Application of GA-Optimized ANNs to Predict the Water Content,CO2 and H2S Absorption Capacity of Diethanolamine (DEA) in Khangiran Gas Sweetening Plant

Theoretical Foundations of Chemical Engineering - In this work, with the aim of accurate prediction of water content, H2S and CO2 absorption capacity of diethanolamine (DEA) solvent in Khangiran...     

Recension des écrits sur l'impact des contacts sexuels précoces sur les hommes.

A review of the literature on the impact of sexual contacts between adults and boys reveals the existence of two principal outcomes: 1) some participants develop various disorders once in adulthood, such as behavioural problems, sexual disorders, or personality problems; 2) some participants do not present with any major disorders in the long run. These different outcomes may be associated with several moderating variables related to the sexual contacts, such as the level of coercion at the time of these contacts, the bond between the child and the adult, or the context of the sexual relation. However, the conclusions relating to the relations between early sexual contacts with adults and subsequent problems of adaptation in adulthood are difficult to determine. This is because of various methodological problems associated with relevant studies (i.e., definition of these contacts, nature of the sample, method evaluation, statistical analyses). In this article, we propose certain avenues of research that may help clarify this problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Energy Metabolites as Biomarkers in Ischemic and Dilated Cardiomyopathy

With more than 25 million people affected, heart failure (HF) is a global threat. As energy production pathways are known to play a pivotal role in HF, we sought here to identify key metabolic changes in ischemic- and non-ischemic HF by using a multi-OMICS approach. Serum metabolites and mRNAseq and epigenetic DNA methylation profiles were analyzed from blood and left ventricular heart biopsy specimens of the same individuals. In total we collected serum from n = 82 patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) and n = 51 controls in the screening stage. We identified several metabolites involved in glycolysis and citric acid cycle to be elevated up to 5.7-fold in DCM (p = 1.7 × 10⁻⁶). Interestingly, cardiac mRNA and epigenetic changes of genes encoding rate-limiting enzymes of these pathways could also be found and validated in our second stage of metabolite assessment in n = 52 DCM, n = 39 ischemic HF and n = 57 controls. In conclusion, we identified a new set of metabolomic biomarkers for HF. We were able to identify underlying biological cascades that potentially represent suitable intervention targets.     

Mechanical properties of composites from sawdust and recycled plastics

Mechanical properties of wood plastic composites (WPCs) manufactured from sawdust and virgin and/or recycled plastics, namely high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP), were studied. Sawdust was prepared from beech industrial sawdust by screening to the desired particle size and was mixed with different virgin or recycled plastics at 50% by weight fiber loading. The mixed materials were then compression molded into panels. Flexural and tensile properties and impact strength of the manufactured WPCs were determined according to the relevant standard specifications. Although composites containing PP (virgin and recycled) exhibited higher stiffness and strength than those made from HDPE (virgin and recycled), they had lower unnotched impact strengths. Mechanical properties of specimens containing recycled plastics (HDPE and PP) were statistically similar and comparable to those of composites made from virgin plastics. This was considered as a possibility to expand the use of recycled plastics in the manufacture of WPCs. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 3641–3645, 2006     

Alternating active-phase algorithm for multimaterial topology optimization problems: a 115-line MATLAB implementation

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - A new algorithm for the solution of multimaterial topology optimization problems is introduced in the present study. The presented method is based on...     

Evolution axiale du coefficient de transfert de matière en colonne à bulles et en lit fluidisé triphasique

Liquid phase volumetric mass transfer coefficients for oxygen are determined in a three-phase fluidized bed and in a bubble column. The concept of exponential decreasing axial variation of volumetric mass transfer coefficient leads to a better representation of oxygen concentration profiles inside the column. Compared to the bubble column, k_la axial variations are more important in the lower part of the fluidized bed column, where solid particles increase the coalescence phenomenum, particularly with viscous liquids.     

Hybrid binary arithmetic optimization algorithm with simulated annealing for feature selection in high-dimensional biomedical data

Gene expression data play a significant role in the development of effective cancer diagnosis and prognosis techniques. However, many redundant, noisy, and irrelevant genes (features) are present in the data, which negatively affect the predictive accuracy of diagnosis and increase the computational burden. To overcome these challenges, a new hybrid filter/wrapper gene selection method, called mRMR-BAOAC-SA, is put forward in this article. The suggested method uses Minimum Redundancy Maximum Relevance (mRMR) as a first-stage filter to pick top-ranked genes. Then, Simulated Annealing (SA) and a crossover operator are introduced into Binary Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (BAOA) to propose a novel hybrid wrapper feature selection method that aims to discover the smallest set of informative genes for classification purposes. BAOAC-SA is an enhanced version of the BAOA in which SA and crossover are used to help the algorithm in escaping local optima and enhancing its global search capabilities. The proposed method was evaluated on 10 well-known microarray datasets, and its results were compared to other current state-of-the-art gene selection methods. The experimental results show that the proposed approach has a better performance compared to the existing methods in terms of classification accuracy and the minimum number of selected genes.