Lightfastness and flash photolysis of hydroxyanthraquinones

The photostability of the commercially important dye 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone (alizarin) is compared with that of four other structurally related hydroxyanthraquinones in both solution and polymer substrates. In solution the flash photolysis experiments showed that in a polar solvent, 2-propanol, the 1,2-hydroxy derivative is the least reactive. A similar trend in lightfastness (LF) is found when the dyes are applied to the highly polar substrate nylon-6,6.     

Topology optimization for the seismic design of truss-like structures

A practical optimization method is applied to design nonlinear truss-like structures subjected to seismic excitation. To achieve minimum weight design, inefficient material is gradually shifted from strong parts to weak parts of a structure until a state of uniform deformation prevails. By considering different truss structures, effects of seismic excitation, target ductility and buckling of the compression members on optimum topology are investigated. It is shown that the proposed method could lead to 60% less structural weight compared to optimization methods based on elastic behavior and equivalent static loads, and is efficient at controlling performance parameters under a design earthquake.     

Hardware design of a new genetic based disk scheduling method

Disk management is an increasingly important aspect of operating systems research and development because it has great effect on system performance. As the gap between processor and disk performance continues to increase in modern systems, access to mass storage is a common bottleneck that ultimately limits overall system performance. In this paper, we propose hardware architecture of a new genetic based real-time disk scheduling method. Also, to have a precise simulation, a neural network is proposed to simulate seek-time of disks. Simulation results showed the hardware implementation of proposed algorithm outperformed software implementation in term of execution time, and other related works in terms of number of tasks that miss deadlines and average seeks.     

Integration of analytic hierarchy process and data envelopment analysis for assessment and optimization of personnel productivity in a large industrial bank

This paper presents an integration of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) for assessment and optimization of personnel productivity in a large private bank. In this algorithm the effective personnel operation indicators are evaluated by the management which is usually in qualitative forms and converted to quantitative forms by using AHP. Then, the ranking and efficiency of the organization will be assessed and optimized by DEA. Principal components analysis (PCA) and numeral taxonomy (NT) are applied to verify and validate the ranking results of the DEA method. We applied this algorithm in various branches of the Bank of Industry and Mine in Iran. The proposed framework may be used to study and optimize personnel productivity in large banks. This is the first study that integrated DEA and AHP for optimization of personnel productivity in large banks based on both qualitative and quantitative indicators.     

Evaluating the effect of using different sets of enrichment for FAs on fuel management optimization using CA

In nuclear reactor core design, achieving the optimized arrangement of fuel assemblies (FAs) is the most important step towards satisfying safety and economic requirements. In most studies, nuclear fuel optimizations have been performed by using a finite number of different types of FAs. However the effect of FA numbers with different enrichments and the difference between their maximum and minimum enrichment values can be important and should be evaluated in the optimization process.     

Wall Decay Coefficient Estimation in a Real-Life Drinking Water Distribution Network

Water Resources Management - Injection of chlorine as a disinfectant and the correct prediction of the residual amount in water distribution networks are key points and important principles in the...     

Antimicrobial Activity of Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) Peel Extract,Physical, Mechanical,Barrier and Antimicrobial Properties of Pomegranate Peel Extract‐incorporated Sodium Caseinate Film and Application in Packaging for Ground Beef

In the present study, casein‐based edible films containing 1, 1.5 or 2 times of minimum inhibitory concentration of pomegranate peel extract (as antimicrobial agent) were prepared, and their physical, mechanical and antimicrobial impacts against two Gram‐positive and Gram‐negative bacterial strains were investigated. To evaluate the microstructure changes resulting from the addition of the antimicrobial extracts, scanning electron microscopy images were taken from both surface and cross section of the films. Different physical and mechanical properties of films were affected by the addition of pomegranate extract. For example, the water vapour permeability of films increased. Antimicrobial effectiveness of prepared films was more pronounced against Gram‐positive strain compared with Gram‐negative strain. Antimicrobial impact of edible films was also studied on ground meat. It was observed that antimicrobial activity of the films was mostly dependent on the types of microorganisms present in meat. Although they were not a suitable replacement for common films, they could substantially extend the shelf life of ground meat. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive QoS scheduling in wireless cellular networks

Quality of service (QoS) has been always controversial in resource shared networks. Scheduling as a packet prioritizing mechanism at Data Link Layer (DLL) contributes to QoS guarantee provisioning significantly. In this paper, a novel packet scheduler is developed in wireless cellular networks. The proposed scheme provides QoS-guaranteed service for the applications running on the sensor nodes in all the three aspects of QoS, i.e. data rate, packet loss and packet delay with regard to jitter simultaneously. We establish a three-dimensional space with certain basis vectors for QoS and introduce the efficient point of performance in terms of QoS provisioning in that space. Then we develop a generalized metric, the QoS-deviation, which is the Euclidean distance between the QoS work point of flows and the QoS efficient point in the proposed space. Based on this metric, a novel scheduling approach, namely AQDC, is designed which makes it possible to tune the trade-off between QoS provisioning and throughput optimization in an adaptive manner depending on the current Cell QoS-deviation level (CDL). Furthermore, we also develop another scheduler, namely ARTC, which is the residual-time version of the AQDC scheduler. Finally, a QoS-deviation-based CAC policy will be introduced which can be applied to all schedulers without any consideration about their structure and can be employed in cellular packet switched networks.     

Diagnostic pre-treatment procedure for simultaneous cyanide leaching of gold and silver from a refractory gold/silver ore

This study investigates the optimization of simultaneous dissolution of gold and silver from a refractory gold ore through determination of pre-treatment stages. Based on the mineralogical studies (thin layer and polished section) and chemical analysis on the ore sample, a “diagnostic leaching” procedure was designed. Results from diagnostic leaching suggest that the most effective pre-treatment agents for gold and silver are ferric chloride and sulfuric acid media, respectively. Optimum conditions for the simultaneous dissolution of gold and silver were determined using a two factorial design technique. Pre-treatments with sulfuric acid and ferric chloride reagents increased the efficiency of the dissolution of gold from 54.7% to 82% and silver from 37.4% to 81.6%.