Subsurface Characterization at Ground Failure Sites in Adapazari, Turkey

Ground failure in Adapazari, Turkey during the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake was severe. Hundreds of structures settled, slid, tilted, and collapsed due in part to liquefaction and ground softening. Ground failure was more severe adjacent to and under buildings. The soils that led to severe building damage were generally low plasticity silts. In this paper, the results of a comprehensive investigation of the soils of Adapazari, which included cone penetration test (CPT) profiles followed by borings with standard penetration tests (SPTs) and soil index tests, are presented. The effects of subsurface conditions on the occurrence of ground failure and its resulting effect on building performance are explored through representative case histories. CPT- and SPT-based liquefaction triggering procedures adequately identified soils that liquefied if the clay-size criterion of the Chinese criteria was disregarded. The CPT was able to identify thin seams of loose liquefiable silt, and the SPT (with retrieved samples) allowed for reliable evaluation of the liquefaction susceptibility of fine-grained soils. A well-documented database of in situ and index testing is now available for incorporating in future CPT- and SPT-based liquefaction triggering correlations.     

Induced-charge electro-osmosis of polymer-containing fluid around a metallic rod

Induced-charge electro-osmotic (ICEO) flow of polymer-containing electrolyte solution around a cylindrical gold-coated stainless steel rod under AC electric field is measured by micro-particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) for the first time. The ICEO flows as functions of the amount of non-ionic PEG (polyethylene glycol), cationic PDADMA (polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride), and anionic PVSASS (polyvinylsulfonic acid sodium salt) polymers added into the salt solution, frequency, and strength of the AC electric field are measured. The ICEO flow of polymer-containing fluid around the rod is quadrupolar with four vortices and is proportional to the square of imposed electric field. The ICEO flow velocity exponentially decreases with an increased concentration of neutral PEG. Ionic polyelectrolytes significantly increase ICEO velocities due to the enriched net charge within the induced electric double layer arising from the electrostatic interaction between the polarized rod’s surface and the charged polyelectrolytes in ionic polymer solution. In addition, polymer concentration affects the dependence of the ICEO flow on the frequency of AC electric field.     

Micro-PIV measurements of induced-charge electro-osmosis around a metal rod

A cylindrical gold-coated stainless steel rod was positioned at the center of a straight microchannel connecting two fluid reservoirs on either end. The microchannel was filled with 1 mM KCl containing 0.5 μm diameter carboxylate-modified spherical particles. Induced-charge electro-osmotic (ICEO) flow occurred around the metallic rod under a sinusoidal AC electric field applied using two platinum electrodes. The ICEO flows around the metallic rod were measured using micro particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) technique as functions of the AC electric field strength and frequency. The present study provides experimental data about ICEO flow in the weakly nonlinear limit of thin double layers, in which, the charging dynamics of the double layer cannot be presented analytically. The measured ICEO flow pattern qualitatively agrees with the theoretical results obtained by Squires and Bazant (J Fluid Mech 509:217–252, 2004). Flow around the rod is quadrupolar, driving liquid towards the rod along the electric field and forcing it away from the rod in the direction perpendicular to the imposed electric field. The measured ICEO flow velocity is proportional to the square of the electric field strength, and depends on the applied AC frequency.     

Exploiting information extraction techniques for automatic semantic video indexing with an application to Turkish news videos

This paper targets at the problem of automatic semantic indexing of news videos by presenting a video annotation and retrieval system which is able to perform automatic semantic annotation of news video archives and provide access to the archives via these annotations. The presented system relies on the video texts as the information source and exploits several information extraction techniques on these texts to arrive at representative semantic information regarding the underlying videos. These techniques include named entity recognition, person entity extraction, coreference resolution, and semantic event extraction. Apart from the information extraction components, the proposed system also encompasses modules for news story segmentation, text extraction, and video retrieval along with a news video database to make it a full-fledged system to be employed in practical settings. The proposed system is a generic one employing a wide range of techniques to automate the semantic video indexing process and to bridge the semantic gap between what can be automatically extracted from videos and what people perceive as the video semantics. Based on the proposed system, a novel automatic semantic annotation and retrieval system is built for Turkish and evaluated on a broadcast news video collection, providing evidence for its feasibility and convenience for news videos with a satisfactory overall performance.     

Modelling of residual stresses in the shot peened material C-1020 by artificial neural network

This study consists of two cases: (i) The experimental analysis: Shot peening is a method to improve the resistance of metal pieces to fatigue by creating regions of residual stress. In this study, the residual stresses induced in steel specimen type C-1020 by applying various strengths of shot peening, are investigated using the electrochemical layer removal method. The best result is obtained using 0.26 mm A peening strength and the stress encountered in the shot peened material is ?276 MPa, while the maximum residual stress obtained is ?363 MPa at a peening strength of 0.43 mm A. (ii) The mathematical modelling analysis: The use of ANN has been proposed to determine the residual stresses based on various strengths of shot peening using results of experimental analysis. The back-propagation learning algorithm with two different variants and logistic sigmoid transfer function were used in the network. In order to train the neural network, limited experimental measurements were used as training and test data. The best fitting training data set was obtained with four neurons in the hidden layer, which made it possible to predict residual stress with accuracy at least as good as that of the experimental error, over the whole experimental range. After training, it was found the R² values are 0.996112 and 0.99896 for annealed before peening and shot peened only, respectively. Similarly, these values for testing data are 0.995858 and 0.999143, respectively. As seen from the results of mathematical modelling, the calculated residual stresses are obviously within acceptable uncertainties.     

Continuous Airborne Communication Relay Approach Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

As a result of unmanned aerial vehicles being widely used in different areas, studies about increasing the autonomous capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles are gaining momentum. Today, unmanned aerial vehicle platforms are especially used in reconnaissance, surveillance and communications areas. In this study, in order to achieve continuous long-range communication relay infrastructure, artificial potential field based path planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is discussed. A novel dynamic approach to relay-chain concept is proposed to maintain the communication between vehicles. Besides dynamically keeping vehicles in range and appropriate position to maintain communication relay, artificial potential field based path planning also provides collision avoidance system. The performance of the proposed system is measured by applying a simulation under the Matlab Simulink and Network Simulator environment. Artificial potential field based flight patterns are generated in Matlab, and performance of the communication between vehicles is measured in Network Simulation environment. Finally the simulation results show that an airborne communication relay can be established autonomously by using artificial potential filed based autonomous path planning approach. Continues state communication is provided by obtaining a resistant communication relay which depends on artificial potential field based positioning algorithm.     

Biosorption of Acid Red P-2BX by lichens as low-cost biosorbents

The aim of this study is to examine the dye biosorption properties of lichen species called Cladonia convoluta and Evernia prunastri. Since lichens are extensively found in the environment, their suitability as a cheap adsorbent has been investigated in this study. The optimal parameters for textile dye biosorption were also determined. The dried lichen biomass showed better dye biosorption capacity than ash lichen biomass. C. convoluta had better dye biosorption capacity than E. prunastri. Dye biosorption rate was found as 71.41% at optimal conditions. This study concluded that C. convoluta was a successful and cheap biosorbent for treatment of water contaminated by Acid Red P-2BX dye.     

Investigating the effect of production process of ball mill refiner on some physical quality parameters of compound chocolate: response surface methodology approach

Chocolate compound was produced using ball mill refiner, and the effect of agitator shaft speed and refining time on the physical quality parameters (particle size, colour and steady‐state rheology) of compound chocolate was determined using response surface methodology. The shaft speed and refining time range were selected between 40–60 r.p.m. and 10–30 min, respectively. Determination coefficient of the models established for particle size, Newtonian viscosity and colour parameters (brightness, chroma and hue angle) were found to be very close to unity. Increasing shaft speed and time induced a reduction in particle size and an increase in viscosity of the samples. Temperature sweep test was also performed, and the obtained data were successfully fitted to Arrhenius equation to calculate the corresponding parameters representing temperature dependency of the compounds. The results highlighted that the establishment of such models can provide essential information in terms of optimisation of production processes regarding usage purpose of the compound chocolate.     

Chemical and microbiological status and volatile profiles of mouldy Civil cheese,a Turkish mould‐ripened variety

The objective of this study is to characterise the gross chemical and microbiological status and identify the volatile compounds of mouldy Civil cheeses. A total of forty‐one samples were surveyed, and gross compositional status of the cheeses was (as mean values): 6.5 for pH, 6.2% for fat‐in‐dry matter, 51.8% for moisture and 15.3% for water‐soluble nitrogen (as% of total nitrogen). Chemical composition of the cheese samples varied widely. Mouldy Civil cheese has similar pH values and moisture contents when compared with blue‐type cheeses, but it has distinct feature for fat contents. The microbiological counts of the samples were found to be high and some samples contained coliform bacteria. A total of 95 volatiles, including esters (28), acids (6), ketones (12), aldehydes (3), alcohols (15), terpenes (10), sulphur compounds (3) and miscellaneous (18), were identified in the volatile fractions of the cheeses, and principal volatile groups were esters, alcohols and ketones.