Comparison of two repairable systems

Any repairable system improves (deteriorates) with time if the interarrival times of failure tend to get larger (smaller) in some sense. In this paper we consider two such repairable systems, and their performance in terms of several partial orderings of their respective interarrival times of failure are compared. The comparison of two systems’ improvement/deterioration under minimal repair policy has been characterized in terms of s-FR orders and also in terms of their shifted and dispersive versions. These results generalize some of the existing results in the literature and also provide some new results in this direction.     

Helium atom in intense and superintense laser fields: A new theoretical approach

A quantum hydrodynamical study is made of the dynamical changes of a helium atom interacting with lasers of two different intensities, but having the same frequency. Under the intense laser field, electron density oozes out of the helium atom by absorbing laser photons and getting promoted to higher excited states including the continuum. Under the superintense field, electron density partly moves away from the helium nucleus but remains in the “quasi-bound” dressed states along with the laser field, thus suppressing ionization.     

ESR studies on calcite encrustation on Fili neotectonic fault, Greece

Electron spin resonance (ESR) study was done on calcite encrustation on Fili neotectonic fault surface, Greece. Normally such calcite encrustations on fault surfaces are not observed. Significantly, the ESR study has detected the presence of nitrate NO₃²⁻ radical in this calcite encrustation, havingg _⊥=2.0063±0.0001 and hyperfine coupling constantA _⊥=3.44 mT, the second such detection of nitrate NO₃²⁻ radical following a sample from Scott Glacier, Antarctica. From isochronal thermal annealing measurement the NO₃²⁻ radical was found to be quite stable, only fully annealed at 475°C. This study also shows that the ESR, as a tool, can be suitably applied to date the age of formation of the calcite encrustation with SO₃⁻ as an ESR dating signal by additive γ-ray irradiation. A preliminary estimation indicates the age of formation of calcite precipitation at Fili fault, Greece to be about 5600 years.     

Controlled Space Radiation concept for mesh-free semi-analytical technique to model wave fields in complex geometries

Numerical modelling of the ultrasonic wave propagation is important for Structural Heath Monitoring and System Prognosis problems. In order to develop intelligent and adaptive structures with embedded damage detector and classifier mechanisms, detailed understanding of scattered wave fields due to anomaly in the structure is inevitably required. A detailed understanding of the problem demands a good modelling of the wave propagation in the problem geometry in virtual form. Therefore, efficient analytical, semi-analytical or numerical modelling techniques are required. In recent years a semi-analytical mesh-free technique called Distributed Point Source Method (DPSM) is being used for modelling various ultrasonic, electrostatic and electromagnetic wave field problems. In the conventional DPSM approach point sources are placed along the transducer faces, problem boundaries and interfaces to model incident and scattered fields. Every point source emits energy in all directions uniformly. Source strengths of these 360° radiation sources are obtained by satisfying interface and boundary conditions of the problem. In conventional DPSM modelling approach it is assumed that the shadow zone does not require any special consideration. 360° Radiation point sources should be capable of properly modelling shadow zones because all boundary and interface conditions are satisfied. In this paper it is investigated how good this assumption is by introducing the ‘shadow zone’ concept at the point source level and comparing the results generated by the conventional DPSM and by this modified approach where the conventional 360° radiation point sources are replaced by the Controlled Space Radiation (CSR) sources.     

Asymptotic behavior and finite element error estimates of Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic fluid flow model

In this article, the convergence of the solution of the Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic fluid flow model to its steady state solution with exponential rate is established under the uniqueness assumption. Then, a semidiscrete Galerkin method for spatial direction keeping time variable continuous is considered and asymptotic behavior of the semidiscrete solution is derived. Moreover, optimal error estimates are achieved for large time using steady state error estimates. Based on linearized backward Euler method, asymptotic behavior for the fully discrete solution is studied and optimal error estimates are derived for large time. All the results are even valid for κ→0, that is, when the Kelvin-Voigt model converges to the Navier-Stokes system. Finally, some numerical experiments are conducted to confirm our theoretical findings.     

Bioremediation of uranium from waste effluents using novel biosorbents: a review

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Several treatments for the removal of toxic heavy metals like uranium from wastewater have been developed, but none of them are sufficiently...     

Regioselective Synthesis of Polyheterocycles From 4-Cyclohex-2-ENYL-3-Hydroxy-1-Methylquinolin-2(1H)-One

4-Cyclohex-2-enyl-3-hydroxy-1-methylquinolin-2(1H)-one (4) was prepared in 90% yield by the thermal [3,3]sigmatropic rearrangement of 3-cyclohex-2-enyloxy-1-methylquinolin-2(1H)-one (3) in refluxing chloroben-zene for 10 h. Compound (4) was cyclised through a sequence of reactions viz. i) acetylation ii) addition of bromine and iii) treatment of the acetyl dibromo compound (6) with base to give a bicyclic product (7) in 90% yield. Treatment of compound 4 with pyridine hydro-bromide perbromide in dichloromethane at 0–5° C afforded a cyclic product 8 in excellent yield. Compound 4 when treated with cold conc. sulphuric acid at 0–5° C furnished the bicyclic product 12 in 89% yield.     

An expedient, regioselective synthesis of 2-alkylamino- and 2-alkylthiothiazolo[5,4-e]indoles

1-Benzenesulfonyl-5-aminoindole 5, prepared from 5-nitroindole 3, was condensed with alkyl isothiocyanates and separately with carbon disulfide and alkyl bromides/iodides to furnish efficiently the corresponding N-alkyl-thioureidoindoles 6a-c and the alkyl N-(indol-5′-yl)dithiocarbamates 9a-e, respectively. Their cyclisation using N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) and 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU), in the cold, followed by indolic N-deprotection, furnished regioselectively the 2-alkylamino- and the 2-alkylthiothiazolo[5,4-e]indoles 8a-c and 11a-e, respectively, in good overall yields.     

Effect of water and air-water interface on the structural modification of Ni-arachidate Langmuir-Blodgett films

Nickel arachidate (NiA) Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films have been deposited on hydrophilic Si(0 0 1) substrates by three (up-down-up) and five (up-down-up-down-up) strokes. During deposition, substrates were kept inside the water subphase for different times after each down stroke. Structural information of all the LB films have been obtained from X-ray reflectivity (XRR) studies. One and two symmetric monolayer (SML) was deposited on top of the asymmetric monolayer (AML) in three and five stokes respectively. All the preformed LB films were then used to go through the air-water interface with the same speed that was used at the time of film deposition. Structural information obtained from the XRR studies show that mainly the top layer density decreases after passing through the air-water interface but the layered structure remains the same. Information obtained from both the XRR and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies suggest that molecules peeled from the top SML layer do not reincorporate with the LB film through tail-tail hydrophobic interaction. Our study shows that NiA LB film has better stability compared with cadmium arachidate LB film inside the water subphase without forming any out-of-plane molecular reorganization.