Antimicrobial activity and safety of use of Enterococcus faecium PC4.1 isolated from Mongol yogurt

Screening of lactic acid bacteria strains isolated from Mongolian yogurt (Tarag) led to the isolation of Enterococcus faecium PC4.1 with a bacteriocin-like activity against Listeria genus and fungi. The antimicrobial substances in cell free supernatant were sensitive to proteolytic enzymes, while neither acidic conditions nor high temperature affected their activities. These antimicrobial substances were active after storage at 4 °C, ?20 °C and ?80 °C for over one month. The mode of action was determined as bactericidal. In the aim of further use of E. faecium PC4.1 as a biopreservative, the isolate was tested for resistance against antibiotics and for harboring virulence determinants. E. faecium PC4.1 was characterized as free from virulence factors, has low resistance to gentamicin and ampicillin but is susceptible to vancomycin.     

On the Security of Relay Assisted Cognitive Radio Networks in the Presence of Primary Transceiver Network

Wireless Personal Communications - In this paper, the benefit of distinguishable diversity order within a co-operative relay system is exploited to overcome the problem of secure communication in...     

Hybrid Sine Cosine and Stochastic Fractal Search for Hemoglobin Estimation

The sample's hemoglobin and glucose levels can be determined by obtaining a blood sample from the human body using a needle and analyzing it. Hemoglobin (HGB) is a critical component of the human body because it transports oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues and returns carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. Calculating the HGB level is a critical step in any blood analysis job. The HGB levels often indicate whether a person is anemic or polycythemia vera. Constructing ensemble models by combining two or more base machine learning (ML) models can help create a more improved model. The purpose of this work is to present a weighted average ensemble model for predicting hemoglobin levels. An optimization method is utilized to get the ensemble's optimum weights. The optimum weight for this work is determined using a sine cosine algorithm based on stochastic fractal search (SCSFS). The proposed SCSFS ensemble is compared to Decision Tree, Multilayer perceptron (MLP), Support Vector Regression (SVR) and Random Forest Regressors as model-based approaches and the average ensemble model. The SCSFS results indicate that the proposed model outperforms existing models and provides an almost accurate hemoglobin estimate.     

Separation of ~(152+154)Eu,~(90)Sr from radioactive waste effluent using liquid–liquid extraction by polyglycerol phthalate

A new polyglycerol phthalate extractant was prepared and characterized using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance(~1H NMR) spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. A preliminary study of the extraction of long-lived(~(90) Sr and ~(152+154)Eu) and short-lived(~(90) Y) radionuclides by polyglycerol phthalate was performed. The influence of different diluents, concentration of the acid, type of acid, and various interfering ions was explored. The stripping of ~(152+154)Eu radionuclide was studied by using different acid solutions, and it was found that sulfuric acid was the ideal acid for this purpose. Furthermore,~(152+154)Eu was extracted from the fission products(~(90) Sr) and the extraction% of~(90) Sr was found to improve in the presence of interfering ions.     

Interlaminar shear stress distribution between nested layers of plain weave composites

During the manufacture of woven fabric composites, fabric layup and lateral compression may cause fabric layers to nest with each other and compact altering the mechanical behavior of the composite. In this work, nesting and layer compaction were geometrically defined and their mechanistic impact on the interlaminar shear distribution was analyzed. Neighboring layers of plain weaves were geometrically modeled to nest with one another via a relative in‐plane horizontal translation, an out‐of‐plane vertical translation, forcing them into valleys of neighboring layers, and vertical compaction. The normal stress distribution within each layer was mapped and used to obtain the interlaminar shear stress distribution between layers utilizing a strain energy density approach. Four‐point flexural tests were carried out and the average value of the normal stress in different layers at failure was used to evaluate the interlaminar shear strength. It was found that nesting reduces the interlaminar shear stress between layers, while compaction of nested layers reduces the variation in the stress distribution within the layer itself. Failure occurs when the interlaminar shear stress exceeds the shear strength of the matrix material between the layers. POLYM. COMPOS., 31:1838–1845, 2010. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers     

From value stream mapping toward a lean/sigma continuous improvement process: an industrial case study

Though lean manufacturing has been widely recognised for its effectiveness in continuously improving productivity, product quality, and on-time delivery to customers, the cost for hiring a full-time lean manufacturing engineer has kept many small businesses from implementing lean in their facilities. This paper presents a case study of lean implementation at a small manufacturer in the United States. Starting with collecting process information, a current value-stream map was created that reflected the current operation status. A future value stream map was then proposed to serve as a guide for future lean activities. Next, hurdles that kept the company from moving towards future state were identified. The ‘5 whys’ method was employed to reveal the root cause for each hurdle, followed by kaizen events proposed as solutions. In this case study, two kaizen events were proposed. For the first kaizen event, Taguchi experiment design was used to find the optimal machining parameters that reduced variation in a plasma cutting process. It consequently eliminated rework time and improved productivity. In the second kaizen event, implementation of rabbit chasing increased the system flexibility and consequently reduced inventory levels between work stations.     

Autonomous Schemes for Inter-cell Interference Coordination in the Downlink of LTE Systems

Inter-cell interference (ICI) is one of the key challenges that limit the performance of Long Term Evolution and Long Term Evolution Advanced cellular systems. One approach to deal with ICI is through interference avoidance. Unlike static avoidance techniques where a-priori frequency planning and/or explicit inter-cell coordination is used, dynamic avoidance techniques rely on adapting its frequency planning and allocation based on the current state of the network. However, this improvement in performance comes with the cost of an increased complexity due to the coordination and alignments needed among the base stations (eNB) to manage and allocate channels among the users. Accordingly, autonomous ICI coordination techniques are receiving much interest among the various interference avoidance techniques. In this paper, we propose an autonomous self-adaptive scheme (SA, for short) for radio resource management and interference coordination. We then extend the proposed scheme to become self-adaptive power-aware (SAPA) in order to optimize and reduce the transmission power of the eNBs. A key feature in the proposed schemes is that all computations are independent of the number of users and cells in the network. This allows the proposed schemes to adapt to networks of any size and with an arbitrary number of users. Extensive simulation confirms that the proposed SA scheme ensures efficient frequency reuse patterns that lead to significant performance improvements in the throughput of the edge users without affecting other users. Moreover, the SAPA scheme achieves significant improvement in the power efficiency, while maintaining the throughput enhancements achieved by the SA scheme for both center and edge users.