Consensus-based data replication protocol for distributed cloud

The Journal of Supercomputing - Data availability ensures efficient data accessibility by the readers anytime and from anywhere. It can be addressed by creating multiple copies of each data file...     

Design of Dual-Gate P-type IMOS Based Industrial Purpose Pressure Sensor

Silicon - In this treatise, we have proposed a Single Material Gate–Dual Gate Impact Ionization Metal Oxide Semiconductor (SMG DG-IMOS) based Pressure Sensor. The pressure sensor has the most...     

Agent societies and social networks for ubiquitous computing

In ubiquitous computing environments, providing appropriate services and information to users at the right place in the right way is challenging for many reasons: different user interests, heterogeneous devices and services, dynamic networks, information overload, or differing privacy levels, for example. Agent technology is a paradigm expected to play an increasing role in complex computing environments, and due to the increasing popularity of social networking services, we expect to see the convergence of agent and social web technologies. The goal of this theme issue is to bring together state-of-the-art research contributions that examine the convergence of agent technologies and social networks for ubiquitous computing.     

Antioxidant and Antibacterial Effects of Potential Probiotics Isolated from Korean Fermented Foods

A total of sixteen bacterial strains were isolated and identified from the fourteen types of Korean fermented foods that were evaluated for their in vitro probiotic potentials. The results showed the highest survivability for Bacillus sp. compared to Lactobacillus sp. in simulated gastric pH, and it was found to be maximum for B. inaquosorum KNUAS016 (8.25 ± 0.08 log10 CFU/mL) and minimum for L. sakei KNUAS019 (0.8 ± 0.02 log10 CFU/mL) at 3 h of incubation. Furthermore, B. inaquosorum KNUAS016 and L. brevis KNUAS017 also had the highest survival rates of 6.86 ± 0.02 and 5.37 ± 0.01 log10 CFU/mL, respectively, in a simulated intestinal fluid condition at 4 h of incubation. The percentage of autoaggregation at 6 h for L. sakei KNUAS019 (66.55 ± 0.33%), B. tequilensis KNUAS015 (64.56 ± 0.14%), and B. inaquosorum KNUAS016 (61.63 ± 0.19%) was >60%, whereas it was lower for L. brevis KNUAS017 (29.98 ± 0.09%). Additionally, B. subtilis KNUAS003 showed higher coaggregation at 63.84 ± 0.19% while B. proteolyticus KNUAS001 found at 30.02 ± 0.33%. Among them, Lactobacillus sp. showed the best non-hemolytic activity. The highest DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging activity was observed in L. sakei KNUAS019 (58.25% and 71.88%). The cell-free supernatant of Lactobacillus sp. considerably inhibited pathogenic growth, while the cell-free supernatant of Bacillus sp. was moderately inhibited when incubated for 24 h. However, the overall results found that B. subtilis KNUAS003, B. proteolyticus KNUAS012, L. brevis KNUAS017, L. graminis KNUAS018, and L. sakei KNUAS019 were recognized as potential probiotics through different functional and toxicity assessments.     

Hydrogen Peroxide and Calcium Chloride Added to Irrigation Water as a Strategy to Reduce Bacterial Populations and Improve Quality of Fresh Mushrooms

The quality and value of fresh mushrooms are often diminished by the presence of high bacterial populations that cause a brown, blotchy appearance. The objective of the present research was to evaluate the addition of hydrogen peroxide and/or calcium chloride to irrigation water as a means to reduce total bacterial populations on fresh mushrooms. Crops were grown using commercial mushroom growing practices except for the addition of 0.75% hydrogen peroxide and/or 0.3% calcium chloride irrigation water added to the crop starting 11 d after the casing layer was applied on top of mushroom compost. Irrigation water without the added treatments acted as the control. Mushrooms were aseptically sampled from the production beds for enumerating bacterial counts. Total aerobic bacterial populations were determined by standard microbiological plating procedures. Mushroom whiteness (L‐value) and color (delta E) after harvest and postharvest storage were measured using a Minolta chromameter. Harvested mushrooms were separated by treatment and weighed to record yield. Mushrooms irrigated with water (control) had 7.3 log colony‐forming units (CFU) of aerobic bacterial populations per gram of fresh mushroom tissue. Compared with the control, irrigation with 0.75% hydrogen peroxide and 0.3% calcium chloride reduced the bacterial populations on fresh mushrooms by 87% (6.4 log CFU/g). Irrigation with hydrogen peroxide and calcium chloride significantly enhanced mushroom whiteness after harvest as well as after 6 d of postharvest storage at 12 °C. The irrigation treatments did not have a significant effect on crop yields; hence, the addition of hydrogen peroxide and calcium chloride to irrigation water was demonstrated to have good potential as a practical strategy to reduce bacterial populations and to improve the quality of fresh mushrooms.     

Evaluating alternate discrete outcome frameworks for modeling crash injury severity

This paper focuses on the relevance of alternate discrete outcome frameworks for modeling driver injury severity. The study empirically compares the ordered response and unordered response models in the context of driver injury severity in traffic crashes. The alternative modeling approaches considered for the comparison exercise include: for the ordered response framework-ordered logit (OL), generalized ordered logit (GOL), mixed generalized ordered logit (MGOL) and for the unordered response framework-multinomial logit (MNL), nested logit (NL), ordered generalized extreme value logit (OGEV) and mixed multinomial logit (MMNL) model. A host of comparison metrics are computed to evaluate the performance of these alternative models. The study provides a comprehensive comparison exercise of the performance of ordered and unordered response models for examining the impact of exogenous factors on driver injury severity. The research also explores the effect of potential underreporting on alternative frameworks by artificially creating an underreported data sample from the driver injury severity sample. The empirical analysis is based on the 2010 General Estimates System (GES) data base—a nationally representative sample of road crashes collected and compiled from about 60 jurisdictions across the United States. The performance of the alternative frameworks are examined in the context of model estimation and validation (at the aggregate and disaggregate level). Further, the performance of the model frameworks in the presence of underreporting is explored, with and without corrections to the estimates. The results from these extensive analyses point toward the emergence of the GOL framework (MGOL) as a strong competitor to the MMNL model in modeling driver injury severity.     

Experimental study on conventional solar still integrated with inclined solar still under different water depth

This study primarily focuses on comparative experimental analysis on standalone conventional solar still (CSS), inclined solar still (ISS), and integrated conventional and inclined solar still (CSS‐ISS) for different parameters that affect the freshwater yield. For enhancing the freshwater yield only a few studies are available on still‐still integration. The present novel study provides a greater improvement in improving the freshwater yield by integrating ISS with CSS. This experimental work mainly concentrates on the importance of water depth (d _w) and mass flow rate of water ( m _w) in the solar still. Water depth inside the conventional still varied from 0.02 to 0.06 m whereas, water is constantly flown with a mass flow rate of 8.33 kg/hour in an ISS with baffles. The experimental result shows that the accumulated freshwater yield from CSS‐ISS, ISS, and CSS were 6.2, 5.04, and 4.24 kg, respectively. CSS‐ISS and ISS produced 46.23% and 18.87% higher productivity than the CSS. From the experimental investigation, it is also identified that the water temperature is significantly improved by 20% using integration as compared with CSS without integration under the same water depth of d _w = 0.02 m. The overall improvement in yield was higher in the case of CSS‐ISS. The deviations between experimental and theoretical values of yield from the conventional and modified solar still were in the range of ±7%.