Multiobjective fuzzy optimization for sustainable groundwater management using particle swarm optimization and analytic element method

Groundwater management involves conflicting objectives as maximization of discharge contradicts the criteria of minimum pumping cost and minimum piping cost. In addition, available data contains uncertainties such as market fluctuations, variations in water levels of wells and variations of ground water policies. A fuzzy model is to be evolved to tackle the uncertainties, and a multiobjective optimization is to be conducted to simultaneously satisfy the contradicting objectives. Towards this end, a multiobjective fuzzy optimization model is evolved. To get at the upper and lower bounds of the individual objectives, particle Swarm optimization (PSO) is adopted. The analytic element method (AEM) is employed to obtain the operating potentio metric head. In this study, a multiobjective fuzzy optimization model considering three conflicting objectives is developed using PSO and AEM methods for obtaining a sustainable groundwater management policy. The developed model is applied to a case study, and it is demonstrated that the compromise solution satisfies all the objectives with adequate levels of satisfaction. Sensitivity analysis is carried out by varying the parameters, and it is shown that the effect of any such variation is quite significant. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Few Case Studies on the Correlation of Particle Network and Its Stability on the Ionic Conductivity of Solid-Liquid Composite Electrolytes

We discuss here the crucial role of the particle network and its stability on the long-range ion transport in solid liquid composite electrolytes. The solid liquid composite electrolytes chosen for the study here comprise nanometer sized silica (SiO2) particles having various surface chemical functionalities dispersed in nonaqueous lithium salt solutions, viz, lithium perchlorate (LiClO4) in two different polyethylene glycol based solvents. These systems constitute representative examples of an independent class of soft matter electrolytes known as ``soggy sand'' electrolytes, which have tremendous potential in diverse electrochemical devices. The oxide additive acts as a heterogeneous dopant creating free charge carriers and enhancing the local ion transport. For long-range transport, however, a stable spanning particle network is needed. Systematic experimental investigations here reveal that the spatial and time dependent characteristics of the particle network in the liquid solution are nontrivial. The network characteristics are predominantly determined by the chemical makeup of the electrolyte components and the chemical interactions between them. It is noteworthy that in this study the steady state macroscopic ionic conductivity and viscosity of the solid liquid composite electrolyte are observed to be greatly determined by the additive oxide surface chemical functionality, solvent chemical composition, and solvent dielectric constant.

Haloarchaeal gas vesicle nanoparticles displaying Salmonella antigens as a novel approach to vaccine development

A safe, effective, and inexpensive vaccine against typhoid and other Salmonella diseases is urgently needed. In order to address this need, we are developing a novel vaccine platform employing buoyant, self-adjuvanting gas vesicle nanoparticles (GVNPs) from the halophilic archaeon Halobacterium sp. NRC-1, bioengineered to display highly conserved Salmonella enterica antigens. As the initial antigen for testing, we selected SopB, a secreted inosine phosphate effector protein injected by pathogenic S. enterica bacteria during infection into the host cells. Two highly conserved sopB gene segments near the 3'- region, named sopB4 and sopB5, were each fused to the grIpC gene, and resulting SopB-GVNPs were purified by centrifugally accelerated flotation. Display of SopB4 and SopB5 antigenic epitopes on GVNPs was established by Western blotting analysis using antisera raised against short synthetic peptides of SopB. Immunostimulatory activities of the SopB4 and B5 nanoparticles were tested by intraperitoneal administration of SopB-GVNPs to BALB/c mice which had been immunized with S. enterica serovar Typhimurium 14028 ApmrG-H111-D (DV-STM-07), a live attenuated vaccine strain. Proinflammatory cytokines IFN-y, IL-2, and IL-9 were significantly induced in mice boosted with SopB5-GVNPs, consistent with a robust Thl response. After challenge with virulent S. enterica serovar Typhimurium 14028, bacterial burden was found to be diminished in spleen of mice boosted with SopB4-GVNPs and absent or significantly diminished in liver, mesenteric lymph node, and spleen of mice boosted with SopB5GVNPs, indicating that the C-terminal portions of SopB displayed on GVNPs elicit a protective response to Salmonella infection in mice. SopB antigen-GVNPs were also found to be stable at elevated temperatures for extended periods without refrigeration. The results show that bioengineered GVNPs are likely to represent a valuable platform for antigen delivery and development of improved vaccines against Salmonella and other diseases.

Many-Body Localization in the Presence of a Single-Particle Mobility Edge

In one dimension, noninteracting particles can undergo a localization-delocalization transition in a quasiperiodic potential. Recent studies have suggested that this transition transforms into a many-body localization (MBL) transition upon the introduction of interactions. It has also been shown that mobility edges can appear in the single particle spectrum for certain types of quasiperiodic potentials. Here, we investigate the effect of interactions in two models with such mobility edges. Employing the technique of exact diagonalization for finite-sized systems, we calculate the level spacing distribution, time evolution of entanglement entropy, optical conductivity, and return probability to detect MBL. We find that MBL does indeed occur in one of the two models we study, but the entanglement appears to grow faster than logarithmically with time unlike in other MBL systems.

A flame particle tracking analysis of turbulence-chemistry interaction in hydrogen-air premixed flames

Interactions of turbulence, molecular transport, and energy transport, coupled with chemistry play a crucial role in the evolution of flame surface geometry, propagation, annihilation, and local extinction/re-ignition characteristics of intensely turbulent premixed flames. This study seeks to understand how these interactions affect flame surface annihilation of lean hydrogen-air premixed turbulent flames. Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) are conducted at different parametric conditions with a detailed reaction mechanism and transport properties for hydrogen-air flames. Flame particle tracking (FPT) technique is used to follow specific flame surface segments. An analytical expression for the local displacement flame speed (S-d) of a temperature isosurface is considered, and the contributions of transport, chemistry, and kinematics on the displacement flame speed at different turbulence-flame interaction conditions are identified. In general, the displacement flame speed for the flame particles is found to increase with time for all conditions considered. This is because, eventually all flame surfaces and their resident flame particles approach annihilation by reactant island formation at the end of stretching and folding processes induced by turbulence. Statistics of principal curvature evolving in time, obtained using FPT, suggest that these islands are ellipsoidal on average enclosing fresh reactants. Further examinations show that the increase in S-d is caused by the increased negative curvature of the flame surface and eventual homogenization of temperature gradients as these reactant islands shrink due to flame propagation and turbulent mixing. Finally, the evolution of the normalized, averaged, displacement flame speed vs. stretch Karlovitz number are found to collapse on a narrow band, suggesting that a unified description of flame speed dependence on stretch rate may be possible in the Lagrangian description. (C) 2015 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Immune responses against hepatitis C virus genotype 3a virus-like particles in mice: A novel VLP prime-adenovirus boost strategy

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a major health threat to global population. In India, approximately 15-20% of cases of chronic liver diseases are caused by HCV infection. Although, new drug treatments hold great promise for HCV eradication in infected individuals, the treatments are highly expensive. A vaccine for preventing or treating HCV infection would be of great value, particularly in developing countries. Several preclinical trials of virus-like particle (VLP) based vaccine strategies are in progress throughout the world. Previously, using baculovirus based system, we have reported the production of hepatitis C virus-like particles (HCV-LPs) encoding structural proteins for genotype 3a, which is prevalent in India. In the present study, we have generated HCV-LPs using adenovirus based system and tried different immunization strategies by using combinations of both kinds of HCV-LPs with other genotype 3a-based immunogens. HCV-LPs and peptides based ELISAs were used to evaluate antibody responses generated by these combinations. Cell-mediated immune responses were measured by using T-cell proliferation assay and intracellular cytokine staining. We observed that administration of recombinant adenoviruses expressing HCV structural proteins as final booster enhances both antibody as well as T-cell responses. Additionally, reduction of binding of VLP and JFH1 virus to human hepatocellular carcinoma cells demonstrated the presence of neutralizing antibodies in immunized sera. Taken together, our results suggest that the combined regimen of VLP followed by recombinant adenovirus could more effectively inhibit HCV infection, endorsing the novel vaccine strategy. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of particle size of sand and surface asperities of reinforcement on their interface shear behaviour

This paper investigates the effect of particle size of sand and the surface asperities of reinforcing material on their interlocking mechanism and its influence on the interfacial shear strength under direct sliding condition. Three sands of different sizes with similar morphological characteristics and four different types of reinforcing materials with different surface features were used in this study. Interface direct shear tests on these materials were performed in a specially developed symmetric loading interface direct shear test setup. Morphological characteristics of sand particles were determined from digital image analysis and the surface roughness of the reinforcing materials was measured using an analytical expression developed for this purpose. Interface direct shear tests at three different normal stresses were carried out by shearing the sand on the reinforcing material fixed to a smooth surface. Test results revealed that the peak interfacial friction and dilation angles are hugely dependent upon the interlocking between the sand particles and the asperities of reinforcing material, which in turn depends on the relative size of sand particles and asperities. Asperity ratio (AS/D-50) of interlocking materials, which is defined as the ratio of asperity spacing of the reinforcing material and the mean particle size of sand was found to govern the interfacial shear strength with highest interfacial strength measured when the asperity ratio was equal to one, which represents the closest fitting of sand particles into the asperities. It was also understood that the surface roughness of the reinforcing material influences the shear strength to an extent, the influence being more pronounced in coarser particles. Shear bands in the interface shear tests were analysed through image segmentation technique and it was observed that the ratio of shear band thickness (t) to the median particle size (D-50) was maximum when the AS/D-50 was equal to one. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visualisation of charge-transfer excitations in donor-acceptor molecules using the particle-hole map: a case study

Charge-transfer (CT) excitations are essential for photovoltaic phenomena in organic solar cells. Owing to the complexity of molecular geometries and orbital coupling, a detailed analysis and spatial visualisation of CT processes can be challenging. In this paper, a new detail-oriented visualisation scheme, the particle-hole map (PHM), is applied and explained for the purpose of spatial analysis of excitations in organic molecules. The PHM can be obtained from the output of a time-dependent density-functional theory calculation with negligible additional computational cost, and provides a useful physical picture for understanding the origins and destinations of electrons and holes during an excitation process. As an example, we consider intramolecular CT excitations in Diketopyrrolopyrrole-based molecules, and relate our findings to experimental results.

Size-dependent inelastic behavior of particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites

The strengthening behavior of particle-reinforced metal-matrix composites (MMCp) is primarily attributed to the dislocation strengthening effect and the load-transfer effect. To account for these two effects in a unified way, a new hybrid approach is developed in this paper by incorporating the geometrically necessary dislocation strengthening effect into the incremental micromechanical scheme. By making use of this hybrid approach, the particle-size-dependent inelastic deformation behavior of MMCp is given. Some comparisons with the available experimental results demonstrate that the present approach is satisfactory.

Effect of Particle Size on the Formation of Adiabatic Shear Band In Particle Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites

In this paper, the effect of particle size on the formation of adiabatic shear band in 2024 All matrix composites reinforced with 15% volume fraction of 3.5, 10 and 20 mum SiC particles was investigated by making use of split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB). The results have demonstrated that the onset of adiabatic shear banding in the composites strongly depends on the particle size and adiabatic shear banding is more readily observed in the composite reinforced with small particles than that in the composite with large particles. This size dependency phenomenon can be characterized by the strain gradient effect. Instability analysis reveals that high strain gradient is a strong driving force for the formation of adiabatic shear banding in particle reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCp).

Strain Regularity and Stiffness Tensor of Reinforcers in Dense Particle Reinforced Composites

针对高体积份数、随机分布、等轴状颗粒增强复合材料 ,研究了材料的应变分布规律 ,给出了基体和增强体应变平均值与材料微观结构参数之间的定量关系。结果表明 ,除应变平均值外 ,应变涨落是影响刚度张量的另一个重要因素 ,研究了应变涨落与材料微观结构参数之间的关系 ,并推导出了复合材料的刚度张量。与实验结果和以往的理论比较 ,预测结果与实验结果吻合良好

Elastic-plastic constitutive relation of particle reinforced composites

In this paper, a systematic approach is proposed to obtain the macroscopic elastic-plastic constitutive relation of particle reinforced composites (PRC). The strain energy density of PRC is analyzed based on the cell model, and Che analytical formula for the macro-constitutive relation of PRC is obtained. The strength effects of volume fraction of the particle and the strain hardening exponent of matrix material on the macro-constitutive relation are investigated, the relation curve of strain versus stress of PRC is calculated in detail. The present results are consistent; with the results given in the existing references.