Flow characteristic of the horizontal cylinder placed on the plane boundary

In this study, the flow characteristic of the circular cylinder laid on the free surface is studied quantitatively using the particle image velocimetry technique. The flow phenomena in the upstream and downstream regions of the horizontal cylinder and free surface junctions increase the instability of the vortical flow structure significantly. Since the scour and burial process of the pipelines laid on the seabed depends mostly on the hydrodynamic behavior of the flow, the present investigation concentrates on the characterization of the flow structures using the time-averaged and instantaneous flow data. Distributions of velocity vectors, patterns of streamlines, vorticity contours and corresponding Reynolds stress correlations characterize the flow structure in detail.     

Fundamental limits on time delay estimation in dispersed spectrum cognitive radio systems

In this paper, fundamental limits on time delay estimation are studied for cognitive radio systems, which facilitate opportunistic use of spectral resources. First, a generic Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) expression is obtained in the case of unknown channel coefficients and carrier-frequency offsets (CFOs) for cognitive radio systems with dispersed spectrum utilization. Then, various modulation schemes are considered, and the effects of unknown channel coefficients and CFOs on the accuracy of time delay estimation are quantified. Finally, numerical studies are performed in order to verify the theoretical analysis.     

The effect of borax pentahydrate addition to urea formaldehyde on the mechanical characteristics and free formaldehyde content of plywood

In this study, the effects of borax pentahydrate addition to urea formaldehyde (UF) on the bonding characteristics and free formaldehyde content have been studied. Experiments related to the bending strength, withdrawal shear strength and free formaldehyde content have been conducted on the three-layered beech and poplar plywood which are prepared by the addition of borax pentahydrate into their adhesive mixtures in certain amounts. Addition of borax pentahydrate into the adhesive mixture did not statistically affect the bending strength and withdrawal shear strength of the plywood but did reduce the free formaldehyde content.     

The fuzzy logic-based modeling of a micro-scale sloped solar chimney power plant

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The energy demand of world is increasing worldwide because of increasing population and developing technology. The use of environmentally friendly...     

How do Virtual Badges Incentivize Voluntary Contributions to Online Communities?

Online communities rely heavily on badges to incentivize users to participate in voluntary activities. We examine the relationship between earned badges/pursued badges and contributions in the Stack Overflow question and answer community. Our main results reveal that different levels of earned and pursued badges increase the amount of subsequent answering activity. In addition, earned gold badges are the most influential in the motivation of users while earned bronze badges are the least impactful. Furthermore, the effect of badges involves positive spillovers from higher levels of earned badges to lower ones. Our findings offer important theoretical and managerial implications for online communities.     

SoSyM significantly reduces its backlog

Software and Systems Modeling -     

Predominant yeasts in the sourdoughs collected from some parts of Turkey

In the present study, a total of eight sourdough samples were collected from three different bakeries at two different times in Turkey. Also, laboratory-scale sourdough production was conducted by daily back-slopping for 7 days. Microbiological and chemical properties of the sourdoughs were investigated. Yeast species in the sourdoughs were identified by subjecting all presumptive yeast cultures to internal transcribed spacer region amplification of the 5.8S rRNA gene, restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis using Hae III, Hha I, and Hinf I endonucleases, and sequence analysis of the D1/D2 domain of the 26S rDNA gene. A total of seven profiles were determined according to the restriction fragments. Totally, 148 yeast isolates were identified at the species level (≥400 bp , 99% identity) as Saccharomyces cerevisiae (106), Kazachstania bulderi (11), Pichia fermentans (nine), Pichia membranifaciens (eight), Kazachstania servazzii (seven), Kazachstania unispora (four), and Hanseniaspora valbyensis (three). Although collected sourdoughs were produced without using baker's yeast, S. cerevisiae was the most frequently isolated yeast species. This can be related to the contamination of the bakery environment with commercial baker's yeast during the production of other bakery products. The pH and acidity levels of the collected sourdough samples ranged from 3.71 to 3.96 and 6.78 to 23.93 mL 0.1 N NaOH/10 g dough, respectively. Mean values of the content of maltose + sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactic acid, and acetic acid were 2.43, 1.57, 2.67, 7.30, and 1.40 g/kg, respectively. Due to the artisan and region-dependent handling of the sourdough, different biochemical patterns were observed among the collected samples.