Linking asphalt binder fatigue to asphalt mixture fatigue performance using viscoelastic continuum damage modeling

Fatigue cracking is a major form of distress in asphalt pavements. Asphalt binder is the weakest asphalt concrete constituent and, thus, plays a critical role in determining the fatigue resistance of pavements. Therefore, the ability to characterize and model the inherent fatigue performance of an asphalt binder is a necessary first step to design mixtures and pavements that are not susceptible to premature fatigue failure. The simplified viscoelastic continuum damage (S-VECD) model has been used successfully by researchers to predict the damage evolution in asphalt mixtures for various traffic and climatic conditions using limited uniaxial test data. In this study, the S-VECD model, developed for asphalt mixtures, is adapted for asphalt binders tested under cyclic torsion in a dynamic shear rheometer. Derivation of the model framework is presented. The model is verified by producing damage characteristic curves that are both temperature- and loading history-independent based on time sweep tests, given that the effects of plasticity and adhesion loss on the material behavior are minimal. The applicability of the S-VECD model to the accelerated loading that is inherent of the linear amplitude sweep test is demonstrated, which reveals reasonable performance predictions, but with some loss in accuracy compared to time sweep tests due to the confounding effects of nonlinearity imposed by the high strain amplitudes included in the test. The asphalt binder S-VECD model is validated through comparisons to asphalt mixture S-VECD model results derived from cyclic direct tension tests and Accelerated Loading Facility performance tests. The results demonstrate good agreement between the asphalt binder and mixture test results and pavement performance, indicating that the developed model framework is able to capture the asphalt binder’s contribution to mixture fatigue and pavement fatigue cracking performance.     

High-performance optimizations on tiled many-core embedded systems: a matrix multiplication case study

Technological advancements in the silicon industry, as predicted by Moore’s law, have resulted in an increasing number of processor cores on a single chip, giving rise to multicore, and subsequently many-core architectures. This work focuses on identifying key architecture and software optimizations to attain high performance from tiled many-core architectures (TMAs)—an architectural innovation in the multicore technology. Although embedded systems design is traditionally power-centric, there has been a recent shift toward high-performance embedded computing due to the proliferation of compute-intensive embedded applications. The TMAs are suitable for these embedded applications due to low-power design features in many of these TMAs. We discuss the performance optimizations on a single tile (processor core) as well as parallel performance optimizations, such as application decomposition, cache locality, tile locality, memory balancing, and horizontal communication for TMAs. We elaborate compiler-based optimizations that are applicable to TMAs, such as function inlining, loop unrolling, and feedback-based optimizations. We present a case study with optimized dense matrix multiplication algorithms for Tilera’s TILEPro64 to experimentally demonstrate the performance and performance per watt optimizations on TMAs. Our results quantify the effectiveness of algorithmic choices, cache blocking, compiler optimizations, and horizontal communication in attaining high performance and performance per watt on TMAs.     

Guest Editors' Introduction: Confronting the Hardware Trustworthiness Problem

The emergence of a globalized, horizontal semiconductor business model raises concerns involving the security and trust of the information systems on which modern society is increasingly reliant for mission-critical functionality. Traditionally, hardware-based security techniques and countermeasures modify hardware to prevent attacks and to protect IP blocks or secret keys. Some of the emerging types of attacks covered by this special issue are fundamentally different: the attacker is assumed to maliciously alter the design before or during fabrication.     

Exposure in Wireless Sensor Networks: Theory and Practical Solutions

Wireless ad hoc sensor networks have the potential to provide the missing interface between the physical world and the Internet, thus impacting a large number of users. This connection will enable computational treatments of the physical world in ways never before possible. In this far reaching scenario, Quality of Service can be expressed in terms of accuracy and/or latency of observing events and the overall state of the physical world. Consequently, one of the fundamental problems in sensor networks is the calculation of coverage, which can be defined as a measure of the ability to detect objects within a sensor filed. Exposure is directly related to coverage in that it is an integral measure of how well the sensor network can observe an object, moving on an arbitrary path, over a period of time. After elucidating the importance of exposure, we formally define exposure and study its properties. We have developed an efficient and effective algorithm for exposure calculations in sensor networks, specifically for finding minimal exposure paths. The minimal exposure path provides valuable information about the worst case exposure-based coverage in sensor networks. The algorithm can be applied to any given distribution of sensors, sensor and sensitivity models, and characteristics of the network. Furthermore, it provides an unbounded level of accuracy as a function of run time and storage. Finally, we provide an extensive collection of experimental results and study the scaling behavior of exposure and the proposed algorithm for its calculation.     

Dynamic scheduling applying new population grouping of whales meta-heuristic in cloud computing

The Journal of Supercomputing - Scheduling in cloud computing is the assignment of tasks to resources with maximum performance, which is a multi-purpose problem. The scheduling is of NP-Hard issues...     

Pervaporation separation of water–isopropyl alcohol mixture by PVA/LiBr membrane

Hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol membranes, modified by lithium bromide, were prepared with glutaraldehyde as a crosslinking reagent. The membranes were investigated for the pervaporation dehydration of a water–isopropyl systems. The effect of the feed temperature on permeation flux and membrane selectivity was studied. The characterization of modified membranes was performed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and X‐ray diffraction. It was observed that the crystallinity of membranes increased as lithium bromide was added to the polymer. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to analyze water content and isopropyl alcohol in the feed and permeate samples The pervaporation tests also confirmed an enhancement in water permeability through adding LiBr to the polymer, because of the high hydrophilic properties of this salt. According to pervaporation experiments conducted at 50°C, the water flux increased from 0.1049 kg/ m² hr to 0.1114 kg/ m² hr as 0.5 wt% of LiBr was added to the polymer matrix. Furthermore, an addition of 1 wt% of LiBr compared to homogeneous PVA membrane increased selectivity from 76 to 779. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:E101–E111, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Application of minimally invasive injectable conductive hydrogels as stimulating scaffolds for myocardial tissue engineering

So far, several methods for myocardial tissue engineering have been developed to regenerate myocardium and even create contractile heart muscles. Among these approaches, hydrogel based methods have attracted much attention due to their ability to mimic the architecture of native extracellular matrix. Injectable hydrogels are a specific class of hydrogels which can be formed in situ by physical and/or chemical crosslinking. Generally, using these hydrogels is more advantageous because they are minimally (less) invasive in comparison with open surgery. Moreover, with respect to the fact that ‘myocardium is a conductive tissue’, utilization of conductive polymers for myocardial tissue engineering has demonstrated promising results. Both the injectable hydrogels and conductive polymers have some merits and demerits, but studies show that using a combination of them has prominently enhanced regeneration of the myocardium. In this review, the focus is on injectable hydrogels, conductive polymers and injectable conductive hydrogels for myocardial tissue engineering. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry     

A queueing theoretic approach for performance evaluation of low-power multi-core embedded systems

With Moore’s law supplying billions of transistors on-chip, embedded systems are undergoing a transition from single-core to multi-core to exploit this high transistor density for high performance. However, the optimal layout of these multiple cores along with the memory subsystem (caches and main memory) to satisfy power, area, and stringent real-time constraints is a challenging design endeavor. The short time-to-market constraint of embedded systems exacerbates this design challenge and necessitates the architectural modeling of embedded systems to reduce the time-to-market by expediting target applications to device/architecture mapping. In this paper, we present a queueing theoretic approach for modeling multi-core embedded systems that provides a quick and inexpensive performance evaluation both in terms of time and resources as compared to the development of multi-core simulators and running benchmarks on these simulators. We verify our queueing theoretic modeling approach by running SPLASH-2 benchmarks on the SuperESCalar simulator (SESC). Results reveal that our queueing theoretic model qualitatively evaluates multi-core architectures accurately with an average difference of 5.6% as compared to the architectures’ evaluations from the SESC simulator. Our modeling approach can be used for performance per watt and performance per unit area characterizations of multi-core embedded architectures, with varying number of processor cores and cache configurations, to provide a comparative analysis.     

Antioxidant,antibacterial and anticancer properties of phyto ‐ synthesised Artemisia quttensis Podlech extract mediated AgNPs

The focus of this study is on a rapid and cost‐effective approach for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Artemisia quttensis Podlech aerial parts extract and assessment of their antioxidant, antibacterial and anticancer activities. The prepared AgNPs were determined by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, Fourier transform infra‐red spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy‐dispersive spectroscopy, and dynamic light scattering and zeta‐potential analysis. The AgNPs and A. quttensis extract were evaluated for their antiradical scavenging activity by 2, 2‐diphenyl, 1‐picryl hydrazyl assay and anticancer activity against colon cancer (human colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line 29) compared with normal human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells. Also, the prepared AgNPs were studied for its antibacterial activity. The AgNPs revealed a higher antioxidant activity compared with A. quttensis extract alone. The phyto‐synthesised AgNPs and A. quttensis extract showed a dose–response cytotoxicity effect against HT29 and HEK293 cells. As evidenced by Annexin V/propidium iodide staining, the number of apoptotic HT29 cells was significantly enhanced, following treatment with AgNPs as compared with untreated cells. Besides, the antibacterial property of the AgNPs indicated a significant effect against the selected pathogenic bacteria. These present obtained results show the potential applications of phyto‐synthesised AgNPs using A. quttensis aerial parts extract.Inspec keywords: nanoparticles, silver, nanomedicine, cancer, transmission electron microscopy, ultraviolet spectroscopy, visible spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, electrokinetic effects, kidney, cellular biophysics, antibacterial activity, toxicology, patient treatmentOther keywords: anticancer properties, antibacterial properties, antioxidant properties, phytosynthesised Artemisia quttensis Podlech extract mediated AgNP, ultraviolet‐visible spectroscopy, X‐ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy‐dispersive spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, zeta‐potential analysis, antiradical scavenging activity, 2,2‐diphenyl, 1‐picryl hydrazyl assay, anticancer activity, HT29 colon cancer, human embryonic kidney cells, HEK293 cells, A. quttensis extract, dose‐response cytotoxicity effect, Annexin V staining, apoptotic HT29 cells, pathogenic bacteria, propidium iodide staining, Ag