Ohmic‐assisted hydrodistillation of essential oils from Zataria multiflora Boiss (Shirazi thyme)

Ohmic‐assisted hydrodistillation (OAHD) is a combination of ohmic heating and distillation, and could be considered as a novel method for the extraction of essential oils. Major problems with traditional methods are long extraction time and lower purity of the extract. In this study, OAHD was applied as an economic and green technology for the extraction of essential oils from Zataria multiflora Boiss. (Shirazi thyme) aerial parts and the results were compared to those obtained from hydrodistillation (HD) as a conventional method. The results showed that OAHD method had the extraction time of 32.21 ± 2.59 min while this value was about 57.21 ± 2.33 min for hydrodistillation (HD). Scanning electron micrographs of thyme leaves showed a sudden eruption of essential oil glands and their surrounding area for OAHD samples. GC–MS analysis indicated that both methods of OAHD and HD can extract the same compounds.     

Dependability analysis for characterizing Google cluster reliability

Cloud solutions are emerging as a new suitable way of transforming traditional IT data centers to highly available and reliable computing resources for hosting critical applications and data. However, software and hardware failures are a common problem in cloud datacenters that can lead to harmful damages. In this paper, we analyze the physical server failures in the Google cloud datacenter. We study the Google cluster properties to investigate the relationship among physical servers' failure rate and jobs failure events. The failure rate of Google cluster executed jobs and servers is taken into consideration during a 29‐day period. We present a reliability model for Google cluster physical machines using the continuous time Markov chains according to this observation. We attempt to analyze the obtained model through SHARPE software packages to improve the understanding of failure events in the Google cloud cluster. We also explore the cluster availability based on parameters like steady‐state availability, steady‐state unavailability, mean time to failure, and mean time to repair in the Google cluster.     

Evaluation of the Effects of Hydrothermal Treatment on Rice Flour and Its Related Starch

The main aim of this research was to compare the effects of hydrothermal treatment on rice flour and its related rice starch. The treatment was performed at 120°C for 3 and 5 h. Scanning electron microscopy results showed that the proteins of hydrothermaled rice flour were denatured and formed clusters and the granules of hydrothermaled rice starch became aggregated and had an irregular surface. The treatment reduced water solubility and water absorption and decreased peak viscosity while increased pasting temperature. It increased the final visosity of modified rice flour while reduced the final viscosity of modified rice starch. Following hydrothermal treatment, the hardness and elasticity of the gels increased. The cohesiveness of rice flour gels decreased while that of the rice starch gels remained unchanged. This study showed how the hydrothermal treatment can have different effects on rice flour and its related rice starch. The effects of hydrothermal treatment on rice flour were stronger than rice starch. Increasing the treatment time from 3 to 5 h was more effective on rice starch.     

Effect of various salts and pH condition on rheological properties of Salvia macrosiphon hydrocolloid solutions

The extraction of Salvia macrosiphon seed hydrocolloid was performed successfully and the optimum hydration time and temperature were found to be 30 min and 25 °C for 12% extraction yield. The effect of solution pH (3–9) and addition of NaCl (0.5–3%), CaCl₂ (0.5–3%) and Na₂HPO₄ (0.2–0.6%) on rheological properties of the hydrocolloid solutions were investigated. Rheologcal data were fitted with the Power law model with regression coefficient of greater than 0.95. Strong shear thinning behavior with the n value of less than 0.53 was recorded. All variables had significant impacts on rheological parameters. The minimum and maximum consistencies were found at pH 3 and the 9, respectively. This was explained with the presence of carboxylic groups on the biopolymer backbone as indicated by FTIR. NaCl, CaCl₂ and Na₂HPO₄ had significant effects on rheological properties. Moreover, at similar salt concentration of 0.5%, Na₂HPO₄ had the greatest and NaCl had the lowest effect.     

Coronary aneurysm in Behcet''s disease. Report of a case

Polymyositis, dermatomyositis, and inclusion body myositis, although immunopathologically distinct, share 3 dominant histological features: inflammation, fibrosis, and loss of muscle fibers. Progress in molecular immunology and immunogenetics has enhanced our understanding of these cellular processes. Based on the T-cell receptor gene rearrangement, the autoinvasive CD8+ T cells in polymyositis and inclusion body myositis, but not dermatomyositis, are specifically selected and clonally expanded in situ by heretofore unknown muscle-specific autoantigens. The messenger RNA of cytokines is variably expressed, except for a persistent up-regulation of interleukin 1beta in inclusion body myositis and transforming growth factor beta in dermatomyositis. In inclusion body myositis, the interleukin 1, secreted by the chronically activated endomysial inflammatory cells, may participate in the formation of amyloid because it up-regulates beta-amyloid precursor protein (beta-APP) gene expression and beta-APP promoter and colocalizes with beta-APP within the vacuolated muscle fibers. In dermatomyositis, transforming growth factor beta is overexpressed in the perimysial connective tissue but is down-regulated after successful immunotherapy and reduction of inflammation and fibrosis. The degenerating muscle fibers express several antiapoptotic molecules, such as Bcl-2, and resist apoptosis-mediated cell death. In myositis, several of the identified molecules and adhesion receptors play a role in the process of inflammation, fibrosis, and muscle fiber loss, and could be targets for the design of semispecific therapeutic interventions.     

On the rank minimization problem over a positive semidefinitelinear matrix inequality

We consider the problem of minimizing the rank of a positive semidefinite matrix, subject to the constraint that an affine transformation of it is also positive semidefinite. Our method for solving this problem employs ideas from the ordered linear complementarity theory and the notion of the least element in a vector lattice. This problem is of importance in many contexts, for example in feedback synthesis problems, and such an example is also provided     

The impact of concentration,temperature and pH on dynamic rheology of psyllium gels

Structural aspects of the psyllium gum prepared from the seed husk of the plant of Plantago ovata Forsk was characterized by dynamic rheology and microscopy. Dynamic rheological properties of psyllium gel in the linear viscoelastic region, as a function of concentration (2, 2.5 and 3% w/w), temperature (5–95 °C) and pH (2.5–10) were investigated. Mechanical spectra of the psyllium gels were obtained by frequency sweep measurement classified into that of weak gels because G′ was larger than G″ throughout the tested frequency range and the separation of the two moduli (tan δ) was greater than 0.1. The phase angle increased with temperature and a peak associated with gel melting appeared at about 40 °C. All gels at different pH presented a typical weak gel spectrum. Scanning electron microscopy showed porous structures with different pore-size distribution for psyllium gels under different conditions in terms of concentration, pH and temperature.     

On State-dependent dynamic graphs and their controllability properties

We consider distributed dynamic systems operating over a graph or a network. The geometry of the network is assumed to be a function of the underling system's states-giving it a unique dynamic character. Certain aspects of the resulting abstract structure, having a mixture of combinatorial and system theoretic features, are then studied. In this venue, we will explore an interplay between notions from extremal graph theory and system theory by considering a controllability framework for such state-dependent dynamic graphs.     

On maximizing the second smallest eigenvalue of a state-dependent graph Laplacian

We consider the set G consisting of graphs of fixed order and weighted edges. The vertex set of graphs in G will correspond to point masses and the weight for an edge between two vertices is a functional of the distance between them. We pose the problem of finding the best vertex positional configuration in the presence of an additional proximity constraint, in the sense that, the second smallest eigenvalue of the corresponding graph Laplacian is maximized. In many recent applications of algebraic graph theory in systems and control, the second smallest eigenvalue of Laplacian has emerged as a critical parameter that influences the stability and robustness properties of dynamic systems that operate over an information network. Our motivation in the present work is to "assign" this Laplacian eigenvalue when relative positions of various elements dictate the interconnection of the underlying weighted graph. In this venue, one would then be able to "synthesize" information graphs that have desirable system theoretic properties.