Electronic structure and absolute band edge position of tetragonal AgInS2 photocatalyst: A hybrid density functional study

Energy bands, effective mass of carriers, absolute band edge positions and optical properties of tetragonal AgInS₂ were calculated using a first-principles approach with the exchange correlation described by B3LYP hybrid functional. The results indicate that tetragonal AgInS₂ has a direct band gap of 1.93 eV, which reproduce well experimental value. Calculated effective masses of electrons and holes are both small which are beneficial to separation and migration of electron and hole pairs. This implies that AgInS₂ has good photocatalytic performance. The calculated optical characteristics indicate that AgInS₂ has a slight anisotropy for both the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function and exhibits large optical absorption in the visible light region. Furthermore, the calculated band edge positions in (100), (010) and (001) surfaces indicate that tetragonal AgInS₂ is beneficial to the reduction and oxidation of water to hydrogen and oxygen under visible light irradiation.     

Effect laws and mechanisms of different temperatures on isothermal tensile fracture morphologies of high-strength boron steel

The fracture behaviour and morphologies of high-strength boron steel were investigated at different temperatures at a constant strain rate of 0.1 s-1 based on isothermal tensile tests. Fracture mechanisms were also analyzed based on the relationship between microstructure transformation and continuous cooling transformation(CCT) curves. It is found that 1) fractures of the investigated steel at high temperatures are dimple fractures; 2) the deformation of high-strength boron steel at high temperatures accelerates diffusion transformations; thus, to obtain full martensite, a higher cooling rate is needed; and 3) the investigated steel has the best plasticity when the deformation temperature is 750 °C.     

Stress-deformable state of isotropic double curved shell with internal cracks and a circular hole

This work is devoted to the stress–strain state of isotropic double curved shell with defect system. The construction is weakened by two non-through thickness (internal) cracks of different length and by a circular hole located between cracks. In this study we use the line-spring model. Within the framework of this model cracks are modeled as mathematical cuts of shell’s middle surface. This leads to a two-dimensional problem. The problem is reduced to a system of eight boundary integral equations. To ensure the uniqueness of solution an additional equation is added. In the numerical solution of the problem special quadrature formulas for singular integrals of Cauchy type and the finite difference method are applied. The influence of defects on each other for double curved shell has been investigated. The given theoretical results can be used for the calculation of structural elements with holes, cracks on the strength and fracture toughness in various branches of engineering.     

Model checking temporal knowledge and commitments in multi-agent systems using reduction

Though modeling and verifying Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) have long been under study, there are still challenges when many different aspects need to be considered simultaneously. In fact, various frameworks have been carried out for modeling and verifying MASs with respect to knowledge and social commitments independently. However, considering them under the same framework still needs further investigation, particularly from the verification perspective. In this article, we present a new technique for model checking the logic of knowledge and commitments (CTLKC⁺). The proposed technique is fully-automatic and reduction-based in which we transform the problem of model checking CTLKC⁺ into the problem of model checking an existing logic of action called ARCTL. Concretely, we construct a set of transformation rules to formally reduce the CTLKC⁺ model into an ARCTL model and CTLKC⁺ formulae into ARCTL formulae to get benefit from the extended version of NuSMV symbolic model checker of ARCTL. Compared to a recent approach that reduces the problem of model checking CTLKC⁺ to another logic of action called GCTL¹, our technique has better scalability and efficiency. We also analyze the complexity of the proposed model checking technique. The results of this analysis reveal that the complexity of our reduction-based procedure is PSPACE-complete for local concurrent programs with respect to the size of these programs and the length of the formula being checked. From the time perspective, we prove that the complexity of the proposed approach is P-complete with regard to the size of the model and length of the formula, which makes it efficient. Finally, we implement our model checking approach on top of extended NuSMV and report verification results for the verification of the NetBill protocol, taken from business domain, against some desirable properties. The obtained results show the effectiveness of our model checking approach when the system scales up.     

Investigation on phase shifting for a 4 K Stirling pulse tube cryocooler with He-3 as working fluid

He-3 is generally recognized for its ability to provide more excellent thermophysical performance than He-4, especially in the 4 K temperature range. However, this was not always the case in our preliminary experiments on a three-stage Stirling-type pulse tube cryocooler (SPTC). Our ongoing studies, as reported in this paper, demonstrate that the different working fluids also affect the performance through their phase shifting capability. This feature has been passed over in large part by researchers considering refrigerant substitution. Unlike previous theoretical analyses that focus primarily on regenerator losses, this report investigates the effects of the working fluid on the phase angle at the cold end in order to quantitatively reveal the relationship between the lowest attainable temperature and the cooling capacity. The analysis agrees well with our experimental results on a three-stage SPTC. While running with the operating parameters optimized for He-3, the lowest temperature of the SPTC decreased from 5.4 K down to 4.03 K. This is the lowest refrigeration temperature ever achieved with a three-stage SPTC.     

A bi-layer optimization approach for a hybrid flow shop scheduling problem involving controllable processing times in the steelmaking industry

A steelmaking-continuous casting (SCC) scheduling problem is an example of complex hybrid flow shop scheduling problem (HFSSP) with a strong industrial background. This paper investigates the SCC scheduling problem that involves controllable processing times (CPT) with multiple objectives concerning the total waiting time, earliness/tardiness and adjusting cost. The SCC scheduling problem with CPT is seldom discussed in the existing literature. This study is motivated by the practical situation of a large integrated steel company in which the just-in-time (JIT) and cost-cutting production strategy have become a significant concern. To address this complex HFSSP, the scheduling problem is decomposed into two subproblems: a parallel machine scheduling problem (PMSP) in the last stage and an HFSSP in the upstream stages. First, a hybrid differential evolution (HDE) algorithm combined with a variable neighborhood decomposition search (VNDS) is proposed for the former subproblem. Second, an iterative backward list scheduling (IBLS) algorithm is presented to solve the latter subproblem. The effectiveness of this bi-layer optimization approach is verified by computational experiments on well-designed and real-world scheduling instances. This study provides a new perspective on modeling and solving practical SCC scheduling problems.     

Prediction of methane adsorption content in continental coal-bearing shale reservoir using SLD model

Shale gas, as an important unconventional resource, has drawn global attention. It is mainly composed of adsorption gas and free gas. Adsorption gas content could play an important guiding role on both the selection of favorable perspective area and the exploration and exploitation of shale gas resources. In order to accurately measure adsorption gas content, a new approach was established to predict the adsorption isotherm of methane on shale. Based on the simplified local-density (SLD) method, both the adsorption isotherms of illite, illite/smectite mixed-layer, cholorite and type III kerogen and the total shale rock could be well fitted. The fitting results show good coincidences with the true experimental test data, which proves the method is reasonable and dependable and the prediction results are effective and credible. In addition, the good simulation results show that the SLD parameters can reflect the pore structure characteristics and corresponding adsorption characteristics of the shale samples, which can be used for the quantitative characterization of shale pore system.     

Human mobility synthesis using matrix and tensor factorizations

Human mobility prediction is of great advantage in route planning and schedule management. However, mobility data is a high-dimensional dataset in which multi-context prediction is difficult in a single model. Mobility data can usually be expressed as a home event, a work event, a shopping event and a traveling event. Previous works have only been able to learn and predict one type of mobility event and then integrate them. As the tensor model has a strong ability to describe high-dimensional information, we propose an algorithm to predict human mobility in tensors of location context data. Using the tensor decomposition method, we extract human mobility patterns with multiple expressions and then synthesize the future mobility event based on mobility patterns. The experiment is based on real-world location data and the results show that the tensor decomposition method has the highest accuracy in terms of prediction error among the three methods. The results also prove the feasibility of our multi-context prediction model.