Weathering,water absorption,and durability of silicon,acetylated, and heat‐treated wood

In this study, two colloidal dispersions of pure amorphous silicon dioxide particles, acetylated, and heat‐treated samples were tested for a possible application as a wood protection agents. The silicon, acetylated, and heat‐treated samples were exposed to an accelerated weathering experiment, and their dimensional stability was assessed. The weathering experiment comprised cycles of 2 h UV‐light irradiation followed by water spray for 18 min. The surface changes of the weathered samples were characterized by FT‐IR spectroscopy and color measurements. According to results, the silicon treatments showed lower color changes than untreated ones. However, acetylated and heat‐treated samples provided the lowest color changes. The resistance of the silicon, acetylated, and heat‐treated wood to decay was studied by means of brown and white rot fungi in laboratory decay tests. Decay test results revealed that acetylated and heat‐treated wood samples showed better decay resistance against P. placenta and C. versicolor than silicon treatments. Samples modified with silicon were exposed in above ground standard lap‐joint test in Ultuna, Sweden. The dispersions of pure amorphous silicon dioxide impregnated in wood did not significantly influence its hygroscopic and dimensional behavior. However, the silicon treatment reduced the color changes caused by weathering. The silicon impregnated samples showed a weak fungal discoloration similar to that of chromated copper arsenate impregnated controls in above ground standard lap‐joint test. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 4506–4513, 2006     

The effect of using an exopolysaccharide‐producing culture on the physicochemical properties of low‐fat and reduced‐fat Kasar cheeses

A mixed starter culture containing exopolysaccharide (EPS)‐producing strains of Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus was combined with Lactobacillus helveticus LH301 and used in the manufacture of low‐fat and reduced‐fat Kasar cheeses. For comparison, low‐fat (C10) and reduced‐fat (C20) cheeses were made using EPS‐producing (EPS⁺) starter strain and EPS‐non‐producing (EPS^?) starter strain. The physicochemical properties of the cheeses were assessed in terms of chemical composition, texture, microstructure and microbial content over 90 days. Cheeses made with EPS‐producing culture (EPS10 and EPS20) had lower protein contents than control cheeses with 10% and 20% fat in dry basis (C10 and C20). Scanning electron microscopy images showed that using EPS‐producing culture resulted in a less compact protein matrix and sponge‐like structure in the cheese samples. In general, cheeses made using EPS‐producing culture had lower total viable counts. This could be related to the reduced survivability of EPS‐producing cells in the cheese matrix during ripening due to autolysis ability.     

A study of the local site effects on the ground response for the city of Eskişehir,Turkey

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - Local soil characteristics play a key role in determining soil-structure interaction and reliability of the superstructure behavior under...     

A new arc detection method based on fuzzy logic using S-transform for pantograph–catenary systems

pantograph–catenary system is one of the critical components used in electrical trains. It ensures the transmission of the electrical energy to the train taken from the substation that is required for electrical trains. The condition monitoring and early diagnosis for pantograph–catenary systems are very important in terms of rail transport disruption. In this study, a new method is proposed for arc detection in the pantograph–catenary system based signal processing and S-transform. Arc detection and condition monitoring were achieved by using current signals received from a real pantograph–catenary system. Firstly, model based current data for pantograph–catenary system is obtained from Mayr arc model. The method with S-transform is developed by using this current data. Noises on the current signal are eliminated by applying a low pass filter to the current signal. The peak values of the noiseless signals are determined by taking absolute values of these signals in a certain frequency range. After the data of the peak points has been normalized, a new signal will be obtained by combining these points via a linear interpolation method. The frequency-time analysis was realized by applying S-transform on the signal obtained from peak values. Feature extraction that obtained by S-matrix was used in the fuzzy system. The current signal is detected the contdition as healthy or faulty by using the outputs of the fuzzy system. Furthermore the real-time processing of the proposed method is examined by applying to the current signal received from a locomotive.     

Stress analysis of adhesively bonded double strap joints with or without intermediate part subjected to tensile loading

Accidents in the industry, especially in the field of aerospace, are quite common. Damages like tears cracks and holes occur especially when small sand particles present in the airfield collide with the body and wings of an airplane during takeoff and landing. This torn, cracked, or pierced region should be repaired gently. Damaged parts are frequently small regions for which repair is more suitable than complete replacement as workmanship; cost and time are an important concept in today’s world.

A gap occurs between the patches if double-bonded patches are used in the repair of the damaged parts. In this study, the region between patches in a joint with and without intermediate parts was modeled and its effect on strength was examined numerically and experimentally. The effects of patch thickness, overlap length, adherent thickness, and gap length on the strength of the joints with and without intermediate part was compared. The results show that the intermediate part does not have any influence on the strength of the lap joint such that double strap joints without intermediate part have higher failure load. Additionally, it is seen that the failure load decreased with increasing patch thickness and increased with the thickness of the adherent.     

Antimicrobial poly(N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone‐alt‐maleic anhydride)/poly(ethylene imine) macrocomplexes

The antimicrobial polymer/polymer macrocomplexes were synthesized by radical alternating copolymerization of N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone with maleic anhydride [poly(VP‐alt‐MA)] with 2,2′‐azobis‐isobutyronitrile as an initiator at 65°C in dioxane solutions under nitrogen atmosphere, and interaction of prepared copolymer with poly(ethylene imine) (PEI) in aqueous solutions. The susceptibility of some Gram‐negative (Salmonella enteritidis and Escherichia coli) and Gram‐positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Listeria monocytogenes) bacteria to the alternating copolymer and its PEI macrocomplexes with different compositions in microbiological medium was studied using pour‐plate technique. All the studied polymers, containing biologically active moieties in the form of ionized cyclic amide, and macrobranched aliphatic amine groups and acid/amine complexed fragments, were more effective against L. monocytogenes than those for Gram‐positive S. aureus bacterium. This fact was explained by different surface layer structural architectures of biomacromolecules of tested bacteria. The resulting polymeric antimicrobial materials are expected to be used in various areas of medicine and food industry. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102:5841–5847, 2006     

A flexible and scalable audio information retrieval system for mixed‐type audio signals

The content‐based classification and retrieval of real‐world audio clips is one of the challenging tasks in multimedia information retrieval. Although the problem has been well studied in the last two decades, most of the current retrieval systems cannot provide flexible querying of audio clips due to the mixed‐type form (e.g., speech over music and speech over environmental sound) of audio information in real world. We present here a complete, scalable, and extensible content‐based classification and retrieval system for mixed‐type audio clips. The system gives users an opportunity for flexible querying of audio data semantically by providing four alternative ways, namely, querying by mixed‐type audio classes, querying by domain‐based fuzzy classes, querying by temporal information and temporal relationships, and querying by example (QBE). In order to reduce the retrieval time, a hash‐based indexing technique is introduced. Two kinds of experiments were conducted on the audio tracks of the TRECVID news broadcasts to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The results obtained from our experiments demonstrate that the Audio Spectrum Flatness feature in MPEG‐7 standard performs better in music audio samples compared to other kinds of audio samples and the system is robust under different conditions. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.