricultural purposes, including domestic purposes, and an exclusive focus on water efficiency in agriculture could actually reduce the availability of domestic water within irrigated areas. It is argued, based on available literature, that this would have important health implications because in many developing countries the availability of water, rather than the quality of water, is of crucial importance to health. Two case studies are presented from Sri Lanka and Pakistan where people make use of irrigation water for a range of domestic activities. Water resource policies have to take these uses into account to avoid negative health implications for poor disadvantaged segments of the population. Barriers to optimizing benefits of linking the irrigation water supply to domestic needs seem to be institutional and psychological rather than medical, technical or economic.     

利用四氮杂大环镍配合物催化Briggs-Rauscher振荡反应测定2,6-二叔丁基4-甲基苯酚的新方法

报道了一种利用四氮杂大环配合物催化Briggs-Rauscher(BR)振荡反应测定2,6-二叔丁基-4-甲基苯酚(BHT)的方法,所涉及的体系为H2SO4-KIO3-[NiL](ClO4)2-MA-H2O2(其中L为四氮杂大环5,7,7,12,14,14-六甲基-1,4,8,11-四氮环杂十四4,11-二烯,MA表示丙二酸).通过研究发现,在该体系中加入一定浓度的BHT,会使得振荡体系的周期、振幅等都发生改变,同时体系会产生抑制时间.当BHT浓度在1.95×10-7 ～6.25×10-6 mol/L范围内,抑制时间与加入的BHT浓度呈很好的二次函数关系;当BHT浓度在6.25×10-6 ～ 1.56×10-5 mol/L范围内,抑制时间与加入的BHT浓度呈很好的一次线性关系.为了达到更好的定量检测效果,对各组分的浓度进行了优化,使得检测效果达到最佳,最后对反应机理进行了探讨.     

Prediction of spun yarn strength at different gage lengths

In this article, the influence of tensile tester gage length on ring, rotor and air-jet spun yarns tenacity and its coefficient of variation have been investigated. A statistical model has been presented that correlates yarn tenacity and coefficient of variation of yarn tenacity to gage length. The model is based on Peirce model and assuming the three-parameter Weibull distribution of yarn strength values. A reasonable agreement has been shown between the experimental and predicted values. The model successfully captured the change in yarn strength and its coefficient of variation at different gage lengths. Results showed that at longer gage lengths, yarn strength decreases and its coefficient of variation decreases as well.     

Laser diffraction and electron microscopy studies on inhalable liposomes generated from particulate-based proliposomes within a medical nebulizer

Particulate-based proliposomes were made by coating sucrose carrier particles with egg phosphatidylcholine (EPC), soya phosphatidylcholine (SPC) or soya phosphatidylcholine with an equimole ratio of cholesterol (SPC:Chol, 1:1). Inhalable multilamellar liposomes were generated from proliposomes in situ within a Pari LC Plus nebulizer by addition of aqueous phase, with no need for prior manual shaking. All proliposome formulations produced high aerosol and phospholipid outputs and were delivered in high fractions to the lower stage of a two-stage impinger. The SPC:Chol (1:1) liposomes tended to accumulate more in the nebulizer because of their greater rigidity, which correlated with the larger size measured at the end of nebulization. The size of aerosol droplets as measured by laser diffraction was similar for all formulations, however, at the sputtering period, the SPC:Chol (1:1) formulation produced large droplets with broadened size distribution. This study has demonstrated a simple approach to delivering high outputs of liposomes using a particulate-based proliposome technology and has shown an evidence of liposome generation from proliposomes within a medical nebulizer.     

A generic low-noise CMOS readout interface for 64?×?64 imaging array with on-chip ADC

This paper presents a low-noise and high dynamic-range CMOS readout-IC (ROIC) for a 64?×?64 array of opto-electrical sensors. The readout chain comprises a pixel preamplifier array, correlated-double-sampling based switched-capacitor gain blocks, class-AB output buffer for driving off-chip loads and a 12-bit pipeline ADC for on-chip digitization. The pixel preamplifiers array, occupying an area of 30???m?×?30???m per pixel, can either be hybridized to a separate IR or UV sensor or can be used as monolithic visible-light active CMOS pixel-array after exposing (by etching the pad) the embedded photodiode under the bonding pads. The ROIC is designed and fabricated in 0.25???m 1P/5?M CMOS technology with 5?mm?×?5?mm of total dimensions. The integrated readout chain, in integrate-then-read mode, demonstrates a dynamic range of 72?dB for electrically emulated sensor currents from 25?pA to 100?nA. It can support a frame rate of 700?fps, with single fully-differential analog as well as 12-bit digital output, at 10?MHz while consuming 17?mW with on-chip biases.     

On Controlling the Transient Response of Linear Time Invariant Systems with Fixed Structure Controllers

The problem of controlling transient response is important in many industrial applications; for example, the speed and accuracy of motion control of robots directly relates to the productivity of the robot. The objective of transient control is to determine a feedback controller of a fixed structure that renders the closed loop response of a specified system to lie in a specified envelope. One may associate a set of errors which measures the deviation of the response from the envelope. The set of errors may be defined in such a way that all the errors are non‐negative if and only if the response does not deviate from the envelope at any time. The transient problem can be thus posed as the problem of determining a stabilizing controller that renders the set of all errors to be non‐negative at every time. One may associate a control parameter vector K with a controller of a specified structure. The main topic of investigation of this paper is to find a bound for the set of real control parameters, K, so that a rational, proper transfer function, has a decaying, non‐negative impulse response. It is assumed that the coefficients of the polynomials N(s, k) and D(s, K) are affine in K.     

A framework for preservation of cloud users’ data privacy using dynamic reconstruction of metadata

In the rising paradigm of cloud computing, attainment of sustainable levels of cloud users’ trust in using cloud services is directly dependent on effective mitigation of its associated impending risks and resultant security threats. Among the various indispensible security services required to ensure effective cloud functionality leading to enhancement of users’ confidence in using cloud offerings, those related to the preservation of cloud users’ data privacy are significantly important and must be matured enough to withstand the imminent security threats, as emphasized in this research paper. This paper highlights the possibility of exploiting the metadata stored in cloud's database in order to compromise the privacy of users’ data items stored using a cloud provider's simple storage service. It, then, proposes a framework based on database schema redesign and dynamic reconstruction of metadata for the preservation of cloud users’ data privacy. Using the sensitivity parameterization parent class membership of cloud database attributes, the database schema is modified using cryptographic as well as relational privacy preservation operations. At the same time, unaltered access to database files is ensured for the cloud provider using dynamic reconstruction of metadata for the restoration of original database schema, when required. The suitability of the proposed technique with respect to private cloud environments is ensured by keeping the formulation of its constituent steps well aligned with the recommendations proposed by various Standards Development Organizations working in this domain.     

Structural and high temperature conduction studies of (Na<Subscript>0.46</Subscript>Bi<Subscript>0.46</Subscript>Ba<Subscript>0.08</Subscript>) (Mn<Subscript>x</Subscript>Ti<Subscript>1−x</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript>)–CuO lead-free piezoelectric ceramics

Polycrystalline lead-free (Na_0.46Bi_0.46Ba_0.08)(Mn_xTi_1?xO₃)?+?0.2CuO ceramics (x?=?0.0, 0.5, 2.0, 3.0 wt%) were prepared via solid-state reaction method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis confirmed the formation of single-phase perovskite structure and indicated the presence of morphotropic phase boundary, where the tetragonal and rhombohedral phases co-existed for all the synthesized compositions. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed that the average grain size decreased with the increase in Mn content. Impedance spectroscopy (IS) indicated that Mn doping was found to decrease the grain boundary resistance. Two semi-circles were observed for higher Mn content which indicates the contribution of both bulk grains and grain boundaries. Non-Debye type and temperature dependent relaxation phenomenon was also revealed by IS studies. The activation energies at different frequencies were found to be 0.05–0.9 eV, indicating hopping charge conduction mechanism. These results have comprehensive implications for the expanded use of BNT based lead free piezoelectric ceramics for practical applications.     

Highly dispersive substitution box (S‐box) design using chaos

Highly dispersive S‐boxes are desirable in cryptosystems as nonlinear confusion sub‐layers for resisting modern attacks. For a near optimal cryptosystem resistant to modern cryptanalysis, a highly nonlinear and low differential probability (DP) value is required. We propose a method based on a piecewise linear chaotic map (PWLCM) with optimization conditions. Thus, the linear propagation of information in a cryptosystem appearing as a high DP during differential cryptanalysis of an S‐box is minimized. While mapping from the chaotic trajectory to integer domain, a randomness test is performed that justifies the nonlinear behavior of the highly dispersive and nonlinear chaotic S‐box. The proposed scheme is vetted using well‐established cryptographic performance criteria. The proposed S‐box meets the cryptographic performance criteria and further minimizes the differential propagation justified by the low DP value. The suitability of the proposed S‐box is also tested using an image encryption algorithm. Results show that the proposed S‐box as a confusion component entails a high level of security and improves resistance against all known attacks.