Vent is a medium-sized deciduous tree that belongs to the family Bignoniaceae. The roots of this tree are used as one of the ten ingredients to prepare the Dasamula formulation in the Ayurvedic system of medicine in India. Although traditional uses are attributed to the medicinal plant, there are limited scientific data on its potential. The present study thus analyzed the cytotoxic and apoptotic potential of the plant against different cancer cells. MTT assay was used to determine cytotoxicity using HeLa, HCT 15, and MDA-MB-231 cells, with the IC50 values, revealed at concentrations of 92.43, 133.0, and 112.84 µg/mL respectively. However, the extract was less toxic to non-cancer cells. HeLa cells further treated with OIM were subjected to flow cytometric analysis for studying the cell cycle stages. When untreated cells at G1 phase were found at a relative percentage of 71.9%, it increased to 79.3 and 86% with OIM treatment at concentrations of 50 and 100 µg/mL; cells in the S phase de... [more]

The size distribution of coke is important in order to decide the burden layer structure and the burden porosity in the shaft of a blast furnace (BF), which fluctuates daily and can be determined by several parameters. It is measured two or three times per shift by screening the raw material. However, the screening method used is random and takes a lot of time and manpower, resulting in the susceptive size distribution of the raw material and delayed operation of the BF. Therefore, in this paper, a new online approach used to measure the size distribution of particles was selected through comparison. Four common algorithms were used to detect the coke particles from images, including the Marker-based Watershed (MW), Histogram of Oriented Gradient + Support Vector Machine (HOG + SVM), Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Networks (Faster R-CNN), and You Only Look Once (YOLOv3). The results show that the MW and HOG + SVM were not suitable for coke image detection. The average mean av... [more]

To explore the stability analyses and control methods for surrounding rocks in deep hard rock shafts, this paper is based on field engineering geological surveys and laboratory rock mechanics tests and relies on the main shaft being constructed in the Shaling Gold Mine of China as the engineering background. The quality of the rock mass is evaluated by the Q system, rock mass rating (RMR) and geological strength index (GSI). The mechanical parameters of the surrounding rock mass of the shaft are calculated by using the generalized Hoek−Brown failure criterion, and the main support system is determined based on the rock mass classification system. Based on the finite element method, a two-dimensional plane strain model is constructed to analyze and evaluate the deformation and plastic region range of surrounding rocks for different support systems. On this basis, considering the dilatancy and plastic softening characteristics of hard rock masses, an analytical solution of the stress, st... [more]

This work studied the effect of external conditions on the drying kinetics of a thin layer of corn during convective drying. The density and the specific volume of the corn grain were reported and the desorption isotherms of the corn were determined at three temperatures and for a water activity from 0.1 to 0.9 using the static gravimetric method. Initially, a thin layer of corn about 7 mm thick with an initial moisture content of 45% (d.b) was investigated, and the external conditions were tested. Afterwards, a comparison between the experimental convective drying of a packed bed and a thin layer was performed under the same conditions. Finally, the values of equilibrium moisture contents, water activities and temperatures obtained were fitted using seven sorption models. It was found that the experimental desorption data exhibited type II behavior, according to Brunauer’s classification. The GAB model was found as the most suitable semi-empirical model which was well suited to repres... [more]

ABTS (2,2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic) acid) is a widely used compound for determining the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of plant extracts, food, clinical fluids, etc. This photometric assay is based on the reduction by the presence of antioxidant compounds of a well-known metastable radical (ABTS•+) which can be formed via several different approaches and be used in many different determination methodologies such as automated photometric measures in microplates, clinical robots, valuable titrations, and previous liquid chromatographic separation. Another interesting aspect is that, in some cases, the ABTS/TAC method permits sequential hydrophilic and lipophilic antioxidant activity determinations, obtaining total antioxidant activity values through the summatory data of both types of antioxidants. In this work, we present a review of several aspects of the ABTS/TAC, highlighting the major achievements that have made this method so widely used, e.g., ABTS radical f... [more]

Planning of sewer systems typically involves limitations and problems, regardless of whether traditional planning methods or optimization models are used. Such problems include non-quantifiability, fuzzy objectives, and uncertainties in decision-making variables which are commonly applied in the planning of any process. Particularly, uncertainties have prevented the inclusion of these variables in models. Consequently, the theoretical optional solution of the mathematical models is not the true optimum solution to practical problems. In this study, to solve the above problems for regional sewer system planning, multi-objective programming (MOP), nonlinear programming, mixed-integer programming, and compromise fuzzy programming were used. The objectives of this study were two-fold: (1) determination of the necessary decision-making variables or parameters, such as the optimum number of plants, piping layout, size of the plant, and extent of treatment; (2) establishment of a framework an... [more]

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the sous vide and electric oven cooking methods on the physical and sensory characteristics of camel meat. A combination of 4 cooking temperatures (70, 80, 90, and 100 °C) and 6 cooking times (30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 min) was applied. Both methods significantly affected the meat’s physical properties (pH, cooking loss, density, lightness, redness, and yellowness color components), except for water activity. Furthermore, the cooking temperature and time significantly affected all the sensory properties (tenderness, flavor, juiciness, and general acceptance). The cooking loss was the only parameter affected significantly by the interaction of the cooking method, cooking temperature, and cooking time. It is concluded that the sous vide method is the more suitable method for cooking camel meat compared to the electric oven method considering the cooking temperature and time. Further studies are recommended to estimate energy consumption for... [more]

The understanding of the impact of different government support methods on R&D efficiency is of great significance for evaluating the performance of innovation policies in various countries. We selected 31 manufacturing industries in China from 2009 to 2015, used the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) method to measure R&D efficiency, and used tobit regression method to examine the relationship between direct government subsidies and preferential tax policies and manufacturing R&D efficiency. The results reveal that the overall R&D efficiency of China’s manufacturing industry was low, but it has been steadily increasing, and the R&D efficiency of emerging industries was significantly higher than that of traditional industries. Tax incentives played a stable and significant role in promoting R&D efficiency in manufacturing. Affected by factors such as the government’s long-term preference and information asymmetry, direct subsidies had no significant impact on the current R&D efficiency... [more]

With the rapid economic boom of Asian countries, the president of Country-A has made great efforts to reform in recent years. The prospect of economic development is promising, and business opportunities are emerging gradually, depicting a prosperous scene; accordingly, people’s livelihood consumption also has changed significantly. The original main point of consumption for urban and rural people was the old and traditional grocery store with poor sanitation, but due to the economic improvement, the quality of consumption has also improved, and convenience stores are gradually replacing grocery store. However, convenience store management involves performance, logistic, competition, and personnel costs. Both whether the store can create a net profit and evaluate and select a new store will be important keys that significantly influence business performance. Therefore, this study attempts to use the industry data analysis method for highlighting a concept of processing an experience pr... [more]

Due to the adverse effects of hexavalent chromium (Cr6+) on human health and the quality of the environment, the scientific community has invested a lot of effort to solve this pollution problem. Thus, implementing sustainable alternatives for Cr6+ elimination by exploiting the capacity of microbial biomass to retain heavy metals by biosorption is considered an economic and eco-friendly solution, compared to the conventional physico-chemical processes. However, the ability of microorganisms to remove Cr6+ from liquid effluents can strongly be affected by biotic and abiotic factors. With these issues in mind, the main purpose of this paper was to investigate Cr6+ biosorption on Bacillus megaterium and Rhodotorula sp. biomass inactivated by thermal treatments, exploring the effects of some factors such as: pH, biosorbent dose, initial concentration of the metal in solution, temperature and contact time between the biosorbent and the metal ions on process effectiveness. The results showed... [more]

In a wind tunnel process, Mach number is the most important parameter. However, it is difficult to measure directly, especially in the multimode operation process, leading to difficulty in process monitoring. Thus, it is necessary to measure the Mach number indirectly by utilizing data-driven methods, and based on which, to monitor the operation status of the wind tunnel process. In this paper, therefore, a multimode wind tunnel flow field system monitoring strategy is proposed. Since the wind tunnel system is a strongly nonlinear system, the kernel partial least squares method, which can efficiently handle the nonlinear regression problem, is utilized. Firstly, the Mach number is predicted utilizing the kernel partial least squares method. Secondly, process monitoring statistics, i.e., the Hotelling T2 statistic and the square prediction error, the SPE statistic, and their control limits, are proposed to be applied to monitor the wind tunnel process on the basis of the prediction of t... [more]

Gas−liquid flow is a significant phenomenon in various engineering applications, such as in nuclear reactors, power plants, chemical industries, and petroleum industries. The prediction of the flow patterns is of great importance for designing and analyzing the operations of two-phase pipeline systems. The traditional numerical and empirical methods that have been used for the prediction are known to result in a high inaccuracy for scale-up processes. That is why various artificial intelligence-based (AI-based) methodologies are being applied, at present, to predict the gas−liquid flow regimes. We focused in the current study on a thorough comparative analysis of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) in predicting the flow regimes with the application of a diverse set of ML and DL frameworks to a database comprising 11,837 data points, which were collected from thirteen independent experiments. During the pre-processing, the big data analysis was performed to analyze the correla... [more]

In order to investigate the explosion mechanism of sucrose in the air atmosphere, the explosion intensity under different ignition delay times (IDT), powder input pressures (PIP), and concentrations were studied using a 20L-sphere. The sucrose particles were analyzed in a synchronized thermal analyzer (STA) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results are as follows: 1. The DSC curve has two endothermic peaks and one exothermic peak, respectively at T = 180.5 ℃, 510.2 ℃ and 582.6 ℃. 2. The explosion intensity varies with the experiment conditions. The maximum explosion pressure (Pmax) appears when IDT = 90 ms, PIP = 1.5 MPa and concentration = 625 g/m3. 3. The explosive mechanism is a homogeneous combustion mechanism based on particle surface pyrolysis and volatilization. Because of the decomposition, H2, CO, furfural, and other flammable gas-phase products are released, then surface burn appears, which leads to the crystal rupture on account of thermal imbalance, resulting in m... [more]

The power sector in Uganda has increased steadily, focusing majorly on rural electrification to increase the proportion of the rural population accessing electricity using grid extension and isolated mini-grid approaches. Hydropower mini-grids implemented in rural communities have issues regarding system failures leading to shutdowns and load shedding. A study on an existing isolated hydropower mini-grid was made to find the possible causes. A review of published articles and reports, and an analysis of enrollment patterns, energy sales, and load demand was carried out. A field survey with a guided questionnaire to collect information about real energy demand data was carried out. The performance of the system was accomplished through simulation using HOMER pro × 64 software. The findings from the study show a reduction in customer enrollment, a reduction in energy sales, and a reasonable number of system shutdowns. Hybridization of the existing hydropower was modeled with different op... [more]

The current single gas prediction model is not sufficient for identifying and processing all the characteristics of mine gas concentration time series data. This paper proposes an ARIMA-LSTM combined forecasting model based on the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and the long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network. In the ARIMA-LSTM model, the ARIMA model is used to process the historical data of gas time series and obtain the corresponding linear prediction results and residual series. The LSTM model is used in further analysis of the residual series, predicting the nonlinear factors in the residual series. The prediction results of the combined model are compared separately with those of the two single models. Finally, RMSE, MAPE and R2 are used to evaluate the prediction accuracy of the three models. The results of the study show that the metrics of the combined ARIMA-LSTM model are R2 = 0.9825, MAPE = 0.0124 and RMSE = 0.083. The combined model has... [more]

Demand trends towards mass customization drive the need for increasingly productive and flexible assembly operations. Walking-worker assembly lines can present advantages over fixed-worker systems. This article presents a multiproduct parallel walking-worker assembly line with shared automated stations, and evaluates its operational performance compared to semiautomated and manual fixed-worker lines. Simulation models were used to set up increasingly challenging scenarios based on an industrial case study. The results revealed that semiautomated parallel walking-worker lines could achieve greater productivity (+30%) than fixed-worker lines under high-mix low-volume demand conditions.

The heat and mass transfer to solid particles in one-dimensional oscillating flows are investigated in this work. A meta-correlation for the calculation of the Nusselt number (Sherwood number) is derived by comparing 33 correlations and data point sets from experiments and simulations. These models are all unified by their dependencies on the amplitude parameter 10−3≤ϵ≤103 and the Reynolds number 10−1≤Re≤106, while the ϵ-Re plane is applied as a framework in order to graphically display the various models. This is the first study to consider this problem in the entire ϵ-Re plane quantitatively while taking preexisting asymptotic models for various areas of the ϵ-Re plane into account.

The most common scale-up approach for gas−solids fluidized beds is based on matching the governing dimensionless parameters. In the literature, this approach has been validated only by means of measuring global parameters between different sizes of fluidized beds. However, such global measurements are not sufficient to depict all the interplaying hydrodynamic phenomena and hence verify the scale-up relationships. Therefore, to assess this approach, an advanced gas−solids optical probe and pressure transducer measurement techniques have been applied to quantify local hydrodynamic parameters in two different sized fluidized beds. Four different sets of experimental conditions were designed and conducted to examine the assessment of the scaling approach with matched and mismatched dimensionless groups between the two beds. The results indicated that the reported dimensionless groups are not adequate for achieving similarity between the two gas−solids fluidized beds in terms of solids hold... [more]

In order to solve the corrosion problem of production string in the process of acidizing for the purpose of production, a new water-based annular protective fluid suitable for HTHP acid gas, including H2S-CO2 wells, was developed. Firstly, an appropriate deoxidizer, bactericide, and corrosion inhibitor shall be selected according to the production string of acid gas. In addition, the synergism between additives is evaluated. Then, by designing the additive ratio, the optimal formulation of the water-based annular protective fluid is determined. Finally, a high-temperature autoclave was used to evaluate the protective performance of the water-based annular protective liquid. The results showed that it is recommended to use water-based annular protective liquids prepared with clear water that comes easily from nature (rivers, etc.), which consist of a corrosion inhibitor, CT2-19C (30,000 ppm), BN-45 bactericide (2 g/L), and anhydrous sodium sulfite (3 g/L). The density of the water-based... [more]

Metronidazole, ornidazole, tinidazole, and secnidazole are 5-nitroimidazoles. The purpose of this work was to propose a new economical TLC−densitometric method to evaluate the chemical stability of metronidazole, secnidazole, ornidazole, and tinidazole under stress conditions. A forced degradation study was performed on silica gel and aqueous solutions at various pH values; the metronidazole, secnidazole, ornidazole, and tinidazole solutions were prepared in saline and in hydrogen peroxide, respectively. The samples of the 5-nitroimidazoles were heated. TLC analyses were performed on silica gel 60F254 using chloroform−methanol (9:1, v/v) as the mobile phase. As the TLC−densitometric method can effectively separate the metronidazole, secnidazole, ornidazole, and tinidazole from their degradation products which formed as a result of the stress studies, it is considered to can be a good alternative and important tool in the routine quality control and stability testing of metronidazole, s... [more]

In this paper, a double locally weighted extreme learning machine model based on a moving window is developed to realize process modeling. To improve model performances, an improved sparrow-searching algorithm is proposed to optimize the parameters of the proposed model. The effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm are verified by data from a hematite grinding process. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve the global search ability and convergence speed in the parameter optimization of the proposed model. The proposed model can correctly estimate the grinding particle size which is expected to be applied to other complex industries.

Under extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations, trade-in programs allow manufacturers to play a vital role in recycling. Simultaneously, third-party recyclers (TPRs) can use their recycling network to compensate for manufacturers having only a single recycling channel, which increases the competition between them. To study whether companies should authorize TPRs, we constructed and analyzed a Stackelberg game model with trade-in programs under EPR regulations by focusing on three different closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) structures and differentiating consumer categories. The analytical results showed that when the government does not act as the decision maker, the optimal product selling price of the manufacturer does not change under each strategy. Otherwise, the manufacturer’s decision is affected by the cost structure and amount of subsidy, as well as funds determined by the government under the optimal environmental benefit. Furthermore, when the residual value coefficie... [more]

In a satellite network, the inter-satellite link can facilitate the information transmission and exchange between satellites, and the packet routing of the inter-satellite link is the key development direction of satellite communication systems. Aiming at the complex topology and dynamic change in LEO satellite networks, the traditional single shortest path algorithm can no longer meet the optimal path requirement. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-path routing algorithm based on an improved breadth-first search. First, according to the inter-satellite network topology information, the improved breadth-first search algorithm is used to obtain all the front hop node information of the destination node. Second, all the shortest paths are obtained by backtracking the path through the front hop node. Finally, according to the inter-satellite network, the bandwidth capacity of the traffic and nodes determines the optimal path from multiple shortest paths. However, due to the high dynam... [more]

In this study, an aerosol fluidized bed is used to coat particles. A new aerosol generator is used to obtain coating solution droplets with a diameter of around 1 μm or smaller. Glass particles, which have a mean diameter of 653 μm, were the non-porous core material and the coating solution was sodium benzoate. Scanning electron microscope pictures were analyzed by MATLAB image processing for evaluating the coverage with the curvature effect. Monte Carlo simulation was used to describe the coating of fluidized particles by aerosol droplets. The purpose of this work was the determination of possible island growth on particles, and investigation of the reasons of it by comparing the experimental and simulation results. The preferential deposition of droplets on already occupied positions is seen as the main possible reason for island growth.

Carbonate gas reservoirs in the Sichuan Basin have many complex characteristics, such as wide distribution, strong heterogeneity, high temperature, high pressure, high H2S and CO2 content and an active edge or bottom water. In the late stage of exploitation of carbonate sour gas reservoirs, the underground depleted reservoirs can provide a broad and favorable space for CO2 storage. If CO2 is injected into the depleted carbonate sour reservoirs for storage, it will help to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, and the CO2 stored underground can perform as “cushion gas” to prevent the advance of edge or bottom water, to achieve the purpose of enhanced natural gas recovery. Injecting CO2 into low permeability reservoirs for oil displacement has become an important means to enhance oil recovery (EOR). However, the mechanism of EOR by injecting CO2 into carbonate sour gas reservoirs is not clear and the related fundamental research and field application technology are still in the explorat... [more]