Prediction of power output of a coal-fired power plant by artificial neural network

Accurate modeling of thermal power plant is very useful as well as difficult. Conventional simulation programs based on heat and mass balances represent plant processes with mathematical equations. These are good for understanding the processes but usually complicated and at times limited with large number of parameters needed. On the other hand, artificial neural network (ANN) models could be developed using real plant data, which are already measured and stored. These models are fast in response and easy to be updated with new plant data. Usually, in ANN modeling, energy systems can also be simulated with fewer numbers of parameters compared to mathematical ones. Step-by-step method of the ANN model development of a coal-fired power plant for its base line operation is discussed in this paper. The ultimate objective of the work was to predict power output from a coal-fired plant by using the least number of controllable parameters as inputs. The paper describes two ANN models, one for boiler and one for turbine, which are eventually integrated into a single ANN model representing the real power plant. The two models are connected through main steam properties, which are the predicted parameters from boiler ANN model. Detailed procedure of ANN model development has been discussed along with the expected prediction accuracies and validation of models with real plant data. The interpolation and extrapolation capability of ANN models for the plant has also been studied, and observed results are reported.     

Effect of aging on the dissolution stability of glibenclamide/beta-cyclodextrin complex

The effect of aging on the physicochemical stability of glibenclamide (GB)/β-cyclodextrin (CD) systems and tablets made with CD-complexed GB was studied. Infrared (IR) spectrometry and X-ray diffraction analyses showed that the properties of the products were unaffected even after a storage period of 4 years, except that the crystallinity of GB/CD physical mixture was decreased with aging. The dissolution rate of the kneaded mixture, inclusion complex, and tablets made with the inclusion complex were unaffected on storage for 4 years. Thus, the age-related dissolution problems of GB can be overcome by utilizing the GB/CD complex in the tablet dosage form.     

Comparison of fourier-transform and data-dependent system profilometry by use of interferometric regeneration

Fourier-transform profilometry (FTP) and data-dependent system profilometry (DDSP) are the two major phase-extraction methods that use a single interferogram. The difficulty in verifying surface profiles obtained by these methods is that the exact spot on an actual surface cannot be measured with two different instruments. An interferogram regeneration procedure is developed to solve this problem. The surface profile is then extracted from the regenerated interferogram by both FTP and DDSP. Comparisons of the actual surface profile with the extracted surface profiles show that both methods perform equally well in measuring the root mean square and the center line average, but only DDSP is able to reproduce the detailed surface profile of the reference surface.     

The Collagen Suprafamily: From Biosynthesis to Advanced Biomaterial Development

Collagen is the oldest and most abundant extracellular matrix protein that has found many applications in food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries. First, an overview of the family of collagens and their respective structures, conformation, and biosynthesis is provided. The advances and shortfalls of various collagen preparations (e.g., mammalian/marine extracted collagen, cell‐produced collagens, recombinant collagens, and collagen‐like peptides) and crosslinking technologies (e.g., chemical, physical, and biological) are then critically discussed. Subsequently, an array of structural, thermal, mechanical, biochemical, and biological assays is examined, which are developed to analyze and characterize collagenous structures. Lastly, a comprehensive review is provided on how advances in engineering, chemistry, and biology have enabled the development of bioactive, 3D structures (e.g., tissue grafts, biomaterials, cell‐assembled tissue equivalents) that closely imitate native supramolecular assemblies and have the capacity to deliver in a localized and sustained manner viable cell populations and/or bioactive/therapeutic molecules. Clearly, collagens have a long history in both evolution and biotechnology and continue to offer both challenges and exciting opportunities in regenerative medicine as nature's biomaterial of choice.     

Development of systemic immunologic responses against hepatic metastases during gene therapy for peritoneal carcinomatosis with retroviral HS-tk and ganciclovir

Gene therapy with retroviral mediated gene transfer of the herpes simplex thymidine kinase (HS-tk) gene into a tumor mass confers sensitivity of the tumor cells to ganciclovir (GCV). Tumor-specific immunologic responses may develop following treatment of the primary tumor with retroviral HS-tk and GCV. In the present study we assessed whether GCV treatment of HS-tk transduced colon cancer (TK+) implanted in the peritoneal cavity induced a systemic antitumor response that would inhibit growth of a second wild-type (TK-) tumor implanted in the liver. DHDK12 rat colon cancer cells were transduced in vitro with the retroviral HS-tk vector and established as a permanent cell line (TK+ cells). TK+ or TK- DHDK12 cells (6x10(6) cells) were injected intraperitoneally on day 0 into BD-IX rats. On day 10, TK- cells (3x10(6) cells) were injected into the liver in all the groups. The animals were then treated with GCV (150 mg/kg) for 13 days. TK+ peritoneal tumors underwent significant regression during therapy with GCV (0.05+/-0.004 g; n=7) compared to wild-type (TK-) tumors (2.2+/-0.7g; n=6) (P<0.05). The volume of TK- tumors in the liver was significantly lower in GCV-treated rats with TK+ peritoneal tumors (12.5+/-8.3 mm3) compared to rats with TK- peritoneal tumors (96.7+/-18.1 mm3) (P<0.05). Histology of the liver tumors in the TK+ groups showed a dense monocytic infiltrate with fibrosis and only occasional viable tumor cells. Gene therapy with retroviral HS-tk vectors may provide a novel approach to treatment of gastrointestinal cancer by both direct cytotoxicity and an indirect mechanism that may include enhanced immuno logic responses against disseminated disease.     

Outcome aware ranking in value creation networks

In this paper, we consider a natural ranking problem that arises in settings in which a community of people (or agents) are engaged in regular interactions with an end goal of creating value. Examples of such scenarios are academic collaboration networks, creative collaborations, and interactions between agents of a service delivery organization. For instance, consider a service delivery organization which essentially resolves a sequence of service requests from its customers by deploying its agents to resolve the requests. Typically, resolving a request requires interaction between multiple agents and results in an outcome (or value). The outcome could be success or failure of problem resolution or an index of customer satisfaction. For this scenario, the ranking of the agents of the network should take into account two aspects: importance of the agents in the network structure that arises as a result of interactions and the value generated by the interactions involving the respective agents. Such a ranking can be used for several purposes such as identifying influential agents of the interaction network, effective and efficient spreading of messages in the network. In this paper, we formally model the above ranking problem and develop a novel algorithm for computing the ranking. The key aspect of our approach is creating special nodes in the interaction network corresponding to the outcomes and endowing them independent, external status. The algorithm then iteratively spreads the external status of the outcomes to the agents based on their interactions and the outcome of those interactions. This results in an eigenvector like formulation, which results in a method requiring computing the inverse of a matrix rather than the eigenvector. We present several theoretical characterizations of our algorithmic approach. We present experimental results on the public domain real-life datasets from the Internet Movie Database and a dataset constructed by retrieving impact and citation ratings for papers listed in the DBLP database.     

Numerical simulation of two-dimensional sine-Gordon solitons by differential quadrature method

During the past few decades, the idea of using differential quadrature methods for numerical solutions of partial differential equations (PDEs) has received much attention throughout the scientific community. In this article, we proposed a numerical technique based on polynomial differential quadrature method (PDQM) to find the numerical solutions of two-dimensional sine-Gordon equation with Neumann boundary conditions. The PDQM reduced the problem into a system of second-order linear differential equations. Then, the obtained system is changed into a system of ordinary differential equations and lastly, RK4 method is used to solve the obtained system. Numerical results are obtained for various cases involving line and ring solitons. The numerical results are found to be in good agreement with the exact solutions and the numerical solutions that exist in literature. It is shown that the technique is easy to apply for multidimensional problems.     

Hybrid arithmetic optimization algorithm with hunger games search for global optimization

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Recently, many population-dependent methods have been proposed. Despite their acceptance in many applications, we are still exploring suggested methods to solve...     

Effect of solvents on properties of the ultrasound assisted synthesized ceria nanoparticles and its performance as an adsorbent

The present study revealed a facile, ultrasound assisted ceria nanoparticle synthesis route by the reduction of cerium nitrate hexahydrate in different solvents at room temperature. The different solvents employed were methanol (MeOH), ethylene glycol (EG), water (aq) and isopropyl alcohol (IPA). The ceria nanoparticles were synthesized without the use of any capping agent in 20?min. The yield obtained was around 90% for the synthesized ceria samples. As synthesized ceria nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (FEG-SEM), Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) and zeta (ζ) potential in order to determine the influence of solvent on the physical properties of ceria nanoparticles. All the ceria samples illustrated a predominant spherical shape with the size in the range of 5–20?nm. It was found that interaction of the solvent with ceria nanoparticles in the presence of ultrasound plays an important role in modulating crystallite size, surface charge and its adsorption performance for a xylene milling yellow 6G dye. Among all the sonicated ceria samples, IPA mediated ceria exhibited highest positive zeta potential and hence was found to be proficient for the complete removal of dye in 15?min. Furthermore, the adsorption of the yellow milling dye on the surface of (IPA mediated) sonicated ceria sample has shown to follow pseudo-first order kinetic model. The non-sonicated sample (prepared in MeOH solvent without ultrasound) shows negligible dye adsorption while sonicated sample reveals 50% removal of XMY dye due to the difference in zeta potential values resulted from the cavitation effects.