Applied Sciences, Volume 7, Issue 6

We present an overview of the FERMI (acronym of Free Electron laser Radiation for Multidisciplinary Investigations) seeded free electron laser (FEL) facility located at the Elettra laboratory in Trieste. FERMI is now in user operation with both the F...

Demand response (DR) implementations have recently found wide application areas in the context of smart grids. The effectiveness of these implementations is primarily based on the willingness of end-users to be involved in such programs. In this pape...

In dry turning operation, various parameters influence the cutting force and contribute in machining precision. Generally, the numerical cutting models are adopted to establish the optimum cutting parameters and results are substantiated with the exp...

Porphyrin nanostructures with well-controlled size, shape and functionality can be used for visible-light photocatalysis. In this work, a graphene@porphyrin nanofibre composite was successfully fabricated via arginine-mediated self-assembly of tetrak...

The prediction of initial returns on initial public offerings (IPOs) is a complex matter. The independent variables identified in the literature mix strong and weak predictors, their explanatory power is limited, and samples include a sizable number...

The aim of this paper was to assess groundwater quality in a landfill and waste management site, with special regard to levels of organic pollution indicators: chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and total organic carbon (T...

The aerodynamic design of rotor blades is challenging, and is crucial for the development of helicopter technology. Previous aerodynamic optimizations that focused only on limited design points find it difficult to balance flight performance across t...

Membrane distillation is a thermal separation technique using a microporous hydrophobic membrane. One of the concerns with respect to the industrialization of the technique is the development of novel membranes. In this paper, a commercially availabl...

The effects of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma on the film cooling effectiveness of a 30-degree slot was experimentally investigated in a low-speed wind tunnel. The pressure sensitive paint (PSP) technique was used to measure the film cooli...

With the increasing interest in energy efficiency and resource protection, waste heat recovery processes have gained importance. Thereby, one possibility is the conversion of the heat energy into electrical energy by thermoelectric generators. Here,...

This is a review of fiber-optic soliton propagation and of methods to determine the soliton content in a pulse, group of pulses or a similar structure. Of central importance is the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, an integrable equation that possesses...

A PM orbital friction vibration actuator (OFVA) which composes four linear oscillating actuators (LOA) is proposed in this paper. This paper presents the design, analysis, and experimental validation of stator configuration of a permanent magnet LOA...

Transesterification of waste vegetable oil is one of the promising partial substitutes for fossil fuels. The degradation characteristics of waste vegetable oil using supercritical alcohols (ethanol and methanol) have been studied in this research. Th...

In this paper, 12 laminated reinforced concrete shear walls are designed for cyclic loading tests. Seismic performance of laminated reinforced concrete shear walls with vertical seams are evaluated by the failure mode, deformability, hysteresis curve...

Relative wavelet energy entropy (RWEE) is proposed to detect and quantify damage to hysteretic dampers used for the passive seismic control of building structures. Hysteretic dampers have the role of dissipating most of the energy input of an earthqu...

We demonstrate the transmission of a 10-Gbit/s optical data signal in the 2 µm waveband into titanium dioxide waveguides. Error-free transmissions have been experimentally achieved taking advantage of a 23-dB insertion loss fiber-to-fiber grating-bas...

Pump-probe experiments are commonly used at Free Electron Lasers (FEL) to elucidate the femtosecond dynamics of atoms, molecules, clusters, liquids and solids. Maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurements is often a primary need of the ex...

The operating environment of power grid enterprises is complex with a range of monitoring indicators. To grasp the overall operational status in time and find the key affecting factors, Balanced Scorecard Card (BSC), Interpretive Structural Model (IS...

In this article, we present a novel structural health monitoring system based on a wireless sensor network for GNSS (global navigation satellite system) receivers. The GNSS network presented here consists of three GNSS rover stations and one base sta...

This work presents a novel methodology to predict large magnitude earthquakes with horizon of prediction of five days. For the first time, imbalanced classification techniques are applied in this field by attempting to deal with the infrequent occurr...

With the advancement of spatial audio technologies, in both recording and reproduction, we are seeing more applications that incorporate 3D sound to create an immersive aural experience. Soundscape design and evaluation for urban planning can now tap...

In the framework of DANTE project (Development of Aero-Vibroacoustics Numerical and Technical Expertise), funded under the Italian Aerospace Research Program (PRORA), the prediction and reduction of noise from subsonic jets through the reconstruction...

Since the beginning of this century, the share of renewables in Europe’s total power capacity has almost doubled, becoming the largest source of its electricity production. In 2015 alone, photovoltaic (PV) energy generation rose with a rate of more t...

The absorption performance of a locally-reacting acoustic metamaterial under oblique incidence is studied. The metamaterial is composed of a slotted panel, each slit being loaded by an array of Helmholtz resonators. The system is analytically studied...

As part of the research endeavors to combat cancer, a non-symmetric bis-isatin derivative (compound 3) was synthesized and showed a significant anti-proliferative potency. The current study provides a comprehensive characterization of the interaction...

A new experimental device which tests the adsorption performance of the 13X/CaCl₂ composite adsorbent under vacuum conditions was established. In this device, heat transfer characteristics in the adsorbent bed have a great influence on the adsorbent...

A non-pulse-leakage optical fiber pumped 100-kHz level high beam quality Nd:YVO₄ picosecond amplifier has been developed. An 80 MHz, 11.5 ps mode-locked picosecond laser is used as the seed with single pulse energy of 1 nJ. By harnessing the double β...

In recent years, smartphones have become the main computing tool for most of the population, making them an ideal tool in many areas. Most of these smartphones are equipped with cutting-edge hardware on their digital cameras, sensors and processors....

To investigate the combustion characteristics in multi-point lean direct injection (LDI) combustors with hydrogen/air, two swirl–venturi 2 × 2 array four-point LDI combustors were designed. The four-point LDI combustor consists of injector assembly,...

Relief valves are widely used in industrial machinery. Due to the outlet of the relief valve being connected to the tank, the pressure drop of the relief valve is frequently equal to the inlet pressure. Accordingly, the energy loss of the relief valv...

The finite element (FE) method has been widely used in predicting the structural responses of asphalt pavements. However, the three-dimensional (3D) modeling in general-purpose FE software systems such as ABAQUS requires extensive computations and is...

High power attosecond (as) X-ray pulses are in great demand for ultrafast dynamics and high resolution microscopy. We numerically demonstrate the generation of a ~230 attosecond, 1.5 terawatt (TW) pulse at a photon energy of 1 keV, and a 115 attoseco...

The composite kernel feature fusion proposed in this paper attempts to solve the problem of classifying polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) images. Here, PolSAR images take into account both polarimetric and spatial information. Various po...

The supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) jet offers many advantages over water jets in the field of oil and gas exploration and development. To take better advantage of the SC-CO₂ jet, effects of nozzle configuration on rock erosion characteristics...

The Shanghai soft X-ray Free-Electron Laser facility (SXFEL) is being developed in two steps; the SXFEL test facility (SXFEL-TF), and the SXFEL user facility (SXFEL-UF). The SXFEL-TF is a critical development step towards the construction a soft X-ra...

Silica gel is a typical porous desiccant material. Its adsorption performance for gaseous air pollutants was investigated to determine its potential contribution to reducing such pollutants. Three gaseous air pollutants, toluene, carbon dioxide, and...

In this work, a vibro-acoustic numerical and experimental analysis was carried out for the chain cover of a low powered four-cylinder four-stroke diesel engine, belonging to the FPT (FCA Power Train) family called SDE (Small Diesel Engine). By applyi...

Cobalt chromium (CoCr) alloy tubes have been widely used in manufacturing of vascular stents, due to their excellent bio-mechanical properties, especially their high strength. In recent years, fiber lasers have been used in the micro-machining of vas...

Due to environmental burden and human health risks in developing countries, the treatment of decentralized domestic wastewater has been a matter of great concern in recent years. A novel pilot-scale three-stage anaerobic wool-felt filter reactor (AWF...

This article reports the current status of SACLA, SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser, which has been producing stable X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) light since 2012. A unique injector system and a short-period in-vacuum undulator enable...

Every year, millions of tons of plastic waste, with potential to be reused, are wasted in landfills. Based on a literature review and in a local market analysis, cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) waste arose as the material with the greatest potential...

Critical infrastructures (CI) are the cornerstone of modern society, and they are connected with each other through material, energy, or information. The robustness of interdependent CI systems under attack has been a hot topic in recent years, but p...

Properly-designed road surfaces provide a durable surface on which traffic can pass smoothly and safely. In fact, the main causes that determine the structural decay of the pavement and its parts are the traffic loads. These repeated actions can crea...

European XFEL is a free-electron laser (FEL) user facility providing soft and hard X-ray FEL radiation to initially six scientific instruments. Starting user operation in fall 2017 European XFEL will provide new research opportunities to users from s...

A carsharing service can be seen as a transport alternative between private and public transport that enables a group of people to share vehicles based at certain stations. The advanced carsharing service, one-way carsharing, enables customers to ret...

Recently, we reported on the in vivo application of a miniaturized measuring device for 3D visualization of the superior vocal fold vibrations from high-speed recordings in combination with a laser projection unit (LPU). As a long-term vision for thi...

This paper presents a new statistical model updating method of beam structures with random parameters under static load. The new updating method considers structural parameters and measurement errors to be random. To reduce the unmeasured degrees of...

Rice fields have been monitored with spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems for decades. SAR is an essential source of data and allows for the estimation of plant properties such as canopy height, leaf area index, phenological phase, and y...

In this paper, a deep learning model using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) was developed and employed to predict the injury severity of traffic accidents based on 1130 accident records that have occurred on the North-South Expressway (NSE), Malaysia...

According to statistics from past earthquakes, it is observed that multi-story reinforced concrete (RC) frames represent a large proportion of the structural failures or collapses in seismic events. Hence, research on seismic collapse mechanisms and...