Gas metal arc welding of modified X2CrNi12 ferritic stainless steel

X2CrNi12 ferritic stainless steel is a low cost stainless steel grade exhibiting good corrosion and abrasion resistance. Typical applications for this steel are bus frames and chassis, railway wagons for coal and iron ore, mining and mineral processing, sugar and chemical process equipment, furnace parts etc. The modern production routes now allow fabricating this grade with low carbon content (< 0.015 %) and low impurity levels improving the weldability substantially. Regarding to these conditions, this modified stainless steel grade becomes more attractive. In this paper, microstructural and toughness properties and mechanical properties of gas metal arc welded 6 mm thick modified X2CrNi12 stainless steel with two different heat inputs are presented. Promising results have been obtained. Interesting correlation has been found between microstructure (e.g. grain size) and impact toughness

Value-added effects of using aromatic plants in foods and human therapy

Consumers' demands for low-processed and healthier food products led to a search for alternatives to replace or reduce synthetic food additives with natural ones. Aromatic plant derivatives which have GRAS status, have been examined for being natural food preservatives and antioxidants to prolong the shelf-life of foods. They contribute to food safety, owing to their anti-quorum sensing, and anti-biofilm properties. These potential food safety attributes and increasing demand for natural food additive options have led to an interest in the use of them, especially in traditional meat, dairy, and bakery products, which would provide them an added value, and increase the market competitiveness. Therefore, the overall perspective of the value-added effects of using aromatic plants and their derivatives in food production and of their incorporated use into packaging materials for active packaging are discussed in this review. In addition, it provides information on their antimicrobial and antioxidant actions. The review also aims to give detailed information on benefits of vegetal bioactive compounds in health and disease by giving their nutraceutical and health-promoting properties. The current knowledge on their application in the treatment of health disorders is presented, their ability to prevent diseases is discussed, and the areas for future research are proposed

FOOD SAFETY RISK PERCEPTION GAP BETWEEN CONSUMERS AND PROCESSORS OF SPECIALTY MEAT

Consumers and processors of specialty meats continue to have different perceptions of food safety risk. This creates difficulties in formulating policy initiatives aimed at resolving these issues to enable marketing of specialty meats to move beyond niche markets. This study analyzes the risk perception gap, and provides an insight into methods by which perception issues can be resolved.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A study of users’ compliance and satisfied utilization of biometric application system

This research article published by Taylor & Francis Online, 2020Currently, the adoption rate of biometric technology has speedily grown in all applications. The technology is considered as an effective measure for the protection against crime. However, there is a concern that it violates the privacy and rights of the individuals. For instance, the possibility of fraud, identity theft, civil liberty violations, and inaccuracy of data. As a result, create the conflicts between service provider and public as they may be accused of a crime or become a victim of discrimination. This study constitutes exploratory research and is restricted to the usage of the biometric application system within the passport. It aims at discovering the substantial acceptance of users in implementing the biometric application for the East African passport (Uganda). Factor influencing users’ opinions regarding the acceptance of the biometric application, User willingness, trust and techniques for securing the biometric information are presented. Strategies aimed at regulating the protection of biometric data on the usage of the application are explained. The findings suggested encryption techniques as the most favorable tactic of protecting the biometric data application. Therefore, best practices such as individual desirability, practical accurateness, and eagerness are required

Investigating the effect of light color temperature on selective attention, error and human reaction time

Background and aims: The reaction time of humans that affected by several factors includes the time that takes to stimulate the sensory organs and the stimulus effect is transmitted to the brain, then is perceived and the decision is made; consequently, the command resulting from the decision of the brain is sent from the brain to the functional organs. Failure to respond at the right time may result in human error and accidents. There are important factors that affect the reaction time. Attention is one of the important factors affecting the speed of the reaction. Selective attention and correct perception of several stimuli among the other stimuli is one of the effective factors in promoting performance and safety. Additionally, various environmental factors may be effective in determining selective attention, increasing the number of errors and the human response time in detecting triggers. Lighting is one of the factors affecting the processing mechanisms of the brain. In the design of indoor and outdoor lighting systems, the quality parameters of the lighting system are usually less considered. Color temperature is one of the most important qualitative parameters of light, which is measured by the Kelvin unit and is an indicator for the brightness and color of the light. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of light color temperature on selective attention, error rate and reaction time. Methods: This research is an interventional and laboratory study in order to determine the effect of the light color temperature on human error, selective attention, and reaction time of students in Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) of Tehran during the fall of 2018. All students were in the same age range. The inclusion criteria for this study were; not having any eye-related diseases, such as diminished vision and subtlety, and mental-psychiatric disorders. On the day before performing the test, participants were informed to: have enough sleep and rest, adhere to a regular diet, and avoid taking medicines, coffee and caffeinated drinks. In this interventional study, 92 students (36 female and 56 male) from Tarbiat Modarres University of Tehran with an average age of 28.33 years were recruited as subjects. The measurements and tests related to selective attention and reaction time of individuals were performed in 4 locations with an equal lighting system and different color temperatures (3500, 4000, 5000, or 6500 degrees Kelvin). In the first step of the study, in order to determine the effect of light color temperature on the studied parameters, the participants were randomly divided into four groups with 24 subjects in each group. Before the main test was being performed, the participants were kept in rooms adjusted to a brightness of 3500° K to rest for at least 5 minutes in order to be adapted to the situation, and then, in the same conditions, to become familiar with the test method they were studied with the Stroop software. In the second step, each group was placed in a separate room where the levels of brightness had been designed with one of the lighting systems to yield a color temperature of 3500, 4000, 5000, and 6500° K. Cognitive performance tests including reaction time, accuracy and selective attention were measured using Stroop tests. Measurement of score interference and time interference, which are indicators for selective attention, were calculated by measuring the difference in the error rate and the reaction time in detecting incongruent and consonant words. Stroop test was used to determine the reaction time, error and other parameters. This test consists of two parts; the practice and the main test, each of them has two stages. The first step is to name the color of circular shapes that appears on the laptop monitor screen. The participant, upon viewing the image, applies pressure on keyboard buttons which are labeled with colors corresponding to the ones on the screen. The second step is to name the word which appears in a white box. The names of the colors appear, and as soon as the correct word is recognized, the participant should press the color word associated to the word on the keyboard. The third step, which is the main stage of the test, is a non-consistent word (red-green-blue) that shown randomly and sequentially on the monitor's screen. The subject must only press the keyboard button with the same color, only emphasizing the color and regardless of its connotation. In this test, 48 consistent colored words (the color of the word is identical with the meaning of the word; red, yellow, green and blue) and 48 non-consistent colored words (the color of the word is not the same as the word meaning; for example, the blue word shown in red). The time lap between the stimulants was 800 milliseconds and the duration of each of them was 2000 milliseconds. The subject's task was to select the correct color only. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS software. Results: Based on the results of this study, the highest mean of correct selection (474.49 ± 10.65) and the lowest mean of the correct ones (654.49 ± 11.77) were assigned to the color temperature of 6500 and 3500 ° K, respectively. Also, the highest mean of error rate (15.65 ± 9.77) and the lowest mean of error rate (10.94 ± 9.4) were reported at a color temperature of 3500 and 6500 ° K, respectively. According to the results of this study, with increase in color temperature from 3500 to 5000° Kelvin, the number of questions that were not responded decreased. Likewise, the number of unanswered questions for the color temperature of 6500 °K slightly increased compared to the color temperature of 5000 and 4000 °K. The results also indicated that, with an increase in color temperature from 3500 to 6500 °K, the reaction time to visual stimuli also decreased. The highest interference score was in the light color temperature of 3500 °K which indicates that the number of faults in naming inconsistent words relative to consonant words was higher in color temperature of 3500° K compared to other color temperatures. Also, according to Fig. 3, the maximum interference time was at 6500 ° K. This indicates that the performance time of the subjects in naming inconsistent words was higher relative to consonants in color temperature of 6,500° K compared to other color temperatures. Although the average response time under lighting condition with color temperature of 6500° K (718.95 ± 65.33) was less than the color temperature of 3500° K (728.58 ± 43.48), according to the results of the study, with a decrease in color temperature, the increase in mean response time was observed, but this difference was not significant (p p). Also, based on independent t-test (Table 2), there was a significant relationship between subjects' gender and variables such as interference score, interference time and number of unanswered questions. For all of these three variables (interference score, interference time and number of unanswered questions) mean in men was significantly lower than women (p <0.05). Based on subjects' gender, the average response time under different color temperatures showed that the response time (or reaction time) of female under lighting conditions with 3000 and 5,000 ° K was higher than male, while under lighting conditions with 4000 and 6500° K the response time of male was higher than female students. Although the average response time under different color temperatures was different between male and female subjects, based on the results of independent t-test, such difference was not significant. Conclusion: In general, the results of this study showed that when subjects are exposed to light color temperature of 6,500 ° K, the number of correct responses by them is higher than those exposed to other color temperatures, and with increasing the color temperature, the number of correct answers increases. Also, according to the results of this study, the error rate decrease by increasing color temperature of light source. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested to make use of light sources with a color temperature of 6,500 ° K in designing the lighting system of the places where human reaction time and error are high importance. Accordingly, it is recommended to repeat this study in other demographic groups, as well as taking into account the qualitative parameters of the lighting system in addition to its quantitative parameters. © 2020 Iran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Developing an Algorithm for Securing the Biometric Data Template in the Database

This research article published by the International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 10, No. 10, 2019In the current technology advancement, biometric template provides a dependable solution to the problem of user verification in an identity control system. The template is saved in the database during the enrollment and compared with query information in the verification stage. Serious security and privacy concerns can arise, if raw, unprotected data template is saved in the database. An attacker can hack the template information in the database to gain illicit access. A novel approach of encryption-decryption algorithm utilizing a design pattern of Model View Template (MVT) is developed to secure the biometric data template. The model manages information logically, the view shows the visualization of the data, and the template addresses the data migration into pattern object. The established algorithm is based on the cryptographic module of the Fernet key instance. The Fernet keys are combined to generate a multiFernet key to produce two encrypted files (byte and text file). These files are incorporated with Twilio message and securely preserved in the database. In the event where an attacker tries to access the biometric data template in the database, the system alerts the user and stops the attacker from unauthorized access, and cross-verify the impersonator based on the validation of the ownership. Thus, helps inform the users and the authority of, how secure the individual biometric data template is, and provided a high level of the security pertaining the individual data privac

Breast cancer management and outcome according to surgeon's affiliation: a population-based comparison adjusted for patient's selection bias

Background Studies have reported that breast cancer (BC) units could increase the quality of care but none has evaluated the efficacy of alternative options such as private BC networks, which is our study objective. Patients and methods We included all 1404 BC patients operated in the public unit or the private network and recorded at the Geneva Cancer Registry between 2000 and 2005. We compared quality indicators of care between the public BC unit and the private BC network by logistic regression and evaluated the effect of surgeon's affiliation on BC-specific mortality by the Cox model adjusting for the propensity score. Results Both the groups had high care quality scores. For invasive cancer, histological assessment before surgery and axillary lymph node dissection when indicated were less frequent in the public sector (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 0.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.3-0.7, and OR: 0.4, 95% CI 0.2-0.8, respectively), while radiation therapy after breast-conserving surgery was more frequent (OR: 2.5, 95% CI 1.4-4.8). Surgeon affiliation had no substantial effect on BC-specific mortality (adjusted hazard ratio (HR): 0.8, 95% CI 0.5-1.4). Conclusions This study suggests that private BC networks could be an alternative to public BC units with both structures presenting high quality indicators of BC care and similar BC-specific mortalit

Adiabatic Formation of Rydberg Crystals with Chirped Laser Pulses

Ultracold atomic gases have been used extensively in recent years to realize textbook examples of condensed matter phenomena. Recently, phase transitions to ordered structures have been predicted for gases of highly excited, 'frozen' Rydberg atoms. Such Rydberg crystals are a model for dilute metallic solids with tunable lattice parameters, and provide access to a wide variety of fundamental phenomena. We investigate theoretically how such structures can be created in four distinct cold atomic systems, by using tailored laser-excitation in the presence of strong Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. We study in detail the experimental requirements and limitations for these systems, and characterize the basic properties of small crystalline Rydberg structures in one, two and three dimensions.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, MPIPKS-ITAMP Tandem Workshop, Cold Rydberg Gases and Ultracold Plasmas (CRYP10), Sept. 6-17, 201

Experimental and mathematical survey of sound absorption performance of date palm fibers

The present study examines the acoustic behavior sample composites made of date palm natural fibers and polyvinyl alcohol. It also provides the comparison between the sound absorption coefficients obtained from the experimental tests and the ones predicted by the mathematical models. An impedance tube system was used to measure the normal sound absorption coefficient of the samples. Using the differential equation algorithm, the predicted sound absorption coefficient for the Johnson-Champoux-Allard model was also calculated. The sound absorption properties of samples increased significantly by increasing the frequency, and increasing the thickness of materials with constant density. Comparison of the data from the experimental tests and mathematical model showed that increasing the thickness of samples will make the predicted and tested values of acoustic absorption coefficient significantly comparable. Date palm fibers have a good potential for dissipating the energy of sound waves particularly when an air gap is introduced behind the sample and can be used as a new source for the fabrication of natural fiber reinforced composites. © 2019 The Author(s