High‐performance filaments by melt spinning low viscosity nylon 6 using horizontal isothermal bath process

Several techniques and treatments have been developed for the production of high‐performance nylon‐6 fibers. The inherent problems of low productivity, high production cost, and high energy consumption, complexity of chemical reaction, mass transfer, and waste recovery systems make most of them inappropriate for industrial application. Horizontal isothermal bath (hIB) is an alternative ecofriendly simple treatment that can be used during melt spinning process for production of technical textile fibers. The efficacy of hIB in improving the mechanical properties of multifilament nylon‐6 yarn is studied in this research. The results showed that such treatment can increase the molecular orientation of the amorphous and crystalline functions up to 0.54 and 0.983, respectively, and raised both the amorphous isotropy and fiber birefringence by 67 and 45%, respectively. Hot drawing of the yarn at a very low draw ratio of 1.38, increased the tenacity and modulus up to 10 and 43.9 g/den, respectively, and decreased the elongation to 27%. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:2457–2464, 2015. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Evolution of the mosaic structure in InGaN layer grown on a thick GaN template and sapphire substrate

The In_xGa_1?xN epitaxial layers, with indium (x) concentration changes between 0.16 and 1.00 (InN), were grown on GaN template/(0001) Al₂O₃ substrate by metal organic chemical vapour deposition. The indium content (x), lattice parameters and strain values in the InGaN layers were calculated from the reciprocal lattice mapping around symmetric (0002) and asymmetric (10–15) reflection of the GaN and InGaN layers. The characteristics of mosaic structures, such as lateral and vertical coherence lengths, tilt and twist angle and heterogeneous strain and dislocation densities (edge and screw dislocations) of the InGaN epilayers and GaN template layers were investigated by using high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) measurements. With a combination of Williamson–Hall (W-H) measurements and the fitting of twist angles, it was found that the indium content in the InGaN epilayers did not strongly effect the mosaic structures’ parameters, lateral and vertical coherence lengths, tilt and twist angle, or heterogeneous strain of the InGaN epilayers.     

Private predictions on hidden Markov models

Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are widely used in practice to make predictions. They are becoming increasingly popular models as part of prediction systems in finance, marketing, bio-informatics, speech recognition, signal processing, and so on. However, traditional HMMs do not allow people and model owners to generate predictions without disclosing their private information to each other. To address the increasing needs for privacy, this work identifies and studies the private prediction problem; it is demonstrated with the following scenario: Bob has a private HMM, while Alice has a private input; and she wants to use Bob’s model to make a prediction based on her input. However, Alice does not want to disclose her private input to Bob, while Bob wants to prevent Alice from deriving information about his model. How can Alice and Bob perform HMMs-based predictions without violating their privacy? We propose privacy-preserving protocols to produce predictions on HMMs without greatly exposing Bob’s and Alice’s privacy. We then analyze our schemes in terms of accuracy, privacy, and performance. Since they are conflicting goals, due to privacy concerns, it is expected that accuracy or performance might degrade. However, our schemes make it possible for Bob and Alice to produce the same predictions efficiently while preserving their privacy.     

Use of Fenton oxidation to improve the biodegradability of a pharmaceutical wastewater

The applicability of Fenton's oxidation to improve the biodegradability of a pharmaceutical wastewater to be treated biologically was investigated. The wastewater was originated from a factory producing a variety of pharmaceutical chemicals. Treatability studies were conducted under laboratory conditions with all chemicals (having COD varying from 900 to 7000 mg/L) produced in the factory in order to determine the operational conditions to utilize in the full-scale treatment plant. Optimum pH was determined as 3.5 and 7.0 for the first (oxidation) and second stage (coagulation) of the Fenton process, respectively. For all chemicals, COD removal efficiency was highest when the molar ratio of H(2)O(2)/Fe(2+) was 150-250. At H(2)O(2)/Fe(2+) ratio of 155, 0.3M H(2)O(2) and 0.002 M Fe(2+), provided 45-65% COD removal. The wastewater treatment plant that employs Fenton oxidation followed by aerobic degradation in sequencing batch reactors (SBR), built after these treatability studies provided an overall COD removal efficiency of 98%, and compliance with the discharge limits. The efficiency of the Fenton's oxidation was around 45-50% and the efficiency in the SBR system which has two reactors each having a volume of 8m(3) and operated with a total cycle time of 1 day, was around 98%, regarding the COD removal.     

Deformation of NiTiCu shape memory single crystals in compression

Single-crystal orientations of NiTi10Cu alloys were studied under incremental, cyclic compression conditions to establish the pseudoelastic and shape memory response of this class of alloys. This material exhibits a two-step transformation involving cubic to orthorhombic martensite (B2 → B19) followed by orthorhombic to monoclinic martensite (B19 → B19′). The transformation parameters (shear magnitudes and directions for habit and twin planes) were determined associated with the B2 → B19 transformation. The growth of monoclinic martensite correspondent variant pairs (CVPs) emanating from the orthorhombic structure was also analyzed. The transformation strain for the B2 → B19 case was orientation dependent and lower than the B19 → B19′ transformation in compression for all orientations except those near the [001] pole. The experimental results show that the critical transformation stress is orientation dependent and is in the range 30 to 58 MPa. Orientations that exhibit lower transformation stress (or high resolved shear stress factors, [100] and [012]) produce higher recoverable strains (as high as 4 pct), while other orientations ([011], [111], and [123]) with lower resolved shear stress factors result in recoverable strains less than 3 pct. At higher strains, inelastic deformation develops, limiting recoverability. The recoverable strains are lower than the theoretical values for two main reasons: the transformation is curtailed first by austenite slip and subsequently by martensite slip, and the orthorhombic structure does not fully transform to the monoclinic martensite.     

A new deep learning pipeline to detect Covid-19 on chest X-ray images using local binary pattern,dual tree complex wavelet transform and convolutional neural networks

In this study, which aims at early diagnosis of Covid-19 disease using X-ray images, the deep-learning approach, a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence method, was used, and automatic classification of images was performed using convolutional neural networks (CNN). In the first training-test data set used in the study, there were 230 X-ray images, of which 150 were Covid-19 and 80 were non-Covid-19, while in the second training-test data set there were 476 X-ray images, of which 150 were Covid-19 and 326 were non-Covid-19. Thus, classification results have been provided for two data sets, containing predominantly Covid-19 images and predominantly non-Covid-19 images, respectively. In the study, a 23-layer CNN architecture and a 54-layer CNN architecture were developed. Within the scope of the study, the results were obtained using chest X-ray images directly in the training-test procedures and the sub-band images obtained by applying dual tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) to the above-mentioned images. The same experiments were repeated using images obtained by applying local binary pattern (LBP) to the chest X-ray images. Within the scope of the study, four new result generation pipeline algorithms having been put forward additionally, it was ensured that the experimental results were combined and the success of the study was improved. In the experiments carried out in this study, the training sessions were carried out using the k-fold cross validation method. Here the k value was chosen as 23 for the first and second training-test data sets. Considering the average highest results of the experiments performed within the scope of the study, the values of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F-1 score, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for the first training-test data set were 0,9947, 0,9800, 0,9843, 0,9881 and 0,9990 respectively; while for the second training-test data set, they were 0,9920, 0,9939, 0,9891, 0,9828 and 0,9991; respectively. Within the scope of the study, finally, all the images were combined and the training and testing processes were repeated for a total of 556 X-ray images comprising 150 Covid-19 images and 406 non-Covid-19 images, by applying 2-fold cross. In this context, the average highest values of sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, F-1 score, and AUC for this last training-test data set were found to be 0,9760, 1,0000, 0,9906, 0,9823 and 0,9997; respectively.

     

Estimating graph distance and centrality on shared nothing architectures

We present a parallel toolkit for pairwise distance computation in massive networks. Computing the exact shortest paths between a large number of vertices is a costly operation, and serial algorithms are not practical for billion‐scale graphs. We first describe an efficient parallel method to solve the single source shortest path problem on commodity hardware with no shared memory. Using it as a building block, we introduce a new parallel algorithm to estimate the shortest paths between arbitrary pairs of vertices. Our method exploits data locality, produces highly accurate results, and allows batch computation of shortest paths with 7% average error in graphs that contain billions of edges. The proposed algorithm is up to two orders of magnitude faster than previously suggested algorithms and does not require large amounts of memory or expensive high‐end servers. We further leverage this method to estimate the closeness and betweenness centrality metrics, which involve systems challenges dealing with indexing, joining, and comparing large datasets efficiently. In one experiment, we mined a real‐world Web graph with 700 million nodes and 12 billion edges to identify the most central vertices and calculated more than 63 billion shortest paths in 6 h on a 20‐node commodity cluster. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of sodium ascorbate and delayed bonding after bleaching on shear bond strengts of orthodontic brackets

Introduction: The aim of the study was to determine the effects of sodium ascorbate and delaying bonding for 4 weeks after bleaching on SBS of orthodontic brackets.

Methods: Sixty freshly extracted, noncarious, premolars were randomly assigned to 4 groups of 15 each. Orthodontic brackets were bonded with a composite resin and cured with a halogen light. After bonding, the shear bond strengths of the brackets were tested with a universal testing machine. Group I served as the control. In groups II, III, and IV, teeth were bleached with an office bleaching method. In group II, brackets bonded immediately after bleaching. In group III, teeth were immersed in artificial saliva of 4 weeks after bleaching before bonding brackets. In group IV, teeth were treated with 10% sodium ascorbate after bleaching before bonding brackets.

Results: One-way analysis of variance indicated a significant difference between groups (P < .001). The highest values for SBS were measured in group I (11.92 ± 0.81 MPa). The SBS was significantly lower in groups II, III, and IV than in group I (P < .001). There was no statistically significant difference between groups III and IV.

Conclusions: Bleaching significantly reduced the SBS of orthodontic brackets on human enamel. If bleaching is mandatory, teeth should be treated with sodium ascorbate before bonding.     

Throughput enhanced scheduling (TES) scheme for ultra‐dense networks

This paper proposes two novel packet scheduling schemes, called as throughput enhanced scheduling (TES) and TES plus (TES+), for future ultra‐dense networks. These schemes introduce two novel parameters to the scheduling decision making and reformulate the parameters used by the state‐of‐the‐art schemes. The aim is to have a more balanced weight distribution between delay and throughput‐related parameters at scheduling decisions. Also include a new telecommunications related parameter into scheduling decision making that has not been studied by popular schedulers. The performance of novel schemes is compared with well‐known schemes—proportional fairness (PF), exponential/proportional fairness (EXP/PF), and M‐LWDF. For performance evaluation, five performance metrics—average spectral efficiency and delay, quality of service (QoS) violation ratio, jitter, and Jain's fairness index—are investigated. The simulation results show that proposed schemes can outperform all the compared scheduling schemes.