Carthage University

The battery lifetime of Elec. vehicles (EVs) is affected by hot temperatures and high charging and discharging effective battery current.Hybrid energy storage systems (HESS) coupling the best attributes of the battery with supercapacitors (SCs) help extend the battery lifetime and improve the EV storage performances.The key to a successful HESS at extending the battery lifetime is to adopt the appropriate Energy Management System (EMS) that ensures the best power sharing between battery and SCs.This paper proposes an innovative real-time optimization-based EMS with low computational costs and high adaptability to variable and commute driving profiles.The proposed EMS is organized in two levels.The lower level implements a rule-based frequency power sharing control.The upper level performs Reinforcement Learning (RL) optimizations to learn and adapt the best power sharing configuration considering real-time information and actual load conditions.An exptl. test bench is developed and exptl. measurements are conducted.The obtained results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed EMS to provide the best trade-offs between simple implementation, computation time, solution optimality, real-time performance, and good adaptation to variable driving conditions.

Preserving meat products′ quality and increasing their shelf life along with meeting consumers demand for healthier products, are the main challenges for meat industries.Therefore, developing plant-based sources in meat product preservation is highly recommended in order to improve the biol. properties.For that, this work aimed to develop edible alginate-based films enriched with myrtle (Myrtus communis L.) and rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) extracts as active compounds and evaluates their effects on fresh beef meat characteristics during storage for a period of 12 d at 2°C.These treatments were compared to those of irradiation treatment solely or combined with the edible films.Therefore, six treatments were developed: uncoated samples (CON); samples with edible coating (AEC); samples with edible coating enriched with 200 ppm of rosemary extract (ROS); samples with edible coating enriched with 200 ppm of myrtle extract (MYRT); irradiated samples (IRR); and irradiated samples with edible coating (IRAC).The addition of myrtle extract and the use of irradiation treatment have significantly delayed (P<0.001) the lipid oxidation of meat by lowering TBARS values to 0.39, 0.58, and 0.52 mg MDA/kg for MYRT, IRR and IRAC groups, resp., whereas it reaches 1.14 mg of MDA/kg for CON group.MYRT and ROS samples had the highest free radical scavenging activity (P<0.001) with an inhibition capacity of around 64.8 and 62.7%, resp.Coated samples had a higher red (a*) and chroma indexes, compared to control and irradiated groups with mean values of 14.63; 17.18 vs 10.08; 12.15, resp.Alginate coating significantly decreased firmness compared to the control (0.48 vs 0.67 for AEC and CON, resp.).Irradiation and coating significantly (P<0.05) inhibited microbial growth up to 12 days of storage.In conclusion, edible coatings enriched with natural antioxidants significantly enhance the oxidative stability and microbiol. safety of meat products, resulting in a shelf life extension of up to 6 days.This finding highlights their potential as a powerful and effective alternative to irradiation treatments, offering a natural solution for the food industry to improve product quality and safety.

Nanoparticles (NPs) have actively contributed to nanotechnologies advancement over the last years, due to the unique properties they possess compared to their pristine counterparts. Consequently, NPs found wide applications in various fields such as the medical, biomedical, chemical, agro-food industries, and cosmetology. NP's extensive uses could lead to their release into the environment, especially in the marine ecosystems, considered as NPs sink, resulting in harmful effects on organisms. Concerns regarding NPs' toxicity in aquatic organisms have emerged, however, several points remain unexplored. In the present study, the toxicity of chromium oxide (Cr₂O₃ = 42 nm) and aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃ = 38 nm) NPs (1 mg/L, 2.5 mg/L, and 5 mg/L) in the gills of the marine gastropod Stramonita haemastoma was assessed through time (7, 14, and 28 days) by a multi-biomarker, Integrated biomarkers response (IBR), and Histological analysis. Both NPs induced varied changes in the antioxidant system, suggesting the onset of oxidative stress marked by superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), acetylcholinesterase (AChE), metallothionein (MT), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels imbalance. Varied histological alterations in the gills of S. haemastoma were also observed including inflammation, hypertrophy, and lamellar fusion, IBR proved to be a promising tool for assessing NPs toxicity in gastropods. In this study results indicated the co-response of reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione S-transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), CAT, SOD, and MT after 28 days of exposure. S. haemastoma showed sensitivity to all exposure concentrations of NPs thus validating this species as a suitable indicator of NPs contamination and toxicity.