On the Recovery and Fatigue Life Extension of Stainless Steel 316 Metals by Means of Recovery Heat Treatment

In this paper, we propose a methodology for enhancing the fatigue life of SS316 by performing intermittent recovery heat-treatment (RHT) in the Argon environment at different temperatures. To this end, fully-reversed fatigue bending tests are conducted on the heat-treated SS316 specimens. Damping values are obtained using the impact excitation technique to assess the damage remaining in the material after each RHT and the corresponding fatigue life. Damping is also used to distinguish the three stages of the fatigue phenomenon and the onset of crack initiation. The results show that by performing intermittent RHTs, the density of dislocation is decreased substantially and fatigue life is improved. Examination of the damping results also reveals that the material becomes more brittle after the RHT due to the decrease in the density of dislocations. The fatigue life of the specimens is governed by these two phenomena

Inhibition of HIV-1 by a lentiviral vector with a novel tat-inducible expression system and a specific tropism to the target cells

Today, lentiviral vectors are favorable vectors for RNA interference delivery in anti-HIV therapeutic approaches. Nevertheless, problems such as the specific recognition of target cells and uncontrolled expression of the transgene can restrict their use in vivo. Herein we present a new HIV-inducible promoter to express anti-HIV short hairpin RNA (shRNA) by RNA Pol II in mammalian cells. We likewise showed a novel third-generation lentiviral vector system with more safety and a specific tropism to the target cells. The new promoter, CkRhsp, was constructed from the chicken β-actin core promoter with the R region of HIV-1 long terminal repeat fused upstream of minimal hsp70 promoter. This system was induced by HIV-1 Tat, and activates transcription of two shRNAs against two conserved regions of HIV-1 transcripts produced in two steps of the virus life cycle. We also mimicked HIV-1 cell tropism by using the HIV-1 envelope in structure of third-generation lentiviral vector. The new fusion promoter efficiently expressed shRNA in a Tat-inducible manner. HIV-1 replication was inhibited in transient transfection and stable transduction assays. The new viral vector infected only CD4+cells. CkRhsp promoter may be safer than other inducible promoters for shRNA-mediated gene therapies against HIV. The use of the wild envelope in the vector packaging system may provide the specific targeting T lymphocytes and hematopoietic stem cells for anti-HIV-1 therapeutic approaches in vivo. © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2015

Forced boiling of nanofluids, effects of contact angle and surface wettability

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.Nanofluids are the suspension of ultra fine particles in a conventional base fluid which tremendously changes the heat transfer characteristics of the original fluid. In this paper the boiling characteristics of different nanofluids was studied numerically using a CFD approach. Dispersions of Al2O3, SiO2, and ZrO2 nanoparticles in water at different concentrations (0.1, 0.01 and 0.001% by volume) have been used. Effects of some noticeable parameters such as nanoparticle concentration and temperature profile on the critical heat flux (CHF) have been investigated. The results of CFD simulation based on two-phase models were compared with experimental data. Boiling curves and critical heat flux were measured for the base fluid and the nanofluids. Based on the simulation results, it was concluded that the using of the Zirconium oxide (0.001%) led to modest (up to 31%) increase in the CHF. The minimum enhancement belongs to the aluminum oxide (0.1%) which increases the critical heat flux up to 11%. According to the experimental results, despite of expectation, addition of the nanoparticles causes decreasing the boiling heat transfer coefficient. This reduction is related to the changing of the surface characteristic causing by depositing the nanoparticles. In the Al2O3/water and SiO2/water nanofluids, the surface contact angle increases with increase in the nanoparticle volume fraction, so the CHF decreases

Effect of enriched rotifer (Brachionus plicatilis) with probiotic lactobacilli on growth, survival and resistance indicators of western white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) larvae

This study examined the effects of a commercial Lactobacillus probiotic on growth, survival and resistance of western white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) larvae against salinity and formalin stresses in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea Ecology Research Center. In this experiment, larvae were fed 6 times a day from mysis I (M1) step to post larvae 5 over 3 treatments including a control treatment C (without probiotic) and 2 experimental treatments namely A (having probiotic enriched rotifer) and B (having probiotic enriched rotifer and adding probiotic powder directly to the water). Larvae were stocked in 9 plastic tanks (20-liter) containing 10 L of seawater at a density of 50 larvae per liter. Three replicates were used for each treatment. At the end of the experimental period biometric larvae were studied under salinity and formalin stresses. Results showed that using probiotic bacteria had significant and positive effects on shrimp resistance, survival and growth (p0.05). According to the results we may conclude that the use of probiotic powder is effective in increasing growth, survival and resistance rate of western white shrimp in the larval and post larval stages

Using generative adversarial networks for extraction of insar signals from large-scale Sentinel-1 interferograms by improving tropospheric noise correction

Spatiotemporal variations of pressure, temperature, water vapour content in the atmosphere lead to significant delays in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) measurements of deformations in the ground. One of the key challenges in increasing the accuracy of ground deformation measurements using InSAR is to produce robust estimates of the tropospheric delay. Tropospheric models like ERA-Interim can be used to estimate the total tropospheric delay in interferograms in remote areas. The problem with using ERA-Interim model for interferogram correction is that after the tropospheric correction, there are still some residuals left in the interferograms, which can be mainly attributed to turbulent troposphere. In this study, we propose a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) based approach to mitigate the phase delay caused by troposphere. In this method, we implement a noise to noise model, where the network is trained only with the interferograms corrupted by tropospheric noise. We applied the technique over 116 large scale 800 km long interfergrams formed from Sentinel-1 acquisitions covering a period from 25th October, 2014 to 2nd November, 2017 from descending track numbered 108 over Iran. Our approach reduces the root mean square of the phase values of the interferogram 64% compared to those of the original interferogram and by 55% in comparison to the corresponding ERA-Interim corrected version

An Experimental-Intelligent Method to Predict Noise Value of Drilling in Dimension Stone Industry

The noise of drilling in the dimension stone business is unbearable for both the workplace and the people who work there. In order to reduce the negative effects drilling has on the health of the environment, the drilling noise has to be measured, assessed, and controlled. The main purpose of this work is to investigate an experimental-intelligent method to predict the noise value of drilling in the dimension stone industry. For this purpose, 135 laboratory tests are designed on five types of rocks (four types of hard rock and one type of soft rock): and their results are measured in the first step. In the second step, due to the unpredicted and uncertain issues in this case, artificial intelligence (AI) approaches are applied, and the modeling is conducted using three intelligent systems (IS): namely an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-SCM (ANFIS-SCM): an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-FCM (ANFIS-FCM): and the radial basis function network (RBF) neural network. 75% of the samples are considered for training, and the rest for testing. Several models are constructed, and the results indicate that although there is no significant difference between the models according to the performance indices, the proposed construction of ANFIS-SCM can be considered as an efficient tool in the evaluation of drilling noise. Finally, several scenarios are designed with different input modes, and the results obtained prove that the types of rock and the drill bits are more important than the operational characteristics of the machine

Indentation-based characterization of creep and hardness behavior of magnesium carbon nanotube nanocomposites at room temperature

The time-dependent plastic deformation response of magnesium/carbon nanotube (CNT) nanocomposites containing 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 vol% of carbon nanotubes is investigated through depth nanoindentation tests against monolithic pure magnesium in the present study. The Mg-CNT nanocomposite materials were successfully synthesized via a powder metallurgy technique coupled with microwave sintering followed by hot extrusion to produce 8-mm diameter, long solid bars. All depth-sensing indentation creep tests were conducted at ambient (room) temperature employing a diamond Berkovich pyramidal indenter. These tests are dual-stage, i.e., loading to a prescribed peak load of 50 mN, holding the peak load constant for a dwell period of 500 s, and finally unloading. Various strain rates of 0.01, 0.1, 1, and 10 s−1were performed to assess the effects of strain rate and dwell time on the ambient temperature creep response of the Mg-CNT nanocomposites. The outcomes of these tests are explained through material hardness, microstructure, the extent of CNT content in each material, and strain rate sensitivity. Upon analyzing the nanoindentation creep tests, the dominant creep mechanism at room temperature was found to be a dislocation creep mechanism. It is also found that CNTs increase the creep resistance of magnesium. Findings of this study can be used as a starting point for a high-temperature creep study on Mg-CNT nanocomposites. This paper is a continued study from our group on time-dependent plastic deformation of Mg nanocomposites (i.e., see Haghshenas et al., Journal of Composite Materials, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021998318808358). The short-term goal is to provide a compressive picture of the controlling creep mechanisms and their dependency upon, time, temperature, strain rate, volume fraction of the nanoparticles, and the type of the nanoparticles. Mg, in general, is a notorious material for high-temperature application; therefore, the long-term objective is to propose Mg nanocomposite as reliable replacements for Mg when lightweight and creep resistance are needed. However, to be able to confidently suggest such a replacement detailed understanding on the controlling phenomena, mention as short-term goals, are required

A phonetic and phonological study of the nominal piece in Standard Colloquial Persian.

This thesis presents a phonetic and phonological description of the nominal piece in Standard Colloquial Persian. The phonetic description is given in articulatory feature analysis as briefly outlined in paragraph 0.5. The phonological description is in prosodic terms. Intonation has been excluded from this thesis as it is primarily a sentence prosody.1 In order to achieve maximum congruence between the phonological and grammatical levels, the phonological statements are given within a grammatical framework outlined in parts at the beginning of the relevant chapters. The introduction gives the necessary information about the data analysed, previous analyses and some justification for the choice of the theory. A general discussion on syllable, some existing phonetic definitions, and the need for syllable is presented in Chapter 1 where a definition of syllable in Persian is suggested together with its types. The phonetic features observed in the data are described in Chapters 2 and 3 in. terms of syllable features and syllable segments. The phonetic features observed between syllables at morpheme boundaries as well as some rules for syllable division are given in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 provides further description of glottal, pre-glottal and long contoids. 1. For a description of intonation in Persian see J. Towhidi's "A Study of Intonation and Related Features of Persian ...", research for Ph.D. thesis, London University, S.O.A.S. In Chapter 6 the phonological structure of syllable is given and the syllable prosodies are stated. In Chapter 7 different phonematic systems are set up for different places in the syllable. The syllable structure of nominal words is set up in Chapter 8, and various prosodies of nominal words are described. Chapter 9 deals with the description of the nominal piece and junction prosodies which express the relation between the components of nominal piece. Chapter 10 provides a brief summary of some interesting experimental findings obtained with the help of the techniques of palatography, mingography and spectrography. Most of the descriptions based on perceptual analysis of the data are found to be supported by instrumental evidence