Modelling of multicomponent salt systems: Application to sea water and brines I. Derivation of the model

The solubility of a salt in saturated solution is described in terms of heterogeneous reaction between solid and liquid and an equation of the solubility field is established for each solid phase (limiting or intermediate phase) of a multicomponent aqueous salt system.

The model supposes that solid phases are stoichiometric and that the solution is a strong electrolyte. It includes all sub-systems and the procedure used for the calculation of coefficients is described.

The equations allow the critical evaluation of solubility data, the calculation of phase diagrams and the determination of equilibrium (proportion and nature of phases) under any conditions of temperature and composition.

The application to the sub-systems involved in sea water and natural brines will be developed in forthcoming publications.     

Geostructural stability assessment of cave using rock surface discontinuity extracted from terrestrial laser scanning point cloud

The use of terrestrial laser scanning(TLS) in the caves has been growing drastically over the last decade.However, TLS application to cave stability assessment has not received much attention of researchers.This study attempted to utilize rock surface orientations obtained from TLS point cloud collected along cave passages to(1) investigate the influence of rock geostructure on cave passage development, and(2)assess cave stability by determining areas susceptible to different failure types. The TLS point cloud was divided into six parts(Entry hall, Chamber, Main hall, Shaft 1, Shaft 2 and Shaft 3), each representing different segments of the cave passages. Furthermore, the surface orientation information was extracted and grouped into surface discontinuity joint sets. The computed global mean and best-fit planes of the entire cave show that the outcrop dips 290° with a major north-south strike. But at individual level, the passages with dip angle between 26° and 80° are featured with dip direction of 75°-322°. Kinematic tests reveal the potential for various failure modes of rock slope. Our findings show that toppling is the dominant failure type accounting for high-risk rockfall in the cave, with probabilities of 75.26%, 43.07%and 24.82% in the Entry hall, Main hall and Shaft 2, respectively. Unlike Shaft 2 characterized by high risk of the three failure types(32.49%, 24.82% and 50%), the chamber and Shaft 3 passages are not suffering from slope failure. The results also show that the characteristics of rock geostructure considerably influence the development of the cave passages, and four sections of the cave are susceptible to different slope failure types, at varying degrees of risk.     

Properties of 7ND-CCL2 are modulated upon fusion to Fc

7ND, a truncated version of the chemokine MCP-1/CCL2 lacking amino acids 2-8, is a potent antagonist of CCR2. In contrast to CCL2, 7ND is an obligate monomer. Similar to other chemokines, the in vivo half-life of 7ND is very short and its use as an antagonist in disease models is thus limited. We therefore constructed a 7ND-Fc fusion protein to extend the half-life of 7ND and overcome its limitations as a potential therapeutic antagonist. When we tested the properties of the fusion molecule in vitro, we found to our surprise that 7ND-Fc, in contrast to 7ND, produced a distinct, albeit small, chemotactic response in THP-1 cells, and a robust chemotactic response in L1.2 cells stably transfected with CCR2. To test whether this unexpected observation might be due to the bivalency of 7ND-Fc stemming from the dimeric nature of Fc fusions, we produced a heterodimeric Fc fusion which displays only one 7ND moiety, using a technology called strand exchange of engineered CH3 domains (SEED). The monovalent construct had properties equivalent to the parent 7ND. Furthermore, partial agonist activity appears to depend on receptor density as well as the signaling pathway examined. However, we were able to show that 7ND-Fc, but not 7ND alone, has antagonistic activity in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a murine model of multiple sclerosis.     

Characterisation and functional properties of watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) seed proteins

BACKGROUND: People in developing countries depend largely on non‐conventional protein sources to augment the availability of proteins in their diets. Watermelon seed meal is reported to contain an adequate amount of nutritional proteins that could be extracted for use as nutritional ingredients in food products. RESULTS: Osborne classification showed that globulin was the major protein (≥500 g kg ^?1) present in watermelon seed meal, followed by albumin and glutelin. Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis indicated that the polypeptides had low molecular weights ranging from 35 to 47 kDa. Isoelectric focusing revealed that the isoelectric point of most proteins was in the acidic range 4–6. These proteins are rich in aspartic acid, glutamic acid and serine. An increase in pH (5–9) significantly (P < 0.05) decreased the denaturation enthalpy of these proteins. Among functional properties, albumin exhibited a much higher dispersibility index (810.3–869.6 g kg^?1) than globulin (227.8–245.4 g kg^?1), glutelin (182.1–187.7 g kg^?1) and prolamin (162.3–177.7 g kg^?1). Digestibility was in the ranges 760.6–910.0 and 765.5–888.5 g kg^?1 for Mateera and Sugar Baby watermelon protein fractions respectively, while surface hydrophobicity ranged from 126.4 to 173.2 and from 125.8 to 169.3 respectively. The foaming and emulsifying properties of albumin were better than those of the other proteins studied. CONCLUSION: The good nutritional and functional properties of watermelon seed meal proteins suggest their potential use in food formulations. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry     

Etude par rpe de Ni2+ dans RbMgF3 de structure 6H

The crystal structure of 6H-RbMgF₃ has been more precisely determined by using the crystal data of isostructural RbNiF₃. It crystallizes in the hexagonal P6₃/mmc space group with the parameters: $\text{a}\text{= 5.833}\text{A}\text{?}$ and $\text{c}\text{= 14.193}\text{A}\text{?}$.Both magnesium positions can be occupied by Ni²⁺ and detected by ESR. Analysis of the spectra reveals one site (octahedra sharing one face) corresponding to an important zero field splitting (D = 2,37 cm^?1) and another one of higher symmetry corresponding to the corner-sharing octahedra.     

Prediction of Time Series Empowered with a Novel SREKRLS Algorithm

For the unforced dynamical non-linear statespace model, a new Q1 and efficient square root extended kernel recursive least square estimation algorithm is developed in this article. The proposed algorithm lends itself towards the parallel implementation as in the FPGA systems. With the help of an ortho-normal triangularization method, which relies on numerically stable givens rotation, matrix inversion causes a computational burden, is reduced. Matrix computation possesses many excellent numerical properties such as singularity, symmetry, skew symmetry, and triangularity is achieved by using this algorithm. The proposed method is validated for the prediction of stationary and non-stationary MackeyGlass Time Series, along with that a component in the x-direction of the Lorenz Times Series is also predicted to illustrate its usefulness. By the learning curves regarding mean square error (MSE) are witnessed for demonstration with prediction performance of the proposed algorithm from where it’s concluded that the proposed algorithm performs better than EKRLS. This new SREKRLS based design positively offers an innovative era towards non-linear systolic arrays, which is efficient in developing very-large-scale integration (VLSI) applications with non-linear input data. Multiple experiments are carried out to validate the reliability, effectiveness, and applicability of the proposed algorithm and with different noise levels compared to the Extended kernel recursive least-squares (EKRLS) algorithm.     

Ultramicroporous carbons featuring sub-Ångstrom tunable apertures for the selective separation of light hydrocarbon

Separations of both C₃ alkene/alkane and C₄ alkadiene/alkenes are of great commercial significance as propylene and butadiene represent important feedstock chemicals, but the full extraction of them using carbon-based separating agents has yet to be fully realized. Herein, derived from low-cost starch precursors, we report a series of ultramicroporous starch-based carbon materials (SC-M; M = Na, K, Rb), with sub-Ångstrom tunable ultramicropore apertures to separate the targeted gases with high purity. Among these materials, potassium derivative SC-K can deliver high uptake capacities of propylene and butadiene (up to 2.20 and 2.36 mmol/g, respectively, at 100 kPa and 298 K) and superior selectivities due to a molecular-sieving effect, as evidenced through adsorption isotherms and breakthrough experiments. Low heats of adsorption enable regeneration of SC-M under mild conditions. To our knowledge, SC-K represents the sole example of a porous carbon material that demonstrates potential for highly selective sieving-driven separation of both C₃ alkene/alkane and C₄ alkadiene/alkenes.     

Two level data aggregation protocol for prolonging lifetime of periodic sensor networks

Wireless Networks - One big contributor in the future of the Internet of Things is the Periodic Sensor Networks (PSNs) because it has been used by many applications in real life. The main challenge...