Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 110-116

Abstract: TiO₂ nanopowders were synthesized by non-hydrolytic sol−gel synthesis and solvothermal method. Effects of the type of alcohol on the properties of TiO₂ nanopowders were investigated. XRD and FSEM were used to characterize TiO₂ nanopowders. The results showed that TiO₂ nanopowders with diameters of about 50nm and micro-spheres with diameters of about 400~500nm were obtained by non-hydrolytic sol−gel synthesis, when ethanol and isopropanol were used as oxygen donor and solvent, respectively. TiO₂ prepared with ethanol by non-hydrolytic sol−gel synthesis and calcined at 700°C consisted only 3.8% rutile phase. After solvothermal synthesis, TiO₂ nanopowders with diameters of about 50nm were obtained when ethanol and isopropanol were used as the oxygen donor. However, submicrometer spheres with uniform size distribution were obtained with 1-octanol.

Abstract: The effect of process condition (acid concentration, solid content, temperature, and time) on fermentable sugar production by concentrated acid hydrolysis for green walnut skin pretreatment was studied. Dried WGS with solid to liquid ratio of 5%, 10%, 15% was treated with 20, 40, 60 wt% sulfuric acid at 65, 80,90°C for 2, 3, 4 hours and final solutions were analyzed by HPLC. The process was modeled by three models: first order reaction kinetics, using severity factor and a second order equation. The work indicates that the use of Walnut green skin may be a feasible option as a feed material for the production of glucose for biofuel synthesis.

Abstract: Finding subset of informative gene is very crucial for biology process because several genes increase sharply and most of them are not related with others. In general, feature selection technique consists of two steps 1) all genes is ranked by a filter approach 2) rank list is sent to a wrapper approach. Nevertheless, the accuracy rate for recognition gene is not enough. Therefore, this paper proposes efficient feature selection model for gene expression data. First, two filter approaches are used to define many subset of attribute such as Correlation based Feature Selection (Cfs) and Gain Ratio (GR). Second, wrapper approach is used to evaluate each length of attribute that based on Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Random Forest (RF). The result of experiment depicts CfsSVM, CfsRF, GRSVM, and GRRF based on proposed model produce higher accuracy rate such as 87.10%, 90.32%, 87.10, and 88.71%, respectively.

Abstract: The ankle-foot of human body is a multi-joint structure that accommodates complex foot motion. Abnormality to the ankle-foot due to injury or disease can result in abnormal gait motion. In such cases, physiotherapist has to assist hemiplegic patients (ankle dorsiflexor muscles with lack of dorsiflexion assist moment) in rehabilitation therapy by using gait training in parallel bars. Physiotherapist has to support hemiplegic patient to position foot and also supports their stand balance. This prolongs multiple task puts extra burden to physiotherapist which gives side effect such as muscular strain or bone fracture while doing the task. Consequently, the motion of the foot patients did not follow the normal gait pattern. Therefore, there is a need to develop an effective ankle foot orthosis (AFO) to solve the long issue-problem. This research was undertake to embark on the modeling and designing of new ankle foot orthosis (AFO) using active control system which later could be used to help patients with ankle dorsiflexor muscles problem. The work was carried out in four stages involving modeling and simulation of DC motor, algorithm development, design and fabrication of the orthosis and finally, evalaution of the product and its functions. The orthosis was tested on healthy volunteer and the results show that the objective to develop and fabricate a new type of robust ankle foot orthosis which can control movement has been achieved successfully.

Abstract: This paper present the field-measured thermal performance of two atrium building in a clinic center located in Kerman, where winter is cold and dry. The case studies are an enclosed atrium space. The atriums have open corridors at each storey connecting them to adjacent space. The site measurement and monitoring work were carried out for one day covering clear day in November 2010. The weather conditions during the day measuring period were stable and heating system was off. This study will investigated about different temperature of atrium levels with plant and without plant. This study has shown that in cold and clear winter day, when average of external relative humidity in this day was around 9%,in the atrium relative humidity changed between 10%- 22% and total temperature in atrium level were changed between 18'C-28'C. whilst in the atrium without plant this range were between 3%-23% and 15'C-35'C respectively.

Abstract: The interaction of myelin basic protein with Nickel ions was studied by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC) at in tris buffer, pH=7. The enthalpies of MBP+Ni2+interaction are reported and analysed in term of the new solvation theory. It was found that MBP has three identical and cooperative binding sites for Ni2+ions. The dissociation equilibrium constant and the molar enthalpy of binding are 75.015 µM, -14.815 kJmol-1. The binding parameters recovered from the new equation, attributed to the structural change of MBP and its biological activity due to metal ion interaction. The binding of nickel ions cause some changes in stability of MBP at low and high Ni2+concentrations.

Abstract: Effects of β-cyclodextrin, βCD, on refolding of lysozyme was investigated at pH 12 employing isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) at 300K in 30mM Tris buffer solution. βCD was employed as an anti-aggregation agent and the heats obtained for lysozyme+βCD interactions are reported and analyzed in terms of the extended solvation model. It was indicated that there are two sets of identical and non-cooperative sites for βCD.

Abstract: The binding properties and structural changes of mushroom tyrosinase enzyme, MT, due to its interaction with phenyl dithiocarbamate (I) and p-phenylene-bis dithiocarbamate (II) were investigated at 27 and 37°C in phosphate buffer (10 mmol.L^-1) at pH=6.8 by isothermal titration calorimetric (ITC). Thermodynamic analysis indicated that predominant mode of interaction was hydrophobic in binding of I to MT, meanwhile the binding of II to MT essentially depends on electrostatic interactions. It seems that II is a more potent MT inhibitor due to its two charged head groups able to chelate copper ions in the enzyme active site. It was concluded that MT has two distinct sites for p-phenylene-bis and phenyl dithiocarbamate.

Abstract: In the fiercely competitive market, productivity improvement always plays a key strategic role in determining bottom-line success for an industry. Being a plastic bag manufacturer, which is widely used as packaging material for apparel industry, the manufacturer belongs to a group of backward linkage industry, which is highly competitive. As such, the company has to focus heavily on three strategic issues: reduction in overall cost, improvement in quality with right assurance scheme, and improvement in productivity with right tools and techniques. This research has been conducted in a large FDI-based plastic bag manufacturing company, a techno-economic consortium of Dutch, China and Bangladesh, and located in the suburban area of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. This research was aimed to focus on these issues along with future guidelines as to how to approach lean manufacturing as a pursuit to achieve the ultimate goal of “near perfection”. All of these improvement efforts are planned around the concepts of lean manufacturing. This involves application of Value-Stream Mapping (VSM) and 5S program.

Abstract: In Mauritius, corrosion costs forms a large part of the expenses of sugar cane mills and presently there has not been any study on this issue. The present study was therefore performed at one of the sugar cane mills in Mauritius so as to identify the different modes of corrosion degradation and the corrosivity of commonly used metals with respect to the corrosive fluids (mainly juices) encountered in the juice extraction process. The cost associated with the corrosion degradation was eventually calculated. Electrochemical tests were performed to measure and compare the corrosion rate for the metals in the corrosive fluids. It was observed that the highest and the lowest corrosion rates were recorded for pre-extractor mill juice and syrup respectively. Low carbon steel generally had the fastest corrosion rate while stainless steel 316L corroded the least. Finally, from gathered data, the cost of corrosion was found to be 6.6% of the turnover of the factory.