Pore-scale modeling of competition and cooperation of multispecies biofilms for nutrients in changing environments

In this article, we developed a pore-scale model of integrated lattice Boltzmann method and cellular automata to investigate competitive growth of aerobic nitrite and ammonium oxidizers in a bioreactor. The results showed that inlet nutrient concentrations have significant effects on maximum biofilm concentration, ratio of microorganisms' concentrations, growth pattern, and time. The local availability of oxygen could control the competition, resulting in different growth patterns. The coexistence of ammonium and nitrite in same inlet zone increased not only the biofilm concentration (7%) but also the ratio of microorganisms' concentrations (36%). Although this coexistence decreased the total biofilm concentration in some cases, it increased the growth rate about 25%. Changes of the maximum biomass concentration could change biofilm concentration of about 40% and microorganisms' concentrations ratio of about 30%. This framework provides a powerful tool to improve our understanding of dynamic interdependency of many complex microbial consortia systems with environments.     

Determination of the Optimal River Basin-Wide Agricultural Water Demand Quantities Meeting Satisfactory Reliability Levels

Water Resources Management - The unbridled increase in water demands and beyond-sustainable water withdrawals have led to decrease reliable supply levels, particularly for agricultural purposes in...     

Hybrid routing scheme using imperialist competitive algorithm and RBF neural networks for VANETs

Wireless Networks - Vehicular ad hoc network (VANET), a special type of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs), is characterized by a very high mobility. Due to the dynamic nature of vehicle nodes and...     

Zero-power balancing a two-link robot manipulator for a predefined point-to-point task

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - In this paper, a new balancing approach called “zero-power balancing” (ZPB) method is presented for a two-link robot manipulator (TLRM)...     

A secure search protocol for lightweight and low-cost RFID systems

In radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, search protocols are used to find a specific item in a large number of tagged products. These protocols should be secure against RFID attacks such as traceability, impersonation, DoS and eavesdropping. Sundaresan et al. (IEEE Trans Dependable Secure Comput, 2015) presented a server-less search protocol based on 128-bits PRNG function and claimed that their method can address all vulnerabilities of previous protocols. In this paper, we prove that Sundaresan et al.’s protocol is vulnerable to traceability attack with the high probability. In addition, we present an improved protocol to solve the proposed problem and analyze its security level informally and formally based on AVISPA tool and BAN logic.     

Eye gesture blink password: a new authentication system with high memorable and maximum password length

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Authentication systems in which eye is used for entering the password are categorized into two gaze-based and gesture-based groups. In the accurate...     

Synthesis and characterization of yttrium aluminum garnet nanostructures by cathodic electrodeposition method

Pure nanostructures of yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) was prepared based on the cathodic electrodeposition method from the mixture of YCl₃ and AlCl₃ dissolved in water/ethanol solution. At first, hydroxide precursors cathodically were grown on the steel substrates then, the hydroxide powders heat treated at 850 °C for 4 h in dry air atmosphere. The formation of crystalline YAG nanopowder was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (DSC-TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The results of the SEM showed that applied current density and bath temperature have the prominent effect on the morphology and particle size of the products. The results revealed that cathodic electrodeposition followed by heat-treatment can be used as a facile method for preparation of YAG nanostructures with different morphology.     

High-strain-rate deformation behaviour of new high-Mn austenitic steel during impact shock-loading

The influence of impact shock-loading was investigated on the mechanical behaviour, microstructure evolution, and texture of a new high-Mn steel. The mechanical behaviour of the shock-loaded specimen was compared with quasi-static compression condition. A Hopkinson pressure bar setup was used to perform the high-strain-rate deformation. Continuous yielding was observed under both low and high-strain-rate deformation. The yield stress also illustrated a positive strain-rate sensitivity with increasing strain-rate. An obvious increase in the flow stress of the steel was detected at higher strain-rate. A strain hardening followed by a strain softening was detected in stress–strain curve after shock-loading. Electron backscatter diffraction also displayed the activation of strain-induced ?-martensite and ?-martensite while deformation twinning was absent at high-strain-rate.