Identifying the time of step change in binary profiles

Control charts are intended to aid quality practitioners in monitoring whether a change has occurred in a process. When a control chart indicates an out-of-control signal, it means that the process has changed. However, control chart signals do not indicate the real time of process changes; so estimators are applied to indicate the time when a change in the process takes place, which is referred to as the change point. This paper provides a maximum likelihood estimator to identify the real time of a step change in phase II monitoring of binary profiles, in which the quality of a process is characterized by a logistic regression between the response and predictor variables. Simulation studies are provided to evaluate the effectiveness of the change point estimator.     

A modern congestion pricing policy for urban traffic: subsidy plus toll

Railway Engineering Science - Congestion pricing is seen as an effective policy to address traffic congestion. In such policies where money, people and authorities are involved, the success...     

Numerical simulation and optimization of steam-assisted gravity drainage with temperature,rate, and well distance control using an efficient hybrid optimization technique

Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is a thermal enhanced oil recovery technique through drilling of two horizontal wells. Effects of steam injection temperature, well rates, and their distance on oil recovery were analyzed and optimized. Steam temperature and well distances remarkably affect SAGD performance. Four metaheuristic algorithms (particle swarm optimization (PSO), imperialist competitive algorithm, cultural algorithm, and Bees algorithm) and pattern search optimization algorithm (PSA) are used for optimization. PSO performs better than other metaheuristics and PSA is the fastest one, while it is probable to be trapped in local optimums. Hybrid PSO-PS is proposed that starts with PSO and proceeds with PSA, and tested in an SAGD project and showed excellence over other techniques.     

Wear and Failure Analysis of Semi-Autogenous Grinding Mill Liners

Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention - The wear and failure analysis of shell liners of a grinding mill is investigated. Metallurgical and tribological studies were conducted on the worn...     

Novel NGR anchored pullulan micelles for controlled and targeted delivery of doxorubicin to HeLa cancerous cells

Doxorubicin (DOX) is used to treat different kinds of cancers, including cervix carcinoma. However, it has various side effects such as cardiotoxicity. Nano-sized controlled releasing carriers such as polymeric micelles are of interesting approaches to overcome these side effects of doxorubicin in cancer chemotherapy. Regarding the up-regulation of CD13/APN receptors on the cervix carcinoma cells, which can bind to peptide sequences specially NGR (asparagine–glycine–arginine) with high affinity, peptide sequence (NGR) targeted micelles would lead to effective treatment of this carcinoma. In this study, the NGR peptide sequence was synthesized using the solution-phase strategy from asparagine, glycine, and arginine residues. The pullulan–retinoic acid conjugate and pullulan–retinoic acid–NGR conjugate were prepared by the amide and ester bond formation between the hydroxyl groups of pullulan and carboxylic acid groups of retinoic acid and peptide sequence. Pullulan–retinoic acid–NGR micelles were prepared by the direct dissolution method. The optimized micelles, according to their particle size (124.5 nm), zeta potential (? 3.65 mV), entrapment efficiency (85%), and release of DOX (70%, within 72 h) were assessed for their cytotoxicity on HeLa cells using MTT assay. NGR-targeted pullulan/retinoic acid micelles had higher cytotoxicity than the free DOX in cell culture studies on the HeLa cell line, and this can be a promising result in the treatment of cervix carcinoma.     

Photoluminescence emission of nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide films prepared in phosphoric acid

The photoluminescence emission of nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide films formed in phosphoric acid is studied in order to explore their defect-based subband electronic structure. Different excitation wavelengths are used to identify most of the details of the subband states. The films are produced under different anodizing conditions to optimize their emission in the visible range. Scanning electron microscopy investigations confirm pore formation in the produced layers. Gaussian analysis of the emission data indicates that subband states change with anodizing parameters, and various point defects can be formed both in the bulk and on the surface of these nanoporous layers during anodizing.     

Tracking Performance of an Adaptive MIMO-OFDM LS Estimator via MSE Criterion Over a Wireless Time Correlated Fading Channel

In this contribution, the performance of an adaptive least squares channel estimator for a time correlated MIMO-OFDM channel is presented in a closed form relation. As a criterion for performance evaluation, the well-known mean square error (MSE) is employed. The pilot aided channel estimation is used to extract the channel coefficients. To minimize the MSE and arrange phase shift orthogonally, the pilots are constructed with equal power and space. The model of the channel is developed by implementing a first order Markov model, and it is proved that the performance of the system is dependent upon the defined forgetting factor, the number of transmit antennas, the number of multipath channel taps, transmitted power, and Doppler shift. The effect of each parameter on the performance of the system is discussed separately. The computer simulation results follow with the analytical results comprehensively.