Three tiered web-based manufacturing system—Part 1: System development

This paper provides a demonstration of harnessing the power of the Internet to enable collaborative manufacturing in such a setup where the key components such as the human resource personnel and the manufacturing equipment are geographically separated. As part of the framework a platform independent and cost-effective means of remotely operating a 3-axis computer numerical control (CNC) drilling machine securely via the Internet has been developed. In addition, an infrastructure to allow remote manufacturers to collaborate on a product design as well to monitor the drilling process in real time is presented. The framework rests on sound security foundation implemented using technologies such as firewall, authentication modules and transport layer security (TLS) protocol to promote safe usage of the drilling machine. It is worth mentioning that the architectural design is generic and modular in nature and as such, any other genre of CNC machine such as milling and turning could be substituted in place of drilling with only machine-specific changes to the existing system.     

The Impact of Social Media on Consumers’ Acculturation and Purchase Intentions

Social media has emerged as a significant and effective means of assisting and endorsing activities and communications among peers, consumers and organizations that outdo the restrictions of time and space. While the previous studies acknowledge the role of agents of culture change, it largely remains silent on the role of social media in influencing acculturation outcomes and consumption choices. This study uses self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 514 Turkish-Dutch respondents and examines how their use of social media affects their acculturation and consumption choices. This research makes a significant contribution to consumer acculturation research by showing that social media is a vital means of culture change and a driver of acculturation strategies and consumption choices. This study is the first to investigate the role of social media as an agent of culture change in terms of how it impacts acculturation and consumption. The paper discusses implications for theory development and for practice.     

Optimal Design of Level 1 Redundant Water Distribution Networks Considering Nodal Storage

A water distribution network (WDN) is designed to meet time-varying demands with sufficient pressure, taking into consideration an appropriate demand during peak hours. Therefore, a network has inherent redundancy in the sense that under abnormal conditions such as those arising due to pipe breaks or pump failures, deficiency in supply during peak hours can be met through additional supply during off-peak periods. However, this necessitates a storage facility at the consumer end of the network, which is normally available in the form of a sump or an overhead tank in developing countries. Such a storage enables the consumer to store water during the off-peak period and then use it during the peak period. Reliability of a WDN is assessed herein considering nodal storage, and an iterative method is proposed for the optimal design of Level 1 redundant WDNs, i.e., networks that can sustain a single pipe failure without affecting consumer services either in part or in full. The method is illustrated through an example and the designs of a network with and without storage are compared. Provision of a nodal storage is found to reduce the total cost of the network.     

Mode shapes and frequencies of radially symmetric vibrations of annular sandwich plates of variable thickness

An analysis and numerical results of radially symmetric vibrations of annular sandwich plates with core of linearly varying thickness are presented. The face sheets are treated as membranes of constant thickness, and the core is assumed to be solid as well as moderately thick. Due to linear thickness variation in the core, the face sheets take the shape of a truncated conical shell and because of this the face sheets membrane forces contribute to the bending and transverse shear of the core of the sandwich plate. Keeping this in view, the equations of motion for such a plate are developed by Hamilton’s energy principle. The frequency equations for three different combinations of boundary conditions, namely clamped at the inner edge and clamped or simply supported or free at the outer edge, are obtained by employing the differential quadrature method. The lowest three roots of these frequency equations have been reported as the frequencies for the first three modes of vibration. The effect of various plate parameters such as taper parameter, thickness of the core at the center, face thickness, and radii ratio on the natural frequencies has been analyzed. Three-dimensional mode shapes for a specified plate for all the three boundary conditions are illustrated. A comparison of results is presented.     

Scientometric profile of Indian agricultural research as seen through Science Citation Index Expanded

Summary An analysis of 16891 publications published by Indian scientists during 1993-2002 and indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) indicates that the publication output in the agricultural sciences is on the decline since 1998 onwards. 'Dairy and animal sciences' followed by 'veterinary sciences' constitute the largest component of the Indian agricultural research output. Agricultural universities and institutes under the aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are the major producers of research output. Most of the papers have been published in domestic journals and in low normalized impact factor journals with a low rate of citation per paper. Most of the highly productive institutions are either agricultural universities or the institutes under the aegis of ICAR. Most of the prolific authors are from the highly productive institutions. However, only a few highly cited authors are from highly productive institutions.     

Profiling the near field of a plasmonic nanoparticle with Raman-based molecular rulers

The enhanced local optical fields at the surface of illuminated metallic nanoparticles and nanostructures are of intense fundamental and technological interest. Here we report a self-consistent measurement of the spatial extent of the fringing field above a plasmonic nanoparticle surface. Bifunctional DNA-based adsorbate molecules are used as nanoscale optical rulers, providing two distinct surface enhanced Raman scattering signals that vary independently in intensity as a function of distance from the nanoparticle surface. While the measurement technique is calibrated on gold nanoshell surfaces with controlled and predictable electromagnetic nanoenvironments, this approach is broadly adaptable to a wide range of plasmonic geometries.     

Microstructural evolution during the supersolidus liquid phase sintering of nickel-based prealloyed powder mixtures

A novel concept for full-density sintering is described. Two prealloyed powders with slight compositional differences are tailored to separate the solidus temperatures into high-melt and low-melt compositions. A mixture of these two powder compositions allows full-density sintering at a temperature between the two solidus temperatures. For these experiments, the two powders were nickel-based alloys, where the low-melt powder contained boron. The mixed powders were sintered at temperatures above the solidus of the low-melt powder to form a transient liquid that promoted rapid densification of the mixture. Microstructure evolution during sintering was assisted using quenching experiments. Variables in this study included the heating rate, peak temperature, hold time, and powder ratio. Interdiffusion between the two powders controls microstructure evolution, with a dominant role associated with boron diffusion and reaction. The transient liquid phase responsible for densification is linked to boron diffusion and subsequent compound precipitation.     

A new interpretation of interferometric fringe patterns

The interferometric method of Nisida and Saito, the absolute retardation method of Post and the double-exposure holo-interferometric method of Hovanesian, Brcic and Powell are correlated and shown to give identical fringe patterns as regards intensity. Various discrepancies in Nisida and Saito's interpretation of their fringe patterns are pointed out, and the simultaneous presence and relative predominance of isochromatic and isopachic half-tones are discussed. The principles of photography and the concept of half-tones are used to explain the formation of concomitant isochromatics and isopachics and to give a new interpretation to these fringe patterns.     

COSMO-RS:An ionic liquid prescreening tool for gas hydrate mitigation

Recently ionic liquids(ILs) are introduced as novel dual function gas hydrate inhibitors. However, no desired gas hydrate inhibition has been reported due to poor IL selection and/or tuning method. Trial error as well as selection based on existing literature are the methods currently employed for selecting and/or tuning ILs. These methods are probabilistic, time consuming, expensive and may not result in selecting high performance ILs for gas hydrate mitigation. In this work, COSMO-RS is considered as a prescreening tool of ILs for gas hydrate mitigation by predicting the hydrogen bonding energies(E_(HB)) of studied IL inhibitors and comparing the predicted E_(HB) to the depression temperature(?) and induction time. Results show that, predicted EHBand chain length of ILs strongly relate and significantly affect the gas hydrate inhibition depression temperature but correlate moderately(R = 0.70) with average induction time in literature. It is deduced from the results that, ? increases with increasing IL EHBand/or decreases with increasing chain length. However, the cation–anion pairing of ILs also affects IL gas hydrate inhibition performance. Furthermore, a visual and better understanding of IL/water behavior for gas hydrate inhibition in terms of hydrogen bond donor and acceptor interaction analysis is also presented by determining the sigma profile and sigma potential of studied IL cations and anions used for gas hydrate mitigation for easy IL selection.