Production of High Yield Animal Hide Glue for Bonding High Moisture Resistant (HMR) Grade Plywood

The driving force of this research study was the recovery of unwanted animal by-products such as animal skin and hide trimmings and flesh from the slaughter houses, or the scrap of animal skin and hide remains from leather industry. The collected animal by-products was firstly pretreated and later converted into gelatin. The study investigated a new extraction process using a dispersed micro-bubble technique to increase the recovery of animal glue (gelatin) within shorter time and disperse mixing process by using high shear mixing that worked to wipe the hydrolyzed glue from the surface of the collagen-containing material by providing a gentle and uniform agitation of the vessel content during the extraction stages. It was extremely effective to improve the yield of the glue production during the extraction process. The second stage of the study evaluated the possibility of fortifying and blending this glue with melamine-based resins to improve its moisture resistance and shear strength, suitable for plywood industry. Two types of melamine crosslinker were used: (i) Melamine urea formaldehyde and (ii) Melamine formaldehyde. The highest total yield obtained using the new extraction technique was 89.3% using 4500 rpm disperse mixing speed in which 16.9% was collected at an extraction temperature of 75°C, 50% at 85°C, and 22.5% at 95°C. The total yield obtained from the conventional extraction method over the same period of time was 36.9% with 12.1% collected at the temperature of 75°C, 16.9% at 85°C, and 7.9% at 95°C. Comparing the percentage yield by the new extraction method and the of conventional method, there was an improvement of 58.6% in yield recovery and there was about 4-10% improvement in yield and the extraction time was reduced to about 50-72% when compared to the existing commercial procedures used in both the glue and gelatin manufacture. Both the gelling strength and the viscosity of the gelatins produced by both methods were within the same range. High shear strength and superior moisture resistant properties were obtained from plywood bonded with animal glue blended with melamine urea formaldehyde resin. The shear strength being 3.2 MPa for the dry treatment, 1.0MPa for the cold treatment, and 2.5 MPa for the hot treatment. The shear strength of plywood bonded with 100% animal glue were l.4MPa, 0.1MPa and 0.6MPa for dry, cold and hot treatments, respectively. The improved animal glue gave a better performance compared to the traditional melamine urea formaldehyde with shear of 2.7MPa (dry), 2.7MPa (cold), and 1.9MPa (hot) treatments, respectively

A new approach to obtain Kevlar-49 from PET waste bottles

Non-biodegradable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles have attracted increasing attention due to environmental concern in today’s world. In order to reduce the amount of solid wastes generated and the dependency on fossil resources, a new approach has been conducted to prepare Kevlar-49 from PET waste bottles. Terephthalic acid, the main raw material used for preparation of Kevlar, was regenerated from PET waste bottles via subjection to a saponification process, whereas p-phenylenediamine was prepared from PET waste bottles via the Hoffmann rearrangement method. Kevlar was synthesized from the reaction of terephthalic acid and p-phenylenediamine by polycondensation reaction. The structures of terephthalic acid, p-phenylenediamine and Kevlar were characterized by FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and elemental analysis (CHN). In this study, thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffraction (XRD), as well as the mechanical properties (tensile strength, modulus, and percentage elongation at break) of the synthesized Kevlar-49, were compared with commercial Kevlar-49, prepared from the same raw materials, for better understanding of their properties

DEO: A Dynamic Event Order Strategy for t-way Sequence Covering Array Test Data Generation

الخلاصة:               تعد مصفوفة التغطية المتسلسلة (SCA) من مجالات البحث النشطة في السنوات الأخيرة. بخلاف مصفوفة التغطية الاعتيادية (CA) ، يختلف ترتيب تسلسل العوامل في عملية إنشاء حالة الاختبار. تقوم هذه الورقة بمراجعة أحدث الاستراتيجيات في  الأعمال السابقة، حيث أن العثور على الحد الأدنى لحجم مجموعة الاختبار يعتبر مشكلة .NP-Hard بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، تتمتع معظم الاستراتيجيات الحالية الخاصة بتوليد SCA بترتيب عالٍ من التعقيد نظرًا لتوليد جميع التفاعلات التوافقية من خلال تبني أسلوب اختبار واحد في كل مرة. يعد الحد من التعقيد من خلال تبني عامل واحد في وقت واحد لتوليد SCA عملية صعبة. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، يوفر هذا الحد من التعقيد دعما للحصول على قوة تغطية أعلى. وبمواجهة هذا التحدي، تقترح هذه الورقة استراتيجية SCA جديدة تسمى ترتيب الاحداث الديناميكةDynamic Event Order (DEO) ، والتي يتم فيها إنشاء حالة الاختبار باستخدام عامل واحد في وقت واحد. يقدم هذا البحث  تفاصيل DEO مع مثال خطوة بخطوة لإظهار السلوك وإظهار صحة الاستراتيجية المقترحة. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، تقوم هذه الورقة بإجراء مقارنة مع الاستراتيجيات الحسابية الحالية. توضح النتائج العملية أن استراتيجية DEO المقترحة تتفوق على الاستراتيجيات الحالية من حيث الحد الأدنى لحجم الاختبار في معظم الحالات. علاوة على ذلك، تزداد أهمية DEO مع زيادة عدد التتابعات و / أو زيادة قوة التغطية. حيث نجحت استراتيجية DEO المقترحة في إنشاء SCAs حتى .t = 7 أخيرًا، نجحت إستراتيجية DEO في إيجاد حدود عليا جديدة ل .SCA في الواقع، أن الإستراتيجية المقترحة تعد قاعدة بحثية لتنفيذ وتطوير خوارزميات مستقبلية باعتماد فكرة العامل واحد في الوقت الواحد المنفذة.Sequence covering array (SCA) generation is an active research area in recent years. Unlike the sequence-less covering arrays (CA), the order of sequence varies in the test case generation process. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of the SCA strategies, earlier works reported that finding a minimal size of a test suite is considered as an NP-Hard problem. In addition, most of the existing strategies for SCA generation have a high order of complexity due to the generation of all combinatorial interactions by adopting one-test-at-a-time fashion. Reducing the complexity by adopting one-parameter- at-a-time for SCA generation is a challenging process. In addition, this reduction facilitates the supporting for a higher strength of coverage. Motivated by such challenge, this paper proposes a novel SCA strategy called Dynamic Event Order (DEO), in which the test case generation is done using one-parameter-at-a-time fashion. The details of the DEO are presented with a step-by-step example to demonstrate the behavior and show the correctness of the proposed strategy. In addition, this paper makes a comparison with existing computational strategies. The practical results demonstrate that the proposed DEO strategy outperforms the existing strategies in term of minimal test size in most cases. Moreover, the significance of the DEO increases as the number of sequences increases and/ or the strength of coverage increases. Furthermore, the proposed DEO strategy succeeds to generate SCAs up to t=7. Finally, the DEO strategy succeeds to find new upper bounds for SCA. In fact, the proposed strategy can act as a research vehicle for variants future implementation

The incidence rate of female breast cancer in Saudi Arabia: an observational descriptive epidemiological analysis of data from Saudi Cancer Registry 2001-2008

Background: This study presents descriptive epidemiological data related to breast cancer cases diagnosed from 2001 to 2008 among Saudi women, including the frequency and percentage of cases, the crude incidence rate (CIR), and the age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR), adjusted by the region and year of diagnosis. Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive epidemiological study of all Saudi female breast cancer cases from 2001 to 2008. The statistical analyses were conducted using descriptive statistics, a linear regression model, and analysis of variance with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: A total of 6,922 female breast cancer cases were recorded in the Saudi Cancer Registry from 2001 to 2008. The highest overall percentages (38.6% and 31.2%) of female breast cancer cases were documented in women who were 30–44 and 45–59 years of age, respectively. The eastern region of Saudi Arabia had the highest overall ASIR, at 26.6 per 100,000 women, followed by Riyadh at 20.5 and Makkah at 19.4. Jazan, Baha, and Asir had the lowest average ASIRs, at 4.8, 6.1, and 7.3 per 100,000 women, respectively. The region of Jouf (24.2%; CIR 11.2, ASIR 17.2) had the highest changes in CIR and ASIR from 2001 to 2008. While Qassim, Jazan and Tabuk recorded down-trending rates with negative values. Conclusion: There was a significant increase in the CIRs and ASIRs for female breast cancer between 2001 and 2008. The majority of breast cancer cases occurred among younger women. The region of Jouf had the greatest significant differences of CIR and ASIR during 2001 to 2008. Jazan, Baha, and Najran had the lowest average CIRs and ASIRs of female breast cancer, whereas the linear trend upward is a concern in certain regions, such as the eastern region, Makkah, and Riyadh. However, further analytical epidemiological research is needed to identify the potential risk factors involved in the increase in the prevalence of breast cancer among Saudi women

Heat Transfer Analysis of Conventional Round Tube and Microchannel Condensers in Automotive Air Conditioning System

In this paper, an experimental analysis of conventional air cooled round tube and microchannel condensers in an automotive air conditioning cycle in term of heat transfer coefficient and energy is presented. The analysis was carried out in a test unit of automotive air conditioning system works with R134a. The conventional round tube plate fin condenser, and cycle were examined first. After that the conventional condenser is replaced by a parallel flow multi-louvered fin microchannel condenser with 0.1 mm hydraulic diameter, and the same experiments in same conditions have been re-implemented. The performance of two condenser and cycles were tested in terms of ambient temperature, which it was varied from 40oC to 65oC. Besides, the indoor temperature and load has been set to 23oC and 2200 W respectively. It was found that replacing the round tube conventional condenser with a microchannel is useful and can enhances the total cycle performance. Because, the microchannel condenser has 224 % and 77 % higher refrigerant side and air side heat transfer coefficient than the conventional. So that, the COP, in case of using the microchannel condenser, was found to be 20 % higher than the conventional. In addition, the microchannel condenser 50 % smaller volume than the conventional. Therefore, it provides more empty space in the car engine container to be occupied with other components or to be removed. Keywords: Automotive air conditioning, Condenser, Microchannel, Heat transfer, Energ

Design and Implementation of a Contactless Smart House Network System

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology is every object around us and it is used to connect these objects to the Internet to verify Machine to Machine (M2M) communication. The smart house system is the most important application of IoT technology; it is increase the quality of life and decrease the efforts. There were many problems that faced the existing smart house networking systems, including the high cost of implementation and upgrading, high power consumption, and supported limited features. Therefore, this paper presents the design and implementation of smart house network system (SHNS) using Raspberry Pi and Arduino platforms as network infrastructure with ZigBee technology as wireless communication. SHNS consists of two main parts: the main station part and the wireless house nodes part. The local wireless communication between the house nodes and the main station is done through ZigBee technology with low power and low data rate. The mode of operation of these house nodes can be configured dynamically by the end user and determined multicast or broadcast operation according to the user requirements. The implementation and upgrading of SHNS are costless, flexible and required less power comparing with other reviewed systems