Improvement of flexural bond strength of zirconia-resin cement by surface patterning using sub-nanosecond UV laser

Zirconia is a dental material that shows excellent biocompatibility and high strength in clinical applications. This study aims to evaluate the effects of ultrafast laser applications. The surface nanostructures were classified into three groups. Group 1 was generated using the burst mode, with three different distances between dots: 52 µm (Group 1a), 104 µm (Group 1b), and 156 µm (Group 1c). Group 2 was processed using the scanning mode configuration, with a set of parallel lines. Group 3 was also processed using this scanning configuration creating a set of square-shaped patterning. Group 4 was the control group. After the surface treatments, a pair of zirconia specimens was bonded end to end with resin cement. Flexural bond strength (FBS) test was applied in a universal test machine. Multiple comparisons were performed using a one-way analysis of variance and the Tukey's HSD test. All the samples that were treated with the laser showed higher FBS values than the untreated surface. Using the burst mode, preformed circular-shaped surface on an angle of 90⁰ at 52 µm distance (Group 1a) showed the highest FBS values among all groups (p < .05). Groups 2 and 3 had significantly higher values than 1b and 1c.     

Design of a Commercial Hybrid VTOL UAV System

For the last four decades Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) have been extensively used for military operations that include tracking, surveillance, active engagement with weapons and airborne data acquisition. UAVs are also in demand commercially due to their advantages in comparison to manned vehicles. These advantages include lower manufacturing and operating costs, flexibility in configuration depending on customer request and not risking the pilot on demanding missions. Even though civilian UAVs currently constitute 3 % of the UAV market, it is estimated that their numbers will reach up to 10 % of the UAV market within the next 5 years. Most of the civilian UAV applications require UAVs that are capable of doing a wide range of different and complementary operations within a composite mission. These operations include taking off and landing from limited runway space, while traversing the operation region in considerable cruise speed for mobile tracking applications. This is in addition to being able traverse in low cruise speeds or being able to hover for stationary measurement and tracking. All of these complementary and but different operational capabilities point to a hybrid unmanned vehicle concept, namely the Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) UAVs. In addition, the desired UAV system needs to be cost-efficient while providing easy payload conversion for different civilian applications. In this paper, we review the preliminary design process of such a capable civilian UAV system, namely the TURAC VTOL UAV. TURAC UAV is aimed to have both vertical take-off and landing and Conventional Take-off and Landing (CTOL) capability. TURAC interchangeable payload pod and detachable wing (with potential different size variants) provides capability to perform different mission types, including long endurance and high cruise speed operations. In addition, the TURAC concept is to have two different variants. The TURAC A variant is an eco-friendly and low-noise fully electrical platform which includes 2 tilt electric motors in the front, and a fixed electric motor and ducted fan in the rear, where as the TURAC B variant is envisioned to use high energy density fuel cells for extended hovering time. In this paper, we provide the TURAC UAV’s iterative design and trade-off studies which also include detailed aerodynamic and structural configuration analysis. For the aerodynamic analysis, an in-house software including graphical user interface has been developed to calculate the aerodynamic forces and moments by using the Vortex Lattice Method (VLM). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) studies are performed to determine the aerodynamic effects for various configurations For structural analysis, a Finite Element Model (FEM) of the TURAC has been prepared and its modal analysis is carried out. Maximum displacements and maximal principal stresses are calculated and used for streamlining a weight efficient fuselage design. Prototypes have been built to show success of the design at both hover and forward flight regime. In this paper, we also provide the flight management and autopilot architecture of the TURAC. The testing of the controller performance has been initiated with the prototype of TURAC. Current work focuses on the building of the full fight test prototype of the TURAC UAV and aerodynamic modeling of the transition flight.     

Modélisation Mathématique de la Décantation de la Boue Rouge

A good performance of the solid‐liquid unit operation is required for the economical exploitation of the Bayer process. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model simulating the operation of the last washing stage mud thickener of a large Canadian alumina plant is presented. The parametric study of the impact of changes in four parameters shows that the diameter of flocculated red mud particles, the feed flow rate and the radius of the feed well are critical parameters for the operation of the thickener.     

An automatic diabetes diagnosis system based on LDA-Wavelet Support Vector Machine Classifier

In this paper, an automatic diagnosis system for diabetes on Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Morlet Wavelet Support Vector Machine Classifier: LDA–MWSVM is introduced. The structure of this automatic system based on LDA-MWSVM for the diagnosis of diabetes is composed of three stages: The feature extraction and feature reduction stage by using the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) method and the classification stage by using Morlet Wavelet Support Vector Machine (MWSVM) classifier stage. The Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) is used to separate features variables between healthy and patient (diabetes) data in the first stage. The healthy and patient (diabetes) features obtained in the first stage are given to inputs of the MWSVM classifier in the second stage. Finally, in the third stage, the correct diagnosis performance of this automatic system based on LDA–MWSVM for the diagnosis of diabetes is calculated by using sensitivity and specificity analysis, classification accuracy, and confusion matrix, respectively. The classification accuracy of this system was obtained at about 89.74%.     

Biodegradation of phenol by Synechocystis sp. in media including triacontanol hormone

Phenol removal levels of Synechocystis sp. were investigated in BG11 media with 10 mg/L triacontanol (TRIA) and without it to test whether the hormone could increase the removal efficiency by increasing biomass. The assays were performed to determine the effect of light on degradation, in media with 119.0–492.8 mg/L phenol under light and dark conditions. At increasing phenol concentrations, the degradation ranged between 98.5 and 100% regardless of a dark or a light condition. Experiments were carried out under light to determine the optimum pH for effective degradation. Optimum pH was found to be 6.5 at 200 mg/L phenol with or without TRIA. Phenol degradation was investigated in the 120.2–826.9 mg/L range. Although 377.4 mg/L phenol was completely degraded in hormone controls within 120 h, degradation was increased by TRIA, and the process was completed in 96 h. These data suggest that Synechocystis sp. has potential for use in the treatment of wastewaters containing phenol.     

Investigation of Spin State Transition of [FeC<Subscript>17</Subscript>H<Subscript>31</Subscript>N<Subscript>7</Subscript>]<Superscript>2+</Superscript> Compound by Using the Density Functional Method

The symmetry of the [FeC₁₇H₃₁N₇]²⁺ novel compound is close to octahedral which has spin crossover properties (SCO). In this study, geometrical optimization, IR vibration frequencies, and HOMO-LUMO energy differences at various temperatures of the compound were calculated by DFT. It is realised that the computed splitting energies and splitting free enthalpies together with the mole fraction of HS state are compatible with the experiment.