Effects and modelling of ultrasonic waste‐activated sludge disintegration

Sonication is a well‐known sludge pretreatment technique with the advantages of simple operation and high efficiency. However, it is an energy‐intensive process. Hence, it is very important to predetermine its sludge disintegration efficiency at varying pretreatment conditions in order to minimize the ultrasonic energy consumption. In this study, it was found that the ultrasonic sludge disintegration occurred in two stages: rapid and subsequent slow disintegration stages. For this reason, it was aimed to develop a simple and accurate mathematical model to describe the two‐stage sludge disintegration as a function of pretreatment conditions. Sludge concentration and ultrasonic density along with sonication period were involved in this model as independent variables. It was determined that the mathematical model can predict accurately the degree of sludge disintegration. Thus, the proposed model was seen to be very useful for evaluating the disintegration efficiency and/or for process design using the operating parameters under different conditions.     

Investigation of drag reduction performance of half NACA 0009 and 0012 airfoils placed over a trailer on the flow around truck-trailer

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The drag reduction performance of a half airfoil attached to a trailer and the roof fairing at different positions was experimentally investigated in...     

Exploiting the channel using uninterrupted collision‐free MAC adaptation over IEEE 802.11 WLANs

IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) have reached an important stage and become a common technology for wireless access due to its low cost, ease of deployment, and mobility support. In parallel with the extensive growth of WLANs, the development of an efficient medium access control protocol that provides both high throughput performance for data traffic and quality of service support for real‐time applications has become a major focus in WLAN research. The IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Functions (DCF/EDCA) provide contention‐based distributed channel access mechanisms for stations to share the wireless medium. However, performance of these mechanisms may drop dramatically because of high collision probabilities as the number of active stations increases. In this paper, we propose an adaptive collision‐free MAC adaptation. The proposed scheme prevents collisions and allows stations to enter the collision‐free state regardless of the traffic load (saturated or unsaturated) and the number of stations on the medium. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme dramatically enhances the overall throughput and supports quality of service for real‐time services over 802.11‐based WLANs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

k‐strong privacy for radio frequency identification authentication protocols based on physically unclonable functions

This paper examines Vaudenay's privacy model, which is one of the first and most complete privacy models that featured the notion of different privacy classes. We enhance this model by introducing two new generic adversary classes, k‐strong and k‐forward adversaries where the adversary is allowed to corrupt a tag at most k times. Moreover, we introduce an extended privacy definition that also covers all privacy classes of Vaudenay's model. In order to achieve highest privacy level, we study low cost primitives such as physically unclonable functions (PUFs). The common assumption of PUFs is that their physical structure is destroyed once tampered. This is an ideal assumption because the tamper resistance depends on the ability of the attacker and the quality of the PUF circuits. In this paper, we have weakened this assumption by introducing a new definition k‐resistant PUFs. k‐PUFs are tamper resistant against at most k attacks; that is, their physical structure remains still functional and correct until at most k^th physical attack. Furthermore, we prove that strong privacy can be achieved without public‐key cryptography using k PUF‐based authentication. We finally prove that our extended proposal achieves both reader authentication and k‐strong privacy. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An artificial neural network model for the prediction of critical submergence for intake in a stratified fluid medium

Density differences may occur because of temperature differentials, suspended sediments, dissolved salts or other chemicals. Most of the large surface reservoirs are stably stratified throughout most, or all, of the year. One of the means of assisting the management is to allow a selective withdrawal from the reservoir. And while an intake is used for withdrawal (from the lower layer), a maximum discharge is required not allowing the uptake of the upper layer fluids. The value of the intake's vertical distance from the upper layer elevation (submergence) when the upper layer fluids begin to be drawn into the intake is known as ‘critical submergence’. In this study, the critical submergence for a circular intake pipe in a stratified body (which has different layer thickness) is investigated. Experiments were conducted on a vertically flowing downward intake pipe in a still-water reservoir. Artificial neural network (ANN) models and formulas, which are found by the theoretical analysis of critical spherical sink surface (CSSS), are used for the analysis of experimental results. The CSSS has the same centre and discharge as the intake. The ANN model and CSSS results are compared with the experimental results.     

Comparison of the effects of different retention appliances on the oxidant–antioxidant system

The aim was to compare oxidative stress (OS) levels with different types of retention appliance. Thirty orthodontic patients were divided into three groups: Group 1 (Essix retainer), Group 2 (lingual retainer with stainless steel retainer wire), and Group 3 (lingual retainer with fiber-reinforced material). OS was assessed in the subjects’ saliva. Saliva samples were taken from the patients at T₀ (before using the retention appliance), T₁ (first month of retention), and T₂ (third month of retention). The specimens were investigated to detect changes in total antioxidant status (TAS), total oxidant status (TOS), and oxidative stress index (OSI). TAS values in Group 2 were significantly higher than in Group 3. TOS values in Group 3 were significantly lower than in the other groups. TOS values in Group 2 were lower than in Group 1. OSI values of Group 1 were higher than those in Group 2 or 3. There was no statistically significant difference among the time periods. The type of retention appliance affected OS values. A fiber-reinforced material may have a lower OSI. OS or products can affect some systemic disease; therefore, the selection of the retainer will be important on these patients.     

Effect of intracanal medicaments on the push-out bond strength of Biodentine in comparison with Bioaggregate apical plugs

To evaluate the effect of intracanal medicaments on the push-out bond strength of Biodentine in comparison with DiaRoot BioAggregate (BA) when used as apical plugs. Forty single-rooted teeth were prepared using Peeso reamers. The samples were divided into four groups. The intracanal medicaments were applied to the root canals as follows: Group1: a combination of metronidazole–ciprofloxacin–cefaclor, Group2: a combination of metronidazole–ciprofloxacin, Group3: calcium hydroxide, and Group4: no medication. After 21 days, the medicaments were removed. The apical part of each root was horizontally sectioned into 1-mm thick slices. The samples were divided into two subgroups, and the following materials were placed: Biodentine, DiaRoot-BioAggregate. After 48-h incubation, the push-out bond strength was measured. The data were analyzed by a two-way ANOVA. Biodentine showed a significantly higher mean push-out bond strength value than DiaRoot-BioAggregate (P = 0.00). The medications have an effect on the push-out bond strength of both materials (P = 0.002). Biodentine showed better adhesive performance as an apical plug than DiaRoot-BioAggregate.     

Erratum to: Evaluation of the Particle Bonding for Aluminum Sample Produced by Spark Plasma Sintering

Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance -     

Machining strategy development and parameter selection in 5-axis milling based on process simulations

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the most popular additive manufacturing technologies for fabricating prototypes with complex geometry and different materials. However, current commercial FDM machines have the limitations in process reliability and product quality. In order to overcome these limitations and increase the levels of machine intelligence and automation, machine conditions need to be monitored more closely as in closed-loop control systems. In this study, a new method for in situ monitoring of FDM machine conditions is proposed, where acoustic emission (AE) technique is applied. The proposed method allows for the identification of both normal and abnormal states of the machine conditions. The time-domain features of AE hits are used as the indicators. Support vector machines with the radial basis function kernel are applied for state identification. Experimental results show that this new method can potentially serve as a non-intrusive diagnostic and prognostic tool for FDM machine maintenance and process control.