Exhaust emissions of a diesel engine are considered to be a substantial source of environmental pollution. Diesel engines are mainly used in vehicles and power generation. The usage of diesel engines ...is unavoidable as they give more power and performance, but at the same time, higher usage of diesel engines leads to increased air pollution, sound pollution, and emissions to the environment. Therefore, various attempts have been made to control the harmful emissions of engines. For this reason, different devices have been made such as catalytic convertors to overcome emission problems and purify the harmful gases. In order to meet these ends, a new system was designed that would contribute to controlling the air pollution of the engines. The system is also known as an aqua silencer, and its design is somehow different but still can be used as a silencer. The newly designed emission controller was installed in a test-bed diesel engine and a total of twenty experiments were conducted with and without the new emission controller at constant speed and at constant load. During these experiments, exhaust gases were analyzed with flue gas analyzers measuring CO2, CO, NO2, NO, and PM. The study concluded that the contaminants of diesel engine exhaust gases were) controlled by the developed emission controller.
The present study was appraised using response surface methodology for process optimization owing to strong interaction of reaction variables: NaOCH
3
catalyst concentration (0.25-1.50%), ...methanol/oil molar ratio (3:1-9:1), reaction time (30-90 min), and reaction temperature (45-65°C). The quadratic polynomial equation was determined using response surface methodology for predicting optimum methyl esters yield from Cannabis sativa oil. The analysis of variance results indicated that molar ratio and reaction temperature were the key factors that appreciably influence the yield of Cannabis sativa oil methyl esters. The significant (p < 0.0001) variable interaction between molar ratio × catalyst concentration and reaction time × molar ratio was observed, which mostly affect the Cannabis sativa oil methyl esters yield. The optimum Cannabis sativa oil methyl esters yield, i.e., 86.01% was gained at 53°C reaction temperature, 7.5:1 methanol/oil molar ratio, 65 min reaction time, and 0.80% catalyst concentration. The results depicted a linear relationship between observed and predicted values. The residual analysis predicted the appropriateness of the central composite design. The Cannabis sativa oil methyl esters, analyzed by gas chromatography, elucidated six fatty acid methyl esters (linoleic, α-linolenic, oleic, palmitic, stearic, and γ-linolenic acids). In addition, the fuel properties, such as kinematic viscosity at 40°C; cetane number; acid value; flash point; cloud, pour, and cold filter plugging points; ash content; density; and sulphur content, of Cannabis sativa oil methyl esters were evaluated and discussed with reference to ASTM D 6751 and EU 14214 biodiesel specifications.
To describe the radiological findings of ophthalmic complications during functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) and correlate them with the clinical manifestations and mechanisms of injury.
This ...was a retrospective review of the clinical and cross-sectional imaging findings of 9 patients with orbital complications during FESS.
The most common site of entry into the orbit during FESS was the lower medial orbital wall (7 of 9), followed by the inferior orbital wall, resulting in injury to the medial rectus (4 of 9) and, less frequently, the inferior rectus (2 of 9) or superior oblique muscles (1 of 9). Extensive scarring on imaging (3 of 9) was associated with global ocular motility dysfunction. In contrast, localized scarring (3 of 9) or extraocular muscle trauma (6 of 9) resulted in disturbance of eye movement in the direction of gaze from the injured site.
Orbital magnetic resonance and computed tomography findings correlate very well with the abnormal eye movements clinically observed, and can assist in clarifying the cause of injury and guide surgical corrective management of patients suffering orbital complications from FESS. Radiologists should be familiar with the recent developments in FESS instrumentation as well as with the most commonly injured structures within the orbit.
This paper presents the region-based active contours method based on the harmonic global signed pressure force (HGSPF) function. The proposed formulation improves the performance of the level set ...method by utilizing intensity information based on the global division function, which has the ability to segment out regions with higher intensity differences. The new energy utilizes harmonic intensity, which can better preserve the low contrast details and can segment complicated areas easily. A Gaussian kernel is adjusted to regularize level set and to escape an expensive reinitialization. Finally, a set of real and synthetic images are used for validation of the proposed method. Results demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, the accuracy values are compared to previous state-of-the-art methods.
We investigated the electron transport properties of cobalt sulphide Schottky diodes with Au and Ag metal contacts. Pure CoS2 nanoplates were synthesized using solid state reaction method. From ...temperature dependent IV characterstics diode parameters including ideality factor, barrier height and Richardson cofficient were calculated for Au/CoS2 and Ag/CoS2 diodes. The value of barrier height increased with increasing temperature for both devices, however Ideality factor showed different trend. The values of modified Richardson coefficient by assuming the Gaussian distribution of the barrier heights turns out to be 244.20Acm−2K−2 and 348.20Acm−2K−2 for Au/CoS2 and Ag/CoS2 diodes respectively. At high voltages we observed Space Charge Limited Current (SCLC) with an exponential trap distribution in Au/CoS2 diode. The density of the traps and characteristic temperature associated with these traps were determine to be 2.47×1014cm−3 and 141 K, respectively.
Chemical coagulants were immobilized into bead form using sodium alginate to treat tannery wastewater samples. The used chemical coagulants were ammonium aluminium sulphate (NH4Al(SO4)2), aluminium ...sulphate (Al2(SO4)2, calcium carbonate (CaCO3), sodium citrate (Na3C6HsO7). The effect of the chemical coagulant dose and tannery wastewater pH was studied on wastewater electrical conductance (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), sulphates, chlorides, phenolphthalein alkalinity, total alkalinity and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The quantity of various pollutants present in waste water was reduced after treatment. The optimized dose and pH for maximum decrease in EC and TDS were 5g/L and 7, respectively. The maximum reduction in the amount of sulphates and chlorides present in tannery wastewater was observed at dosage of 0.5g/L and pH 7. A dosage of 5g/L and pH 7 was also found most favorable for maximum reduction in values of COD, phenolphtalein and total alkalinity. The chromium concentrations in tannery wastewater before and after treatment were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. A reduction in chromium concentration was observed after treatment. The promising results of the present study demonstrate that immobilization of chemical coagulants can make them more effective for wastewater treatment.
Tin oxide (SnO
2) thin films were deposited by radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on clean corning glass substrates. These films were then annealed for 15
min at various temperatures in the ...range of 100–500°C. The films were investigated by studying their structural and electrical properties. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results suggested that the deposited SnO
2 films were formed by nanoparticles with average particle size in the range of 23–28
nm. XRD patterns of annealed films showed the formation of small amount of SnO phase in the matrix of SnO
2. The initial surface RMS roughness measured with atomic force microscopy (AFM) was 25.76
nm which reduces to 17.72
nm with annealing. Electrical resistivity was measured as a function of annealing temperature and found to lie between 1.25 and 1.38
mΩ
cm. RMS roughness and resistivity show almost opposite trend with annealing.
A previous International Lymphoma Epidemiology (InterLymph) Consortium evaluation of joint associations between five immune gene variants and autoimmune conditions reported interactions between ...B-cell response-mediated autoimmune conditions and the rs1800629 genotype on risk of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) subtypes. Here, we extend that evaluation using NHL subtype-specific polygenic risk scores (PRS) constructed from loci identified in genome-wide association studies of three common B-cell NHL subtypes.
In a pooled analysis of NHL cases and controls of Caucasian descent from 14 participating InterLymph studies, we evaluated joint associations between B-cell-mediated autoimmune conditions and tertile (T) of PRS for risk of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL; n = 1,914), follicular lymphoma (n = 1,733), and marginal zone lymphoma (MZL; n = 407), using unconditional logistic regression.
We demonstrated a positive association of DLBCL PRS with DLBCL risk T2 vs. T1: OR = 1.24; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08-1.43; T3 vs. T1: OR = 1.81; 95% CI, 1.59-2.07; P-trend (Ptrend) < 0.0001. DLBCL risk also increased with increasing PRS tertile among those with an autoimmune condition, being highest for those with a B-cell-mediated autoimmune condition and a T3 PRS OR = 6.46 vs. no autoimmune condition and a T1 PRS, Ptrend < 0.0001, P-interaction (Pinteraction) = 0.49. Follicular lymphoma and MZL risk demonstrated no evidence of joint associations or significant Pinteraction.
Our results suggest that PRS constructed from currently known subtype-specific loci may not necessarily capture biological pathways shared with autoimmune conditions.
Targeted genetic (PRS) screening among population subsets with autoimmune conditions may offer opportunities for identifying those at highest risk for (and early detection from) DLBCL.
Composite materials have been used to resolve industrial problems. Considerable attention from the industrial side started in the 1960s with the introduction of polymer-based composite materials. ...Their advantages such as low weight (density), resistance to corrosion, high strength and low maintenance cost made composite materials an attractive substitute to conventional materials. A new composite material was developed with 10% natural fiber at 0o, 90o and 0/90o orientations resulting in ample improvements in the mechanical properties as compared to previous studies. The sample at 0/90o orientation gives the best results with tensile, tensile strength, tensile elongation and Young's Modulus values of 2458.19N, 4594.5MPA, 4.7% and 23.0 respectively
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