Application of supercritical fluid chromatography in the quantitative analysis of minor components (carotenes,vitamin E,sterols, and squalene) from palm oil

The application of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) coupled with a UV variable-wavelength detector to isolate the minor components (carotenes, vitamin E, sterols, and squalene) in crude palm oil (CPO) and the residual oil from palm-pressed fiber is reported. SFC is a good technique for the isolation and analysis of these compounds from the sources mentioned. The carotenes, vitamin E, sterols, and squalene were isolated in less than 20 min. The individual vitamin E isomers present in palm oil were also isolated into their respective components, α-tocopherol, α-tocotrienol, γ-tocopherol, γ-tocotrienol, and δ-tocotrienol. Calibration of all the minor components of palm as well as the individual components of palm vitamin E was carried out and was found to be comparable to those analyzed by other established analytical methods.     

Assessment of future climate change impacts on hydrological behavior of Richmond River Catchment

This study evaluated the impacts of future climate change on the hydrological response of the Richmond River Catchment in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, using the conceptual rainfall-runoff modeling approach (the Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV) model). Daily observations of rainfall, temperature, and streamflow and long-term monthly mean potential evapotranspiration from the meteorological and hydrological stations within the catchment for the period of 1972–2014 were used to run, calibrate, and validate the HBV model prior to the streamflow prediction. Future climate signals of rainfall and temperature were extracted from a multi-model ensemble of seven global climate models (GCMs) of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 (CMIP3) with three regional climate scenarios, A2, A1B, and B1. The calibrated HBV model was then forced with the ensemble mean of the downscaled daily rainfall and temperature to simulate daily future runoff at the catchment outlet for the early part (2016–2043), middle part (2044–2071), and late part (2072–2099) of the 21st century. All scenarios during the future periods present decreasing tendencies in the annual mean streamflow ranging between 1% and 24.3% as compared with the observed period. For the maximum and minimum flows, all scenarios during the early, middle, and late parts of the century revealed significant declining tendencies in the annual mean maximum and minimum streamflows, ranging between 30% and 44.4% relative to the observed period. These findings can assist the water managers and the community of the Richmond River Catchment in managing the usage of future water resources in a more sustainable way.     

ASPECTS OF JOINT DESIGN AND EVALUATION IN THICK-ADHEREND APPLICATIONS

Structural adhesives are gaining wide recognition by industry as they offer engineering designers greater flexibility to achieve economic and technical advantages. In the marine industry there are potential applications for adhesives in various types of construction, for example, thick steel and composite adherends, (typically 5-15 mm thick). The applications include panels and large pipes. This article is largely concerned with the use of two-part epoxy adhesives. The purpose of this article is to understand and evaluate the weaknesses of adhesives and adherends, in relation to specific applications and to use design and material selection to alleviate them. This understanding can be extended to other thick adherend applications. This article will also highlight the impact of structural epoxy adhesive technology on the design and fabrication of steel, composite, and hybrid constructions. The benefits and inherent limitations that can accrue are quantified through three case studies related to thick adherend connections.     

Medium chain triglyceride in early life: Effects on growth of adipose tissue

Effects of feeding early in life a diet high in either long chain (LCT) or medium chain triglyceride (MCT) were studied on the development of adipose tissue in post-weanling rats. The diets were similar in calorie distribution and identical in nutrients except for type of fat. The caloric distribution of the two diets by percent was LCT (corn oil)/protein/carbohydrate, 70/18/12 and MCT/corn oil/protein/carbohydrate, 66/4/18/12. Male littermates with less than 5% weight difference were pair-fed the two diets randomly at age 18–20 days. One-fourth of the rats were killed at 10, 16, 22 and 28 weeks of age and analyzed for adipose depots and adipose tissue cellularity. Results showed that the LCT-fed rats were significantly heavier, with larger epididymal, retroperitoneal, omental and subcutaneous fat pads than the respective pair-fed MCT rats. Also, LCT-fed rats had larger size and number of adipocytes than MCT-fed littermates. It is concluded that the type of fat in the diet, namely LCT or MCT, when fed early in life can influence the development of adipose tissue. MCT appears less lipogenic than LCT. The mechanism for the diminished adiposity of MCT-fed rats is related to extensive oxidation of MCT and its enhancement of thermogenesis leading to lessened energy efficiency. Presented at the symposium on “Specialty Lipids and Their Biofunctionality” at the annual meeting of the American Oil Chemists' Society, Philadelphia, May 1985.     

Characterisation of sol–gel method synthesised MgZnFe2 O4 nanoparticles and its cytotoxic effects on breast cancer cell line,MDA MB‐231 in vitro

In this study, nanocrystalline magnesium zinc ferrite nanoparticles were successfully prepared by a simple sol–gel method using copper nitrate and ferric nitrate as raw materials. The calcined samples were characterised by differential thermal analysis/thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X‐ray diffraction. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the average particle size of the calcined sample was in a range of 17–41 nm with an average of 29 nm and has spherical size. A cytotoxicity test was performed on human breast cancer cells (MDA MB‐231) and (MCF‐7) at various concentrations starting from (0 µg/ml) to (800 µg/ml). The sample possessed a mild toxic effect toward MDA MB‐231 and MCF‐7 after being examined with MTT (3‐[4, 5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl]‐2, 5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay for up to 72 h of incubation. Higher reduction of cells viability was observed as the concentration of sample was increased in MDA MB‐231 cell line than in MCF‐7. Therefore, further cytotoxicity tests were performed on MDA MB‐231 cell line.Inspec keywords: sol‐gel processing, nanoparticles, nanofabrication, magnesium compounds, zinc compounds, toxicology, biological organs, cancer, cellular biophysics, nanomedicine, calcination, differential thermal analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectra, X‐ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, particle size, organic compoundsOther keywords: sol‐gel method, cytotoxic effects, breast cancer cell line, MDA MB‐231 in vitro, nanocrystalline magnesium zinc ferrite nanoparticles, copper nitrate, ferric nitrate, raw materials, calcined samples, differential thermal analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, average particle size, cytotoxicity testing, human breast cancer cells, mild toxic effect, 3‐[4,5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl]‐2,5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay, cell viability, MCF‐7, MDA MB‐231 cell line, size 17 nm to 41 nm     

Intrusion Detection Based on Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory with Attention Mechanism

With the recent developments in the Internet of Things (IoT), the amount of data collected has expanded tremendously, resulting in a higher demand for data storage, computational capacity, and real-time processing capabilities. Cloud computing has traditionally played an important role in establishing IoT. However, fog computing has recently emerged as a new field complementing cloud computing due to its enhanced mobility, location awareness, heterogeneity, scalability, low latency, and geographic distribution. However, IoT networks are vulnerable to unwanted assaults because of their open and shared nature. As a result, various fog computing-based security models that protect IoT networks have been developed. A distributed architecture based on an intrusion detection system (IDS) ensures that a dynamic, scalable IoT environment with the ability to disperse centralized tasks to local fog nodes and which successfully detects advanced malicious threats is available. In this study, we examined the time-related aspects of network traffic data. We presented an intrusion detection model based on a two-layered bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) with an attention mechanism for traffic data classification verified on the UNSW-NB15 benchmark dataset. We showed that the suggested model outperformed numerous leading-edge Network IDS that used machine learning models in terms of accuracy, precision, recall and F1 score.     

Structural,optical and electrical properties of Cu<Subscript>2</Subscript>Zn<Subscript>1−x</Subscript>Cd<Subscript>x</Subscript>SnS<Subscript>4</Subscript> quinternary alloys nanostructures deposited on porous silicon

The Cu₂Zn_1?xCd_xSnS₄ quinternary alloy nanostructures with different Cd contents were grown using spin coating technique on porous silicon (63.93 %) substrate. The structural properties of Cu₂Zn_1?xCd_xSnS₄/PS were investigated by X-ray diffraction and field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). The optical properties studied through photoluminescence technique, indicated that the band gap is shifted as Cd content increases from 1.84 eV at x = 0 to 1.76 eV at x = 1. The electrical characterization of the Ag/n-PS/Cu₂Zn_1?xCd_xSnS₄/Ag diode through current to voltage (I–V) characterization shows the highest photo-response of (value if any) at Cu₂Zn_0.4Cd_0.6SnS₄ composition.     

Visual signatures in video visualization

Video visualization is a computation process that extracts meaningful information from original video data sets and conveys the extracted information to users in appropriate visual representations. This paper presents a broad treatment of the subject, following a typical research pipeline involving concept formulation, system development, a path-finding user study, and a field trial with real application data. In particular, we have conducted a fundamental study on the visualization of motion events in videos. We have, for the first time, deployed flow visualization techniques in video visualization. We have compared the effectiveness of different abstract visual representations of videos. We have conducted a user study to examine whether users are able to learn to recognize visual signatures of motions, and to assist in the evaluation of different visualization techniques. We have applied our understanding and the developed techniques to a set of application video clips. Our study has demonstrated that video visualization is both technically feasible and cost-effective. It has provided the first set of evidence confirming that ordinary users can be accustomed to the visual features depicted in video visualizations, and can learn to recognize visual signatures of a variety of motion events.