Laser Excited Nuclear γ -Source of High Spectral Brightness

This paper considers various channels of gammaquantum generation via an ultra-short high-power laser pulse interaction with different targets.We analyse the possibilities to create a pulsed gamma-radiation source using laser triggering of some nuclear reactions and isomer targets. It is shown that sub-MeV monochromatic short pulse of gamma-radiation can be obtained with pulse energy of sub-mJ level from isomer target irradiated by intense laser pulse. For nuclear reaction channel in light- atom materials, it is shown that sub-PW laser pulse gives rise to formation about million gamma-photons of multi-MeV energy.

Effects of the Wavy Surface on Free Convection-Radiation along an Inclined Plate

A numerical analysis used to simulate the effects of wavy surfaces and thermal radiation on natural convection heat transfer boundary layer flow over an inclined wavy plate has been investigated. A simple coordinate transformation is employed to transform the complex wavy surface into a flat plate. The boundary layer equations and the boundary conditions are discretized by the finite difference scheme and solved numerically using the Gauss-Seidel algorithm with relaxation coefficient. Effects of the wavy geometry, the inclination angle of the wavy plate and the thermal radiation on the velocity profiles, temperature profiles and the local Nusselt number are presented and discussed in detail.

Effect of Gamma Irradiation on the Microhardness of Polymer Blends of Poly (Ethyl Methacrylate)(Pema) and Poly (Ethylene Oxide) (Peo)

The effect of gamma irradiation on micro-hardness of polymer blends of poly (ethyl methacrylate)(PEMA) and poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO) has been investigated to detect the radiation induced crosslinking. The blend system comprises a noncrystallizable polymer, PEMA and a crystallizable polymer, PEO. On irradiation, the overall hardness of the blend specimens for different dose levels infers occurrence of a crosslinking process. The radiation-induced crosslinking was greater for blends having lower concentration of PEO. However, increase in radiation dose causes softening of blend system due to radiation induced scissioning of the chains

Effect of UV-Treatment on Properties of Biodegradable Film From Rice Starch

Photo-crosslinked rice starch-based biodegradable films were prepared by casting film-solution on leveled trays and ultra violet (UV) irradiation was applied for 10 minute. The effect of the content (3%, 6% and 9 wt. %)of photosensitiser (sodium benzoate) on mechanical properties, water vapor permeability (WVP) and structural properties of rice starch films were investigated. The tensile strength increased while elongation at break and water resistance properties of rice starch films decreased with addition and increasing content of photosensitiser. The % crystallinity of rice starch films were decreased when the content of photosensitiser increased and UV were applied. The results showed that the carboxylate group band of sodium benzoate was found in the FTIR spectrum of rice starch films and found that incorporation of 6% of photosensitiser into the films showed a higher absorption band of resulted films. This result pointed out the highest interaction between starch molecules was occurred.

Modeling Strategy and Numerical Validation of the Turbulent Flow over a two-Dimensional Flat Roof

The construction of a civil structure inside a urban area inevitably modifies the outdoor microclimate at the building site. Wind speed, wind direction, air pollution, driving rain, radiation and daylight are some of the main physical aspects that are subjected to the major changes. The quantitative amount of these modifications depends on the shape, size and orientation of the building and on its interaction with the surrounding environment.The flow field over a flat roof model building has been numerically investigated in order to determine two-dimensional CFD guidelines for the calculation of the turbulent flow over a structure immersed in an atmospheric boundary layer. To this purpose, a complete validation campaign has been performed through a systematic comparison of numerical simulations with wind tunnel experimental data.Several turbulence models and spatial node distributions have been tested for five different vertical positions, respectively from the upstream leading edge to the downstream bottom edge of the analyzed model. Flow field characteristics in the neighborhood of the building model have been numerically investigated, allowing a quantification of the capabilities of the CFD code to predict the flow separation and the extension of the recirculation regions.The proposed calculations have allowed the development of a preliminary procedure to be used as a guidance in selecting the appropriate grid configuration and corresponding turbulence model for the prediction of the flow field over a twodimensional roof architecture dominated by flow separation.

Development of Autonomous Cable Inspection Robot for Nuclear Power Plant

The cables in a nuclear power plant are designed to be used for about 40 years in safe operation environment. However, the heat and radiation in the nuclear power plant causes the rapid performance deterioration of cables in nuclear vessels and heat exchangers, which requires cable lifetime estimation. The most accurate method of estimating the cable lifetime is to evaluate the cables in a laboratory. However, removing cables while the plant is operating is not allowed because of its safety and cost. In this paper, a robot system to estimate the cable lifetime in nuclear power plants is developed and tested. The developed robot system can calculate a modulus value to estimate the cable lifetime even when the nuclear power plant is in operation.

Numerical Investigation of Non Fourier Heat Conduction in a Semi-infinite Body due to a Moving Concentrated Heat Source Composed with Radiational Boundary Condition

In this paper, the melting of a semi-infinite body as a result of a moving laser beam has been studied. Because the Fourier heat transfer equation at short times and large dimensions does not have sufficient accuracy; a non-Fourier form of heat transfer equation has been used. Due to the fact that the beam is moving in x direction, the temperature distribution and the melting pool shape are not asymmetric. As a result, the problem is a transient threedimensional problem. Therefore, thermophysical properties such as heat conductivity coefficient, density and heat capacity are functions of temperature and material states. The enthalpy technique, used for the solution of phase change problems, has been used in an explicit finite volume form for the hyperbolic heat transfer equation. This technique has been used to calculate the transient temperature distribution in the semi-infinite body and the growth rate of the melt pool. In order to validate the numerical results, comparisons were made with experimental data. Finally, the results of this paper were compared with similar problem that has used the Fourier theory. The comparison shows the influence of infinite speed of heat propagation in Fourier theory on the temperature distribution and the melt pool size.

Evaluation of Optimal Residence Time in a Hot Rolled Reheating Furnace

To calculate the temperature distribution of the slab in a hot rolled reheating furnace a mathematical model has been developed by considering the thermal radiation in the furnace and transient conduction in the slab. The furnace is modeled as radiating medium with spatially varying temperature. Radiative heat flux within the furnace including the effect of furnace walls, combustion gases, skid beams and buttons is calculated using the FVM and is applied as the boundary condition of the transient conduction equation of the slab. After determining the slab emissivity by comparison between simulation and experimental work, variation of heating characteristics in the slab is investigated in the case of changing furnace temperature with various time and the slab residence time is optimized with this evaluation.

Biochemical and Multiplex PCR Analysis of Toxic Crystal Proteins to Determine Genes in Bacillus thuringiensis Mutants

The Egyptian Bacillus thuringiensis isolate (M5) produce crystal proteins that is toxic against insects was irradiated with UV light to induce mutants. Upon testing 10 of the resulting mutants for their toxicity against cotton leafworm larvae, the three mutants 62, 64 and 85 proved to be the most toxic ones. Upon testing these mutants along with their parental isolate by SDS-PAGE analysis of spores-crystals proteins as well as vegetative cells proteins, new induced bands appeared in the three mutants by UV radiation and also they showed disappearance of some other bands as compared with the wild type isolate. Multiplex PCR technique, with five sets of specific primers, was used to detect the three types of cryI genes cryIAa, cryIAb and cryIAc. Results showed that these three genes exist, as distinctive bands, in the wild type isolate (M5) as well as in mutants 62 and 85, while the mutant 64 had two distinctive bands of cryIAb and cryIAc genes, and a faint band of cryI Aa gene. Finally, these results revealed that mutant 62 is considered as the promising mutant since it is UV resistant, highly toxic against Spodoptera littoralis and active against a wide range of Lepidopteran insects.

Performance Analysis of Evolutionary ANN for Output Prediction of a Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System

This paper presents performance analysis of the Evolutionary Programming-Artificial Neural Network (EPANN) based technique to optimize the architecture and training parameters of a one-hidden layer feedforward ANN model for the prediction of energy output from a grid connected photovoltaic system. The ANN utilizes solar radiation and ambient temperature as its inputs while the output is the total watt-hour energy produced from the grid-connected PV system. EP is used to optimize the regression performance of the ANN model by determining the optimum values for the number of nodes in the hidden layer as well as the optimal momentum rate and learning rate for the training. The EPANN model is tested using two types of transfer function for the hidden layer, namely the tangent sigmoid and logarithmic sigmoid. The best transfer function, neural topology and learning parameters were selected based on the highest regression performance obtained during the ANN training and testing process. It is observed that the best transfer function configuration for the prediction model is [logarithmic sigmoid, purely linear].

HPL-TE Method for Determination of Coatings Relative Total Emissivity Sensitivity Analysis of the Influences of Method Parameters

High power laser – total emissivity method (HPL-TE method) for determination of coatings relative total emissivity dependent on the temperature is introduced. Method principle, experimental and evaluation parts of the method are described. Computer model of HPL-TE method is employed to perform the sensitivity analysis of the effect of method parameters on the sample surface temperature in the positions where the surface temperature and radiation heat flux are measured.

Issues in Deploying Smart Antennas in Mobile Radio Networks

With the exponentially increasing demand for wireless communications the capacity of current cellular systems will soon become incapable of handling the growing traffic. Since radio frequencies are diminishing natural resources, there seems to be a fundamental barrier to further capacity increase. The solution can be found in smart antenna systems. Smart or adaptive antenna arrays consist of an array of antenna elements with signal processing capability, that optimize the radiation and reception of a desired signal, dynamically. Smart antennas can place nulls in the direction of interferers via adaptive updating of weights linked to each antenna element. They thus cancel out most of the co-channel interference resulting in better quality of reception and lower dropped calls. Smart antennas can also track the user within a cell via direction of arrival algorithms. This implies that they are more advantageous than other antenna systems. This paper focuses on few issues about the smart antennas in mobile radio networks.

The Comparison of Finite Difference Methods for Radiation Diffusion Equations

In this paper, the difference between the Alternating Direction Method (ADM) and the Non-Splitting Method (NSM) is investigated, while both methods applied to the simulations for 2-D multimaterial radiation diffusion issues. Although the ADM have the same accuracy orders with the NSM on the uniform meshes, the accuracy of ADM will decrease on the distorted meshes or the boundary of domain. Numerical experiments are carried out to confirm the theoretical predication.

Evaluation of Radiation Synthesized β-Glucan Hydrogel Wound Dressing using Rat Models

In this study, hydrogels consisted of polyvinyl alcohol, propylene glycol and β-glucan were developed by radiation technique for wound dressing. The prepared hydrogels were characterized by examining of physical properties such as gel fraction and absorption ratio. The gel fraction and absorption ratio were dependent on the crosslinking density. On observing the wound healing of rat skin, the resulting hydrogels accelerated the wound healing comparing to cotton gauze. Therefore, the PVA/propylene glycol/β-glucan blended hydrogels can greatly accelerate the healing without causing irritation.

Effects of Mobile Phone Generated High Frequency Electromagnetic Field on the Viability and Biofilm Formation of Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus, one of the microflora in a human external auditory canal (EAC) is frequently exposed to highfrequency electromagnetic field (HF-EMF) generated by mobile phones. It is normally non-pathogenic but in certain circumstances, it can cause infections. This study investigates the changes in the physiology of S. aureus when exposed to HF-EMF of a mobile phone. Exponentially grown S. aureus were exposed to two conditions of EMF irradiation (standby-mode and on-call mode) at four durations; 15, 30, 45 and 60 min. Changes in the viability and biofilm production of the S. aureus were compared between the two conditions of exposure. EMF from the standby-mode has enhanced the growth of S. aureus but during on-call, the growth was suppressed. No significant difference in the amount of biofilm produced in both modes of exposure was observed. Thus, HF-EMF of mobile phone affects the viability of S. aureus but not its ability to produce biofilm.

Steady State Temperature Distribution of Cast-Resin Dry Type Transformer Based on New Thermal Model Using Finite Element Method

In this paper, a thermal model of cast- resin dry type transformer is proposed. The proposed thermal model is solved by finite element technique to get the temperature at any location of the transformer. The basic modes of heat transfer such as conduction; convection and radiation are used to get the steady state temperature distribution of the transformer. The predicted temperatures are compared with experimental results reported in this paper and it is found a good agreement between them. The effects of various parameters such as width of air duct, ambient temperature and emissivity of the outer surface were also studied.

Removal of Phenylurea Herbicides from Waters by using Chemical Oxidation Treatments

Four phenylurea herbicides (isoproturon, chlortoluron, diuron and linuron) were dissolved in different water matrices in order to study their chemical degradation by using UV radiation, ozone and some advanced oxidation processes (UV/H2O2, O3/H2O2, Fenton reagent and the photo- Fenton system). The waters used were: ultra-pure water, a commercial mineral water, a groundwater and a surface water taken from a reservoir. Elimination levels were established for each herbicide and for several global quality parameters, and a kinetic study was performed in order to determine basic kinetic parameters of each reaction between the target phenylureas and these oxidizing systems.

Daily and Seasonal Changes of Air Pollution in Kuwait

This paper focuses on assessment of air pollution in Umm-Alhyman, Kuwait, which is located south to oil refineries, power station, oil field, and highways. The measurements were made over a period of four days in March and July in 2001, 2004, and 2008. The measured pollutants included methanated and nonmethanated hydrocarbons (MHC, NMHC), CO, CO2, SO2, NOX, O3, and PM10. Also, meteorological parameters were measured, which includes temperature, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation. Over the study period, data analysis showed increase in measured SO2, NOX and CO by factors of 1.2, 5.5 and 2, respectively. This is explained in terms of increase in industrial activities, motor vehicle density, and power generation. Predictions of the measured data were made by the ISC-AERMOD software package and by using the ISCST3 model option. Finally, comparison was made between measured data against international standards.

Effects of Intrauterine and Extrauterine Exposure to 1800 MHz GSM-Like Radiofrequency Radiation on Liver Regulatory Enzymes Activities in Infant Female Rabbits

In the present study, we aimed to design the intrauterine and extrauterine exposure to 1800 MHz GSM-like RF radiation and investigate its possible bio-effects on infant female rabbits. Totally thirty-six New Zealand White female rabbits, onemonth old, were randomly divided into four groups which are composed of 9 rabbits; i. Group I [Intrauterine (IU) exposure(-); Extrauterine (EU) exposure (-)], Group II [IU exposure (-); EU exposure (+)], Group III [IU exposure(+);EU exposure(-)], Group IV [IU exposure (+);EU exposure(+)]. The master regulatory enzymes activities of pentose phosphate pathway (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, G-6PD; 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase, 6- PGDH) and glutathione-dependent metabolism (glutathione peroxidase, GSH-Px; glutathione reductase, GR; glutathione Stransferase, GST, thioredoxin reductase, TRx) were analyzed in liver tissues of young female rabbits. Decreased G-6PD, 6-PGD, GSH-Px, GR activities were found in Group III compared to Group I (p

Mixed Convection with Radiation Effect over a Nonlinearly Stretching Sheet

In this study, an analysis has been performed for free convection with radiation effect over a thermal forming nonlinearly stretching sheet. Parameters n, k0, Pr, G represent the dominance of the nonlinearly effect, radiation effect, heat transfer and free convection effects which have been presented in governing equations, respectively. The similarity transformation and the finite-difference methods have been used to analyze the present problem. From the results, we find that the effects of parameters n, k0, Pr, Ec and G to the nonlinearly stretching sheet. The increase of Prandtl number Pr, free convection parameter G or radiation parameter k0 resulting in the increase of heat transfer effects, but increase of the viscous dissipation number Ec will decrease of heat transfer effect.