A comprehensive review of solar‐driven desalination technologies for off‐grid greenhouses

This paper is motivated by the crisis of freshwater in remote areas around the world and responds to the growing need for sustainable food production in arid lands. It focuses on utilizing solar energy to yield freshwater from the sea or brackish water with less environmental impacts, for greenhouses, which can produce sustainable food all over the year. The integration of various solar‐driven desalinations such as solar still, humidification‐dehumidification, reverse osmosis, electrodialysis, and multieffect and multistage flash with greenhouses are evaluated, for better sustainability towards greenization. The paper first discusses the specifications of solar‐driven desalinations and compares their advantages and limitations. Then, different types of greenhouses are introduced, and their total water requirement is discussed based on their locations, crop type, greenhouse technology, irrigation type, and environmental conditions, as well as their cooling and heating strategies. Later, the existing integration of solar‐driven desalinations with greenhouses are reviewed, and their advantages and limitations are deliberated. Finally, the paper discusses the criteria to be considered when selecting solar‐driven desalinations for greenhouses and presents a detailed comparison between the water production rate and cost as well as the energy consumption of these systems. In the end, the most appropriate combinations of solar‐driven desalinations with greenhouses are recommended based on their water requirement and production cost.     

Radiation pattern design of photonic crystal LED optimized by using multi-objective grey wolf optimizer

Photonic Network Communications - This paper proposes an effective method for shaping the radiation pattern intensity of photonic crystal (PhC) light-emitting diode (LED). In this method, the...     

Geographical origin classification of olive oils by PTR-MS

The volatile compositions of 192 olive oil samples from five different European countries were investigated by PTR-MS sample headspace analysis. The mass spectra of all samples showed many masses with high abundances, indicating the complex VOC composition of olive oil. Three different PLS-DA models were fitted to the data to classify samples into ‘country’, ‘region’ and ‘district’ of origin, respectively. Correct classification rates were assessed by cross-validation. The first fitted model produced an 86% success rate in classifying the samples into their country of origin. The second model, which was fitted to the Italian oils only, also demonstrated satisfactory results, with 74% of samples successfully classified into region of origin. The third model, classifying the Italian samples into district of origin, yielded a success rate of only 52%. This lower success rate might be due to either the small class set, or to genuine similarities between olive oil VOC compositions on this tight scale.     

Inverse optimality in the class of Hopfield neural networks with input nonlinearity

This paper presents the chaos suppression problem in the class of Hopfield neural networks (HNNs) with input nonlinearity using inverse optimality approach. Using the inverse optimality technique and based on Lyapunov stability theory, a stabilizing control law, which is optimal with respect to meaningful cost functional, is determined to achieve global asymptotically stability in the closed-loop system. Numerical simulation is performed on a four-dimensional hyper-chaotic HNN to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

TiO2 hollow spheres as a novel antibiotic carrier for the direct delivery of gentamicin

The TiO₂ hollow spheres were synthesized using a green, cheap, and easy process, in which carbonaceous spheres were chosen as the removable template. The prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis. According to the results, the obtained mesoporous TiO₂ hollow spheres demonstrated an external diameters less than 200?nm with shell thickness around 40?nm. The antibacterial activities of the TiO₂ hollow spheres were evaluated against gram-positive (Bacillus subtilis and Staphylococcus aureus) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). No antibacterial activity was found for TiO₂ hollow spheres in the used concentrations. TiO₂ hollow spheres were loaded with gentamycin as a selected antibiotic to magnify their benefits in biomedical applications. TiO₂ hollow spheres exhibited good antibiotic carrier activity for the direct delivery of gentamicin, which was attributed to interaction between gentamicin and surface due to their larger specific surface area, more abundant porous structure, and their spherical morphology. The application of TiO₂ hollow spheres as gentamicin carrier undoubtedly opens an avenue to use hollow sphere materials in other drug delivery applications.     

Elements of formian

Formian is a programming language which may be used for the preparation of engineering data in many disciplines. In particular, Formian may be employed to generate information about various aspects of a structural system including element connectivity, nodal coordinates, loading particulars, joint numbers and support arrangements. The information generated may be used for graphic visualization of the structural system or may be submitted as input data to an analysis package. Formian is based on the concepts of formex algebra allowing structures to be modelled in a concise and readily understood manner, manner. The data may be generated in terms of parameters and this feature is particularly useful in optimisation processes. Furthermore, the generated data may be stored in the form of a ‘rule’ and thus complete information about a structural system may be represented in a few lines of formulation. This allows data to be modified easily and provides a convenient means of keeping the information for future reference. The objective of the paper is to introduce the commonly used elements of Formian in an informal manner. No previous knowledge of formex algebra is required for understanding the material presented.     

Migration analysis,antioxidant, and mechanical characterization of polypropylene-based active food packaging films loaded with BHA,BHT, and TBHQ

Polypropylene (PP) based active composite films were prepared by adding butylated hydroxy anisole (BHA), butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and tertiary butylated hydroquinone (TBHQ) antioxidants using the extrusion molding process. All concentrations of BHT, 2% to 3% BHA, and 3% TBHQ significantly increased the tensile strength (TS) of the composite films compared with control films. Increasing antioxidant concentration decreased TS values for BHT films, whereas an opposite trend was observed for BHA and TBHQ films. BHA at < 2%, BHT at > 2%, and TBHQ at all added concentrations significantly reduced elongation at break (E_b) of the composite films compared to control films. Water vapor permeability (WVP) of 1% BHT film was not significantly different from control. However, other antioxidants especially at increased concentrations significantly increased WVP values. TBHQ films with 300% to 662% increase had the highest WVP and BHT films with 5% to 81% increase had the lowest WVP among composite films. All three antioxidants had a negative effect on the transparency of the films; however the effect of BHA at higher concentrations was greater. The antioxidants did not change the color attributes of the films. Films containing all antioxidants showed 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical-scavenging activity, which increased with increase in their concentration, especially for those containing 3 wt.% BHT and TBHQ. Overall, incorporating BHA and BHT into a PP matrix improved mechanical, barrier, antioxidant properties, and film appearance and consequently were proposed for the development of antioxidant active PP films. TBHQ film is not recommended for food packaging because of its weak mechanical properties (lower E_b and TS values, higher WVP, and greater migration).     

A latency-aware task scheduling algorithm for allocating virtual machines in a cost-effective and time-sensitive fog-cloud architecture

The Journal of Supercomputing - Recently, with the expansion of communications and generated data, the need for processing this high volume of data in minimum time and maximum speed has increased....