Analysis and optimization of silver nanoparticles laser synthesis with emission spectroscopy of induced plasma

Emission spectroscopy of the laser induced plasma is used to characterize the laser synthesis of silver nanoparticles in water via attributing the thermodynamic parameters of the plasma plume to qualitative features of the synthesized nanoparticles. In this approach, effects of the pulse energy and frequency of a pulsedNd:YAGlaser on nanoparticles synthesis yield and size distribution is studied by an analysis on the behavior of electron temperature and total density of the plasma dominant species (neutral Ag atoms; AgI). Variation of these thermodynamic parameters obtained from the time-integrated emission spectroscopy of the induced plasma was found to be in a closed correlation with the mentioned characteristics of the synthesized nanoparticles. Assessment of the qualitative features of nanoparticles was performed by evaluating the particles concentration in liquid, optical absorption spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Finally, the optimum operating conditions for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles in pure water is determined by summarizing the results of emission spectroscopy observations attributed to the mentioned characteristics of synthesized nanoparticles.     

Evaluation of dynamic viscosity and rheological properties of ceramic materials during liquid phase sintering by numerical‐experimental procedure

The effective shear and bulk viscosity, as well as dynamic viscosity, describe the rheological properties of the ceramic body during the liquid phase sintering process. The rheological parameters depend on the physical and thermo‐mechanical characteristics of the material such as relative density, temperature, grain size, diffusion coefficient, and activation energy. In this paper, the numerical‐experimental method has been developed to study both viscous and rheological behavior of hard porcelain ceramic body during liquid phase sintering. The other aim is to acquire a complete understanding of the response of an incompressible viscose material during sintering such as stress‐strain relations, sintering, and hydrostatic stress. Densification results confirmed that the bulk viscosity was well‐defined with relative density. The stress analysis proved that the sintering stress is more than the hydrostatic stress during the entire sintering time so, the sintering process occurs completely. Deflection results showed that the shear viscosity was a fair estimation of real ones. Dilatometry, SEM, XRD investigations as well as bulk viscosity simulation results confirmed that the “mullitisation plateau” was presented as a very little extraordinary expansion at the final sintering stage.     

Symmetric deformable image registration via optimization of information theoretic measures

The use of information theoretic measures (ITMs) has been steadily growing in image processing, bioinformatics, and pattern classification. Although the ITMs have been extensively used in rigid and affine registration of multi-modal images, their computation and accuracy are critical issues in deformable image registration. Three important aspects of using ITMs in multi-modal deformable image registration are considered in this paper: computation, inverse consistency, and accuracy; a symmetric formulation of the deformable image registration problem through the computation of derivatives and resampling on both source and target images, and sufficient criteria for inverse consistency are presented for the purpose of achieving more accurate registration. The techniques of estimating ITMs are examined and analytical derivatives are derived for carrying out the optimization in a computationally efficient manner. ITMs based on Shannon’s and Renyi’s definitions are considered and compared. The obtained evaluation results via registration functions, and controlled deformable registration of multi-modal digital brain phantom and in vivo magnetic resonance brain images show the improved accuracy and efficiency of the developed formulation. The results also indicate that despite the recent favorable studies towards the use of ITMs based on Renyi’s definitions, these measures are seen not to provide improvements in this type of deformable registration as compared to ITMs based on Shannon’s definitions.     

A study on vibration of Stewart platform-based machine tool table

In this paper, an analytical study on the vibrations of a parallel manipulator is addressed. In the vibration equation of the moving platform, the damping and stiffness of the pods are taken into account. The eigenvalue problem of the moving platform is solved to obtain the natural frequencies. Considering the role of different factors effective on the mass and stiffness matrices of the platform, natural frequencies for different configurations are investigated. The results obtained by analytical approach are further verified through FEM simulation. The effect of variation in position and orientation of the moving platform on the change in stiffness of its supporting chain, inertia tensor and natural frequencies and mode shapes of the platform as well as the effects of different payloads are studied. The vibration of the platform in different configurations is studied in different cutting conditions. The ranges of resonance frequencies and vibration amplitudes are then investigated. Finally, proper configurations of the moving platform are determined to avoid dynamic instability in different machining conditions. It also will be illustrated in this paper that some specific features embodied in the mechanism are appropriate for high-speed milling.     

Application of combined analytical/FEA coupled aero-structure simulation in design of wind turbine adaptive blades

This paper demonstrates the application of combined analytical/FEA coupled aero-structure simulation in design of bend-twist adaptive blades. A genetic algorithm based design tool, in which the power curve is predicted through a combined coupled aero-structure simulation, has been developed. A bend-twist adaptive blade has been designed to be used on the rotor of a constant speed stall regulated wind turbine. The bend-twist adaptive blade is assumed to be made out of anisotropic composite materials. The designed blade has the same aerofoil and chord distribution as the original blade used on the wind turbine, but with a different pre-twist distribution. The simulated results show a significant improvement in the average power of the studied stall regulated wind turbine when employing the designed adaptive blades.     

WTAB, a computer program for predicting the performance of horizontal axis wind turbines with adaptive blades

An aero-structure code has been developed to predict the performance of a horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) with adaptive blades. The code is a combination of an aerodynamic code, an adaptive mesh generator and a finite element code, all developed especially for this purpose. It has been shown that for a high elastic coupling, a coupled aero-structure simulation approach is necessary to have acceptable results while a single step simulation approach can only be used to estimate the blade loading and wind turbine power.     

Second order stress gradient plasticity with an application to thin foil bending

The continuum theory of dislocations is applied to formulate the problem of a double ended dislocation pileup under quadratic applied stress. Accordingly, a second order stress gradient plasticity model is presented to address the contribution of the first and the second stress gradients in the effect interpretation. The model is employed to predict the initial strengthening and subsequent hardening in curved and straight thin foils under pure bending within the continuum framework. It is shown that the so-called stress gradient plasticity model that ignores the second stress gradient may not give sound interpretations of the size effects. The plastic response of thin foils is affected by both the first and second stress gradients, yet their interaction strongly depends upon the length scale parameter. The larger the length scale parameter, the quadratic term contribution would be important and the predictions of the first and second order models deviate significantly from each other.     

Prediction-based underutilized and destination host selection approaches for energy-efficient dynamic VM consolidation in data centers

The Journal of Supercomputing - Improving the energy efficiency while guaranteeing quality of services (QoS) is one of the main challenges of efficient resource management of large-scale data...     

Meta-Heuristic Algorithms for Hydrologic Frequency Analysis

Meta-heuristic algorithms, such as the genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization, have received considerable attention in recent years due to their higher ability for solving difficult engineering optimization problems. This paper employs these techniques for estimating parameters of commonly used flood frequency distributions, and compares them with some conventional methods such as maximum likelihood, moments and probability weighted moments using annual maximum discharge data of 14 rivers from East-Azarbaijan, Iran. The results indicate that both the genetic algorithm and ant colony optimization are suitable parameter estimation alternatives. Also, the results of Monte Carlo simulation for various sample sizes, ranging from 20 to 100, demonstrate that the meta-heuristic algorithms yield accurate quantile estimates.     

A survey on physical layer impairments aware routing and wavelength assignment algorithms in optical networks

Optical networks are moving from opaque and translucent architectures towards all-optical (transparent) architectures. In translucent architectures a small amount of regeneration (e.g. optical–electronic–optical conversion) is available in the network. The incorporation of the physical impairments in the routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) problem in transparent optical networks has recently received some attention from the research communities. This work compiles a comprehensive survey of the proposed algorithms that address this issue. The physical layer impairments and related classification in optical networks are initially presented followed by physical layer impairments (PLI) constrained and aware RWA algorithms. Algorithmic approach, current PLI-RWA proposals, impact of wavelength conversion on these algorithms, protection and resilience considerations, and proposed extensions to control planes are covered in this work. Further research topics are presented in this study.