Analytical Solution for facilitated transport across a membrane

An analytical expression for the facilitation factor of component A across a liquid membrane is derived in case of an instantaneous reaction A(g)+B(l)AB(l) inside the liquid membrane. The present expression has been derived based on the analytical results of Olander (A.I.Ch.E. J. 6(2) (1960) 233) obtained for the enhancement factor for G–L systems with bulk. The analytical expression for the facilitation factor allows for arbitrary diffusivities of all species involved and does not contain any simplification or approximations. The facilitation factor starts from the value of unity, goes through a maximum and then reduces back to unity as the equilibrium constant is increased. The maximum facilitation factor occurs at higher values of the equilibrium constant as the ratio of the permeate-complex over carrier diffusivity is reduced whereas the maximum facilitation factor occurs at the same value of the equilibrium constant for all values of DA/DB (ratio of the permeate over carrier diffusivity). A similar behavior is seen for the flux of A as a function of the equilibrium constant. The facilitation factor remains constant with changes in the film thickness whereas the flux of A reduces with an increase in the thickness of the film. A linear increase of the facilitation factor and flux of A are seen with increasing initial carrier concentration

Interception of refugees at sea and international law : a Rohingya perspective

Despite the development of international law, the interception of refugee boats, the turning back of boats to sea and the refusal of disembarkation of refugee boats are common practices around the world. Party states to the Refugee Convention, for instance, Australia and the United States, adopt various laws and policies to deter refugee boats from their coasts, which challenges the refugee protection regime at sea. On the other side, the South East Asian countries, that are the focus of this thesis, are non-party states to the Refugee Convention and there is no particular law and policy for the refugees in the region. Thus, the lack of refugee protection mechanism poses further challenges in South East Asia. The international, regional and domestic legal regime has significantly progressed to provide refugee protection, but the question remains open: is the current legal regime adequate to protect the boat refugees, those who arrive by sea? This thesis explores this question and provides a case study by focusing on the Rohingya boat refugees of South East Asia. This thesis examines the current refugee protection framework for seaborne refugees, and focuses in particular on the principle of non-refoulement and the international law of the sea. It examines how the parties of the Refugee Convention are dealing with the boat refugees, and as a comparative research it also investigates how non-party states to the Convention are dealing with the boat refugees. This thesis evaluates the existing legal protection mechanisms and explores the challenges and gaps in the protection regime for refugees who arrive by boats through sea routes, specially to the non-party states of the 1951 Refugee Convention in South East Asia. By analysing the shortcomings of the protection regime and the opportunities for the boat refugees of South East Asia, this thesis concludes that adoption of a regional framework would be a way of protection for the boat refugees

Extraction of Monocyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons From Petroleum Products Using Sulfolane as Industrial Solvent

Liquid liquid equilibria data were measured at 293.15 K for the pseudo ternary system (sulfolane + alkanol) + octane + toluene. It is observed that the selectivity of pure sulfolane increases with cosolvent methanol but decreases with increasing the chain length of hydrocarbon in 1-alkanol. The nonrandom two liquid (NRTL) model, UNIQUAC model and UNIFAC model were used to correlate the experimental data and to predict the phase composition of the systems studied. The calculation based on NRTL model gave a good representation of the experimental tie-line data for all systems studied. The agreement between the correlated and the experimental results was very good

Effect of Interaction between Bridge Piers on Local Scouring in Cohesive Soils

Local scour at the piers is one of the main reasons of bridge foundation undermining. Earlier research studies focused mainly on the scour at a single bridge pier; nevertheless, modern designs of the bridges comprise wide-span and thus group of piers rather than a single pier are usually used to support the superstructure. The flow and scour pattern around group of piers is different from the case of a single pier due to the interaction effect. Reviewing the literature of local scour around bridge piers group revealed that the local scour around bridge piers group founded in cohesive soil bed was not investigated, and most of the scour studies were related to scour in cohesionless soils. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of the interaction between two in-line (tandem) circular bridge piers of variable spacings founded in cohesive soil on the local scour. A set of laboratory flume experiments were conducted under the clear-water scour condition to investigate this effect. This study is the first that investigates experimentally the scour around group of bridge piers in cohesive bed. It was found that the maximum scour depth at the upstream pier of the two in-line piers occurred at a spacing of two times the diameter of the pier, scour at the downstream pier was reduced due to a sheltering effect, the interference effect will be reduced for pier spacings larger than three times of the pier diameter. A recent pier scour equation was used to estimate the scour depths at the two in-line piers in cohesive soil and compare the estimated value with the measured scour depths in the laboratory. The comparison indicated that the proposed scour equation overestimates the scour depths at both the upstream and the downstream pier

Evaluate of Antioxidant Enzymes Superoxide Dismutase, Glutathione Peroxidase and Catalase Levels in Asthma Patients

Asthma is a chronic airway inflammation which involves the interplay of different types of inflammatory cells and cytokines in the airway. The present study evaluates the antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and Catalase levels. The results showed a significant increase (P˂0.05) in erythrocyte superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in asthmatic patients as compared to control group. While there were a significant decrease in glutathione peroxidase (GPx) (P˂0.05) and Catalase (CAT) (P˂0.05) activities in patients as compared to control group, in accordance with age, severity, smoking and family history. But, there were no significant changes in the enzymes levels between males and females. The results indicated that antioxidant enzymes could play an important role in gen- environment interaction in complex lung disease such as asthma. Keywords: MDA: Malondialdehyde, SOD: Superoxide dismutase, GPx: Glutathione peroxidase, CAT: Catalase, ROS: Reactive oxygen species

Input significance analysis: feature ranking through synaptic weights manipulation for ANNS-based classifiers

Due to the ANNs architecture, the ISA methods that can manipulate synaptic weights selectedare Connection Weights (CW) and Garson’s Algorithm (GA). The ANNs-based classifiers thatcan provide such manipulation are Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) and Evolving Fuzzy NeuralNetworks (EFuNNs). The goals for this work are firstly to identify which of the twoclassifiers works best with the filtered/ranked data, secondly is to test the FR method by usinga selected dataset taken from the UCI Machine Learning Repository and in an onlineenvironment and lastly to attest the FR results by using another selected dataset taken fromthe same source and in the same environment. There are three groups of experimentsconducted to accomplish these goals. The results are promising when FR is applied, someefficiency and accuracy are noticeable compared to the original data.Keywords: artificial neural networks, input significance analysis; feature selection; featureranking; connection weights; Garson’s algorithm; multi-layer perceptron; evolving fuzzyneural networks

Livestock Production and Economic Implications from Augmenting Degraded Rangeland with \u3ci\u3eAtriplex halimus\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eSalsola vermiculata\u3c/i\u3e in Northwest Syria

Three stocking rates (low: one sheep 2.25 ha-1, medium: one sheep 1.5 ha-1 year-1 and high: one sheep 0.75 ha-1 year-1) were studied for 7 seasons (1990/91-1996/97) on native range and on pasture over sown with fodder shrubs at Maragha, northwest Syria. There were 8 Awassi sheep in each stocking rate treatment, and the treatments were replicated 3 times in fenced paddocks. Milk yield, lamb production, live weight and supplementary feeding of the sheep were monitored. The results showed significantly higher forage availability on the range over-sown with fodder shrubs by 82% and 41% in the medium and high rainfall seasons, respectively and by 142% and 379% in the average and low rainfall seasons, compared with the native pasture. The total energy used in the supplementary feed was greater under the native pasture than that in the shrub-sown pasture in 5 out of 7 seasons, while crude protein consumption was greater in the native pasture than on the shrub-sown pasture in all 7 seasons. Milk production and lamb body mass were higher on shrub-sown pasture than those in native pasture in 4 and 6 out the 7 seasons, respectively. Benefits obtained from reduced feed costs, extra milk and lamb sales were higher on shrub-sown pasture than those in the native pasture in 5 out of the 7 seasons. Total benefits measured over the entire study period were highest under the high stocking rate, reaching about 77 US $ ha-1. We concluded that shrub plantation in west Asia could safely be utilized at stocking rate of one sheep 0.75 ha-1 year-1 for the benefits of the pasture and users