Physicochemical properties of fermented Arabian mares' milk

Due to its numerous benefits, including health-promoting characteristics, there is increasing interest in finding product applications for mares' milk. In the present study, the physicochemical properties, turbidity and conductivity of Arabian mares' milk were studied during acidification by fermentation at 30 °C and compared with those of bovine milk. The data for the acidification rate were modelled using a logistic equation. Mares' milk showed a longer latency phase (284 min) and lower acidification rate (μ_max = 0.0052 dpH min^?1) compared with bovine milk (194 min and 0.0098 dpH min^?1 respectively). The general shape of the curves of the turbidity versus time and pH were similar in nature for the acidification of both milks. However, the characteristic points were different, due to the differences in casein micelle composition. Measurement of electrical conductivity during acidification showed that maximum demineralization of casein micelles started around pH 6.09 and 5.31, for mares' and bovine milk, respectively. In conclusion, the technological characteristics of mares' milk were very different from those of bovine milk, due to intrinsic physicochemical properties of both milks.     

Fabricating a Homogeneously Alloyed AuAg Shell on Au Nanorods to Achieve Strong,Stable, and Tunable Surface Plasmon Resonances

Colloidal metal nanocrystals with strong, stable, and tunable localized surface plasmon resonances (SPRs) can be useful in a corrosive environment for many applications including field‐enhanced spectroscopies, plasmon‐mediated catalysis, etc. Here, a new synthetic strategy is reported that enables the epitaxial growth of a homogeneously alloyed AuAg shell on Au nanorod seeds, circumventing the phase segregation of Au and Ag encountered in conventional synthesis. The resulting core–shell structured bimetallic nanorods (AuNR@AuAg) have well‐mixed Au and Ag atoms in their shell without discernible domains. This degree of mixing allows AuNR@AuAg to combine the high stability of Au with the superior plasmonic activity of Ag, thus outperforming seemingly similar nanostructures with monometallic shells (e.g., Ag‐coated Au NRs (AuNR@Ag) and Au‐coated Au NRs (AuNR@Au)). AuNR@AuAg is comparable to AuNR@Ag in plasmonic activity, but that it is markedly more stable toward oxidative treatment. Specifically, AuNR@AuAg and AuNR@Ag exhibit similarly strong signals in surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy that are some 30‐fold higher than that of AuNR@Au. When incubated with a H₂O₂ solution (0.5 m ), the plasmonic activity of AuNR@Ag immediately and severely decayed, whereas AuNR@AuAg retained its activity intact. Moreover, the longitudinal SPR frequency of AuNR@AuAg can be tuned throughout the red wavelengths (≈620–690 nm) by controlling the thickness of the AuAg alloy shell. The synthetic strategy is versatile to fabricate AuAg alloyed shells on different shaped Au, with prospects for new possibilities in the synthesis and application of plasmonic nanocrystals.     

Theoretical and experimental analysis of the behaviour of a photovoltaic pumping system

The aim of the paper is to present the influence of the solar radiation variation on the performances of a stand alone photovoltaic pumping system which consists of photovoltaic generator, dc-dc converter, dc-ac inverter, an immersed group motor-pump and a storage tank that serves a similar purpose to battery storage. Hence a theoretical analysis (modelling and control) of the system is needed. Attention has been paid to the command of the power converters using MPPT and variable laws. The MPPT control allows the extraction of the maximal output power delivered by the PV generator. The inverter ensures the PWM control of the asynchronous motor and a sine wave form of output signals. From the obtained simulation results, we will show that the decrease of the solar radiation degrades performances (the global efficiency and the flow rate) of the PV pumping system. The analysis is validated by simulation and experimental results.     

Pore formation in apple during air‐drying as a function of temperature: porosity and pore‐size distribution

Characteristics of air‐dried apple produced by drying at 50, 80 and 105 °C were studied by measuring apparent porosity, open pore porosity and pore‐size distribution with a helium gas pycnometer and mercury porosimetry. Apparent porosity increased with the decrease of moisture content as well as with the increase of drying temperature. Fresh apple showed negligible closed pores, whereas drying caused collapse of surface pores, and consequently reduced open pores. Pore‐size distribution for fresh apple showed two sharp peaks, one at 5.8 µm and another at 3.6 µm. Apple rings, dried for 20 h, showed only one sharp peak at 3.6 µm while samples dried for 30 h showed three peaks, at 10, 5.8 and 3.6 µm, respectively. Application of high pressure (0.12–414 MPa) resulted on negligible intrusion of mercury into the sample. Fractal analysis indicated the formation of more micro‐pores on the surface caused by air‐drying. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effect of Plant Originated Coagulants and Chymosin on Ovine Milk Coagulation

The coagulation of ewe's milk was studied by using plant source coagulants namely the artichoke, Cynara scolymus L. cv. Blanca, and latex from the fig tree (Ficus carica L.). A turbidimetric method was used to evaluate and compare the coagulation properties of the novel coagulants with chymosin treated samples. Syneresis capacity and sensory evaluation of resultant cheese samples were studied and it was found that both cynara and chymosin produced sigmoidal increase in turbidity to the milk with three distinct phases. The coagulation kinetics was affected substantially by both coagulants. Plant coagulant induced shorter gelation time compared to chymosin however required longer time for restructuration (end of coagulation). The coagulum obtained with the latex of Ficus carica had a higher yield, owing to its high water retention capacity. With the exception of color, the overall sensory attributes did not show significant differences among coagulants.     

Smart places: Multi-agent based smart mobile virtual community management system

Now-a-days advances in mobile device technology aim to build complex computational systems providing a maximum level of flexibility, decentralization, simplest form of interactivity, and ease of use. Recently, the launch of the agent-oriented platform JaCaMo and its Android client based platform JaCa-Android have provided an appropriate level of abstraction to build smart mobile client server systems providing these attributes. By using these platforms, we have developed a multi-agent based Smart Mobile Virtual Community Management System (SMVCMS) that makes it possible to provide a decentralized and open management of virtual communities. This paper addresses the design and architecture of our multi-agent server and client application. It elaborates different features of our system; such as how a participant in virtual communities is supported by a Jason agent that encapsulates the logic and the control of the participation in a virtual community (such as publishing posts, notifying members, making recommendations for the user, etc.). It also discusses how the set of CArtAgOartifacts provides the basic functionalities and operations giving access to the functionalities for knowledge exchange in virtual communities, and personal agents onAndroid exploit these artifacts to execute their tasks while achieving their individual and collective goals. We have employed SMVCMS in the context of Smart Cities and found that the system fulfills the desired goals, such as decentralization of community management, personalized automatic management and discovery of communities, autonomy of agents and flexibility so that any agent can create its own community with the maximum level of ease.     

Developing control and integration software for flexible manufacturing systems

The slow growth of computer-integrated manufacturing is attributed to the complexity of designing and implementing their control and integration software. This article expands on a methodology for designing and implementing this software that was introduced in [16]. The goal of this methodology is to build flexible and resuable control and integration software for computer-integrated manufacturing systems. It hinges upon the concepts of software/hardware components, their assemblages, a distributed common language environment, formal models, and generic controllers. Major sources of flexibility are obtained by decoupling process plan models from the model of the factory floor and by using a generic controller. Reusability is achieved by building selfcontained software/hardware components with general, possibly parametrized, interfaces. The interplay between simulated and actual hardware internals of software/hardware components is used as the basis of a testing strategy that performs off-line simulation followed by on-line testing.The methodology has been applied in designing and implementing the control and integration software of an actual Prismatic Machining Cell. The article also reports on the details of this implementation.The names of the authors appear in alphabetical order.