Novel electrospun polymer electrolytes incorporated with Keggin‐type hetero polyoxometalate fillers as solvent‐free electrolytes for lithium ion batteries

In this study, solvent‐free nanofibrous electrolytes were fabricated through an electrospinning method. Polyethylene oxide (PEO), lithium perchlorate and ethylene carbonate were used as polymer matrix, salt and plasticizer respectively in the electrolyte structures. Keggin‐type hetero polyoxometalate (Cu‐POM@Ru‐rGO, Ni‐POM@Ru‐rGO and Co‐POM@Ru‐rGO (POM, polyoxometalate; rGO, reduced graphene oxide)) nanoparticles were synthesized and inserted into the PEO‐based nanofibrous electrolytes. TEM and SEM analyses were carried out for further evaluation of the synthesized filler structures and the electrospun nanofibre morphologies. The fractions of free ions and crystalline phases of the as‐spun electrolytes were estimated by obtaining Fourier transform infrared and XRD spectra, respectively. The results showed a significant improvement in the ionic conductivity of the nanofibrous electrolytes by increasing filler concentrations. The highest ionic conductivity of 0.28 mS cm^?1 was obtained by the introduction of 0.49 wt% Co‐POM@Ru‐rGO into the electrospun electrolyte at ambient temperature. Compared with solution‐cast polymeric electrolytes, the electrospun electrolytes present superior ionic conductivity. Moreover, the cycle stability of the as‐spun electrolytes was clearly improved by the addition of fillers. Furthermore, the mechanical strength was enhanced with the insertion of 0.07 wt% fillers to the electrospun electrolytes. The results implied that the prepared nanofibres are good candidates as solvent‐free electrolytes for lithium ion batteries. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry     

A New Algorithm for the Elimination of Common Subexpressions in Hardware Implementation of Digital Filters by Using Genetic Programming

A new algorithm based on Genetic Programming (GP) for the problem of optimization of Multiple constant Multiplication (MCM) by Common Subexpression Elimination(CSE) is developed. This method is used for hardware optimization for DSP systems. A solution based on Genetic Programming is shown in this paper. The performance of the technique is demonstrated in one- and multi-dimensional digital filters with constant coefficients.     

On development of a finite dynamic element and solution of associated eigenproblem by a block Lanczos procedure

The paper first presents the details of the development of a new six-noded plane triangular finite dynamic element. A block Lanczos algorithm is developed next for the accurate and efficient solution of the quadratic matrix eigenvalue problem associated with the finite dynamic element formulation. The resulting computer program fully exploits matrix sparsity inherent in such a discretization and proves to be most efficient for the extraction of the usually required first few roots and vectors, including repeated ones. Most importantly, the present eigenproblem solution effort is shown to be comparable to that of the corresponding finite element analysis, thereby rendering the associated dynamic element method rather attractive owing to superior convergence characteristics of such elements, presented herein.     

A generalized continuum theory for multiphase suspension flows

A continuum theory for multiphase particulate suspensions in a fluid media is formulated. The generalized fundamental balance laws for the particulate phases as well as for the continuous suspending fluid phase are presented. The thermodynamics of a multiphase system is studied and the method of Lagrangian multipliers is employed to include the constraints of incompressibility of materials of the constituents and the criterion for fully saturated media. Constitutive equations are developed which include microrotational and microdilatational effects. The basic equations of motion of different phases are derived and discussed. Special considerations are given to the case of incompressible constituents. Examples of applications of the present theory to dilute suspension flows and multiphase sedimentations are also discussed.     

An integrated methodology to control the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with hypertension and type 1 diabetes

Today, air pollution, smoking, use of fatty acids and ready‐made foods, and so on, have exacerbated heart disease. Therefore, controlling the risk of such diseases can prevent or reduce their incidence. The present study aimed at developing an integrated methodology including Markov decision processes (MDP) and genetic algorithm (GA) to control the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with hypertension and type 1 diabetes. First, the efficiency of GA is evaluated against Grey Wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm, and then, the superiority of GA is revealed. Next, the MDP is employed to estimate the risk of cardiovascular disease. For this purpose, model inputs are first determined using a validated micro‐simulation model for screening cardiovascular disease developed at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran by GA. The model input factors are then defined accordingly and using these inputs, three risk estimation models are identified. The results of these models support WHO guidelines that provide medicine with a high discount to patients with high expected LYs. To develop the MDP methodology, policies should be adopted that work well despite the difference between the risk model and the actual risk. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to study the behavior of the total medication cost against the changes of parameters.     

Pd/Cu-Free Cobalt-Catalyzed Suzuki and Heck Using Green Bio-Magnetic Hybrid and DFT-Based Theoretical Study

Catalysis Letters - Several highly efficient and magnetically recyclable cobalt catalytic systems were prepared using magnetic chitosan and some safe and available organic compounds...     

An improved Differential Evolution algorithm using learning automata and population topologies

A new variant of Differential Evolution (DE), called ADE-Grid, is presented in this paper which adapts the mutation strategy, crossover rate (CR) and scale factor (F) during the run. In ADE-Grid, learning automata (LA), which are powerful decision making machines, are used to determine the proper value of the parameters CR and F, and the suitable strategy for the construction of a mutant vector for each individual, adaptively. The proposed automata based DE is able to maintain the diversity among the individuals and encourage them to move toward several promising areas of the search space as well as the best found position. Numerical experiments are conducted on a set of twenty four well-known benchmark functions and one real-world engineering problem. The performance comparison between ADE-Grid and other state-of-the-art DE variants indicates that ADE-Grid is a viable approach for optimization. The results also show that the proposed ADE-Grid improves the performance of DE in terms of both convergence speed and quality of final solution.     

A game attention model for efficient bit rate allocation in cloud gaming

The widespread availability of broadband internet access and the growth in server-based processing have provided an opportunity to run games away from the player into the cloud and offer a new promising service known as cloud gaming. The concept of cloud gaming is to render a game in the cloud and stream the resulting game scenes to the player as a video sequence over a broadband connection. To meet the stringent network bandwidth requirements of cloud gaming and support more players, efficient bit rate reduction techniques are needed. In this paper, we introduce the concept of game attention model (GAM), which is basically a game context-based visual attention model, as a means for reducing the bit rate of the streaming video more efficiently. GAM estimates the importance of each macro-block in a game frame from the player’s perspective and allows encoding the less important macro-blocks with lower bit rate. We have evaluated nine game video sequences, covering a wide range of game genre and a spectrum of scene content in terms of details, motion and brightness. Our subjective assessment shows that by integrating this model into the cloud gaming framework, it is possible to decrease the required bit rate by nearly 25 % on average, while maintaining a relatively high user quality of experience. This clearly enables players with limited communication resources to benefit from cloud gaming with acceptable quality.     

Bumpy Particle Adhesion and Removal in Turbulent Flows Including Electrostatic and Capillary Forces

The effect of electrostatic and capillary forces on bumpy particle adhesion and removal in turbulent flows is studied. We use the JKR theory and account for the increase of adhesion by capillary force. The effects of electrostatic forces and nonlinear hydrodynamic drag are included in the analyses. The criteria for incipient rolling and sliding detachments and electrostatic lifting removal are evaluated. A turbulence burst model is used for evaluating the peak air velocity near the substrate. The critical shear velocities for detaching particles of different sizes under different conditions are evaluated. The electric field strength needed for electrostatic removal of particles with different charges is also estimated. The results are compared with those obtained in the absence of the capillary force. Comparisons of the model predictions with the available experimental data are also presented.     

Electrodeposition of smooth and adherent film of polypyrrole on lead electrode

Electropolymerization of pyrrole on lead substrate electrode was studied. Due to electrochemical activity of Pb in acidic media, this process is only possible at basic pHs. For this purpose, electropolymerization process was performed in an aqueous solution of Na₂SO₄ with pH 12. Potentiodynamic cycling shows the Pb oxidation at the first cycles. In subsequent cycles, polypyrrole film grows on the oxidized lead substrate. Of course, as the passive film is highly porous, a composite of polypyrrole/PbSO₄ is formed in the first layers. However, subsequent cycling leads to the formation of pure polypyrrole film. According to this structure and strong connection of the polymer film to the substrate surface via this composite layer, the polypyrrole film deposited on the lead surface has enhanced mechanical stability. AFM measurements showed peculiar smoothness of both composite and lateral polypyrrole films. This synthesis approach is of particular interest for the preparation of highly stable polymer films and fabrication of supercapacitors with a polymer/PbSO₄ conductive structure.