Nutrient contents of kale (Brassica oleraceae L. var. acephala DC.)

Fructose, glucose and sucrose, as the major soluble sugars and citric and malic acids, as the major organic acids, were identified and determined in kale (Brassica oleraceae L. var. acephala DC., black cabbage) leaves. Fructose was the predominant sugar (2011 mg 100 g⁻¹ dry wt) identified, followed by glucose (1056 mg 100 g⁻¹ dry wt) and sucrose (894 mg 100 g⁻¹ dry wt). The contents of citric and malic acids were at 2213 and 151 mg 100 g⁻¹ dry wt in the leaves. The 16:0, 18:2n − 6 and 18:3n − 3 fatty acids were the most abundant fatty acids in the leaves. Considering the level of these fatty acids, 18:3n − 3 was found to be the highest (85.3 μg g⁻¹ dry wt), contributing 54.0% of the total fatty acid content. Linoleic acid (18:2n − 6), being the second most abundant fatty acid was present at 18.6 μg g⁻¹ dry wt, contributing 11.8% of the total fatty acid content. In the seed oil of kale, 22:1n − 9 was the most abundant fatty acid (4198 μg g⁻¹ dry wt, 45.7%), with 18:2n − 6 (1199 μg g⁻¹ dry wt, 12.3%) and 18:1n − 9 (1408 μg g⁻¹ dry wt, 14.8%) being the second next most abundant fatty acids. The most abundant amino acid was glutamic acid (Glu) which was present at 33.2 mg g⁻¹ dry wt. Aspartic acid, which was the second most abundant amino acid, was present at 27.6 mg g⁻¹ dry wt and accounted for 10.2% of the total amino acid content of kale leaf. The amino acid content was assessed by comparing the percentages of the essential amino acids in kale leaf versus those of a World Health Organization (WHO) standard protein. The protein of kale leaf compares well with that of the WHO standard. Only one amino acid, lysine, had a score that fell below 100%; the lysine score of kale leaf was 95%. This study attempts to contribute to knowledge of the nutritional properties of the plant. These results may be useful for the evaluation of dietary information.     

Contents

In this study, statistical behavior of vibration test data-acquired from seven accelerated aging processes undertaken for a three-phase, 5 HP, squirrel-cage induction motor-is examined. An early fault detection level, together with an experimental aging model, is determined for the motor bearings. Time-frequency presentations of the initial and aged cases are shown.     

Changes in sugars, acids and fatty acids in naturally parthenocarpic date plum persimmon (Diospyros lotus L.) fruit during maturation and ripening

The date plum persimmon fruit (Diospyros lotus L., fam: Ebenaceae) is cultivated throughout northern of Turkey for its edible fruits. Sugars and organic acids were measured during fruit maturation and ripening using HPLC. The analyses showed that fructose and glucose were the main sugars accumulated in the fruit pulp. Fructose and glucose increased up to 43,552.8 mg.100 g^–1 fw and 35,450.8 mg.100 g^–1 fw respectively during fruit ripening. Sucrose content remained relatively low and decreased during ripening. The major organic acids found in date plum fruit were citric and malic acids, which increased through the immature and midripe maturity, and then the levels decreased in the overripe fruit. Palmitic acid (16:0), palmitoleic acid (16:1), stearic acid (18:0), oleic acid (18:1) and linolenic acid (18:3) were among the major fatty acids determined by GC throughout the maturation and ripening of the fruits. The levels of these fatty acids were found to be significantly different (P=0.05) between the three maturity stages. The fruits displayed the level of linoleic acid (0.7%) in low and -linolenic acid (17.8%) in higher quantities, and the combined levels of linoleic and -linolenic acid comprised 19% (120.1 g.g^–1 dw) of the total fatty acid content in the over ripened fruit. These results show that naturally parthenocarpic date plum fruits have high levels of sugars and organic acids and moderate levels of fatty acids that significantly changed during maturation and ripening. This information can be used by nutritionalists and food technologists to improve the nutrition of local people and develop food products that would be beneficial to human health.     

A survey on routing techniques in underwater wireless sensor networks

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are finding different applications for offshore exploration and ocean monitoring. In most of these applications, the network consists of significant number of sensor nodes deployed at different depths throughout the area of interest. The sensor nodes located at the sea bed cannot communicate directly with the nodes near the surface level; they require multi-hop communication assisted by appropriate routing scheme. However, this appropriateness depends not only on network resources and application requirements but also on environmental constraints. All these factors provide a platform where a resource-aware routing strategy plays a vital role to fulfill the different application requirements with dynamic environmental conditions. Realizing the fact, significant attention has been given to construct a reliable scheme, and many routing protocols have been proposed in order to provide an efficient route discovery between the sources and the sink. In this paper, we present a review and comparison of different algorithms, proposed recently in order to fulfill this requirement. The main purpose of this study is to address the issues like data forwarding, deployment and localization in UWSNs under different conditions. Later on, all of these are classified into different groups according to their characteristics and functionalities.     

Potential functions based sampling heuristic for optimal path planning

Rapidly-exploring Random Tree star (RRT*) is a recently proposed extension of Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm that provides a collision-free, asymptotically optimal path regardless of obstacles geometry in a given environment. However, one of the limitation in the RRT* algorithm is slow convergence to optimal path solution. As a result it consumes high memory as well as time due to the large number of iterations utilised in achieving optimal path solution. To overcome these limitations, we propose the potential function based-RRT* that incorporates the artificial potential field algorithm in RRT*. The proposed algorithm allows a considerable decrease in the number of iterations and thus leads to more efficient memory utilization and an accelerated convergence rate. In order to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed algorithm in terms of space execution and convergence rate, this paper presents rigorous simulation based comparisons between the proposed techniques and RRT* under different environmental conditions. Moreover, both algorithms are also tested and compared under non-holonomic differential constraints.     

Neighbors’ interference situation-aware power control scheme for dense 5G mobile communication system

The next generation mobile communication (5G) systems is targeting very high data rate by deploying more number of small cells, but this deployment results in high cross-tier interference because of using the same frequency band. To solve this challenge, an efficient power control scheme is desired specially for the case of uplink scenario. Thus, to solve this challenge, we propose the neighbors’ interference situation-aware uplink power control (IA-ULPC) scheme to reduce the cross-tier interference. In this scheme, we consider the interference situation of the neighbor cells while controlling the power of the users. Moreover, we also derive the target signal-to-interference and noise-ratio (\(P_0\)) equation to dynamically adjust it based on the neighbors’ base station interference situation. We compare the performance of the proposed IA-ULPC with the conventional fractional power control scheme (C-FPC). The extensive system-level simulations are carried out to prove the validity of the proposed IA-ULPC scheme which almost doubles the user average throughput and also decreases the interference around 20% in dense two-tier heterogeneous network environment as compared to C-FPC.     

Energy efficient joint radio resource management in D2D assisted cellular communication

Device-to-device (D2D) is one of the promising technology that can be used in association with cellular networks for the provision of high data rates, which is the foremost demand of today’s cellular users. The climatic changes due to combustion are posing another big challenge that needs to be addressed by today’s technologists to strive for existence of humanity. Thus developing energy efficient schemes for the deployment of such joint venture is a challenging task due to increased system complexity. This paper addresses the mode selection, user admission control and the resource allocation issues related to optimizing the overall Energy Efficiency (EE) of the cellular systems. The contributions that have been made in this paper are (1) Development of a pooled D2D and cellular network optimization model for efficient resource allocation (2) Development of an algorithm for maximization of EE for the proposed joint D2D cellular network . The problem formulated is a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Problem, whereas such problems belong to a class of optimization problems whose computational complexity is quite high that is NP-hard. In such hard problems the computational complexity increases with increasing the number of users that make these problems more challenging. Finding the optimal solution of such hard problems by the brute force and searching the feasible space is also challenging since the complexity increases exponentially by increasing the admitted users. A Mesh Adaptive Direct Search algorithm has been proposed to find the EE resource allocation for this user admission controlled D2D based cellular network. Based on analysis of our simulation results, it can be clearly designated that our proposed solution for increasing the EE for this joint cellular and D2D venture is very much close to optimal solution provided by Exhaustive Search Algorithm.     

Synthesis,Characterization, and Exploration of Antimicrobial Activity of Copper Complex of Diamide Derivative of p-tert-butylcalix[4]arene

Calixarenes are a versatile class of compounds, which possesses wide applications in various fields including biological as well as pharmaceutical sciences. In the present study, amide derivative of calix[4]arene (3) was synthesized and characterized by modern analytical techniques such as elemental analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Complexation property of 3 with essential metals was explored by UV-Vis spectroscopy. The results revealed that 3 shows good selectivity toward Cu²⁺. Job's plot analysis suggests that 3 forms complex with Cu²⁺ in 1:2 stoichiometric ratio. Antimicrobial activity of 3 and its Cu²⁺ complex was also determined and it was observed that 3 is more efficient against R. stolonifer as compared to its action against bacteria, because for fungus it shows “Minimum Inhibitory Concentration” (MIC) value equal to 1.5 µg/mL, while for bacteria MIC is 3 µg/mL. However, it was found that complex is more efficient in action than 3. Oxidation state of metal, overtone concept, and Tweedy's chelation theory justifies the increased activity of metal complex. Cu²⁺ complex shows higher antimicrobial activity toward Escherichia coli (E. coli) (Gram-negative) bacteria by showing MIC value 0.37 µg/mL. While for Staphylococcus albus (S. albus) (Gram-positive) bacteria and Rhizopus stolonifer (R. stolonifer) fungal species, it shows MIC value equal to 0.75 µg/mL.     

A compendium of optimization techniques for green radio resource management

In recent past, along with other sectors, the telecommunication sector has grown enormously that have significant effects both on power expenditure and environmental hazards. Therefore, this paper presents the comprehensive overview about the energy efficiency and green communication. This paper summarizes the efforts that have been made in attaining green wireless communication in the perspective of radio resource management. The key interest in carrying this survey is to indicate those areas for the research that can be flourished more while attaining our goal of green wireless communication. In this article, basic concepts of energy-efficient communications are first introduced and then existing fundamental works and advanced techniques for energy efficiency are summarized, including information-theoretic analysis, OFDMA networks, MIMO techniques, relay transmission, and wireless resource allocation. Some of the important areas in energy-efficient design are also identified for future research.