PHASE EQUILIBRIUM FOR TERNARY LIQUID SYSTEMS OF WATER CARBOXYLIC ACID CHLORINATED HYDROCARBON: THERMODYNAMIC MODELING THROUGH SERLAS

Liquid-liquid equilibrium data of the solubility (binodal) curves and tie-line end compositions are presented for mixtures of [water (1) + formic acid, or acetic acid, or propanoic acid (2) + chlorobenzene, or 1,2-dichloroethane (3)] at T = 293.2 K and P = 101.3 ± 0.7 kPa. A log-basis approach, SERLAS (solvation energy relation for liquid-associated system), has been proposed to estimate the properties and liquid-liquid equilibrium (LLE) of associated systems containing proton-donating and -accepting and polar components capable of a physical interaction through hydrogen bonding or dipole-dipole interaction. The tie lines were also correlated using the UNIFAC-original model. The reliability of the models has been analyzed against the LLE data with respect to the distribution coefficient and separation factor. The proposed model appears to be an improvement in data fit for the ternary systems, yielding a mean relative error of 10.1% for all the systems considered.     

An on-chip cell culturing and combinatorial drug screening system

A low-cost, convenient and precise drug combination screening microfluidic platform is developed, in which cell culture chambers designed with micropillars integrate with three laminar flow diffusion channels. This platform has several distinct features, including minimum shear stress on cells, biocompatibility, optimum concentration distribution and automatic combinatorial gradient generation, which can potentially speed up the discovery of an effective drug combination for cancer ablations. The presented device can generate two-drug combination gradients at the optimum flow rate of 90 μL/h and can be applied to identify the optimal combination of two clinically relevant chemotherapy drugs. For demonstration, paclitaxel at 0.77 × 10^?3 mg/mL and cisplatin at 0.23 × 10^?4 mg/mL were studied against lung cancer cells (A549). This microfluidic device has the potential to provide a precise and robust screening for anticancer combinational drugs practiced in clinics.     

Converting numerical classification into text classification

Consider a supervised learning problem in which examples contain both numerical- and text-valued features. To use traditional feature-vector-based learning methods, one could treat the presence or absence of a word as a Boolean feature and use these binary-valued features together with the numerical features. However, the use of a text-classification system on this is a bit more problematic—in the most straight-forward approach each number would be considered a distinct token and treated as a word. This paper presents an alternative approach for the use of text classification methods for supervised learning problems with numerical-valued features in which the numerical features are converted into bag-of-words features, thereby making them directly usable by text classification methods. We show that even on purely numerical-valued data the results of text classification on the derived text-like representation outperforms the more naive numbers-as-tokens representation and, more importantly, is competitive with mature numerical classification methods such as C4.5, Ripper, and SVM. We further show that on mixed-mode data adding numerical features using our approach can improve performance over not adding those features.     

Determination of the energy savings and the optimum insulation thickness in the four different insulated exterior walls

The optimum insulation thickness of the external wall for four cities from four climate zones of Turkey, energy savings over a lifetime of 10 years and payback periods are calculated for the five different energy types and four different insulation materials applied externally on walls. Extruded polystyrene, expanded polystyrene, nil siding and rock wool as wall insulation material are selected. In this study, the net energy cost savings are calculated using the P₁–P₂ method. The results show that energy cost savings vary between 4.2 $/m² and 9.5 $/m² depending on the city and insulation materials. The highest payback period value with 2.25 years in Mersin found by using natural gas as an energy source for heating, while the lowest value is reached by using LPG as an energy source in Bitlis.     

Super porous α-, β-, γ-cyclodextrin cryogels with high active agent loading and controllable release profiles

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are truncated cone-like structures that are natural cyclic oligosaccharides. Here, a simple preparation method for super porous poly(α-CD), poly(β-CD), and poly(γ-CD) cryogels crosslinking with divinyl sulfone at 150%, 100% and 125% mole ratios with respect to the α-CD, β-CD, and γ-CD molecules, respectively, under cryogenic conditions, is reported. The interconnected homogeneous pore distribution of CD-based cryogels with pore sizes in the range of 5–100 μm is confirmed by SEM analysis. The CD-based cryogels weighing 10 mg are determined as hemocompatible with <1% hemolysis ratios and >79% blood clotting indexes; whereas the same materials weighing 1 mg are biocompatible with >75% cell viability on L929 fibroblasts. Additionally, active agent adsorption/delivery efficiencies of CD-based cryogels utilizing two active agents, Bisphenol A (BPA, a carcinogenic compound) and Curcumin (CUR, a polyphenolic compound), are individually evaluated. It was revealed that p(γ-CD) cryogels exhibited the highest active agent loading capacity for BPA, 87 ± 13 mg/g, whereas p(α-CD) cryogels showed the highest loading capacity for CUR, 136 ± 4 mg/g. Moreover, the active agent release from p(α-CD), p(β-CD), and p(γ-CD) cryogel networks at pH 7.4 and 37°C were determined as 40.6 ± 2, 35.3 ± 2, and 34 ± 1 mg/g for BPA, and 1.07 ± 0.2, 1.27 ± 0.1, and 1.37 ± 0.1 mg/g for CUR, respectively, within 96 h.     

A low power scheduling scheme with resources operating at multiplevoltages

This paper presents resource and latency constrained scheduling algorithms to minimize power/energy consumption when the resources operate at multiple voltages (5 V, 3.3 V, 2.4 V, and 1.5 V). The proposed algorithms are based on efficient distribution of slack among the nodes in the data-flow graph. The distribution procedure tries to implement the minimum energy relation derived using the Lagrange multiplier method in an iterative fashion. Two algorithms are proposed, 1) a low complexity O(n²) algorithm and 2) a high complexity O(n² log(L)) algorithm, where n is the number of nodes and L is the latency. Experiments with some HLS benchmark examples show that the proposed algorithms achieve significant power/energy reduction. For instance, when the latency constraint is 1.5 times the critical path delay, the average reduction is 39%     

Determination of Quality Level in Mass Housing Projects in Turkey

In Turkey, achievement of acceptable levels of quality in the construction sector has long been a problem. Great expenditures of time, money, and resources are wasted each year due to inefficient or nonexistent quality levels prevailing in the industry. The situation is even worse in the case of mass housing projects addressing to low and middle income groups. It is the purpose of this paper to identify the type of deviations resulting in rework in mass housing projects, since construction firms can only increase their profit margins by paying more attention to the deviation types. More importantly, firms can improve their images in the sector and thus, can take new projects. To achieve the objective mentioned above, data have been derived from 400 cases by means of a questionnaire containing 108 questions, and results of this survey were evaluated by several statistical techniques. It is concluded that households are not completely satisfied from the quality of products and/or services delivered within their housing units. In future studies, the causes and costs of the rework should be researched for better understanding the results together with the remedial measures being implemented.     

Field performance measurements of a heat pump desiccant unit in dehumidification mode

The variable refrigerant volume (VRV) air conditioning system needs to be operated in conjunction with a ventilation system, because the VRV system cannot provide any fresh air. The common ventilation unit used with the VRV system is the heat recovery ventilation (HRV) unit. In this study, a new ventilation unit, a self-regenerating heat pump desiccant (HPD) unit, was introduced and the characteristics of the HPD unit was experimentally investigated over a wide range of operating conditions in a field performance test. In addition, the energy saving contribution of the HPD and HRV units to the VRV system was compared. It was found that the HPD unit maintained the target indoor humidity ratio of 10 g/kg throughout the cooling season resulting in a better indoor thermal comfort than the HRV unit. Besides, it was found that the outdoor unit of the VRV system consumed 26.3% less energy for the operation in conjunction with the HPD unit as compared to the operation in conjunction with the HRV unit.     

Biological and chemical removal of Cr(VI) from waste water: cost and benefit analysis

The objective of the present study is cost and benefit analysis of biological and chemical removal of hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] ions. Cost and benefit analysis were done with refer to two separate studies on removal of Cr(VI), one of heavy metals with a crucial role concerning increase in environmental pollution and disturbance of ecological balance, through biological adsorption and chemical ion-exchange. Methods of biological and chemical removal were compared with regard to their cost and percentage in chrome removal. According to the result of the comparison, cost per unit in chemical removal was calculated 0.24 euros and the ratio of chrome removal was 99.68%, whereas those of biological removal were 0.14 and 59.3% euros. Therefore, it was seen that cost per unit in chemical removal and chrome removal ratio were higher than those of biological removal method. In the current study where chrome removal is seen as immeasurable benefit in terms of human health and the environment, percentages of chrome removal were taken as measurable benefit and cost per unit of the chemicals as measurable cost.