Effect of muscle stretching on meat quality of biceps femoris from beef

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of muscle stretching on meat quality and ultrastructure of biceps femoris (BF) from beef. After slaughter, the right side of the carcasses were suspended from the Achilles tendon (AS; n=10), while the left sides were re-hanged from the pelvic bone (PS; n=10). Meat quality was evaluated by water holding capacity (WHC), cooking loss (CL), color, shear force (SF) and sarcomere length (SL). As a result, PS had no impact on WHC, CL and color parameters. PS significantly decreased SF values by 7.5% only at 2 days postmortem. At pelvic suspended sides, SL was increased by 0.13 μm, 0.14 μm and 0.12 μm at 2, 7 and 10 days postmortem, respectively (P<0.001). Electron microscopy showed that the ultrastructure of BF have longer sarcomeres and smaller fiber diameter after PS. In conclusion, PS is a useful method for improving tenderness by stretching muscles.     

Improvement of polyvinyl alcohol/casein blend film properties by adding cellulose nanocrystals

This study aims to prepare and examine the properties of poly(vinyl alcohol)/casein (PVA/CAS) based films reinforced with cellulose nanocrystals (NC), which can be presented as an alternative to petroleum-based polymer packaging materials. PVA/CAS and 0.5–1–3–5 wt% NC containing PVA/CAS biocomposite films were prepared by solution casting method. Afterward, the 1NC film, which exhibited the best mechanical properties, was crosslinked with various amounts of glyoxal. Structural, morphological (polarized optical microscope), mechanical (tensile), thermal (differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis), contact angle, and water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) properties of the samples were investigated. The 1NC film exhibited the highest tensile strength (TS) and elongation values in PVA/CAS/NC films, and its mechanical properties decreased due to agglomeration with increasing NC amount. As expected, crosslinking improved the TS. The thermal stability of the PVA/CAS film was generally improved with the addition of NC and crosslinking. The high WVTR value of the PVA/CAS film decreased with the addition of NC and the 1NC film presented the lowest value. Thanks to the complex structure formed as a result of crosslinking and the reduced free volume, the WVTR of the 1NC film has reduced. The results showed that PVA/CAS-based films with good mechanical properties and water vapor barrier are promising as packaging materials.     

High-efficiency monolithic GaAs IMPATT diodes

Impedance-matching circuits were integrated on the same chip as the IMPATT diodes to produce monolithic impatt diodes for millimetre-wave applications. A drastic reduction of device-to-circuit parasitic elements was achieved by placing the external circuitry very close to the device. Oscillators fabricated in this fashion gave the highest efficiencies reported so far in the 30?35 GHz range with 28% conversion efficiency using hybrid-Read structures.     

Decolorisation treatments of azo dye waste waters including dichlorotriazinyl reactive groups by using advanced oxidation method

Decolorisation treatments of azo dye waste waters, which include dichlorotriazinyl reactive groups, were investigated by using ultraviolet (UV) radiation and hydrogen peroxide at various exposure times. Decolorisation time decreased when UV radiation power and hydrogen peroxide concentration increased. Colour removal reached 98.0–99.5% by using this method. Some environmental parameters of decolorised waste water, such as biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC), total inorganic carbon (TIC), total carbon (TC), adsorbable organohalides (AOX), sulphate and chloride, were determined. It was concluded that TOC, COD and AOX decreased while BOD increased and sulphate ions remained unchanged. These results suggested that the dye molecules were totally destroyed and some of these decomposition products were removed as carbon dioxide and water to some degree.     

Crosslinked TS-1 as stable catalyst for the Beckmann rearrangement of cyclohexanone oxime

Crosslinked TS-1 zeolite materials have been studied in the gas phase Beckmann rearrangement reaction of cyclohexanone oxime to ε-caprolactam. Crosslinking of the zeolite particles resulted in the formation of an additional mesoporosity leading to increased activity in the Beckmann rearrangement reaction. The increased activity can be correlated with the newly created mesopore surface. Possibly more important, together with increased catalytic activity of the materials, the deactivation behavior of the catalysts is very significantly improved.     

Very high-power-density CW operation of GaAs/AlGaAs microwaveheterojunction bipolar transistors

Thermal instability of multi-emitter high-power microwave heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) was eliminated using a novel heat spreading technique that regulates internal device currents to avoid the formation of hot spots. Devices with 2- and 3-μm minimum emitter sizes and no intentional ballast resistors showed unconditionally stable CW operation up to the device electronic limitations. A record 10-mW/μm² power density was obtained at 10 GHz with 7-dB gain and 60% power-added efficiency. The highest efficiency was 67.2% at 9.3-mW/μm² power density. It was shown that stable high-power-density operation can be maintained at multiwatt output power levels     

Effective hybrid hierarchical element generator for vibration analysis of plates

Cost effective high precision hybrid elements are presented in a hierarchical form for vibration analysis of plates. The elements are constructed by introducing computer installed hierarchical element generator algorithms which take advantage of the exact analytical treatment of the energy integrals automatically. Additional benefits accrue from: (i) the careful selection of assumed stresses and displacements satisfying finite element requirements, and maintaining the correct stiffness rank and invariance; (ii) the ability to reduce computational costs associated with various operations and the independence with respect to element geometries, which serve to build up a methodology to handle the generation of finite elements in any general purpose finite element system efficiently. Extensive numerical studies are made to predict the natural frequencies and harmonic response of plates with different boundary conditions. Accuracy of the solutions is assessed by comparison with the well established results. The noteworthy aspects of the applications are that the proposed elements are faster than those cited previously, and show a more favourable comparison to the analytical solutions for a wider range of vibration modes by maintaining rapid convergence characteristics.     

Thermal stability analysis of AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolartransistors with multiple emitter fingers

A numerical electro-thermal model was developed for AlGaAs/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT's) to describe the base current, current gain and output power dependence on junction temperature. The model is applied to microwave HBT devices with multi-emitter fingers. The calculated results of the common-emitter, current-voltage characteristics in the linear active region show a “current crush” effect due to inherent nonuniform junction temperature, current density and current gain distribution in the device. The formation of highly localized high temperature regions, i.e., hot spots, occur when the device is operating beyond the current-crush point. This thermally induced current instability imposes an upper limit on the power capability of HBT's. The dependence of this effect on various factors is discussed. These factors include the intrinsic parameters such as the base current ideality factor, the “apparent” valence band discontinuity, and the temperature coefficient of the emitter-base turn-on voltage, as well as the extrinsic factors such as the emitter contact specific resistance, the substrate thermal conductivity and the heat source layout