Effect of monosodium glutamate on physicochemical properties and quality of Alkali‐treated Pacific white shrimp

Physicochemical properties and quality of Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) treated with alkaline soaking solution (ASS; 0.75% NaOH with 2.5% NaCl) containing 3% monosodium glutamate (MSG), pH 11.5 (ASS+3% MSG) were investigated, in comparison with those treated with mixed phosphates or ASS alone. Muscle proteins underwent conformational changes as evidenced by the shift of T_max to the lower temperature and the increased negative charge when treated with ASS+3% MSG. This coincided with the higher moisture and NaCl contents (P < 0.05). Such a treatment led to the pronounced swelling of muscle fibrils as visualised by scanning electron microscope. Highest likeness score for all attributes except for flavour was observed in sample treated with ASS+3% MSG. Slightly fishy odour in the treated sample was associated with higher abundance of volatile compounds, especially alcohol and aldehyde. Thus, ASS+3% MSG could be used as the replacer of phosphate and bicarbonate for shrimp processing.     

Numerical analysis of heat transfer and flow field around cross-flow heat exchanger tube with fouling

Fouling is one of the main problems of heat transfer which can be described as the accumulation on the heat exchanger tubes, i.e.; ash deposits on the heat exchanger unit of the boiler. A decrease in heat transfer rate by this deposition causes loss in system efficiency and leads to increasing in operating and maintenance costs. This problem concerns with the coupling among conduction heat transfer mode between solid of different types, conjugate heat transfer at the interface of solid and fluid, and the conduction/convection heat transfer mode in the fluid which can not be solved analytically. In this paper, fouling effect on heat transfer around a cylinder in cross flow has been studied numerically by using conjugate heat transfer approach. Unlike other numerical techniques in existing literatures, an unstructured control volume finite element method (CVFEM) has been developed in this present work. The study deals with laminar flow where the Reynolds number is limited in the range that the flow field over the cylinder is laminar and steady. We concern the fouling shape as an eccentric annulus with constant thermal properties. The local heat transfer coefficient, temperature distribution and mean heat transfer coefficient along the fouling surface are given for concentric and eccentric cases. From the results, we have found that the heat transfer rate of cross-flow heat exchanger depends on the eccentricity and thermal conductivity ratio between the fouling material and fluid. The effect of eccentric is dominant in the region near the front stagnation point due to high temperature and velocity gradients. The mean Nusselt number varies in asymptotic fashion with the thermal conductivity ratio. Fluid Prandtl number has a prominent effect on the distribution of local Nusselt number and the temperature along the fouling surface.     

CuO nanoparticles/Indonesian cedarwood essential oil-loaded chitosan coating film: characterisation and antifungal improvement against Penicillium spp.

A novel formulation of composite coating comprising 0.8% chitosan (Chi) incorporating 0.025% CuO nanoparticles (CuO) and 0.5% Indonesian cedarwood essential oil (CEO) was fabricated by casting method. Fourier transform infrared, confocal laser scanning microscopy and scanning electron microscopy analyses were employed to characterise the biocompatibility of each formulation. Additionally, the physico-chemically properties of the composite coatings were characterised. The colour (L*), light transmission, zeta potential and roughness of Chi were significantly (P < 0.05) altered negatively by the presence of CuO or CEO; the colour (a*, b* and ∆E), apparent viscosity and transparency also changed positively as a consequence of CuO and CEO incorporation. The antifungal features of a pure Chi coating against Penicillium italicum and Penicillium digitatum were improved synergistically by CuO and CEO, confirmed by in vitro and in vivo assays. Composite coatings obtained in this work may have potential applications for active primary food packaging, particularly for fresh postharvest commodities.     

Development of a circulating system for a jet refrigeration cycle

This paper proposed a workless-generator-feeding (WGF) system for a jet refrigeration cycle, using R141b. This feeding system does not require any mechanical power. The liquid refrigerant from the condenser was fed to the vapour-generator by means of the generator pressure and gravitational force. The system was tested and compared with a conventional system using a mechanical pump. It was found that this system was workable. The heat input to the generator was slightly higher than that for a system using a mechanical pump. The jet refrigeration cycle employing this new feeding system provided a slightly lower coefficient of performance (COP) compared to a system using a mechanical pump. However, this new system did not require any mechanical energy. Therefore, the jet refrigeration system employing this WGF system is truly a heat-power refrigeration cycle.     

A stability assessment of solution adaptation techniques for analogy-based software effort estimation

Among numerous possible choices of effort estimation methods, analogy-based software effort estimation based on Case-based reasoning is one of the most adopted methods in both the industry and research communities. Solution adaptation is the final step of analogy-based estimation, employed to aggregate and adapt to solutions derived during the case-based reasoning process. Variants of solution adaptation techniques have been proposed in previous studies; however, the ranking of these techniques is not conclusive and shows conflicting results, since different studies rank these techniques in different ways. This paper aims to find a stable ranking of solution adaptation techniques for analogy-based estimation. Compared with the existing studies, we evaluate 8 commonly adopted solution techniques with more datasets (12), more feature selection techniques included (4), and more stable error measures (5) to a robust statistical test method based on the Brunner test. This comprehensive experimental procedure allows us to discover a stable ranking of the techniques applied, and to observe similar behaviors from techniques with similar adaptation mechanisms. In general, the linear adaptation techniques based on the functions of size and productivity (e.g., regression towards the mean technique) outperform the other techniques in a more robust experimental setting adopted in this study. Our empirical results show that project features with strong correlation to effort, such as software size or productivity, should be utilized in the solution adaptation step to achieve desirable performance. Designing a solution adaptation strategy in analogy-based software effort estimation requires careful consideration of those influential features to ensure its prediction is of relevant and accurate.