Use of Nanotechnology in Food Industry: A review

Food science is emerging in a fast way with collaboration of nanotechnology. The food market demands technologies, which are essential to keep market leadership in the food processing industry to produce fresh authentic, convenient and flavorful food products and nanotechnology is the answer to it. Nano particles are used as nano inside as additives and nano outside as packaging. The packaged food products are proving more health beneficial and hygiene with the help of nanotechnology. Nano particles are using as food additives makes food to stay away from microbial contamination hence lengthening the lifespan. Nanoscale food additives may for example be used to influence product shelf life, texture, flavor, nutrient composition, or even detect food pathogens and provide functions as food quality indicators. Nanotechnology providesa vast range of opportunities for the development of new products and applications in food system. Functional foods, nutraceuticals, bioactives, pharmafoods, etc. are very recentexample of it. Lowering of the cost of food additives is a milestone of using nano food additives

CAD-based robotics

Journal ArticleWe describe an approach which facilitates and makes explicit the organization of the knowledge necessary to map robotic system requirements onto an appropriate assembly of algorithms, processors, sensor, and actuators. In order to achieve this mapping, several kinds of knowledge are needed. In this paper, we describe a system under development which exploits the Computer Aided Design (CAD) database in order to synthesize

Relative Stability of Network States in Boolean Network Models of Gene Regulation in Development

Progress in cell type reprogramming has revived the interest in Waddington's concept of the epigenetic landscape. Recently researchers developed the quasi-potential theory to represent the Waddington's landscape. The Quasi-potential U(x), derived from interactions in the gene regulatory network (GRN) of a cell, quantifies the relative stability of network states, which determine the effort required for state transitions in a multi-stable dynamical system. However, quasi-potential landscapes, originally developed for continuous systems, are not suitable for discrete-valued networks which are important tools to study complex systems. In this paper, we provide a framework to quantify the landscape for discrete Boolean networks (BNs). We apply our framework to study pancreas cell differentiation where an ensemble of BN models is considered based on the structure of a minimal GRN for pancreas development. We impose biologically motivated structural constraints (corresponding to specific type of Boolean functions) and dynamical constraints (corresponding to stable attractor states) to limit the space of BN models for pancreas development. In addition, we enforce a novel functional constraint corresponding to the relative ordering of attractor states in BN models to restrict the space of BN models to the biological relevant class. We find that BNs with canalyzing/sign-compatible Boolean functions best capture the dynamics of pancreas cell differentiation. This framework can also determine the genes' influence on cell state transitions, and thus can facilitate the rational design of cell reprogramming protocols.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

CAGD based 3-D visual recognition

Journal ArticleA coherent automated manufacturing system needs to include CAD/CAM, computer vision, and object manipulation. Currently, most systems which support CAD/CAM do not provide for vision or manipulation and similarly, vision and manipulation systems incorporate no explicit relation to CAD/CAM models. CAD/CAM systems have emerged which allow the designer to conceive and model an object and automatically manufacture the object to the prescribed specifications. !f recognition or manipulation is to be performed, existing vision systems rely on models generated in an ad hoc manner for the vision or recognition process. Although both Vision and CAD/CAM systems rely on models of the objects involved, different modeling schemes are used in each case. A more unified system will allow vision models to be generated from the CAD database. We are implementing a framework in which objects are designed using an existing CAGD system and recognition strategies based on these design models are used for visual recognition and manipulation. An example of its application is given

Production and stability of al and cu ultrafine particles in nanofluids

In this paper, a two step approach of synthesis of Al and Cu ultrafine particles by mechanical alloying and then dispersing them in base fluid to prepare nanofluid has been reported. Ultrafine powders were prepared by milling elemental Al and Cu powders for 50 h in a planetary mill. After 50 h of milling, particles size has been reduced to 500nm for Al and 400 nm for Cu. It is also found from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that each particles consists of large number of crystallites of size around 10-15 nm. Aiming at the dispersion of nano-Al and Cu is regarded as the guide of heat transfer enhancement, the stability of Al and Cu particles in water were studied under different pH values. It has been found from Nanozeta meter that Al suspension is stable at pH 2.5 and 9.5, whereas Cu suspension is stable at pH 2.3 and 9.8

The molecular complex associated with the Galactic HII region Sh2-90: a possible site of triggered star formation

We investigate the star formation activity in the molecular complex associated with the Galactic HII region Sh2-90, using radio-continuum maps obtained at 1280 MHz and 610 MHz, Herschel Hi-GAL observations at 70 -- 500 microns, and deep near-infrared observation at JHK bands, along with Spitzer observations. Sh2-90 presents a bubble morphology in the mid-IR (size ~ 0.9 pc x 1.6 pc). Radio observations suggest it is an evolved HII region with an electron density ~ 144 cm^-3, emission measure ~ 6.7 x 10^4 cm^-6 pc and a ionized mass ~ 55 Msun. From Hi-GAL observations it is found that the HII region is part of an elongated extended molecular cloud (size ~ 5.6 pc x 9.7 pc, H_2 column density >= 3 x 10^21 cm^-2 and dust temperature 18 -- 27 K) of total mass >= 1 x 10^4 Msun. We identify the ionizing cluster of Sh2-90, the main exciting star being an O8--O9 V star. Five cold dust clumps (mass ~ 8 -- 95 Msun), four mid-IR blobs around B stars, and a compact HII region are found at the edge of the bubble.The velocity information derived from CO (J=3-2) data cubes suggests that most of them are associated with the Sh2-90 region. 129 YSOs are identified (Class I, Class II, and near-IR excess sources). The majority of the YSOs are low mass (<= 3 Msun) sources and they are distributed mostly in the regions of high column density. Four candidate Class 0/I MYSOs have been found; they will possibly evolve to stars of mass >= 15 Msun. We suggest multi-generation star formation is present in the complex. From the evidences of interaction, the time scales involved and the evolutionary status of stellar/protostellar sources, we argue that the star formation at the immediate border/edges of Sh2-90 might have been triggered by the expanding HII region. However, several young sources in this complex are probably formed by some other processes.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic