Effect of Ozonated Water Treatment on Fatty Acid Composition and Some Quality Parameters of Olive Oil

The organic olives from Çine-Ayd?n (Turkey) were washed with tap or ozonated water for 2 and 5 min, respectively, and pressed to olive oil. The effects of wash treatments on fatty acid composition and several quality parameters of the oils were determined. The maximum values after 2-min ozonated water washes were 9.58 meqO₂/kg, 0.73%, 2.44 and 0.16 for peroxide, free acid, K₂₃₂ and K₂₇₀ values, respectively, which were under the standard limits for extra-virgin olive oil. Five min of ozonated water washes also yielded acceptable results, except for a slight excess on K₂₃₂ value. Ozonated water washes had almost no effect on fatty acid composition.     

Differentiation of Mechanically and Chemically Extracted Hazelnut Oils Based on their Sterol and Wax Profiles

The sterol and wax content of solvent extracted (SEHO) and cold pressed hazelnut oils (CPHO) were compared. A total of 48 samples from 19 hazelnut varieties were collected for two successive crop years from four different geographical districts in Turkey. Hazelnuts were processed to oil with a laboratory scale press, than the remaining oil in cake was extracted with n‐hexane. CPHO and SEHO were evaluated for their wax, sterol and squalene contents. Results showed that sterol, squalene and wax contents of all individual cultivars were higher in SEHO than those of CPHO, indicating the higher solubility of these compounds in solvent. Total sterol contents ranged between 1088.56 (Kargalak)—1609.39 mg/kg (Mincane) for CPHO and 1590.86 (Çak?ldak)—2897.26 mg/kg (Mincane) for SEHO. Hazelnut oils were found to be richer of C36‐38 esters than C40‐46 group. Total wax content was between 24.19 (Kargalak)—94.58 mg/kg (Ku?) for CPHO and 81.46 (Kargalak)—160.92 mg/kg (Akçakoca) for SEHO. The squalene amounts of the samples obtained by hexane extraction were between 499.75 (Allahverdi)—885.36 mg/kg (Cavcava), while it varied between 288.55 (Kargalak)—647.68 mg/kg (Mincane) in cold pressed oils. Significant and obvious variations between SEHO and CPHO were verified by principal component and hierarchical cluster analysis. Geographical discrimination was also achieved by discriminant analysis.     

Comparative Review on Structure,Properties, Fabrication Techniques,and Relevance of Polymer Nanocomposites Reinforced with Carbon Nanotube and Graphite Fillers

Owing to their remarkable electrical, mechanical, thermal, catalytic, and optical properties as well as their unique structure, carbon nanotubes and graphite have been exploited to produce high performance and multifunctional composites. The resultant composites are differentiated on the basis of their properties to meet various applications. In the framework of this review article, we have mainly focused on the preparation, structure, and properties of two families of composite materials with an emphasis on the differences between them. Moreover, the current challenges, future prospectives, and applications of carbon nanotubes- and graphite-based materials in sensors and in photovoltaic and energy storage devices (Li-ion battery) have been discussed.     

TiO2/Al2O3 membrane reactor equipped with a methanol recovery unit to produce palm oil biodiesel

In this study, the central composite design of the response surface methodology was employed to investigate the effects of reaction temperature, catalyst concentration and cross flow circulation velocity on the production of biodiesel in a TiO₂/Al₂O₃ membrane reactor. High‐quality palm oil biodiesel was produced by combination of alkali transesterification and separation processes in the ceramic membrane reactor. The optimum conditions for the conversion of palm oil to biodiesel in the ceramic membrane reactor were as follows: 70°C reaction temperature, 1.12 wt% catalyst concentration and 0.211 cm s^{? 1} cross flow circulation velocity. The physical and chemical properties of the produced biodiesel were determined and compared with the standard specifications. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parkinson’s Disease tremor classification – A comparison between Support Vector Machines and neural networks

Deep Brain Stimulation has been used in the study of and for treating Parkinson’s Disease (PD) tremor symptoms since the 1980s. In the research reported here we have carried out a comparative analysis to classify tremor onset based on intraoperative microelectrode recordings of a PD patient’s brain Local Field Potential (LFP) signals. In particular, we compared the performance of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) with two well known artificial neural network classifiers, namely a Multiple Layer Perceptron (MLP) and a Radial Basis Function Network (RBN). The results show that in this study, using specifically PD data, the SVM provided an overall better classification rate achieving an accuracy of 81% recognition.     

Seed-mediated grown platinum nanocrystal: A correlation between seed volume and catalytic performance of formic acid and ethanol oxidation

Platinum (Pt) nanocrystals of cubic and octopod structures were synthesized via seed-mediated solvothermal growth with monoethanolamine as the solvent. The combination of nanocube and octopod structures was formed using 0.025 ml seeds loading, while increasing the seeds volume to 0.050 ml and 0.100 ml produced nanocube as the primary product. The octopod structure evolves from the overgrown nanocube via kinetic growth mechanism. Pt nanocube formed with 0.050 ml seeded solution has the potential to serve as a catalyst in formic acid oxidation by virtue of its high electrochemical surface area of 10.93 m²/g, over that of Pt black at 8.62 m²/g and resistance to poisonous CO. Nonetheless, it is less catalytically active in ethanol oxidation as depicted by the small electrochemical surface area of 8.64 m²/g and low current density in longer period.     

On the effect of turbulent intensity towards the accuracy of the zero-equation turbulence model for indoor airflow application

The zero-equation turbulence model for indoor airflow applications proposed by Chen and Xu [4] has obtained immense popularity amongst the CFD practitioners in HVAC industry. A uniform turbulent intensity of 10% has been assumed in their model. In this paper, following the analogy of Chen and Xu [4] in deriving the coefficient of their zero-equation turbulence model (0.03874) which is indeed expressed as a function of turbulent intensity, the effect of turbulent intensity value assumed in the model towards the solution accuracy is investigated in this paper. Three indoor airflow cases, i.e. forced convection, natural convection and mixed convection problems are studied. It has been discovered that as the assumed uniform turbulent intensity T_i is reduced, the solution accuracy is significantly improved and the prediction comes closer to those of the two-equation standard k-? model, LES model as well as the experimental data.