Preparation of cerium oxide nanoparticles in Salvia Macrosiphon Boiss seeds extract and investigation of their photo-catalytic activities

Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CNPs) with desired particle size and spherical morphology were prepared from cerium nitrate in bio media of Salvia macrosiphon Boiss seeds extract, as a green synthesis route. Then they were characterized by XRD, UV–Vis and FTIR spectroscopies, FESEM and TGA. Band gap energy of the prepared powders was also determined which was found in the range of 2.5–3.5?eV. Determination of DLS and zeta potential were showed that CNPs had the small size and unique colloidal stability, respectively. Then the photo-catalytic activity of them was investigated by degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) dye as a model of waste water pollutants, under UV-irradiation and optimum conditions were evaluated. Results showed that decreasing the particle size increased the rate of photo-catalytic reaction remarkably but ascending the band gap energy, in contrast. The photo-catalytic mechanism was also studied by using different scavengers.     

Polarization Effects for Indoor Wireless Communications at 60 GHz

This letter studies the performance of indoor wireless communication systems operating at 60 GHz with different polarization schemes. Circular polarization is known to reduce multipath effects in line-of-sight (LOS) environments in the 60 GHz band. We propose a modified channel model based on the IEEE 802.15.3c channel model to incorporate the polarization effects. We then use this model to evaluate the error performance of a wireless communication system that uses circular polarization. The results are compared with linear polarization for LOS environments.     

Data clustering and other archive retrieval strategies for teleradiology and picture archiving and communication systems

A key advantage in the conversion from film-based to digital radiology is the possibility of a long-term on line electronic archival of patient studies. The popular approach based on optical disk jukeboxes for the long-term archive and magnetic disk storage for data caching is not economically attractive because of the cost of both the jukebox and the medium. Strategies for extending the archival system design with a tape jukebox have been studied. The proposed strategy calls for the use of high-ratio lossy compression together with low-cost tape storage to make long-term on line archiving more affordable. An intelligent prefetching algorithm based on hospital information system and radiologic information system triggers, which in turn are augmented by manual case preparation, can effectively overcome the longer latency of ad hoc retrievals. This longer latency is caused by both system-level bottlenecks and the sequential access constraint of the tape drive. Strategies for image clustering and tape allocation by patient classification also enhance retrieval efficiency. This archival design using image compression, prefetching, and clustering could be implemented in many of the existing teleradiology and picture archiving and communication systems.     

A QoS Aware Dynamic Scheduling Scheme Using Fuzzy Inference System for IEEE 802.16 Networks

Providing quality of service (QoS) for diverse multimedia services is an important issue in IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX) networks. A scheduling mechanism that satisfies the QoS requirements has become more important for multimedia networks. In addition, scheduling algorithms for wireless networks are much more complex than that of wired networks because of channel quality variations and radio resource limits. This paper introduces a QoS Aware Scheduling System, based on fuzzy logic, for traffic management in WiMAX point-to-multi-point (PMP) networks. The proposed method attempts to guarantee delay and throughput QoS criteria. It considers QoS criteria and radio quality of each user in decision making processes. A series of simulation experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheduling system. The results show that the proposed method performs effectively to achieve QoS criteria and attains significant system performance for different types of traffic.     

Acylcarnitine profiles in serum and muscle of dairy cows receiving conjugated linoleic acids or a control fat supplement during early lactation

Acylcarnitines (ACC) are formed when fatty acid (FA)-coenzyme A enters the mitochondria for β-oxidation and the tricarboxylic acid cycle through the carnitine shuttle. Concentrations of ACC may vary depending on the metabolic conditions, but can accumulate when rates of β-oxidation exceed those of tricarboxylic acid. This study aimed to characterize muscle and blood serum acylcarnitine profiles, to determine the mRNA abundance of muscle carnitine acyltransferases, and to test whether dietary supplementation (from d 1 in milk) with conjugated linoleic acids (CLA; 100 g/d; each 12% of trans-10,cis-12 and cis-9,trans-11 CLA; n = 11) altered these compared with control fat-supplemented cows (CTR; n = 10). Blood samples and biopsies from the semitendinosus musclewere collected on d ?21, 1, 21, and 70 relative to parturition. Serum and muscle ACC profiles were quantified using a targeted metabolomics approach. The CLA supplement did not affect the variables examined. The serum concentration of free carnitine decreased with the onset of lactation. The concentrations of acetylcarnitine, hydroxybutyrylcarnitine, and the sum of short-chain ACC in serum were greater from d ?21 to 21 than thereafter. The serum concentrations of long-chain ACC tetradecenoylcarnitine (C14:1) and octadecenoylcarnitine (C18:1) concentrations were greater on d 1 and 21 compared with d ?21. Muscle carnitine remained unchanged, whereas short- and medium-chain ACC, including propenoylcarnitine (C3:1), hydroxybutyrylcarnitine, hydroxyhexanoylcarnitine, hexenoylcarnitine (C6:1), and pimelylcarnitine were increased on d 21 compared with d ?21 and decreased thereafter. In muscle, the concentrations of long-chain ACC (from C14 to C18) were elevated on d 1. The mRNA abundance of carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1, muscle isoform (CPT1B) increased 2.8-fold from d ?21 to 1, followed by a decline to nearly prepartum values by d 70, whereas that of CPT2 did not change over time. The majority of serum and muscle short- and long-chain ACC were positively correlated with the FA concentrations in serum, whereas serum carnitine and C5 were negatively correlated with FA. Time-related changes in the serum and muscle ACC profiles were demonstrated that were not affected by the CLA supplement at the dosage used in the present study. The elevated concentrations of long-chain ACC species in muscle and of serum acetylcarnitine around parturition point to incomplete FA oxidation were likely due to insufficient metabolic adaptation in response to the load of FA around parturition.     

Investigation of Lifting-Based Hardware Architectures for Discrete Wavelet Transform

This paper investigates efficient hardware architectures for implementation of 1-D and 2-D discrete wavelet transforms (DWTs). The architectures are based on the lifting scheme. We propose a general structure to minimize the number of multipliers and adders for 1-D DWTs. Compared to previous conventional architectures, the architecture presented here is more efficient in terms of the required arithmetic units. Moreover, we describe a new frame scan method for a block-based 2-D DWT structure which provides a flexible trade-off between the required internal memory size and external memory access. In contrast, other 2-D DWT structures require a fixed memory size.     

Lap shear strength and thermal stability of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol a/epoxy novolac adhesives with nanoreinforcing fillers

Nanoreinforcing fillers have shown outstanding mechanical properties and widely used as reinforcing materials associated to polymeric matrices for high performance applications. In this study, a series of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)‐, nano‐Al₂O₃‐, nano‐SiO₂‐, and talc‐reinforced epoxy resin adhesives composites were developed. The influence of different types and contents of nanofillers on adhesion, elongation at break, and thermal stability (under air and nitrogen atmospheres) of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)/epoxy novolac adhesives was investigated. A simple and effective approach to prepare adhesives with uniform and suitable dispersion of nanofillers into epoxy matrix was found to be mechanical stirring combined with ultrasonication. Transmission electron microscopic and scanning electron microscopic investigations revealed that nanofillers were homogeneously dispersed in epoxy matrix at optimized nanofiller loadings. Adhesion strength was measured by lap shear strength test as a function of nano‐Al₂O₃ and MWCNTs loadings. The results indicated that the lap shear strength was significantly increased by about 50% and 70% with addition of MWCNTs and nano‐Al₂O₃ up to a certain level, respectively. The highest lap shear strength was reached at 1.5 wt % of nano‐Al₂O₃ loading. MWCNTs at all loadings (except 3 wt %) and nano‐Al₂O₃ have enhanced onset of degradation temperature and char yield of the adhesives. By combined incorporation of 0.75 wt % nano‐Al₂O₃ and 0.75 wt % MWCNTs into the epoxy novolac/DGEBA blend adhesives a synergistic effect was observed in the thermal stability of the adhesives at high temperatures (800°C). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2014 , 131, 40017.     

Propagation and aperture of staged hydraulic fractures in unconventional resources in toughness-dominated regimes

Simultaneous multistage hydraulic fracturing of unconventional gas shale in parallel multilateral wells is an effective technique to raise the connectivity of the reservoir to the wellbore and improve reservoir permeability for an economical production. However, this technique should be accompanied with some optimization procedures to obtain an efficiently fractured reservoir with the highest production and the lowest cost. In unconventional hydraulic fracturing, fracture deviation/collapse and trapping are familiar phenomena which occur when a non-optimized fracturing pattern is used. These problems occur respectively when stress shadow size has not been considered in optimization and fracturing pressure is higher than the available pressure in the sealed section. Therefore, in an optimized hydraulic fracturing, having straight fractures with no deviation or collapse needs consideration of stress shadow effect (SSE). Apart from that, having efficiently propagated fractures to the extent of the reservoir without any fracture trap requires consideration of stress intensity factor (SIF) and aperture. SSE was studied and published by the authors in 2014. For the case of SIF, investigating any change in mode I SIF and aperture with different influencing variables such as fracture geometry and pattern are studied in the current research work. Three different fracturing techniques are assumed as multistage fracturing, simultaneous single-stage fracturing, and simultaneous multistage fracturing techniques. Since obtaining SIF for three-dimensional fractures is a challenging issue, a stress ratio technique is used for calculation of SIF ratios of different fracturing scenarios compared to the case of a single fracture. Therefore, changes of SIF for different fracturing schemes are estimated and analyzed to understand whether or not a fracturing scheme is efficient and all the spaced perforations are activated and change to hydraulic fractures.