Visualization and concentration measurement of a direct-injection hydrogen jet in a constant-volume vessel using spark-induced breakdown spectroscopy

In this work, spark-induced breakdown spectroscopy (SIBS) was employed to investigate the mixing process of a hydrogen jet in a constant-volume vessel. The local fuel concentration of the hydrogen jet was measured at several locations, using a SIBS sensor. A high-speed camera was used to visualize spark discharge fluctuations, and hydrogen jet concentration measurements were conducted simultaneously. Spectrally resolved atomic emissions from the plasma generated by the spark plug were examined to determine the local equivalence ratio. Direct visualization of the spark discharge provided useful information about the influence of spark discharge characteristics related to the spark timing. Using the developed SIBS sensor, atomic emission spectra were obtained from hydrogen H_α at 656 nm and nitrogen N (I) at 501 nm. Comparison of the intensity peaks of atomic emissions from hydrogen and nitrogen allows the local hydrogen concentration in a measured volume to be determined, and hence also the local equivalence ratio. The measurement results demonstrate the local variation in the equivalence ratio throughout the jet and along its axis. From the results, the spatial structure of the hydrogen jet affects the hydrogen/nitrogen mixing and could be clarified with SIBS technique when the spark is discharged.     

First and second law investigations of a new solar‐assisted thermodynamic cycle for triple effect refrigeration

This investigation is persuaded for the first and second law analyses of a new solar‐driven triple‐effect refrigeration cycle using Duratherm 600 oil (Duratherm Extended Life Fluid, NY, USA) as the heat transfer fluid is performed. The proposed cycle is an integration of ejector, absorption, and cascaded refrigeration cycles that could produce refrigeration output of different magnitude at different temperature simultaneously. Both exergy destruction and losses in each component and hence in the overall system are determined to identify the causes and locations of the thermodynamic imperfection. The effects of some influenced parameters such as hot oil outlet temperature, refrigerant turbine inlet pressure, and the evaporator temperature of ejector and cascaded refrigeration cycle have been observed on the first and second law performances. It is found that maximum irreversibility occurs in central receiver as 52.5% and the second largest irreversibility of 25% occurs in heliostat field. The second law efficiency of the solar driven triple effect refrigeration cycle is 2%, which is much lower than its first law efficiency of 11.5%. Analysis clearly shows that performance evaluation based on the first law analysis is inadequate and hence, more meaningful evaluation must be included in the second law analysis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybrid model of content extraction

We present a hybrid model for content extraction from HTML documents. The model operates on Document Object Model (DOM) tree of the corresponding HTML document. It evaluates each tree node and associated statistical features like link density and text distribution across the node to predict significance of the node towards overall content provided by the document. Once significance of the nodes is determined, the formatting characteristics like fonts, styles and the position of the nodes are evaluated to identify the nodes with similar formatting as compared to the significant nodes. The proposed hybrid model is derived from two different models, i.e., one is based on statistical features and other on formatting characteristics and achieved the best accuracy. We describe the validity of model with the help of experiments conducted on the standard data sets. The results revealed that the proposed model outperformed other existing content extraction models. We present a browser based implementation of the proposed model as proof of concept and compare the implementation strategy with various state of art implementations. We also discuss various applications of the proposed model with special emphasis on open source intelligence.     

Application of MIKE SHE modelling system to set up a detailed water balance computation

Estimation of total water balance is a substantial issue for watershed modelling in order to simulate the major components of the hydrological cycle to determine the stress of different anthropogenic activities on the available water resources within a catchment. In this context, the fully distributed physically based MIKE SHE modelling system was used to simulate the individual hydrological components of the total water balance for the Paya Indah Wetlands (PIW) watershed in the west of Peninsular Malaysia. Results reveal that the overall water balance is predominantly controlled by climate variables. Application of the model to the PIW watershed provides detailed estimation of the total water balance for a first‐order catchment in which actual evapotranspiration (ET) represents approximately 65 and 58%, while overland flow (OL) to the PIW lake system represents 12.38 and 12.3% of the total rainfall during the calibration and validation periods, respectively. The difference of the inflow and outflow was taken as storage in depth. Overall, the model gives a reasonable output of total error of less than 1% of the total rainfall, which in turn indicates that the interaction among components is satisfactorily sustained.     

Modeling the response of Listeria monocytogenes at various storage temperatures in pork with/without electrolyzed water treatment

The objective of this study was to develop a model of the growth of Listeria monocytogenes in pork untreated or treated with low concentration electrolyzed water (LcEW) and strong acid electrolyzed water (SAEW), as a function of temperature. The experimental data obtained under different temperatures (4, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30°C) were fitted into the modified Gompertz model to generate the growth parameters including specific growth rate (SGR) and lag time (LT) with high coefficients of determination (R² >0.97). The obtained SGR and LT were employed to develop square root models to evaluate the effects of storage temperature on the growth kinetics of L. monocytogenes in pork. The values of bias factor (0.924–1.009) and accuracy factor (1.105–1.186), which were regarded as acceptable, demonstrated that the obtained models could provide good and reliable predictions and be suitable for the purpose of microbiological risk assessment of L. monocytogenes in pork.     

A novel silver–aluminium high-temperature die attach nanopaste system: the effects of organic additives content on post-sintered attributes

An Ag–Al die attach material having a fixed Ag–Al nanoparticles weight percent content (80–20 %), as well as varying organic additives weight percent content was formulated. The total nanoparticle weight percent content was varied between 84.7 and 87.0 %. As the organic additives content in the Ag₈₀–Al₂₀ die attach material decreased from 15.3 to 13.0 %, the nanopaste’s viscosity increased. The die attach material was sintered at 380 °C for 30 min to form Ag₂Al and Ag₃Al compounds. With decreasing organics content from 15.3 to 13.0 %, the porosity of the post-sintered samples also decreased from 30 to 19 %, while the density increased from 2.36 to 6.42 g/cm³. The highest melting point was recorded for the sample with the least organic weight percent content at 519 °C. The coefficient of thermal expansion and electrical conductivity values varied between 6.99–7.74 × 10^?6/ °C and 0.95–1.01 × 10⁵ (ohm-cm)^?1 respectively with decreasing organic content from 15.3 to 13.0 %. The electrical conductivity values recorded were higher than or equal to that of most solder alloy die attach materials. By changing the organic additives content in the Ag₈₀–Al₂₀ die attach material, suitable properties are obtained for high temperature die attach applications.     

Effect of rolling deformation on the structures and properties of multi‐walled carbon nanotube filled isotactic polypropylene

Isotactic polypropylene filled with various contents of multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were fabricated by the injection molding technique and then rolled at room temperature. The unrolled samples (URS) and rolled samples (RS) were characterized by X‐ray diffraction studies, scanning electron microscopy, mechanical and micromechanical tests and differential thermal analyses. Although the URS exhibit the lamellar α‐crystal with a*‐axis orientation, the RS show the same crystals with both a*‐ and c‐axis orientation, which is explained by interlamellar and intralamellar slips and lamellar destruction. Scanning electron micrographs display distinct surface morphological features for both URS and RS. While the tensile strength of RS is higher than that of URS, the Young's modulus (Y) is found to be lower than that of URS. Anisotropy in microharness (H) parallel and perpendicular to the rolled direction has been detected, although H for both samples increases with increasing MWCNT contents. The average relationship H/Y ≈ 0.18 as estimated for URS is closer to the predicted value of 0.10 for polymers than the H/Y ≈ 0.22 obtained for RS. The lamellar thickness for URS increases with increase of MWCNT content and that for RS decreases, as evaluated from both differential thermal analyses and X‐ray diffraction data. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

SQC and the fluency hypothesis

Students’ Quality Circles (SQCs) are considered in the context of English Language Teaching in Pakistan, with a focus on oral expression. SQCs offer many educational benefits.     

Oil palm bunch ripeness classification using fluorescence technique

Oil palm is Malaysia’s major agriculture product and it covers approximately 5 million hectares of Malaysia’s land. Limited land resources have been an important factor that motivated the need to increase oil extraction rate (OER). OER of oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) depends highly on their maturity stage. The ripe oil palm FFB will produce high OER while the under ripe and over ripe oil palm FFB will produce less oil. Thus, this paper presents a method of classification between oil palm FFB into ripe, under-ripe and over-ripe categories. This research was done at an oil palm plantation in peninsular Malaysia. A total of two-hundred and ten oil palm FFB that consist of seventy bunches for each category of under-ripe, ripe and over-ripe had been used. Each bunch was scanned ten times randomly with a hand-held multi-parameter fluorescence sensor called Multiplex®3. The parameter measured was the Blue-to-Red Fluorescence Ratio (BRR_FRF) obtained from blue-green (447 nm) and far-red (685 nm) emission signal by using ultraviolet (UV) light emitting diode as excitation light source. The novel contribution of this research is to prove that the oil palm FFB maturity can be determined using the Blue-to-Red Fluorescence ratio index. This is based to our finding of a significant difference among the three categories of ripeness based on the parameter. Classification and Regression Tree (C&RT) method was proposed in this paper. Hundred-fifty samples were used to develop the model by trained it using C&RT method and the remaining sixty samples for the test component. By using the C&RT method, the results show the best accuracy of overall testing classification is 90%. This research will be useful for future development of non-destructive, automatic and real time oil palm FFB grading system.     

Screening for lipid depositor of Indonesian microalgae isolated from seashore and peat-land

The screening for finding the lipid producer of indigenous Indonesian tropical microalgae that obtained from peat-land at Riau, Sumatra and seashore at Lombok has carried out. Preliminary screening was done by selection on faster growing algae from 44 (forty-four) isolates. 10 (ten) isolates were chosen for further analysis. Out of 10 selected isolates shows that five isolates have indication rapid growth and high content of lipid, furthermore those chose isolates were observed comprehensively, namely LIPI11-2-Al005, LIPI11-2-Al010, LIPI11-2-Al015, LIPI11-2-Al018, and LIPI11-2-Al019. The microalgae are belong to the eukaryotic microalgae and its seem to be closed to Chlorophytes that has cell nuclear with an envelope, light green chloroplast, thick cell wall, round and elongated cell features. Cultivation of the microalgae in laboratory condition (1 L) has shown that lipid content was about 20–35% base in cell dry weight. The highest lipid content was found in the isolate LIPI11-2-Al018 of 30.74% per dry weight cell. LIPI11-2-A1018 therefore was test for scale up cultivation reach the culture volume of 5 L in the cylindrical photobioreactor, and expected to be source of triglycerides and lipids for biodiesel ingredient.