Incorporation of canola proteins extracted by electroactivated solutions in gluten‐free biscuit formulation of rice–buckwheat flour blend: assessment of quality characteristics and textural properties of the product

Canola proteins extracted by electroactivated solutions were incorporated to gluten‐free biscuits made from blend of rice and buckwheat flours. Physical and textural properties were significantly influenced by these proteins. Isolates and concentrates did not behave in a similar way. A significant increase in diameter was noted for all of the supplemented samples. An increase in thickness was observed for the samples added with protein concentrate, whereas the spread ratio decreased for all the samples compared to control. The hardness of biscuits decreased with the addition of the proteins as compared to the control. The changes in biscuit hardness or fracture strength were in line with the changes in dough hardness. Biscuits containing protein concentrate had lighter, more aerated texture as shown by scanning electron microscopy with lesser amounts of gelatinised starch, indicating improved gas‐holding capacity and more stabilised structure. Protein‐supplemented biscuits have lower moisture and water activity.     

Bone marrow transplantation in children

The most frequent indications for bone marrow transplantation and complications of this method of treatment are reviewed. The results are compared with results of conventional therapy. Attention is focused on increasing possibilities of autologous transplantations in children having no HLA-compatible siblings.     

Urethral diverticula in women. Apropos of 15 cases

Urethral diverticulum is a rare disease, arising in the urethrovaginal septum and communicating with the urethra through an orifice. Characterised by clinical polymorphism, it is diagnosed by urethrocystography and transvaginal ultrasound. We report a series of 15 cases of urethral diverticulum over a 10-year period. The mean age of the patients was post-voiding was 36 years (range 24-50). The symptoms were recurrent urinary tract infections (66%), post-voiding urethral leakage (22%), vaginal pain (22%). Clinical examination found a vaginal mass in all patients. Retrograde urethrocystography showed the diverticulum in every cases, while IVP confirmed the diagnosis in only 62% of cases. Treatment is surgical and consists of removing the diverticulum via a vaginal approach. Short and long-term course is favourable. All patients were asymptomatic and the follow-up urethrocystography showed no diverticular recurrence.     

Modified Garden Balsan Optimization Based Machine Learning for Intrusion Detection

The Internet of Things (IoT) environment plays a crucial role in the design of smart environments. Security and privacy are the major challenging problems that exist in the design of IoT-enabled real-time environments. Security susceptibilities in IoT-based systems pose security threats which affect smart environment applications. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) can be used for IoT environments to mitigate IoT-related security attacks which use few security vulnerabilities. This paper introduces a modified garden balsan optimization-based machine learning model for intrusion detection (MGBO-MLID) in the IoT cloud environment. The presented MGBO-MLID technique focuses on the identification and classification of intrusions in the IoT cloud atmosphere. Initially, the presented MGBO-MLID model applies min-max normalization that can be utilized for scaling the features in a uniform format. In addition, the MGBO-MLID model exploits the MGBO algorithm to choose the optimal subset of features. Moreover, the attention-based bidirectional long short-term (ABiLSTM) method can be utilized for the detection and classification of intrusions. At the final level, the Aquila optimization (AO) algorithm is applied as a hyperparameter optimizer to fine-tune the ABiLSTM methods. The experimental validation of the MGBO-MLID method is tested using a benchmark dataset. The extensive comparative study reported the betterment of the MGBO-MLID algorithm over recent approaches.     

Quasi-Binary Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Alloys: Thermodynamic Stability Prediction,Scalable Synthesis,and Application

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDCs) alloys could have a wide range of physical and chemical properties, ranging from charge density waves to superconductivity and electrochemical activities. While many exciting behaviors of unary TMDCs have been demonstrated, the vast compositional space of TMDC alloys has remained largely unexplored due to the lack of understanding regarding their stability when accommodating different cations or chalcogens in a single-phase. Here, a theory-guided synthesis approach is reported to achieve unexplored quasi-binary TMDC alloys through computationally predicted stability maps. Equilibrium temperature–composition phase diagrams using first-principles calculations are generated to identify the stability of 25 quasi-binary TMDC alloys, including some involving non-isovalent cations and are verified experimentally through the synthesis of a subset of 12 predicted alloys using a scalable chemical vapor transport method. It is demonstrated that the synthesized alloys can be exfoliated into 2D structures, and some of them exhibit: i) outstanding thermal stability tested up to 1230 K, ii) exceptionally high electrochemical activity for the CO₂ reduction reaction in a kinetically limited regime with near zero overpotential for CO formation, iii) excellent energy efficiency in a high rate Li–air battery, and iv) high break-down current density for interconnect applications. This framework can be extended to accelerate the discovery of other TMDC alloys for various applications.     

Relationship of viruses and indicator bacteria in water and wastewater of Israel

Different aquatic resources of Israel were monitored to obtain information on the occurrence of enteroviruses and their relationship to the bacteriological indicators of water quality. A total of 155 samples of groundwater, surface water, potable water and swimming pool water were examined, of which 45 (29.0%) yielded virus. Echovirus type 7 was the most predominant, followed by poliovirus 1, echovirus 6 and coxsackieviruses B2, B5 and B6. Virus was isolated on several occasions when the water in question met current bacteriological standards. Viruses were isolated from water samples with no detectable fecal or total coliform bacteria. No significant statistical correlation could be determined between the occurrence of bacterial indicators and the presence of viruses. This study raises serious doubts about the validity of the indicator bacteria concept to predict the virological quality of water, particularly in countries with a high incidence of enteric viral disease.     

Assessing Construction Engineering-Related Delays: Egyptian Perspective

The sources of construction delays include engineering, construction, financial/economic, management/administrative, and force majeure. This paper presents a knowledge-based expert system dedicated to engineering-related delays. Three categories of engineering-related delays are considered in the proposed system. These are: (1) design development; (2) workshop drawings; and (3) project parties changes delays. The knowledge of the system is acquired from literature, Federation International des Ingenieurs-Conseils (FIDIC) contract forms, domain experts, as well as a questionnaire survey. Three classes of participants (consultants, contractors, and employers) have been approached to get their feedback on the cases of engineering-related delays. The design of the questionnaire and criteria for selecting participants are described. The feedback of the participants is analyzed to draw the main causes of engineering-related delays. The proposed system’s built-in rules utilize the procedure of FIDIC contract forms for both design-bid-build and design-build projects. In addition, it provides flexibility in utilizing other customized procedures. The system advises on the claim entitlement, responsibility, and compensability of claims. A case study is presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed expert system.     

A policy-based approach for strong mobility of composed Web services

This paper presents a flexible, portable, and transparent solution for strong mobility of composed Web services relying on policy-oriented techniques. The proposed approach provides a checkpoint solution based on automatic code instrumentation using correct source code transformation rules. This checkpoint technique permits to save the execution state of a mobile orchestration process as well as the execution states of its orchestrated partners. Thus, after migration, only non-executed codes will be resumed. In addition, our approach enables dynamic adaptation of the employed checkpointing and mobility techniques using aspects. For that, we use policies allowing dynamic selection of the used checkpointing and mobility techniques according to the execution context. Moreover, the proposed solution includes a module allowing the determination of the checkpointing interval satisfying QoS requirements. Experimentations show the efficiency of the proposed solution.     

Ag‐nanocomposite based on carboxymethylcellulose for humidity detection: Green synthesis and sensing performances

A novel highly sensitive Ag‐nanocomposite for humidity detection has been successfully prepared. Initially, cellulose isolated from Tunisian palm date petiole was converted to carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) as biomatrix under heterogeneous conditions. The synthesized product was thoroughly characterized by means of FT‐IR spectroscopy, viscosity analysis, and high performance size exclusion chromatography multiangle laser light scattering. CMC was used as reducing and stabilizing agent to prepare CMC‐stabilized silver nanoparticles via a rapid green method. The bioreduction of silver ions under different experimental conditions, including Ag⁺ concentration and pH, was investigated. Optimal experimental conditions provided a long‐term stable colloidal suspension and well‐dispersed spherical shape Ag NPs with a size ranging from 13 to 28 nm. Ag‐nanocomposite coated quartz microbalance crystal was used as sensitive layer for humidity detection. A comparative study showed that the immobilized metallic nanostructures greatly reduced changes in visco‐elastic properties, increased surface area as well as surface local charge density of the CMC. Consequently, sensor performances were greatly enhanced: better stability even at higher relative humidity (RH), good reproducibility and linearity (11–98% RH), low hysteresis characteristics, and rapid response and recovery times (14 and 6 s, respectively) were obtained. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43686.