Formation of layered structure on bismuth-borate glass surface

X-ray diffraction analysis shows that the transformation during heat treatment from amorphous to crystalline phases of bismuth-borate glass samples takes place in sequences. After a short heat treatment, 5 min at 550 °C, a layered structure with a preferred orientation of crystallites on the surface is observed. After a long heat treatment, 8 h at the same temperature, normal polycrystalline bulk samples are obtained.     

A spatio‐temporal water quality assessment of the Beas and Sutlej Rivers at the Harike Wetland: A Ramsar site in Punjab,India

Lakes play a vital role in regulating water storage, flow of river water, and ultimately maintaining a balanced ecosystem. Spatial and temporal variations in physicochemical parameters of water in Harike Wetland, a Ramsar site in the northwestern state of Punjab, India, were studied. This study was conducted on a monthly basis from January to December 2015. The water quality was studied at ten locations from sites 1 to 10 upstream, central and downstream from Harike Lake for ten physicochemical parameters, including temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen concentration biological oxygen demand, nitrate and phosphate concentrations and salinity. The findings of this study revealed that, except for temperature and pH, all parameters exhibited relatively higher values for the Sutlej River, compared with the Beas River, with sampling sites 5 to site 7 exhibiting intermediate results. The mean seasonal temperature variations ranged from 16.9 to 26.6 °C, the pH from 7.7 to 8.2, electrical conductivity from 223 to 303 μS cm^?1 and TDS concentration from 148.7 to 180.4 ppm. Correlation analysis was conducted to assess the relations between the variables. The electrical conductivity exhibited a high positive correlation with salinity and biological oxygen demand, whereas it correlated negatively with the dissolved oxygen concentration. Box and whisker plots were also plotted for the study results to better examine the data distribution.     

Geospatial technology applied to spatiotemporal assessment of Harike Wetland,Punjab

The Harike Wetland situated in Punjab is a Ramsar site and a wetland of national importance. The present study was undertaken to assess the spatiotemporal dynamics of the wetland on the basis of geospatial technology and ground‐based studies. Landsat images for the years 2002 and 2014 were acquired from the United States Geological Survey and classified digitally to generate landuse/land cover maps involving four classes (water, grassland (including water hyacinth), agriculture, built‐up (settlement), barren land). The total area of the Harike Wetland was found to be 8023.68 ha. Water sampling at eleven sites was carried out and evaluated for physicochemical parameters. The water quality at several sampling points was found to be severely degraded. Change detection analysis revealed the submerged area (area under water) and grassland (including water hyacinth) had decreased over the past 12 years, whereas that area under agriculture and built‐up land has increased, indicating a shrinkage in the total wetland area. The present study also indicated that the near‐infrared band is a good indicator of water quality parameters, as indicated by the significant positive correlation between the near‐infrared band and relevant water parameters. Because the wetland is important from both an ecological perspective and economic perspective, regular monitoring is recommended, for which geospatial technology has proven to be very useful.     

Experimental characterization of electrostatically actuated in-plane bending of microcantilevers

Experimental validation of numerical models developed by the authors to predict the static behaviour of microelectrostatic actuators is described. Cantilever microbeams, currently used in connection with RF-MEMS and micro-scale material testing were analysed. A set of microcantilevers, bending in the plane of the wafer, i.e. in the same plane as the profiling system’s target, was tested. This differs from the popular case of out-of-plane microbeams, usually studied in the literature. Geometry nonlinearity caused by large deflection of the microbeam was investigated and nonlinear coupled formulation of electromechanical equilibrium was performed. Coupled-field analysis was implemented using the Finite Element Method (FEM), to predict displacements and pull-in voltage measured by Fogale Zoomsurf 3D, subsequently plotting the displacement-versus-voltage curve to complete model validation. FEM nonlinear analysis, based on iterative approach with mesh morphing, and FEM non-incremental approach, including a special element proposed by the authors, are compared to the linear solution and to experimental results. Geometry nonlinearity appears relevant in microbeam modelling and requires a nonlinear solution of the coupled problem. Investigative work, which compared the results of 2D and 3D models to experimental data, revealed that some three dimensional effects are significant in model validation, but the 2D approach may be effective in predicting static behaviour provided that at least a microbeam thickness equivalent is adopted.     

Multidimensional analogs of the kendall equation for priority queueing systems: computational aspects

An analogy between celebrated Kendall equation for busy periods in the system M|GI|1 and analytical results for busy periods in the priority systemsM _r |GI _r |1 is drawn. These results can be viewed as generalizations of the functional Kendall equation. The methodology and algorithms of numerical solution of recurrent functional equations which appear in the analysis of such queueing systems are developed. The efficiency of the algorithms is achieved by acceleration of the numerical procedure of solving the classical Kendall equation. An algorithm of calculation of the system workload coefficient calculation is given.     

Hybrid metaheuristics for scheduling of machines and transport robots in job shop environment

In real manufacturing environments, the control of some elements in systems based on robotic cells, such as transport robots has some difficulties when planning operations dynamically. The Job Shop scheduling Problem with Transportation times and Many Robots (JSPT-MR) is a generalization of the classical Job Shop scheduling Problem (JSP) where a set of jobs additionally have to be transported between machines by several transport robots. Hence, the JSPT-MR is more computationally difficult than the JSP presenting two NP-hard problems simultaneously: the job shop scheduling problem and the robot routing problem. This paper proposes a hybrid metaheuristic approach based on clustered holonic multiagent model for the JSPT-MR. Firstly, a scheduler agent applies a Neighborhood-based Genetic Algorithm (NGA) for a global exploration of the search space. Secondly, a set of cluster agents uses a tabu search technique to guide the research in promising regions. Computational results are presented using two sets of benchmark literature instances. New upper bounds are found, showing the effectiveness of the presented approach.     

横向剪切和旋转惯性影响下管道内流动液体的小振动

当考虑旋转惯性的影响时,流经管道横截面的液体在剪切作用下,会产生小振动.本文推导出无量纲参数表示的系统微分方程.对于某些问题的确定值,使用Galerkin方法,可以得到主振动频率和临界速度.在此基础上,还将研究结果和经典理论值进行了比较.     

Two-Dimensional Simulation Model of Sediment Removal and Flow in Rectangular Sedimentation Basin

A steady, two-dimensional numerical model was created to study the hydrodynamics of a rectangular sedimentation basin under turbulent conditions. The strip integral method was used to formulate the flow equations, using a forward marching scheme for solving the governing partial differential equations of continuity, momentum, advection–diffusion, turbulent kinetic energy, and its dissipation. In this way the flow equations were converted to a set of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) in terms of the key physical parameters. These parameters, along with a set of shape functions, describe flow variables including the velocity, the concentration of suspended sediments, and both the kinetic energy and its dissipation rate. Four Gaussian distributions were investigated, one corresponding to each flow parameter. In order to calculate the turbulent shear stresses, a two-equation turbulence model (i.e., k-ε model) was used. A fourth order Runge–Kutta method numerically integrates the set of ODEs. Simulation results were compared with experimental data, and close agreement (generally within 5–10%) was observed.     

Effect of weak and high magnetic fields in longitudinal and transverse configurations on magneto-thermoelectric properties of quantum Bi wires

We report on the magneto-thermopower of single-crystal Bi nanowires with diameters 75 and 250 nm in a longitudinal and transverse magnetic fields of 0–14 T. The temperature range is 1.5–300 K. Bi nanowires in a glass capillary have been prepared by the high frequency liquid phase casting. The temperature dependence R(T) shows the transition from metallic to semiconducting behavior due to quantum size effect, where the Bi-wire diameter is reduced to less than 80 nm. It is for the first time that the effect of the negative magneto-resistance in a transverse magnetic field, due to the quantum size effect on 75 nm Bi wires, has been observed. The thermopower is very sensitive to the wire diameter, up to a change in the sign from negative to positive at low temperatures, and to a significant extent in a weak longitudinal magnetic field. The field dependences of longitudinal and transverse magneto-resistance have features characteristic of the occurrence of the quantum size effect and galvanomagnetic size effect, and provide information on the parameters of the energy spectrum and charge carrier mobility. The enhancement of the thermoelectric figure of merit for Bi nanowires is discussed. We also discuss the power factor α²σ and its dependence on the diameter, magnetic field and temperature.