Multiphase and multicomponent transport with phase change during meat cooking

A multiphase model based on unsaturated flow in a hygroscopic porous medium, which accounts for the important physical phenomena that take place during thermal treatment of meat, is developed. Frozen meat is considered as a porous solid comprising of water, fat and protein with gas trapped in its pores. As it is heated, water and fat melt, and, are gradually released from the solid protein matrix to the pore space. With further rise in temperature, liquid water evaporates. Since four fluid components (liquid water phase, liquid fat phase, water vapor and air) are present in the pore space, a mass balance equation is written for each component. Local thermal equilibrium assumption leads to one energy balance equation for the whole system. The model is validated for double-sided contact heating of hamburger patties by comparing temperature and moisture profiles with experimental studies. Dominant modes of transport are identified.     

Thermally stimulated current and electrical conduction in metal (1)-ethyl cellulose-metal (1)/(2) systems

Depolarization current characteristics of solution grown pure ethyl cellulose (EC) films of about 20μm thickness have been studied as a function of electrode materials at constant poling field (5 × 10⁴ V/cm) and poling temperature 40°C. Thermally stimulated current (TSC) thermograms of EC consists of two well resolved peaks (located at 60°C and 140°C) for Al-Al system, which are attributed to the deorientation of strongly attached ethoxy groups of glycosidal units and diffusion of space charges either at electrodes or due to their thermal release at higher temperatures from the defect levels. For dissimilar electrode combinations (Al-Ag/Cu/Au/Sn/Pb), an indication of peak of lower magnitude at around (50–70°C) alongwith a higher temperature peak (140–155°C), have been observed. TSC parameters are found to change with the choice of electrode material. The dependence of dark current at 40°C in metal-ethyl cellulose-metal systems on applied voltage in the range (2·0–5·0) × 10⁴V/cm has also been studied. The results of current-voltage measurement on EC have been interpreted to show that the Schottky-Richardson mechanism is the controlling transport mechanism. Zero field current density extrapolated fromI-E ^1/2 plots are found to vary with metal work function.     

Provisioning link layer proportional service differentiation in wireless networks with smart antennas

In this paper, we present a collision free MAC protocol for wireless networks with smart antennas that provides proportional service differentiation to various classes of traffic based on their respective bandwidth demand. The proposed protocol works for diverse physical parameters such as number of interfaces at each node, number of communication frequencies, and antenna beamwidth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that provides link layer differentiated services for wireless networks with smart antennas and explores the influence of the physical parameters and network topology on the performance of the MAC layer. Ashish Deopura received his B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India, in 2003, and he received his M.S. degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 2005. He currently works as a Modeling Engineer for OPNET Technologies located in Bethesda, MD Professor Aura Ganz is the director of the Multimedia Networking Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has authored more than 170 journal and conference papers in the areas of multimedia wireless networks, ubiquitous computing, telemedicine, and security. She is a co-author of the book: “Multimedia Wireless Networks”, Prentice Hall, 2003. Some of her recent assignments include: general co-chair of the IEEE UWBNETS workshop, general co-chair of the IEEE BROADMED workshop, general co-chair of the Massachusetts 3rd Annual R&D Conference, keynote speaker at the NSF sponsored workshop in Mobile Computing, and invited speaker at Personal and Local Wireless Network Solutions conference, and Motorola’s Wireless Communications Futures Forum, Wireless Local Area Networks Conference. She has a PhD, MSc and BSc in Computer Science from the Technion in Israel. More details can be found at: dvd1.ecs.umass.edu/wireless.     

Oxidative stress following traumatic brain injury in rats

BACKGROUND: Free radicals may be involved in the pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury (TBI) through oxidative damage of neurovascular structures. Endogenous antioxidants, such as ascorbate and alpha-tocopherol, may play a critical role in combating these oxidative reactions and their oxidized products can serve as an important index of oxidative stress. METHODS: We used electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and in vivo spin trapping (reaction of an organic compound with free radical species) to detect the possible generation of free radicals after TBI. Injury was inflicted by a weight drop technique over the head (5.7 kg-cm). Rats were intravenously infused with either 1 mL, 0.1 M of the spin trap, alpha-phenyl-N-tert-butyl nitrone (PBN), or an equivalent volume of saline immediately before TBI or sham-injury. Animals were divided into four groups: (1) Group I: PBN-infused sham-injured, (2) Group II: PBN-infused injured, (3) Group III: saline-infused sham-injured, and (4) Group IV: saline-infused injured. Additional groups of saline-infused uninjured, saline-infused, and PBN-infused injured animals were used for histopathology. Sixty minutes after TBI or sham-injury, rats were again anesthetized and decapitated. The brains were removed within 1 minute, homogenized, and extracted for lipids. The extracts were analyzed by ESR spectroscopy. Brain ascorbic acid (AA) concentration was determined spectrophotometrically, using the ascorbate oxidase assay. RESULTS: No PBN spin adduct signals (indicating trapped free radical species) were visible 60 minutes after TBI. All groups of rats showed an ascorbyl free radical signal. The ascorbyl signal intensity (AI) was, however, significantly higher in the injured rats, while the brain (AA) was significantly reduced. In addition, the ratio of AI/AA, which eliminates the effect of variable ascorbate concentrations in the brain, was also significantly higher in the injured animals. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that 60 minutes following TBI there was a significantly increased level of oxidative stress in the brain. This may reflect formation of free radical species with subsequent interaction with ascorbate (antioxidant) during the 60 minute period. The lack of PBN spin adduct signals 1 hour after TBI may indicate that free radical generation is time dependent and might be detectable earlier or later than the 60 minute period.     

Growth and characterizations of dual ion beam sputtered CIGS thin films for photovoltaic applications

The growth of CIGS thin films on soda-lime glass substrates at different substrate temperatures by dual ion beam sputtering system in a single-step route from a single quaternary sputtering target with the composition of Cu (In_0.70 Ga_0.30) Se₂ was reported. The effects of the substrate temperature on structural, optical, morphological and electrical properties of CIGS films were investigated. Stoichiometry of one such film was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. All CIGS films had demonstrated a strong (112) orientation located at 2θ ~26.70^o, which indicated the chalcopyrite structure of films. The value of full-width at half-maximum of (112) peak was reduced from 0.58° to 0.19° and crystallite size was enlarged from 14.98 to 43.05 nm as growth temperature was increased from 100 to 400 °C. However, atomic force microscope results showed a smooth and uniform surface at lower growth temperature and the surface roughness was observed to increase with increasing growth temperature. Hall measurements exhibited the minimum film resistivity of 0.09 Ω cm with a hole concentration of 2.42 × 10¹⁸ cm^?3 and mobility of 28.60 cm² V^?1 s^?1 for CIGS film grown at 100 °C. Film absorption coefficient was found to enhance nominally from 1 × 10⁵ to 2.3 × 10⁵ cm^?1 with increasing growth temperature from 100 to 400 °C.     

Dispersion of nanoplatelets of graphite on PMMA matrix by in situ polymerisation technique

Poly(methyl methacrylate)/expanded graphite (PMMA/EG) composites were prepared by the incorporation of EG in various proportions (1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5%) with PMMA by in situ polymerisation technique. The polymer composites were characterised by ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) and Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopies. The structural property of PMMA/EG nanocomposites was studied by X-ray diffraction. The scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy of synthesised composites were taken in order to study their morphological properties. The conductivity of composites was measured as function of EG concentration. It was found that conductivity of composites gradually increased with the increase in EG loading. Oxygen permeability of PMMA/EG nanocomposites was calculated and it was found that the property was reduced substantially with rise of EG proportion. The thermal stability of PMMA/EG nanocomposites was improved by dispersion of EG with PMMA matrix.     

Crystal structure and magnetic property of Nd doped BiFeO3 nanocrytallites

Bi_1-xNd_xFeO₃ (BNFO_x, x = 0-0.15) nano-crystallites were successfully synthesised by solution combustion technique. Neodymium substitution has changed the rhombohedral symmetry of BiFeO₃ to the triclinic and reduced the impurity phase. The average particle size found to vary from 74 to 26 nm when Nd concentration was increased from x = 0 to 0.15. The change in the symmetry is also confirmed by Raman spectra of nanocrystallite samples. The value of remnant magnetization has improved due to the continuing collapse of the space-modulated spin structure of BNFO_x. Long-range ferromagnetic ordering in BNFO_x at room temperature was also confirmed from Mössbauer spectra.     

Temperature and intensity dependence of Yb-fiber laser light absorption in water

Absorption of CW Yb-fiber laser light of 1.07 μm wavelength in water has been measured at different water temperatures and laser intensities. The absorption coefficient was estimated to be 0.135 cm(-1) at 25 °C water temperature, and this was found to decrease with temperature at a rate of 5.7 × 10(-4) cm(-1) °C(-1). The absorption coefficient increased significantly when the laser beam was focused in water, and the increase depended on the distance of the focal point from the water surface. This has been attributed to the absorption and scattering losses of laser radiation in a cavity formed in water by the focused beam at laser intensities in the megawatts per square centimeter and higher range.     

Fast and stable bayesian image expansion using sparse edge priors.

Smoothness assumptions in traditional image expansion cause blurring of edges and other high-frequency content that can be perceptually disturbing. Previous edge-preserving approaches are either ad hoc, statistically untenable, or computationally unattractive. We propose a new edge-driven stochastic prior image model and obtain the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate under this model. The MAP estimate is computationally challenging since it involves the inversion of very large matrices. An efficient algorithm is presented for expansion by dyadic factors. The technique exploits diagonalization of convolutional operators under the Fourier transform, and the sparsity of our edge prior, to speed up processing. Visual and quantitative comparison of our technique with other popular methods demonstrates its potential and promise.     

Computing access relevance for path-method generation in OODB and IM-OODB

A path-method (PM) is a mechanism to retrieve or to update information relevant to one class, in an object-oriented database (OODB), that is not stored with that class but with some other class. The PM traverses a chain of classes and connections that ends at the class where the required information is stored. However, it is a difficult task for a user to write PMs. This is because it might require comprehensive knowledge of many classes of the conceptual schema. But a typical user has often incomplete or even inconsistent knowledge of the schema. Currently we are developing a system, called Path-Method Generator (PMG), which generates PMs automatically according to a naive user's requests. One algorithm of PMG uses numerical access relevance between pairs of classes as a guide for the traversal of an OODB schema. In this paper we define the notion of access relevance to measure the significance of the (indirect) connection between any two classes in an OODB and present efficient algorithms to compute access relevance. The manual PM generation in an interoperable multi object-oriented database (IM-OODB) is even more difficult than for one OODB since a user has to be familiar with several OODBs. We use a hierarchical approach for developing efficient online algorithms for the computation of access relevances in an IM-OODB, based on precomputed access relevances for each autonomous OODB. In an IM-OODB the access relevances are used as a guide in generating PMs between the classes of different OODBs.