On-Line Learning Failure-Tolerant Neural-Aided Controller for Earthquake Excited Structures

This paper presents an on-line learning failure-tolerant neural controller capable of controlling buildings subjected to severe earthquake ground motions. In the proposed scheme the neural controller aids a conventional H∞ controller designed to reduce the response of buildings under earthquake excitations. The conventional H∞ controller is designed to reduce the structural responses for a suite of severe earthquake excitations using specially designed frequency domain weighting filters. The neural controller uses a sequential learning radial basis function neural network architecture called extended minimal resource allocating network. The parameters of the neural network are adapted on-line with no off-line training. The performance of the proposed neural-aided controller is illustrated using simulation studies for a two degree of freedom structure equipped with one actuator on each floor. Results are presented for the cases of no failure and failure of the actuator on each of the two floors under several earthquake excitations. The study indicates that the performance of the proposed neural-aided controller is superior to that of the H∞ controller under no actuator failure conditions. In the presence of actuator failures, the performance of the primary H∞ controller degrades considerably, since actuator failures have not been considered for the design. Under these circumstances, the neural-aided controller is capable of controlling the acceleration and displacement structural responses. In many cases, using the neural-aided controller, the response magnitudes under failure conditions are comparable to the performance of the H∞ controller under no-failure conditions.     

Experimental studies on the thermal performance of a parabolic dish solar receiver with the heat transfer fluids SiC + water nano fluid and water

An experimental investigation has been carried out with aa point focusing dish reflector of 12 square meters aperture area,exposed to the average direct normal irradiations of 810 W/m2.This work focuses on enhancinge the energy and exergy efficiencies of the cavity receiver by minimizing the temperature difference between the wall and heat transfer fluids.Two heat transfer fluids Water and SiC + water nano fluid have been prepared from 50 nm particle size and 1％ of volume fraction,and experimented separately for the flow rates of 0.2 lpm to 0.6 lpm with an interval of 0.1 lpm.The enhanced thermal conductivity of nano fluid is 0.800115 W/mK with the keff/kb ratio of 1.1759 determined by using the Koo and Kleinstreuer correlation.The maximum attained energy and exergy efficiencies are 29.14％ and 24.82％ for water,and 32.91％ and 39.83％ for SiC+water nano fluid.The nano fluid exhibits enhanced energy and exergy efficiency of 12.94％ and 60.48％ than that of water at the flow rate of 0.5 lpm.The result shows that the system with SiC+Water produces higher exergy efficiency as compared to energy efficiency;in the case ofwater alone,the energy efficiency is higher than exergy efficiency.     

Surface protection of mild steel in acidic chloride solution by 5-Nitro-8-Hydroxy Quinoline

The effect of commercially available quinoline nucleus based pharmaceutically active compound 5-Nitro-8-Hydroxy Quinoline (NHQ) against the corrosion of mild steel (MS) in 1 M acidic chloride (HCl) solution was investigated by chemical (weight loss – WL) and electrochemical (Tafel polarization, Linear polarization and Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy) techniques. From all the four methods, it is inferred that the percentage of inhibition efficiency increases with increasing the inhibitor concentration from 50 to 300 ppm. The adsorption behavior of inhibitor obeyed through Langmuir isotherm model. Thermodynamic parameters were also calculated and predict that the process of inhibition is a spontaneous reaction. EIS technique exhibits one capacitive loop indicating that, the corrosion reaction is controlled by charge transfer process. Tafel polarization studies revealed that the investigated inhibitor is mixed type and the mode of adsorption is physical in nature. The surface morphologies were examined by FT-IR, SEM and EDX techniques. Theoretical quantum chemical calculations were performed to confirm the ability of NHQ to adsorb onto mild steel surface.     

Characteristics of Cast Stone cementitious waste form for immobilization of secondary wastes from vitrification process

The high-temperature in vitrification process of radioactive wastes could cause radioactive technetium (⁹⁹Tc) in secondary liquid wastes to become volatile. Solidified cementitious waste forms at low temperature were developed to immobilize radioactive secondary waste. This research focuses on the characterization of a cementitious waste form called Cast Stone. Properties including compressive strength, surface area, phase composition, and technetium leaching were measured. The results indicate that technetium diffusivity is affected by simulant type. Additionally, ettringite and AFm (Al₂O₃–Fe₂O₃–mono) main crystalline phases were formed during hydration. The Cast Stone waste form passed the qualification requirements for a secondary waste form, which are compressive strength of 3.45 MPa and technetium diffusivity of 10^?9 cm²/s. Cast Stone was found to be a good candidate for immobilizing secondary waste streams.     

OXYGEN LIMITATION IN MICROFLUIDIC BIOFUEL CELLS

Biofuel cells are devices that use biocatalysts (enzymes or microbes) to convert biochemical energy directly into electrical energy. Microfluidic biofuel cells exploit the lack of active mixing at microscale dimensions to eliminate the use of proton exchange membranes that separate anolyte and catholyte streams. Simulation of this system, by solving the governing 3-D conservation equations (flow, species transport), reveals that oxygen availability limits the performance of the cathode. An exponential decay in the availability of oxygen at the cathode is observed along the length of the microchannel, indicating that increasing the number of electrode pairs reduces the overall current density. This conclusion is consistent with experimental observations. Increasing electrolyte flow rates can reduce the mass transport limitations by decreasing the diffusion boundary-layer thickness, but disparity between the flow rates of the anolyte and catholyte can induce wastage of dissolved oxygen.     

Indium tin oxide-coated glass modified with reduced graphene oxide sheets and gold nanoparticles as disposable working electrodes for dopamine sensing in meat samples

Sensitive, rapid, and accurate detection of dopamine (DA) at low cost is needed for clinical diagnostic and therapeutic purposes as well as to prevent illegal use of DA in animal feed. We employed a simple approach to synthesize reduced graphene oxide sheets (rGOS) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) at room temperature on indium tin oxide-coated glass (ITO) slides as disposable working electrodes for sensing DA. Graphene oxide (GO) was directly reduced on ITO to remove oxygenated species via a rapid and green process without using chemical reducing reagents. AuNPs were electrochemically deposited in situ on rGOS-ITO with fairly uniform density and size. The sensitivity of the AuNPs-rGOS-ITO sensor for DA detection is 62.7 μA mM(-1) cm(-2) with good selectivity against common electrochemically interfering species such as ascorbic acid (AA) and uric acid (UA), and the detection limit measured by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), at a signal-noise ratio of 3, was 6.0 × 10(-8) M. The electrochemical catalysis of DA was proven to be a surface process with an electron transfer coefficient (α) of 0.478 and a rate constant (k(s)) of 1.456 s(-1). It correlates well with the conventional UV-vis spectrophotometric approach (R = 0.9973) but with more than thrice the dynamic range (up to 4.5 mM). The sensor also exhibited good stability and capability to detect DA in beef samples, and thus is a promising candidate for simple and inexpensive sub-nanomolar detection of DA, especially in the presence of UV-absorbing compounds.     

Urinary concentrations of benzophenone-type UV filters in U.S. women and their association with endometriosis

Benzophenone (BP)-type UV filters are widely used in a variety of personal care products for the protection of skin and hair from UV irradiation. Despite the estrogenic potencies of BP derivatives, few studies have examined the occurrence of these compounds in human matrices. Furthermore, associations among exposure to these compounds and estrogen-dependent diseases (such as endometriosis) have not been examined previously. In this study, we determined the concentrations of five BP derivatives, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone (2OH-4MeO-BP), 2,4-dihydroxybenzophenone (2,4OH-BP), 2,2'-dihydroxy-4-methoxybenzophenone (2,2'OH-4MeO-BP), 2,2',4,4'-tetrahydroxybenzophenone (2,2',4,4'OH-BP), and 4-hydroxybenzophenone (4OH-BP), in urine collected from 625 women in Utah and California, using liquid chromatography (LC)-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The association of urinary concentrations of BP derivatives with an increase in the odds of a diagnosis of endometriosis was examined in 600 women who underwent laparoscopy/laparotomy (n = 473: operative cohort) or pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (n = 127: population cohort), during 2007-2009. 2OH-4MeO-BP, 2,4OH-BP, and 4OH-BP respectively were detected in 99.0%, 93.3%, and 83.8% of the urine samples analyzed, whereas the detection rates for 2,2',4,4'OH-BP and 2,2'OH-4MeO-BP were below 6.0%. Significant regional differences (higher concentrations in California) and monthly variations (higher concentrations in July and August) were found for urinary concentrations of 2OH-4MeO-BP and 2,4OH-BP. In addition, urinary concentrations of 2OH-4MeO-BP and 2,4OH-BP tended to be higher in more affluent, older, and leaner women. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated for the urinary concentrations of BP derivatives and the odds of an endometriosis diagnosis; ORs increased across quartiles of 2OH-4MeO-BP and 2,4OH-BP concentrations, but a significant trend was observed only between 2,4OH-BP and the odds of an endometriosis diagnosis in the operative cohort (OR = 1.19; 95% CI = 1.01, 1.41). When women in the highest quartile of 2,4OH-BP concentrations were compared with women in the first three quartiles, the OR increased considerably (OR = 1.65; 95% CI = 1.07, 2.53). Given that 2,4OH-BP possesses an estrogenic activity higher than that of 2OH-4MeO-BP, our results invite the speculation that exposure to elevated 2,4OH-BP levels may be associated with endometriosis.     

Optimization of weld characteristics of friction welded AA 6061-AA 6351 joints using grey-principal component analysis (G-PCA)

Friction welding is a solid state joining process in which the quality of welded joint is influenced by the input parameter setting. The objective of the present study is to conduct experimental investigation of the bond strength and hardness of the friction welded joints involving AA 6061 and AA 6351 alloys by conducting experiments designed by Taguchi’s L⁹ orthogonal matrix array. A systematic approach becomes essential to find the optimal setting of friction welding parameters. Hence a new approach named grey-principal component analysis (G-PCA) is presented in which the principal component analysis (PCA) is used to generate weights for the grey relational coefficients obtained in the grey relational analysis (GRA). The results of the confirmation experiment conducted with the optimal setting predicted by the G-PCA have shown improvements in the performance characteristics. Hence G-PCA can be used for experimental welding optimization.