Search results for: Polymer matrix

Authors: Zhongjie Wang, Xiaofei Xu, Dechen Zhan

Abstract:

With deep development of software reuse, componentrelated technologies have been widely applied in the development of large-scale complex applications. Component identification (CI) is one of the primary research problems in software reuse, by analyzing domain business models to get a set of business components with high reuse value and good reuse performance to support effective reuse. Based on the concept and classification of CI, its technical stack is briefly discussed from four views, i.e., form of input business models, identification goals, identification strategies, and identification process. Then various CI methods presented in literatures are classified into four types, i.e., domain analysis based methods, cohesion-coupling based clustering methods, CRUD matrix based methods, and other methods, with the comparisons between these methods for their advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, some insufficiencies of study on CI are discussed, and the causes are explained subsequently. Finally, it is concluded with some significantly promising tendency about research on this problem.

Keywords: Business component, component granularity, component identification, reuse performance.

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Authors: Alireza Fereidooni, Kamran Behdinan, Zouheir Fawaz

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The integral form of equations of motion of composite beams subjected to varying time loads are discretized using a developed finite element model. The model consists of a straight five node twenty-two degrees of freedom beam element. The stability analysis of the beams is studied by solving the matrix form characteristic equations of the system. The principle of virtual work and the first order shear deformation theory are employed to analyze the beams with large deformation and small strains. The regions of dynamic instability of the beam are determined by solving the obtained Mathieu form of differential equations. The effects of nonconservative loads, shear stiffness, and damping parameters on stability and response of the beams are examined. Several numerical calculations are presented to compare the results with data reported by other researchers.

Keywords: Finite element beam model, Composite Beams, stability analysis

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Authors: Iman Iraei, Mina Sharifi

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A method for object tracking in motion blurred images is proposed in this article. This paper shows that object tracking could be improved with this approach. We use mean shift algorithm to track different objects as a main tracker. But, the problem is that mean shift could not track the selected object accurately in blurred scenes. So, for better tracking result, and increasing the accuracy of tracking, wavelet transform is used. We use a feature named as blur extent, which could help us to get better results in tracking. For calculating of this feature, we should use Harr wavelet. We can look at this matter from two different angles which lead to determine whether an image is blurred or not and to what extent an image is blur. In fact, this feature left an impact on the covariance matrix of mean shift algorithm and cause to better performance of tracking. This method has been concentrated mostly on motion blur parameter. transform. The results reveal the ability of our method in order to reach more accurately tracking.

Keywords: Mean shift, object tracking, blur extent, wavelet transform, motion blur.

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Authors: Nur Zahirah Zulhaimi, KuZilati KuShaari, Zakaria Man

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Controlled release urea has become popular in agricultural industry as it helps to solve environmental issues and increase crop yield. Recently biomass was identified to replace the polymer used as a coating material in the conventional coated urea. In this paper spreading and contact angle of biomass droplet (lignin, cellulose and clay) on urea surface are investigated experimentally. There were two tests were conducted, sessile drop for contact angle measurement and pendant drop for contact angle measurement. A different concentration of biomass droplet was released from 30 mm above a substrate. Glass was used as a controlled substrate. Images were recorded as soon as the droplet impacted onto the urea before completely adsorb into the urea. Digitized droplets were then used to identify the droplet-s surface tension and contact angle. There is large difference observed between the low surface tension and high surface tension liquids, where the wetting and spreading diameter is higher for lower surface tension. From the contact angle results, the data showed that the biomass coating films were possible as wetting liquid (θ < 90º). Contact angle of biomass coating material gives good indication for the wettablity of a liquid on urea surface.

Keywords: Fluid, Dynamics, Droplet, Spreading, Contact Angle, Surface Tension.

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Authors: S. O. Adeosun, O. I. Sekunowo, O. P. Gbenebor, W. A. Ayoola, A. O. Odunade, T. A. Idowu

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Sand cast samples of the as-received 66/34Mg-Al alloy were first homogenized at 4900C and then divided into three groups on which annealing, normalising and artificial ageing were respectively carried out. Thermal ageing of the samples involved treatment at 5000C, soaked for 4 hours and quenched in water at ambient temperature followed by tempering at 2000C for 2 hours. Test specimens were subjected to microstructure and mechanical analyses and the results compared. Precipitation of significant volume of stable Mg17Al12 crystals in the aged specimen’s matrix conferred superior mechanical characteristics compared with the annealed, normalized and as-cast specimens. The ultimate tensile strength was 93.4MPa with micro-hardness of 64.9HRC and impact energy (toughness) of 4.05J. In particular, its Young modulus was 10.4GPa which compared well with that of cortical (trabecule) bone’s modulus that varies from 12-17GPa.

Keywords: Mg-Al alloy, artificial ageing, medical implant, cortical bone, mechanical properties.

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Authors: Ming-Chu Yin, Ping-An Du

Abstract:

The shielding ability of a shielding cavity with an aperture will be greatly degraded at resonance frequencies, and the resonance modes and frequencies are affected by aperture resonances and aperture-cavity coupling, which are closely related with aperture sizes. The equivalent circuit method and numerical method of Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) are used to analyze the effects of aperture resonances and aperture-cavity coupling on the electromagnetic resonances of a cavity with an aperture in this paper. Both analytical and numerical results show that the resonance modes of a shielding cavity with an aperture consist of cavity resonance modes and aperture resonance modes, and the resonance frequencies will shift with the change of the aperture sizes because of the aperture resonances and aperture-cavity coupling. Variation rules of electromagnetic resonances with aperture sizes for a cavity with an aperture are given, which will be useful for design of shielding cavities.

Keywords: Aperture-cavity coupling, equivalent circuit method, resonances, shielding equipment.

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Authors: Chung-Hsin Huang, Chien-Ching Chiu, Chun Jen Lin

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The electromagnetic imaging of inhomogeneous dielectric cylinders buried in a slab medium by transverse electric (TE) wave illumination is investigated. Dielectric cylinders of unknown permittivities are buried in second space and scattered a group of unrelated waves incident from first space where the scattered field is recorded. By proper arrangement of the various unrelated incident fields, the difficulties of ill-posedness and nonlinearity are circumvented, and the permittivity distribution can be reconstructed through simple matrix operations. The algorithm is based on the moment method and the unrelated illumination method. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the capability of the inverse algorithm. Good reconstruction is obtained even in the presence of additive Gaussian random noise in measured data. In addition, the effect of noise on the reconstruction result is also investigated.

Keywords: Slab Medium, Unrelated Illumination Method, TEWave Illumination, Inhomogeneous Cylinders.

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Authors: Deepak Mohan, Sushma Sharma

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Diclofenac sodium, a member of the acetic acid family of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, is used to retard inflammation, arthritis pain and ankylosing spondylitis. The drug is known to cause severe injury in different tissues due to formation of reactive oxygen species. The present study is focused on the effect of different doses of diclofenac (4 mg/kg/body weight and 14 mg/kg/body weight on histoarchitecture of the liver from 7-28 days of the investigation. Diclofenac administration resulted in distorted hepatic degeneration and formation of wide areas in the form of sinusoidal gaps. Hepatic fibrosis noticed in different stages of investigation could be attributed to chronic inflammation and reactive oxygen species which results in deposition of extracellular matrix proteins. The abrupt degenerative changes observed during later stages of the experiment showed maximum damage to the liver, and there was enlargement of sinusoidal gaps accompanied by maximum necrosis in the tissues.

Keywords: Arthritis, diclofenac, histoarchitecture, sinusoidal.

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Authors: Kelvin Rozier, Vladimir E. Bondarenko

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It is known that an analog Hopfield neural network with time delay can generate the outputs which are similar to the human electroencephalogram. To gain deeper insights into the mechanisms of rhythm generation by the Hopfield neural networks and to study the effects of noise on their activities, we investigated the behaviors of the networks with symmetric and asymmetric interneuron connections. The neural network under the study consists of 10 identical neurons. For symmetric (fully connected) networks all interneuron connections aij = +1; the interneuron connections for asymmetric networks form an upper triangular matrix with non-zero entries aij = +1. The behavior of the network is described by 10 differential equations, which are solved numerically. The results of simulations demonstrate some remarkable properties of a Hopfield neural network, such as linear growth of outputs, dependence of synchronization properties on the connection type, huge amplification of oscillation by the external uniform noise, and the capability of the neural network to transform one type of noise to another.

Keywords: Chaos, Hopfield neural network, noise, synchronization

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Authors: H. Murat Tanarslan

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The dominant judgment for earthquake damaged reinforced concrete (RC) structures is to rebuild them with the new ones. Consequently, this paper estimates if there is chance to repair earthquake RC beams and obtain economical contribution to modern day society. Therefore, the totally damaged (damaged in shear under cyclic load) reinforced concrete (RC) beams repaired and strengthened by externally bonded carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) strips in this study. Four specimens, apart from the reference beam, were separated into two distinct groups. Two experimental beams in the first group primarily tested up to failure then appropriately repaired and strengthened with CFRP strips. Two undamaged specimens from the second group were not repaired but strengthened by the identical strengthening scheme as the first group for comparison. This study studies whether earthquake damaged RC beams that have been repaired and strengthened will validate similar strength and behavior to equally strengthened, undamaged RC beams. Accordingly, a strength correspondence according to strengthened specimens was acquired for the repaired and strengthened specimens. Test results confirmed that repair and strengthening, which were estimated in the experimental program, were effective for the specimens with the cracking patterns considered in the experimental program. 

Keywords: Shear Strengthening, Repairing, CFRP Strips.

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Authors: Krisada Lekdee, Sunee Sammatat, Nittaya Boonsit

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This paper proposes a GLMM with spatial and temporal effects for malaria data in Thailand. A Bayesian method is used for parameter estimation via Gibbs sampling MCMC. A conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is assumed to present the spatial effects. The temporal correlation is presented through the covariance matrix of the random effects. The malaria quarterly data have been extracted from the Bureau of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health of Thailand. The factors considered are rainfall and temperature. The result shows that rainfall and temperature are positively related to the malaria morbidity rate. The posterior means of the estimated morbidity rates are used to construct the malaria maps. The top 5 highest morbidity rates (per 100,000 population) are in Trat (Q3, 111.70), Chiang Mai (Q3, 104.70), Narathiwat (Q4, 97.69), Chiang Mai (Q2, 88.51), and Chanthaburi (Q3, 86.82). According to the DIC criterion, the proposed model has a better performance than the GLMM with spatial effects but without temporal terms.

Keywords: Bayesian method, generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), malaria, spatial effects, temporal correlation.

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Authors: Pooria Pasbakhsh, Rangika T. De Silva, Vahdat Vahedi, Hanafi Ismail

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The influence of three different types of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) with different dimensions, namely as camel lake (CLA), Jarrahdale (JA) and Matauri Bay (MB), on their reinforcing ability of ethylene propylene dine monomer (EPDM) were investigated by varying the HNTs loading (from 0-15 phr). Mechanical properties of the nanocomposites improved with addition of all three HNTs, but CLA based nanocomposites exhibited a significant enhancement compared to the other HNTs. For instance, tensile properties of EPDM nanocomposites increased by 120%, 256% and 340% for MB, JA and CLA, respectively, with addition of 15 phr of HNTs. This could be due to the higher aspect ratio and higher surface area of CLA compared to others. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of nanocomposites at 15 phr of HNT loadings showed low amounts of pulled-out nanotubes which confirmed the presence of more embedded nanotubes inside the EPDM matrix, as well as aggregates within the fracture surface of EPDM/HNT nanocomposites

Keywords: Aspect ratio, Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs), Mechanical properties, Rubber/clay nanocomposites.

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Authors: AHM Shamsuzzoha, Tauno Kekäle, Petri Helo

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Product customization is an essential requirement for manufacturing firms to achieve higher customers- satisfaction and fulfill business target. In order to achieve these objectives, firms need to handle both external varieties such as customer preference, government regulations, cultural considerations etc and internal varieties such as functional requirements of product, production efficiency, quality etc. Both of the varieties need to be accumulated and integrated together for the purpose of producing customized product. These varieties are presented and discussed in this paper along with the perspectives of modular product design and development process. Other development strategies such as modularity, component commonality, product family design and product platform are presented with a view to achieve product variety quickly and economically. A case example both for the concept of modular design and platform based product development process is also presented with the help of design structure matrix (DSM) tool. This paper is concluded with several managerial implications and future research direction.

Keywords: Customization modular design, platform development, product variety.

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Authors: S. Mulholland

Abstract:

Octree compression techniques have been used for several years for compressing large three dimensional data sets into homogeneous regions. This compression technique is ideally suited to datasets which have similar values in clusters. Oil engineers represent reservoirs as a three dimensional grid where hydrocarbons occur naturally in clusters. This research looks at the efficiency of storing these grids using octree compression techniques where grid cells are broken into active and inactive regions. Initial experiments yielded high compression ratios as only active leaf nodes and their ancestor, header nodes are stored as a bitstream to file on disk. Savings in computational time and memory were possible at decompression, as only active leaf nodes are sent to the graphics card eliminating the need of reconstructing the original matrix. This results in a more compact vertex table, which can be loaded into the graphics card quicker and generating shorter refresh delay times.

Keywords: 3D visualisation, compressed vertex tables, octree compression techniques, oil reservoir grids.

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Authors: Ali Gholami

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In this research the Preparation of Land use map of scanner LISS III satellite data, belonging to the IRS in the Aghche region in Isfahan province, is studied carefully. For this purpose, the IRS satellite images of August 2008 and various land preparation uses in region including rangelands, irrigation farming, dry farming, gardens and urban areas were separated and identified. Therefore, the GPS and Erdas Imaging software were used and three methods of Maximum Likelihood, Mahalanobis Distance and Minimum Distance were analyzed. In each of these methods, matrix error and Kappa index were calculated and accuracy of each method, based on percentages: 53.13, 56.64 and 48.44, were obtained respectively. Considering the low accuracy of these methods in separation of land preparation use, the visual interpretation of the map was used. Finally, regional visits of 150 points were noted at random and no error was observed. It shows that the map prepared by visual interpretation is in high accuracy. Although the probable errors due to visual interpretation and geometric correction might happen but the desired accuracy of the map which is more than 85 percent is reliable.

Keywords: Land use map, Aghche Region, Erdas Imagine, satellite images

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Authors: Yong F. Li, Yi X. Liu, Xiang M. Wang, Feng H. Wang

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Wood as a natural renewable material is vulnerable to degradation by microorganisms and susceptible to change in dimension by water. In order to effectively improve the durability of wood, an active reagent, maleic anhydride (Man) was selected for wood modification. Man was first dissolved into a solvent, and then penetrated into wood porous structure under a vacuum/pressure condition. After a final catalyst-thermal treatment, wood modification was finished. The test results indicate that acetone is a good solvent for transporting Man into wood matrix. SEM observation proved that wood samples treated by Man kept a good cellular structure, indicating a well penetration of Man into wood cell walls. FTIR analysis suggested that Man reacted with hydroxyl groups on wood cell walls by its ring-ether group, resulting in reduction of amount of hydroxyl groups and resultant good dimensional stability as well as fine decay resistance. Consequently, Man modifying wood to improve its durability is an effective method.

Keywords: Wood, porous structure, durability improvement, maleic anhydride

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Authors: Hamioud Saida, Khalfallah Salah

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In this study, a spectral element method (SEM) is employed to predict the free vibration of a Euler-Bernoulli beam resting on a Winkler foundation with elastically restrained ends. The formulation of the dynamic stiffness matrix has been established by solving the differential equation of motion which was transformed to frequency domain. Non-dimensional natural frequencies and shape modes are obtained by solving the partial differential equations, numerically. Numerical comparisons and examples are performed to show the effectiveness of the SEM and to investigate the effects of various parameters, such as the springs at the boundaries and the elastic foundation parameter on the vibration frequencies. The obtained results demonstrate that the present method can also be applied to solve the more general problem of the dynamic analysis of structures with higher order precision.

Keywords: Elastically supported Euler-Bernoulli beam, free-vibration, spectral element method, Winkler foundation.

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Authors: Mubarak Saif Mohsen, Zurinahni Zainol, Rosalina Abdul Salam, Wahidah Husain

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One of the major problems in genomic field is to perform sequence comparison on DNA and protein sequences. Executing sequence comparison on the DNA and protein data is a computationally intensive task. Sequence comparison is the basic step for all algorithms in protein sequences similarity. Parallel computing is an attractive solution to provide the computational power needed to speedup the lengthy process of the sequence comparison. Our main research is to enhance the protein sequence algorithm using dynamic programming method. In our approach, we parallelize the dynamic programming algorithm using multithreaded program to perform the sequence comparison and also developed a distributed protein database among many PCs using Remote Method Interface (RMI). As a result, we showed how different sizes of protein sequences data and computation of scoring matrix of these protein sequence on different number of processors affected the processing time and speed, as oppose to sequential processing.

Keywords: Protein sequence algorithm, dynamic programming algorithm, multithread

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Authors: Haniye Dehestani, Yadollah Ordokhani

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In this work, we present an efficient approach for solving variable-order time-fractional partial differential equations, which are based on Legendre and Laguerre polynomials. First, we introduced the pseudo-operational matrices of integer and variable fractional order of integration by use of some properties of Riemann-Liouville fractional integral. Then, applied together with collocation method and Legendre-Laguerre functions for solving variable-order time-fractional partial differential equations. Also, an estimation of the error is presented. At last, we investigate numerical examples which arise in physics to demonstrate the accuracy of the present method. In comparison results obtained by the present method with the exact solution and the other methods reveals that the method is very effective.

Keywords: Collocation method, fractional partial differential equations, Legendre-Laguerre functions, pseudo-operational matrix of integration.

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Authors: Mohamed H. Gabr, Kiyoshi Uzawa

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The current study aims to investigate the effect of fillers with different geometries and sizes on the interfacial shear properties of PA6 composites with de-sized carbon fiber. The fillers which have been investigated are namely; nano-layer silicates (nanoclay), sub-micro aluminum titanium (ALTi) particles, and multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT). By means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), epoxide group which defined as a sizing agent, has been removed. Sizing removal can reduce the acid parameter of carbon fibers surface promoting bonding strength at the fiber/matrix interface which is a desirable property for the carbon fiber composites. Microdroplet test showed that the interfacial shear strength (IFSS) has been enhanced with the addition of 10wt% ALTi by about 23% comparing with neat PA6. However, with including other types of fillers into PA6, the results did not show enhancement of IFSS.

Keywords: Sub-micro-filler, nano-composites, interfacial shear strength, polyamide.

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Authors: José A. Menezes, Giordano Cabral, Bruno T. Gomes

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Choosing good features is an essential part of machine learning. Recent techniques aim to automate this process. For instance, feature learning intends to learn the transformation of raw data into a useful representation to machine learning tasks. In automatic audio classification tasks, this is interesting since the audio, usually complex information, needs to be transformed into a computationally convenient input to process. Another technique tries to generate features by searching a feature space. Genetic algorithms, for instance, have being used to generate audio features by combining or modifying them. We find this approach particularly interesting and, despite the undeniable advances of feature learning approaches, we wanted to take a step forward in the use of genetic algorithms to find audio features, combining them with more conventional methods, like PCA, and inserting search control mechanisms, such as constraints over a confusion matrix. This work presents the results obtained on particular audio classification problems.

Keywords: Feature generation, feature learning, genetic algorithm, music information retrieval.

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Authors: R. Bhargava, Sonam Singh

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In the present study, a numerical analysis is carried out to investigate unsteady MHD (magneto-hydrodynamic) flow and heat transfer of a non-Newtonian second grade viscoelastic fluid over an oscillatory stretching sheet. The flow is induced due to an infinite elastic sheet which is stretched oscillatory (back and forth) in its own plane. Effect of viscous dissipation and joule heating are taken into account. The non-linear differential equations governing the problem are transformed into system of non-dimensional differential equations using similarity transformations. A newly developed meshfree numerical technique Element free Galerkin method (EFGM) is employed to solve the coupled non linear differential equations. The results illustrating the effect of various parameters like viscoelastic parameter, Hartman number, relative frequency amplitude of the oscillatory sheet to the stretching rate and Eckert number on velocity and temperature field are reported in terms of graphs and tables. The present model finds its application in polymer extrusion, drawing of plastic films and wires, glass, fiber and paper production etc.

Keywords: EFGM, MHD, Oscillatory stretching sheet, Unsteady, Viscoelastic

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Authors: Esmat Jalalvandi, Rohah Abd. Majid, Taravat Ghanbari

Abstract:

Thermoplastic starch, polylactic acid glycerol and maleic anhydride (MA) were compounded with natural montmorillonite (MMT) through a twin screw extruder to investigate the effects of different loading of MMT on structure, thermal and absorption behavior of the nanocomposites. X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) showed that sample with MMT loading 4phr exhibited exfoliated structure while sample that contained MMT 8 phr exhibited intercalated structure. FESEM images showed big lump when MMT loading was at 8 phr. The thermal properties were characterized by using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The results showed that MMT increased melting temperature and crystallization temperature of matrix but reduction in glass transition temperature was observed Meanwhile the addition of MMT has improved the water barrier property. The nanosize MMT particle is also able to block a tortuous pathway for water to enter the starch chain, thus reducing the water uptake and improved the physical barrier of nanocomposite.

Keywords: Montmorillonite, Nanocomposite, Polylactic acid, Starch.

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Authors: Benalia Kouini, Aicha Serier

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This work aims to investigate the structure–property relationship in ternary nanocomposites consisting of polypropylene as the matrix, polyamide 66 as the minor phase and treated nanoclay DELLITE 67G as the reinforcement. All PP/PA66/Nanoclay systems with polypropylene grafted maleic anhydride PP-g-MAH as a compatibilizer were prepared via melt compounding and characterized in terms of nanoclay content. Morphological structure was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The rheological behavior of the nanocomposites was determined by various methods, viz melt flow index (MFI) and parallel plate rheological measurements. The PP/PP-g-MAH/PA66 nanocomposites showed a homogeneous morphology supporting the compatibility improvement between PP, PA66, and nanoclay. SEM results revealed the formation of nanocomposites as the nanoclay was intercalated and exfoliated. In the ternary nanocomposites, the rheological behavior showed that, the complex viscosity is increased with increasing the nanoclay. The results showed that the use of nanoclay affects the variations of storage modulus (G′), loss modulus (G″) and the melt elasticity.

Keywords: Nanocomposites, polypropylene, polyamide66, modified nanoclay, rheology.

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Authors: Ethar H. Khalil, Bahaa I. Kazem

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In this work a software simulation model has been proposed for two driven wheels mobile robot path planning; that can navigate in dynamic environment with static distributed obstacles. The work involves utilizing Bezier curve method in a proposed N order matrix form; for engineering the mobile robot path. The Bezier curve drawbacks in this field have been diagnosed. Two directions: Up and Right function has been proposed; Probability Recursive Function (PRF) to overcome those drawbacks. PRF functionality has been developed through a proposed; obstacle detection function, optimization function which has the capability of prediction the optimum path without comparison between all feasible paths, and N order Bezier curve function that ensures the drawing of the obtained path. The simulation results that have been taken showed; the mobile robot travels successfully from starting point and reaching its goal point. All obstacles that are located in its way have been avoided. This navigation is being done successfully using the proposed PRF techniques.

Keywords: Mobile robot, path planning, Bezier curve.

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Authors: Laima Silina, Ilze Gramatina, Liga Skudra, Tatjana Rakcejeva

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The aim of the current research was to determine quality parameters changes of dried venison during storage. Protein, fat and moisture content dynamics as well microbiological quality was analyzed. For the experiments the meat (0.02×4.00×7.00 cm) pieces were marinated in “teriyaki sauce” marinade (composition: teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce, taco sauce, soy sauce, American BBQ sauce hickory, sesame oil, garlic, garlic salt, tabasco red pepper sauce) at 4±2°C temperature for 48±1h. Sodium monophosphate (E339) was also added in part of marinade to improve the meat textural properties. After marinating, meat samples were dried in microwave-vacuum drier MUSSON–1, packaged in vacuum pouches made from polymer film (PA/PE) with barrier properties and storage for 4 months at 18±1°C temperature in dark place. Dried venison samples were analyzed after 0, 35, 91 and 112 days of storage. During the storage total plate counts of dried venison samples significantly (p<0.05) increased. No significant differences in the content of protein, fat and moisture were detected when analyzing dried meat samples during storage and comparing them with the chemical parameters of just dried meat.

Keywords: Drying, microwave-vacuum drier, quality, venison.

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Authors: M. Maimunah, G. A. Froemming, H. Nawawi, M. I. Nafeeza, O. Effat, M. Y. Rosmadi, M. S. Mohamed Saifulaman

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Atherosclerosis was identified as a chronic inflammatory process resulting from interactions between plasma lipoproteins, cellular components (monocyte, macrophages, T lymphocytes, endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells) and the extracellular matrix of the arterial wall. Several types of genes were known to express during formation of atherosclerosis. This study is carried out to identify unknown differentially expressed gene (DEG) in atherogenesis. Rabbit’s aorta tissues were stained by H&E for histomorphology. GeneFishing™ PCR analysis was performed from total RNA extracted from the aorta tissues. The DNA fragment from DEG was cloned, sequenced and validated by Real-time PCR. Histomorphology showed intimal thickening in the aorta. DEG detected from ACP-41 was identified as cathepsin B gene and showed upregulation at week-8 and week-12 of atherogenesis. Therefore, ACP-based GeneFishing™ PCR facilitated identification of cathepsin B gene which was differentially expressed during development of atherosclerosis.

Keywords: Atherosclerosis, GeneFishing™ PCR, cathepsin B gene.

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Authors: Alaaddin Cerit, Suheyla Kocaman, Ulku Soydal

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During the past two decades, photoinitiated polymerization has been attracting a great interest in terms of scientific and industrial activity. The wide recognition of UV treatment in the polymer industry results not only from its many practical applications but also from its advantage for low-cost processes. Unlike most thermal curing systems, radiation-curable systems can polymerize at room temperature without additional heat, and the curing is completed in a very short time. The advantage of cationic UV technology is that post-cure can continue in the ‘dark’ after radiation. In this study, bio-based acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) was cured with UV radiation using radicalic photoinitiator Irgacure 184. Triarylsulphonium hexafluoroantimonate was used as cationic photoinitiator for curing of 3,4-epoxycyclohexylmethyl-3,4-epoxycyclohexanecarboxylate. The effect of curing time and the amount of initiators on the curing degree and thermal properties were investigated. The thermal properties of the coating were analyzed after crosslinking UV irradiation. The level of crosslinking in the coating was evaluated by FTIR analysis. Cationic UV-cured coatings demonstrated excellent adhesion and corrosion resistance properties. Therefore, our study holds a great potential with its simple and low-cost applications.

Keywords: Acrylated epoxidized soybean oil, epoxy carboxylate, thermal properties, UV-curing.

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Authors: M. Polanský

Abstract:

This paper introduces a new method called ARPDC (Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation) for automatic control of nonlinear systems. This method improves a quality of robust control by interpolating of robust and optimal controller. The weight of each controller is determined by an original criteria function for model validity and disturbance appreciation. ARPDC method is based on nonlinear Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems and Parallel Distributed Compensation (PDC) control scheme. The relaxed stability conditions of ARPDC control of nominal system have been derived. The advantages of presented method are demonstrated on the inverse pendulum benchmark problem. From comparison between three different controllers (robust, optimal and ARPDC) follows, that ARPDC control is almost optimal with the robustness close to the robust controller. The results indicate that ARPDC algorithm can be a good alternative not only for a robust control, but in some cases also to an adaptive control of nonlinear systems.

Keywords: Robust control, optimal control, Takagi–Sugeno (TS) fuzzy models, linear matrix inequality (LMI), observer, Advanced Robust Parallel Distributed Compensation (ARPDC).

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Authors: S. O. Adeosun, E. I. Akpan, S. A. Balogun, A. S. Abdulmunim

Abstract:

SiC reinforced Aluminum samples were produced by stir casting of liquid AA1200 aluminum alloy at 600-650ºC casting temperature. 83µm SiC particles were rinsed in 10g/l, 20g/l and 30g/l molar concentration of Sncl₂ through cleaning times of 0, 60, 120, and 180 minutes. Some cast samples were tested for mechanical properties and some were subjected to heat treatment before testing. The SnCl₂ rinsed SiC reinforced aluminum exhibited higher yield strength, hardness, stiffness and elongation which increases with cleaning concentration and time up to 120 minutes, compared to composite with untreated SiC. However, the impact energy resistance decreases with cleaning concentration and time. The improved properties were attributed to good wettability and mechanical adhesion at the fiber-matrix interface. Quenching and annealing the composite samples further improve the tensile/yield strengths, elongation, stiffness, hardness similar to those of the as-cast samples.

Keywords: Al-SIC, Aluminum, Composites, Intermetallic, Reinforcement, Tensile Strength, Wetting.

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