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This work describes a novel approach that can reduce grain as well as particle size of semiconducting pellet samples in the nanoscale range with low-cost and less instrumentation. Herein an instrumental setup was designed and fabricated in-house, referred to as the 'Thermo-Vibrational Annealing' (TVA) setup. Here, the concept of grain confinement within the pellet during the recrystallisation phase of annealing was achieved by simultaneously applying both thermal and vibrational mechanical energy to the sample, followed by vibrational dry quenching. In this work, for the case study, ZnO pellets were prepared by using chemical route pyrophoric method followed by annealing at 800°C for 4 hours using this setup. The reduction of particle and grain size by this TVA, in comparison to without vibrational annealing, was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy studies. The expected changes in other microstructural and optical properties were examined by Raman and UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy studies. Moreover, this work gives references to improve the physical properties not only of ZnO but also of other oxide semiconductor samples using this technique, to be used in multiple sensors and optoelectronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving compact size has emerged as a key consideration in modern microwave design. While structural miniaturization can be accomplished through judicious circuit architecture selection, precise parameter tuning is equally vital to minimize physical dimensions while meeting stringent performance requirements for electrical characteristics. Due to the intricate nature of compact structures, global optimization is recommended, yet hindered by the excessive expenses associated with system evaluation, typically conducted through electromagnetic (EM) simulation. This challenge is further compounded by the fact that size reduction is a constrained problem entailing expensive constraints. This paper introduces an innovative method for cost-effective explicit miniaturization of microwave components on a global scale. Our approach leverages response feature technology, formulating the optimization problem based on a set of characteristic points derived from EM-analyzed responses, combined with an implicit constraint handling approach. Both elements facilitate handling size reduction by transforming it into an unconstrained problem and regularizing the objective function. The core search engine employs a machine-learning framework with kriging-based surrogates refined using the predicted improvement in the objective function as the infill criterion. Our algorithm is demonstrated using two miniaturized couplers and is shown superior over several benchmark routines, encompassing both conventional (gradient-based) and population-based procedures, alongside a machine learning technique. The primary strengths of the proposed framework lie in its reliability, computational efficiency (with a typical optimization cost ranging from 100 to 150 EM circuit analyses), and straightforward setup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyroid cancer incidences endure to increase even though a large number of inspection tools have been developed recently. Since there is no standard and certain procedure to follow for the thyroid cancer diagnoses, clinicians require conducting various tests. This scrutiny process yields multi-dimensional big data and lack of a common approach leads to randomly distributed missing (sparse) data, which are both formidable challenges for the machine learning algorithms. This paper aims to develop an accurate and computationally efficient deep learning algorithm to diagnose the thyroid cancer. In this respect, randomly distributed missing data stemmed singularity in learning problems is treated and dimensionality reduction with inner and target similarity approaches are developed to select the most informative input datasets. In addition, size reduction with the hierarchical clustering algorithm is performed to eliminate the considerably similar data samples. Four machine learning algorithms are trained and also tested with the unseen data to validate their generalization and robustness abilities. The results yield 100% training and 83% testing preciseness for the unseen data. Computational time efficiencies of the algorithms are also examined under the equal conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ball mills are widely used for size reduction in mineral processing, but effective scaling from laboratory to industrial scale remains challenging. This study introduces a novel scaling constant approach to replicate energy transfer to ore during milling across different scales by adjusting rotational speed and grinding medium size distribution. The scaling constant encapsulates parameters like the number of balls per working area, rotational speed, and an average ball's maximum potential and kinetic energies. Experiments were conducted using a laboratory ball mill with interchangeable drum sizes (300, 400, and 500 mm) and a Design of Experiments methodology. Statistical analysis revealed that the scaling constant was more effective at maintaining consistent specific energy and energy per rotation across scales than size reduction, especially in dry milling. Wet milling results showed no significant differences in all metrics across scales. The dominant charge motion shifted from centrifuging to cascading as the mill diameter increased, highlighting the complex scaling dynamics. While the scaling constant shows promise for maintaining energy utilization, additional factors like charge motion and particle breakage mechanisms should be considered. The findings provide insights for improving ball mill design and optimization in mineral processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a 3 dB 90-degree hybrid coupler with size reduction and harmonics rejection was designed. In the proposed coupler structure, four simple low-pass filters (LPFs) were applied. An artificial neural network (ANN) was used to determine the dimensions of the applied LPFs based on EM simulation data. The applied ANN model could also provide the desired LPF parameters, including the cut-off frequency (fc), bandwidth (BW), and insertion loss (IL). Designing an applied LPF involves complex mathematical calculations and simulations to optimize parameters. However, by utilizing neural networks, the design process can be significantly streamlined and automated. Neural networks have the ability to learn complex patterns and relationships within data, making them well suited for optimizing the performance of applied components. The proposed 90-degree hybrid coupler works correctly at 1800 MHz and has a small size of 16.6 mm × 15.15 mm, which provides a 73% size reduction compared to a normal 1800 MHz coupler. The designed coupler not only decreases the circuit size but also provides a wide rejection band from 4.8 GHz to 11.2 GHz, which suppresses the second to sixth harmonics. The insertion loss parameter of this 90-degree hybrid coupler is less than 0.1 dB at the working frequency, which shows the superior performance of the proposed coupler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a compact decagon antenna for wireless applications based on inspired metamaterial (MTM) loaded with a modified complementary split ring resonator (CSRR). A MTM loaded with CSRR is used to achieve a size reduction of 50% when compared to a traditional antenna. The suggested decagon antenna's ground plane has been loaded with CSRR. The antenna was made on an FR4 substrate with a thickness of 1.6 mm and εr=4.4 and has a very small dimension of 0.288 λ0x0.272 λ0x0.013 λ0 (where λ0 represent center frequency at 2.4 GHz). The given antenna has a 90 MHz bandwidth (2.40-2.50 GHz) with a peak gain of 2.36 dB. The presented design is validated by showing simulated results of the S parameter, VSWR, gain, surface current, and radiation pattern. The proposed antenna is well suited for wireless applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the widely used approaches for improving the dissolution of poorly water-soluble drugs is particle size reduction. Ball milling is a mechanical, top-down technique used to reduce particle size. The effect of ball number, ball size, and milling speed on the properties of milled Aprepitant is evaluated. A full factorial design was employed to investigate the influence of affecting factors on particle size reduction. The initial suspension was made by suspending the drug in distilled water using excipients followed by milling in a planetary ball mill. Ball size, ball number, and milling speed modulated particle size distribution of Aprepitant. Increasing the number of balls from minimum to maximum for each ball size led to approximately a 28% reduction in mean particle size, a 37% decrease in D90%, and a 25% decrease in the ratio of volume mean particle diameter to numeric mean particle diameter. On average, using 10 mm balls instead of 30 mm balls reduced mean particle size by 1.689 µm. As a result, ball size, ball number, and milling speed are three effective factors in the process of ball milling. By increasing the ball number and decreasing the ball size, efficient micronization of drug particles takes place and the particle size is more uniform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most businesses, including the carpet industry, employ computers for accuracy expansion, quality improvement, reducing costs, and speed growth as computers become more common. Several colors are generally used in accurate color pictures, and each pixel is allocated 24 bits. These pictures are difficult to display, store, transmit, and process. As a result, color quantization is frequently employed as a preprocessing step for various images. Segmentation, compression, text identification, watermarking, color-texture analysis, and content-based retrieval are all applications of color quantization in image processing. The goal of this study is to minimize the colors in a carpet map to a single value. The Deep Belief Network (DBN) is suggested to solve these issues. DBN integrates low-level characteristics to find distributed feature representation and produces a more abstract high-level depiction as a typical representative of deep learning. DBN can extract high-level characteristics from low-level signals layer by layer by employing greedy learning. Traditional feature extraction adds complexity and uncertainty, while the DBN reduces it and improves recognizing intelligence. MATLAB, a sophisticated simulation tool, is used to test the suggested technique. The findings are compared to available techniques in terms of color quantization and size reduction. According to the findings, the suggested technique improves the accuracy of the color quantization and size reduction phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, several types of microstrip power divider are studied and compared in terms of harmonics suppression and size reductions. The importance of this research lies in the fact that power dividers are critical components in various communication systems, and their performance directly affects the overall system efficiency. The conventional structure of the power divider has an acceptable performance at operating frequency in terms of excellent output ports isolation, low insertion loss, and high return loss, but occupies large size and passes unwanted signals at higher frequencies along with desired signal without any suppression. Harmonics are popular distortion and has different distortion impacts in many different facilities. Recently, several techniques are introduced to overcome these drawbacks. Applied open stubs, applied resonators, lumped reactive components such as capacitors and inductors, coupled lines, defected ground structure (DGS), and electronic band gaps are common methods, which are widely used to overcome these drawbacks. Finally, the study results show that the resonatorbased power dividers and coupled-line-based power dividers have good performances in terms of size reduction and harmonic suppression but increase insertion loss parameter. Furthermore, the lumped reactive component-based power dividers and applied DGS and electromagnetic bandgap cells suppress unwanted harmonics, but they need extra process to fabrication, which is undesirable. Moreover, the open-stub-based power dividers have moderate performance with simple structure, but size reduction and harmonics suppression are not so superior in this method. Overall, the results of this study can be used to design power dividers for desirable applications with high performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A huge financial burden is imposed due to deaths caused by Inflammatory lung diseases. Treatment of inflammatory lung diseases can be targeted via the lungs because of their unique features. Inhalation therapy can target them with the help of inhaled therapy. This Research aims to present the wide-ranging role of nanoemulsions in treating inflammatory respiratory diseases by increasing the solubility of BCS class II drugs. Our target was to enhance the solubility of Ivacaftor, which belongs to a class of CFTR potentiators and a BCS class II drug. The solubility enhancement was to be achieved with the help of formulation into a nanoemulsion. Nanoemulsion has the advantage of being a thermodynamically stable formulation. We used Tween 20 as a surfactant and Transcutolp as a co-surfactant. The region of the emulsion was identified after the construction of a pseudoternary phase diagram. The formulation was optimized using Design Expert 13, and the final preparation was evaluated for stability. The final formulation gave a globule size of 97.65±0.52 nm and a zeta potential of -1.75±0.46mV. The FTIR spectra showed very minimal changes keeping the peaks of the drug intact. We found the formulations were stable after a one-month stability study. Biological barriers in the human body can be overcome by utilizing nanoemulsions to achieve quicker onset of action and immediate relief. Inhaled nanocarriers pose a potential regarding translational studies and increase the scientific database for managing inflammatory lung diseases with reduced or no toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a miniaturized modified Minkowski fractal antenna with enhanced linearly polarized impedance bandwidth (IBW) in the lower frequency region. Applying theory of characteristic modes (TCM) analysis on a second iterated modified Minkowski radiator without feeding structure, modal currents and their corresponding modal fields (radiation patterns) were determined to recognize symmetric dominant modes to be specifically excited to generate the required radiation pattern. It gave direction for choosing quarter-wave microwave line feeding as the feed of choice to excite the four desired modes at 2.7, 5.7, 5.9, and 8.7 GHz and providing excellent impedance matching to generate the very wide IBW. Measured results matched well with simulations done using Ansys HFSS 2020R1. Measured IBW is 9.7 GHz (160%), from 1.2 to 10.9 GHz, with center resonance frequency (frc) at 6.05 GHz, whereas simulated IBW is 9.4 GHz (162%), from 1.1 to 10.5 GHz with frc at 5.8 GHz. The antenna size is 36 × 34 × 1.6 mm3 (0.216λgL × 0.204λgL where at lower resonating frequency frL = 1.1 GHz, λgL is the guided wavelength) with 82.24% reduction in size. This antenna may be utilized for "L", "S" band and UWB wireless communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the directional antenna is developed to construct the printed dual‐frequency directional antenna for a 1‐GHz/2.3‐GHz dual‐frequency sensor application. An auxiliary dipole element generating the higher resonant mode is set on a primary dipole element introducing the lower resonant mode. The feed balance is also designed to cover the desired frequency between two resonance frequencies, which is based on the microstrip line (MS) to coplanar stripline (CPS) transition. To realize the directional antenna, two reflector elements are utilized, and one of them is a stepped‐width reflector on reducing the size of the antenna. In addition, the parasitic strip works as the lumped element used to obtain good impedance matching. A series of simulations are performed on the MS‐to‐CPS transition, the dual dipole element, the reflectors, and the parasitic strip to determine the optimal antenna design. A prototype is fabricated based on the optimal results of the simulation. Concerning the measured results, the proposed antenna has well unidirectional radiations, good radiation efficiencies, and low cross‐polarization levels at any operating frequencies. Key Points: The impedance matching of dual‐frequency directional antenna can be achieved by using the dual‐parasitic stripThe feed balance is also designed to cover the desired frequency between two resonance frequencies, which is based on the MS‐to‐CPS transitionA stepped‐width reflector is used for reducing the size of the antenna [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the effects of embedding an antenna in a dielectric with high electrical permittivity (HEP) are extensively analyzed. The used antenna was a wire antenna originally designed for operating at 2.45 GHz, and the dielectric material used was Distilled Water (DW). By simulations and measures three important effects were found: i) a size reduction of approximately nine times, ii) the transformation of this antenna in a multiband antenna, and iii) variations in the radiation pattern that allow beamforming by changing the operation frequency. These three effects are important for the development of improved antennas. Through this paper the authors share detailed information, obtained by their own experience, on the manufacture of the embedded antenna, the simulation results and the measurements carried out that allowed verifying the three previously mentioned effects. These results are original contributions in an area where do no exist enough information about the use of this dielectric material for achieving these effects with this kind of antennas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dried sphagnum moss was ground using a pin mill and a hammer mill under various operating conditions, i.e., changes in the rotor frequency and feed rate. The specific energy consumption of the size reduction was recorded. The ground powder was characterized by median particle size, width of size distribution (span), loose and tapped bulk densities, and the Hausner ratio. Pin milling used less energy for size reduction than hammer milling, especially when the target size was below 100 μm. In both milling methods, the specific energy consumption was mainly caused by the rotor frequency used. However, in pin milling, the specific energy consumption was also dependent on the production rate: the higher the rate, the higher the energy consumption. No such dependence was observed with the hammer mill. The span was wider in pin milling than hammer milling in the intermediate product size range although the difference decreased at the fine and coarse ends. A similar pattern was found for bulk densities. However, the flowability of powder, as characterized by the Hausner ratio, was comparable between the grinding methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, miniaturization of fractal geometry with defected ground structure (DGC) concept has been experimentally verified at S -band (2–4) GHz. The design starts with a self-symmetry structure using conventional Vicsek snowflake-box fractal antenna. The same has been used in third iteration to achieve miniaturization. This proposed microstrip patch antenna (MPA) is resonating at 2.12 GHz with acceptable gain and broadside radiation. The miniaturization of about 87.26% when compared to conventional fractal MPA is achieved. The fractal unit cell is optimized for miniaturization and bandwidth by carrying out parametric study and applying the DGS shapes like rectangular and U -shaped slot etched in the ground plane of Vicsek snowflake-box fractal microstrip antenna. A fractal microstrip antenna is designed for wireless applications at 3.95 GHz. The fractal microstrip antenna is simulated using HFSS-V15 simulator. It is observed that the maximum size reduction of 87.26% is achieved in the third iteration of the Vicsek snowflake-box fractal radiating patch. The proposed fractal patch antenna is designed and fabricated using epoxy substrate of FR-4 with dielectric constant of 4.4 and thickness of 1.6 mm. The simulated results are compared with the measured results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Straw is a substantial agricultural by-product for biogas production. Hydrolysis of straw is found to be a rate-limiting step during its anaerobic digestion and could be enhanced by pretreatment. In this paper, the effect of various combinations of particle size reduction, autoclaving, and low-level Fenton reaction was studied on straw for biogas production. Grinding of straw contributed to the maximum increase in the biomethane potential. Only Fenton or only the autoclave process improves the kinetics slightly but does not considerably improve the biomethane potential. Combining autoclaving and low-concentration Fenton pretreatment considerably improves the BMP values. Lignin content, CHNSO elemental analysis, Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Simon's staining, infrared spectroscopy (DRIFT and ATR), Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and wide-angle X-ray diffraction analysis (WAXD) were used to characterize the physical and chemical changes of straw due to pretreatment. Results show a poor correlation between biogas production and the different physical and chemical biomass characteristics. It makes it difficult to explain the outcome of various pretreatment methods applied to biomass. Without further improvement and development of analytical techniques, the prediction of the biomethane potential of a feedstock with the aid of pretreatment can only be considered in case-by-case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanostructuring is regarded as a significant method for improving the reversibility of alloying anodes for potassium‐ion batteries (PIBs). However, it is still unclear how nanostructuring suppresses the mechanical deterioration upon potassiation/depotassiation. In this study, by in situ X‐ray diffraction, a size‐dependent phase transformation mechanism in a nano‐Bi material (≈15 nm), which avoids the voltage plateau mutation of bulk‐Bi material (≈250 nm) caused by an incomplete and irreversible two‐phase reaction is revealed. The potassiation of nano‐Bi follows a stepwise solid‐solution pathway without any phase transitions under nonequilibrium conditions, circumventing the nucleation of a new phase. The distinctive transition pathway, dominated by the diffusion‐controlled reaction, is accompanied by fast ionic transport kinetics and homogeneous diffusion. As a result, particle fracture is inhibited by isotropic expansion stress, developing a route for stable potassium storage. By contrast, the two‐phase transformation of bulk‐Bi is governed by an interface‐controlled reaction under equilibrium conditions with slow and heterogeneous diffusion, leading to a rapid capacity decay from anisotropic expansion. The comparison between equilibrium thermodynamic‐ and non‐equilibrium kinetic‐phase transformations uncovers the intrinsic mechanism explanatory of the mechanical robustness of the size‐reduced alloying anodes, and also emphasizes that solid‐state diffusion must be improved to attain highly fast kinetics with PIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A chipless RFID tag was designed using two hexagonal resonators. By defining a relation for the phases of S‐parameters and rotating the resonators around their axes, a senary coding scheme was obtained at the resonant frequency. The designed resonator was able to generate six different codes using six different phase parameters at 3.03 GHz. While the conventional binary ("0" and "1") coding of ordinary tags makes minimal use of bandwidth capacity, the senary coding in the proposed design allowed the use of a larger bandwidth capacity. Requiring much fewer resonators for generating more codes, the proposed technique leads to significantly smaller tags. Using the proposed tag with two resonators, 62 = 36 different codes can be generated; more generally, an n‐resonator tag of the proposed type can create 6n different codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant istiophorids are open ocean apex predators that are extensively studied due to their ecological importance and high values for fisheries. Nevertheless, little is known about their evolution because of a fragmentary fossil record and extremely difficult taxonomy of fossil species. Here, we present a new phylogenetic hypothesis covering fossil and living istiophorids. Our results demonstrate that istiophorid richness is larger than previously assumed, comprising eight genera with 20 species. The phylogenetic analysis shows that istiophorids are grouped into four clades: the Istiophorus clade, which includes the sailfish; the Machairostra clade, which comprises Makaira spp., including two new species from the late Miocene (†Makaira colonense sp. nov. and †Makaira fierstini sp. nov.); the Gracilorostra clade, which comprise all remaining istiophorids with exception of spearfishes and includes two new genera and one new species (†Morgula donosochagrense gen. et sp. nov. and †Spathochoira calvertense gen. et. comb. nov.); and the Tetrapturomorpha clade is composed of the spearfishes and the extinct †Prototetrapturus courcelli gen. et. comb. nov. The family Istiophoridae shows an evolutionary trend toward reduction of the premaxillary thickness and increasing the extension of narial cavities. This reduction is related to an increase of adipose tissues in the rostrum base probably driven by the presence of the oleofera gland, an organ involved in feeding, healing, endothermy and hydrophobic functions. Our phylogeny shows a direct relationship between the rostral and cranial shape explained by body size and feeding behaviour. The larger istiophorids have lateral apophysis and the larger spines of the vertebral column. The spearfishes represent the smaller species of the family, with the extant Tetrapturus spp. first appearing in the late Pliocene. The clade Tetrapturomorpha shows an extreme size reduction over time when compared with species of their sister clade Gracilorostra, demonstrating an evolutionary trend towards size reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bran is a byproduct obtained after the milling of cereal grains and is a reservoir of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and antioxidants which are very important for disease prevention and health promotion. The current work was planned to evaluate the chemical composition, phytochemical profiling, and antioxidant potential of native and modified brans of wheat, corn, barley, millet, sorghum, and oat. These brans were subjected to fermentation by yeast and lactic acid bacteria, autoclaved, size reduction (1 mm and 2 mm particle size), enzyme modifications using cellulase and xylanase. In vitro antioxidant properties were evaluated by DPPH free radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, whereas total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) were also determined. The maximum quantity of TPC was found in xylanase treated oat bran 0.364±0.026 mg GAE g-1. The maximum amount of TFC was found in 1mm sorghum bran 211.70±0.09 μg g-1 QE. Whereas increased DPPH free radical scavenging rate was recorded in cellulase treated sorghum bran 87.49±0.11%. Furthermore, the maximum FRAP values were found in 1mm sorghum bran (710.49±0.17 μM FeSO4 g-1). The most effective modification treatments were enzyme modification and size reduction. Study results indicated that modified cereal brans might be important for the development of innovative and unique functional foods as well as could be used for the prevention and treatment of various disorders due to their antioxidant properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Valorization of lignocellulosic biomass to obtain clean fuels and high-value chemicals is attractive and essential for sustainable energy and chemical production, but the complex structure of biomass is recalcitrant to catalytic processing. This recalcitrance can be overcome by pretreating biomass into deconstructable components, which involves altering the structural complexities and physicochemical properties. However, the impact of these alterations on biomass deconstruction varies considerably, depending on the pretreatment and subsequent conversion type. Here, we systematically describe the changes in structure and properties of corn stover after ball milling as well as their influence on the following enzymatic saccharification and acid-catalyzed alcoholysis, with the aim of elucidating the relationships between structures, properties and deconstructable potential of lignocellulosic biomass. Results: Ball milling causes dramatic structural changes, since the resistant plant cell walls are destroyed with size reduction to a cellular scale, leading to the increase in surface area and reducing ends, and decrease in crystallinity and thermal stability. As a result, ball-milled corn stover is more susceptible to enzymatic saccharification to fermentable sugars and provides more industrially viable processing approaches, as it is effective at high solids loading and minor enzyme loading, without any other pretreatment. Acid-catalyzed alcoholysis of corn stover to biofuels, on the other hand, is also enhanced by ball milling, but additional processing parameters should be tailored to the needs of efficient conversion. Further, a detailed examination of process variables coupled with a kinetic study indicates that acid-catalyzed alcoholysis is limited by the process variables rather than by the substrate parameters, whereas ball milling facilitates this reaction to some extent, especially under mild conditions, by lowering the activation energy of corn stover decomposition. Conclusions: The efficient catalytic conversion of biomass is closely related to its structure and properties, an understanding of which offers prospects for the rational improvement of methods aimed at more economic commercial biorefineries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In coal beneficiation, ash content is the main focus area as it plays a vital role in controlling the yield and quality of the washed clean coal. Indian sub-bituminous and bituminous coals are of low-grade with intrinsically distributed ash-bearing minerals, which makes it difficult to segregate the low ash coal. Different stages of crushing and grinding techniques have been used to produce the desired feed size of coal washeries, i.e., −13 mm. During blasting and crushing, cracks propagate through the weaker interfaces within the coal particles. Petrographic analysis suggests the formation of good amount of naturally liberated maceral-rich particles of −13 mm size at different stages. These particles generated at mine site and primary crusher are subjected to further crushing during subsequent stages of secondary and tertiary crushing, resulting in more fine generation and higher energy consumption. Hence, an attempt has been made to check the washability characteristics of coals at different stages of crushing and effect of prescreening of coarse (−13 + 0.5 mm) and fine (−0.5 mm) fraction on washability characteristics of coal and overall clean coal yield. It was observed that −13 mm particles generated at early stage of crushing show good washability characteristics compared to the crushed lump coal (+13 mm) for the separation of 17.8–18% ash clean coal; and hence, prescreening of −13 mm prior to tertiary crushing improves the process efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an ultra-compact filtering power divider with a wide harmonic suppression band. In this design, the proposed power divider (PD) in the ideal case has 100% size reduction and an infinite number of harmonics suppression. However, in the real case, the proposed divider has a 92% size reduction and suppresses the 2nd to 45th harmonics. The small-proposed divider is designed at 0.9 GHz. The typical Wilkinson divider has two long quarter-wavelength branches. In the proposed design, new resonant series LC branches are used instead of the divider's typical branches, leading to performance improvements in the proposed PD. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the proposed filtering PD has the best size reduction, and harmonics suppression reported thus far. The proposed divider has a filtering response with good insertion loss at the passband, which is desirable for modern communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of studies on higher torque density of automotive auxiliary motors based on electromagnetic field analysis. Dual stator axial-gap PM motors achieve higher torque density than radial-gap motors in a flat motor shape. Therefore, an axial-gap motor was designed based on a design policy different from that in the past to reduce its volume by half of the radial-gap motors for automotive applications and was experimentally evaluated using a prototype motor. In order to improve the torque density, a double axial-gap motor structure was adopted to achieve wide torque generation areas and was optimally designed, reducing the volume by 44% compared with the existing model. It was experimentally evaluated using a prototype motor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Rosa rugosa cv. Plena (RP) is a commercially significant crop with edible flowers. Due to its high medicinal and nutritional value, it has recently attracted increasing attention in the food industry. In this study, the physicochemical properties, antioxidant capacity, and hygroscopicity of four RP powders produced by ball milling were compared. RESULTS: The brightness, redness, and blueness of RP powders improved after superfine grinding. The water and oil holding capacity decreased with a reduction in the particle size but the water solubility index increased from 7.10% to 29.93%. The elements present in the powders were not significantly (P > 0.05) affected by particle size while phytochemicals were released and extracted more easily after superfine grinding, resulting in higher anthocyanin, polyphenol, and flavonoid content (3.06, 34.01, and 3.97 mg g−1, respectively), and stronger antioxidant capacity than was found with other powders (ABTS (2,2′‐azinobis‐3‐ethylbenzothiazoline‐6‐sulphonic acid) and DPPH (2,2‐diphenyl‐1‐picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activities were 24.51 and 39.81 mM trolox equivalents (TE) g−1, respectively). Superfine grinding also improved the water‐absorption capacity of RP powders under a high‐RH environment. CONCLUSION: Superfine grinding is a promising technique for the production of RP powders with stronger bioactive substances and bioactivity. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Size reduction of oil shale is an essential process that allows the liberation of organic-rich constituents from inorganic portions to prepare the oil shale for further beneficiation processes. Grinding by conventional methods was impractical and led to technical and economic problems. In this study, the size reduction of the oil shale was conducted by attrition scrubbing process which seems to be an effective process for cleaning the kerogen surface and its disengagement from associated mineral matter. The statistical design was used to study the significance of soaking time, attrition time, and pH on the product in terms of kerogen and LOI contents. The results indicated that the attrition time is the most significant parameter as the wt% of −2.36 mm reaches about 75% after 120 min of attrition. The effect of pH is insignificant unless the ore has an appreciable amount of carbonate minerals. It is worth mentioning that the kerogen content was improved from 10% to 14% by attrition in acidic media. However, the fine fractions had a low-percentage of loss-on-ignition due to the presence of clay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design, analysis, and fabrication of a new miniaturized microstrip branch line coupler (BLC) with high harmonics suppression. The T-shaped resonators, open stubs cross-shaped resonators and radial stubs are used in the proposed coupler design. The designed BLC operates at 1 GHz frequency, which can suppress up to 5th spurious harmonics with a 20 dB level of attenuation. High miniaturization of about 86% is obtained for the proposed BLC, which is corresponding to the normalized size of 0.009 λg2. The measured values of isolation and return loss are obtained 28 dB and 29 dB, respectively, while the measured insertion loss of better than 0.2 dB is achieved at the operating frequency. Additionally, the operating bandwidth of the designed coupler ranges from 0.905 GHz up to 1.105 GHz, which shows a 200 MHz operating bandwidth or a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 20%. The presented BLC is fabricated and measured, where the measurements confirm the simulated results. The designed coupler shows desirable performance compared to the recent designed couplers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A coaxial feed patch antenna with a thumb-shaped defected ground structure (DGS) is proposed to simultaneously reduce the antenna size and improve bandwidth. The size of an antenna can be reduced by incorporating a DGS to change the electromagnetic field distribution between the patch and the ground. The proposed thumb-shaped DGS effectively widens the antenna bandwidth by generating two resonant frequencies on either side of the operating frequency, as determined by the patch length. In addition, the effect of the DGS on the ground body of a radio frequency connector is minimized by maintaining a sufficient distance between the DGS and the feed point when the connector is attached. The electromagnetic wave simulation results, which depend on the physical dimensions of the DGS, provide the characteristics of the proposed antenna. The measurement results for the proposed 5.8-GHz antenna, implemented on a 1-mm FR4 printed circuit board, give an antenna gain of 4.4 dBi and a -10 dB bandwidth of 580 MHz. Compared with a conventional 5.8- GHz patch antenna implemented on the same substrate, the proposed antenna provides a 3.22-fold bandwidth improvement and 10.2% patch size reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Valorization of lignocellulosic biomass to obtain clean fuels and high-value chemicals is attractive and essential for sustainable energy and chemical production, but the complex structure of biomass is recalcitrant to catalytic processing. This recalcitrance can be overcome by pretreating biomass into deconstructable components, which involves altering the structural complexities and physicochemical properties. However, the impact of these alterations on biomass deconstruction varies considerably, depending on the pretreatment and subsequent conversion type. Here, we systematically describe the changes in structure and properties of corn stover after ball milling as well as their influence on the following enzymatic saccharification and acid-catalyzed alcoholysis, with the aim of elucidating the relationships between structures, properties and deconstructable potential of lignocellulosic biomass. Results: Ball milling causes dramatic structural changes, since the resistant plant cell walls are destroyed with size reduction to a cellular scale, leading to the increase in surface area and reducing ends, and decrease in crystallinity and thermal stability. As a result, ball-milled corn stover is more susceptible to enzymatic saccharification to fermentable sugars and provides more industrially viable processing approaches, as it is effective at high solids loading and minor enzyme loading, without any other pretreatment. Acid-catalyzed alcoholysis of corn stover to biofuels, on the other hand, is also enhanced by ball milling, but additional processing parameters should be tailored to the needs of efficient conversion. Further, a detailed examination of process variables coupled with a kinetic study indicates that acid-catalyzed alcoholysis is limited by the process variables rather than by the substrate parameters, whereas ball milling facilitates this reaction to some extent, especially under mild conditions, by lowering the activation energy of corn stover decomposition. Conclusions: The efficient catalytic conversion of biomass is closely related to its structure and properties, an understanding of which offers prospects for the rational improvement of methods aimed at more economic commercial biorefineries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication introduces a miniaturized high selectivity dual band-notched circular ring (CR) slot antenna for ultrawideband (UWB) applications. Initially, a 50 Ω microstrip-fed CR monopole antenna is evolved from a rectangular ring monopole (RRM) antenna to realize 40% size miniaturization with wide impedance bandwidth. Secondly, by presenting a pair of C-shaped parasitic elements beneath the CR and a complementary capacitively loaded loop (CCLL) slot in the ground plane, dual notched bands are accomplished for WLAN band (4.9−6 GHz) and IEEE INSAT C-band/X-band (6.725−7.1 and 7.25−8.4 GHz) satellite services. Additionally, by integrating an L-shaped strip with the CR monopole antenna, the selectivity of the WLAN band is greatly enhanced. The proposed antenna works in the frequency band of 3−14 GHz for a voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) < 2 excluding the two controllable notched bands with resonant frequencies of 5.5 GHz (VSWR > 23) and 7.8 GHz (VSWR > 32) respectively. The proposed antenna is miniaturized in size (16 × 24 × 0.787 mm 3 ) and has high selectivity in the vicinity of both the notches. The measured gain variation is about 2.7 dBi over the passband, however, the gain drops to − 11.9 and − 10.5 dBi at 5.5 and 7.8 GHz, correspondingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carpet industry is no longer a small business done in the villages on a small scale; instead, it has carved an altogether different space, identity, and appreciation for itself in the cosmopolitan world. As computers are is becoming more and more ubiquitous, most industries, including the carpet industry, use computers for quality improvement, accuracy enhancement, speed development, and cost reduction purposes. Unlike traditional carpet maps, many modern maps include images of human faces for hand‐woven carpet tableau. These digital images comprise millions of colors and thousands of pixels, making it practically impossible to construct and weave the carpet in the same dimensions. Many weavers currently use manual and experience‐based methods for reducing the size and number of hues for making a hand‐woven carpet tableau map. Therefore, the outcomes are not the optimal results and can be improved. Also, many color reduction methods do not focus on the hand‐woven carpet tableau map. To overcome these problems and gaps, this research focuses on proposing a new automatic method for reducing the size of color images without compromising facial nuances, lessening the number of colors used while protecting the important areas of the images, and transforming those images into carpet tableau maps. The proposed approach inputs the original color image. It continuously detecting the face and specifying important areas, and finally, outputs carpet tableau map that is proportional to the given dimensions and color count. To evaluate the proposed method, MATLAB, as a powerful simulation tool, was employed. Final results are compared to the existing approaches in terms of face detection, size reduction, and color quantization. The obtained results have shown that the approach improves speed by 39% in face detection and increases the precision of size reduction and color quantization phases. The results have also confirmed that when images of human faces are reduced by a proposed method to form an appropriate image for tableau maps, they are nearly always perceived as more attractive than the reduced faces via traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miniaturization has become of paramount importance in the design of modern antenna systems. In particular, compact size is essential for emerging application areas such as Internet of Things (IoT), wearable and implantable devices, 5G technology, or medical imaging. On the other hand, reduction of physical dimensions generally has a detrimental effect on antenna performance. From the perspective of numerical optimization, miniaturization is a heavily constrained problem, with most constraints being expensive to evaluate due to involving full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulation. A convenient way of handling such a task is a penalty function approach where constraint violations contribute, upon suitable scaling, to the primary objective, i.e., the antenna size. The penalty coefficients determining the aforementioned contributions are normally adjusted through engineering experience, which does not allow for a reliable control of antenna performance figures. This article proposes an efficient management scheme for adaptive adjustment of penalty coefficients, which eliminates the need for objective function setup by trial and error, and ensures precise control of the design constraints. Our approach is demonstrated using three broadband antennas optimized for minimum size with acceptance thresholds imposed on the in-band matching level. The adaptive adjustment of penalty coefficients is shown to outperform experience-driven setups in terms of constraint control precision and the final design quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lignin is an abundant biopolymer and a promising source of feedstock for high-value chemicals and materials. This study aims to characterize the lignin-rich endocarp biomass and identify features of this unique feedstock that are relevant to feedstock preprocessing and logistics. The chemical composition and cellular structure of walnut and peach endocarps were characterized using HPLC and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. Mechanical properties of the endocarps were investigated using nanoindentation. Mechanical tests revealed hardness values of up to 0.48 and 0.40 GPa for walnut and peach endocarps, respectively. With screen sizes of 1 and 2 mm, the specific energy consumption was 9.21 and 1.86 MJ kg-1 for walnut and 12.6 and 2.72 MJ kg-1 for peach, respectively, as determined using a knife mill. Milling energy consumption was correlated to screen size, lignin content, bulk density, and mechanical properties. This study provides critical information on feedstock supply logistics necessary to implement a novel feedstock in biorefineries and evaluate the economic feasibility for coproduction of biofuels and lignin-derived products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant istiophorids are open ocean apex predators that are extensively studied due to their ecological importance and high values for fisheries. Nevertheless, little is known about their evolution because of a fragmentary fossil record and extremely difficult taxonomy of fossil species. Here, we present a new phylogenetic hypothesis covering fossil and living istiophorids. Our results demonstrate that istiophorid richness is larger than previously assumed, comprising eight genera with 20 species. The phylogenetic analysis shows that istiophorids are grouped into four clades: the Istiophorus clade, which includes the sailfish; the Machairostra clade, which comprises Makaira spp., including two new species from the late Miocene (†Makaira colonense sp. nov. and †Makaira fierstini sp. nov.); the Gracilorostra clade, which comprise all remaining istiophorids with exception of spearfishes and includes two new genera and one new species (†Morgula donosochagrense gen. et sp. nov. and †Spathochoira calvertense gen. et. comb. nov.); and the Tetrapturomorpha clade is composed of the spearfishes and the extinct †Prototetrapturus courcelli gen. et. comb. nov. The family Istiophoridae shows an evolutionary trend toward reduction of the premaxillary thickness and increasing the extension of narial cavities. This reduction is related to an increase of adipose tissues in the rostrum base probably driven by the presence of the oleofera gland, an organ involved in feeding, healing, endothermy and hydrophobic functions. Our phylogeny shows a direct relationship between the rostral and cranial shape explained by body size and feeding behaviour. The larger istiophorids have lateral apophysis and the larger spines of the vertebral column. The spearfishes represent the smaller species of the family, with the extant Tetrapturus spp. first appearing in the late Pliocene. The clade Tetrapturomorpha shows an extreme size reduction over time when compared with species of their sister clade Gracilorostra, demonstrating an evolutionary trend towards size reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter a W-band small-size low sidelobe level (SLL) 6 × 16 microwaveguide slot array antenna is proposed based on the silicon micromachining technology. The feeding network within the limited available area consists of several stages of equal T-junctions and TE120-mode-cavity dual-layer power dividers able to build the desired tapering power distribution over a relatively wide bandwidth. The TE120-mode-cavity dual-layer power divider is at the end of the feeding network, which can implement the layer-to-layer transition and the power division simultaneously. Thus, the whole size of the array antenna can be reduced by about 25% compared with the conventional five-stage tree-like feeding network. The overall antenna size is 60 mm × 20 mm × 1.85 mm. The measured maximum gain is 26.1 dBi at 94 GHz, and the corresponding radiation efficiency is 69.2%. The measured SLL in E-plane is below than −18.5 dB within the frequency band from 92 to 96 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resource reclamation of waste tire rubber (WTR) is regarded as the most suitable strategy for these solid wastes. Water jet pulverization (WJPul) is a sustainable reclamation technique for WTR, since both size reduction and rubber devulcanization can be achieved. Aiming at understanding the mechanisms related with pulverization and devulcanization of WTR, this work detailed the interactions between WTR and high pressure water jet (HPWJ). The results show that WJPul can be defined as a mechanochemical process for WTR. The compressive shear failure of rubber mainly induces rubber devulcanization and results in fine ground tire rubber (GTR) particles, HPWJ erosion mainly intensifies rubber depolymerization and results in coarse GTR particles. Chemical reactions can be detected between the devulcanized GTR from WJPul and asphalts, thus resulting in better modification performances of GTR from WJPul in asphalt. The results can help better understand the WJPul mechanisms and provide guidelines for WJPul application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel slow wave (SW) substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) with enhanced SW factor (SWF) and broadened bandwidth is proposed by simultaneously increasing the effective permeability and permittivity. The effective permittivity is increased by the enhanced capacitance between the top plane of the waveguide and the loaded patches which are shorted to the SIW bottom plane by the blind via-holes. The effective permeability is increased by lengthening the current path by adding patches on the blind via-holes. The proposed SW-SIW with simultaneous increased effective permeability and permittivity has two obvious advantages over the reported SW-SIW with only effective permeability or permittivity increased: 1) smaller longitudinal and lateral dimensions resulted from higher SWF and lower cutoff frequency, respectively, and 2) wider bandwidth due to stable wave impedance along the periodical SW structure. The lateral dimension of the proposed SW-SIW is decreased by 53% compared with the normal SIW with the same cutoff frequency. The phase velocity is decreased by 73%, which means the longitudinal length is reduced by 73% consequently. The operation band is 7.0–18.8 GHz (91.5% fractional bandwidth) covering X- and Ku-bands. A prototype of the proposed SW-SIW is manufactured and measured, and the measured results agree well with the simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When diatoms undergo vegetative cell division the new siliceous wall components are slightly smaller than those of the parent because they are produced within the confines of the parent wall. Thus, with continued growth the mean size of cells in a population declines. Given this unique feature of diatom cell division, if the growth of a species in a lake increases (decreases) under more (less) favorable conditions, then the mean size of the resulting population will decline (increase). Numerous paleolimnological investigations rely on shifts in the relative abundances of diatom species over time to infer lake conditions. Although relative abundance data yield information about the dominance of species in the community, they do not necessarily provide evidence about growth of a given species. For instance, a species could have increased in growth, but simply to a lesser extent than other taxa, resulting in a decline in relative abundance. In a similar fashion, relative abundance values can be misleading when used to infer environmental change, such as trophic status change in lakes. We propose that including data on mean size of diatom valves can yield greater insight into changes in growth and improve observations and conclusions based on relative abundance data. To test this concept, we examined changes in the mean diameter of Aulacoseira ambigua (Grunow) Simonsen valves relative to known shifts in lake trophic status in a core from Bantam Lake, Connecticut, representing ~ 130 years of sediment accumulation. The mean valve diameter of A. ambigua declined from 9.7 to 7.6 µm, with the largest declines clearly tracking significant increases in trophic status. We conclude that changes in the mean size of diatom frustules over time can provide valuable information for understanding long-term environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the nurse to patient assignment problem that supports the operational decisions in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Hedi Chaker Hospital. It implies efficiently assigning patients to nurses in their suitable unit of work, taking into consideration during assignment a set of patients having a given acuity to a set of nurses having certain capacities. A binary linear integer programming problem is formulated where each patient can be treated by an only one nurse. Due to the combinatorial complexity of the problem, a heuristic approach is developed to achieve the procedure of assignment. The Max–Max assignment heuristic is based on the development of four mathematical propositions that serve for insuring the problem size reduction. The resolution of the problem via the heuristic method has shown its pertinence for exact resolution using real instances extracted from the unit. For our real case the heuristic provided flexible modelling and gave a feasible and a good nurse to patient assignment for every shift and in each zone of assignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flufenamic acid (FFA) is a Biopharmaceutical Classification System- II (BCS-II) class drug with poor bioavailability and a lower dissolution rate. Particle size reduction is one of the conventional approaches to increase the dissolution rate and subsequently the bioavailability. The use of the liquid antisolvent method for particle size reduction of FFA was studied in this work. Ethanol and water were used as solvent and antisolvent, respectively. Experimental parameters such as solution concentration (10–40 mg/ml), flow rate (120–480 ml/h), temperature (298–328 K) and stirring speed (200–800 rpm) were investigated. Furthermore, the solid dispersion of FFA was prepared with polyvinylpyrrolidone K-30 (PVP K-30) with different weight ratios (1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4) and samples were characterized using SEM, FTIR and XRD techniques. The experimental investigation revealed that higher values of concentration, injection rate, stirring speed, along with lower temperature favored the formation of fine particles. SEM analysis revealed that the morphology of raw FFA changed from rock-like to rectangular-like after liquid antisolvent recrystallization. FTIR analysis validated the presence of hydrogen bonding between FFA and PVP in solid dispersion. XRD analysis showed no significant change in the crystallinity of the processed FFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last years, researchers have been paying special attention to scheduling problems with scarce resource consumption and periodic maintenance activities with a view to the adoption of more realistic assumptions. This paper aims at presenting heuristics to a single-machine scheduling environment with periodical resource constraints. In this new variant of the single-machine scheduling problem, in each production period, there are resource consumption constraints. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed variant has not been addressed in the revised literature. An integer linear programming model is presented based on a bin packing formulation taking two packing constraints into consideration. The objective function adopted is makespan minimization, and relative deviation is used as a performance criterion. Since the problem under study is NP-hard, heuristic algorithms are proposed to obtain high-quality solutions in acceptable computational times. Eighteen constructive heuristics, two local search heuristics, and a hybrid matheuristics, based on the size reduction and simulated annealing algorithms, have been presented. The extensive computational experience carried out shows that the proposed local search algorithms, as well as the proposed matheuristics, are promising tools to solve large-sized instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a theory of characteristic mode (TCM)-based method of easy three steps for designing a very wide impedance band antenna. Initially, the characteristic mode (CM) analysis is done to comprehend the different modes of antenna geometry in absence of a feeding structure. Then modal currents and their corresponding modal fields (radiation patterns) are determined for recognizing modes to be selectively excited to generate the required radiation pattern. These will help in choosing a proper feeding configuration that stimulates the desired modes and acts as an excellent impedance matching. Here, initially CM analysis has been carried out for a Z-shaped monopole antenna to identify the higher order modes to be utilized to achieve linear polarization over a wideband frequency. TCM analysis gave direction for choosing CPW-fed as the feed of choice for exciting six desired modes. Modification of the CPW-fed ground by etching two semicircular notches helped in further increase of the impedance bandwidth (IBW). Measured findings relate satisfactorily with simulations done using Ansys Electronics Desktop 2020R1. The proposed design exhibits simulated IBW of 21.2 GHz (i.e. 4.2–25.4 GHz, 143%) having its center frequency (fc) at 14.8 GHz, and the measured IBW below 10-dB is from 3.8 GHz to up to 14 GHz (as beyond 14 GHz, IBW could not be measured using the available vector network analyzer). Simulation results are further validated in CST microwave studio. Proposed antenna is fabricated on FR-4 epoxy substrate of 0.8 mm thickness and exhibits a very small footprint of just 400 mm2 (20 × 20 mm2, 0.46λgL × 0.46λgL × 0.018λgL, where λgL is the simulated guided wavelength at lower resonating frequency frL=4.2 GHz) with 53% reduction in size. This antenna may be utilized for contemporary and upcoming wireless communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, one kind of miniaturized Gysel power divider (GPD) with ninth harmonic suppression is proposed. In this structure to weaken unwanted harmonics, radial and new trapezoidal‐shaped resonators are placed instead of the quarter‐wavelength transmission lines of the conventional GPD. Moreover, these resonators create eight transmission zeros and occupy small circuit sizes. For designing the proposed GPD, appropriate electrical lengths of transmission lines are selected. This GPD has high −15 dB fractional bandwidth, 71%, good isolation, > 15 dB, and compact sizes, 0.07 λg×0.22 λg. The operating frequency of the designed power divider is 2.1 GHz that can be used in many WCDMA applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essential oil of celery (Apium graveolens) is characterized by exceptionally high content of alkylphthalides. The mentioned compounds exhibit a number of biological effects (including hypotensive, lipid-lowering, neuroprotective, and cytotoxic) and are also responsible for distinctive aroma of the plant. In the current work, parameters of conventional hydrodistillation (HD) and simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE) were optimized to obtain phthalide-enriched fractions of celery seeds. A positive correlation was shown between hydrodistillation time and improved essential oil and phthalide yields. The 6-h HD of comminuted seeds yielded essential oil (2.9%) with a higher total phthalide content (51%), as compared to the samples collected after 1.5-3.0 h, which gave 2.4-2.7% of oil containing 24.6-39.2% of total phthalides. The oil contained sedanenolide (36.7%), 3-n-butylphthalide (13.1%), and sedanolide (1.1%). A further increase in the total phthalide content was achieved by omitting the size reduction step prior to hydrodistillation (68.8%) and utilization of the salting-out effect (84.3%). Enzyme pretreatment had a negligible effect on essential oil and phthalide yields. The change of distillation mode from HD to SDE significantly increased the oil yield of whole seeds (from 2.8 to 5.8% for 6 h processing) while maintaining its high phthalide content (62.5%), which translated to an increase in the total phthalide yield from 19.4 to 36.0 g/kg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a miniaturized and harmonics suppressed Wilkinson power divider (WPD) is analytically designed. In the proposed divider composite transmission lines and resonator cells are utilized to eliminate unwanted harmonics and reduce circuit size. This structure has a 52% size reduction, compared to the typical WPD. According to the measured results, more than 22, 42, 45 and 40 dB suppression for 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th harmonics are achieved. The presented WPD has lower than 0.15 dB insertion loss, more than 30 dB output ports isolation and more than 20 dB return losses in all ports at the operating frequency of 1.5 GHz is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the reduction of scattered context grammars with respect to the number of non-context-free productions. It proves that every recursively enumerable language is generated by a scattered context grammar that has no more than one non-context-free production. An open problem is formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the reduction of scattered context grammars with respect to the number of non-context-free productions. It proves that every recursively enumerable language is generated by a scattered context grammar that has no more than one non-context-free production. An open problem is formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The production of construction and building materials starts with reducing the size of natural, industrial, and waste materials. In addition to strength and durability considerations of natural resources recommended by various institutions, size reduction characterization, specific to rock aggregates, has a vital role in their size-related quality. In this study, various sandstones extracted from underground mines located in northwestern Turkey were investigated for size reduction characterizations. Several mineralogical, textural, and physico-mechanical properties were determined for each rock type. Crushability tests were carried out using a laboratory-scale cone crusher for different feeding size fractions, namely + 11.20 − 16.00 mm (size I), + 9.52 − 16.00 mm (size II), and + 6.30 − 16.00 mm (size III). Based on the crushability tests, crushed particles were analyzed, focusing on production yield, size, and shape properties. Each crushability test was also explored for energy consumption arising from varying rock properties of the sandstones. The laboratory test results demonstrated that the degree of rock crushability (DRC) and specific energy consumption (Ecs, kJ/kg) were associated with the Brazilian tensile strength (BTS, MPa) and apparent porosity (ne, %) of the sandstones. The results also showed that the degree of sorting in mineral constituents, quantified as the sorting coefficient (Sc), affected the DRC. However, mineralogical features of the sandstones have no significant impact on DRC and Ecs. Variations in feeding gradation, irrespective of whether mineralogical, textural, or physico-mechanical properties, have remarkable effects on product flakiness and yields for specific size fractions. In light of the findings obtained, the present study provides knowledge on how the sandstones behave under cone crushing operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many natural substances are efficient in vitro and in vivo for the treatment of various disorders. However, treatment is often limited by their low bioavailability, water solubility and permeation. As a consequence, drugs are administered frequently and in large doses. There is therefore a need for techniques to enhance the solubility, permeability and the stability. Here, we review methods to improve solubility using particle engineering, complexation, solid dispersion, solubilization, chemical modifications and use of nanocarriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel branch-line coupler using meandered line compact microstrip resonant cell (MLCMRC) and bended lines is proposed. The presented coupler works at 0.9 GHz, with good specifications. The measured values of S12 and S13 at 0.9 GHz are 3.2 dB and 3.3 dB, respectively, which show better than 0.3 dB insertion loss in the pass band. The measured value of S14 is better than 36 dB and S11 is better than 31 dB. The proposed design can eliminate 3rd and 5th harmonic with high suppression level (more than 40 dB) and reduce the size of the circuit more than 64% compared to the conventional branch-line coupler. The presented coupler has a very simple structure, which can be used in modern communication applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]