Ergodic and adaptive control of nearest-neighbor motions

The self-tuning approach to adaptive control is applied to a class of Markov chains called nearest-neighbor motions. These have a countable state space and move from any state to at most finitely many neighboring states. For compact parameter and control spaces, the almost-sure optimality of the self-tuner for an ergodic cost criterion is established under two sets of assumptions.     

Instruction level power analysis and optimization of software

The increasing popularity of power constrained mobile computers and embedded computing applications drives the need for analyzing and optimizing power in all the components of a system. Software constitutes a major component of today's systems, and its role is projected to grow even further. Thus, an ever increasing portion of the functionality of today's systems is in the form of instructions, as opposed to gates. This motivates the need for analyzing power consumption from the point of view of instructions—something that traditional circuit and gate level power analysis tools are inadequate for. This paper describes an alternative, measurement based instruction level power analysis approach that provides an accurate and practical way of quantifying the power cost of soft-ware. This technique has been applied to three commercial, architecturally different processors. The salient results of these analyses are summarized. Instruction level analysis of a processor helps in the development of models for power consumption of software executing on that processor. The power models for the subject processors are described and interesting observations resulting from the comparison of these models are highlighted. The ability to evaluate software in terms of power consumption makes it feasible to seach fow low power implementations of given programs. In addition, it can guide the development of general tools and techniques for low power software. Several ideas in this regard as motivated by the power analysis of the subject processors are also described.     

Study of optical properties and light induced effects on Inq3 thin film used in organic light emitting devices

In this report, the optical properties of tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) metal complex Inq₃; used as light-emitting layer in electroluminescent (EL) devices are shown. The material has been synthesized and the thin films have been deposited by thermal evaporation on quartz and silicon substrates. The optical constants (n and k) of Inq₃ thin films have been determined using spectroscopic ellipsometry. Light induced effects on optical properties of films have been studied using ellipsometry, photoluminescence and UV–visible transmission measurements. Enhanced photoluminescence intensity with shift in peak position as well as modification in optical constants on light exposure in vacuum indicates phase transformation in Inq₃ films.     

Properties of fly ash stabilized haul road construction materials

ABSTRACT

Larger haul trucks are being used at surface mines in Canada thus requiring better haul roads to carry heavier loads. The availability of good quality aggregate to build haul roads is limited for prairie coal mines. However, most of these mines are located adjacent to coal-fired electrical power plants, which produce by-product fly ash as a waste. Fly ash can be used to increase strength and stiffness of soil and road bases.

Unconfined compressive strength tests conducted on various mixtures of fly ash, kiln dust, mine spoil, and coal seam partings showed that the cementing characteristics of unclassified fly ash from central Alberta coals was low. However, the addition of cement kiln dust, which is high in CaO, enabled the fly ash to exhibit significant cementing action.

Mixtures of fly ash, kiln dust, and mine spoil or coal seam partings had unconfined compressive strengths of about 1 MPa and elastic moduli of about 350 MPa after 14 to 28 days. This compares favourably with compacted mine spoil or coal seam partings which have estimated unconfined compressive strengths of less than 0.4 MPa and moduli of about 50 MPa. Thus fly ash stabilized mine spoil or coal seam partings were found to have potential for use in constructing haul road base and sub-base layers since maximum tire pressures on the running surface are less than 0.7 MPa.     

Through-thickness microstructure and mechanical properties in stationary shoulder friction stir processed AA7075

Stationary shoulder friction stir processing of high strength thick AA7075 aluminium alloy demonstrated tiny gradient in the microstructure refinement across the thickness, which was attributed to the less heat input and small temperature gradient by the stationary shoulder. Stationary shoulder produced a very smooth surface finish with a little amount of flash throughout the processing area. Probe-dominated stir zone (SZ) resulted in uniform grain refinement as well as hardness distribution across the SZ thickness. The ductility in SZ increased by 48% in comparison to the unprocessed material without costing tensile strength. This tensile behaviour trend maintained throughout the thickness in SZ.     

Covalent Functionalization of Dipole‐Modulating Molecules on Trilayer Graphene: An Avenue for Graphene‐Interfaced Molecular Machines

The molecular dipole moment plays a significant role in governing important phenomena like molecular interactions, molecular configuration, and charge transfer, which are important in several electronic, electrochemical, and optoelectronic systems. Here, the effect of the change in the dipole moment of a tethered molecule on the carrier properties of (functionalized) trilayer graphene—a stack of three layers of sp²‐hybridized carbon atoms—is demonstrated. It is shown that, due to the high carrier confinement and large quantum capacitance, the trans‐to‐cis isomerisation of ‘covalently attached’ azobenzene molecules, with a change in dipole moment of 3D, leads to the generation of a high effective gating voltage. Consequently, 6 units of holes are produced per azobenzene molecule (hole density increases by 440 000 holes μm^?2). Based on Raman and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy data, a model is outlined for outer‐layer, azobenzene‐functionalized trilayer graphene with current modulation in the inner sp² matrix. Here, 0.097 V are applied by the isomerisation of the functionalized azobenzene. Further, the large measured quantum capacitance of 72.5 μF cm^?2 justifies the large Dirac point in the heavily doped system. The mechanism defining the effect of dipole modulation of covalently tethered molecules on graphene will enable future sensors and molecular‐machine interfaces with graphene.     

Membrane filtration of chlorination and extraction stage bleach plant effluent in Indian paper Industry

The present study was carried out for the treatment of effluent from the chlorination and extraction stages of a bleach plant at an Indian pulp and paper mill. The effluents were taken from an integrated paper mill employing OCE_OPHH sequence for the bleaching of hardwood pulp. Effluent was treated via ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF), and reverse osmosis (RO). Thin film composite spiral-wound modules, having cross flow membranes composed of polysulfone and polyamide, were used in the study. Three initial inlet pressures were used for the UF and NF; 6.8, 10.3, and 13.7 bar. For RO initial inlet pressures of 10.3 bar, 13.7 bar and 17.2 bar, were taken in different trials. The retentate from each experiment was recycled back to the feed and retreated until the inlet pressure increased to the maximum cut-of pressure for each membrane. The UF permeate was fed to the NF, which was subsequently fed to the RO. Variations in the trans-membrane pressure and permeate flux were assessed. The removal of pollutants and fouling indices were obtained for each membrane at each initial inlet pressure.     

Column Generation‐Based Approach for Solving Large‐Scale Ready Mixed Concrete Delivery Dispatching Problems

Ready mix concrete (RMC) dispatching forms a critical component of the construction supply chain. However, optimization approaches within the RMC dispatching continue to evolve due to the specific size, constraints, and objectives required of the application domain. In this article, we develop a column generation algorithm for vehicle routing problems (VRPs) with time window constraints as applied to RMC dispatching problems and examine the performance of the approach for this specific application domain. The objective of the problem is to find the minimum cost routes for a fleet of capacitated vehicles serving concrete to customers with known demand from depots within the allowable time window. The VRP is specified to cover the concrete delivery problem by adding additional constraints that reflect real situations. The introduced model is amenable to the Dantzig–Wolfe reformulation for solving pricing problems using a two‐staged methodology as proposed in this article. Further, under the mild assumption of homogeneity of the vehicles, the pricing sub‐problem can be viewed as a minimum‐cost multi‐commodity flow problem and solved in polynomial time using efficient network simplex method implementations. A large‐scale field collect data set is used for evaluating the model and the proposed solution method, with and without time window constraints. In addition, the method is compared with the exact solution found via enumeration. The results show that on average the proposed methodology attains near optimal solutions for many of the large sized models but is 10 times faster than branch‐and‐cut.     

X-ray study of weak interactions in two flavonoids

X-ray diffraction studies were carried out on single crystals of two flavonoids, viz. 5-hydroxy-6,7,4′-trimethoxyflavone, C₁₈H₁₆O₆, (I) and 5-hydroxy-3,7,4′-trimethoxyflavone, C₁₈H₁₆O₆, (II). Crystal structures of both the flavonoids were solved by direct methods and refined by full-matrix least-squares procedures. In both the molecules, the benzopyran moiety is planar. The dihedral angle between the phenyl ring and the benzopyran portion is 5.50(4)° in (I) and 29.11(5)° in (II). In (I), the crystal packing is influenced by O-H…O hydrogen bonds, and weak C-H…O and π…π interactions whereas in (II) the crystal structure is stabilized by the presence of four intermolecular short contacts of the type C-H…O. There is also one C-H…π hydrogen bond with H… centroid distance of <2.7 Å. The molecules are further stabilized by π-π interactions.