Mlcrolasers based on silica microspheres

Light can be confined efficiently in the high-Q, small-volume whispering-gallery-modes observed in silica microspheres. By coupling these microspheres to eroded optical fibers and fiber tips, direct mapping of the whispering-gallery modes has been achieved and the mode numbers have been assessed. The properties of these modes have allowed us to obtain laser action with very low thresholds in Nd-doped silica microspheres. Further projects in the field of non-linear optics and cavity quantum electrodynamics are described.     

An Optimal Solution for Test Case Generation Using ROBDD Graph and PSO Algorithm

Software testing is one of the most important techniques to examine the behavior of the software products to assure their quality. An effective and efficient testing approach must balance two important but conflicting requirements. One of them is the accuracy that needs a large number of test cases for testing, and the second one is reducing the time and cost, which requires a few test cases. Even for small software, the number of possible test cases is typically very large, and exhaustive testing is impractical. Hence, selecting appropriate test suite is necessary. Cause–effect graph testing is a common black‐box testing technique, which is equivalently representing Boolean relations between input parameters. However, the other traditional black‐box strategies cannot identify the relations that it may result in loss of some of the important test cases. Although the cause–effect graph is regarded very promising in specification testing, it is observed that most of the proposed approaches using the graph are complex or generate impossible and a large number of test cases. This observation has motivated our research to propose an efficient strategy to generate minimal test suite that simultaneously achieves high coverage of input parameters. To do so, at first, we identify major effects from the cause–effect graph using reduced ordered binary decision diagram (ROBDD). ROBDD makes the related Boolean expression of the graph concise and obtains a unique representation of the expression. Using the ROBDD, it is possible to reduce the size of the generated test suite and to perform testing faster. After that, our proposed method utilizes particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to select the optimal test suite, which covers all pairwise combinations of input parameters. The experimental results show that our approach simultaneously achieves high efficacy and reduces cost of testing by selecting appropriate test cases, respectively, to both test size and coverage size. Also, it outperforms some existing state‐of‐the‐art strategies in the black‐box testing. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Soluble soybean polysaccharide/TiO2 nanocomposites: Biological activity,release behavior,biodegradability, and biosafety

This study aimed to produce and characterize eco-friendly SSPS nanocomposites incorporated with various concentrations of TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) (1%, 3%, and 7%). The antimicrobial activity of the nanocomposite films against five strains of pathogenic bacteria was examined. Salmonella typhi PTCC 1609 was the most sensitive species to TiO₂ NPs at concentrations equal to the synthetic antibiotic. The migration of TiO₂ to ethanol and acetic acid, as two food simulants increased when the initial nano-TiO₂ content increased. The release profiles for TiO₂ in two simulants of ethanol and acetic acid indicated a non-Fickian release, and the release kinetics were concentration-dependent. SSPS/TiO₂ nanocomposites degraded easily and thus have the potential to be applied as an eco-friendly packaging system. Oral administration of doses of 1, 12.5, 25, 50, and 75 mg/kg TiO₂ revealed that the dose of 50 and 75 mg/kg increased malondialdehyde (p < .001) concentration in the liver tissue. In addition, it decreased glutathione (p < .001) concentration in the liver tissue.     

A new hybrid control technique for operation of DC microgrid under islanded operating mode

This study proposes a novel combined primary and secondary control approach for direct current microgrids, specifically in islanded mode. In primary control, this approach establishes an appropriate load power sharing between the distributed energy resources based on their rated power. Simultaneously, it considers the load voltage deviation and provides satisfactory voltage regulation in the secondary control loop. The proposed primary control is based on an efficient droop mechanism that only deploys the local variable measurements, so as to overcome the side effects caused by communication delays. In the case of secondary control, two different methods are devised. In the first, low bandwidth communication links are used to establish the minimum required data transfer between the converters. The effect of communication delay is further explored. The second method excludes any communication link and only uses local variables. Accordingly, a self-sufficient control loop is devised without any communication requirement. The proposed control notions are investigated in MATLAB/Simulink platform to highlight system performance. The results demonstrate that both proposed approaches can effectively compensate for the voltage deviation due to the primary control task. Detailed comparisons of the two methods are also provided.     

A NEW AGENT MATCHING SCHEME USING AN ORDERED FUZZY SIMILARITY MEASURE AND GAME THEORY

In this paper, an agent matching method for bilateral contracts in a multi-agent market is proposed. Each agent has a hierarchical representation of its trading commodity attributes by a tree structure of fuzzy attributes. Using this structure, the similarity between the trees of each pair of buyer and seller is computed using a new ordered fuzzy similarity algorithm. Then, using the concept of Stackelberg equilibrium in a leader–follower game, matchmaking is performed among the sellers and buyers. The fuzzy similarities of each agent with others in its personal viewpoint have been used as its payoffs in a bimatrix game. Through a case study for bilateral contracts of energy, the capabilities of the proposed agent-based system are illustrated.     

Photocatalytic desulfurization of dibenzothiophene by NiCo2O4 nanospinel obtained by an oxidative precipitation process modeling and optimization

This paper reports for the first time, synthesis of NiCo₂O₄ nano spinel by green oxidative precipitation and its performance in photocatalytic desulfurization of dibenzothiophene (DBT) from gas oil model at different process conditions under visible light. The as-produced nanostructure was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, UV–VIS diffuse reflective spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy. The experiments for the study of different photocatalytic conditions were designed by response surface methodology and a second-order regression model was developed with a determination coefficient (R²) of 0.9769. Pareto analysis predicted that the relative importance of process factors for DBT removal is as follows: irradiation time?>?reaction temperature?>?photocatalyst dosage?>?DBT concentration. The promising results for DBT removal were concluded by photo desulfurization over the nano spinel. The study confirmed that nano spinels could be an alternative and cheap photocatalyst for desulfurization from the oil products.     

Control of three phase PWM rectifier using virtual flux‐based predictive direct power control and SVM under harmonic conditions

In this paper, a new predictive direct power control algorithm to control the PWM rectifier based on virtual flux (VF) is presented. In this algorithm, supply network and the line inductances are assumed as an induction machine and so virtual flux space vectors are assumed corresponding with the space vector of the network voltages. Instantaneous active and reactive powers and finally convertor average voltage in both stationary and rotating reference frames are calculated by the virtual flux space vector components. The main advantages of the proposed method are low total harmonic distortion of the input current and low ripple in the instantaneous active and reactive powers and direct current‐bus voltage under harmonic distorted condition of the supply voltage in comparison with voltage‐based predictive direct power control (V‐PDPC) method. Proposed VF‐PDPC method with space vector modulation switching strategy was tested in simulations and compared with the V‐PDPC method. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An extended compromise ratio method for fuzzy group multi-attribute decision making with SWOT analysis

The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is a well-known multi-attribute decision making (MADM) method that is used to identify the most attractive alternative solution among a finite set of alternatives based on the simultaneous minimization of the distance from an ideal solution (IS) and the maximization of the distance from the nadir solution (NS). We propose an alternative compromise ratio method (CRM) using an efficient and powerful distance measure for solving the group MADM problems. In the proposed CRM, similar to TOPSIS, the chosen alternative should be simultaneously as close as possible to the IS and as far away as possible from the NS. The conventional MADM problems require well-defined and precise data; however, the values associated with the parameters in the real-world are often imprecise, vague, uncertain or incomplete. Fuzzy sets provide a powerful tool for dealing with the ambiguous data. We capture the decision makers’ (DMs’) judgments with linguistic variables and represent their importance weights with fuzzy sets. The fuzzy group MADM (FGMADM) method proposed in this study improves the usability of the CRM. We integrate the FGMADM method into a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis framework to show the applicability of the proposed method in a solar panel manufacturing firm in Canada.