High resolution spherical microwave holography

A practical technique is developed to determine the electric and/or magnetic field on objects and sources inside a spherical measurement surface. The technique, known as spherical microwave holography (SMH), provides a nondestructive, nonintrusive method of point-by-point evaluation of antennas and radomes over their spatial extent. The resolution capability of SMH is developed and demonstrated by measurements. Resolution in SMH is only limited by the measurement system's capabilities. Dielectric and metallic obstacles on the surface of a radome are located and identified. Resolution as small as 0.33λ₀ is demonstrated     

Turbulence damping above the cloud height in suspensions of concentrated slurries in stirred tanks

Poor mixing in the clear liquid layer above the cloud height has been reported by several authors. This study uses LDV measurements to quantify turbulence above the cloud using a liquid level of 1.5 T to remove the barrier of a free surface at H = T. A D = T/3, down-pumping PBT was used at an off-bottom clearance of C = T/3. Three slurries were tested at impeller speeds 0.8, 1, and 1.2N_js. The change in turbulence was quantified using the normalized root mean square (RMS) of the fluctuating velocity summed and averaged over each radial traverse. A significant difference between the fluctuating values of the cloud height—minimum, average, and maximum—was observed. The turbulence decays until the maximum cloud height. Beyond that, it remains constant and near zero. The effects of both particle size and solids concentration prove to be important.     

Investigation of Magnetic Properties of Phase Transformations in Copper-Based Alloys

In this study, the magnetic properties of both Cu_85.41Al_9.97Mn_4.62 and Cu_82.41Mn_13.81Al_3.78 (wt%) shape memory alloys were studied. The analysis of the magnetization as a function of applied field and temperature was conducted between ?10 to 10 T magnetic field ranges at constant temperature. Two alloys were examined using ac magnetic susceptibility measurements. The magnetic saturation values at room temperature were found to be approximately 1 and 70 emu/g for Cu_85.41Al_9.97Mn_4.62 (wt%) and Cu_82.41Mn_13.81Al_3.78 (wt%) alloys, respectively. The magnetic saturation and the coercivity values for the CuAlMn alloy are found smaller than those for the CuMnAl alloy. Moreover, from the magnetization curves, the typical ferromagnetic behavior were observed for both alloys. Details of the morphological properties and chemical composition have been examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), respectively.     

Effects of Recycling on the Mechanical Behavior of Polypropylene at Room Temperature Through Statistical Analysis Method

This article reports the effects of recycled material percentage, annealing conditions, and glass fiber percentage on the mechanical behavior of injection molded polypropylene samples. Specimens were prepared with different percentages of recycled material ranging from 0 to 100%. Two groups of samples, i.e., non‐annealed and annealed at 150°C, were tested to investigate annealing effects. The effects of adding fiber (0–7.5%) to specimens was also investigated. It was found that increasing the amount of recycled material improves the material properties in a non‐linear trend. Annealing had a significant positive effect on both non‐fiber‐added and fiber‐added samples: it improved the yield stress of non‐reinforced polypropylene samples by more than 10% and their Young's modulus by about 50%. Fiber‐added materials showed more variability, and adding fiber also improved the Young's modulus and the yield stress of the samples by about 50%. The results indicate that the three factors investigated improved toughness of the injected polypropylene samples; however the effects are not significant. The study findings reveal that using recycled polypropylene has no significant effect on the material properties of polypropylene. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 56:1283–1290, 2016 © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Studies on removal of metribuzin, bromacil, 2,4-D and atrazine from water by adsorption on high area carbon cloth

The removal of pesticides such as metribuzin, bromacil, 2,4-d and atrazine from aqueous solutions was studied by adsorption on high area carbon cloth. The adsorption process was followed by in situ UV-spectrophotometric technique in a specially designed adsorption cell. Spectroscopic data of the pesticides were determined in separate experiments. The extent of adsorption was quantified by calculating the amount of adsorbate adsorbed per unit area of the carbon cloth and the percentage coverage at the carbon-cloth surface. The order of extent of adsorption of the pesticides studied was found as metribuzin < 2,4-D < bromacil < atrazine. The adsorption process was found to follow a first-order kinetics and the rate constants were determined. The competitive adsorption of pesticides was also examined by carrying out the adsorption process from a solution of equimolar mixture of bromacil and metribuzin.     

Determination of important biochemical properties of honey to discriminate pure and adulterated honey with sucrose (Saccharum officinarum L.) syrup

The aims of the present study were to determine biochemical properties of honey samples and to discriminate pure and adulterated honey produced by the standard bee feeding method (control honey), the shaking method (pure blossom honey), and overfeeding (100 kg/colony syrup) with sucrose syrup (adulterated honey). The biochemical properties evaluated were moisture, ash, acidity, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), specific sugars (i.e. fructose, glucose, fructose–glucose, sucrose, and maltose), diastase activity, δ¹³C value (honey), δ¹³C value (protein), electrical conductivity, potassium, vitamin C, and proline. Fifteen honey samples were analyzed by discriminant analysis stepwise method. Proline, electrical conductivity and sucrose were found as discriminative characters of samples. Based on these three properties 100% of original group cases (samples) correctly classified in their real group. We found that the honey produced by feeding with 100 kg sucrose syrup per colony contained the sucrose as low as pure blossom honey. Therefore, the sugar (sucrose, fructose and glucose) content of honey cannot be used to distinguish between adulterated (sucrose syrup) and pure blossom honey.     

Quantification of Market Performance as a Function of System Security

The tight coupling between market and system operations in the restructured environment requires a thorough understanding of the interdependence between the market performance and the way the power systems are operated. In particular, we need to go beyond the qualitative characterization and to quantify the dependence of the market performance on the system security. Such studies are typically not performed in today's regional transmission organization, or RTO, structures. In this paper, we develop a general approach to quantify the monetary impacts of complying with a specified security criterion when the deployment of appropriate preventive and/or corrective security control actions is fully taken into account. This approach is deployed in the day-ahead electricity markets and is based on the emulation of the way the RTO currently operates the market and the grid, the latter in compliance with the security criterion. The proposed approach has a wide range of applications such as comparative market performance assessments of different security criteria and the cost/benefit analysis of network improvements to mitigate the market performance impacts of a set of specified contingencies. We illustrate the application of the proposed approach on the large-scale ISO-NE system to quantify the monetary impacts associated with changing from the current security criterion to two other criteria using the actual 2005 day-ahead data-the historical system model and the bids/offers submitted-with the actual market clearing methodology. These studies capture, in a meaningful way, the impacts of the changes with respect to the current security criterion. An important finding of this study is that the economic efficiency of electricity markets need not decrease when the system is operated under a stricter criterion.     

Antenatal fetal risk assessment using a neurofuzzy technique

This study defines an intelligent neurofuzzy system for antepartum fetal evaluation, The task is to investigate the Doppler ultrasound measurements of the umbilical artery (UA) and the cerebral artery (CA) to relate the health conditions of fetuses. We thus use the UA blood flow velocity waveforms [pulsality index, resistance index, and systolic/diastolic ratio] and the ratios of cerebral-umbilical resistance indices in terms of weeks. We then make a decision on the basis of a fuzzy-rule-based system combined with data-based learning strategies such as a radial basis function network and a multilayer perceptron for assessing the hypoxia suspicion. A fuzzy grade of membership is used for the evaluation of the seriousness of the situation of the fetus, and the diagnostic interpretations for doctors such as good, suspicious, and alarming conditions of fetus are derived     

Antenatal fetal risk assessment by blood-flow velocity waveforms

The purpose of this article is to study a system for antepartum fetal evaluation. The task is to investigate the Doppler ultrasound measurements of the umbilical artery and the cerebral artery to relate the health status of a fetus by using discriminant functions of pattern recognition. The authors then analyze the individual effects of various blood-flow velocity waveforms using principal component analysis.