Characterization and Low Temperature Study of Iron Telluride Thin Films Upon Ageing and Oxygen Ion Irradiation

The occurrence of superconductivity in iron telluride thin films has been observed upon ageing. The superconducting transition is found to be very robust under an application of magnetic fields up to 10 T. Infrared and Raman spectroscopic characterization of the aged films reveal the formation of Fe_1+δTeO _x upon ageing. As an alternative method of introducing oxygen in FeTe thin film, oxygen ion irradiation has also been carried out It is found that the irradiated film becomes increasingly disordered and ultimately transforms to an amorphous phase upon increasing the irradiation dose. Investigation of electrical resistivity and optical reflectivity of the irradiated FeTe films indicates an interesting possibility of an ion irradiationinduced phase change memory material in analogy to the phase change characteristics of laserirradiated FeTe films.     

Mesoporous Ru/Sn-SBA-15 catalysts: synthesis,characterization and catalytic activity towards hydrogenation of levulinic acid

Journal of Porous Materials - Among the various biomass-derived platform chemicals, levulinic acid (LA) has been identified as one of the top-10 important molecules by Department of Energy, United...     

Non‐dominated sorting particle swarm optimization (NSPSO) and network security policy enforcement for Policy Space Analysis

Network operators depend on security services with the aim of safeguarding their IT infrastructure. Various types of network security policies are employed on a global scale and are disseminated among several security middleboxes implemented in networks. But, owing to the complications in security policies, it is not quite efficient to directly use the path‐wise enforcement schemes that are prevalent. The major motivation of this work is to improve security levels and solve the policy enforcement problem. For the first time, this work reports the issue of policy enforcement on middleboxes. The major contribution of this work is to design security policy enforcement as a Weighted K Set Covering Problem, and we designed a Policy Space Analysis (PSA) tool intended for a group of operations in the security policy. This PSA tool was developed based on range‐signified hyper‐rectangles, which are indexed by the Hilbert R‐tree. Leveraging the PSA, we first investigated the topological features of various kinds of policies. Balancing the PSA tool in a non‐dominated sorting particle swarm optimization technique exposes the intrinsic difficulties of this security strategy and provides guidance for designing the enforcement approach. In addition, in this research, a new fuzzy rule‐based classification system is introduced for packet classification. A scope‐wise policy enforcement algorithm was proposed, which chooses a moderate number of enforcement network nodes for deploying multiple policy subsets in a greedy manner. This scheme is much quicker compared with the first one and therefore has found its application in real‐time deployments.     

A review on measurement science needs for real-time control of additive manufacturing metal powder bed fusion processes

Additive manufacturing technologies are increasingly used in the development of new products. However, variations in part quality in terms of material properties, dimensional tolerances, surface roughness and defects limit its broader acceptance. Process control today based on heuristics and experimental data yields limited improvement in part quality. In an effort to identify the needed measurement science for real-time closed-loop control of additive manufacturing (AM) processes, this paper presents a literature review on the current AM control schemes, process measurements and modelling and simulation methods as it applies to the powder bed fusion process, though results from other processes are reviewed where applicable. We present our research findings to identify the correlations between process parameters, process signatures and product quality. We also present research recommendations on the key control issues to serve as a technical basis for standards development in this area. Complimentary details to this paper with summary tables, range of values, preliminary correlations and correlation figures can be accessed from a National Institute of Standards and Technology Report (http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2015/NIST.IR.8036.pdf). This paper is developed based on the report.     

Magnetically Guided Self‐Assembly and Coding of 3D Living Architectures

In nature, cells self‐assemble at the microscale into complex functional configurations. This mechanism is increasingly exploited to assemble biofidelic biological systems in vitro. However, precise coding of 3D multicellular living materials is challenging due to their architectural complexity and spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Therefore, there is an unmet need for an effective assembly method with deterministic control on the biomanufacturing of functional living systems, which can be used to model physiological and pathological behavior. Here, a universal system is presented for 3D assembly and coding of cells into complex living architectures. In this system, a gadolinium‐based nonionic paramagnetic agent is used in conjunction with magnetic fields to levitate and assemble cells. Thus, living materials are fabricated with controlled geometry and organization and imaged in situ in real time, preserving viability and functional properties. The developed method provides an innovative direction to monitor and guide the reconfigurability of living materials temporally and spatially in 3D, which can enable the study of transient biological mechanisms. This platform offers broad applications in numerous fields, such as 3D bioprinting and bottom‐up tissue engineering, as well as drug discovery, developmental biology, neuroscience, and cancer research.     

A novel magnetic random access memory design using square ring elements for the hard layer

The behavior of narrow permalloy square rings under the influence of a magnetic field was studied using magnetic force microscopy (MFM). Two stable states of opposite polarity at remanence and simple switching were observed. We propose a design for the hard layer of magnetic random access memory (MRAM) that uses these states in square rings for data storage.     

Evaluation of image-based modeling and laser scanning accuracy for emerging automated performance monitoring techniques

Accurate and rapid assessment of the as-built status on any construction site provides the opportunity to understand the current performance of a project easily and quickly. Rapid project assessment further identifies discrepancies between the as-built and as-planned progress, and facilitates decision making on the necessary remedial actions. Currently, manual visual observations and surveying are the most dominant data capturing techniques but they are time-consuming, error-prone, and infrequent, making quick and reliable decision-making difficult. Therefore, research on new approaches that allow automatic recognition of as-built performance and visualization of construction progress is essential. This paper presents and compares two methods for obtaining point cloud models for detection and visualization of as-built status for construction projects: (1) A new method of automated image-based reconstruction and modeling of the as-built project status using unordered daily construction photo collections through analysis of Structure from Motion (SfM); (2) 3D laser scanning and analysis of the as-built dense point cloud models. These approaches provide robust means for recognition of progress, productivity, and quality on a construction site. In this paper, an overview of the newly developed automated image-based reconstruction approach and exclusive features which distinct it from other image-based or conventional photogrammetric techniques is presented. Subsequently the terrestrial laser scanning approach carried out for reconstruction and comparison of as-built scenes is presented. Finally the accuracy and usability of both of these techniques for metric reconstruction, automated production of point cloud models, 3D CAD shape modeling, and as-built visualizations is evaluated and compared on eight different case studies. It is shown that for precise defect detection or alignment tasks, image-based point cloud models may not be as accurate and dense as laser scanners' point cloud models. Nonetheless image-based point cloud models provide an opportunity to extract as-built semantic information (i.e., progress, productivity, quality and safety) through the content of the images, are easy to use, and do not need add burden on the project management teams by requiring expertise for data collection or analysis. Finally image-based reconstruction automatically provides photo alignment with point cloud models and enables image-based renderings which can remarkably impact automated performance monitoring and as-built visualizations.     

Calf massager: Intervention for body muscle discomfort during prolonged standing

Many occupations require workers to stand for long periods of time without proper interventions, which causes discomfort in the back and lower limbs. Therefore, this study aims to assess the effectiveness in alleviating body muscle discomfort during prolonged standing through the use of a calf massager. This study was conducted among male workers at a manufacturer with production line workers and the list was obtained from the HR Department and simple random sampling was done by number categorization. A total of 100 respondents (50 respondents for both the control and the experimental groups) participated in this study. The experiment took place in a room with a similar setup for the production line. Each respondent was requested to perform the simulated task for 2 hr. For the experimental group, the calf massager was turned on every 15 min. At every 15‐min interval after turning on the calf massager, respondents from both groups were required to evaluate their discomfort level on a Borg's scale CR‐10 questionnaire. The results showed that the level of body discomfort among respondents in the experimental group reduced (20–30%) compared with that of the control group. Multivariate analysis results revealed that the discomfort rating for the lower back, knees, thighs, calves, and feet was significantly lower (p < .05) among the experimental group compared with the control group. For lower body parts, the lower back region was statistically significant (p < .05) at the 90th, 105th, and 120th min; the thigh region was statistically significant (p < .05) at the 120th min; the knee region was statistically significant (p < .05) at the 105th and 120th min; the calf region was statistically significant (p < .05) at all minute intervals except the 15th and 45th min, while the feet region, was statistically significant at the 105th and 120th min. Therefore, this study indicates that calf massage treatment is capable of reducing body muscle discomfort during prolonged standing and highlights the significance of calf massage.