Synthesis and Characterization of FePt/NiO Core–Shell Nanoparticles

Monodisperse FePt nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using the chemical polyol process. Annealing at the high temperatures is required to achieve the hard ferromagnetic behavior with L1₀ phase. Annealing causes the surfactant surrounding particles to be decomposed. Under such circumstances, FePt particles are agglomerated, and their size increases. In this research, NiO oxide particle with a high melting point was used for the first time as the shell around FePt core particles to prevent agglomeration. As a result, coercivity, H_c, of FePt and FePt/NiO nanoparticles after annealing at 750?°C are equal to 10 and 7?kOe, respectively.     

Predicting the grain size and hardness of AZ91/SiC nanocomposite by artificial neural networks

In the present study, SiC nanoparticles were added to as-cast AZ91 magnesium alloy through friction stir processing (FSP) and an AZ91/SiC surface nanocomposite layer was produced. A relation between the FSP parameters and grain size and hardness of nanocomposite using artificial neural network (ANN) was established. Experimental results showed that distribution of nanoparticles in the stirred zone (SZ) was not uniform and SZ was divided into two regions. In the ANN modeling, the inputs included traverse speed, rotational speed, and region types. Outputs were hardness and grain size. The model can be used to predict hardness and grain size as functions of rotational and traverse speeds and region types. To check the adequacy of the ANN model, the linear regression analyses were carried out to compute the correlation coefficients. The calculated results were in good agreement with experimental data. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the parametric impact on the model outputs.     

Biosurfactant-producing bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa MA01 isolated from spoiled apples: physicochemical and structural characteristics of isolated biosurfactant

An extensive investigation was conducted to isolate indigenous bacterial strains with outstanding performance for biosurfactant production from different types of spoiled fruits, food-related products and food processing industries. An isolate was selected from 800 by the highest biosurfactant yield in soybean oil medium and it was identified by 16S rRNA and the two most relevant hypervariable regions of this gene; V3 and V6 as Pseudomonas aeruginosa MA01. The isolate was able to produce 12 g/l of a glycolipid-type biosurfactant and generally less efficient to emulsify vegetable oils compared to hydrocarbons and could emulsify corn and coconut oils more than 50%. However, emulsification index (E(24)) of different hydrocarbons including hexane, toluene, xylene, brake oil, kerosene and hexadecane was between 55.8% and 100%. The surface tension of pure water decreased gradually with increasing biosurfactant concentration to 32.5 mNm(-1) with critical micelle concentration (CMC) value of 10.1mg/l. Among all carbon substrates examined, vegetable oils were the most effective on biosurfactant production. Two glycolipid fractions were purified from the biosurfactant crude extracts, and FTIR and ES-MS were used to determine the structure of these compounds. The analysis indicated the presence of three major monorhamnolipid species: R(1)C(10)C(10), R(1)C(10)C(12:1), and R(1)C(10)C(12); as well as another three major dirhamnolipid species: R(2)C(10)C(10), R(2)C(10)C(12:1), and R(2)C(10)C(12). The strain sweep experiment for measuring the linear viscoelastic of biosurfactant showed that typical behavior characteristics of a weak viscoelastic gel, with storage modulus greater than loss modulus at all frequencies examined, both showing some frequency dependence.     

Estimation‐Based Load‐Balancing with Admission Control for Cluster Web Servers

The growth of the World Wide Web and web‐based applications is creating demand for high performance web servers to offer better throughput and shorter user‐perceived latency. This demand leads to widely used cluster‐based web servers in the Internet infrastructure. Load balancing algorithms play an important role in boosting the performance of cluster web servers. Previous load balancing algorithms suffer a significant performance drop under dynamic and database‐driven workloads. We propose an estimation‐based load balancing algorithm with admission control for cluster‐based web servers. Because it is difficult to accurately determine the load of web servers, we propose an approximate policy. The algorithm classifies requests based on their service times and tracks the number of outstanding requests from each class in each web server node to dynamically estimate each web server load state. The available capacity of each web server is then computed and used for the load balancing and admission control decisions. The implementation results confirm that the proposed scheme improves both the mean response time and the throughput of clusters compared to rival load balancing algorithms and prevents clusters being overloaded even when request rates are beyond the cluster capacity.     

Grid performance prediction using state‐space model

One of the main challenges of scheduling algorithms in Grid environment is the autonomy of sites, which makes it difficult for the grid scheduler to estimate the exact cost of a task execution on different sites. In this paper, we present a solution for this problem based on data history (workload traces) and time series techniques. The main focus of this work is devoted to forecasting the task waiting time in a resource queue, which is under the control of a local scheduler with distinctive scheduling policy. The main contribution of this work is the consideration of a special property of the grid resources, the dynamic membership, i.e. a resource may exit and then come back to the grid environment repeatedly. When the resource belongs to the grid environment, its workload trace (log file) is considered as a correct log. On the other hand, when the resource leaves the grid, the log file during this period is considered as a defective part of the trace. As the defective parts contain some useful information, after repairing these defective parts, they can be used for forecasting purposes. Of this, we employ state‐space model along with the associated Kalman recursions in conjunction with the Expectation‐Maximization algorithm to repair the defective waiting time series such as a correct log file by which the resource seems never to have left the grid. The experimental results on a number of workload logs demonstrated that this approach can achieve an average prediction error, between 22 and 64% less than those incurred by other rival methods. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correlation Between Numerical Finite Element Simulation and Experiments for Explosive Cladding of Nickel Base Super Alloy on Hot Tool Steel

Abstract: Experimental tests were carried out to explosively clad solution‐annealed Inconel 718 super alloy on quench‐tempered AISI H13 hot tool steel. The tests were performed using various stand‐off distances and explosive–to‐flyer plate mass ratios. Various interface geometries were obtained from these experiments. All the experiments were simulated using ABAQUS version 6.9 finite element software. The Williamsburg equation of state and Johnson–Cook constitutive equation with its corresponding failure equation were used to model the behaviour of explosive and plates, respectively. The experimental results showed that the shape of interface fell roughly into three classes, wavy or wavy with some vortex shedding or smooth‐wavy. Various interface morphologies were achieved by changing the stand‐off distances and explosive–to‐flyer plate mass ratios because of change of impact velocity and dynamic collision angle. Numerical results showed that high localised plastic deformation was produced at the bond interface. Equivalent plastic strain and shear stress could be criteria for transition of interface morphology. Welding window of alloys was also developed.     

An adaptive heuristic to the bounded-diameter minimum spanning tree problem

Given a graph G and a bound d?≥?2, the bounded-diameter minimum spanning tree problem seeks a spanning tree on G of minimum weight subject to the constraint that its diameter does not exceed d. This problem is NP-hard; several heuristics have been proposed to find near-optimal solutions to it in reasonable times. A decentralized learning automata-based algorithm creates spanning trees that honor the diameter constraint. The algorithm rewards a tree if it has the smallest weight found so far and penalizes it otherwise. As the algorithm proceeds, the choice probability of the tree converges to one; and the algorithm halts when this probability exceeds a predefined value. Experiments confirm the superiority of the algorithm over other heuristics in terms of both speed and solution quality.     

Identification of the Groundwater Potential Recharge Zones Using MCDM Models: Full Consistency Method (FUCOM), Best Worst Method (BWM) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Water Resources Management - In arid and semi-arid regions, groundwater is considered being the most available natural resources for different water use. However, it is being limited in...     

Analytical investigation and numerical verification of Casimir effect on electrostatic nano-cantilevers

In this paper, the two-point boundary value problem (BVP) of the nano-cantilever deflection subjected to Casimir and electrostatic forces is investigated using analytical and numerical methods to obtain the instability point of the nano-beam. In the analytical treatment of the BVP, the nonlinear differential equation of the model is transformed into the integral form by using the Green’s function of the cantilever beam. Then, closed-form solutions are obtained by assuming an appropriate shape function for the beam deflection to evaluate the integrals. The pull-in parameters of the beam are computed under the combined effects of electrostatic and Casimir forces. Electrostatic microactuators and freestanding nanoactuators are considered as special cases of our study. The detachment length and the minimum initial gap of freestanding nanocantilevers, which are the basic design parameters for NEMS switches, are determined. The results of the analytical study are verified by numerical solution of the BVP. The centerline of the beam under the effect of electrostatic and Casimir forces at small deflections and at the point of instability is obtained numerically to test the validity of the shape function assumed for the beam deflection in the analytical investigation. Finally, the large deformation theory is applied in numerical simulations to study the effect of the finite kinematics on the pull-in parameters of nano-canilevers.