Theoretical and experimental analyses of rheological,compatibility and mechanical properties of PVMQ/XNBR-g GMA/XNBR/GO ternary hybrid nanocomposites

Iranian Polymer Journal - Effects of graphene oxide (GO) on various properties of rubber hybrid nanocomposites based on PVMQ/XNBR-g-GMA/XNBR (phenyl-vinyl-methyl-polysiloxane/carboxylated nitrile...     

Mesoporous SBA-15@n-Pr-THAM-ZrO organic–inorganic hybrid: as a highly efficient reusable nanocatalyst for the synthesis of polyhydroquinolines and 2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4 (1h)-ones

Journal of Porous Materials - In this work, tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane-Zirconium complex supported on modified SBA-15 (SBA-15@n-Pr-THMAM-ZrO) prepared as a novel mesoporous catalyst. The...     

Formal process algebraic modeling,verification, and analysis of an abstract Fuzzy Inference Cloud Service

In cloud computing, services play key roles. Services are well defined and autonomous components. Nowadays, the demand of using Fuzzy inference as a service is increasing in the domain of complex and critical systems. In such systems, along with the development of the software, the cost of detecting and fixing software defects increases. Therefore, using formal methods, which provide clear, concise, and mathematical interpretation of the system, is crucial for the design of these Fuzzy systems. To obtain this goal, we introduce the Fuzzy Inference Cloud Service (FICS) and propose a novel discipline for formal modeling of the FICS. The FICS provides the service of Fuzzy inference to the consumers. We also introduce four novel formal verification tests, which allow strict analysis of certain behavioral disciplines in the FICS as follows: (1) Internal consistency, which analyzes the service in a strict and delicate manner; (2) Deadlock freeness; (3) Divergence freeness; and (4) Goal reach ability. The four tests are discussed and the FICS is verified to ensure that it can pass all these tests.     

Simultaneous measurement of gas hold-up and mass transfer coefficient by tracer dynamic technique in “Emulsair” reactor with an emulsion-venturi distributor

Hydrodynamics and gas-liquid mass transfer have been investigated in an “Emulsair” reactor with cocurrent downflow of gas and liquid. This consists of a cylindrical tank with conical bottom topped by an emulsion-venturi as the gas-liquid distributor in which the gas is self-aspired by action of the kinetic energy of the liquid recirculation. An original tracer dynamic technique using the CO₂-N₂/water system that enables the simultaneous measurement of overall gas hold-up and overall volumetric mass transfer coefficient has been developed and validated using conventional techniques, such as volume expansion for gas hold-up and dynamic oxygenation for mass transfer. It has been shown that gas hold-up and K_La_L can be deduced from the moments of experimental response curves using a CO₂ pulse in the gas feed. Experimental results have proved that hydrodynamics and mass transfer in the Emulsair reactor are strongly influenced by the flow regime in the divergent. Two different regimes have been observed depending on the liquid recirculation flow rate: annular and homogeneous bubbling flows. In both regimes, self-aspired gas flow rate, gas hold-up and K_La_L have been reported to increase with the liquid flow rate. The operation effectiveness, estimated from the gas-to-liquid flow rate ratio, has been shown to pass through a maximum around 0.59 as a function of liquid recirculation. A comparison with the literature proved that this maximum is higher than those observed for other kinds of gas-liquid reactors equipped with a venturi. Correlations for mass transfer estimation have been derived and are in agreement with the literature.     

Study of Hydrodynamics,Mixing and Gas‐Liquid Mass Transfer in a Split‐Rectangular Airlift Reactor

Global hydrodynamic characteristics, liquid mixing and gas‐liquid mass transfer for a 63 L split‐rectangular airlift reactor were studied. Correlations for gas holdup and overall liquid circulation velocity were derived for the air‐water system as a function of the specific power input; these were compared to data and correlations for reactor volumes between 4.7 L and 4600 L. A partial recirculation of small bubbles in the riser was observed when U_gr > 0.03 m/s, which was attributed to the use of a single‐orifice nozzle as the gas phase distributor. The dimensionless mixing time and the overall axial dispersion coefficient were nearly constant for the range of gas flow rates studied. However, values of K_L/d_B were greater than those reported in previous studies and this is caused by the partial recirculation of the gas phase in the riser. While scale effects remain slight, the use of a gas distributor favouring this partial recirculation seems adequate for mass transfer in split‐rectangular airlift reactors.     

Modification of leather properties by grafting. I. Effect of monomer chain on the physico‐mechanical properties of grafted leather

Although leather has a number of desirable properties such as thermal stability and fire retardancey, in addition to high toughness, it has a few drawbacks such as weight, high water absorption, poor soil and rot resistance, and nonuniformity. If these defects are overcome, leather's usefulness would be further enhanced and its competitive position with respect to synthetics would increase. This study reports the physical and mechanical properties of buffalo leather after chemical graft copolymerization with ethyl acrylate, butyl acrylate, and 2‐ethyl hexyl acrylate using benzoyl peroxide as an initiator. The optimum conditions for grafting (e.g., monomer and initiator concentrations, temperature and time of grafting, and solvent leather ratio) were extensively investigated. The study achieved outstanding properties for buffalo leather in reduction of water uptake after grafting, especially on using 2‐ethyl hexyl acrylate and butyl acrylate monomers. FT‐IR and solid ¹³C‐NMR for leather before and after grafting confirmed the grafting process.© 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 89: 1478–1483, 2003     

Performance evaluation of an importance sampling technique in a Jackson network

Importance sampling is a technique that is commonly used to speed up Monte Carlo simulation of rare events. However, little is known regarding the design of efficient importance sampling algorithms in the context of queueing networks. The standard approach, which simulates the system using an a priori fixed change of measure suggested by large deviation analysis, has been shown to fail in even the simplest network settings. Estimating probabilities associated with rare events has been a topic of great importance in queueing theory, and in applied probability at large. In this article, we analyse the performance of an importance sampling estimator for a rare event probability in a Jackson network. This article carries out strict deadlines to a two-node Jackson network with feedback whose arrival and service rates are modulated by an exogenous finite state Markov process. We have estimated the probability of network blocking for various sets of parameters, and also the probability of missing the deadline of customers for different loads and deadlines. We have finally shown that the probability of total population overflow may be affected by various deadline values, service rates and arrival rates.     

On detecting co-resident cloud instances using network flow watermarking techniques

Virtualization is the cornerstone of the developing third-party compute industry, allowing cloud providers to instantiate multiple virtual machines (VMs) on a single set of physical resources. Customers utilize cloud resources alongside unknown and untrusted parties, creating the co-resident threat—unless perfect isolation is provided by the virtual hypervisor, there exists the possibility for unauthorized access to sensitive customer information through the exploitation of covert side channels. This paper presents co-resident watermarking, a traffic analysis attack that allows a malicious co-resident VM to inject a watermark signature into the network flow of a target instance. This watermark can be used to exfiltrate and broadcast co-residency data from the physical machine, compromising isolation without reliance on internal side channels. As a result, our approach is difficult to defend against without costly underutilization of the physical machine. We evaluate co-resident watermarkingunder a large variety of conditions, system loads and hardware configurations, from a local laboratory environment to production cloud environments (Futuregrid and the University of Oregon’s ACISS). We demonstrate the ability to initiate a covert channel of 4 bits per second, and we can confirm co-residency with a target VM instance in $<$ 10 s. We also show that passive load measurement of the target and subsequent behavior profiling is possible with this attack. We go on to consider the detectability of co-resident watermarking, extending our scheme to create a subtler watermarking attack by imitating legitimate cloud customer behavior. Our investigation demonstrates the need for the careful design of hardware to be used in the cloud.     

On the stability issues of switched singular time‐delay systems with slow switching based on average dwell‐time

The issue of exponential stability analysis of continuous‐time switched singular systems consisting of a family of stable and unstable subsystems with time‐varying delay is investigated in this paper. It is very difficult to analyze the stability of such systems because of the existence of time‐delay and unstable subsystems. In this regard, on the basis of the free‐weighting matrix approach, by constructing the new Lyapunov‐like Krasovskii functional, and using the average dwell‐time approach, delay‐dependent sufficient conditions are derived and formulated in terms of LMIs to check the exponential stability of such systems. This paper also highlights the relationship between the average dwell‐time of the switched singular time‐delay system, its stability, exponential convergence rate of differential states, and algebraic states. Finally, a numerical example is given to confirm the analytical results and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using mobile node speed changes for movement direction change prediction in a realistic category of mobility models

In order to evaluate performance of protocols for ad hoc networks, the protocols have to be tested under realistic conditions. These conditions may include a reasonable transmission range, a limited buffer size, and realistic movement of mobile users (mobility models). In this paper, we propose a new and realistic type of random mobility models in which the mobile node has to decelerate to reach the point of direction change and accelerates with a defined acceleration to reach its intended speed. This realistic mobility model is proposed based on random mobility models. In reality, mobile objects tend to change their speed when they are going to change their direction, i.e. decelerate when approaching a direction change point and accelerate when they start their movement in a new direction. Therefore, in this paper, we implement this behavior in random mobility models which lack such specification. In fact, this paper represents our effort to use this accelerated movement to anticipate a probable direction change of a mobile node with reasonable confidence. The simulation type of this paper is based on traces produced by a mobility trace generator tool. We use a data mining concept called association rule mining to find any possible correlations between accelerated movement of mobile node and the probability that mobile node wants to change its direction. We calculate confidence and lift parameters for this matter, and simulate this mobility model based on random mobility models. These simulations show a meaningful correlation between occurrence of an accelerated movement and event of mobile node's direction change.