Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationOxy-coal combustion technology has been suggested as the most promising strategy for retrofitting conventional coal power plants to generate electric power while capturing carbon dioxide. The current research addresses three issues in oxy-coal combustion, namely: 1- What is the effect of coal composition on the stability of co-axial turbulent diffusion oxy-flames? 2- What are the stability criteria for turbulent diffusion oxy-coal flames in an advanced triple concentric co-axial burner allowing directed streams of pure oxygen to be introduced into the combustion mix? 3- How does minimization of CO2 diluent affect radiant heat flux in the combustion chamber? It is hoped that data produced in this investigation can be used for validation of advanced simulations of the appropriate configurations considered. In order to address Issue #1 listed above, the consequences of differences in coal composition on flame stability for two types of coal in oxy-combustion were explored: Utah Skyline Bituminous and Illinois #6 Bituminous. Differences in flame stand-off distances at equivalent experimental input conditions were interpreted through differences in the structure of the two coals as well as differences in their pyrolysis behavior, as determined by fundamental solid state 13C NMR and Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), respectively. In addressing Issue #2, the consequences of segregating all the input oxygen into one stream composed of 100% oxygen were determined using the co-axial burners with different oxygen stream configurations. Flame stability, heat flux, and NOx formation measurements were taken to evaluate the differences. Flame stability was quantified through flame probability density functions (PDF) of the stand-off distance (determined using photo-imaging techniques). The PDFs obtained from these simplified prototype configurations led to physical insight into coal flame attachment mechanisms and the significant effects of fine coal particles and their radial transportation by large eddies on flame stability. Finally, in addressing Issue #3, impacts of reducing the amount of injected diluent CO2 (mimicking the minimization of the recycle ratio) on the radiation heat flux were explored. Radiant heat flux, gas temperature, and wall temperature measurements were taken, and a simple radiation model was developed to correlate the average gas temperature and radian heat flux. This study provided a better understanding of the radiation mechanism and the significant effects of soot radiation on the total heat transfer in the next generation of oxy-coal combustion

Computation Offloading and Scheduling in Edge-Fog Cloud Computing

Resource allocation and task scheduling in the Cloud environment faces many challenges, such as time delay, energy consumption, and security. Also, executing computation tasks of mobile applications on mobile devices (MDs) requires a lot of resources, so they can offload to the Cloud. But Cloud is far from MDs and has challenges as high delay and power consumption. Edge computing with processing near the Internet of Things (IoT) devices have been able to reduce the delay to some extent, but the problem is distancing itself from the Cloud. The fog computing (FC), with the placement of sensors and Cloud, increase the speed and reduce the energy consumption. Thus, FC is suitable for IoT applications. In this article, we review the resource allocation and task scheduling methods in Cloud, Edge and Fog environments, such as traditional, heuristic, and meta-heuristics. We also categorize the researches related to task offloading in Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC), Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), and Mobile Fog Computing (MFC). Our categorization criteria include the issue, proposed strategy, objectives, framework, and test environment.

Isolation of OmpA gene from Salmonella typhimurium and transformation into alfalfa in order to develop an edible plant based vaccine

The outer membrane protein A (OmpA) of Salmonella typhimurium may contribute to immunity and virulence in livestock animals. Introduction of this gene in forage crops like alfalfa may be an alternative and effective way to produce animal edible vaccine. In the present study, the OmpA gene was obtained after polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and sequencing. We successfully identified the complete ORF encoding this protein. In order to express OmpA protein in alfalfa, the gene was insertedinto a plant expression vector PBI121.The recombinant OmpA was  expressed in Escherichia coli TG1. The new construct was used to transform the Agrobacterium tumefaciens Strain LBA4404 before plant transformation. Transgenic alfalfa plants were then developed by introducing OmpA gene in the plant genome under the control of Camv35s promoter and for the first time we expressed this protein in alfalfa. Releasing this one new transgenic variety may be a considerable progress towards release varieties which enables the production of edible vaccine.Key words: Outer membrane protein A (OmpA), sub cloning, plantibodies, transgenic alfalfa, bioreactor, edible vaccine

Determination of chromosomes that control physiological traits associated with salt tolerance in barley at the seedling stage

Salt stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses, and plays an important role in reducing the yield of crops worldwide. It is now recognized that tolerance to salinity is genetically and physiologically complex and also inherited quantitatively. Barley is a short-season, early maturing, diploid and self pollinating crop, thus it is an ideal model plant for genetic and physiological studies of salinity tolerance. In order to map the genes/QTLs for salinity tolerance in barley, 72 doubled-haploid lines derived from a cross between ‘Steptoe’ and ‘Morex’ were used in an experiment using a randomized complete factorial design with three replications. The phenotypic traits under study included: chlorophyll contents, chlorophyll fluorescence (Fo, Fv, Fv/Fm), proline and carbohydrate rates, relative water content (RWC) and dry and wet weight of plant. Analysis of variance results showed that there were significant differences among the lines and different levels of salinity for all the traits. The strongest correlation was observed between dry and wet weight of plant (r = 0.95**). QTL analysis was performed using the genetic linkage map derived from 327 RFLP molecular markers and QTL cartographer software with the composite interval mapping method. Phenotypic variations that were explained by these QTLs, ranged from 10.64 to 24.20. The highest and lowest phenotypic variances were related to chlorophyll content (Q3cls) and Fv/Fm (Q1fv/fms), respectively. LOD values ranged from 2.77 to 6.33. The highest LOD scores were attained for Fv/Fm on chromosome 2H. Physiological traits associated with salt tolerance in this population were mapped to chromosomes 1H, 2H, 5H and 7H.Key words: Barley, QTL, salinity, stress, tolerance

Scheduling of fog networks with optimized knapsack by symbiotic organisms search

Internet of things as a concept uses wireless sensor networks that have limitations in power, storage, and delay when processing and sending data to the cloud. Fog computing as an extension of cloud services to the edge of the network reduces latency and traffic, so it is very useful in healthcare, wearables, intelligent transportation systems and smart cities. Scheduling is the NP-hard issues in fog computing. Edge devices due to proximity to sensors and clouds are capable of processing power and are beneficial for resource management algorithms. We present a knapsack-based scheduling optimized by symbiotic organisms search that is simulated in iFogsim as a standard simulator for fog computing. The results show improvements in the energy consumption by 18%, total network usage by 1.17%, execution cost by 15%, and sensor lifetime by 5% in our scheduling method are better than the FCFS (First Come First Served) and knapsack algorithms

POVIJESNI PREGLED NEUROLOŠKIH POREMEĆAJA POVEZANIH S GASTROINTESTINALNIM BOLESTIMA S AVICENNINA STAJALIŠTA

Reviewing historical medical manuscripts shows that neurological disorders have been previously described in the Islamic Golden Age. Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna (980-1037 AD), was one of the most renowned scientists during this period. He widely practiced medicine, especially those disorders related to neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry in conventionalmedicine. In his extant book al-Qānūn fī al-Tibb (the Canon of Medicine), he claimed that some types of brain diseases can be related to the “marāqq” and called them marāqq-related disorders. From Avicenna’s viewpoint, “marāqq” is considered a membranous structure in the abdomen. Ibn Sina has illustrated the association between the “marāqq” and the brain through some direct and indirect pathways. As a result, some disturbances in the “marāqq” can influence the brain, which can contribute to the pathogenesis of a number of brain diseases. Accordingly, those patients who regularly had gastrointestinal discomfortsexperienced a higher prevalence of headache, melancholia, and epilepsy. This study aimed to explore the relationship between abdominal and brain diseases from Avicenna’s viewpoint. Furthermore, the definition, clinical manifestation, and therapeutic strategies of marāqq-related disorders were described.Pregled povijesnih medicinskih rukopisa pokazuje da su neurološki poremećaji već bili opisani u islamskome zlatnom dobu. Ibn Sina, poznat i kao Avicenna (980. – 1 037.), bio je jedan od najpoznatijih znanstvenika toga vremena. Djelovao je u mnogim područjima medicine. Posebno je proučavao poremećaje vezane uz neurologiju, neurokirurgiju i psihijatriju u konvencionalnoj medicini. U svojoj knjizi „al-Qānūn fī al-Tibb“ (Kanon medicine) tvrdio je da se neke bolesti mozga mogu povezati s „marāqqom“ i nazvao ih poremećajima povezanim s marāqqom. S Avicennina stajališta, „marāqq“ je membranska struktura u abdomenu. Ibn Sina ilustrirao je vezu između „marāqqa“ i mozga pomoću nekih izravnih i neizravnih veza. Kao rezultat toga, neki poremećaji u „marāqqu“ mogu utjecati na mozak, što može pridonijeti patogenezi brojnih bolesti mozga. Sukladno tome, pacijenti s redovitim gastrointestinalnim tegobama imali su učestalije glavobolje, melankolije i epilepsije. Cilj je ovog istraživanja bio istražiti odnos između bolesti abdomena i mozga s Avicennina stajališta. Opisana je i definicija, klinička manifestacija i terapijske strategije poremećaja povezanih s „marāqqom“

Rhythmic coma in children.

We describe a syndrome of rhythmic coma in children that consists of an invariant, nonreactive, diffuse cortical activity of a specific frequency, such as alpha, beta, spindle, or theta, recorded from a comatose child. We report 11 cases of children who were found to be in rhythmic coma during their acute illnesses. Their ages ranged from 2 to 15 years, and their diagnoses included encephalitis, head trauma, seizures, near drowning, brain tumors, stroke, and metabolic derangements. The specific frequency of the electroencephalographic pattern, ie, alpha, beta, spindle, or theta, did not influence the outcome. The clinical outcome appeared to depend on the primary disease process rather than the electroencephalographic finding. The prognosis of alpha-frequency rhythmic coma as well as of rhythmic coma in general was better in children than in adults. The pathophysiology in children may be similar, ie, the interruption of reticulothalamocortical pathways by metabolic or structural abnormalities, but the expression of this deafferentation may be more varied in the developing brain. Thus, we propose the term rhythmic coma as a unified concept for alpha, beta, spindle, and theta coma in children

A review on phytochemical and therapeutic potential of Iris germanica

OBJECTIVES: Iris germanica L. is a medicinal plant, which has a long history of uses, mainly in medieval Persia and many places worldwide for the management of a wide variety of diseases. In this study, we aimed to review ethnopharmacological applications in addition to phytochemical and pharmacological properties of I. germanica. KEY FINDINGS: Ethnomedical uses of I. germanica have been reported from many countries such as China, Pakistan, India, Iran and Turkey. The medicinal part of I. germanica is the rhizome and the roots. Based on phytochemical investigations, different bioactive compounds, including flavonoids, triterpenes, sterols, phenolics, ceramides and benzoquinones, have been identified in its medicinal parts. Current pharmacological studies represent that the plant possesses several biological and therapeutic effects, including neuroprotective, hypoglycaemic, hypolipidaemic, antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiproliferative, anti-inflammatory, antiplasmodial, antifungal, immunomodulatory, cytotoxic and antimutagenic effects. SUMMARY: Although the majority of preclinical studies reported various pharmacological activities of this plant, however, sufficient clinical trials are not currently available. Therefore, to draw a definitive conclusion about the efficacy and therapeutic activities of I. germanica and its bioactive compounds, further clinical and experimental studies are required. Moreover, it is necessary to focus on the pharmacokinetic and safety studies on the extracts of I. germanica. © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]