Highly sensitive nanoplatform based on green gold sononanoparticles for phenol determination in olive oil

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - Here, we describe a novel, fast, simple and green method for synthesis of gold sononanoparticles (AuSNPs) employing three different parts of Geranium...     

Angular Distribution of Argon Ions and X-Ray Emissions in the Apf Plasma Focus Device

Angular distribution of ion beam emission from an argon gas-filled plasma focus devices has been investigated using an array of five Faraday cups. The argon ion beam emission is found to be highly pressure-dependent and reaches its maximum at the pressure of 1 torr. The ions flux decreased as the working pressure increased; the maximum ion density at 1 torr was estimated to be around 9.24 × 10²⁴ ions/steradian. Also, the study on the angular distribution of X-rays has been carried out using TLD-100 dosimeters. The intensity of ions reduced significantly at angles higher than ±11° but the X-ray distribution was bimodal, peaked approximately at ±15°.     

Temperature Effects on Concentration Polarization Thickness in Thin‐Film Composite Reverse Osmosis Membranes

Continuous research and development of reverse osmosis (RO) technologies has led to the production of membranes that are very effective with high salt rejection abilities. As temperature is one of the factors that affects salt rejection capabilities in membranes, this paper investigates the effect of temperature on the thickness of the concentration polarization layer (CPL) deposited on thin‐film composite seawater RO membranes. Two types of membranes were studied: those with ex situ macromolecules and those with in situ macromolecules. FilmTec's reverse osmosis system analysis design software was used to predict the variation of salt rejection and permeate flow rate with temperature. The impact of these variations on the thickness of the CPL was analyzed for different polyamide concentrations in the membrane.     

Properties of Rapidly-Grown rtr silicon sheet and their effects on solar cell processing

Silicon sheet grown by the Ribbon-to-Ribbon (RTR) crystal growth method exhibits characteristics that are unusual relative to solar cell processing on conventional silicon wafers. One such characteristic is the low (5-15 ym) minority carrier diffusion length observed in as-grown ribbons. This value is increased to as high as 100 ym due to a two step getter ing effect that results from the normal process sequence used for solar cell fabrication. A second characteristic reported here is a dense macroscopic dendritic structure which occurs at the higher growth rates. This presents a very irregular, non-planar surface onto which solar cells can be fabricated. The characteristics of solar cells made on dendritic ribbon are similar to those made on ribbons that do not contain dendrites.     

The ANFIS-PSO strategy as a novel method to predict interfacial tension of hydrocarbons and brine

The interfacial tension of hydrocarbons and brine is known as one of the important parameters which are measured in petroleum and petrochemical industries for example the interfacial tension has straight effect on trapping of oil in a reservoir. In the present work the Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) algorithm was used as a novel approach for estimation of interfacial tension between hydrocarbons and brine as function of pressure, temperature, carbon number of hydrocarbon and ionic strength of brine then the particle swarm optimization (PSO) was used to optimize the predicting model parameters.in order to better evaluation of performance of predicting algorithm the coefficient of determination (R²), average absolute relative deviation (AARD) and root mean squared error (RMSE) were estimated for different steps. The outcomes of this investigation expressed that proposed model has high potential for prediction of interfacial tension between hydrocarbons and brine.     

PCR detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lacking IS 6110

Our objective was to determine the prevalence of sexual dysfunction among new heterosexual attendees at a central London genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinic. We carried out a cross-sectional study in which patients completed a self-administered questionnaire-the Golombok-Rust Inventory of Sexual Satisfaction (GRISS) and participated in a brief interview during which additional information was sought regarding the patient's sexual history. An overall transformed score of >5 on the GRISS was defined as indicative of overall sexual dysfunction and a score of >5 on any of the subscales as indicative of a specific sexual dysfunction. Twenty-five (24%) men and 10 (9%) women had a GRISS score in keeping with overall sexual dysfunction, the prevalence being significantly lower in women (P=0.01, chi2=6.56, 1df). Sixty-three men (59%) and 63 (60%) women produced scores indicative of significant abnormality on at least one subscale, including, in men: erectile dysfunction 20 (19%), premature ejaculation 23 (22%), and in women: vaginismus 26 (25%) and anorgasmia 23 (22%). Neither an abnormal overall or subscale score on the GRISS was associated with a current STD on KC60 diagnosis or a history of sexual assault for either men or women. There is a substantial prevalence of sexual dysfunction in new heterosexual attendees at our clinic, the service implications of which need to be addressed.     

Reverse engineering relational databases to identify and specify basic Web services with respect to service oriented computing

Service-oriented computing (SOC) is the computing paradigm that utilizes services as a fundamental building block. Services are self-describing, open components intended to support composition of distributed applications. Currently, Web services provide a standard-based realization of SOC due to: (1) the machine-readable format (XML) of their functional and nonfunctional specifications, and (2) their messaging protocols built on top of the Internet. However, how to methodologically identify, specify, design, deploy and manage a sound and complete set of Web services to move to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) is still an issue. This paper describes a process for reverse engineering relational database applications architecture into SOA architecture, where SQL statements are insulated from the applications, factored, implemented, and registered as Web services to be discovered, selected, and reused in composing e-business solutions. The process is based on two types of design patterns: schema transformation pattern and CRUD operations pattern. First, the schema transformation pattern allows an identification of the services. Then the CRUD operations pattern allows a specification of the abstract part of the identified services, namely their port types. This process is implemented as a CASE tool, which assists analysts specifying services that implement common, reusable, basic business logic and data manipulation.

Analysis of TerraSAR-X data sensitivity to bare soil moisture, roughness, composition and soil crust

Soils play a key role in shaping the environment and in risk assessment. We characterized the soils of bare agricultural plots using TerraSAR-X (9.5 GHz) data acquired in 2009 and 2010. We analyzed the behavior of the TerraSAR-X signal for two configurations, HH-25° and HH-50°, with regard to several soil conditions: moisture content, surface roughness, soil composition and soil-surface structure (slaking crust).The TerraSAR-X signal was more sensitive to soil moisture at a low (25°) incidence angle than at a high incidence angle (50°). For high soil moisture (> 25%), the TerraSAR-X signal was more sensitive to soil roughness at a high incidence angle (50°) than at a low incidence angle (25°).The high spatial resolution of the TerraSAR-X data (1 m) enabled the soil composition and slaking crust to be analyzed at the within-plot scale based on the radar signal. The two loamy-soil categories that composed our training plots did not differ sufficiently in their percentages of sand and clay to be discriminated by the X-band radar signal.However, the spatial distribution of slaking crust could be detected when soil moisture variation is observed between soil crusted and soil without crust. Indeed, areas covered by slaking crust could have greater soil moisture and consequently a greater backscattering signal than soils without crust.     

Potential of SAR sensors TerraSAR-X, ASAR/ENVISAT and PALSAR/ALOS for monitoring sugarcane crops on Reunion Island

Multi-temporal TerraSAR-X, ASAR/ENVISAT and PALSAR SAR data acquired at various incidence angles and polarizations were analyzed to study the potential of these new spaceborne SAR systems for monitoring sugarcane crops. The sensitivity of different radar parameters (wavelength, incidence angles, and polarization) to sugarcane growth stages was analyzed to determine the most suitable radar configuration for better characterisation of sugarcane fields and in particular the monitoring of sugarcane harvest.Correlation between backscattered signals and crop height was also carried out. Radar signal increased quickly with sugarcane height until a threshold height, which depended on radar wavelength and incidence angle. Beyond this threshold, the signal increased only slightly, remained constant, or even decreased. The threshold height is higher with longer wavelengths (L-band in comparison with C- and X-bands) and higher incidence angles (~ 40° in comparison with ~ 20°).The radar backscattering coefficients (σ°) were also compared to the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from SPOT-4/5 images. Results showed a high correlation between the behaviors of σ° and NDVI as a function of sugarcane crop parameters. A decrease in NDVI for fully mature sugarcane fields due to drying of the sugarcane (water stress) was also observed in the radar signal. This decrease in radar signal was of the same order as the decrease in radar signal after the sugarcane harvest. In general, it is more suitable to monitor the sugarcane harvest using high incidence angles regardless of the radar wavelength. SAR data in L- and C-bands showed an ambiguity between the signals of ploughed fields and those of fields in vegetation because of the high sensitivity of the radar signal at these wavelengths to surface roughness of bare soils. Indeed, sometimes the radar signal of ploughed fields was of the same order as that of harvested or mature sugarcane fields. Results showed better discrimination between ploughed fields and sugarcane fields in vegetation (sugarcane canopy) when using TerraSAR-X data (X-band).Concerning the influence of radar polarization, results showed that the co-polarizations channels (HH and VV) were well correlated, but had slightly less potential than cross-polarization channels (HV and VH) for the detection of the sugarcane harvest. Finally, SAR data at high spatial resolution were shown to be useful and necessary for better analysis of SAR images when the fields were of small size.     

Analysis of TerraSAR-X data and their sensitivity to soil surface parameters over bare agricultural fields

The sensitivity of TerraSAR-X radar signals to surface soil parameters has been examined over agricultural fields, using HH polarization and various incidence angles (26°, 28°, 50°, 52°). The results show that the radar signal is slightly more sensitive to surface roughness at high incidence (50°–52°) than at low incidence (26°–28°). The difference observed in the X-band, between radar signals reflected by the roughest and smoothest areas, reaches a maximum of the order of 5.5 dB at 50°–52°, and 4 dB at 26°–28°. This sensitivity increases in the L-band with PALSAR/ALOS data, for which the dynamics of the return radar signal as a function of soil roughness reach 8 dB at HH38°. In the C-band, ASAR/ENVISAT data (HH and VV polarizations at an incidence angle of 23°) are characterised by a difference of about 4 dB between the signals backscattered by smooth and rough areas.Our results also show that the sensitivity of TerraSAR-X signal to surface roughness decreases in very wet and frozen soil conditions. Moreover, the difference in backscattered signal between smooth and rough fields is greater at high incidence angles. The low-to-high incidence signal ratio (Δσ° = σ_26°–28°/σ_50°–52°) decreases with surface roughness, and has a dynamic range, as a function of surface roughness, smaller than that of the backscattering coefficients at low and high incidences alone. Under very wet soil conditions (for soil moistures between 32% and 41%), the radar signal decreases by about 4 dB. This decrease appears to be independent of incidence angle, and the ratio Δσ° is found to be independent of soil moisture.