Recent Patents on Engineering - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2012

Dear authors, readers, reviewers, and enthusiastic supporters, It has been over two years since I took over this position as the Editor-in-Chief of this journal in 2009, I would like to thank you for your continued devotion, focus, and support to the journal. With many years of advanced research experience throughout my career in both academy and industry, I find that patents play an essential role in creating a sustainable advantage on strategic and economical impacts for knowledge-based businesses. It appears in the news quite often that one company files lawsuits against the competitor for patent infringement issue and requests payment and compensation because people know the transformation benefit of a valuable patent. Innovations and the protection of innovations are of vital importance especially in technology-dominant industry. Creating patents when you have good idea or knowing the status of latest patent development in relevant topic become routine for most of the researchers, engineers, even for the managers and investors. The journal, Recent Patents on Engineering, is what those people looking for. The journal timely publishes review and research articles, and guest edited topical issues on latest patents in the field of engineering. The accepted papers have passed strict peer review by at least three anonymous reviewers. A selection of important and recent patents themselves on engineering is also included in the journal. We have attracted more than 100 experts around the world joining our team as editorial advisory members to cover all areas in the field of engineering with the best expertise. In this issue, seven papers will be published. The first paper entitled “Functional Food: Product Development and Health Benefits” is written by Flora Cozzolino et al. This paper includes information on the common products rich in nutraceutic components; and also explains the importance of probiotic and prebiotic foods and finally focuses on recent patents dealing with functional formulations for specific human diseases. The second paper entitled “Methods and Apparatuses for Advanced Drinking Water Treatment” is written by Guoliang Zhang et al. This paper analyzes recent researches and developments of advanced drinking water treatment, and seeks to offer a scientific and technical overview of dramatic trend and useful information to researchers who work in this field. The third paper entitled “Safety Assessment of an On Board Inert Gas Generating System” is written by Okafor Ekene Gabriel et al. This paper presents the safety assessment of an OBIGGS using genetic algorithm. The fourth paper is titled “Utilization of Carbon Nanotubes as a Support Material in Metal-Based Catalyst Systems: Applications in Catalysis” written by Rohaya Husny Pahmy et al. This paper focuses on the applications of CNTs combined with various metal-based particles in the field of catalysis. The effects of the incorporation of CNTs into catalyst systems are discussed in terms of the catalytic activity, reaction selectivity and reaction pathway. The remarkable properties of CNTs that fulfil the requirements of support catalysts are also discussed. Patents relevant to the topic have been discussed. The fifth paper entitled “History, Principle and Techniques for Waveform Optimization in External Defibrillations” written by Changlin Yina et al. This paper reviewed the history, principle and recent techniques on waveform optimization techniques related to external defibrillation. The patents presented demonstrate the decreased energy requirement, increased efficacy, and self-adjusting optimal waveforms based on the patient parameter measurements. The sixth paper titled “A Wireless Utility Meter System: Design and Implementation” is written by Muhammad Al Farabi, et al. The authors review their patent about the utilization of a wireless utility meter system for application of utility meter specifically. The last paper entitled “Radar Cross Section Identification of Air Targets using the Cosine Transform and Neural Networks” is written by Mustafa Emre Aydemir et al. This paper presents an innovative approach to the problem of aircraft identification from its radar cross section. In this study, patents relevant to the topic have also been discussed. I'd like to thank all the authors for their valuable contributions and all reviewers for their timely and constructive feedback on the submitted papers. We look forward to your continuously strong support and participation.

Advances in food and nutrition sciences highlighted that diet can provide consumers with components able to both modulate body functions, improve health status and wellbeing and/or reduce the risk of some diseases. Therefore, much research has been undertaken in recent years on development and application of technologies to develop functional foods. Functional foods and dietary supplements can make health claims and/or structure/function claims. Health claims state that an ingredient may reduce the risk of a disease, whereas, structure/function claims declare that an ingredient in the product could benefit a body's structure (the skeletal system) or its function (the circulatory system). This paper includes information on the common products rich in nutraceutic components; explains the importance of probiotic and prebiotic foods and finally focuses on recent patents dealing with functional formulations for specific human diseases.

Cardiac defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical current to the fibrillating heart with the aid of a device named defibrillator. Defibrillation waveform, which is the temporal pattern of its amplitude measured by voltage or current, is one of the principle determinants of defibrillation efficacy. The purpose for the optimization of the waveform is to improve the defibrillation efficacy while decrease the risk of shock induced cardiac injury. The optimization is achieved by adjusting the defibrillation waveform parameters, including voltage, current, pulse duration, tilt, polarity and morphology. This paper reviewed the history, principle and recent techniques on waveform optimization techniques that related to external defibrillation. The patents presented demonstrate the decreased energy requirement, increased efficacy, and self-adjusting optimal waveforms based on the patient parameter measurements.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which were discovered in 199, have emerged as one of the most distinctive classes of carbon-allotrope materials. They exhibit various fascinating physical, electronic and mechanical properties, which have stimulated significant interest among researchers. CNT researchers have focused on exploring and deploying CNTs in the area of synthesis and implementing them in numerous applications, such as nanoelectronic devices, compositereinforcement material, catalyst supports, etc. Their combination of light weight, nanoscale diameter, mesoporous structure, high aspect ratio, high thermal conductivity and high stability render them as effective support materials. This review focuses on the applications of CNTs combined with various metal-based particles in the field of catalysis. The effects of the incorporation of CNTs into catalyst systems are discussed in terms of the catalytic activity, reaction selectivity and reaction pathway. The remarkable properties of CNTs that fulfil the requirements of support catalysts are also discussed. Patents relevant to the topic have been discussed.

More and more clean and safe drinking water will be needed due to the explosive population growth and water pollution, as well as people's increasing demands for better life quality. In response to this problem, various kinds of drinking water treatment approaches have been developed over the past decade. As a result, diversified water purifiers with patents appeared on the market. This paper analyzes recent researches and developments of advanced drinking water treatment, and seeks to offer a scientific and technical overview of dramatic trend and useful information to researchers who work in this field. Potential methods and popular apparatuses with patents are discussed first, especially those novel processes using membranes. Compared with ozonation, electrolysis and photocatalysis process, membrane technology shows enormous application potential and bright development prospect in the field of advanced drinking water treatment. The advantages of novel membrane processes include extremely high quality of water, nature friendly, cost effectiveness and easy operation. Therefore, commercial point-of-use water purifiers with membrane module are becoming more popular on the market. With a view to the membrane fouling in water purifiers, progresses on available filtration media prior to membrane separation are also discussed, such as copper/zinc redox alloy (KDF) and activated carbon fiber (ACF). These typical filtration medias have played a dual role in both alleviating membrane fouling and enhancing water quality.

The conventional utility billing system suffers from the inefficiency of utility provider's workforce deployment. Apart from the financial cost issue, unnecessary workforce deployment will result in an extensive period of utility meter reading and billing. The solution proposed in the authors' Malaysian patents numbered PI2010002408 and PI20100022305 is the utilization of a wireless utility meter system for application of water meter specifically and other utility types, at large. The proposed wireless utility meter system makes use of an onsite utility usage monitoring and billing, that is capable of reducing the utility provider's workforce deployment while serving as a necessary transient step towards a truly automatic monitoring and billing solution. Another advantage in the proposed semi-automatic wireless onsite meter reading is the elimination of unnecessary cost of maintaining the complicated fully automatic offsite wireless meter reading. The proposed wireless utility meter system is designed using SKXBee wireless modules. In the proposed design, consideration is also given to the utility usage database system. Indeed, in the near future, the proposed wireless utility meter design can be implemented as a transient step before the application of a fully automatic wireless meter solution becomes feasible in the third world countries.

Target identification has always been as important as the radar itself. This paper presents an innovative approach to the problem of aircraft identification from its radar cross section. Radar cross section (RCS) data are passed through Discrete Cosine Transform. The Cosine Transform extracts the dominant features of the data. This provides compression of large amounts of RCS information into much smaller sizes of significant information. Therefore the Neural Network Classification Algorithm runs much faster with respect to the case where the original data are used as the input. In this study, patents relevant to the topic have also been discussed.

Fuel tank safety has been an issue associated with the design and operation of aircraft fuel systems for decades. Research in this area has undergone transition from the early stage of the use of polyurethane reticulated foam installed within the fuel tanks, to the present day On Board Inert Gas Generating System (OBIGGS). Recent patents related to the topic have been discussed. This paper presents the safety assessment of an OBIGGS using genetic algorithm. Functional Hazard Assessment (FHA), Preliminary System Safety Assessment (PSSA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Failure Mode and Effect Critical Analysis (FMECA) were all used in the study. Genetic algorithm was used to optimize the Cyclic Flow Multiplying Factor (CFMF), using MatLab programming language. Decoding model was developed for this problem. Point mask and binary window crossover techniques were implemented. The calculated failure rate of the Air Separation Module (ASM) for reliability prediction purposes is 9.125E-08. The budgeted ASM failure rate for a 10hours flight was well greater than the calculated failure rate as shown in the Failure Mode and Effect Summary (FMES).

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. These recent patents are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by the processes and technologies related to various disciplines of engineering sciences.