Theoretical study and practical application of the capillary film solar distiller

In the south of Algeria, to supply sufficient fresh water for the population, desalination is necessary because water resources (underground and geothermal) are brackish.This paper presents the theoretical study and the results of experiments carried out with a capillary film multi-effect distiller installed in the south of Algeria (in a village near Touggourt, where the temperature of the groundwater is about 65°C at the source). The name of this device is DIFICAP ( stiller with a lm in illary motion).The aim of our study is to improve the efficiency of this distiller. The research and development of this desalination process is carried out under the following aspects: modelisation of heat and mass transfer, experimentation under direct solar radiation in South Algeria and technical development to aim to optimize the efficiency of this distiller.The theoretical and experimental results show that the efficiency of this distiller increases when the temperature of the brackish water, the intensity of the solar radiation and the number of stages increase.     

Intrinsic reaction rate and the effects of operating conditions in dimethyl ether synthesis from methanol dehydration

The kinetic behavior of a commercial γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst for the methanol to dimethyl ether (DME) dehydration reaction has been investigated using a differential fixed bed reactor at the pressure range 1–16 barg within a temperature range of 260–380 °C. The experimental runs were performed in a wide range of feed to water ratios. The experiments were designed by general full factorial design (GEFD) and a novel rate equation has been developed which exhibited the best fitting with our experimental data. Based on the analysis of variance (ANOVA), the following order of importance for operating conditions was obtained when the objective function is the yield of DME: Temperature >Water % in feed >Pressure. In addition, the optimum operating conditions for the maximum yield of DME, were found at T= 380°C, P=16 barg and zero wt% of water in the feed.     

Synthesis and characterization of rubbery highly fluorinated siloxane–imide segmented copolymers

The synthesis and characterization of a series of poly(siloxane–imide) block (or segmented) copolymers obtained by copolymerization of amine‐terminated polydimethylsiloxane with fluorinated aromatic compounds containing anhydride and amine functionality are reported. New fluorinated block copolymers have been synthesized to obtain organophilic polyimides potentially interesting for molecular membrane separations. The new aspects of this work relative to the literature are (1) a comparison of solution and solid‐state approaches in the imidization step to generate the target poly(siloxane–imide) copolymers and (2) exploration of new compositions involving fluorinated aromatic polymers derived from added diamine compounds. It is shown that the copolymer properties can be tailored from glassy to rubbery materials by varying the amount and the type of oligosiloxane used; the transition between glassy and rubbery properties is characterized at a siloxane content of 60 wt%. As a main result, it is shown that the solid‐state approach for inducing the cyclo‐imidization step is the more efficient one for synthesizing polymers with good mechanical properties, when the amount of siloxane block is increased in the copolymer series. Physical and chemical methods (thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, viscosity measurements) were used to characterize the copolymer properties obtained according to the two different synthesis routes. The obtained siloxane–imide copolymers are well soluble in a large variety of moderately polar solvents and exhibit very good thermal stability up to 400 °C. Hence the prepared copolyimides would seem to be promising candidates as organophilic membranes as well as gas permeation membranes. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Quantized based image watermarking in an independent domain

This paper presents a performance study for two well known quantized based watermarking schemes Scalar Costa Scheme (SCS), and Trellis Coded Quantization scheme (TCQ) in an independent domain. For our study, the independent domain is obtained by the combination of the cited schemes with Independent Component Analysis (ICA). The Independent Component Analysis is used while inserting and extracting the message. Thus a performance compromise improvement of the original SCS and TCQ schemes in terms of robustness, capacity, and security is shown. Then the obtained schemes performances are compared to the Spread Transform (ST) based scheme well known for its proven good robustness properties. Our results show that, using watermarking with side information in independent domain permits to improve the global SCS and TCQ schemes performances. For example, in the case of SCS, by studying the Bit Error Rate (BER) in function of the watermark to noise ratio (WNR), the robustness has been improved by 20 dB (1 decade) when WNR is equal to 0 dB. Moreover, the capacity study shows for the same WNR=0 dB, the amount of information to be transmitted without error for a given noise level of the proposed SCS combined with ICA scheme (SCS-ICA) is much higher than that of the existing schemes. Finally, the study of the probability density functions (PDF) of the original and marked signals has shown that the Cachin-security level of the TCQ in an independent domain scheme (TCQ-ICA) is the best one compared to the other known schemes.     

Determination of optimal cream formulation from long-term stability investigation using a surface response modelling

The aim of this work was to apply an experimental design to formulate a stable depilatory cream at ambient temperature. A preliminary study was performed to optimize the most accurate operating parameters, which are then used for the determination of the rheological properties. Long-term stability of the emulsion formulations was investigated to obtain the optimal region of each factor. An experimental design using response surface modelling was then applied and emulsion stability was estimated by introducing new characteristic parameters correlated with the experimental results. An optimal region characterized with high stability was found and further explored to verify the effectiveness and tolerance of depilation. As part of the optimized process, the main effects of the formulation ingredients were also investigated.     

Fucoxanthin,a Marine-Derived Carotenoid from Brown Seaweeds and Microalgae: A Promising Bioactive Compound for Cancer Therapy

Fucoxanthin is a well-known carotenoid of the xanthophyll family, mainly produced by marine organisms such as the macroalgae of the fucus genus or microalgae such as Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Fucoxanthin has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties but also several anticancer effects. Fucoxanthin induces cell growth arrest, apoptosis, and/or autophagy in several cancer cell lines as well as in animal models of cancer. Fucoxanthin treatment leads to the inhibition of metastasis-related migration, invasion, epithelial–mesenchymal transition, and angiogenesis. Fucoxanthin also affects the DNA repair pathways, which could be involved in the resistance phenotype of tumor cells. Moreover, combined treatments of fucoxanthin, or its metabolite fucoxanthinol, with usual anticancer treatments can support conventional therapeutic strategies by reducing drug resistance. This review focuses on the current knowledge of fucoxanthin with its potential anticancer properties, showing that fucoxanthin could be a promising compound for cancer therapy by acting on most of the classical hallmarks of tumor cells.     

EEG rhythm/channel selection for fuzzy rule-based alertness state characterization

The aim of the paper is to automatically select the optimal EEG rhythm/channel combinations capable of classifying human alertness states. Four alertness states were considered, namely ‘engaged’, ‘calm’, ‘drowsy’ and ‘asleep’. The features used in the automatic selection are the energies associated with the conventional rhythms, \(\delta , \theta , \alpha , \beta\) and \(\gamma\), extracted from overlapping windows of the different EEG channels. The selection process consists of two stages. In the first stage, the optimal brain regions, represented by sets of EEG channels, are selected using a simple search technique based on support vector machine (SVM), extreme learning machine (ELM) and LDA classifiers. In the second stage, a fuzzy rule-based alertness classification system (FRBACS) is used to identify, from the previously selected EEG channels, the optimal features and their supports. The IF–THEN rules used in FRBACS are constructed using a novel differential evolution-based search algorithm particularly designed for this task. Each alertness state is represented by a set of IF–THEN rules whose antecedent parts contain EEG rhythm/channel combination. The selected spatio-frequency features were found to be good indicators of the different alertness states, as judged by the classification performance of the FRBACS that was found to be comparable to those of the SVM, ELM and LDA classifiers. Moreover, the proposed classification system has the advantage of revealing simple and easy to interpret decision rules associated with each of the alertness states.

     

New efficient copper fluoride-based catalyst for enantioselective hydrosilylation of ketones in aerobic conditions

A new copper(II) fluoride–chiral diphosphines catalytic system was developed. This one is very efficient and selective for the hydrosilylation of several substituted or unsubstituted aromatic ketones in so far as moderate to excellent enantioselectivities were obtained. An oxygen acceleration effect was observed that led us to propose a practical protocol with a low amount of catalyst.     

Thermomechanical Coupling Analysis of a Disc Brake Rotor

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the thermomechanical behavior of the dry contact between the brake disc and pads during the braking phase. The simulation strategy is based on computer code ANSYS11. The modeling of transient temperature in the disc is actually used to identify the factor of geometric design of the disc to install the ventilation system in vehicles. The thermal-structural analysis is then used to determine the deformation established, the von Mises stresses in the disc, and the contact pressure distribution in pads. The results are satisfactorily compared with those found in the literature.