Extrusion cooking of barley flour and process parameter optimization by using response surface methodology

BACKGROUND: The nutritional profile of barley places it in a prime position for development of a new extruded–expanded snack food with health benefits. It was therefore the aim to investigate the effect of extrusion processing variables on system parameters (specific mechanical energy, die pressure and die melt temperature) and physical properties (expansion, bulk density, texture and color) of barley flour extrudates and to optimize processing conditions for production of extruded snack food from barley flour by response surface methodology. RESULTS: Barley flour with 219.7 g kg^?1 moisture content was extruded at different die temperatures (140–160 °C) and screw speeds (150–200 rpm) through a co‐rotating twin‐screw extruder. The system parameters as well as product responses were mainly dependent on temperature, whereas the screw speed imparted a lesser effect. Extrudates produced under extrusion conditions of 160 °C, 150 and 200 rpm and at 164 °C and 150 rpm had higher preference levels of appearance, taste, texture and overall acceptability than that of other selected extrudates for sensory analysis. The optimal conditions for minimum bulk density and desired textural characteristics and color of extrudates correspond to a temperature of 156 °C and screw speed of 166 rpm. CONCLUSION: The results suggested that use of barley flour in extruded snack products offers a desirable variation in diet and can take advantage of the nutritional quality of barley. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Photoluminescence and decay characteristics of cerium,gallium and vanadium - containing borate-based bioactive glass powders for bioimaging applications

Biomaterials having photoluminescent properties play a crucial role in real-time bioimaging after in vivo implantation. In this study, photoluminescence properties and decay characteristics of the borate-based 13–93B3 glasses containing different concentrations of cerium, gallium, and vanadium oxides were investigated for biomedical applications. The borate-based bioactive glass powders were prepared using melt-quench technique and size reduction was performed through planetary ball milling. Bioactivity of the prepared powders was investigated in simulated body fluid at 37 °C under static conditions. The photoluminescent properties and decay kinetics of the as-prepared and the SBF-treated bioactive glass powders were analyzed by steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements. Results revealed that the cerium activated glasses exhibited an intense luminescence centered at 538 nm. Broad-band emission of the gallium and vanadium doped samples was centered at 440 and 572 nm, respectively. All of the SBF-treated glasses exhibited enhanced lifetimes and bi-exponential decays both in nanosecond and microsecond regime measurements. It was concluded that depending on the dopant concentration, bioactive glass particles prepared in the study showed remarkable photoluminescence and have potential to be used in bioimaging applications.     

Multi-Reservoir System Optimization Based on Hybrid Gravitational Algorithm to Minimize Water-Supply Deficiencies

The growing prevalence of droughts and water scarcity have increased the importance of operating dam and reservoir systems efficiently. Several methods based on algorithms have been developed in recent years in a bid to optimize water release operation policy, in order to overcome or minimize the impact of droughts. However, all of these algorithms suffer from some weaknesses or drawbacks – notably early convergence, a low rate of convergence, or trapping in local optimizations – that limit their effectiveness and efficiency in seeking to determine the global optima for the operation of water systems. Against this background, the present study seeks to introduce and test a Hybrid Algorithm (HA) which integrates the Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) with the Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (PSOA) with the goal of minimizing irrigation deficiencies in a multi-reservoir system. The proposed algorithm was tested for a specific important multi-reservoir system in Iran: namely the Golestan Dam and Voshmgir Dam system. The results showed that applying the HA could reduce average irrigation deficiencies for the Golestan Dam substantially, to only 2 million cubic meters (MCM), compared to deficiency values for the Genetic Algorithm (GA), PSOA and GSA of 15.1, 6.7 and 5.8 MCM respectively. In addition, the HA performed very efficiently, reducing substantially the computational time needed to achieve the global optimal when compared with the other algorithms tested. Furthermore, the HA showed itself capable of assuring a high volumetric reliability index (VRI) to meet the pattern of water demand downstream from the dams, as well as clearly outperforming the other algorithms on other important indices. In conclusion, the proposed HA seems to offer considerable potential as an optimizer for dam and reservoir operations world-wide.

     

The Isoelectric Point of Lead Magnesium Niobate

Lead magnesium niobate (PMN) is an important relaxor ferroelectric material commonly used in multilayer capacitor and actuator manufacturing owing to its high dielectric constant and superior electrostrictive properties. However, the isoelectric point of this material in water is not known and there is justification for a detailed investigation. In this work, the isoelectric point (IEP) of aqueous PMN suspensions were determined as a function of solids concentration. Results showed that IEP of the PMN suspensions strongly depended on the solids loading. The IEP was between pH 9 and 10 at particle concentrations between 10 to 20 vol%. The IEP shifted gradually to a lower pH value as the particle concentration decreased. Solubility experiments showed that Pb²⁺ and Mg²⁺ ions dissolved from the PMN surface, especially in the acidic pH range. The study provides a new insight on the aqueous stability of perovskite materials which possess more than one soluble cation in their structure .     

Phase formation and microstructure of Nd<Superscript>+3</Superscript> doped Pb(Mg<Subscript>1/3</Subscript>Nb<Subscript>2/3</Subscript>)O<Subscript>3</Subscript> prepared by sol–gel method

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the rare earth element neodymium on the phase formation and microstructural development of relaxor ferroelectric lead magnesium niobate, Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃ (PMN) system. Perovskite phase PMN powders were prepared using the sol–gel method and the effect of neodymium doping was investigated at different doping levels ranging from 0.1 mol% to 30 mol%. The precursors employed in the sol–gel process were lead (II) acetate, magnesium ethoxide, and niobium (V) ethoxide. All the experiments were performed at room temperature while the calcination temperatures ranged between 800 °C and 1,100 °C. Results showed that it was possible to obtain the pure perovskite phase at 950 °C using the sol–gel method. Nd⁺³ addition influenced the phase formation and microstructure of the multicomponent system. Pyrochlore was detected along with the perovskite phase above 10 mol% Nd. Results also demonstrated that grain size of the synthesized powders depended on the Nd⁺³ concentration.     

Synthesis and Photopolymerizations of New Crosslinkers for Dental Applications

Summary: Five new crosslinkers for use in dental composites were synthesized. Four are based on TBHMA: 1 via reaction of TBBr and Bisphenol A; 2 by hydrolysis of t‐butyl groups of the first monomer to give a diacid derivative; 3 by conversion of the first monomer to an amide derivative using benzyl amine; 4 by conversion of the first monomer to amide derivative using APTES. The AHM‐based monomer 5 was synthesized from the Michael addition of APTES to AHM. The photopolymerization behaviors of the synthesized monomers with Bis‐GMA, TEGDMA and HEMA were investigated using photodifferential scanning calorimetry at 40 °C using DMPA as photoinitiator. The polymerization rates and degrees of conversion for mixtures of any of the monomers 1 – 4 with Bis‐GMA:TEGDMA were found to be similar to Bis‐GMA:TEGDMA, higher than Bis‐GMA:HEMA, and also higher than mixtures with Bis‐GMA:HEMA. The incorporation of TBHMA‐based monomers into the conventional resin mixture (Bis‐GMA and TEGDMA) reduced the polymerization shrinkages. Monomer 5 and its mixtures polymerized much faster and to higher degrees of conversion than the other investigated systems, however, this system exhibited the largest volume shrinkage.

Structures of some of the new crosslinkers synthesized.     

Maintenance of safety and quality of refrigerated ready-to-cook seasoned ground beef product (meatball) by combining gamma irradiation with modified atmosphere packaging

Abstract: Meatballs were prepared by mixing ground beef and spices and inoculated with E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes, and S. enteritidis before packaged in modified atmosphere (3% O₂+ 50% CO₂+ 47% N₂) or aerobic conditions. The packaged samples were irradiated at 0.75, 1.5, and 3 kGy doses and stored at 4 °C for 21 d. Survival of the pathogens, total plate count, lipid oxidation, color change, and sensory quality were analyzed during storage. Irradiation at 3 kGy inactivated all the inoculated (approximately 10⁶ CFU/g) S. enteritidis and L. monocytogenes cells in the samples. The inoculated (approximately 10⁶ CFU/g) E. coli O157:H7 cells were totally inactivated by 1.5 kGy irradiation. D¹⁰‐values for E. coli O157:H7, S. enteritidis, and L. monocytogenes were 0.24, 0.43, and 0.41 kGy in MAP and 0.22, 0.39, and 0.39 kGy in aerobic packages, respectively. Irradiation at 1.5 and 3 kGy resulted in 0.13 and 0.36 mg MDA/kg increase in 2‐thiobarbituric acid‐reactive substances (TBARS) reaching 1.02 and 1.49 MDA/kg, respectively, on day 1. Irradiation also caused significant loss of color and sensory quality in aerobic packages. However, MAP effectively inhibited the irradiation‐induced quality degradations during 21‐d storage. Thus, combining irradiation (3 kGy) and MAP (3% O₂+ 50% CO₂+ 47% N₂) controlled the safety risk due to the potential pathogens and maintained qualities of meatballs during 21‐d refrigerated storage. Practical Application: Combined use of gamma irradiation and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) can maintain quality and safety of seasoned ground beef (meatball). Seasoned ground beef can be irradiated at 3 kGy and packaged in MAP with 3% O₂+ 50% CO₂+ 47% N₂ gas mixture in a high barrier packaging materials. These treatments can significantly decrease risk due to potential pathogens including E. coli O157:H7, L. monocytogenes, and S. enteritidis in the product. The MAP would reduce the undesirable effects of irradiation on quality, and extend the shelf life of the product for up to 21 d at 3 °C.     

Drift estimation using pairwise slope with minimum variance in wireless sensor networks

Time synchronization is mandatory for applications and services in wireless sensor networks which demand common notion of time. If synchronization to stable time sources such as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is required, employing the method of flooding in order to provide time synchronization becomes crucial. In flooding based time synchronization protocols, current time information of a reference node is periodically flooded into the network. Sensor nodes collect the time information of the reference node and perform least-squares regression in order to estimate the reference time. However, least-squares regression exhibits a poor performance since sensor nodes far away from the reference node collect the time information with large deviations. Due to this fact, the slopes of their least-squares line exhibit large errors and instabilities. As a consequence, the reference time estimates of these nodes also exhibit large errors.This paper proposes a new slope estimation strategy for linear regression to be used by flooding based time synchronization protocols. The proposed method, namely Pairwise Slope With Minimum Variance (PSMV), calculates the slope of the estimated regression line by considering the pairwise slope between the earliest and the most recently collected data points. The PSMV slope is less affected by the large errors on the received data, i.e. it is more stable, and it is more computationally efficient when compared to the slope of the least-squares line. We incorporated PSMV into two flooding based time synchronization protocols, namely Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP) and PulseSync. Experimental results collected from a testbed setup including 20 sensor nodes show that PSMV strategy improves the performance of FTSP by a factor of 4 and preserves the performance of PulseSync in terms of synchronization error with 40% less CPU overhead for linear regression. Our simulations show that these results also hold for networks with larger diameters and densities.     

Gas Sensing Behavior of Mesoporous SiOC Glasses

In this study, for the first time, we report the gas sensing behavior of aerogel‐derived silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) glasses. The SiOC glass pyrolyzed at 1400°C has specific surface area of 150 m²/g with pore size in the 2–20 nm range. SiOC sensor shows good response to 5 ppm NO₂ at 300°C. NO₂ response completely disappears at 400°C, and from this temperature SiOC sensor starts respond to H₂. The optimum sensitivity for H₂ is obtained at 500°C. SiOC sensor is very selective; it is not sensitive to other gases such as acetone vapor or CO, even at high concentrations.