Pulsed sprays for better contact between liquid and fluidized solids

Many industrial applications, such as fluid catalytic cracking, fluid coking, and gas phase polymerization, use liquid injection into fluidized beds of solid particles.. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to study the mechanism of liquid injection into fluidized beds in order to ensure the best possible distribution of the feed, maximizing the yield of valuable products while minimizing the formation of undesired agglomerates, and, thus, preventing mass and heat transfer limitations. The objective of this Thesis are: to investigate the potentially beneficial effects of fluctuations on the liquid feed distribution on the particles in the fluidized bed at various operating conditions by imposing fluctuations of well-defined frequency and amplitude on the liquid flow upstream of a spray nozzle; to study the effect of creating natural pulsations on the liquid feed distribution with non-mechanical methods over different operating conditions; and, finally, to compare different spray nozzles geometries under pulsating flow conditions. To achieve these objectives several experiments were conducted in a laboratory-scale fluidized bed filled with silica sand and fluidized with air. Thesis results illustrated that nozzle pulsations significantly improved the spray nozzle performance and the liquid distribution under the different studied operating conditions

Option Strangles: An Analysis of Selling Equity Insurance

Our results suggest, selling SPY strangles are generally profitable across a variety of widths. However, the payoff profile of a short option strangle exposes the contract seller to a potential for unlimited losses. Our evidence on maximum drawdowns indicates that losses on some positions can be the equivalent of the profits gained on approximately forty prior positions. This payoff profile has given rise to the metaphor of selling option contracts as the equivalent of “picking up nickels in front of a steam roller.” The goal of our paper is to analyze the full return characteristics of option strangles and to develop a set of models to help investors avoid getting steam-rolled. As a result, we forecast the likelihood of profitability of SPY strangles. We use information that is available at the time a position is under consideration to attempt to avoid strangle positions with potentially large losses

Reproducibility of species recognition in modern planktonic foraminfera

Abstrac

A preliminary radicalisation framework based on social engineering techniques

YesThe use of online forums and social media sites by extremists for recruiting and radicalising individuals has been covered extensively by researchers. Meanwhile, the social engineering techniques utilised by these extremists to lure marginalised individuals into radicalisation has been neglected. In this article, the social engineering aspects of online radicalisation will be explored. Specifically, the five Principles of Persuasion in Social Engineering (PPSE) will be mapped onto the online radicalisation methods employed by extremists online. Analysing these tactics will aid in gaining a deeper understanding of the process of indoctrination and of the psychology of both the attacker and the target of such attacks. This understanding has enabled the development of a preliminary radicalisation framework based on the social traits of a target that may be exploited during an attack

Regeneration performance of metal–organic frameworks

Notions about the reception of print fiction as well as new media texts have a strong tendency to fall back upon the dichotomy between naïve and critical reading. It is presupposed that reception will be characterized by either the one or the other. We will try to critique this dichotomy on the basis of the hypothesis that media cultural change brings with it new and hybrid textual forms, ways of reading, and patterns of reception which not lend themselves to description in simple terms of naïve or critical. We make a case for the necessity of transgressing the dominant assumptions of transactional reception theory within literary studies and instead move in the direction of what we call creative reading and media-reflexivity

DETERMINATION OF ATORVASTATIN CALCIUM IN PURE AND ITS PHARMACEUTICAL FORMULATIONS USING IODINE IN ACETONITRILE BY UV-VISIBLE SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC METHOD

Objective: A simple, sensitive and specific spectrophotometric method was developed for the determination of atorvastatin calcium (ATCa) in pure and its pharmaceutical formulations using iodine in acetonitrile.Methods: The method is based on the oxidation of atorvastatin calcium by iodine and formation triiodide (I3−) complex.Results: The formed complex was measured at 291 and 360 nm against the reagent blank prepared in the same manner. The optimum experimental parameters are selected. Beer's law is valid within a concentration range of 0.5586-11.173 μg/ml. The relative standard deviation did not exceed 3.0% and regression analysis showed a good correlation coefficient (R2= 0.9995). The limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) were to be 0.056 and 0.17 μg/ml, respectively.Conclusion: The developed method is applied for the determination of atorvastatin in pure and its commercial tablets without any interference from excipients (at lmax =291 & 360 nm), ezetimibe (EZE), fenofibrate (FEN) and aspirin (ASP) at lmax =360 nm with average recovery of 99.45 to 102.4%. The results obtained agree well with the contents stated on the labels.Â

Thermal Loads Effect on Response of One-Story Reinforced Concrete Frame Buildings in UAE

In this paper the effect of temperature change (thermal load) on one-story reinforced concrete frame buildings allocated in the UAE is studied. Sixty eight finite element models with different story heights and slab lengths were developed in ETABS to carry out this study. The effect of temperature change with the variation of story height, slab length and support condition on the lateral displacement and horizontal reactions was studied in this paper. The thermal load results for the fixed support models showed that for different buildings with the same column heights, the external columns’ displacements and reactions increased considerably with increasing the slab length. Comparing the horizontal reaction results –due to thermal loads- of the two modeled building heights (3 m and 6 m) showed that the 6 m models have lower reactions at external columns but larger top displacements. The comparison between the lateral load results for fixed and hinged support conditions showed that models with fixed support conditions had lower lateral displacement but higher horizontal reactions due to thermal loads. The effect of the support condition on the lateral displacement was larger for longer slab lengths whereas its effect on the horizontal reaction was larger for smaller slab lengths. The support conditions showed to have larger effect on the shorter column models

Preliminary characterization of ssps (Seed Storage Proteins) in Argania spinosa L.

4 páginas, 2 figuras, 1 tabla.-- Comunicación presentada al 3rd International SMBBM Congress, IUBMB Special Meeting & 6th FASBMB Congress, celebrado en Marrakech (Marruecos) del 20 al 24 de Abril de 2009.SSPs (Seed Storage Proteins) of the 11S type have been preliminary characterized in the seeds of the argan tree, an endemic species from Morocco. Protein extracts from mature seeds were prepared by using different solutions in order to assess the solubility of the major protein forms. SSPs of the 11S type were classified as albumins according to the further SDS-PAGE analysis of these extracts. The combination of both reducing- and non-reducing conditions for the SDS-PAGE analysis, together with immunoblot experiments allowed us to determine the presence of three precursor forms of these proteins (pro1, pro2 and pro3), which are composed of six individual peptides (p1 to p6) in different combinations.This work was funded by Spanish BFU2004-00601/BFI and BFU2008-00629 projects. M. Allach thanks the research bursary granted by UNESCO/L´ORÉAL and L´ORÉAL Morocco.Peer reviewe

Blockade of the Naloxone-induced Aversion in Morphine-conditioned Wistar Rats by L-Arginine Intra-central Amygdala

AbstractObjective(s)Single injection of naloxone, a selective antagonist of morphine, prior to the drug conditioning testing was used to investigate on morphine dependence.Materials and MethodsConditioning to morphine (2.5-10 mg/kg, s.c.) was established in adult male Wistar rats (weighing 200-250 g) using an unbiased procedure. Nitric oxide agents were microinjected into the central amygdala prior to naloxone-paired place conditioning testing.ResultsThe results showed that morphine produced a significant dose-dependent place preference in animals. Naloxone (0.1-0.4 mg/kg, i.p.) injections pre-testing of the response to morphine (7.5 mg/kg, s.c.) caused a significant aversion at the higher doses (0.4 mg/kg, i.p.). This response was reversed by microinjection of L-arginine (0.3-3 µg/rat, intra-central amygdala) prior to naloxone on the day of the testing. The response to L-arginine was blocked by pre-injection of NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) (intra-central amygdala).ConclusionA single injection of naloxone on the test day of morphine place conditioning may simply reveal the occurrence of morphine dependence in rats, and that the nitric oxide in the central amygdala most likely plays a key role in this phenomenon