Dietary Supplementation of Tetracarpidium conophorum (African Walnut) Seed Enhances Muscle n‐3 Fatty Acids in Broiler Chickens

The influence of dietary Tetracarpidium conophorum (African Walnut) seed meal (TCSM) on fatty acids, productivity parameters, and physicochemical properties of breast and thigh muscles in broiler chickens are assessed. A total of 180, 28‐d‐old Arbor acre broiler chickens are randomly assigned to dietary treatments containing 0% (control), 2.5%, and 5% w/w TCSM, fed for 28 d, and euthanized. Dietary TCSM reduces (p < 0.05) feed intake, body weight gain (BWG), carcass weight, and abdominal fat. Diet does not affect feed efficiency and hematological parameters. The control birds have higher (p < 0.05) serum total cholesterol and triglycerides than do the supplemented birds. Diet has no effect on pH, water holding capacity, carbonyl and malondialdehyde contents, and organoleptic properties of breast and thigh muscles. The 5% TCSM has higher redness in breast muscle than do other treatments. Dietary TCSM improves (p < 0.05) the concentration of C18:3n‐3 (4.80–8.76% vs 1.56%), C20:5n‐3 (0.54–0.79% vs 0.39%), C22:5n‐3 (0.64–0.89% vs 0.18%), and C22:6n‐3 (0.75–0.97% vs 0.19%), and reduces (p <  0.05) the fat content (2.15–2.45% vs 3.15%) in breast and thigh muscles. Dietary TCSM enhances muscle n‐3 fatty acids without instigating oxidative deterioration, but reduces BWG in broiler chickens. Practical Application: Albeit that broiler meat is rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), its omega 6 (n‐6)/omega 3 (n‐3) is >4. Elevated n‐6/n‐3 could have adverse effect on human physiology thereby promoting the pathogenesis of certain diseases. This heightens the need to enhance the n‐3 PUFA content of broiler meat. Dietary TCSM induced up to a fourfold increase in n‐3 PUFA content of the breast and thigh muscles in broiler chickens. Moreover, dietary TCSM induced up to a tenfold decrease in the n‐6/n‐3 of the breast and thigh muscles in broiler chickens. This finding assumes great significance because the health concerns regarding dietary fat are the foremost factors responsible for the bad image suffered by meat. These results provide insights on the potential of TCSM to improve the nutritional quality without compromising the oxidative shelf life, organoleptic traits, and physicochemical properties of broiler meat.     

Chromophore-Free Sealing and Repair of Soft Tissues Using Mid-Infrared Light-Activated Biosealants

Poor strength, infection, leakage, long procedure times, and inflammation limit the efficacy of common tissue sealing devices in surgeries and trauma. Light-activated sealing is attractive for tissue sealing and repair, and can be facilitated by the generation of local heat following absorption of nonionizing laser energy by chromophores. Here, the inherent ability of biomaterials is exploited to absorb nonionizing, mid-infrared (midIR) light in order to engender rapid photothermal sealing and repair of soft tissue wounds. In this approach, the biomaterial simultaneously acts as a photothermal convertor as well as a biosealant, which dispenses the need for exogeneous light-absorbing nanoparticles or dyes. Biomechanical recovery, mathematical modeling, histopathology analyses, tissue strain mapping using digital imaging correlation, and visualization of the biosealant-tissue interface using hyperspectral imaging indicate superior performance of midIR sealing in live mice compared to conventional sutures and glue. The midIR-biosealant approach demonstrates rapid sealing of soft tissues, improves cosmesis, lowers potential for scarring, obviates safety concerns because of the nonionizing light used, and allows adoption of a wide diversity of biomaterials. Taken together, the studies demonstrate a novel advance both in biomaterials for surgical sealing along with the use of nonionizing midIR light, with high potential for clinical translation.     

Second-law-based thermodynamic analysis of two-stage and mechanical-subcooling refrigeration cycles

Thermodynamic analysis of HFC-134a vapor-compression refrigeration cycles is investigated by both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Second-law analysis is carried out for both two-stage and mechanical-subcooling refrigeration cycles. The analysis is performed on each of the system components to determine their individual contribution to the overall system irreversible losses. It is found that most of the losses are due to a low compressor efficiency. Irreversibilities of expansion valves and condenser are also significant. In addition, it is shown that the optimum inter-stage pressure for two-stage and mechanical-subcooling refrigeration systems is very close to the saturation pressure corresponding to the arithmetic mean of the refrigerant condensation and evaporation temperatures. These results are compared with the existing practice in the industry. Furthermore, theoretical results of a two-stage refrigeration system performance are also compared with experimental values for a CFC-22 system.     

Auto-recognition and part model complexity quantification of regular-freeform revolved surfaces through delta volume generations

Engineering with Computers - Vast research works implementing feature-based technology have successfully been devoted. However, work on recognition of revolved regular-freeform surfaces is still...     

Infrared absorption spectroscopy and fluctuations induced conductivity (FIC) analysis of Be-doped TlBa2Ca2Cu3O10−δ superconductor

Be-doped TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ (y=0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0) superconductor bulk samples were synthesized by solid state reaction and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), dc-resistivity {ρ (Ω cm)}, and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) absorption spectroscopy. Fluctuations induced conductivity (FIC) analysis is carried out on temperature dependent dc-resistivity data of as-prepared and oxygen post-annealed TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ superconductor samples by using Aslamazov–Larkin (AL) and Lawrence–Doniach (LD) models for excess conductivity. Different microscopic parameters such as zero temperature coherence length along c-axis {ξ_c(0)}, inter-layer coupling (J), inter-grain coupling (α), critical exponent (λ_D) and dimensionality of fluctuations are calculated for understanding the role of Be-doping on superconducting properties of TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ samples. The cross-over temperature (T_o) is shifted towards higher temperature values with the increase of Be contents in TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ samples. The increase in ξ_c(0) and J after Be-doping at Ca sites shows the improvement of inter-plane coupling in TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ samples. The increase in zero resistivity critical temperature {T_c(R=0) (K)} up to y=0.5 and then decrease for y=0.75, 1.00 fixed the Be-doping level for optimum increase of superconducting properties of TlBa₂(Ca_2−yBe_y)Cu₃O_10−δ samples. The appreciable changes in all the microscopic parameters extracted from the FIC analysis and the increase in relative intensity of almost all the oxygen phonon modes indicate the oxygen diffusion in the unit cell after oxygen post-annealing the samples. The oxygen diffusion can take place at both inter-granular and intra-granular sites, which increase the superconducting volume fraction by improving the grains size, inter-grain connectivity and carrier density.     

On the feasibility of community-scale photovoltaic-powered reverse osmosis desalination systems for remote locations

This paper presents a generalized methodology to evaluate the feasibility of photovoltaic-powered reverse osmosis (PVRO) systems for small, remote communities in challenging environments. The economic feasibility is determined by comparing the cost of water from a photovoltaic reverse osmosis system with the cost of water obtained using conventional diesel-powered reverse osmosis. For PVRO systems, the feasibility is a function of location due to variation in solar resource, water type, system demand and local governmental policies. A series of sample cases were analyzed to demonstrate the method. Analysis for community-scale seawater reverse osmosis systems was carried out for various locations using Geographic Information System (GIS) data. A site-specific analysis has been completed for seawater and brackish water reverse osmosis systems. It was found that photovoltaic-powered reverse osmosis is feasible for the majority of remote locations with a large solar resource.     

Characterization of vanadyl phthalocyanine based surface-type capacitive humidity sensors

This study presents the fabrication and characterization of novel surface-type capacitive humidity sensors using vanadyl phthalocyanine (VOPc) as the active material. The devices, which comprise three different thicknesses,have been fabricated using the thermal evaporation technique. A thin film of VOPc is deposited on thoroughly cleaned glass substrates with pre-pattemed Ag electrodes. The capacitive effect of the samples under humidity has been in-vestigated. Comparison of the samples with different thicknesses shows that the thinnest device seems more sensitive towards humidity. The humidity dependent capacitance properties of the sensor make it beneficial for use in commercial hygrometers.     

A comprehensive design and performance evaluation study of counter flow wet cooling towers

Fouling of cooling tower fills is one of the most important factors affecting its thermal performance, which reduces cooling tower effectiveness and capability with time. In this paper, the fouling model presented in an earlier paper using the experimental data on fill fouling, is used to investigate the risk based thermal performance of the cooling tower. It is demonstrated that effectiveness of the cooling tower degrades significantly with time indicating that for a low risk level (p=0.01), there is about 6.0% decrease in effectiveness for the given fouling model. The sensitivity analysis of the cooling tower is investigated for both rating and design calculation for different values of mass flow rate ratios. The effect of atmospheric pressure on the thermal performance of the cooling tower is also demonstrated.     

Toward the modeling of data provenance in scientific publications

In this paper, we implement a provenance-aware system for documenting publications, called PADS. It employs a three-layered provenance hierarchy, which can output diverse types of provenance data related to the research life cycle. From this, we generate different profiles for research ventures, reviewers, and authors. PADS employs the standard Open Provenance Model (OPM) specification for capturing provenance data, and stores this data as ontological instances. We show that data is retrieved without any apparent delay in the execution time of the queries. We also demonstrate how this data can be used to make useful recommendations to the organizers, in order to manage upcoming research ventures.