Rate of ammonia oxidation in a synthetic saline wastewater by a nitrifying mixed‐culture

Most of the kinetic studies on nitrification have been performed in diluted salts medium. In this work, the ammonia oxidation rate (AOR) was determined by respirometry at different ammonia (0.01 and 33.5 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), nitrite (0–450 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and nitrate (0 and 275 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1) concentrations in a saline medium at 30 °C and pH 7.5. Sodium azide was used to uncouple the ammonia and nitrite oxidation, so as to measure independently the AOR. It was determined that ammonia causes substrate inhibition and that nitrite and nitrate exhibit product inhibition upon the AOR. The effects of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were represented by the Andrews equation (maximal ammonia oxidation rate, r_AOMAX, = 43.2 [mg N‐NH₃ (g VSS_AO h)^?1]; half saturation constant, K_SAO, = 0.11 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1; inhibition constant K_IAO, = 7.65 mg N‐NH₃ L^?1), by the non‐competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INI, = 176 mg N‐NO₂^? L^?1) and by the partially competitive inhibition model (inhibition constant, K_INA, = 3.3 mg N‐NO₃^? L^?1; α factor = 0.24), respectively. The r_AOMAX value is smaller, and the K_SAO value larger, than the values reported in diluted salts medium; the K_IAO value is comparable to those reported. Process simulations with the kinetic model in batch nitrifying reactors showed that the inhibitory effects of nitrite and nitrate are significant for initial ammonia concentrations larger than 100 mg N‐NH₄⁺ L^?1. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Study of the morphology and mechanical properties of polypropylene composites with silica or rice‐husk

The mechanical, morphological behavior and water absorption characteristics of polypropylene (PP) and silica, or PP and rice‐husk, composites have been studied. The silica used in this study as filler was a commercial type produced from soluble glass or rice husks. The compatibilizing effect of PP grafted with monomethyl itaconate (PP‐g‐MMI) and/or with vinyltriethoxysilane (PP‐g‐VTES) as polar monomers on the mechanical properties and water absorption was also investigated. In general, a high loading of the studied fillers in the polymer matrix increases the stiffness and the water absorption capacity. This effect is more noticeable in the tensile modulus of the PP/silica composite with PP‐g‐VTES as compatibilizer. However, the increase of the rice‐husk charge as a natural filler in the PP matrix decreases the stiffness, and in the presence of PP‐g‐MMI as compatibilizer in PP/rice‐husk, the tensile modulus and water absorption of the composite were improved. The better adhesion and phase continuity in the PP/silica and PP/rice‐husk composites with different compatibilizers was confirmed by the morphological study. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Haemolytic activity of Aeromonas species isolated in Libya

Twenty seven Aeromonas strains (5A. hydrophila, 8A. sobria and 14A. caviae) isolated from children with diarrhoea and 34 Aeromonas strains (9A. hydrophila, 7A. sobria an 18A. caviae) isolated from children without diarrhoea were tested from haemolysin production. The results obtained showed that haemolysin production using human, horse or sheep erythrocytes was significantly associated with A.hydrophila and A sobria but not with A.caviae, regardless of whether these strains were isolated from children with or without diarrhoea. Human or horse rather than sheep erythrocytes are recommended for use in the haemolysin assay.     

Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor Cluster: communication linkages among stakeholders in a national system of innovation

As the wave of globalization washes over geographical boundaries, the world steps into the era of a new knowledge-based economy with governments striving to encourage innovation in industry especially through national systems of innovation. A national system of innovation (NSI) is considered important because how a nation utilizes and exploits its NSI will determine whether it can compete and ride the wave of globalization or be carried by it and thrashed onto the shores of the new economy. This paper seeks to highlight the linkages developed for enabling communication among the various NSI stakeholders for achieving goals in one such effort, viz. the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Cluster of Malaysia. The MSC offers a vision to create a global multimedia climate through an integrated environment of interlinked elements and attributes. The government of Malaysia, realising the significance of the NSI as a way to better utilize, exploit, and enhance systems, is making efforts to this effect. The efforts include bringing together various stakeholder organizations under the "Multimedia Flagship Applications" to develop flagship applications. This is for the development of information technology applications to pave the way toward a knowledge-based economy. The MSC Cluster is presented here as a physical manifestation of the NSI, and it gives an idea as to how policy makers can design linkages for communication among the various stakeholders to further national innovative performance and competitiveness in general.     

Load balancing of IoT tasks in the cloud computing by using sparrow search algorithm

IoT is one of the most important technologies that are used over the past few years, where everything is connected to the Internet; it is used in many fields; one of these fields is healthcare system that includes mobile health and remote patient monitoring (patients with kidney, heart disease, cancer, blood pressure, diabetes, respiratory disease and stroke). Integration of IoT and cloud computing can improve the performance of healthcare system and the development of the innovative applications in future. One of the major problems that cannot be ignored in cloud computing system is load balancing. Solving that problem leads to reduce the response time, power consumption, cost and increase server availability. This paper is comprised of two parts which are creating and implementing healthcare system by using IoT, and solving the problem of load balancing of the cloud computing by using intelligent algorithm called sparrow search algorithm (SSA). The SSA is used to select the best virtual machine (VM) among a group of VMs depending on the its fitness value; also many and varied tasks are scheduled with priority and assign to the best VMs depending on the its instruction millions (IM), where the task that has high IM is assigned to the best VM that has high fitness value. The outcomes demonstrated that the proposed method focuses to reduce the latency and packet loss while maximizing the throughput in healthcare systems; also the SSA has proved its robustness, efficiency and success when compared to other methods in terms of reducing makespan time, total processing time and provides load balancing among VMs, where the value of makespan time, processing time and degree of imbalance has decreased into (23.05), (899.8979) and (177.7675), respectively, in case of applying 500 tasks.

     

Effects of the Treatment with Flavonoids on Metabolic Syndrome Components in Humans: A Systematic Review Focusing on Mechanisms of Action

Diets high in bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols, have been used to mitigate metabolic syndrome (MetS). Polyphenols are a large group of naturally occurring bioactive compounds, classified into two main classes: non-flavonoids and flavonoids. Flavonoids are distributed in foods, such as fruits, vegetables, tea, red wine, and cocoa. Studies have already demonstrated the benefits of flavonoids on the cardiovascular and nervous systems, as well as cancer cells. The present review summarizes the results of clinical studies that evaluated the effects of flavonoids on the components of the MetS and associated complications when offered as supplements over the long term. The results show that flavonoids can significantly modulate several metabolic parameters, such as lipid profile, blood pressure, and blood glucose. Only theaflavin and catechin were unable to affect metabolic parameters. Moreover, only body weight and body mass index were unaltered. Thus, the evidence presented in this systematic review offers bases in support of a flavonoid supplementation, held for at least 3 weeks, as a strategy to improve several metabolic parameters and, consequently, reduce the risk of diseases associated with MetS. This fact becomes stronger due to the rare side effects reported with flavonoids.     

Influence of Y~(3+),Yb~(3+),Gd~(3+) cations on structural and electromagnetic properties of CuFe_2O_4 nanoferrites prepared via one step sol-gel method

Rare earths(REs) play a key role in distorting spinel structure by creating some defects at the lattice sites and make them suitable for magnetodielectric applications.In the present study,the nanoferrites of CuRE_(0.02)Fe_(1.98)O_4,where REs=Y~(3+),Yb~(3+),Gd~(3+),were prepared using one step sol-gel method.The prepared samples are copper ferrite(CFO),yttrium doped copper ferrite(Y-CFO),ytterbium doped copper ferrite(Yb-CFO) and gadolinium doped copper ferrite(Gd-CFO),respectively.The single-phase structure of all the REs doped nanoferrites was determined by X-ray diffraction(XRD) analysis.The porosity,agglomerations and grain size of the REs doped copper ferrite were examined using field emission scanning electron microscopy(FESEM) analysis.Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR)elaborates the phase formation and environmental effects on the REs doped nanoparticles(NPs).The recorded room temperature M-H loops from a vibrating sample magnetometer(VSM) elucidate the magnetic properties of the REs doped spinel nanoferrites.The magnetic saturation(M_s) was calculated in the range of 23.08 to 51.78 emu/g.The calculated coercivity values(272.6 to 705.60 Oe) confirm the soft magnetic behavior of REs doped copper ferrites.Furthermore,the electromagnetic and dielectric properties were assessed using a Vector network analyzer(VNA) from 1 to 6 GHz.The permeability,permittivity,dielectric tangent loss and electric modulus of the REs doped spinel ferrites illustrate that the prepared NPs may be suitable for microwave and high frequency applications.     

Using frames to disambiguate prepositions

In natural language processing (NLP), disambiguation is the procedure used to solve name conflicts of polysemic concepts (different meanings); in fact, phrase disambiguation is a problem not totally solved in NLP. Several disambiguation types exist; for instance, noun disambiguation (bank is a word with several meanings) or when a word is both used as a noun and as a preposition. Work herein reported describes an algorithm and its implementation to disambiguate prepositions in Spanish phrases; some of them are: a {to} (Translation to English are in bold for explanation purposes; they give only one of the senses of the Spanish word, which usually have multiple meanings.), ante {before}, bajo {under}, cabe {fits}, desde {from}, contra {against}, en {in}, por {by}, según {according to}, sin {without}, entre {between}, so {under}, con {with}, hacia {towards}, sobre {about}, hasta {until}, de {of}, tras {after}, para {for}. This tool will be used in a text analyzer (being built) that converts a text document to its corresponding ontology representation, with the goal of allowing another program to use the information to answer non trivial questions (**).     

A new fuzzy‐based method for load balancing in the cloud‐based Internet of things using a grey wolf optimization algorithm

Cloud computing provides high accessibility, scalability, and flexibility in the era of computing for different practical applications. Internet of things (IoT) is a new technology that connects the devices and things to provide user required services. Due to data and information upsurge on IoT, cloud computing is usually used for managing these data, which is known as cloud‐based IoT. Due to the high volume of requirements, service diversity is one of the critical challenges in cloud‐based IoT. Since the load balancing issue is one of the NP‐hard problems in heterogeneous environments, this article provides a new method for response time reduction using a well‐known grey wolf optimization algorithm. In this paper, we supposed that the response time is the same as the execution time of all the tasks that this parameter must be minimized. The way is determining the status of virtual machines based on the current load. Then the tasks will be removed from the machine with the additional load depending on the condition of the virtual machine and will be transferred to the appropriate virtual machine, which is the criterion for assigning the task to the virtual machine based on the least distance. The results of the CloudSim simulation environment showed that the response time is developed in compared to the HBB‐LB and EBCA‐LB algorithm. Also, the load imbalancing degree is improved in comparison to TSLBACO and HJSA.     

Home Automation Using Augmented Reality (HAAR)

Wireless Personal Communications - The development of Smart Home Controllers has seen rapid growth in recent years, especially for smart devices, that can utilize the Internet of Things (IoT)....