Subcritical and supercritical fluid extraction a critical review of its analytical usefulness

Subcritical R134a is suggested as a low-pressure alternative to supercritical CO2 in the supercritical fluid extraction technology in particular of palm oil application. Therefore, a measurement of solubility of palm oil in subcritical Rl34a will be carried out at temperatures of 40, 60, 70 and 80°C and pressures up to 300 bar. The solubility of carotene are also will be measured using UV Spectrophotometer. Results obtained from this study will be compared with the previous work and for the first time, simulation for the SFE process of palm oil will be performed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and it will be implemented in comparisons as well when the operating conditions of the previous findings are different from this study. It is expected that the solubility of the palm oil in subcritical Rl34a is much higher than SC-C02, and it is expected that R134a could be a viable alternative solvent to supercritical carbon dioxide as R134a could be perform well at a lower pressure used whereas can achieved a higher solubility compared to SC-C0

Curvature sensor utilizing evanescent field propagation via microfibers

In this study, we introduce curvature optical fiber sensor utilizing high sensitivity microfiber having a potential for pipeline monitoring system. The size of standard single mode fibers was narrowed down to different sizes with diameters of 10, 15 and 20 µm. Meanwhile, the up and down tapers were maintained at 2 mm, each, with waist lengths, were fixed at 15 mm, each. In this work, the microfibers with 15 and 20 µm of diameter sizes were able to detect a high bending sensitivity with the response of 3.4 nm/m−1 and 4.92 nm/m−1 by using an optical spectrum analyzer with 0.02 nm of optical resolution. This strategy is beneficial and practical in contrast to the ordinary system of utilizing a couple of hundred km ultrasonic long-range for pipeline monitoring. The proposed design can be permanently conceived in the pipeline to reduce the cost to achieve areas which require rehashed examinations

Passively mode-locked fiber laser by utilizing TTG film on a D-shaped fiber as a saturable absorber

In this paper, we propose a mode-locked fiber laser by utilizing single layer Trivial Transfer Graphene film (TTGF) as a saturable absorber (SA). The SA was deposited on the top of a side-polished D-shaped fiber. The SA was then integrated in the ring cavity configuration, with a clockwise light propagation. Three distinctive 2 m erbium doped fibers (EDFs) those are Metro-Gain15 EDF, Iso-Gain6 EDF and Iso-Gain12 EDF were used as gain media, interchangeable in the experiment. From the results, the Metro-Gain15 EDF gives the most proficient gain medium on generating a passively mode-locked fiber laser. The Metro-Gain15 Erbium doped mode-locked Laser was successfully producing ultrashort pulse with 8 nm spectral band-width, 13 MHz of repetition rate and 915 fs pulse duration. These outcomes demonstrated that TTGF deposited on the D-shaped fiber is a suitable component as an SA to produce a stable output passively mode-locked fiber laser for many optical fiber applications

Aerodynamic Performances of MAV Wing Shapes / N. I. Ismail...[et al.]

In general, there are four common Low Reynolds Number wing’s designs for fixed wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) which known as Rectangular, Zimmerman, Inverse Zimmerman and Ellipse wing. However, each wing design produces diverse performance and in fact the aerodynamic comparison study among the wings is still lack. Thus, the objective of this study is to evaluate the basic aerodynamic performance found on Rectangular, Zimmerman, Inverse Zimmerman and Ellipse wing designs with view to find the optimal wing shape for Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) configuration. Here, each design was analysed based on simulation works. The results show that at stall angle, the Ellipse wing has maximum lift coefficient ( ) recorded at 1.12 which is at least 4.33% higher than the other wing designs. Based on drag coefficient ( ) analysis, the Inverse Zimmerman Wing exhibited the lowest minimum drag value at 0.033 which is 8.45% lower than the other wing’s designs. In moment coefficient analysis, the results reveal that the Inverse Zimmerman Wing has produced the steepest curve slope value at -0.36 which is 17.39% higher than the other wings. The aerodynamic efficiency ( ⁄) study has also revealed that Zimmerman Wing recorded the highest ⁄value at 6.80 and at least 1.35% higher than to the other wing. Based on these results, it was concluded that Zimmerman wing has the highest potential to be adopted as MAV wing due to its optimal aerodynamic efficiency

Increment of material usage in construction of four storey reinforced concrete building due to seismic design

Malaysia is fortunate because it is located outside the Pacific Ring-Fire region which is seismically active. However, it still exposes to earthquake hazard from Far-Field earthquake from neighbouring countries. In Peninsular, it is exposes to Sumatra-Andaman earthquake from Indonesia. In East Malaysia, to states namely as Sabah and Sarawak are expose to Philippines earthquake. Besides, Malaysia also experienced earthquakes from local faults such as Bukit Tinggi in 2007. On 5th June 2015, a moderate earthquake with Mw6.1 occurred in Ranau, Sabah which caused 18 fatalities. The same event also caused damage to 61 buildings around Ranau and Kundasang. For the sake of safety, construction of new buildings in Malaysia has to consider seismic design. This paper presents a study to evaluate the increment of construction materials used due to consideration of seismic design. A typical four-storey generic reinforced concrete school building had been used as model. This study adjusted the value of reference peak ground acceleration, αgR in modelling, analysis, and design process. The concrete grade was fixed as C30. Four soil types had been considered for all models with seismic design consideration. Findings from this study demonstrate that the consideration of seismic design caused the increment of steel reinforcement around 16% to 32% for beam and 1% to 14% for column. In term of cost of structural work, consideration of seismic design increases the cost in range of 2% to 5% compared to the nonseismic design. Therefore, it is worth for Malaysia to fully implement the seismic design in new development

Detecting intratumoral heterogeneity of EGFR activity by liposome-based in vivo transfection of a fluorescent biosensor

Despite decades of research in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signalling field, and many targeted anti-cancer drugs that have been tested clinically, the success rate for these agents in the clinic is low, particularly in terms of the improvement of overall survival. Intratumoral heterogeneity is proposed as a major mechanism underlying treatment failure of these molecule-targeted agents. Here we highlight the application of fluorescence lifetime microscopy (FLIM)-based biosensing to demonstrate intratumoral heterogeneity of EGFR activity. For sensing EGFR activity in cells, we used a genetically encoded CrkII-based biosensor which undergoes conformational changes upon tyrosine-221 phosphorylation by EGFR. We transfected this biosensor into EGFR-positive tumour cells using targeted lipopolyplexes bearing EGFR-binding peptides at their surfaces. In a murine model of basal-like breast cancer, we demonstrated a significant degree of intratumoral heterogeneity in EGFR activity, as well as the pharmacodynamic effect of a radionuclide-labeled EGFR inhibitor in situ. Furthermore, a significant correlation between high EGFR activity in tumour cells and macrophage-tumour cell proximity was found to in part account for the intratumoral heterogeneity in EGFR activity observed. The same effect of macrophage infiltrate on EGFR activation was also seen in a colorectal cancer xenograft. In contrast, a non-small cell lung cancer xenograft expressing a constitutively active EGFR conformational mutant exhibited macrophage proximity-independent EGFR activity. Our study validates the use of this methodology to monitor therapeutic response in terms of EGFR activity. In addition, we found iNOS gene induction in macrophages that are cultured in tumour cell-conditioned media as well as an iNOS activity-dependent increase in EGFR activity in tumour cells. These findings point towards an immune microenvironment-mediated regulation that gives rise to the observed intratumoral heterogeneity of EGFR signalling activity in tumour cells in vivo