Search results for "Micro"
showing 10 items of 23412 documents
Surface Characteristics of Machined Polystyrene with 3D Printed Thermoplastic Tool
2020
An effort is made in this work to appraise the surface characteristics of machined expandable polystyrene (EPS) with a novel 3D printed thermoplastic acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) tool. Linear grooves on EPS were made on a vertical milling machine that was modified to conduct experiments in the laboratory. The tests were designed as per the Taguchi L9 based factorial design of experimentation while varying process parameters such as depth of cut, spindle speed, and feed rate. The machining responses dimensional accuracy and surface roughness of the machined grooves were studied. Furthermore, the surface topography of the machined specimens was considered to investigate the mechanism…
Strategic Thinking under social influence: Scalability, stability and robustness of allocations
2016
This paper studies the strategic behavior of a large number of game designers and studies the scalability, stability and robustness of their allocations in a large number of homogeneous coalitional games with transferable utilities (TU). For each TU game, the characteristic function is a continuous-time stochastic process. In each game, a game designer allocates revenues based on the extra reward that a coalition has received up to the current time and the extra reward that the same coalition has received in the other games. The approach is based on the theory of mean-field games with heterogeneous groups in a multi-population regime.
Experimental Research on the Cutting of Metal Materials by Electrical Discharge Machining with Contact Breaking with Metal Band as Transfer Object
2020
The scientific paper presents practical research carried out by a mixed team of Romanian researchers from universities and the business environment. The research consists in applying the process of cutting metallic materials through electrical discharge machining with contact breaking using a metal band as a transfer object. The research was implemented with the help of a specially designed installation in the laboratory and subsequently all the necessary steps were taken to obtain the patent for it. Various metallic materials were cut using this process, but first of all, high alloy steels. In the global research conducted by the authors, active experimental programs and classic experiment…
Crowd-Averse Robust Mean-Field Games: Approximation via State Space Extension
2016
We consider a population of dynamic agents, also referred to as players. The state of each player evolves according to a linear stochastic differential equation driven by a Brownian motion and under the influence of a control and an adversarial disturbance. Every player minimizes a cost functional which involves quadratic terms on state and control plus a cross-coupling mean-field term measuring the congestion resulting from the collective behavior, which motivates the term “crowd-averse.” Motivations for this model are analyzed and discussed in three main contexts: a stock market application, a production engineering example, and a dynamic demand management problem in power systems. For th…
Beyond cells – The virome in the human holobiont
2019
Viromics, or viral metagenomics, is a relatively new and burgeoning field of research that studies the complete collection of viruses forming part of the microbiota in any given niche. It has strong foundations rooted in over a century of discoveries in the field of virology and recent advances in molecular biology and sequencing technologies. Historically, most studies have deconstructed the concept of viruses into a simplified perception of viral agents as mere pathogens, which demerits the scope of large-scale viromic analyses. Viruses are, in fact, much more than regular parasites. They are by far the most dynamic and abundant entity and the greatest killers on the planet, as well as th…
Performance and feasibility of biotrickling filtration in the control of styrene industrial air emissions
2017
Abstract The performance and feasibility of a pilot unit of biotrickling filter (BTF) for the treatment of industrial emissions polluted by styrene was investigated for one year at a fiber reinforced plastic industrial site. The pilot unit was packed with a structured material with a volume of 0.6 m3. Monitoring results have shown successful treatment of the industrial styrene emissions working at empty bed residence times (EBRT) between 31 and 66 s. The best performance was obtained after 300 days when a more stable biofilm had been developed, obtaining the highest elimination capacity of 18.8 g m−3 h−1 (removal efficiency of 75.6%) working at 31 s of EBRT. In addition, a photocatalytic re…
Transformation of Construction Cement to a Self-Healing Hybrid Binder
2019
A new biomimetic strategy to im prove the self-healing properties of Portland cement is presented that is based on the application of the biogenic inorganic polymer polyphosphate (polyP), which is used as a cement admixture. The data show that synthetic linear polyp, with an average chain length of 40, as well as natural long-chain polyP isolated from soil bacteria, has the ability to support self-healing of this construction material. Furthermore, polyP, used as a water-soluble Na-salt, is subject to Na+/Ca2+ exchange by the Ca2+ from the cement, resulting in the formation of a water-rich coacervate when added to the cement surface, especially to the surface of bacteria-containing cement/c…
Onset of cohesion in cement paste
2004
It is generally agreed that the cohesion of cement paste occurs through the formation of a network of nanoparticles of a calcium-silicate-hydrate ("C-S-H"). However, the mechanism by which these particles develop this cohesion has not been established. Here we propose a dielectric continuum model which includes all ionic interactions within a dispersion of C-S-H particles. It takes into account all co-ions and counterions explicitly (with pure Coulomb interactions between ions and between ions and the surfaces) and makes no further assumptions concerning their hydration or their interactions with the surface sites. At high surface charge densities, the model shows that the surface charge of…
The open metastable structure of a collapsible sand: fabric and bonding
2015
This paper deals with the compositional and textural characteristics determining open metastable structures in the pleistocenic sand outcropping in the Agrigento district (Sicily). The aim of the study was to individuate the bonding types occurring between grains that could generate matric suction phenomena. The composition and microfabric were characterised by means of granulometry, porosimetry, permeability, optical and ESEM-EDS microscopy, thermogravimetry and XR diffractometry, electric conductivity, and ionic chromatography. The data thus acquired show that the skeleton of the sand is constituted mostly by bioclasts and microfossils, calcite and quartz monocrystalline grains. Moreover,…
Measuring Social Responsibility: A Multicriteria Approach
2016
In this chapter we present a portfolio selection model for Socially Responsible Investment. The model, following the spirit of Socially Responsible Investment, consists of two different steps. Firstly, a social screening is applied in order to obtain the feasible set of assets accomplishing the socially responsible investment policy of the assets’ manager. In this step, an indicator is obtained for the measurement of the social responsibility degree of an asset. Assets are then ranked using this indicator from the most socially responsible to the less socially responsible. In a second step, once the feasible set is obtained, composed of those socially responsible assets verifying the screen…