A streamlined approximation and duality scheme for structural optimization

An efficient and commonly used approach to structural optimization is to solve a sequence of approximate design problems that are constructed iteratively. As is well-known, a major part of the computational burden of this scheme lies in the sensitivity analysis needed to state the approximate problems. We propose a possibility for reducing this burden by streamlining the calculations in a combined approximation and duality scheme for structural optimization. The difference between this scheme and the traditional one is that, instead of calculating all the constraint gradients to state an approximate design problem explicitly, linear combinations of these gradients are generated as they are needed during the solution of the approximate problem by the dual method. We show, by analysing some typical scenarios of problem characteristics, that this rearrangement of the calculations may be a computationally viable alternative to the traditional scheme. An advantage of streamlining the calculations is that there is no need to incorporate an active set strategy in the scheme, as is usually done, since all the design constraints may be taken into consideration without any loss of computational efficiency. This may, clearly, enhance the practical rate of convergence of the overall approximation scheme. Moreover, the proposed rearrangement of the calculations may make it computationally viable to apply iterative equation solvers to the structural analysis problem. Numerical results with direct as well as iterative equation solvers show that the streamlined scheme is a feasible and promising approach to structural optimization.     

Use of sea water in the flotation of carbonate rich sedimentary phosphate rock

There is an appreciable amount of carbonaceous sedimentary phosphate deposits in the northern Africa and the Middle East which are expected to gain importance in the near future because of the depletion of the deposits in Florida. In many of the regions where phosphate deposits are found there is a shortage of fresh water, and sea is not very far. The use of sea water instead of fresh water in flotation of carbonaceous phosphate rock is successfully demonstrated. Thus an appreciable reduction in the operating cost and an ample amount of saving in the fresh water resources of the region is expected.     

Swelling activation energy of κ‐carrageenan in its gel state: A fluorescence study

A steady‐state fluorescence technique was employed to study the swelling of κ‐carrageenan gels at various temperatures. Pyranine was used as a fluorescence probe. The fluorescence intensity of pyranine was measured during the insitu swelling process of κ‐carrageenan gels. The fluorescence intensity increased exponentially as the swelling time increased. The increase in the fluorescence intensity was modeled with the Li–Tanaka equation, from which the swelling time constants and cooperative diffusion coefficients were determined. The swelling time constants decreased and the cooperative diffusion coefficients increased as the swelling temperature was increased. The swelling activation energies were measured to be 47.05 kJ/mol. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

Equilibrium distributions of key components of spearmint oil in sub/supercritical carbon dioxide

Effects of temperature (at 35, 45 or 55°C) and pressure (10–110 atm) on the relative distribution coefficients of the twelve key components of spearmint oil (essential oil ofMentha cardiaca; Scotch spearmint) at equilibrium in dense CO₂ were investigated under conditions ranging from subcritical to supercritical regions. Effects of vapor pressure, molecular weight and polarity of the key components on their equilibrium distributions in sub/supercritical CO₂ are discussed. At 35°C, all key components of spearmint oil are equally soluble in dense CO₂ within the 12–102 atm pressure region. At 45 and 55°C, the key components are equally soluble for pressures greater than about 60 atm. However, around either 45°C/27 atm or 55°C/35 atm conditions, the relative distribution coefficients of all monoterpene hydrocarbons and of isomenthone (an oxygenated monoterpene) exhibit maxima, which are due to significantly higher vapor pressures of these components and significantly lower solvating power of the dense-gas solvent at these particular temperatures and pressures. Vapor-pressure effects, coupled with the decrease in solvating power, dominate the effects of polarity and molecular mass of the key components. Deterpenation of spearmint oil with dense CO₂ is possible around either 45°C/27 atm or 55°C/35 atm, where the monoterpene hydrocarbons tend to concentrate in the CO₂-rich phase.     

Coherent precipitation in a high-temperature Cr–Ni–Al–Ti Alloy

Chromium alloys present a potential for development of new high-temperature materials. Precipitation characteristics of a Cr–5Ni–5Al–0.5Ti (at.%) alloy were investigated utilizing a series of heat treatments. XRD, SEM, and analytical TEM were used to characterize the microstructure. This study has shown that the small spherical B2-NiAl precipitates forming below 1345 °C are highly coherent and have a well-defined orientation relationship with the Cr-matrix. Also, some evidence has been presented for the formation of L2₁-Ni₂AlTi phase within the B2-NiAl phase.     

Improved synthetic wind speed generation using modified Mycielski approach

In this paper, novel approaches for wind speed data generation using Mycielski algorithm are developed and presented. To show the accuracy of developed approaches, we used three‐year collected wind speed data belonging to deliberately selected two different regions of Turkey (Izmir and Kayseri) to generate artificial wind speed data. The data belonging to the first two years are used for training, whereas the remaining one‐year data are used for testing and accuracy comparison purposes. The concept of distinct synthetic data production with correlation‐wise and distribution‐wise similar statistical properties constitutes the main idea of the proposed methods for a successful artificial wind speed generation. Generated data are compared with test data for both regions in the sense of basic statistics, Weibull distribution parameters, transition probabilities, spectral densities, and autocorrelation functions; and are also compared with the data generated by the classical first‐order Markov chains method. Results indicate that the accuracy and realistic behavior of the proposed method is superior to the classical method in the literature. Comparisons and results are discussed in detail. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bathroom as a modern space

Mundane objects and their everyday practices contain clues to the prevalent ideas and ideals of a society at a certain time; thus holding the power to decipher collective ideologies, contemporary beliefs, social norms and shared values. Bathroom fixtures are such ordinary products of the built environment that seem to be simultaneously insignificant and indispensable parts of daily life. This study is an historical analysis of the bathroom as a social space and of its fixtures as material culture. It reflects ideas and identities around the convoluted notions of modernisation and Westernisation in the Turkish context. It suggests that the values of being modern contributed to the transformation of traditional bathroom practices through spatial mechanisms and equipment. To unpack these values, the study engages the examination of oral histories, literary works, journals and flat plans as well as extant bathrooms. The research shows that the bathroom is a product of global modernity. Mediated through flats, which proliferated as a sign of contemporary living, the Western-style bathroom became the norm while its traditional counterpart became its other. This shift in perception indicates a concern for belonging to the world civilisation in the form of an aspiration toward being Western. A universal idea of modernisation pervades the ordinary domestic space of the bathroom and its everyday practices.     

Speech synthesis using AM/FM sinusoids and band-pass noise

In the speech synthesis model presented in this paper, voiced speech is synthesized as the sum of sinusoidally modulated two FM sinusoids corresponding to the first and second formants. Each FM signal is generated such that its amplitude is equal to the formant amplitude, its carrier frequency to the formant frequency or its linear combination, its modulation frequency to the pitch, and its modulation index to one fifth of the carrier to modulation frequency ratio. Unvoiced speech is generated by shifting the center frequency of a low-pass noise with a bandwidth of 1 KHz, to the frequency where the energy of the unvoiced speech is concentrated. The drawbacks of this scheme are that the pitch and the formant frequencies of the FM signals may deviate up to 40% and 9%, respectively, and spurious formants may occur. A hardware implementation can be accomplished by driving a linear analog circuitry which can simply be integrated on a single chip, by a digital computer which supplies voltages at every T = 5 ms corresponding to seven parameter values. Examples of the signals and spectrograms of synthesized speech obtained by both synthesis by analysis and synthesis by rule are given along with a set of rules for text-to-speech synthesis of Turkish. It is observed that the speech synthesized by analysis loses the speaker's identity but it is highly intelligible, while understanding the speech synthesized by rules requires a training period.     

A new implementation of common matrix approach using third-order tensors for face recognition

In the classical common matrix approach (CMA), the common matrix for each individual face class is obtained using basis matrices calculated by Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization of the class covariance matrix. This common matrix represents the common or invariant properties of a given face class. The CMA idea relies on the concept of basis matrices of a face class which span the, so called, difference subspace of that class. In this paper, an alternative method to obtain the basis matrices for CMA is proposed. The basis matrices are obtained using the higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) of a third-order tensor constructed with face images and these basis matrices are utilized in the construction of CMA. In order to exemplify the improvements in the recognition rates, face recognition experiments are carried out via the AR face database. The original face matrices, as well as 2DPCA-, 2DSVD-, and 2DFDA-based feature matrices are applied as the input matrices for the two different implementations of CMA in the experimental studies. The results indicate that the recognition rates obtained by the proposed method are slightly higher than those obtained using the basis matrices calculated by Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization.