Nanocomposite Hydrogel Materials for Defective Cartilage Repair and Its Mechanical Tribological Behavior—A Review

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a regressive ailment that affects a large population of patients. The most common symptoms of OA in humans are cartilage abnormalities. Hydrogels are excellent candidates for cartilage regeneration and are widely accepted as implants. In the past few decades, numerous types of hydrogels have been synthesized to repair cartilage defects. This study highlights recent advances in hydrogel development for the treatment of cartilage defects. In addition, the detailed progression of tailored nanocomposite hydrogels is summarized, and emphasis has been placed on the mechanical properties, especially the tribological behavior of the developed nanocomposite hydrogels.     

Design of a 2-DOF-PID controller using an improved sine–cosine algorithm for load frequency control of a three-area system with nonlinearities

This paper proposes an improved sine–cosine algorithm (ISCA) based 2-DOF-PID controller for load frequency control. A three-area test system is built for study, while some physical constraints (nonlinearities) are considered for the investigation of a realistic power system. The proposed method is used as the parameter optimizer of the LFC controller in different scenarios. The 2-DOF-PID controllers are used because of their capability of fast disturbance rejection without significant increase of overshoot in set-point tracking. The 2-DOF-PID controllers’ efficacy is observed by examining the responses with the outcomes obtained with PID and FOPID controllers. The simulation results with the suggested scheme are correlated with some of the existing algorithms, such as SCA, SSA, ALO, and PSO in three different scenarios, i.e., a disturbance in two areas, in three areas, and in the presence of physical constraints. In addition, the study is extended to a four-area power system. Statistical analysis is performed using the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test (WSRT) on 20 independent runs. This confirms the supremacy of the proposed method.     

Design and implementation of an industrial vector-controlled induction motor drive

Vector-controlled induction motor drives are quite popular in the industry in applications that demand high dynamic performance. This paper describes the implementation of a complete industrial vector-controlled drive for a 30 kW induction motor. The control algorithms for the drive are implemented using a TMS320F28335 Digital Signal Controller (DSC). Various monitoring and protection functions for the drive are implemented using a Cyclone IV FPGA that communicates with the DSC, and acts as the master controller for the drive. The FPGA also communicates with a Human–Machine Interface to provide a simple graphical control interface to the operator.     

Adder design using 5-input majority gate in a novel “Multilayer Gate Design Paradigm” for Quantum Dot Cellular Automata Circuits

This paper proposes a novel design paradigm for circuits designed in quantum dot cellular automata (QCA) technology. Previously reported QCA circuits in the literature have generally been designed in a single layer which is the main logical block in which the inverter and majority gate are on the base layer, except for the parts where multilayer wire crossing was used. In this paper the concept of multilayer wire crossing has been extended to design logic gates in multilayers. Using a 5-input majority gate in a multilayer, a 1-bit and 2-bit adder have been designed in the proposed multilayer gate design paradigm. A comparison has been made with some adders reported previously in the literature and it has been shown that circuits designed in the proposed design paradigm are much more efficient in terms of area, the requirement of QCA cells in the design and the input-output delay of the circuit. Over all, the availability of one additional spatial dimension makes the design process much more flexible and there is scope for the customizability of logic gate designs to make the circuit compact.     

Selective Catalytic Reductions of Amides and Nitriles to Amines

This personal account summarizes our recent developments of catalytic hydrosilylations and hydrogenations of carboxylic amides and nitriles to selectively give amines. Special focus is given to highly chemoselective iron- and zinc-catalyzed reductions of amides.     

A large liquid argon photon/hadron calorimeter for FNAL

This paper describes a new liguid argon photon/hadron detector currently under construction for Experiment E706 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.     

Heterogate junctionless tunnel field-effect transistor: future of low-power devices

Gate dielectric materials play a key role in device development and study for various applications. We illustrate herein the impact of hetero (high-k/low-k) gate dielectric materials on the ON-current (\(I_{\mathrm{ON}}\)) and OFF-current (\(I_{\mathrm{OFF}}\)) of the heterogate junctionless tunnel field-effect transistor (FET). The heterogate concept enables a wide range of gate materials for device study. This concept is derived from the well-known continuity of the displacement vector at the interface between low- and high-k gate dielectric materials. Application of high-k gate dielectric material improves the internal electric field in the device, resulting in lower tunneling width with high \(I_{\mathrm{ON}}\) and low \(I_{\mathrm{OFF}}\) current. The impact of work function variations and doping on device performance is also comprehensively investigated.     

Compact Analytical Model of Double Gate Junction-less Field Effect Transistor Comprising Quantum-Mechanical Effect

We investigate the quantum-mechanical effects on the electrical properties of the double-gate junctionless field effect transistors. The quantum-mechanical effect, or carrier energy-quantization effects on the threshold voltage, of DG-JLFET are analytically modeled and incorporated in the Duarte et al. model and then verified by TCAD simulation.     

A Novel Multi-Objective Protection Coordination Scheme for a Microgrid with Optimal Deployment of Dual-Setting ROCOV Based Relays

Relay coordination is crucial in electrical power systems to protect against malfunctions and damage caused by unexpected events like short circuits. To address the challenge associated with the reverse direction of fault current, dual-setting (DS) directional over-current relays have evolved but failed to provide proper coordination during changes of load, generation, and network. In the meantime, with the increasing number of DS relays, the total relay operating time tends to saturate. Therefore, this paper proposes a protection scheme based on the optimal deployment of conventional and dual-setting rate of change of voltage (DS-ROCOV) relays in distribution systems. This holds true for varying network topologies and is unaffected by variations in load and generation. The objective of the proposed scheme is to ensure reliable and efficient protection against faults in distribution systems by minimizing the overall operating time with the optimal number of DS-ROCOV relays. The proposed protection scheme''s performance is evaluated for different coordination time interval values as well as in different microgrid scenarios. This paper outlines the design and implementation of the proposed protection scheme which is validated on the modified IEEE 14-bus system using simulations in Matlab/Simulink.     

Morphology of nonmetallic inclusions using silicon,aluminum, and calcium-silicon alloy in steel melt

The process of deoxidation of a 15 kg melt by silicon, aluminum, and calcium-silicon alloy was studied by continuously monitoring the dissolved oxygen potential using a solid electrolyte probe. Stable oxygen potential was established within two minutes, whether the deoxidizer was added onto the melt surface or plunged into the melt. Inclusion morphology was investigated with the help of optical and scanning electron microscopic studies. The inclusion index is dependent on the type of deoxidizer added, but was independent on the mode of addition. Thus, with ferrosilicon addition the index increased significantly which decreased very slowly on holding the melt while deoxidation with aluminum and calcium-silicon alloy resulted in a continuous decrease of the inclusion index. Evidence has been found to show that the reaction between the existing inclusion before deoxidizer addition and the deoxidizers added was also very fast.