Preparation of Protein-Stabilized β-Carotene Nanodispersions by Emulsification–Evaporation Method

This work was initiated to prepare protein-stabilized β-carotene nanodispersions using emulsification–evaporation. A pre-mix of the aqueous phase composed of a protein and hexane containing β-carotene was subjected to high-pressure homogenization using a microfluidizer. Hexane in the resulting emulsion was evaporated under reduced pressures, causing crystallization and precipitation of β-carotene inside the droplets and formation of β-carotene nanoparticles. Sodium caseinate (SC) was the most effective emulsifier among selected proteins in preparing the nanodispersion, with a monomodal β-carotene particle-size distribution and a 17-nm mean particle size. The results were confirmed by transmission-electron microscopy analysis. SC-stabilized nanodispersion also had considerably high ζ-potential (−27 mV at pH 7), suggesting that the nanodispersion was stable against particle aggregation. Increasing the SC concentration decreased the mean particle size and improved the polydispersity of the nanodispersions. Nanodispersions prepared with higher β-carotene concentrations and higher organic-phase ratios resulted in larger β-carotene particles. Although increased microfluidization pressure did not decrease particle size, it did improve the polydispersity of the nanodispersions. Repeating the microfluidization process at 140 MPa caused the nanodispersions to become polydisperse, indicating the loss of emulsifying capacity of SC due to protein denaturation.     

Informational Entropy: a Failure Tolerance and Reliability Surrogate for Water Distribution Networks

Evolutionary algorithms are used widely in optimization studies on water distribution networks. The optimization algorithms use simulation models that analyse the networks under various operating conditions. The solution process typically involves cost minimization along with reliability constraints that ensure reasonably satisfactory performance under abnormal operating conditions also. Flow entropy has been employed previously as a surrogate reliability measure. While a body of work exists for a single operating condition under steady state conditions, the effectiveness of flow entropy for systems with multiple operating conditions has received very little attention. This paper describes a multi-objective genetic algorithm that maximizes the flow entropy under multiple operating conditions for any given network. The new methodology proposed is consistent with the maximum entropy formalism that requires active consideration of all the relevant information. Furthermore, an alternative but equivalent flow entropy model that emphasizes the relative uniformity of the nodal demands is described. The flow entropy of water distribution networks under multiple operating conditions is discussed with reference to the joint entropy of multiple probability spaces, which provides the theoretical foundation for the optimization methodology proposed. Besides the rationale, results are included that show that the most robust or failure-tolerant solutions are achieved by maximizing the sum of the entropies.     

Use of cascade reduction potential for selective precipitation of Au,Cu, and Pb in hydrochloric acid solution

Optimization of reduction potential for electroseparation was studied for the recovery of gold, copper, and lead from acidic solution. A linear sweep voltammetric method enabled us to determine characteristic reduction potentials for each metal and the kinetics of the metal deposition indicated by current-voltage curves. In order to precipitate the metal species sequentially, reduction potentials were examined for the individual and mixed solutions of Au(III), Cu(II), and Pb(II). The three metals were reasonably well isolated from the mixed solutions such as Cu(II)/ Pb(II) and Au(III)/Cu(II)/Pb(II) in the order of the corresponding reduction potentials, in particular, the mass transfer controlled reduction potentials, obtained from linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) measurement.     

含CO2气体混合物在60℃时的混合性质

测定了６０℃和２－６００ｂａｒ时由ＣＯ２和Ｈｅ、Ａｒ、ＳＦ６以及ＣＨＦ３组成的等分子二元混合物的压缩因子，根据纯物质和混合物的压缩因子计算了压力混合效应和过剩体积。对于真实气体混合性质的描述，本文采用五参数的ＢＡＣＫ方程，方程计算值与实验值符合较好。     

Relative image similarity learning with contextual information for Internet cross-media retrieval

With the fast explosive rate of the amount of image data on the Internet, how to efficiently utilize them in the cross-media scenario becomes an urgent problem. Images are usually accompanied with contextual textual information. These two heterogeneous modalities are mutually reinforcing to make the Internet content more informative. In most cases, visual information can be regarded as an enhanced content of the textual document. To make image-to-image similarity being more consistent with document-to-document similarity, this paper proposes a method to learn image similarities according to the relations of the accompanied textual documents. More specifically, instead of using the static quantitative relations, rank-based learning procedure by employing structural SVM is adopted in this paper, and the ranking structure is established by comparing the relative relations of textual information. The learning results are in more accordance with the human’s recognition. The proposed method in this paper can be used not only for the image-to-image retrieval, but also for cross-modality multimedia, where a query expansion framework is proposed to get more satisfactory results. Extensive experimental evaluations on large scale Internet dataset validate the performance of the proposed methods.     

降维方法监督分类的比较研究

对ISOMap、LDA、LLE、PCA这4种典型降维算法的主要思想和算法步骤进行了详细分析,并将它们用于有监督分类。从实验结果分析得到结论 ,其可为有监督分类提供有益的借鉴。     

Preparation and Photoluminescence of Partially Filled ZnO Microtubes Using Block Copolymers

Partially filled ZnO microtubes were synthesized in large scale using block copolymers. The growth mechanism of this unique construction is proposed on the basis of adsorption of block copolymers on {0002} plane of wurtzite ZnO. The photoluminescence property of these unique ZnO microtubes is also studied using a Xe lamp as the excitation source at room temperature. Blue emission band at 425 nm is a much stronger ultraviolet emission band, which is due to laminar structure of ZnO microtubes.     

炭黑填充硬聚氯乙烯的改性

为使聚氯乙烯具有抗静电性能,采用加入具有导电性填料的方法,但加入大量的填料,会使硬聚氯乙烯的冲击性能降低,加工性能变差。本文是在以炭黑为填料的基础上,研究不同的改性剂和加工助剂改进硬聚氯乙烯的效果,结果表明,加入冲击改性剂和加工助剂后,大大增加了硬聚氯乙烯的冲击强度,且加工性能也得到改善,同时由于炭黑具有补强效果,其拉伸强度和弯曲强度在加入改性剂后也能满足使用要求。     

Kinetics for benzoylation of sodium 4-acetylphenoxide via third-liquid phase in the phase-transfer catalysis

In this research, the kinetics for synthesizing 4-acetylphenyl benzoate (R^*COOR) from benzoylation of sodium 4-acetylphenoxide via third-liquid phase-transfer catalysis was investigated. The reaction rate was observed to be strongly dependent on agitation speeds in the third-phase catalytic reaction. By forming the third-liquid phase, the observed reaction can be greatly enhanced to give a product yield of 100% in a duration of 3 min at 20 °C and 200 rpm. If a third-liquid phase was not formed in the liquid–liquid system, the reaction rate is very slow and the product yield is only 2% in 3 min at 20 °C. The reaction conducted in third-liquid phase-transfer catalytic system is faster than that in LLPTC system by 25–28 times. The amount of catalytic intermediate (QOR) in the third-liquid phase was about 50% of the catalyst initially added and kept about 30% of it remained after 1 min, and only small amounts of a catalytic intermediate residing in the organic phase were observed during the reaction using methyl t-butyl ether as the solvent. The concentration of catalytic intermediate slightly decreased with increasing reaction time, while the molar ratio of QOR to benzyl tri-n-butylammonium cation in the third-liquid phase remained almost constant after 1 min and increased with increasing agitation speeds. The experimental results were well described by the pseudo-first-order kinetics. The present work shows an effective method to synthesize 4-acetylphenyl benzoate.