Effect of CR and FT-paraffin versus SBS modification in terms of conventional and rheological properties

In this study, the rheological and conventional properties of binders prepared with crumb rubber (CR) and FT-paraffin were compared to styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS)-modified binders’ properties. The objective of this study was to determine which modified binders in different combinations of the CR and the FT-paraffin exhibited better performance than the SBS-modified binders, in terms of conventional and rheological properties. Results showed that the additives exhibited different performances for different types of tests. Many of the combinations including the common usage of the CR and the FT-paraffin performed better at high temperature than the SBS modification. Overall, the test results show that the binders prepared by 6% CR with 3 and 4% FT-paraffin and those prepared with 8% CR with 3% FT-paraffin were better binders than the 4% SBS-modified binder, in terms of low and high temperature properties.     

Enhancement of the neural network modeling accuracy using a submodeling decomposition-based technique, application in gas sensor

This paper presents an algorithm based on the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in order to reduce the processing time and to improve the accuracy in ANN modeling, which can be accomplished with a division of the model to submodels by input subintervals. We apply this method with a gas sensor aiming to accurately control the small gas leaks, thus decreasing the risk of false alarms and missed detections. The sensor model accurately, especially in small concentrations, expresses the nonlinear character of the response and the dependence on temperature and relative humidity in addition to the gas nature dependency. The corrector linearizes and compensates the sensor’s responses. The results obtained show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.     

Numerical electromagnetic field analysis on lightning surgeresponse of tower with shield wire

Lightning surge characteristics of a transmission line comprising a tower, a shield wire and phase conductors are studied with the help of NEC-2. A tower struck by a lightning stroke behaves as an antenna until a traveling wave makes several roundtrips in the tower. During this interval, the tower footing impedance appears to be higher than the footing resistance, and the coupling coefficient between a shield wire and a phase conductor is much lower than that in the TEM mode. These affect the estimation of insulator voltages of transmission towers subject to lightning currents having short rise times. On the basis of these findings, the parameters in the multistory tower model, which has been used widely in EMTP multi-conductor analyzes, are newly proposed     

New perylene derivative dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells

We have studied the influence of the spacer alkyl chain length of perylenemonoimide (PMI) dyes on the device performance in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). We observed that the dyes with longer and brunched alkyl chains exhibit higher efficiencies in DSSCs. In line with these statements we now report the highest efficiency obtained under standard conditions for a perylene imide derivative with PMI-DA1 that performs 300 mV open circuit voltage, 9.79 mA/cm² short-circuit current and 1.61% overall conversion efficiency.     

Evaluation of rheological and image properties of styrene‐butadiene‐styrene and ethylene‐vinyl acetate polymer modified bitumens

This article presents a laboratory evaluation of conventional, fundamental, rheological, and morphological characteristics of styrene‐butadiene‐styrene (SBS) and ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) polymer modified bitumens. Polymer modified bitumen (PMB) samples have been produced by mixing a 50/70 penetration grade unmodified (base) bitumen with SBS and EVA copolymer at different polymer contents. The fundamental viscoelastic properties of the PMBs were determined using dynamic (oscillatory) mechanical analysis and presented in the form of temperature and frequency‐dependent rheological parameters. The morphology of the samples as well as the percent area distribution of polymers throughout the base bitumen have been characterized and determined by means of fluorescent light optic microscopy and Qwin Plus image analysis software, respectively. The results indicated that polymer modification improved the conventional and rheological properties of the base bitumen. It was also concluded that the temperature and frequency had a significant effect on complex modulus of PMBs. The behavior of EVA and SBS PMBs had exhibited quite difference at 50°C. Moreover, it was found out that at low polymer contents, the samples revealed the existence of dispersed polymer particles in a continuous bitumen phase, whereas at high polymer contents a continuous polymer phase has been observed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

An Accurate Indoor RSSI Localization Algorithm Based on Active RFID System with Reference Tags

Radio frequency identification technologies are popular since their cost is very low and its data transmission based upon radio-wave communications. Where, the objects that are attached to tags are located using the reference tags. However, RSSI information suffers from the multipath propagation and anisotropic interference. So, the localization accuracy will be affected severely. Also, the multipath-propagation increases whenever the reference-tags increase, and so does for the cost, and signal interference. This paper presents a boundary virtual reference label algorithm for improving the indoor-efficiency by inserting some virtual reference tags on the boundary with establishing a linear regression model that eliminates unwanted tag information from the estimation procedure. The Results show that the localisation precision of the proposed approach has significantly increased, at least 78% without adding extra reference tags or radio frequency interference which represents a significant improvement over other algorithms .

     

Joint Channel and Multi-User Detection Empowered with Machine Learning

The numbers of multimedia applications and their users increase with each passing day. Different multi-carrier systems have been developed along with varying techniques of space-time coding to address the demand of the future generation of network systems. In this article, a fuzzy logic empowered adaptive backpropagation neural network (FLeABPNN) algorithm is proposed for joint channel and multi-user detection (CMD). FLeABPNN has two stages. The first stage estimates the channel parameters, and the second performs multi-user detection. The proposed approach capitalizes on a neuro-fuzzy hybrid system that combines the competencies of both fuzzy logic and neural networks. This study analyzes the results of using FLeABPNN based on a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) receiver with conventional partial opposite mutant particle swarm optimization (POMPSO), total-OMPSO (TOMPSO), fuzzy logic empowered POMPSO (FL-POMPSO), and FL-TOMPSO-based MIMO receivers. The FLeABPNN-based receiver renders better results than other techniques in terms of minimum mean square error, minimum mean channel error, and bit error rate.     

Effects of using asphaltite as filler on mechanical properties of hot mix asphalt

This study focuses on determining the engineering characteristics of hot mix asphalt using mineral filler with asphaltite. Since asphaltite which consists of high amount of sulfur leads to air pollution when used as a heating material and also being hydrocarbon sourced, it seems better to use asphaltite in the hot mix asphalts. The hot mix asphalts in this study were prepared by using 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% mixing ratios based on the mineral filler ratio to analyze the possibility of using asphaltite. The results reveal that using asphaltite as a whole filler significantly increased the retained Marshall stability by 27% and increased the stiffness modulus by 91% at 15 °C. As for the tensile strength test, it was determined that the control mixtures lost 35% of its tensile strength ratio after one freeze–thaw cycle, however the mixtures containing completely asphaltite as filler lost only 13%. A remarkable increase was found at fatigue test. The cycle number leading to failure of the mixtures containing 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% asphaltite by weight of filler were 2.9, 3.6, 5.4 and 7.9 times greater than those of the control mixtures respectively at 300 kPa stress level. Using asphaltite as filler exhibited high performance by improving especially the resistance to moisture damage and fatigue life.