Optimal design of lattice wave digital fractional‐order Butterworth filter

This letter presents the design of digital fractional‐order Butterworth filter (DFOBF) of order (n+α) , where n is an integer, and α ∈ (0,1) , from the perspective of optimal realization. The magnitude–frequency characteristic of the DFOBF is optimally modeled using the computationally efficient lattice wave digital filters (LWDFs). Design examples for the third‐ and fifth‐order LWDF‐DFOBFs with various values of n, α_, and cut‐off frequencies are presented.     

Acetylated Trivalent Mannobioses: Chemical Modification,Structural Elucidation,and Biological Evaluation

People suffering from allergies can be treated with repeated injections of increasing amounts of a specific allergen. This type of specific immunotherapy is currently the only way to treat the underlying pathological immune response associated with an allergy. The approach can afford long‐lasting protection, but the process takes 3–5 years, can produce allergic reactions, and in severe cases treatment is often aborted due to anaphylaxis. However, treatment can be optimized with the use of specific adjuvants that modify the immune response, its duration, and that increase the production of the correct type of antibodies. In the pursuit of such adjuvants, two new trivalent acetylated β‐(1→2)‐linked mannobioses based on a previously discovered lead molecule were prepared. The new molecules, along with the previously developed lead, were investigated by rigorous NMR and molecular modeling experiments in order to elucidate their behavior and preferred conformations in solution. Furthermore, the molecules were subjected to a biological investigation in which their immunostimulatory properties were evaluated by assessing their effect on the production of T_H2‐type cytokine interleukin‐4 (IL‐4) and T_reg pro‐inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Treatment of peripheral mononuclear blood cell cultures from patients suffering from birch allergy with birch allergen Bet v induced a strong IL‐4 response, whereas the same treatment together with the trivalent acetylated mannobioses caused significant suppression of the induced IL‐4.     

An overview of amphoteric ion exchange membranes for vanadium redox flow batteries

Vanadium redox flow battery(VRB),as the most promising large-scale electrical energy storage units,has attracted extensive attention.Amphoteric ion exchange membrane(AIEM),as the core part of VRB,separates electrolyte on both sides of electrolytic tank and conducts H~+.The AIEM with cation and anion groups possesses excellent performances,such as high ion conductivity(σ),low vanadium ion permeability(Pvn+),relative stability and low cost.However,the performance of AIEM directly depends on the chemical structure of polymers.In addition to ensuring foundational physical performance,ion selectivity of AIEM is significant since the crossover of vanadium ion with various valences may reduce the battery capacity.In this paper,AIEMs for VRB and their chemical structures as well as synthesis approaches to realize all kinds of high-performing AIEMs are reviewed.The current trend and future direction of prospective materials for the VRB separators are documented in detail as well.     

A study on isothermal reduction kinetics of titaniferous magnetite ore using coke dust,an industrial waste

In the present study, isothermal reduction kinetics of titaniferous magnetite ore (TMO) fines (below 75?µm particle size) using coke dust, an industrial waste, in the form of briquettes have been performed at temperatures ranging from 1273 to 1473?K over varying reduction times: 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 & 60 min. This process aims at the efficient utilisation of TMO which can serve as an alternate potential source of iron, titanium and vanadium. Chemical analysis of the briquette reduced at 1473?K for 60 min, yields a maximum of 89.56% degree of metallisation. Contracting geometry (CG3) is found to be the dominant driving mechanism involved and the activation energy of the reaction is evaluated as 59.52?KJ?mol^?1.     

FT-NIR spectroscopy coupled with multivariate analysis for detection of starch adulteration in turmeric powder

This paper investigates the feasibility of Fourier transform near-infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy, a fast and easy method based on chemometric methods to detect corn starch illegally added to turmeric powder. In this work, the pure turmeric powders were blended with corn starch to generate different concentrations (1–30%)(w/w) of starch-adulterated turmeric samples. The reflectance spectra of total of 224 samples were taken by FT-NIR spectroscopy. The exploratory data analysis was done by principal component analysis (PCA). The starch related peaks were selected by variable importance in projection (VIP) method and were explored by examination of original reflectance spectra, 1^st derivative spectra, PCA loadings and β coefficients plot of the partial least square regression (PLSR) model. The coefficient of determination (R²) and root-mean-square error of partial least square regression (PLSR) models were found to be 0.91–0.99 and 0.23–1.3%, respectively, depending on the pre-processing techniques of spectral data. The figure of merit (FOM) of the model was found with the help of net analyte signal (NAS) theory.     

Enhanced Energy Storage of Dielectric Nanocomposites at Elevated Temperatures

Enhancing the performance of dielectric capacitors toward higher energy density and higher operating temperatures has been drawing increased interest. Therefore, in this investigation, research efforts were dedicated to the fabrication and characterization of nanocomposites in order to enhance the energy density at both room temperature and elevated temperature. The dielectric capacitors are fabricated using nanocomposites composed of BaTiO nanoparticles with polyimide (PI) matrix aiming at combining the high relative dielectric permittivity of the ceramic filler and the high breakdown strength of the polymeric matrix. Dielectric energy storage performance is assessed for nanocomposites with volume fractions ranging from 0 to 20% under operating frequency from 20 Hz to 1 MHz and temperatures ranging from 20 to 120C. It is observed that with the increase of temperature, the capacitance increased while the energy density slightly decreased but significantly higher than pure polymer samples. The highest energy density was found for BaTiO/PI nanocomposites with 20% volume fraction, 9.63 J/cm at 20C and 6.79 J/cm at 120C. Overall, testing results indicate that using nanocomposites of BaTiO/PI as a dielectric component shows promise for implementation to preserve high energy density values up to temperatures of 120C.     

Circulation characteristics of horseshoe vortex in scour region around circular piers

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the circulation of the horseshoe vortex system within the equilibrium scour hole at a circular pier, with the data measured by an acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV). Velocity vector plots and vorticity contours of the flow field on the upstream plane of symmetry (y = 0 cm) and on the planes ±3 cm away from the plane of symmetry (y = ±3 cm) are presented. The vorticity and circulation of the horseshoe vortices were determined using the forward difference technique and Stokes theorem, respectively. The results show that the magnitudes of circulations are similar on the planes y = 3 cm and y = -3 cm, which are less than those on the plane y = 0 cm. The circulation decreases with the increase of flow shallowness, and increases with the densimetric Froude number. It also increases with the pier Reynolds number at a constant densimetric Froude number, or at a constant flow shallowness. The relative vortex strength (dimensionless circulation) decreases with the increase of the pier Reynolds number. Some empirical equations are proposed based on the results. The predicted circulation values with these equations match the measured data, which indicates that these equations can be used to estimate the circulation in future studies.     

An energy efficient image compression scheme for wireless multimedia sensor network using curve fitting technique

Wireless Networks - Wireless multimedia sensor network (WMSN) comprising of miniature sensor nodes is capable of processing multimedia data traffic such as still images and video from the...     

A Novel Noise-Enhanced Back-Propagation Technique for Weak Signal Detection in Neyman–Pearson Framework

Neural Processing Letters - In this paper, we propose a noise enhanced neural network based detector. The proposed method can detect the known weak signal in additive non-Gaussian noise. Carefully...     

Cover Image,Volume 100, Issue 11

The cover image is based on the Research Article The Israeli Palestinian wheat landraces collection: restoration and characterization of lost genetic diversity by Sivan Frankin et al., https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.9822 .