Hot Water Making Potential Using of a Conventional Air-Conditioner as an Air-Water Heat Pump

AbstractHeat pumps denote a novel technology with great potential to decrease the energy consumption in many industries. It is a device that removes heat from the source at low temperature to the sink at high temperature by using mechanical work. Normally, it uses the same basic refrigeration cycle. However, the difference between a heat pump and a conventional air conditioner is that a heat pump can be used to provide heating or cooling by using a reversing valve. The objective of the present study is to investigate the potential of hot water producing by using a conventional air conditioner as air-water heat pump. Air conditioner with cooling capacity of 1 TR and working with R-22 was used in this study. The room temperatures were adjusted at the range between 21-25 oC and the hot water temperatures were kept at 40, 45 and 50 oC, respectively. The water cooled condenser was immersed in the hot water tank with 40 liters capacity. All experimental data were measured at steady state condition. COP of the heat pump system is compared with the conventional air conditioner. Moreover, the effect of setting room temperature and setting hot water temperature on the COP, time interval for making of 200 L hot water, power consumption at compressor and equivalent energy required for 200 L hot water making are presented

Web Services Privacy Measurement Based on Privacy Policy and Sensitivity Level of Personal Information

Web services technology has been in the mainstream of today’s software development. Software designers can select Web services with certain functionality and use or compose them in their applications with ease and flexibility. To distinguish between different services with similar functionality, the designers consider quality of service. Privacy is one aspect of quality that is largely addressed since services may require service users to reveal personal information. A service should respect the privacy of the users by requiring only the information that is necessary for its processing as well as handling personal information in a correct manner. This paper presents a privacy measurement model for service users to determine privacy quality of a Web service. The model combines two aspects of privacy. That is, it considers the degree of privacy principles compliance of the service as well as the sensitivity level of user information which the service requires. The service which complies with the privacy principles and requires less sensitive information would be of high quality with regard to privacy. In addition, the service WSDL can be augmented with semantic annotation using SAWSDL. The annotation specifies the semantics of the user information required by the service, and this can help automate privacy measurement. We also present a measurement tool and an example of its application

ACTIVE COMPOUND OF ZINGIBER CASSUMUNAR ROXB. DOWN-REGULATES THE EXPRESSION OF GENES INVOLVED IN JOINT EROSION IN A HUMAN SYNOVIAL FIBROBLAST CELL LINE

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the synovium. It is involved in up-regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), resulting in joint inflammation and erosion. Zingiber cassumunar Roxb. has long been used to reduce joint pain and inflammation. This study aimed to investigate the inhibitory activities of an active compound of Z. cassumunar, (E)-4-(3',4'-dimethoxyphenyl)but-3-en-1-ol (compound D), against cytokine-induced up-regulation of catabolic genes involved in cartilage degradation in RA. Synovial fibroblast cell line, SW982, was cultured in media containing interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), in the presence or absence of compound D at the concentration range of 1 to 100 µM. After 24 hours, the cells were analyzed for the expressions of MMPs, IL-1ß and interleukin-1ß-converting enzyme (ICE) by RT-PCR. MMPs activities in the culture media were analyzed by zymographic techniques. Dexamethasone was used as the positive control. It was found that compound D at the concentration of 10 - 100 M significantly decreased the mRNA expressions of MMP-1, -2, -3, and -13 which was induced by IL-1ß (

Bromelain Extract Exerts Antiarthritic Effects via Chondroprotection and the Suppression of TNF-α–Induced NF-κB and MAPK Signaling

Bromelain, a mixture of proteases in pineapple rhizome, has beneficial biological properties. Following absorption, the compound remains biologically active in mammalian blood and tissues. Bromelain has multiple clinical and therapeutic applications because of its anti-arthritic activities. Anti-inflammation is one of the putative therapeutic effects of bromelain on osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the molecular mechanisms in cartilage and synovial fibroblast has not been reported. Thus, in this study, interleukin (IL)-1β/oncostatin M-induced porcine cartilage and TNF-α–induced synovial fibroblast were used as the inflamed OA and RA models, respectively. The results demonstrated the chondroprotective effects of bromelain on cartilage degradation and the downregulation of inflammatory cytokine (tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8) expression in TNF-α–induced synovial fibroblasts by suppressing NF-κB and MAPK signaling. The evidence from this study supported and explained the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of bromelain on arthritis in animal models and clinical studies

Bromelain Extract Exerts Antiarthritic Effects via Chondroprotection and the Suppression of TNF-α–Induced NF-κB and MAPK Signaling

Bromelain, a mixture of proteases in pineapple rhizome, has beneficial biological properties. Following absorption, the compound remains biologically active in mammalian blood and tissues. Bromelain has multiple clinical and therapeutic applications because of its anti-arthritic activities. Anti-inflammation is one of the putative therapeutic effects of bromelain on osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but the molecular mechanisms in cartilage and synovial fibroblast has not been reported. Thus, in this study, interleukin (IL)-1β/oncostatin M-induced porcine cartilage and TNF-α–induced synovial fibroblast were used as the inflamed OA and RA models, respectively. The results demonstrated the chondroprotective effects of bromelain on cartilage degradation and the downregulation of inflammatory cytokine (tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8) expression in TNF-α–induced synovial fibroblasts by suppressing NF-κB and MAPK signaling. The evidence from this study supported and explained the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of bromelain on arthritis in animal models and clinical studies