Contract-mediated interorganizational interactions

A mediation service for monitoring terms of service can facilitate collaboration in virtual organizations (VO) by ensuring secure, private access to service resources. The author envisions a VO requiring a mediation service for monitoring and enforcing terms and conditions as well as a QoS-monitoring service. One or more trusted third parties (TTPs) could provide these two services. Indeed, legal regulatory requirements might explicitly state that third parties must provide such services.     

Development of Novel Iron Crosslinked CMC Nanoadsorbents for the Remediation of Arsenic Ions

Iron crosslinked carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) nanoparticles prepared by the process of emulsion crosslinking were studied for the removal of arsenic(V) ions from aqueous solution. Batch and column studies were conducted in order to investigate the efficiency of nanoparticles towards arsenic remediation. The Langmuir and Freundlich equations were applied to describe the biosorption isotherm. The results obtained from fixed bed studies showed that the column demonstrates fairly well at lowest flow rate and also, bed exhaustion time was found to increase with increasing bed height. The bed depth service time (BDST) model was used to analyze the experimental data and the model parameters were evaluated. Antibacterial studies were also conducted which confirms that Fe-CMC nanoparticles are efficient towards the removal of bacteriological contamination also.     

Modeling Oxidation of Soot Particles Within a Laminar Aerosol Flow Reactor Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

This work examines the measurement of surface specific soot oxidation rates with the High Temperature Oxidation-Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer (HTO-TDMA) method. The Computational Fluid Dynamics package CFD-ACE⁺ is used to understand particle flow, oxidation and size dependent particle losses in the laminar aerosol flow reactor using an Eulerian-Lagrangian framework. Decrease of DMA selected mono-disperse particle size distribution due to oxidation within the aerosol tube is modeled using fitted kinetic soot oxidation parameters. The effects of Brownian diffusion and thermophoresis on particle flow and loss to the reactor walls are evaluated. The position of peak particle diameter, which is used as an indicator to determine oxidation rate, is found to be independent of diffusion, thermophoresis and secondary flow effects, thus validating its use in deriving kinetic soot oxidation parameters. Diffusion does not affect the evolution of particle size distribution within the reactor. However, thermophoresis is found to be the dominant mechanism influencing both shape of particle size distribution and particle loss to the walls of the aerosol reactor. Simulations show reduced effects of secondary recirculating flows on the particle flow trajectories in a vertical furnace as compared to horizontal furnace orientation. This work highlights the importance of making accurate measurements of temperature within the modeling domain. Since gas temperature within the flow tube could not be measured with high radial resolution using radiation shielded thermocouple, the derived soot oxidation rate may be uncertain by a factor of 2. Importantly, CFD simulations suggest that a distribution of temperature and size-dependent particle reactivities may be present in the reactor, requiring further theoretical and experimental investigation.     

A warm standby redundant system with correlated failures and repairs

This paper presents the analysis of a two-unit warm standby system assuming a bivariate exponential density for the joint distribution of failure and repair times of the units. Investigations regarding the stochastic behaviour and important reliability characteristics of the system have been made and earlier results have been verified as particular cases. A few graphs have also been provided to support the theoretical results.     

Load Balanced Congestion Adaptive Routing for Randomly Distributed Mobile Adhoc Networks

In mobile ad hoc networks, congestion occurs due to limited sources of the network, which leads to packet losses, bandwidth degradation and wastes time and energy on congestion recovery. Various techniques have been developed in attempt to minimize congestion in uniformly distributed networks. In this paper, a load balanced congestion adaptive routing algorithm has been proposed for randomly distributed networks. In the proposed algorithm two metrics: traffic load density and life time associated with a routing path, have been used to determine the congestion status and weakest node of the route. The route with low traffic load density and maximum life time is selected for packet transmission.     

Role of additives; sodium dodecyl sulphate and manganese chloride on morphology of Zn1−xMnxO nanoparticles and their photoluminescence properties

In the present study Zn_1−xMn_xO (x = 0, 0.05 and 0.1) nanoparticles (NPs) have been synthesised in aqueous solution phase at mild reaction temperature 100 °C in moderate alkaline medium (pH = 9.5), and the role of external additives; like sodium dodecyl sulphate and manganese chloride on the morphology and size of the products has been explored on the basis of transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectral analyses data. ZnO hexagonal nano-plates, core–shell like spherical/ellipsoidal Zn_0.95Mn_0.05O structures and thin sheets, thorn/needle mixed shaped Zn_0.9Mn_0.1O structures have been observed in TEM and SEM images. Zn(OH)₂ formed in moderate alkaline medium, converted to Zn(II) hydroxo complex ions on dissolution, which further recrystallizes to produce wurtzite ZnO at 100 °C. From XRD and EDX analysis, successful doping of Mn²⁺ ions at the Zn²⁺ sites in ZnO host has been proved. In the photoluminescence spectra, the observed blue shifts in NBE peaks and decrease of emissions intensity on Mn doping have thoroughly been discussed in the present investigation.     

Effects of cola drinks on the morphology and elastic modulus of dentin

The mechanical and morphological degradation that human dentin undergoes after prolonged exposure in cola drinks was examined using nanoindentation and AFM. The elastic modulus of the dentin prior cola exposure was 18.28 ± 1.7 GPa, while after exposure it had decreased to 4.25 ± 1.4 GPa on the surface that was in direct contact with the drink, and to 13.38 ± 2.9 GPa on the surface that was in indirect contact with the drink. AFM documented the corrosion effects of the cola through topography images and histograms of the RMS roughness.     

Biodegradation of isoproturon using a novel Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain JS-11 as a multi-functional bioinoculant of environmental significance

Biodegradation of phenylurea herbicide isoproturon was studied in soil microcosm bioaugmented with a novel bacterial strain JS-11 isolated from wheat rhizosphere. The molecular characterization based on 16SrDNA sequence homology confirmed its identity as Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain JS-11. The herbicide was completely degraded within 20 days at ambient temperature with the rate constant of 0.08 day(-1), following the first-order rate kinetics. In stationary phase, at a cell density of 6.5 × 10(9) CFU mL(-1), the bacteria produced substantially increased amounts of indole acetic acid (IAA) in the presence of tryptophan as compared with the control. Also, the bacteria exhibited a time-dependent increase in the amount of tri-calcium phosphate solubilization in Pikovskaya's medium. Further screening of the strain JS-11 for auxiliary activities revealed its remarkable capability of producing the siderophores and hydrogen cyanide (HCN), besides antifungal activity against a common phytopathogen Fusarium oxysporum. Thus, the versatile P. aeruginosa strain JS-11 with innate potential for multifarious biological activities is envisaged as a super-bioinoculant for exploitation in the integrated bioremediation, plant growth and disease management (IBPDM) in contaminated agricultural soils.