Exploring tempoyak, fermented durian paste, a traditional Indonesian indigenous fermented food: typical of Malay tribe

Anggadhania Lutfi,Setiarto R. Haryo Bimo,Yusuf Dandy,Anshory Lutfi,Royyani Mohammad Fathi 한국식품연구원 2023 Journal of Ethnic Foods Vol.10 No.42

Tempoyak is a traditional Indonesian fermented durian paste that is popular among the Malay ethnic community. While tempoyak is a distinctive, culturally significant culinary item in multifarious Indonesian cuisine, it remains understudied compared to other fermented foods like kimchi. Further research is called for to understand tempoyak’s microbial structure, dynamics, and potential health advantages that include immunostimulants, antihypercholesterolemia, probiotic action, preservatives, and antibacterial. Researchers can also reveal significant information on the history, ethnicity, production, microbiological challenges, nutritional and functional qualities, and future possibilities of indigenous food, including tempoyak. This research aimed to explore and investigate tempoyak as an indigenous fermented food by integrating a systematic literary research and data from earlier investigations. Tempoyak is closely associated with Malay identity, regardless of the place they dwell. As an essential part of everyday life in Malay community in Indonesia, tempoyak is commonly served at traditional ceremonies, wedding festivities, or large-scale events. This cultural importance makes Indonesian tempoyak distinct from its Malaysian counterpart. Tempoyak is made by crushing durian flesh, adding salt into it, and letting the homogeneous mixture sit at room temperature in a covered container for 4–7 days. The microfloras present in tempoyak are varied but primarily Lactobacillus sp., notably Lactobacillus plantarum . Proximate analysis is a viable method to assess the nutritional composition of tempoyak. Variations in nutritional content may occur due to differences in durian types, salt composition, sterilization time, temperature, and fermentation duration. Potential avenues for further studies include the role of tempoyak in fostering sustainable food systems, other health advantages of ingesting tempoyak, and the creation of novel tempoyak-based products. These study directions will further enhance the discipline and contribute to the preservation and promotion of Malay culinary heritage.

Direct frequency domain analysis of concrete arch dams based on FE-BE procedure

Lotfi, Vahid Techno-Press 2007 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.26 No.4

A FE-BE procedure is presented for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams. In this technique, dam body is discretized by finite elements, while foundation rock is handled by three dimensional boundary element formulation. This would allow a rigorous inclusion of dam-foundation rock interaction, with no limitations imposed on geometry of canyon shape. Based on this method, a previously developed program is modified, and the response of Morrow Point arch dam is studied for various ratios of foundation rock to dam concrete elastic moduli under an empty reservoir condition. Furthermore, the effects of canyon shape on response of dam, is also discussed.

Study on the Thermally-Induced Stress and Relaxation of Ceramic Breeder Pebble Beds

Lotfy, Mahmoud,Ying, Alice,Abdou, Mohamed,Park, Yi-Hyun,Cho, Seungyon AMERICAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY, INC. 2017 Fusion science and technology Vol.72 No.3

Frequency domain analysis of concrete arch dams by decoupled modal approach

Lotfi, Vahid Techno-Press 2005 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.21 No.4

A modal approach is proposed for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dam-reservoir systems in frequency domain. The technique relies on mode shapes extracted by considering the symmetric parts of total mass and stiffness matrices. Based on this method, a previously developed program is modified, and the response of Morrow Point arch dam is studied for various conditions. The method is proved to be very effective and it is an extremely convenient modal technique for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams.

Blast behavior of steel infill panels with various thickness and stiffener arrangement

Lotfi, Saeid,Zahrai, Seyed Mehdi Techno-Press 2018 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.65 No.5

Infill panel is the first element of a building subjected to blast loading activating its out-of-plane behavior. If the infill panel does not have enough ductility against the loading, it breaks and gets damaged before load transfer and energy dissipation. As steel infill panel has appropriate ductility before fracture, it can be used as an alternative to typical infill panels under blast loading. Also, it plays a pivotal role in maintaining sensitive main parts against blast loading. Concerning enough ductility of the infill panel out-of-plane behavior, the impact force enters the horizontal diaphragm and is distributed among the lateral elements. This article investigates the behavior of steel infill panels with different thicknesses and stiffeners. In order to precisely study steel infill panels, different ranges of blast loading are used and maximum displacement of steel infill under such various blast loading is studied. In this research, finite element analyses including geometric and material nonlinearities are used for optimization of the steel plate thickness and stiffener arrangement to obtain more efficient design for its better out-of-plane behavior. The results indicate that this type of infill with out-of-plane behavior shows a proper ductility especially in severe blast loadings. In the blasts with high intensity, maximum displacement of infill is more sensitive to change in the thickness of plate rather the change in number of stiffeners such that increasing the number of stiffeners and the plate thickness of infill panel would decrease energy dissipation by 20 and 77% respectively. The ductile behavior of steel infill panels shows that using infill panels with less thickness has more effect on energy dissipation. According to this study, the infill panel with 5 mm thickness works better if the criterion of steel infill panel design is the reduction of transmitted impulse to main structure. For example in steel infill panels with 5 stiffeners and blast loading with the reflected pressure of 375 kPa and duration of 50 milliseconds, the transmitted impulse has decreased from 41206 N.Sec in 20 mm infill to 37898 N.Sec in 5 mm infill panel.

Understanding the possible underlying mechanisms for low fouling tendency of the forward osmosis and pressure assisted osmosis processes

Lotfi, Fezeh,Chekli, Laura,Phuntsho, Sherub,Hong, Seungkwan,Choi, Joon Young,Shon, Ho Kyong Elsevier Scientific Pub. Co 2017 Desalination Vol. No.

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>We investigated the possible underlying mechanism of the low fouling potential in the forward osmosis (FO) process during the osmotic dilution of seawater as part of the simultaneous desalination and wastewater reuse by FO and reverse osmosis hybrid system. Long-term experiments revealed an interesting water flux pattern highly dependent on the different operating parameters. The most interesting observation made was the spontaneous increase in the FO permeate flux at regular time interval during the FO operation using synthetic wastewater as feed and seawater. This sinusoidal FO flux pattern related well with the build-up of loose fouling layer and their natural peel-off from the membrane surface upon reaching certain layer thickness due to crossflow velocity shear. This flux pattern was more prominent at higher cross-flow velocity rates, lower feed water pH, for a smoother membrane surface and at lower operating pressure during pressure assisted osmosis (PAO) mode. Based on these results, membrane cleaning strategies were proposed by targeting a higher cross-flow velocity shear at a time when the permeate flux started to just increase. The approach of physical membrane cleaning was observed efficient and was able to almost fully restore the initial flux even under the PAO operation at 4bar.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> An interesting water flux pattern was observed during osmotic dilution of seawater. </LI> <LI> It was related to the build-up of loose fouling layer peeled-off from the surface. </LI> <LI> This sinusoidal flux pattern was highly dependent on the operating parameters. </LI> <LI> Intrinsic membrane cleaning strategies can be adopted; avoiding plant down time. </LI> <LI> Increasing the feed cross-flow velocity at specific time was found most efficient. </LI> </UL> </P> <P><B>Graphical abstract</B></P> <P>[DISPLAY OMISSION]</P>

Serum Level of Matrix Metalloproteinase-2 and -9 in Patients with Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Clinical Significance

Lotfi, Alireza,Mohammadi, Ghodrat,Saniee, Lale,Mousaviagdas, Mehrnoosh,Chavoshi, Hadi,Tavassoli, Atena Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2015 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.16 No.15

Background: Laryngeal cancer is an important malignancy in head and neck area and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common type accounting for 95% of cases. Increase in matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in different tumors and their correlation with tumor invasiveness has been documented. However, most studies have evaluated MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression and few have evaluated serum levels. The aim of current study was to evaluate serum levels in patients with laryngeal SCC compared to normal subjects and assess any relation with tumor clinicopathological findings. Materials and Methods: In this case control study, 20 patients with oral SCC and 20 healthy subjects were included. Serum levels of MMP-2 and MMP-9 were compared between groups and correlations with findings including grade (T) and node involvement (N) were evaluated. Results: Patients with laryngeal SCC had significantly higher serum levels of MMP-2 (p=0.01) and MMP-9 (p=0.03) compared to healthy subjects. Patients with higher T stage (T3,4) had significantly higher MMP-2 (p=0.04) and MMP-9 (p=0.01). There was significant positive correlation between serum levels of MMP-2 with T stage (r=0.45, p=0.04) and lymph node involvement (r=0.563, p=0.01) and between levels of MMP-9 with T stage (r=0.527, p=0.01). Conclusions: Our results showed that compared to healthy subjects, both MMP-2 and MMP-9 are significantly increased in serum of laryngeal SCC cases. MMP-2 was correlated with lymph node involvement while MMP-9 has stronger correlation with T stage compared to MMP-2.

An efficient three-dimensional fluid hyper-element for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams

Lotfi, Vahid Techno-Press 2006 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.24 No.6

The accurate dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams relies heavily on employing a three-dimensional semi-infinite fluid element. The usual method for calculating the impedance matrix of this fluid hyper-element is dependent on the solution of a complex eigen-value problem for each frequency. In the present study, an efficient procedure is proposed which simplifies this procedure amazingly, and results in great computational time saving. Moreover, the accuracy of this technique is examined thoroughly and it is concluded that efficient procedure is incredibly accurate under all practical conditions.

Cross-Validation Probabilistic Neural Network Based Face Identification

Lotfi, Abdelhadi,Benyettou, Abdelkader Korea Information Processing Society 2018 Journal of information processing systems Vol.14 No.5

In this paper a cross-validation algorithm for training probabilistic neural networks (PNNs) is presented in order to be applied to automatic face identification. Actually, standard PNNs perform pretty well for small and medium sized databases but they suffer from serious problems when it comes to using them with large databases like those encountered in biometrics applications. To address this issue, we proposed in this work a new training algorithm for PNNs to reduce the hidden layer's size and avoid over-fitting at the same time. The proposed training algorithm generates networks with a smaller hidden layer which contains only representative examples in the training data set. Moreover, adding new classes or samples after training does not require retraining, which is one of the main characteristics of this solution. Results presented in this work show a great improvement both in the processing speed and generalization of the proposed classifier. This improvement is mainly caused by reducing significantly the size of the hidden layer.

Preface to Festschrift in Wyllis Bandler's Honor

Lotfi Zadeh,Ladislav Kohout,Chris Trayner,Pratit Santiprabhob,Kyung Whan Oh 한국지능시스템학회 1993 한국지능시스템학회논문지 Vol.3 No.1