Microwave hybrid fast sintering of red clay ceramics

This work aimed to examine the performance of the hybrid sintering of clay ceramic in a microwave furnace, compared to the sintering process in a conventional furnace. The raw materials were subjected to X-ray fluorescence, loss on ignition (LOI), X-ray diffraction, particle size distribution, real specific mass, and thermogravimetric analyses. The red clay ceramic mass was prepared, extruded, pre-sintered in a conventional furnace at 600°C/60 min, and sintered at temperatures between 700 °C and 1100 °C. The sintering conventional (resistive oven) was carried out for 60 min with a heating rate of 10°C/min. In the microwave furnace, the sintering times were 5, 10, and 15 min, with a heating rate of 50°C/min, with a sintering chamber coated with silicon carbide (susceptor). The sintered specimens were characterized according to linear shrinkage, water absorption, apparent porosity, apparent specific mass, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy analysis, spectroscopy analysis in the ultraviolet and visible regions, microhardness, and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that microwave sintering promoted an increase in the microhardness and apparent specific mass, and reduction in water absorption and apparent porosity values, due to greater densification in the microstructure. The best results occurred for specimens sintered at 1100°C.     

Effect of 100 KeV Ar+ ion beam irradiation on ZnO thin films – Influence of morphology vis-a-vis electrode/electrolyte interface and its impact on photoelectrochemical water splitting

The present study attempts quantitative determination of changes in the morphological surface features viz. fractal dimension, lower and upper cut off length scale through Power Spectral Density analysis prior to and after irradiation of 100 KeV Ar⁺ ion beam at incidence angles of 0°, 40° and 60° on ZnO thin films. All the unirradiated and irradiated samples are subjected to photoelectrochemical characterization and a correlation between photoelectrochemical performance and morphological parameters is established. Sample irradiated at 40° angle at the fluence of 5 × 10¹⁶ ions/cm² is found to possess maximum fractal dimension of 2.72, lower and upper cut off length scale of 3.16 nm and 63.00 nm respectively. This sample exhibits maximum photocurrent density of 3.19 mA/cm² and applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 1.12% at 1.23 V/RHE. Hydrogen gas collected for duration of 1 h for the same sample was ~4.83 mLcm^?2.     

Deep autoencoders for feature learning with embeddings for recommendations: a novel recommender system solution

Neural Computing and Applications - We propose “Deep Autoencoders for Feature Learning in Recommender Systems,” a novel discriminative model based on the incorporation of features from...     

Face verification across age progression.

Human faces undergo considerable amounts of varialions with aging. While face recognition systems have been proven to be sensitive to factors such as illumination and pose, their sensitivity to facial aging effects is yet to be studied. How does age progression affect the similarity between a pair of face images of an individual? What is the confidence associated with establishing the identity between a pair of age separated face images? In this paper, we develop a Bayesian age difference classifier that classifies face images of individuals based on age differences and performs face verification across age progression. Further, we study the similarity of faces across age progression. Since age separated face images invariably differ in illumination and pose, we propose preprocessing methods for minimizing such variations. Experimental results using a database comprising of pairs of face images that were retrieved from the passports of 465 individuals are presented. The verification system for faces separated by as many as nine years, attains an equal error rate of 8.5%.     

An integrated approach to the optimum utilization of national tungsten resources: Technology gaps

A critical review of the current status of tungsten resources, of state-of-the-art processing technology and of product development in India vis-a-vis the world scenario is presented. An attempt has been made to identify technology gap areas requiring attention.     

Failure analysis of a hot extrusion die used for Al-Li alloy processing

Al-Li alloys being developed as lighter, substitutes for conventional high strength Al alloys are to be processed by routine methods. During extrusion of a 8090 Al-Li alloy, the extrusion die container failed causing some alarm. This failed die container was analysed to examine if the failure was caused by interaction of Li diffusing out of Al-Li alloy with the carbides of die steel. The evidence, although not conclusive, is sufficient to exercise caution during such processing.     

Mixed convection boundary layer flow of a micropolar fluid along vertical cylinders and needles

An analysis is presented to investigate the effects of buoyancy and curvature on convection along vertical cylinders and needles placed in a micropolar fluid. The governing equations for momentum, angular momentum and energy are solved numerically by finite difference scheme. The heat transfer results are presented for a range of values of the buoyancy parameters, the curvature parameter and the material parameters of the fluid. The effect of the microrotation boundary conditions on heat transfer is discussed.