Integrated Freestanding Two‐dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

This paper reports on the integration of freestanding transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Monolayer (1‐L) MoS₂, WS₂, and WSe₂ as representative TMDs are transferred on ZnO nanorods (NRs), used here as nanostructured substrates. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of 1‐L TMDs on NRs show a giant PL intensity enhancement, compared with those of 1‐L TMDs on SiO₂. The strong increases in Raman and PL intensities, along with the characteristic peak shifts, confirm the absence of stress in the TMDs on NRs. In depth analysis of the PL emission also reveals that the ratio between the exciton and trion peak intensity is almost not modified after transfer. The latter shows that the effect of charge transfer between the 1‐L TMDs and ZnO NRs is here negligible. Furthermore, confocal PL and Raman spectroscopy reveal a fairly consistent distribution of PL and Raman intensities. These observations are in agreement with a very limited points contact between the support and the 1‐L TMDs. The entire process reported here is scalable and may pave the way for the development of very efficient ultrathin optoelectronics.     

On the vibration analysis of laminated composite parabolic arches with variable cross-section of various ply stacking sequences

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to perform the free and forced vibration analysis of transversely isotropic and laminated composite parabolic arches with a continuous cross-section variation. The anisotropy of the material of the arch, effects of the rotary inertia, and shear deformations are considered. An efficient unified numerical procedure of the Complementary Functions Method and Laplace transform is applied to solve the strong form of the differential equations that govern the dynamic response of the above structures. The validity and the accuracy of the presented scheme are tested by means of several comparisons with available literature and results of ANSYS. The presented approach has proven to be an accurate and stable numerical method. It is believed that derived results can be used as benchmark solutions for validation of related works in the future.     

Effect of Zataria multiflora Boiss. essential oil and nisin on Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus in a food model system and on the bacterial cell membranes

The effects of different concentrations of Zataria multiflora Boiss. essential oil (EO: 0, 5, 15 and 30 μl 100 ml⁻¹) and nisin (N: 0, 0.25 and 0.5 μg ml⁻¹), temperatures (T: 25 and 8 °C), and storage times (up to 21 days) on growth of Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus in a commercial barley soup were evaluated in a factorial design study. The growth of S. typhimurium was significantly (P < 0.05) decreased by EO concentrations and their combinations with N concentrations at 8 °C. For S. aureus, the viable count was significantly (P < 0.05) inhibited by EO and N concentrations and their combinations, incubated at both storage temperatures. The mechanism of the antimicrobial action of EO, N, and their combinations against cell membranes of the tested organisms were also studied by measurement of the release of cell constituents and by the electronic microscopy observations of the cells. The significant increase of the cell constituents’ release of both organisms was observed as a result of treatments with EO and EO in combination with N. Electronic microscopy observations revealed that the cell membranes of S. typhimurium treated by EO and EO in combination with N were significantly damaged, while cells treated with only N looked similar to untreated cells. The electron micrographs of treated cells of S. aureus with EO, N, and their combination also showed important morphological damages and disrupted membranes.     

Characterization of semipurified enterocins produced by Enterococcus faecium strains isolated from raw camel milk

Food safety has become an issue of great interest worldwide. Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen that causes listeriosis and is difficult to control in the dairy industry. The use of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and their antimicrobial substances against Listeria is promising in food applications. Here, we report the isolation from raw camel milk of LAB displaying antilisterial activity. Two isolates were selected for their secretion of bacteriocin(s) and identified by 16S rRNA sequencing as Enterococcus faecium S6 and R9. The produced bacteriocins were partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and then biochemically characterized. Antimicrobial activity was estimated to be 6,400 and 400 AU (arbitrary units)/mL for E. faecium S6 and R9, respectively. The proteinaceous nature of the bacteriocins was confirmed via enzymatic reactions. Moreover, lipolytic and glycolytic enzymes completely inactivated the antimicrobial effect of the bacteriocins. These bacteriocins were heat-resistant and stable over a wide range of pH (2.0 to 10.0). To confirm its inactivation by lipolytic and glycolytic enzymes, the bacteriocin of E. faecium S6 was further purified by gel filtration, which suggested the existence of carbohydrate and lipid moieties. In addition, enterocin-coding genes were identified by PCR, showing DNA fragments corresponding in size to enterocins A, B, and P for E. faecium S6 and to enterocins B and P for E. faecium R9. In conclusion, these results indicate that partially purified bacteriocins from E. faecium S6 and R9 may be beneficial in controlling Listeria in the dairy industry.     

A comparison of impression, indentation and impression-relaxation creep of lead-free Sn–9Zn and Sn–8Zn–3Bi solders at room temperature

Creep behavior of Sn–9% Zn and Sn–8% Zn–3% Bi solder alloys was studied by impression, indentation, and impression-relaxation tests at room temperature (T > 0.6T _m ) in order to evaluate the correspondence of the creep results obtained by different testing techniques, and to evaluate the effect of Bi on the creep response of the eutectic Sn–9Zn alloy. Stress exponent values were determined through these methods and in all cases the calculated exponents were in good agreement. The average stress exponents of 8.6 and 9.9, found respectively for the binary and ternary alloys, are close to those determined by room temperature conventional creep testing of the same materials reported in the literature. These exponents imply that dislocation creep is the possible mechanism during room temperature creep deformation of these alloys. The introduction of 3% Bi into the binary alloy enhanced the creep resistance due to both solid solutioning effect and sparse precipitation of Bi in the Sn matrix.     

Kinetics of the hydrogen evolution reaction on NiMn graphite modified electrode

The mechanism and kinetics of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on graphite modified with Ni and NiMn electrode (G/Ni and G/NiMn) in 0.1 M NaOH solution were studied using the methods of steady-state polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry and open circuit potential transient. The addition of Mn to Ni significantly increases the catalytic activity in HER due to higher real surface area and higher intrinsic activity. The simulation of the data obtained from these methods, using nonlinear fitting procedure allowed us to determine the rate constants of Volmer, Heyrovsky and Tafel steps associated with the mentioned reaction. The kinetics results indicate that HER mechanism for G/NiMn electrode at low negative potentials is a serial combination of Volmer and parallel Tafel and Heyrovsky steps. At high negative potentials where the hydrogen coverage reaches its limiting value, a Tafel line with the slope of −125 mV dec⁻¹ is obtained. In this potential region the mechanism of the HER follows Volmer-Heyrovsky while the Tafel step has negligible contribution. Open circuit potential measurements for G/Ni and G/NiMn at different charging currents show that hydrogen absorption into the electrode material occurs.     

An evolving neural network to perform dynamic principal component analysis

Nonlinear principal component analysis is one of the best dimension reduction techniques developed during the recent years which have been applied in different signal-processing applications. In this paper, an evolving category of auto-associative neural network is presented which is applied to perform dynamic nonlinear principal component analysis. Training strategy of the network implements both constructive and destructive algorithms to extract dynamic principal components of speech database. In addition, the proposed network makes it possible to eliminate some dimensions of sequences that do not play important role in the quality of speech processing. Finally, the network is successfully applied to solve missing data problem.     

Lead time control in multi-class multi-stage assembly systems with finite capacity

In this paper, we model multi-class multi-stage assembly systems with finite capacity as queueing networks. It is assumed that different classes (types) of products are produced by the production system and products’ orders for different classes are received according to independent Poisson processes. Each service station of the queueing network specifies a manufacturing or assembly operation, in that processing times for different types of products are independent and exponentially distributed random variables with service rates, which are controllable, and the queueing discipline is First Come First Served (FCFS). Different types of products may be different in their routing sequences of manufacturing and assembly operations. For modeling multi-class multi-stage assembly systems, we first consider every class separately and convert the queueing network of each class into an appropriate stochastic network. Then, by using the concept of continuous-time Markov processes, a system of differential equations is created to obtain the distribution function of manufacturing lead time for any type of product, which is actually the time between receiving the order and the delivery of finished product. Furthermore, we develop a multi-objective model with three conflicting objectives to optimally control the service rates, and use goal attainment method to solve a discrete-time approximation of the original multi-objective continuous-time problem.     

Some refinements of the standard autoassociative neural network

Improving the training algorithm, determining near-optimal number of nonlinear principal components (NLPCs), extracting meaningful NLPCs, and increasing the nonlinear, dynamic, and selective processing capability of the standard autoassociative neural network are the objectives of this article that are achieved independently by some new refinements of the network structure and the training algorithm. In addition, three different topologies of the network are presented, which make it possible to perform local nonlinear principal component analysis. Performances of all methods are evaluated by a stock price database that demonstrates their efficiency in different situations. Finally, as it will be illustrated in the last section, the proposed structures can be easily combined together, which introduce them as efficient tools in a wide range of signal processing applications.     

An Efficient Algorithm for Solving Fuzzy Linear Programming Problems

In this article, we consider some well-known approaches for solving fuzzy linear programming (FLP) problems. We present some of the difficulties of these approaches. Then, crisp linear programming problems are suggested for solving FLP problems. A new algorithm is also given. The proposed approach has advantages over the other methods. For example, we can achieve higher membership degrees for objective function and constraints. Moreover, we show that the fuzzy optimal solutions obtained by the proposed approach are efficient enough. Also, we see that unlike the previous methods, our method finds efficient solutions by solving only one crisp linear problem instead of solving two or three crisp problems. Finally some numerical examples are presented to show the efficiency of the given approach over the other approaches.