Molecular weight distributions and size fractionations of H-coal liquids

This Paper deals with a comparative study on the use of gel permeation chromatography (g.p.c.) and vapour pressure osmometry (v.p.o.) to obtain molecular weight data for the hexane-soluble fractions of three H-coal liquids. The use of two types of column packing materials, polyvinylacetate and styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer gels, is described. A successful, preparative use of the polyvinylacetate gel to fractionate the hexane-soluble fraction of H-coal liquid, atmospheric still overhead (ASO), has been established. Molecular weight data obtained by v.p.o. for the benzene-soluble fraction and the pyridine-soluble fraction of the three H-coal liquids are reported. Solvent extraction has been utilized also to find the amount of oil, asphaltenes and asphaltols in the three H-coal liquids.     

Preparation,characterization and in vitro drug release properties of polytrimethylene carbonate/polyadipic anhydride blend microspheres

Polyadipic anhydride (PAA), an aliphatic polyanhydride, and polytrimethylene carbonate (PTMC), an aliphatic polycarbonate, were synthesized via ring opening polymerization of oxepan‐2,7‐dione and melt‐condensation of trimethylene carbonate (1,3 dioxan‐2‐one), respectively. PTMC–PAA blend microspheres containing different ratios of buprenorphine HCl (2, 5, and 10%) were prepared by an oil‐in‐oil emulsion solvent removal method. Microspheres with different ratios of PTMC–PAA (85/15, 70/30, and 55/45) containing 5% buprenorphine HCl were prepared. Microspheres were spherical with visible cracks and pores on the surface. The average particle size of microspheres was around 200 μm for all microspheres. Drug loading efficiency of PTMC–PAA microspheres (85/15, 70/30, and 55/45) was 97.2, 95.2, and 70.2%, respectively. With the increase in the PTMC ratio, the melting point and the enthalpy of melting were both decreased. The mechanism for drug release from PTMC–PAA blend microspheres were generally a combination of drug diffusion through polymers and biodegradation of the polymers. In first three days, the release from microspheres followed zero order kinetics and was dependent on the PAA content. After three days the drug release from microspheres followed first order kinetics. In conclusion it was demonstrated that buprenorphine HCl release from microspheres could be successfully controlled by using different ratios of PTMC–PAA blends. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 2377–2383, 2006     

A secure and improved multi server authentication protocol using fuzzy commitment

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The advancement in communication and computation technologies has paved a way for connecting large number of heterogeneous devices to offer specified services....     

Crack growth angle prediction of an internal crack under mixed mode load for unfilled elastomer using the strain energy density factor

This article investigates the prediction of the crack growth angle of an existing internal crack under mixed mode loading at the crack tip for an unfilled ethylene propylene diene terpolymer rubber (EPDM). For the realization of mixed mode loading, the cracks of the uniaxial loaded specimens were oriented with different angles to the loading direction. The energy density factor was used as a potential criterion for determining the crack growth angle. The determination of the strain energy density factor was carried out simulatively in Abaqus. The second-order Ogden model was used to describe the rubber-like material behavior. The relative local minimum of the strain energy density factor provides the possible growth angle. The experimental investigations show that the initial cracks grow orthogonally to the loading direction for the different crack orientation angles. For the crack orientation angle parallel to the load direction, the crack growth was observed because the strong stretching of the specimen caused strong necking in the crack region. The crack growth for the remaining crack orientation angles were induced due to shear loading at the crack tip. The predictive angle of different crack orientation angles shows very good accordance to the measured crack growth angles.     

Semantic indexing of Arabic texts for information retrieval system

As part of information retrieval systems (IRS) and in the context of the use of ontologies for documents and queries indexing, we propose and evaluate in this paper the contribution of this approach applied to Arabic texts. To do this we indexed a corpus of Arabic text using Arabic WordNet. The disambiguation of words was performed by applying the Lesk algorithm. The results obtained by our experiment allowed us to deduct the contribution of this approach in IRS for Arabic texts.     

An impulse control approach to dike height optimization

This paper determines the optimal timing of dike heightenings as well as the corresponding optimal dike heightenings to protect against floods. To derive the optimal policy, we design an algorithm based on the Impulse Control Maximum Principle. In this way, this paper presents one of the first real-life applications of the Impulse Control Maximum Principle developed by Blaquière. We show that the proposed impulse control (IC) approach performs better than dynamic programming with respect to computational time. This is caused by the fact that IC does not need discretization in time.     

Position control of electro-hydraulic actuator system using fuzzy logic controller optimized by particle swarm optimization

The position control system of an electro-hydraulic actuator system (EHAS) is investigated in this paper. The EHAS is developed by taking into consideration the nonlinearities of the system: the friction and the internal leakage. A variable load that simulates a realistic load in robotic excavator is taken as the trajectory reference. A method of control strategy that is implemented by employing a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) whose parameters are optimized using particle swarm optimization (PSO) is proposed. The scaling factors of the fuzzy inference system are tuned to obtain the optimal values which yield the best system performance. The simulation results show that the FLC is able to track the trajectory reference accurately for a range of values of orifice opening. Beyond that range, the orifice opening may introduce chattering, which the FLC alone is not sufficient to overcome. The PSO optimized FLC can reduce the chattering significantly. This result justifies the implementation of the proposed method in position control of EHAS.     

Evaluation of the pollution load discharged at an upstream industry--Egypt--and methods for its reduction

Oil exploration in Egypt is a major contributor to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). With 50-65% of the oil resources located in the Gulf of Suez (GoS) region, the impact of such activity upon the region's water environment and its quality cannot be overlooked because of the volume of effluent generated. The objective of this study (September 2000-September 2001) was to assess the impact of a 650,000 barrels/day (bl/d) (100,000 m3/d) effluent arising from a major oil exploration site located south of GoS upon the local water environment. Another objective was to identify the pollutant contents amenable for reduction relative to the new Egyptian regulations. This was achieved by the characterization of the main contributing streams and the identification of the final effluent parameter constraints relative to the type of injection waters used. Subsequent investigations for the reduction of these contents were conducted on site and the results obtained are reviewed herewith.     

Assessment of Sustainable Yield of Karst Water in Huaibei,China

This paper presents the assessment of sustainable yield in the Huaibei karst water area of Anhui province, China. A review of sustainable yield definition is introduced first in this paper, and sustainable development in karst areas is more difficult due to the complicated hydrogeologic conditions. General hydrogeology of the study area is provided to characterize hydraulic connections between the karst aquifer and an overlying porous aquifer. Groundwater level declines continuously due to over-exploitation of the karst groundwater, and two layers of groundwater dropping funnel were formed in Huaibei. These problems not only threaten the eco-geo-environment, but also compromise the water utilization which depends on the shallow porous water. A “critical water level” is proposed in this study to assess the sustainable yield, and it is determined by the historical exploitation data which represent the relationship between the karst water and the shallow porous water uses. A three layer Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model is used to understand the complex relationship of the karst water level and its influencing factors. Precipitation, exploitation and water level of latest period are chosen as the input nodes, seasonal records of water level are simulated by the ANN model. The sustainable yield is calculated by the trail-and-error adjusting method, and is equal to the pumping rate when the “critical water level” is maintained. The rate of 30.05 MCM/a is the sustainable yield for the Huaibei karst area in 2008, and it is less than the real pumping rate of 35.92 MCM/a. This assessment is meaningful to the management for the Huaibei karst water.