Dendrigraft with citric acid on acrylonitrile/acrylic acid copolymer electrospun fibres

Acrylonitrile/acrylic acid copolymers were synthesized with different mole fractions (1, 2, 5 and 10 mol%) of acrylic acid (AA) in the feed by aqueous suspension polymerization, and bead‐free fibres (295–375 nm in diameter) were made from the copolymers in dimethylformamide solutions by electrospinning. In a heterogeneous system containing electrospun fibre mats, dendritic molecules were grown by reaction between carboxylic acid of AA and –OH groups of citric acid activated by dicyclohexylcarbodiimide. The products were analysed using ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopies, density determination, scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and pH response properties. With decreasing AA content, the isotacticity of the copolymers decreases with a more random distribution of the co‐monomers which leads to higher percentage conversions of dendrigraft due to reduced steric hindrance. On the formation of dendrigraft, the percentage conversion of the reactions decreases with an increase of generation number and AA content. A reduction of density for the first generation and then an increase with increasing generation are observed. During oxidation stabilization of fibres with a decrease of AA content and an increase in generation number, the amount of liberated heat increases. Fibres containing more carboxylic groups show significantly greater amounts of swelling/de‐swelling in basic and acidic media, respectively. To be used as nanocarbon fibre precursors, or as active particles for loading with guest molecules, or as pH actuators, the first generation of dendrigrafted fibres are expected to have the greatest potential among the various samples examined. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry     

Constructing a block layout by face area

Solving the facility layout problems by graph theory consists of two stages. In the first stage, a planar graph that specifies desired adjacencies is obtained and in the second stage, a block layout is achieved from the planar graph. In this paper, we introduce face area as a new concept for constructing a block layout. Based on this idea, we present a new algorithm for constructing block layout from a maximal planar graph (MPG). This MPG must be generated from deltahedron heuristic. Constructed block layout by this algorithm satisfies all of adjacency and area requirements.     

A Novel Evolutionary-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Mechanism for Cognitive Radio Networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is considered as a feasible intelligent technology for 4G wireless networks or self-organization networks and envisioned as a promising paradigm of exploiting intelligence for enhancing efficiency of underutilized spectrum bands. In CR, one of the main concerns is to reliably sense the presence of primary users, to attain protection against harmful interference caused by the potential spectrum access of secondary users (SUs). In this paper, evolutionary algorithms, namely, genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are investigated. An imperialistic competitive algorithm (ICA) is proposed to minimize error detection at the common soft data fusion (SDF) center for structurally centralized cognitive radio network (CRN). By using these techniques, evolutionary operations are invoked to optimize the weighting coefficients applied on the sensing measurement components received from multiple cooperative SUs. The proposed method is compared with other evolutionary algorithms, as well as other conventional deterministic, such as maximal ratio combining- (MRC-), modified deflection coefficient- (MDC-), normal deflection coefficient- (NDC-) based SDF schemes and OR-rule HDF based. MATLAB simulations confirm the superiority of the ICA-based scheme over the PSO-, GA-based and other conventional schemes in terms of detection performance. In addition, the ICA-based scheme also shows promising convergence and time running performance as compared to other iterative-based schemes. This makes ICA an adequate solution to meet real-time requirements.     

Chatter instability analysis of spinning micro-end mill with process damping effect via semi-discretization approach

In this paper, the stability of delay differential equations (DDEs), describing self-excited vibrations in a micro-milling process, is investigated based on semi-discretization (SD) method. Due to the stubby geometry of micro-tools, the shear deformation and rotary inertia effects are considered for modeling the structure. The extended Hamilton’s principle is used to derive a detailed dynamical model of the spinning micro-tool with the support of misalignment in which the gyroscopic effects cause coupling of equations. Considering the actual geometry of the micro-end mill, exact dynamic stiffness (DS) formulations are developed to investigate the tool’s free vibration characteristics. The extracted mode shapes obtained from DS method are utilized as base functions in a Galerkin approach. Having considered regenerative cutting force, imposing the Galerkin method reduces the governing PDEs of the system to a set of DDEs. The resulting equations are discretized by means of SD procedure. Finally, numerical Floquet theory is utilized to investigate the stability of the system. Also, the effects of process damping on the stability diagrams are explored. The results show the efficiency of the proposed model and delineate the considerable influence of process damping on the stability borders of the system especially at low spindle speed.     

Torsion of strain gradient bars

The governing differential equation and both classical and non-classical boundary conditions of strain gradient bars are derived using variational approach. A closed-form analytical solution is obtained for static torsion and the characteristic equation, which gives the natural frequencies, is derived and analytically solved for the free torsional vibrations of the strain gradient microbars. A fixed-fixed microbar is considered as a specific case to investigate the torsional size-dependent static and free-vibration behavior of strain gradient microbars. The results of the current model are compared to those of the modified couple stress and classical theories.     

Composite Living Fibers for Creating Tissue Constructs Using Textile Techniques

The fabrication of cell‐laden structures with anisotropic mechanical properties while having a precise control over the distribution of different cell types within the constructs is important for many tissue engineering applications. Automated textile technologies for making fabrics allow simultaneous control over the color pattern and directional mechanical properties. The use of textile techniques in tissue engineering, however, demands the presence of cell‐laden fibers that can withstand the mechanical stresses during the assembly process. Here, the concept of composite living fibers (CLFs) in which a core of load bearing synthetic polymer is coated by a hydrogel layer containing cells or microparticles is introduced. The core thread is drawn sequentially through reservoirs containing a cell‐laden prepolymer and a crosslinking reagent. The thickness of the hydrogel layer increases linearly with to the drawing speed and the prepolymer viscosity. CLFs are fabricated and assembled using regular textile processes including weaving, knitting, braiding, winding, and embroidering, to form cell‐laden structures. Cellular viability and metabolic activity are preserved during CLF fabrication and assembly, demonstrating the feasibility of using these processes for engineering functional 3D tissue constructs.     

Penetration–elimination method for five-axis CNC machining of sculptured surfaces

In this paper, a new tool positioning strategy for five-axis machining, called the penetration–elimination method (PEM), is introduced. The PEM gains from two innovative techniques that can considerably improve the computational efficiency during the calculation of the optimal tool orientations.The first technique includes developing a quantitative definition for the gouging concept and using this definition in conjunction with powerful numerical root-finder algorithms to determine the optimized tool orientations. The second technique dynamically detects the ineffective grid points and drops them from calculations and consequently takes a great role in reducing the computational burden. The ability of the PEM in removing various types of gouging has been shown via several examples. The computational efficiency of the PEM has been compared with another recently described method named the arc-intersect method (AIM). This comparison shows that although the two methods reach the same solution for the tool orientation, the PEM is averagely 7.5 times faster than the AIM.     

Fuzzy-based multiscale edge detection

A new fuzzy-based multiscale edge detection technique is presented. The proposed approach achieves optimal edge detection using the wavelet decomposition of the original signal followed by a novel fuzzy-based decision technique that is applied across the scales. Results indicate a significant improvement in locating edges compared to other multiscale approaches.