GENOTOXICITY IN CHIRONOMUS KIIENSIS (CHIRONOMIDAE: DIPTERA) AFTER EXPOSURE TO POLLUTED SEDIMENTS FROM RIVERS OF NORTH PENINSULAR MALAYSIA: IMPLICATION FOR ECOTOXICOLOGICAL MONITORING

Rapid industrialization and urbanization has led to increasing input of chemical contaminants into the aquatic environment of Malaysia. Despite the threat civilization poses to the biota, there are still very few relevant studies on ecotoxicological testing of river ecosystems. To overcome this knowledge gap, we examined lethal and genotoxic effects of sediments from different rivers of the northern Malaysia against Chironomus kiiensis, a group well represented in the aquatic fauna of this region. We exposed the larvae to sediments from Selama River (SR), Permatang Rawa River (PRR) and Kilang Ubi River (KUR) at various durations (0, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h). The larval mortality was monitored, whereas DNA damage in survivors' cells was determined using the comet assay. Pollution level indexed by the amounts of heavy metals and other organic contaminants in the sediment showed progressive increases from SR to PRR to KUR. Highly polluted sediments (PRR to KUR) were detrimental to C. kiiensis larvae, most of which did not survive following exposure for long periods. DNA analyses revealed greater damages in nuclei derived from larvae maintained on polluted sediments, in particular, those from KUR. The effects on the genomic material of C. kiiensis larvae occurred in a time‐dependent manner, with damage level increasing as exposure time progressed. Our results highlight the genotoxic properties of polluted sediments. More importantly, this study showed that C. kiiensis larvae could respond to different levels of pollution with respect to exposure time. It is concluded that C. kiiensis larvae is a potential candidate for river ecotoxicological monitoring. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic Benefits of Reservoirs in the Irrigated Agriculture

Abstract

In the Jordan Valley of Jordan, the demand for water and ability to control its location, timing, quality, and quantity are becoming critical. The competition for water between the urban and agricultural sectors is increasing. There is a general trend in Jordan to reduce water allocated for agricultural use. Increasing the price of irrigation water or restricting the planted areas of water consuming crops, such as bananas, has been implemented during the recent growing season. The main objective of this paper is to highlight the impact of optimal allocation of irrigation water by building storage capacity on the economy of Jordan Valley. A linear programming technique is used, and the main results show that for proper management of water storage capacity, the suggested cropping pattern would generate $88.2 million, whereas the actual cropping pattern generated $74.4 million. The optimal water demand schedule is distributed according to the needs of the planted crops, and water demand has been allocated in an efficient way. In addition, appropriate management of storage capacity has solved the problem of water scarcity during the summer months, when peak production takes place. Storage-transfer system between locations played a significant role in reallocating irrigation water through the storage system. This compensates to a high degree in keeping the agricultural production more stable in physical and monetary units.     

A tabu search algorithm for order acceptance and scheduling

We consider a make-to-order production system, where limited production capacity and order delivery requirements necessitate selective acceptance of the orders. Since tardiness penalties cause loss of revenue, scheduling and order acceptance decisions must be taken jointly to maximize total revenue. We present a tabu search algorithm that solves the order acceptance and scheduling problem on a single machine with release dates and sequence dependent setup times. We analyze the performance of the tabu search algorithm on an extensive set of test instances with up to 100 orders and compare it with two heuristics from the literature. In the comparison, we report optimality gaps which are calculated with respect to bounds generated from a mixed integer programming formulation. The results show that the tabu search algorithm gives near optimal solutions that are significantly better compared to the solutions given by the two heuristics. Furthermore, the run time of the tabu search algorithm is very small, even for 100 orders. The success of the proposed heuristic largely depends on its capability to incorporate in its search acceptance and scheduling decisions simultaneously.     

Real-Time Natural Disasters Detection and Monitoring from Smart Earth Observation Satellite

Current remote sensing satellites with multispectral sensors capture high-resolution images and produce vast quantities of data. The size and volume of this information has dramatically increased in the last decade as sensor resolution and capabilities have significantly improved, without a similar improvement on the satellite system capacity to accommodate these changes. Remote sensing satellites currently operate on a “store and forward” paradigm, where data is stored on the satellite until the satellite is in view of the ground station. Low Earth orbit satellites may only see a ground station for a 10–15 min window per pass, in which time all the collected information must be telemetered to the ground. This process requires large and expensive onboard storage resources and places tremendous stress on communication channels. Hence, a complete image may not be successfully telemetered in one pass causing a significant delay between capture and analysis and limiting the benefits of these images. Smart satellites are more technologically advanced, require less ground station support and data storage, and are capable of transmitting required information quickly and easily to ground stations. With onboard reconfigurable data processing, these satellites have faster data product turnaround, less communication requirements, and provide more useful information. The high performance computing (HPC-I) payload on board the Australian satellite FedSat, launched in December 2002, is a demonstration device of the feasibility of reconfigurable computing technology in space. This device is small in size, requires low power, and has the processing capacity to handle large data volumes. Using this device in conjunction with a high-resolution imaging sensor, such as the bispectral infrared detection (BIRD) sensor, smart dedicated satellites become a feasible and cost effective solution to remote sensing needs. This paper elaborates on the system level design of a real-time fire observation system in the context of a smart satellite mission for detecting and monitoring natural disasters. The proposed system is built upon flight tested field programmable gate arrays based HPC-I technology, and would be capable of producing useful information about natural disasters directly broadcasted to interested parties within rapid timeframes. The algorithms for onboard real-time detection of direction, intensity, and location of fires are discussed, and reliable algorithms for detecting and verifying these fires using smoke plume detection are presented. Further work is described including fire-front analysis and the tracking of fire movement.     

Recent developments in catalyst synthesis using DBD plasma for reforming applications

The catalyst has a significant role in gas processing applications such as reforming technologies for H₂ and syngas production. The stable catalyst is requisite for any industrial catalysis application to make it commercially viable. Several methods are employed to synthesize the catalysts. However, there is still a challenge to achieve a controlled morphology and pure catalyst which majorly influences the catalytic activity in reforming applications. The conventional methods are expansive, and the removal of the impurities are major challenges. Nevertheless, it is not straightforward to achieve the desired structure and stability. Therefore, significant interest has been developed on the advanced techniques to take control of the physicochemical properties of the catalyst through non-thermal plasma (NTP) techniques. In this review, the systematic evolution of the catalyst synthesis using NTP technique is elucidated. The emerging DBD plasma to synthesized and effective surface treatment is reviewed. DBD plasma synthesized catalyst performance in reforming application for H₂ and syngas production is summarised. Furthermore, the status of DBD plasma for catalyst synthesis and proposed future avenues to design environmentally suitable and cost-effective synthesis techniques are discussed.     

Integration of millimeter-wave and optical link for duplex transmission of hierarchically modulated signal over a single carrier and fiber for future 5G communication systems

Telecommunication Systems - Integration of optical and millimeter-wave systems provide a promising solution for future giga-bits per second wireless communication systems. We have proposed and...     

Synthesis and characterization of novel curcumin based polyurethanes varying diisocyanates structure

In this research work, novel polyurethanes (PUs) based on blends of curcumin/1,4-butane diol (BDO) by varying the structure of diisocyanates were prepared following step growth polymerization. Structural study of blends and various diisocyanates based PU through Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy confirmed the incorporation of curcumin into the backbone of the PU. The scanning electron microscopic (SEM) study confirmed the well dispersion of incorporated curcumin and homogeneity of surface of synthesized samples. The SEM results also indicated that surface morphology of synthesized samples much dependent on diisocynates structure. Moreover SEM images inferred that phase separation is more pronounced in aromatic diisocyanate based PU. The anti-bacterial and anti-fungal tests were performed against different strains in order to determine the biocompatibility of the curcumin based PU. The antimicrobial activity results revealed that the material having aromatic diisocyanate are more biocompatible than the aliphatic diisocyanates in the PU structure. On the whole, this work is actually a step towards the generation of novel biocompatible materials preferably useful for biomedical applications.     

Buckypapers of polyvinyl chloride/poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) blend intercalated graphene oxide-carbon nanotube nanobifiller: Physical property exploration

Novel buckypaper of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride) (PSMA) intercalated with carbon nanotube (CNT) and graphene oxide-CNT (GO-CNT) nanobifiller was prepared using resin infiltration technique. Two series of buckypaper were prepared with varying CNT and GO-CNT contents. According to field emission scanning electron microscopy, PVC/SMA/CNT 0.1 showed porous morphology while PVC/PSMA/GO-CNT 0.1 revealed unique sort of island-nodule morphology. T_max of PVC/PSMA/GO-CNT 0.1 was 561°C while PVC/PSMA/CNT 0.1 depicted relatively lower value (552°C). T_g of PVC/PSMA/GO-CNT 0.1 was also increased to 294°C. Peak heat release rate of poly(methyl methacrylate-co-methacrylic acid)/polyamide 6/montmorillonite-modified GO was decreased from 322 to 209 kW/m² (65%) with 0.03–0.3 g GO-CNT loading.