First principles calculations of the thermodynamic stability of Ba, Zr, and O vacancies in BaZrO.

The temperature dependence of the stability of bulk BaZrO (BZO) and of the vacancies in this material are investigated by considering phonon contributions to the free energy. The stability diagram of BZO is determined for different chemical environments. With increasing temperature the stability region becomes smaller which is particularly caused by the strong temperature dependence of the chemical potential of gaseous oxygen.

Sono-synthesis approach of reduced graphene oxide for ammonia vapour detection at room temperature.

In this paper, we report the sono-synthesis of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) using polyethyleneimine (PEI), and its performance for ammonia vapour detection at room temperature. Graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) were prepared by sonication method by using low-frequency ultrasound under ambient condition and films were deposited by Doctor Blade method. The rGO, which has vapour accessible structure showed a good sensing response with a minimum detection limit of 1 ppm and the detection range from 1 ppm to 100 ppm.

Preservation of root canal anatomy using self-adjusting file instrumentation with glide path prepared by 20/0.02 hand files versus 20/0.04 rotary files.

Objectives: To compare the relative axis modification and canal concentricity after glide path preparation with 20/0.02 hand K-file (NITIFLEX) and 20/0.04 rotary file (HyFlex™ CM) with subsequent instrumentation with 1.

A Classification Scheme for Smart Manufacturing Systems' Performance Metrics.

This paper proposes a classification scheme for performance metrics for smart manufacturing systems. The discussion focuses on three such metrics: agility, asset utilization, and sustainability. For each of these metrics, we discuss classification themes, which we then use to develop a generalized classification scheme.

An efficient closed-form design method for nearly perfect reconstruction of non-uniform filter bank.

In this paper, an efficient closed form method for the design of multi-channel nearly perfect reconstruction of non-uniform filter bank with the prescribed stopband attenuation and channel overlapping is presented. In this method, the design problem of multi-channel non-uniform filter bank (NUFB) is considered as the design of a prototype filter whose magnitude response at quadrature frequency is 0.707, which is exploited for finding the optimum passband edge frequency through empirical formula instead of using single or multivariable optimization technique.

Hybrid method for designing digital FIR filters based on fractional derivative constraints.

In this manuscript, a hybrid approach based on Lagrange multiplier method and cuckoo search (CS) optimization technique is proposed for the design of linear phase finite impulse response (FIR) filters using fractional derivative constraints. In the proposed method, FIR filter is designed by optimizing the integral squares in passband and stopband from ideal response such that the fractional derivatives of designed filter response become zero at a given frequency point. Lagrange multiplier method is exploited for finding the optimized filter coefficients.

Design of two-channel filter bank using nature inspired optimization based fractional derivative constraints.

In this article, a novel approach for 2-channel linear phase quadrature mirror filter (QMF) bank design based on a hybrid of gradient based optimization and optimization of fractional derivative constraints is introduced. For the purpose of this work, recently proposed nature inspired optimization techniques such as cuckoo search (CS), modified cuckoo search (MCS) and wind driven optimization (WDO) are explored for the design of QMF bank. 2-Channel QMF is also designed with particle swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony (ABC) nature inspired optimization techniques.

Cuckoo search algorithm based satellite image contrast and brightness enhancement using DWT-SVD.

This paper presents a new contrast enhancement approach which is based on Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm and DWT-SVD for quality improvement of the low contrast satellite images. The input image is decomposed into the four frequency subbands through Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), and CS algorithm used to optimize each subband of DWT and then obtains the singular value matrix of the low-low thresholded subband image and finally, it reconstructs the enhanced image by applying IDWT. The singular value matrix employed intensity information of the particular image, and any modification in the singular values changes the intensity of the given image.

Ergonomic analysis of a traditional vehicle plying in rural and semi-urban areas in western India.

Chakdos in Western Indian state of Gujarat are makeshift vehicles for public transport. Such a vehicle was selected for ergonomic analysis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the design of the existing vehicle from an ergonomic viewpoint and to redesign it from an ergonomic perspective.

Coded excitation for infrared non-destructive testing of carbon fiber reinforced plastics.

This paper proposes a Barker coded excitation for defect detection using infrared non-destructive testing. Capability of the proposed excitation scheme is highlighted with recently introduced correlation based post processing approach and compared with the existing phase based analysis by taking the signal to noise ratio into consideration. Applicability of the proposed scheme has been experimentally validated on a carbon fiber reinforced plastic specimen containing flat bottom holes located at different depths.

Pulse compression approach to infrared nondestructive characterization.

Infrared thermography is a whole field, noncontact, and nondestructive characterization technique widely used for the investigation of subsurface features in various solid materials (conductors, semiconductors, and composites). Increased demand for greater subsurface probing in thermal nondestructive testing is often thwarted by the probing high peak power into the sample, for which narrow pulse operation is usually used. The technique of pulse compression offers a means of increasing the average power available to illuminate test specimen without any loss of the depth resolution needed for the tactical requirements.