Biohydrogen Production from Organic Waste – A Review

Hydrogen fuel is a promising alternative to fossil fuels because of its energy content, clean nature, and fuel efficiency. However, it is not readily available. Most current producion processes are very energy intensive and emit carbon dioxide. Therefore, this article reviews technological options for hydrogen production that are eco-friendly and generate clean hydrogen fuel. Biological methods, such different fermentation processes and photolysis are discussed together with the required substrates and the process efficiency.     

Operations research applications in the plywood industry

There are several areas in the plywood industry where Operations Research techniques have greatly assisted in better decision-making. These have resulted in improved profits, reduction of wood losses and better utilization of resources. Realizing these, some of the plywood manufacturing firms in the developed countries have established separate Operations Research departments or divisions. In the face of limited raw-material resources, raising costs and a competitive environment, the benefits attributable to the use of these techniques are becoming more and more significant.     

Cell-Free DNA Fragments as Biomarkers of Islet β-Cell Death in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) typically occurs in the setting of obesity and insulin resistance, where hyperglycemia is associated with decreased pancreatic β-cell mass and function. Loss of β-cell mass has variably been attributed to β-cell dedifferentiation and/or death. In recent years, it has been proposed that circulating epigenetically modified DNA fragments arising from β cells might be able to report on the potential occurrence of β-cell death in diabetes. Here, we review published literature of DNA-based β-cell death biomarkers that have been evaluated in human cohorts of islet transplantation, type 1 diabetes, and obesity and type 2 diabetes. In addition, we provide new data on the applicability of one of these biomarkers (cell free unmethylated INS DNA) in adult cohorts across a spectrum from obesity to T2D, in which no significant differences were observed, and compare these findings to those previously published in youth cohorts where differences were observed. Our analysis of the literature and our own data suggest that β-cell death may occur in subsets of individuals with obesity and T2D, however a more sensitive method or refined study designs are needed to provide better alignment of sampling with disease progression events.     

Novel image fusion scheme based on dependency measure for robust multispectral palmprint recognition

Multispectral palmprint is considered as an effective biometric modality to accurately recognize a subject with high confidence. This paper presents a novel multispectral palmprint recognition system consisting of three functional blocks namely: (1) novel technique to extract Region of Interest (ROI) from the hand images acquired using a contact less sensor (2) novel image fusion scheme based on dependency measure (3) new scheme for feature extraction and classification. The proposed ROI extraction scheme is based on locating the valley regions between fingers irrespective of the hand pose. We then propose a novel image fusion scheme that combines information from different spectral bands using a Wavelet transform from various sub-bands. We then perform the statistical dependency analysis between these sub-bands to perform fusion either by selection or by weighted fusion. To effectively process the information from the fused image, we perform feature extraction using Log-Gabor transform whose feature dimension is reduced using Kernel Discriminant Analysis (KDA) before performing the classification by employing a Sparse Representation Classifier (SRC). Extensive experiments are carried out on a CASIA multispectral palmprint database that shows the strong superiority of our proposed fusion scheme when benchmarked with contemporary state-of-the-art image fusion schemes.     

Buffer Management for Colored Packets with Deadlines

We consider buffer management of unit packets with deadlines for a multi-port device with reconfiguration overhead. The goal is to maximize the throughput of the device, i.e., the number of packets delivered by their deadline. For a single port or with free reconfiguration, the problem reduces to the well-known packets scheduling problem, where the celebrated earliest-deadline-first (EDF) strategy is optimal 1-competitive. However, EDF is not 1-competitive when there is a reconfiguration overhead. We design an online algorithm that achieves a competitive ratio of 1−o(1) when the ratio between the minimum laxity of the packets and the number of ports tends to infinity. This is one of the rare cases where one can design an almost 1-competitive algorithm. One ingredient of our analysis, which may be interesting on its own right, is a perturbation theorem on EDF for the classical packets scheduling problem. Specifically, we show that a small perturbation in the release and deadline times cannot significantly degrade the optimal throughput. This implies that EDF is robust in the sense that its throughput is close to the optimum even when the deadlines are not precisely known.     

Applying a critical approach to investigate barriers to digital inclusion and online social networking among young people with disabilities

Despite the seeming ubiquity of young people's Internet use, there are still many for whom access to the Internet and online social networking remains inequitable and patterned by disadvantage. The connection between information technology and young people with disabilities is particularly under‐researched. This article contributes to the field of critical information systems research by exposing significant barriers and facilitators to Internet accessibility for young people with disabilities. It uses Bourdieu's critical theory to explore how the unequal distribution of resources shapes processes of digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. It highlights access needs and experiences that are both disability and non‐disability related. The article draws on interviews in South Australia with 18 young people aged 10–18 years with a physical disability (such as cerebral palsy) or acquired brain injury and with 17 of their family members. Interviews evaluated participants' and parents' reflections on the benefits of a home‐based, goal‐oriented intervention to increase the young person's Internet use for social participation purposes. The Bourdieuian analysis demonstrated how varying levels of accrued individual and family offline capital resources are related to digital/online resources and disability‐specific online resources. This revealed how unequal resources of capital can influence technology use and hence digital inclusion for young people with disabilities. Our study demonstrates that young people with particular types of disabilities require intensive, personalised and long‐term support from within and beyond the family to ‘get online’. We conclude that Internet studies need to more frequently adopt critical approaches to investigate the needs of users and barriers to information technology use within sub‐groups, such as young people with disabilities. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Synthesis, characterization and a.c. conductivity of polypyrrole/Y2O3 composites

Conducting polymer composites of polypyrrole/yttrium oxide (PPy/Y₂O₃) were synthesized byin situ polymerization of pyrrole with Y₂O₃ using FeCl₃ as an oxidant. The Y₂O₃ is varied in five different weight percentages of PPy in PPy/Y₂O₃ composites. The synthesized polymer composites are characterized by infrared and X-ray diffraction techniques. The surface morphology of the composite is studied by scanning electron microscopy. The glass transition temperature of the polymer and its composite is discussed by DSC. Electrical conductivity of the compressed pellets depends on the concentration of Y₂O₃ in PPy. The frequency dependent a.c. conductivity reveals that the Y₂O₃ concentration in PPy is responsible for the variation of conductivity of the composites. Frequency dependent dielectric constant at room temperature for different composites are due to interfacial space charge (Maxwell Wagner) polarization leading to the large value of dielectric constant. Frequency dependent dielectric loss, as well as variation of dielectric loss as a function of mass percentage of Y₂O₃ is also presented and discussed.     

Resource deadlocks and performance of wormhole multicast routingalgorithms

We show that deadlocks due to dependencies on consumption channels are a fundamental problem in wormhole multicast routing. This type of resource deadlocks has not been addressed in many previously proposed wormhole multicast algorithms. We also show that deadlocks on consumption channels can be avoided by using multiple classes of consumption channels and restricting the use of consumption channels by multicast messages. We provide upper bounds for the number of consumption channels required to avoid deadlocks. In addition, we present a new multicast routing algorithm, column-path, which is based on the well-known dimension-order routing used in many multicomputers and multiprocessors. Therefore, this algorithm could be implemented in existing multicomputers with simple changes to the hardware. Using simulations, we compare the performance of the proposed column-path algorithm with the previously proposed Hamiltonian-path-based multipath and an e-cube-based multicast routing algorithms. Our results show that for multicast traffic, the column-path routing offers higher throughputs, while the multipath algorithm offers lower message latencies. Another result of our study is that the commonly implemented simplistic scheme of sending one copy of a multicast message to each of its destinations exhibits good performance provided the number of destinations is small     

Diurnal and seasonal variabilities in surface ozone and its precursor gases at a semi‐arid site Anantapur (14.62°N, 77.65°E, 331 m asl) in India

Measurements of surface ozone and its precursor gases (NO_x and CO) have been made at a semi‐arid site Anantapur (14.62°N, 77.65°E, 331 m asl) in tropical Indian region for the period, 2001–2003. NO_x and CO levels were the highest during morning and late night hours at this site. Diurnal variations of ozone concentrations varied from 25 ppbv to 50 ppbv and were observed to increase gradually after sunrise, attaining a maximum value by the evening and decreasing gradually thereafter. During monsoon months, the diurnal amplitude of ozone was found to be small (20–25 ppbv). Seasonal variation in ozone showed a pronounced maximum (40–50 ppbv) in the winter and summer. Local pollutants were major contributors to the ozone levels during this period. Ozone shows a yearly mean mixing ratio of about 35.9 ± 8.8 ppbv. The daytime concentration of CO and NO_x varied between 200 to 1200 ppbv and 3 to 20 ppbv respectively for the period studied. Annual average mixing ratios of oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) and CO were observed to be 3.9±0.6 ppbv and 436±64 ppbv, respectively.     

Effect of Transition Metals on Polysialic Acid Structure and Functions

Polysialic acid (PSA) is one of the most abundant glycopolymer present in embryonic brain, and it is known to be involved in key roles such as plasticity in the central nervous system, cell adhesion, migration and localization of neurotrophins. However, in adult brain, its expression is quite low. The exception to this is in Alzheimer′s disease (AD) brain, where significantly increased levels of polysilylated neural cell adhesion molecule (PSA‐NCAM) have been reported. Here, we confirm the role of PSA as a metal chelator, allowing it to decrease cytotoxicity caused by high levels of transition metals, commonly found in AD brain, and as a regulator of cell behavior. UV‐visible (UV‐vis) and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) techniques were used to investigate the assembly of PSA–metals complexes. These PSA–metal complexes exhibited less toxicity compared to free metal ions, and in particular, the PSA–Cu²⁺ complex synergistically promoted neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells.