Functional phase grading of ζ-Ta4C3-x: Kinetics and properties

Phase-graded carbides that exhibit high hardness and corrosion resistance on the surface and high fracture toughness in the bulk are useful in severe wear applications. A method for producing hard γ-TaC_y layer on the surface of a tough ζ-Ta₄C_3-x substrate by carburization is described in this study. The γ-TaC_y layer exhibited parabolic growth kinetics in the temperature and gas-flow regimes investigated in this study. Analyses of the rate constants using a model of mass transport through two phases in equilibrium at the interface indicated diffusion of carbon through the product layer was the rate-controlling step with diffusivities (1-5 × 10⁻¹⁵ m²/s in the 1623-1773K range) and enthalpy (213-217 kJ/mol) matching those for carbon diffusion in γ-TaC_y. Nanohardness of the transformed γ-TaC_y layer increased as a function of distance from the carburized surface, with a maximum hardness occurring near the γ/ζ interface. Measurements of lattice parameters at different depths in the γ-TaC_y layer indicated that the hardness increase with depth was related to the increasing carbon deficiency of the γ-TaC_y phase through the thickness.     

Multi-resolution approach to human activity recognition in video sequence based on combination of complex wavelet transform,Local Binary Pattern and Zernike moment

Human activity recognition is a challenging problem of computer vision and it has different emerging applications. The task of recognizing human activities from video sequence exhibits more challenges because of its highly variable nature and requirement of real time processing of data. This paper proposes a combination of features in a multiresolution framework for human activity recognition. We exploit multiresolution analysis through Daubechies complex wavelet transform (DCxWT). We combine Local binary pattern (LBP) with Zernike moment (ZM) at multiple resolutions of Daubechies complex wavelet decomposition. First, LBP coefficients of DCxWT coefficients of image frames are computed to extract texture features of image, then ZM of these LBP coefficients are computed to extract the shape feature from texture feature for construction of final feature vector. The Multi-class support vector machine classifier is used for classifying the recognized human activities. The proposed method has been tested on various standard publicly available datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method works well for multiview human activities as well as performs better than some of the other state-of-the-art methods in terms of different quantitative performance measures.

     

Brain tumor detection and segmentation using mesh-free super-diffusive model

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Brain tumor detection and segmentation is a complex and challenging task in image processing. Most of the techniques used for brain tumor detection and...     

Comparative Study of Electrodeposited Zn and Zn–Ni Alloy Coatings for Improved Corrosion Protection in Chloride Medium

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - The anti-corrosive Zn and Zn–Ni alloy coatings were electrodeposited on different copper substrates using an optimized sulphate...     

Attitudinal choice models with applications in human decision making

A new family of attitudinal discrete choice models is proposed by considering the attitudinal character and the weight vector, both of which are specific to a decision maker (DM). Given the attribute values of different alternatives, the proposed models give varying choice probabilities, as per the DM's-specific attitudinal character and the weight vector. It is also shown that the conventional discrete choice models are the special cases of the proposed attitudinal models. The proposed choice models are also generalized through an additional parameter to add to their capabilities. An application on real data is included to demonstrate their usefulness in the real world.     

3D multi-material and multi-joint topology optimization with tooling accessibility constraints

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - This paper proposes a method for performing both multi-material topology optimization and multi-joint topology optimization. The algorithm can...     

Synergetic effects of organic and inorganic additives on improvement in hydrophilicity and performance of PVDF antifouling ultrafiltration membrane for removal of natural organic material from water

Surrounding vegetation, animal, human and microbiological decomposition are the strong source of humic acid (HA) falling into the surface water bodies through rain runoff in the monsoon. HA contains various functional groups, such as carboxylic, phenolic, hydroxyl, and quinine, which are the major foulant. Contact of HA may have an adversarial health issue to human beings namely goiter, black foot, and cancer disease. The maximum permissible limit of HA in drinking water should be less than 2 ppm as per the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The membrane technology has prevailed a prominent place worldwide in chemical, water and wastewater treatment technologies. The proposed work is focused on the blending of organic-water soluble polymer polyethylene glycol 6000 as a pore-forming agent and inorganic salt lithium bromide (LiBr) as membrane morphology modifier with polyvinylidene fluoride host polymer in the N,N-Dimethylacetamide solvent. All fabricated membranes were characterized for functional groups and morphology. The total number of pores per unit surface area of membrane for membranes M-LiBr-0, M-LiBr-1, M-LiBr-2, and M-LiBr-3 are 2 × 10¹³, 2.3 × 10¹⁴, 2.7 × 10¹⁴ and 2.82 × 10¹⁴, respectively. The static water contact angle was decreased from 68.2° to 50.6° with an increase in the content of LiBr from 0 to 3 wt%. The order of pure water flux and hydraulic permeability of the membrane was M-LiBr-0 < M-LiBr-1 < M-LiBr-2 < M-LiBr-3. The HA rejection of the membrane was also increased from 90.13% to 96.24% with LiBr content due to a decrease in pore size of the membrane with the addition of LiBr content.     

Generalized attitudinal Choquet integral

Attitudinal Choquet integral (ACI) extends Choquet integral (CI) through a consideration of a decision-maker's (DM's) attitudinal character. In this paper, we generalize ACI, and the resulting operator is termed as generalized ACI (GACI). GACI adds to the efficacy of the ACI in the representation of a DM's unique and complex attitudinal character. It also generates a vast range of exponential ACI operators, such as harmonic ACI, ACI, quadratic ACI, to name a few. We further present induced GACI to consider additional information that may be associated with the arguments of aggregation. The special cases of the proposed operators are investigated. The usefulness of the proposed operators in modelling human decision behavior is shown through a case study.