Yeast produces flavor components as by-products of fermentation. Such components, which account for considerable yeast quality value, may influence cell membrane fluidity and regulate cell size. In this study, yeast cell size was measured using various methods, and cell sizes were characterized for each strain of yeast. Herein, a method for measuring the cell size and automatically acquiring the cell area was proposed using inexpensive methylene blue staining and a versatile digital microscope to automatically acquire the cell area. To evaluate the efficiency, data on cell length and area were compared using the conventional and proposed methods. Additionally, the advantages of automated measurement and the ability to count cell numbers in the future are discussed through the acquisition of cell size data, which would be required for microfabrication and cell fabrication techniques. Although there are various candidate methods for evaluating the properties of each yeast strain, the pre... [more]

Determining residual oil saturation by the single-well chemical tracer test (SWCTT) is of key importance for assessing the potential of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and developing EOR pilot projects. However, the test trials conducted since the first injections of tracer compositions until now have not resulted in a detailed analysis of the selection of candidates for single-well tracers and their limits of applicability in various reservoir conditions. The purpose of this study was to consider the influence of the structure on the kinetic and thermodynamic components of tracers to assess their application’s operating intervals. It is shown that the rate of single-phase and two-phase hydrolysis of the primary partitioning tracer makes it possible to predict the shut-in time by calculating when the tracer is injected at the reservoir temperature. The influence of the tracer structure during the extraction process with an increase in the hydrocarbon chain of the ester in a different range... [more]

The optimal configuration of flexible workshop resources is critical to production efficiency, while disturbances pose significant challenges to the effectiveness of the configuration. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid-driven resource dynamic configuration model and an improved Imperialist Competitive Algorithm hybrid Neighborhood Search (IICA-NS) that incorporates domain knowledge to allocate resources in flexible workshops. First, a hybrid-driven configuration framework is proposed to optimize resource configuration strategies. Then, in the revolutionary step of the Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA), the bottleneck heuristic neighborhood structure is adopted to retain the excellent genes in the imperial so that the updated imperial is closer to the optimal solution; And a population invasion strategy is proposed further to improve the searchability of the ICA algorithm. Finally, the simulation experiments are carried out through production examples on flexible workshop pr... [more]

Because ships are typically operated for more than 25 years after construction, they can be considered mobile factories that require economic maintenance before being scrapped. Therefore, for stable and efficient ship operation, continuous maintenance systems and processes are required. Ships cannot be operated when defects or failures occur in any of the numerous systems configured in them, and research is urgently needed to apply predictive maintenance to propulsion engines with high maintenance costs using machine learning. Therefore, this study analyzes the operation and control characteristics of the propulsion engine, acquires engine data from the alarm monitoring system of the ship in operation, and then preprocesses the data by constructing a data preprocessing algorithm that incorporates the engine control characteristics. In addition, principal component analysis and K-nearest neighbors were used to check whether preprocessing data were classified based on engine control char... [more]

The number of injector holes and the fuel-injection pressure in an internal combustion engine can affect engine performance and exhaust emissions. Conversion of a port-injection gasoline engine to an HCNG direct-injection engine improves engine performance and exhaust emissions. In addition, increasing the injection pressure helps to increase engine performance. In this study, AVL Fire software was used to perform simulation by certain adjustments. The injection pressure was applied in mods of 15, 20, and 25 bars, the injector holes numbers were 3 and 6, the compression ratio changed from 10:1 to 14:1, and the amount of hydrogen enrichment to natural gas was in mods of 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%. This paper discusses the items above with regard to power, torque, combustion chamber pressure, fuel conversion efficiency, and exhaust emissions. The result determined that increasing the number of injector holes improves the performance engine and reduces CO emission so that the contour plots co... [more]

The electrochemical oxidation (EO) of the breast-cancer drug anastrozole (ANZ) is studied in this work. The role of various operating parameters, such as current density (6.25 and 12.5 mA cm−2), pH (3−10), ANZ concentration (0.5−2 mg L−1), nature of supporting electrolytes, water composition, and water matrix, have been evaluated. ANZ removal of 82.4% was achieved at 1 mg L−1 initial concentration after 90 min of reaction at 6.25 mA cm−2 and 0.1 M Na2SO4. The degradation follows pseudo-first-order kinetics with the apparent rate constant, kapp, equal to 0.022 min−1. The kapp increases with increasing current density and decreasing solution pH. The addition of chloride in the range 0−250 mg L−1 positively affects the removal of ANZ. However, chloride concentrations above 250 mg L−1 have a detrimental effect. The presence of bicarbonate or organic matter has a slightly negative but not significant effect on the process. The EO of ANZ is compared to its degradation by solar photo-Fenton,... [more]

Blockchain with its numerous advantages is often considered a foundational technology with the potential to revolutionize a wide range of application domains, including enterprise applications. These enterprise applications must meet several important criteria, including scalability, performance, and privacy. Enterprise blockchain applications are frequently constructed on private blockchain platforms to satisfy these criteria. Hyperledger Fabric is one of the most popular platforms within this domain. In any privacy blockchain system, including Fabric, every organisation needs to utilise a peer node (or peer nodes) to connect to the blockchain platform. Due to the ever-increasing size of blockchain and the need to support a large user base, the monitoring and the management of different resources of such peer nodes can be crucial for a successful deployment of such blockchain platforms. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to this issue. In this work, we propose the first-eve... [more]

Background: The fish-based diet is known for its potential health benefits, but it is less known for its association with mercury (Hg) exposure, which, in turn, can lead to neurological and cardiovascular diseases through the exacerbation of oxidative stress. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlations between Hg blood concentration and specific biomarkers for oxidative stress. Methods: We present a cross-sectional, analytical, observational study, including primary quantitative data obtained from 67 patients who presented with unspecific complaints and had high levels of blood Hg. Oxidative stress markers, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), malondialdehyde (MLD), lymphocyte glutathione (GSH-Ly), selenium (Se), and vitamin D were determined. Results: We found positive, strong correlations between Hg levels and SOD (r = 0.88, p < 0.0001), GPx (r = 0.92, p < 0.0001), and MLD (r = 0.94, p < 0.0001). We also found inverted correlations bet... [more]

The global production and consumption of plastics have continued to increase. Plastics degrade slowly, causing persistent environmental pollution Developed waste plastic recycling methods are discussed in this report, with a focus on the dissolution/reprecipitation technique to restore low-density polyethene (LDPE) wastes. Aspen HYSYS is used to simulate the recycling of waste LDPE. Turpentine/petroleum ether (TURP/PetE) is chosen as solvent/non-solvent with fractions proved efficient through laboratory experiments. PetE is selected to be the non-solvent used for the precipitation of pure LDPE. The feedstock is assumed to be LDPE products containing additives such as dye. The simulation model developed estimated a pure LDPE precipitate recovery with a composition of 99% LDPE with a flowrate of 1024 tonnes per year. In addition, Aspen HYSYS could approximate a rough cost estimate that includes utility cost, installation cost and other factors. Technical challenges were eliminated, and s... [more]

Sludge biochar can be used as bio-carrier to enhance aerobic granular sludge, however, its impact on the formation and especially long-term stability of aerobic granules has not been fully investigated. In this paper, aerobic granular sludge was cultivated in two parallel sequencing batch reactors (SBRs), R1 and R2, with and without sludge biochar addition in the activated sludge inoculum, respectively. The sludge characteristics, wastewater treatment performance, and microbial community structure of granular sludge were examined on a 240-day operation, during which aerobic granular sludge in the two reactors experienced dynamic changes including granule formation, maturation, breakage, filamentous proliferation, and recovery. Aerobic granules in R1 with biochar formed two weeks earlier than that in R2, presenting a larger mean size, and higher settling ability and biomass retention in the granule maturation period. Concurrently, aerobic granules in R1 showed higher denitrification abi... [more]

The kinetics of nitroxide-mediated dispersion copolymerization with crosslinking of styrene (STY) and divinylbenzene (DVB) in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is addressed experimentally. 2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidinyl-1-oxy (TEMPO) and dibenzoyl peroxide (BPO) were used as nitroxide controller and initiator, respectively. A high-pressure cell with lateral sapphire windows at 120 °C and 207 bar was used to carry out the polymerizations. The nitroxide-mediated homopolymerization (NMP) of STY, as well as the conventional radical copolymerization (FRC) of STY/DVB, at the same conditions were also carried out as reference and for comparison purposes. The effect of nitroxide content on polymerization rate, evolution of molecular weight averages, gel fraction, and swelling index was studied.

The present work discusses the development and application of a machine-learning-based model to predict the enthalpy of combustion of various oxygenated fuels of interest. A detailed dataset containing 207 pure compounds and 38 surrogate fuels has been prepared, representing various chemical classes, namely paraffins, olefins, naphthenes, aromatics, alcohols, ethers, ketones, and aldehydes. The dataset was subsequently used for constructing an artificial neural network (ANN) model with 14 input layers, 26 hidden layers, and 1 output layer for predicting the enthalpy of combustion for various oxygenated fuels. The ANN model was trained using the collected dataset, validated, and finally tested to verify its accuracy in predicting the enthalpy of combustion. The results for various oxygenated fuels are discussed, especially in terms of the influence of different functional groups in shaping the enthalpy of combustion values. In predicting the enthalpy of combustion, 96.3% accuracy was ac... [more]

We consider the influence of vapor content in the mixed flow leaving a liquid-vapor ejector on the energy efficiency of a vacuum unit. As shown by numerical studies of liquid-vapor ejectors, this issue is important as vapor overproduction, which accompanies the process of secondary flow ejection, directly impacts the efficiency of the working process of both the liquid-vapor ejector and the vacuum unit as a whole. The greater the degree of vapor overproduction, the greater the load on the vapor phase of the separator, which is part of the vacuum unit. In addition, the liquid phase must be returned to the cycle to ensure the constancy of the mass flow rate of the working fluid of the primary flow. Our numerical study results revealed the rational value of the degree of vapor overproduction at which the efficiency of the liquid−vapor ejector was maximized, and the amount of additional working fluid that needed to enter the cycle of the vacuum unit was minimal. Experimental condition moni... [more]

Effects of the container design on the heat transfer rate and food quality during microwave heating were explored and validated with numerical simulations and experiments. The uniformity of moisture content and temperature was investigated, and to describe microwave heating patterns, a simulation model was created. Pork patties with different moisture and salt contents were heated in three different containers (center and edge-perforated lid as well as without lid) to achieve 80 °C using a domestic microwave oven. Compared to the center or mid-way positions, the temperatures at the edge of the patties rose quickly. By containing the evaporated vapor from the heated pork patties inside the container, the container with a center-perforated lid decreased the heating rate and non-uniformity in temperature and moisture content. A simplified numerical model for the electromagnetics, heat, and momentum transfer coupling simulation was developed to understand the moisture and temperature distr... [more]

Vietnam’s textile and garment enterprises make an important contribution to the country with the second largest export turnover. The existence and development of textile and garment enterprises have a significant influence on the socioeconomic development of Vietnam. Currently, Vietnam’s textile and garment industry is facing difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with competition from foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises. Therefore, it is imperative for managers to assess competitiveness by measuring their past and current performance indicators. This study assesses the performance of Vietnam’s 10 textile and garment enterprises from 2017 to 2020 by combining the DEA−Malmquist productivity index (MPI) and epsilon-based measure (EBM) model. The proposed model considered three inputs (total assets, cost of goods sold, and liabilities) and two outputs (total revenue and gross profit). In addition to showing the best-performing companies from certain aspects during the... [more]

Nickel-based superalloys have been widely used in the aerospace, petrochemical, and marine fields and others because of their good oxidation resistance, corrosion resistance, stability, and reliability at various temperatures. However, as a nickel-based superalloy is a kind of processed material, in the cutting process a large amount of cutting heat is generated due to the interaction between the tool and the workpiece. At the same time, the low thermal conductivity of the workpiece causes a large amount of cutting heat to accumulate at the contact point, resulting in serious tool wear, reduced tool life, frequent tool changes, and other problems, which increase the production cost of the enterprise. This paper introduces the tool wear mechanisms (abrasive wear, adhesive wear, plastic deformation, chemical wear, etc.) in the machining process of nickel-based superalloys and summarizes the research status of failure mechanisms, tool wear optimization, etc. Based on a review of the exist... [more]

Here, we reported on experimental studies related to the exposure of oil to a 50 Hz electromagnetic field (0.81 T strength) and examined the changes in the geochemical characteristics of oil: n-alkane distribution, isotopic composition (δ13C), and concentration of paramagnetic centers. We discovered that electromagnetic fields have impacts on the distribution of n-alkanes and on their individual isotopic composition, with the concentration of paramagnetic centers remaining unchanged. While discussing the results, we looked into the state-of-the-art of research on electromagnetic exposures of the bottom-hole formation zone and into natural electric and geomagnetic fields. We consequently hypothesized that natural geomagnetic fields can influence the geochemical evolution processes of oil. This hypothesis requires further studies to reveal the frequency and strength characteristics of natural geomagnetic fields.

In this study, a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that can achieve simultaneous anode anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) and electricity generation (anode anammox MFC) by high-effective anammox bacteria fed with purely inorganic nitrogen media was constructed. As the influent concentrations of ammonium (NH4+-N) and nitrite (NO2−-N) gradually increased from 25 to 250 mg/L and 33−330 mg/L, the removal efficiencies of NH4+-N, NO2−-N and TN were over 90%, 90% and 80%, respectively, and the maximum volumetric nitrogen removal rate reached 3.01 ± 0.27 kgN/(m3·d). The maximum voltage and maximum power density were 225.48 ± 10.71 mV and 1308.23 ± 40.38 mW/m3, respectively. Substrate inhibition took place at high nitrogen concentrations (NH4+-N = 300 mg/L, NO2−-N = 396 mg/L). Electricity production performance significantly depended upon the nitrogen removal rate under different nitrogen concentrations. The reported low coulombic efficiency (CE, 4.09−5.99%) may be due to severe anodic polarization... [more]

This paper investigates the pyrolysis of PODEn (n = 3, 4, 5) using ReaxFF molecular dynamics simulation. A large-scale model, which contains 2000 PODEn molecules, is simulated at 3000 K. The higher frequencies of the initial PODEn decomposition reaction at α or β C-O bond show that the α or β C-O bond in PODEn is not easy to break, which is approximately half the number of the other type of C-O bond dissociation. Furthermore, the bond dissociation energies (BDEs) are calculated using the ReaxFF method. The BDE of α or β C-O bond is higher than that of the other C-O bond, ~3−11 kcal/mol, indicating that BDE is one of the factors causing the different proportions of bonds broken. The evolution of pyrolysis products is also investigated. The results reveal that long-chain pyrolysis products from the initial PODEn decomposition are prone to further reaction, while a large amount of CH3O and CH3 remains in the system. This helps explain the difficulty in α and β C-O bond dissociation reacti... [more]

This work focuses on the energy and economic evaluation of a power generation system composed of a downdraft gasifier and gas microturbine. The gasification process was studied using wood pellets as fuel, while the influence of two gasification agents (air and oxygen-enriched air) on parameters, such as low heating value (LHV), composition, and yield of syngas, were analyzed. The syngas produced from oxygen-enriched air gasification in a downdraft gasifier had an LHV higher than 8 MJ/Nm3, being suitable to be supplied in the gas microturbine. Subsequently, syngas use in the gas microturbine was evaluated, and the results demonstrated that microturbine efficiency dropped from 33.00% to 21.35%, while its power decreased from 200 kW to 81.35 kW. The power generation system was modeled using Aspen Plus® v 11.0 software and validated using results obtained from published experimental studies. Accordingly, the integrated generation system presented an overall efficiency of 11.82% for oxygen-... [more]

The purpose of this study was to develop an integrated control strategy for multiscale crystallization processes. An image analysis method using a deep learning neural network is used to measure the fine-scale information of the crystallization process, and the mathematical statistical method is adopted to obtain the mean size of the crystal population. A feedforward neural network is subsequently trained and employed in a nonlinear model predictive control formulation to obtain the optimal profile of the manipulated variable. The effectiveness of the proposed nonlinear model predictive control method is evaluated using alum cooling crystallization experiments. Experimental results demonstrate benefits of the proposed combination of feedforward neural network and nonlinear model predictive control method for the multiscale crystallization process.

extract from Palestine was tested in vitro for its antioxidant, antibacterial, and anticancer activities. Total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) measurements were made concurrently. By using FRAP and DPPH methods, the antioxidant activity were measured spectrophotometrically. By using HPLC-PDA, phenolic and flavonoid compounds of the extract were determined. Results showed strong antioxidant activity of the plant extract revealed by inhibition of stable free radicals (DPPH test) and strong reducing ability (FRAP test). According to spectrophotometric methods for total phenolic compounds and total flavonoids content, the extracts were also found to be rich in polyphenolic compounds and flavonoids. Verthimia iphionoides extract had high antibacterial activity against three bacterial strains (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus aureus), with inhibition zone values of 14 mm, 25 mm, and 27 mm, respectively. Bioactivities were primarily attribut... [more]

The oil industry generates a high number of by-products which have the potential to be used in food formulation after they are properly treated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional potential of 14 different vegetable by-products from the oil industry (flour, meals, and groats) in terms of fatty acid composition and to investigate the effect of theoretical fortification of the bakery products with by-products high in ω-3. Results showed that some of the analyzed samples contain significant amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Organic walnut flour and grape seed flour had a linoleic acid content higher than 60%. By-products obtained from thistle and sesame had a linoleic acid content ranging between 47.32% and 54.72%. Higher linolenic content was obtained for hemp flour (33.22%), red grape seeds meals (33.62%), and golden flax meals (64.65%). By theoretical fortification of wheat and wholemeal flours with high ω-3 by-products in a proportion of 5, 10, and 15%, the ω-... [more]

The serious environmental issues associated with CO2 emissions have triggered the search for energy efficient processes and CO2 capture technologies to control the amount of gas released into the atmosphere. One of the suitable techniques is CO2 adsorption using functionalized sorbents. In this study, a functionalized activated carbon (AC) material was developed via the wet impregnation technique. The AC was synthesized from a rubber seed shell (RSS) precursor using chemical activation and was later impregnated with different ratios of [bmpy][Tf2N] ionic liquid (IL). The AC was successfully functionalized with IL as confirmed by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy analyses. Incorporation of IL resulted in a reduction in the surface area and total pore volume of the parent adsorbent. Bare AC showed the largest SBET value of 683 m2/g, while AC functionalized with the maximum amount of IL showed 14 m2/g. A comparative analysis of CO2 adsorption data revealed that CO2 adsorption performance of AC... [more]

There are many petrochemical industries that need adequate knowledge of multiphase flow phenomena inside pipes. In such industries, measuring the void fraction is considered to be a very challenging task. Thus, various techniques have been used for void fraction measurements. For determining more accurate multiphase flow measurements, this study employed dual non-intrusive techniques, gamma-ray and electrical capacitance sensors. The techniques using such sensors are considered non-intrusive as they do not cause any perturbation of the local structure of the phases’ flow. The first aim of this paper is to analyze both techniques separately for the void fraction data obtained from practical experiments. The second aim is to use both techniques’ data in a neural network model to analyze measurements more efficiently. Accordingly, a new system is configured to combine the two techniques’ data to obtain more precise results than they can individually. The simulations and analyzing procedur... [more]