Forced migration of soluble and suspended materials by freezing front in aqueous systems

Migration of soluble and suspended materials by directional freezing of aqueous systems has been studied qualitatively. Slow freezing was employed vertically as well as horizontally through solutions and suspensions. In all cases, the impurities (soluble salts as well as suspended materials) were appreciably forced out by dynamic freezing front. The phenomenon worked for concentrating/separating inorganic ions, soluble organic compounds and dyes in synthetic solutions as well as in natural streams. Various analytical techniques were employed to monitor the migrating species through the freezing media. It was found that separation efficiency depends on different factors like rate of cooling, pH and concentration. Model experiments were designed and exercised successfully to employ the technique for treatment of dye-polluted water.     

Putative mechanism for anticancer properties of Ag–PP (NPs) extract

One of the most important challenges in treating cancer is the invasion and the angiogenesis of cancer cells. The synthesis of green nanoparticles (NPs) and their use in therapeutic fields is one of the most effective methods with minimal side effects in cancer treatment. In this study, cytotoxic and anti‐angiogenic effects of silver NPs (AgNPs) coated with palm pollen extract [Ag–PP(NPs)] were evaluated. For this purpose, the cells were treated with NPs and then were subjected to trypan blue testing (48 h). Then, the cancer invasion was evaluated by the scratch procedure and the expressions of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor (VEGF‐R) genes were estimated using real‐time PCR assay. Also, the angiogenesis effect of the NPs was investigated with chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. The Ag–PP(NPs) induced cytotoxicity on MCF7 cells. The findings also showed that Ag–PP(NPs) inhibit invasive cancer cells and reduce the expression of VEGF and VEGF‐R and significantly reduced the number and vessels lengths and the lengths and weights of the embryos in CAM assay. Ag–PP(NPs) with the induction of cytotoxic effects, metastatic inhibition and anti‐angiogenesis properties should be considered as an appropriate option for treatment of cancerInspec keywords: nanomedicine, genetics, cellular biophysics, toxicology, patient treatment, silver, cancer, biochemistry, biomedical materials, nanoparticles, nanofabrication, membranesOther keywords: minimal side effects, cancer treatment, silver NPs, cancer invasion, vascular endothelial growth factor, receptor genes, VEGF‐R, real‐time polymerase chain reaction assay, angiogenesis effect, chick chorioallantoic membrane assay, MCF7 cells, invasive cancer cells, cytotoxic effects, putative mechanism, anticancer properties, antiangiogenic effects, antiangiogenesis properties, Ag–PP‐induced cytotoxicity, metastatic inhibition, palm pollen extraction, trypan blue testing, time 48.0 hour, Ag     

Synthesis, characterization and application of allyl phenol modified amberlite XAD-4 resin for preconcentration and determination of copper in water samples

A new chelating resin was prepared by coupling Amberlite XAD-4 with phenol through an azo spacer, then modified by allyl bromide and characterized (by elemental analysis and IR) and studied for preconcentration of Cu(II) using flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) for metal monitoring. The optimum pH value for sorption of the above mentioned metal ion was 4.5. The resin was subjected to chemical evaluation through batch binding and column chromatography of Cu(II). The chelating resin can be reused for 15 cycles of sorption-desorption without any significant change in sorption capacity. A recovery of 98% was obtained for the metal ion with 0.5 M HNO₃ as eluting agent. The equilibrium adsorption data of Cu(II) on modified resin were analyzed by Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin models. Based on equilibrium adsorption data the Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin constants were determined to be 0.061, 0.193 and 0.045 at pH 4.5 and 25 °C. The method was applied for the copper determination from industrial waste water sample.     

Assessing mobile phone communication utility preferences in a social support network

While it is generally accepted that the mobile cell phone has become ubiquitous within society for communicating, the actual use of the utilities on a phone have not been reported. Understanding how communication patterns are changing in society as a result of the mobile cell phone will enable the development and/or modification of existing cell phone utilities, the concept of privacy, and a mobile literacy research domain. To explore mobile cell phone utility use, 99 people completed a mobile phone usage questionnaire. Key results from the questionnaire are physical location when using a mobile cell phone, the length of communication episodes, the usage of phone utilities and existing privacy concerns related to mobile cell phones.     

The Millimeter Wave Radiation of a Dielectric Leaky-Wave Antenna Coupled with a Diffraction Grating: Broad-Face Interaction

The millimeter wave radiation of a dielectric leaky-wave antenna (DLWA) coupled with a metallic diffraction grating with a sinusoidal height profile is experimentally investigated. The interaction between dielectric and grating is contactless and it is from the broad-face of the dielectric line. The measured field patterns are compared with the simulated HFSS patterns. Antenna parameters such as polarization, HPBW, cross-polarization and side lobe levels are measured. The effects of the geometrical parameters of the grating to the radiation are also investigated. Some results are compared with a DLWA which has another diffraction grating profile shape (rectangular). The investigated antenna can be used as a frequency scanning antenna in mm-wave radars because it has low cross and side lobe levels and narrow beam width.     

Surface defect detection in tiling Industries using digital image processing methods: Analysis and evaluation

Ceramic and tile industries should indispensably include a grading stage to quantify the quality of products. Actually, human control systems are often used for grading purposes. An automatic grading system is essential to enhance the quality control and marketing of the products. Since there generally exist six different types of defects originating from various stages of tile manufacturing lines with distinct textures and morphologies, many image processing techniques have been proposed for defect detection. In this paper, a survey has been made on the pattern recognition and image processing algorithms which have been used to detect surface defects. Each method appears to be limited for detecting some subgroup of defects. The detection techniques may be divided into three main groups: statistical pattern recognition, feature vector extraction and texture/image classification. The methods such as wavelet transform, filtering, morphology and contourlet transform are more effective for pre-processing tasks. Others including statistical methods, neural networks and model-based algorithms can be applied to extract the surface defects. Although, statistical methods are often appropriate for identification of large defects such as Spots, but techniques such as wavelet processing provide an acceptable response for detection of small defects such as Pinhole. A thorough survey is made in this paper on the existing algorithms in each subgroup. Also, the evaluation parameters are discussed including supervised and unsupervised parameters. Using various performance parameters, different defect detection algorithms are compared and evaluated.     

Robust H ∞ sliding mode control with pole placement for a fluid power electrohydraulic actuator (EHA) system

In this paper, we exploit the sliding mode control problem for a fluid power electrohydraulic actuator (EHA) system. To characterize the nonlinearity of the friction, the EHA system is modeled as a linear system with a system uncertainty. Practically, it is assumed that the system is also subject to the load disturbance and the external noise. An integral sliding mode controller is proposed to design. The advanced techniques such as the H _∞ control and the regional pole placement are employed to derive the optimal feedback gain which can be calculated by solving a necessary and sufficient condition in the form of linear matrix inequality. A sliding mode control law is developed such that the sliding mode reaching law is satisfied. Simulation and comparison results show the effectiveness of the proposed design method.     

圆形封闭水箱非稳态数值模拟

采用数值方法对圆形封闭水箱内放置两根加热管的二维流动传热进行了非稳态数值模拟,探讨了Ra数从104到107四种情况和封闭水箱的加热管不同摆放位置下的流动和换热;对流场和温度场进行了分析,讨论了不同情况下加热管平均努赛尔数(Nuavg)的变化情况。数值模拟结果表明,随着Ra数增大水箱内的流动表现出了很大变化,决定了传热是导热或者是对流;两个水平加热管在水箱存在最佳的放置距离,这样可以使自然对流情况下的换热达到最好。     

Surface and Subsurface Deformation of Wear-Resistant Steels Exposed to Impact Wear

The impact wear resistance of four different wear-resistant steel grades was investigated using different impact bodies. Post-test evaluation of the impact tested samples was performed by different techniques including 3D surface profilometry, microhardness indentation, optical and scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The tribological response of the steel plates during the impact is strongly dependent on the properties of the impacting body. The subsurface deformation was found to increase with increasing impact energy and/or impact velocity and decreasing steel hardness. On a microscopic scale, a number of interesting mechanisms were revealed within the deformed impact sites. Besides an overall plastic deformation, localized deformation resulting in narrow adiabatic shear bands with an ultra-fine microstructure was observed. Within these shear bands, showing intense shearing strain, nucleation of microvoids was frequently observed. Growth and linkage of these voids lead in crack formation along the shear bands and eventually flake-like wear fragments are detached when these cracks reach the surface.