Development of modified stokes expression to model the behavior of expanded beds containing polydisperse resins for protein adsorption

Expanded bed behavior was modeled by using the Richardson-Zaki correlation between the superficial velocity of the feed stream and the void fraction of the bed. A polydisperse material, Chelating excellose® (70-210 Μm in diameter, 1.21 g/cm³ in density), which has Ni²⁺ ions for the selective binding of histidine-tagged proteins, was used as the resin. A method to modify the Stokes expression to express the terminal settling velocity of the resins by introducing two empirical parameters, the effective diameter of the resins and an exponent for(ρ _p -ρ)/Μ term, was developed. Combined use of the Richardson-Zaki correlation and the modified Stokes expression was successful in modeling the bed expansion by incorporating physical properties of feed streams and the resins.     

Adaptive load balancing algorithm for multiple homing mobile nodes

In places where mobile users can access multiple wireless networks simultaneously, a multipath scheduling algorithm can benefit the performance of wireless networks and improve the experience of mobile users. However, existing literature shows that it may not be the case, especially for TCP flows. According to early investigations, there are mainly two reasons that result in bad performance of TCP flows in wireless networks. One is the occurrence of out-of-order packets due to different delays in multiple paths. The other is the packet loss which is resulted from the limited bandwidth of wireless networks. To better exploit multipath scheduling for TCP flows, this paper presents a new scheduling algorithm named Adaptive Load Balancing Algorithm (ALBAM) to split traffic across multiple wireless links within the ISP infrastructure. Targeting at solving the two adverse impacts on TCP flows, ALBAM develops two techniques. Firstly, ALBAM takes advantage of the bursty nature of TCP flows and performs scheduling at the flowlet granularity where the packet interval is large enough to compensate for the different path delays. Secondly, ALBAM develops a Packet Number Estimation Algorithm (PNEA) to predict the buffer usage in each path. With PNEA, ALBAM can prevent buffer overflow and schedule the TCP flow to a less congested path before it suffers packet loss. Simulations show that ALBAM can provide better performance to TCP connections than its other counterparts.     

The adsorption of chlordane by wheat flour from chlordane-treated shelf paper

Packaged wheat flour stored in direct contact with chlordane-treated shelf paper adsorbed with time appreciable amounts of the pesticide from the paper. Direct contact of the package with the paper was more conducive to flour contamination than it was from exposure of the flour to the vaporized pesticide components from the paper. Sorption effects of the pesticide with flour varied with the mode of exposure and the type of bag used, i.e. when the bags were in direct contact with the shelf paper, the flour packaged in polyethylene bags contained the largest amount of chlordane residue (29 ppm), which decreased about 10 per cent when packaged in single-thickness kraft paper bags and about 35 per cent in double-thickness kraft paper bags. When the bags were separated from direct contact with the shelf paper by means of open glass containers, contamination of the flour was tangibly decreased, whereby the amounts of residue found in the kraft single- and double-thickness paper bags were 0·4 and 0·3 ppm, respectively, compared to only 0·06 ppm in the polyethylene bags.     

A portable toolkit for supporting end-user personalization and control in context-aware applications

A context-aware application in the pervasive computing environment provides intuitive user centric services using implicit context cues. Personalization and control are important issues for this class of application as they enable end-users to understand and configure the behavior of an application. However most development efforts for building context-aware applications focus on the sensor fusion and machine learning algorithms to generate and distribute context cues that drive the application with little emphasis on user-centric issues. We argue that, to elevate user experiences with context-aware applications, it is very important to address these personalization and control issues at the system interface level in parallel to context centric design. Towards this direction, we present Persona, a toolkit that provides support for extending context-aware applications with end-user personalization and control features. Specifically, Persona exposes a few application programming interfaces that abstract end-user customization and control mechanisms and enables developers to integrate these user-centric aspects with rest of the application seamlessly. There are two primary advantages of Persona. First, it can be used with various existing middlewares as a ready-to-use plug-in to build customizable and controllable context-aware applications. Second, existing context-aware applications can easily be augmented to provide end-user personalization and control support. In this paper, we discuss the design and implementation of Persona and demonstrate its usefulness through the development and augmentation of a range of common context-aware applications.     

Preparation and evaluation of poly(2-hydroxyethyl aspartamide)-hexadecylamine-iron oxide for MR imaging of lymph nodes

The purpose of this study was to synthesize biocompatible poly(2-hydroxyethyl aspartamide)–C₁₆-iron oxide (PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide) nanoparticles and to evaluate their efficacy as a contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging of lymph nodes. The PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by coprecipitation method. The core size of the PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide nanoparticles was about 5 to 7 nm, and the overall size of the nanoparticles was around 20, 60, and 150 nm in aqueous solution. The size of the nanoparticles was controlled by the amount of C₁₆. The 3.0-T MRI signal intensity of a rabbit lymph node was effectively reduced after intravenous administration of PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide with the size of 20 nm. The in vitro and in vivo toxicity tests revealed the high biocompatibility of PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide nanoparticles. Therefore, PHEA-C₁₆-iron oxide nanoparticles with 20-nm size can be potentially useful as T2-weighted MR imaging contrast agents for the detection of lymph nodes.     

Performance evaluation with DEVS formalism and implementation of active emergency call system for realtime location and monitoring

In this paper, we designed and implemented the active emergency call system for emergency call service actively. Active emergency call system has two physical components; E-Device (Emergency Mobile Device) and E-Server (Emergency Server). The role of E-Device is the mobile device in order to call emergency by using mild handicapped, the elderly and children who are able to communicate their intention to another. E-Server is the server for management E-Devices with realtime monitoring. E-Device will be developed to the portable size for easily mild handicapped, the elderly and children. When they need the service of emergency call, the button of E-Device can be used and the call signal is transmitted to the emergency office and the guardian through Internet and CDMA. E-Server should be developed the integrated control system for management of E-Devices basically. And it also supported to realtime monitoring of E-Devices with respect to high quality of emergency call service for rise the efficiency. And finally we describe the results of performance evaluation about the location error of E-Device between coordinate of GPS received signal and actual E-Device coordinate, when it has been called emergency, by using DEVS (Discrete Event System Specification) formalism.     

Distributed Court System for intrusion detection in mobile ad hoc networks

Securing routing layer functions in mobile ad hoc networks is an important issue, which includes many challenges like how to enhance detection accuracy when facing the highly dynamic characteristic of such networks, and how to distinguish malicious accusations under a totally autonomous structure. In this paper, we propose Distributed Court System (DCS), a complete Intrusion Detection System that intends to solve these challenges in a low-cost and robust way. We do not deploy any centralized entity, but rely on the collaboration among the nodes neighbouring the suspected node, to integrate information, improve the detection accuracy, and reject dissemination of malicious accusation. Through mathematical analysis and simulation, the proposed DCS is proved to be effective in a highly mobile and hostile network environment.     

Trisneopentylgallium as a precursor for atomic layer epitaxy of GaAs

We report the use of a new precursor, trisneopentylgallium (NPG) for the growth of GaAs by atomic layer epitaxy (ALE). In contrast to most other alkyl gallium precursors such as triethylgallium, which decompose via a β-hydride elimination mechanism, this compound undergoes homolysis similar to that of trimethylgallium (TMGa), the normal choice as an ALE precursor. Clear self-limiting growth behavior similar to that of TMGa was observed over a reasonably wide range of growth conditions (430–500°C). Carbon incorporation was not significantly reduced compared with TMGa suggesting that the adsorbed neopentyl radicals undergo decomposition to result in a methyl terminated surface identical to that obtained for growth with TMGa.     

Autofocusing for tissue microscopy

This paper describes the implementation of autofocusing for tissue microscopy. We first investigate the suitability of several criterion functions for the evaluation of image sharpness. Since tissue sections are invariably stained, we also discuss the selection of the colour component on which autofocusing will be performed. In tissue microscopy, where a section generally comprises multiple layers, it is often not possible to obtain an image that is well focused over the field of view because of the limited depth of field of the objective. We describe focus enhancement algorithms, closely related to the autofocus system, which may be employed to obtain an entirely sharp image.