A network view of business systems

In this paper, we present a novel business network construction approach, where the nodes of the network correspond to the names of the companies in a particular stock market index, and its links show the co-occurrence of two company names in daily news. Our approach consists of two phases, in which search for the company names in the news articles and network construction operations are performed, respectively. To increase the quality of results, each article is classified as business news or not business news before these operations, and only the articles that are classified as business news are considered for network construction. The resulting network presents a visualization of the business events and company relationships during the corresponding time period. We study both co-occurrences as well as single occurrences of company names in the articles scanned in our analysis.     

Surface analysis and adsorption behavior of caffeine as an environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor at the copper/aqueous chloride solution interface

Abstract

Corrosion inhibitors based on environmentally friendly and harmless products are currently being studied and developed. The corrosion inhibition properties of caffeine (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) on copper corrosion in aqueous chloride solution (3.5?wt.% NaCl) are analysed here using stationary and transient electrochemical methods, and a theoretical study based on density functional theory is carried out. Caffeine is a very competitive compared to the chemical inhibitors that are often used for copper protection. Electrochemical and impedance experiments reveal that the protective efficiency of caffeine reaches a value of 96% at a concentration of 10^?2?mol L^?1. Based on these results, the Langmuir model appears to be the best representation of the adsorption of caffeine onto the copper surface. Scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to determine the surface morphology and the chemical composition of the copper surface in chloride media, in the absence and presence of caffeine. The results show the development of a mechanism of corrosion inhibition. In order to confirm the correlation between the inhibitory effect and the molecular structure of caffeine, quantum chemical parameters are used to calculate its electronic properties.     

AHP and multichoice goal programming integration for course planning

Course planning is one of the important problems in the education systems of universities. The processes cannot continue efficiently without planning, and various interruptions can appear in the system. This way decisions concerning which courses, when, how, and for what purposes should be answered by considering the available resources and stakeholders’ preferences. Besides, universities aiming to be in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) have to adapt their systems to the Bologna process in order to create a lifelong student‐centered, learning‐oriented area based on quality assurance. In this study, an integrated approach based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and multichoice goal programming (MCGP) model was proposed to construct an efficient course plan following the Bologna process. The proposed approach was applied in an industrial engineering department.     

Electrochemical synthesis of polyindole on 304-stainless steel in LiClO4–acetonitrile solution and its corrosion performance

The use of electrochemically synthesized polyindole (PIN) film was investigated for protective coating on 304-stainless steel (SS). Polyindole was deposited via anodic oxidation of the corresponding monomer, indole in acetonitrile (ACN) solution containing LiClO₄. It provided an adherent and stable coating on SS. The corrosion performance of coated and uncoated SS was investigated in 3.5% NaCl solution using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), anodic polarization curves and open-circuit potential–time (E_ocp–t) diagrams. These tests demonstrated that PIN coating provided important barrier effect to SS for important immersion times in aggressive medium.     

Structural,thermal, and mechanical properties of silanized boron carbide doped epoxy nanocomposites

In the presented study, the structural, thermal, and mechanical properties of the nanocomposites were investigated by doping silanized hexagonal boron carbide (h-B₄C) nanoparticles in varying proportions (0.5%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%) into the epoxy resin by weight. For this purpose, the surfaces of h-B₄C nanoparticles were silanized by using 3-(glycidyloxypropyl) trimethoxysilane (GPS) to improve adhesion between h-B₄C nanoparticles and epoxy matrix. Then, the silanized nanoparticles were added to the resin by ultrasonication and mechanical stirring techniques to produce nanocomposites. The bond structure differences of silanized B₄C nanoparticles (s-B₄C) and nanoparticle doped composites were investigated by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) technique was used to examine the distribution of nanoparticles in the modified nanocomposites. Differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis techniques were used to determine the thermal properties of the neat and s-B₄C doped nanocomposites. The tensile test and dynamic mechanical analysis were performed to determine the mechanical properties. When the experimental results were examined, changes in the bonding structure of the s-B₄C nanoparticles doped nanocomposites and significant improvements in the mechanical and thermal properties were observed. The optimum doping ratio was determined as 2% by weight. At this doping ratio, the T_g, tensile strength and storage modulus increased approximately 18%, 35%, and 44% compared to the neat composite, respectively.     

Graphene oxide-containing isocyanate-based polyimide foams: Enhanced thermal stability and flame retardancy

Isocyanate-based graphene oxide-containing polyimide foams were synthesized by a semi-prepolymer method. In this method, while the first solution containing pre-polymer was derived from pyromellitic dianhydride and excess polymethylene polyphenylene isocyanate (PM200), the second solution contains dianhydride derivatives, water, catalysts, surfactants, and graphene oxide. PIFs were prepared with 0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1% graphene oxide by weight, respectively. PIFs exhibited a minimum side reaction and urea generation was not seen for all PIFs instead of imide bonding. The addition of graphene oxide (GO) leads to a more close-packed structure. Therefore, crosslinking density and thermal stability of graphene oxide-containing polyimide foams increased. Upon the addition of 1% GO, almost seven times higher compression strength was obtained compared to neat PIFs. Also, LOI values supported the theory that thermally stable and flame retardant PIFs can be synthesized via the isocyanate-based process with GO.     

Chemical,thermal, and mechanical properties and ultraviolet transmittance of novel nano-hydroxyapatite/polyethylene terephthalate milk bottles

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)/nano-hydroxyapatite (nHAp) composite granules were obtained using twin-screw extruder. Preforms were prepared by injection molding and then PET/nHAp bottles were produced by blow molding. For PET bottles with nHAp, the migration amounts of carboxylic acid (COOH), acetaldehyde (AA), diethylene glycol (DEG), and isophthalic acid (IPA); glass transition temperature (T_g); melting temperature (T_m); and the maximum crystallization temperature (T_cry) were measured. The load-carrying capacity, burst strength, stress cracking, and regional material distribution tests were carried out on the bottles. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and ultraviolet transmittance analyses were conducted to explain the changes in mechanical, chemical, physical properties, and light transmission of bottles. It was found out that the COOH amount increased and the AA content decreased with increasing nHAp amount. On the other hand, no change was observed in the amounts of DEG and IPA. Although the mechanical properties such as load-carrying capacity and burst strength of the bottles have improved, it has been determined that the standard environmental stress crack resistance test procedure cannot be applied to such a composite. Experimental findings indicate that nHAp disrupts the chemical structure of PET and it isolates harmful chemicals such as AA by forming intermolecular bonds. Moreover, with the addition of up to 0.8% nHAp, PET bottles block the light transmission approximately 80% within 400–700 nm wave length zone. The study demonstrates that the PET/nHAp composite bottles can be used in the food industry, particularly in the packaging of milk and milk products which are vulnerable to light exposure.     

The current–voltage and capacitance–voltage characteristics of molecularly modified β-carotene/n-type Si junction structure with fluorescein sodium salt

β-Carotene–FSS organic semiconductor/n-type Si structure has been characterized by current–voltage and capacitance–voltage methods. A deviation in I–V characteristic of the diode is observed due to effect of series resistance and interfacial layer. Cheung's functions were used to calculate diode parameters. The ideality factor, series resistance and barrier height values of the diode are n = 1.77, R_s = 10.32 (10.39) kΩ and 0.78 eV. The obtained ideality factor suggests that Au/β-carotene–FSS/n-Si Schottky diode has a metal–SiO₂ oxide layer plus organic layer–semiconductor (MIOS) configuration. The capacitance–voltage characterizations of Au/β-carotene–FSS/n-Si diode at different temperatures were performed. The capacitance of the diode changes with temperature. The barrier height and ideality factor obtained from C–V curves are 0.67 eV and 1.68. The interface density properties of the diode are analyzed and the shape of the density distribution of the interface states is in the range of E_c −0.49 to −0.62 eV. It is evaluated that the FSS organic layer controls electrical charge transport properties of Au/β-carotene/n-Si diode by excluding effects of the β-carotene and SiO₂ residual oxides on the hybrid diode.     

Perceptually enhanced blind single-channel music source separation by Non-negative Matrix Factorization

We propose a new approach that improves perceptual quality of the separated sources in blind single-channel musical source separation. It uses the advantages of subspace learning based on Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) in which the bases represent the notes. The cost function is formulated in the form of weighted β-divergence by adopting the PEAQ auditory model defined in ITU-R BS.1387 into the source separation. The proposed perceptually weighted factorization scheme is integrated into the Non-negative Matrix Factor 2-D Deconvolution (NMF2D) and Clustered Non-negative Matrix Factorization (CNMF) to overcome the source clustering problem encountered in under-determined source separation. It is shown that the introduced perceptually weighted NMF schemes, named as PW-NMF2D and PW-CNMF, efficiently learn the bases that enable us to apply a simple resynthesis of the musical sources based on the temporal model stored in the encoding matrix. Source separation performance has been reported on musical mixtures where 1–2 dB improvement is achieved in terms of SDR, SIR and SAR compared to the state-of-the-art methods. Performance has also been evaluated by perceptual measures resulting an improvement of 2–5 in OPS, TPS, IPS and APS values.