An Experimental and Numerical Investigation on the Mechanical Properties of Addition of Wood Flour Fillers in Red Banana Peduncle Fiber Reinforced Polyester Composites

ABSTRACT

In this work, eco-friendly red banana peduncle fiber reinforced polymer composites (RBPF) and wood flour are added as a filler (RBWF) were prepared using compression molding process. These composites were analyzed by testing of properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, and water absorption. Tensile and flexural properties of the composites are verified using ANSYS. The chemical functional group of the composites was analyzed by Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Microscopic examinations were conducted using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Crystallinity index (CI) and Crystalline Size (CS) of the composites were found by conducting X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Results indicated their appropriateness in lightweight applications in automobile, construction and aviation industries.     

Influence of rare earth content on Mm-based AB5 metal hydride alloys for Ni-MH batteries—An X-ray fluorescence study

AB₅-type MH alloys with Mm (Misch metal) as the A part (with varied rare earth contents in Mm) were investigated for rare earth by XRF analysis and battery performance by life cycle tests with an objective of understanding the influence of rare earth content on electrochemical hydrogen storage. The La/Ce ratio was found to vary from 0.51 to 18.73. The capacity output varied between 179 and 266 mAh g⁻¹. The results show that the La/Ce ratio has a strong influence on the performance, with the best performance realized with samples having an La/Ce ratio of around 12. La enhancement facilitates easy activation due to refinement in grain size and interstitial dimensions. Also, an orderly influence on crystalline structure could be seen. The study demonstrates that the rare earth content is an essential factor in determining the maximum capacity output because of its influence on crystal orientation as well as an increase in the radius of the interstitials, lattice constants and cell volumes.     

Scheduling Algorithms with Fault Detection and Location Capabilities for Real-Time Multiprocessor Systems

Several schemes for detecting and locating faulty processors through self-diagnosis in multiprocessor systems have been discussed in the past. These schemes attempt to start multiple copies (versions) of the tasks on available idle processors simultaneously and compare the results generated by the copies to detect or locate faulty processors. These schemes are based on FCFS scheduling strategy. But, they cannot be applied directly to real-time multiprocessor systems where tasks have timing constraints. In this paper, we present a new scheduling algorithm that not only schedules real-time tasks, but also attempts to perform self-diagnosis if the system is not heavily loaded. We define load as a function of the tasks' laxities. We have carried out extensive simulations and compared the results of our algorithm with those of the myopic algorithm, a real-time task scheduler. Simulation results show that our algorithm that exploits both the tasks' laxity and spare capacity (unused processors) offers performance (guarantee ratio) comparable to that of the myopic algorithm in addition to achieving fault detection and location     

Audio style transfer using shallow convolutional networks and random filters

Recently, with the advent of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) era, Neural style transfer on images has become a very active research topic and the style of an image can be transferred to another image through a CNN so that the image retains both its own content and another style of image. In this work, we propose an algorithm for audio style transfer that uses the force of CNN to generate a new audio from a style audio. We use Continuous Wavelet Transfer(CWT) to convert the audio into a spectrogram and then use the spectrogram as the representation of the audio image through image style transfer method to obtain a new image, and finally, generate an audio using iterative phase reconstruction with Griffin-Lim. We succeed in transferring audio such as light music but had difficulty in transferring audio that has lyrics and high-level metrics such as emotion or tone. We propose several measures to improve the quality of audio and a lot of experimental results shows that our method is better than other methods in terms of sound quality.

     

Influence of air electrode electrocatalysts on performance of air-MH cells

Ni-MH battery system has been in limelight recently because of its inherent advantages like high-energy density, eco-friendly nature, devoid of memory effect, etc. Replacement of the heavy nickel oxide electrode with lighter air electrode is expected to improve its energy density further by 20% and also to bring down the cost. Hence some studies have appeared in literature on the development of air-MH system. But the main problem is to have an adequate bifunctional electrode with suitable electrocatalyst. Several materials are available for use in air electrodes. A detailed study is required to identify the best catalytic material and optimize the battery activity. Hence, air-MH cells using different oxides like _Ag2O${\mathrm{Ag}}_2\mathrm{O}$, _LaMnO3${\mathrm{LaMnO}}_3$ and _{La0.65Sr0.30MnO3}${\mathrm{La}}_{0.65}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{0.30}{\mathrm{MnO}}_3$ as catalysts for air electrode have been investigated in the present study with _{MmNi3.5Co0.8Mn0.4Al0.3}${\mathrm{MmNi}}_{3.5}{\mathrm{Co}}_{0.8}{\mathrm{Mn}}_{0.4}{\mathrm{Al}}_{0.3}$ metal hydride negative electrode. Life cycling along with charge and discharge characteristics was studied in detail. The air-MH cells assembled with _Ag2O${\mathrm{Ag}}_2\mathrm{O}$ and _LaMnO3${\mathrm{LaMnO}}_3$ as catalysts in the air electrode gave encouraging performance. _LaMnO3${\mathrm{LaMnO}}_3$ when incorporated as electrocatalyst delivered stable cycle life whereas incorporation of Sr resulted in inferior performance in the studied composition range.     

A rearrangeable algorithm for the construction of delay-constraineddynamic multicast trees

With the proliferation of multimedia group applications, the construction of multicast trees satisfying quality of service (QoS) requirements is becoming a problem of prime importance. Many of the multicast applications (such as video broadcasts and teleconferencing) require the network to support dynamic multicast sessions wherein the membership of the multicast group changes with time. In this paper, we propose and evaluate an algorithm called CRCDM (controlled rearrangement for constrained dynamic multicasting) for on-line update of multicast trees to adjust to changes in group membership. The CRCDM algorithm is based on a concept called quality factor (QF) that represents the usefulness of a portion of the multicast tree to the overall multicast session. When the usefulness of a particular region of the tree drops below a threshold, a rearrangement technique is used to suitably modify the tree. Our algorithm aims to satisfy the delay constraints of all current group members, at the same time minimizing the cost of the constructed tree. We compare the performance of our algorithm, by simulation, with that of an off-line Steiner heuristic; with ARIES, a previously published algorithm for on-line update of unconstrained trees; and with the algorithm proposed by Hong, Lee and Park (see Proc. IEEE INFOCOM, p.1433-40, 1998) for on-line update of delay-constrained trees. The simulation results indicate that our algorithm provides excellent cost-competitiveness that is better than that provided by the algorithm described by Hong et al., minimizes changes in the multicast tree after each update, and performs favorably even when compared with the unconstrained ARIES heuristic     

Sustained hydrogen production from formate using immobilized recombinant Escherichia coli SH5

Biohydrogen is an ideal energy carrier for mobile chemical fuel cells, but its use is often limited by unavailability of sustained H₂ production system(s). Here, we developed a compact system for H₂ production from formate based on immobilized cells of recombinant Escherichia coli SH5. Three different matrices were tested as immobilization medium, among which agar showed the best performance in mechanical stability and permeability of substrate(s) and/or gaseous products (H₂ and CO₂). To explore and optimize the H₂ production capability of the immobilized cells, the conditions for cell immobilization including cell loading and agar concentration as well as the factors affecting H₂ production rate such as temperature, pH, and substrate concentration were studied in detail. A maximum volumetric production rate of 2.4 L H₂ L⁻¹ h⁻¹ was obtained when the immobilized cells were incubated with 350 mM sodium formate at pH 6.5 and 37 °C. Periodic supplementation of 200 mM formate with 20 mM glucose at pH 6.5 maintained the high H₂ production rate for a prolonged period of 10 h. We believe that our process can be developed for sustained H₂ production and is applicable to the operation of fuel cells in small-scale.     

Epoxidation of alkene using bi-functional metal oxide supported SBA-16 catalyst

Journal of Porous Materials - Three dimensional (3D) cubic cage like Im3m mesoporous SBA-16 was synthesized by one pot hydrothermal method using Pluronic F127 as structure directing agent and...     

A survey of QoS multicasting issues

The proliferation of QoS-aware group applications over the Internet has accelerated the need for scalable and efficient multicast support. We present a multicast "life cycle" model that identifies the various issues involved in a typical multicast session. During the life cycle of a multicast session, three important events can occur: group dynamics, network dynamics, and traffic dynamics. The first two aspects are concerned with maintaining a good-quality (e.g., cost) multicast tree taking into account member join/leave and changes in the network topology due to link/node failures/additions, respectively. The third aspect is concerned with flow, congestion, and error control. We examine various issues and solutions for managing group dynamics and failure handling in QoS multicasting, and outline several future research directions