XRPD and SEM-EDS Identification of a Mineralogical Standards Kit Forming a 19th Century Collection for Educational Analysis

An historical collection of more than one hundred samples of minerals and ore, used in the second half of the XVIII century was found and acquired during Munich Mineralientage 2014. The samples contained in numbered glass vials but lacking description, were prepared for teaching purpose about determinative mineralogy and ore recognition. All samples were analysed and identified. The identification effort drove the authors along a historical excursus about the didactics of mineralogy and the dry method analysis, nowadays neglected.

PPP项目可持续性绩效评价指标的构建——基于文献综述的视角

传统的PPP项目绩效评价指标存在不足,特别是缺少对项目可持续性的关注。在国内外大量文献综述的基础上,从经济、社会和环境三个维度,识别PPP项目可持续性绩效评价的23个指标,并对其中的9个关键绩效评价指标进行详细阐述。

Novel Applications for Fog Water Harvesting

In a scenario of climate changes and increasing stress upon available fresh water resources like rivers, lakes and aquifers, collecting fog water is a promising yet relatively unexplored potentiality. Providing sufficient water and reducing water extraction’s environmental impact at the same time can be a challenge with conventional ways, but fog harvesting technology presents itself as a powerful and efficient alternative. Water availability profoundly determined regional economic benefit, social relations and it also influenced environmental security and ecosystem services. Underdeveloped countries have been dealing with water scarcity issue for decades, but also wealthy countries will have to face the water crisis soon, due to unsustainable development processes. A review of the state of the art highlights the most relevant parameters to deal with when discussing about fog water harvesting. In regions with frequent fog events, this technology already proved to be a sustainable drinking water resource for rural communities and their low per capita water usage was provided by basic devices utilization. Nevertheless, in this paper, different fog water harvesting applications are investigated, besides the already existing fresh-water collection, reforestation and agricultural use. Further options, such as building components, outdoor activities and domestic devices are considered, according to different parameters, such as economic benefits, possibility of standardized production, life cycle and market attractiveness. A desirable novel concept would become relevant in specific contexts, thanks to multiple functions, offering locals designed and customized solutions. Also noteworthy are the landscape impact of such devices and the effects of the project in terms of places regeneration, raising awareness and “green” conscience creation. The study of local climatic data and improvement in fog collector applications, integration with architectural and landscape design, will expand the regions where fog harvesting can be applied and its sustainable improvements.

OPTIMIZED REVERSIBLE ARITHMETIC LOGIC UNITS

Arithmetic Logic Unit(ALU) as one of the main parts of any computing hardware plays an important role in digital computers. In quantum computers which can be realized by reversible logics and circuits, reversible ALUs should be designed. In this paper, we proposed three different designs for reversible 1-bit ALUs using our proposed 3×3 and 4×4 reversible gates called MEB3 and MEB4(Moallem Ehsanpour Bolhasani) gates, respectively. The first proposed reversible ALU consists of six logical operations. The second proposed ALU consists of eight operations, two arithmetic, and six logical operations. And finally, the third proposed ALU consists of sixteen operations, four arithmetic operations, and twelve logical operations. Our proposed ALUs can be used to construct efficient quantum computers in nanotechnology, because the proposed designs are better than the existing designs in terms of quantum cost, constant input, reversible gates used, hardware complexity, and functions generated.

Ju Er Hutong Project:A Rehabilitation Model or an Unsuccessful Attempt?

What will be the future of Chinese urban heritage in the context of globalisation and a socialist market?Ju Er Hutong,as one of the first rehabilitation projects to take place during China’s late-1980s housing reforms,is generally considered a successful initiative in terms of urban regeneration and historic area conservation.To what extent does this success demonstrate a capacity to develop new policies and a new planning approach in the current Chinese urban regeneration process?To answer this question,and to summarize its achievements and its remaining unsolved problems,this paper provides the following insights:(1)an analysis of the evolution of Ju Er Hutong to its current form;(2)a literature review concerning the background and the outcome of the rehabilitation process;and(3)a critical assessment of the overall process,so as to summarize its constitutive advantages and problems.

Dynamically updated digital twin for prognostics and health management:Application in permanent magnet synchronous motor

Current research on Digital Twin(DT)based Prognostics and Health Management(PHM)focuses on establishment of DT through integration of real-time data from various sources to facilitate comprehensive product monitoring and health management.However,there still exist gaps in the seamless integration of DT and PHM,as well as in the development of DT multi-field coupling modeling and its dynamic update mechanism.When the product experiences long-period degradation under load spectrum,it is challenging to describe the dynamic evolution of the health status and degradation progression accurately.In addition,DT update algorithms are difficult to be integrated simultaneously by current methods.This paper proposes an innovative dual loop DT based PHM framework,in which the first loop establishes the basic dynamic DT with multi-filed coupling,and the second loop implements the PHM and the abnormal detection to provide the interaction between the dual loops through updating mechanism.The proposed method pays attention to the internal state changes with degradation and interactive mapping with dynamic parameter updating.Furthermore,the Independence Principle for the abnormal detection is proposed to refine the theory of DT.Events at the first loop focus on accurate modeling of multi-field coupling,while the events at the second loop focus on real-time occurrence of anomalies and the product degradation trend.The interaction and collaboration between different loop models are also discussed.Finally,the Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor(PMSM)is used to verify the proposed method.The results show that the modeling method proposed can accurately track the lifecycle performance changes of the entity and carry out remaining life prediction and health management effectively.

Spouting behaviour of binary mixtures in square-based spouted beds

From experime nts, the influe nee of the physical characteristics of different bin ary mixtures of solids on the spouting regime of a pyramidal square-based spouted bed reactor is assessed. The applied methodology permits a more precise evaluation of the effects of the tested variables (diameter, density, sphericity) on the response variables (minimum air flows at which spouting begins and at which to maintain spouting con ditions). The associated pressure drops along the bed of particles a nd the height of the formed fountai n are analysed in each case. During the initial stages of fluidisation, binary mixtures containing different density ratios show dead zones. Segregation becomes more evident at large-size and high-density ratios. The lack of sphericity was found to be the main reason leading to blocking, channelling, and start-up problems when system failures occur. Nevertheless, the extent of segregation in all cases decreases with increasing the spouting velocity. In addition, a computational fluid dynamic model based on the discrete element method, previously validated for a single solid bed, is proposed as a tool to predict and evaluate potential segregation phenomena in binary mixtures. This model reproduced with high accuracy the encountered segregation phenomena. Its use may help define the technical limts inherent in the pyramidal spouted bed reactor.

Effect of position and force tool control in friction stir welding of dissimilar aluminum-steel lap joints for automotive applications

Widespread use of aluminum alloys for the fabrication of car body parts is conditional to the use of appropriate welding methods,especially if dissimilar welding must be performed with automotive steel grades.Friction stir welding(FSW)is considered to be a reasonable solution to obtain sound aluminum-steel joints.In this context,this work studies the effects of tool position and force control in dissimilar friction stir welding of AA6061 aluminum alloy on DC05 low carbon steel in lap joint configuration,also assessing proper welding parameter settings.Naked eye and scanning electron microscopy(SEM)have been used to detect macroscopic and microscopic defects in joints,as well as to determine the type of intermixture between aluminum and steel.The joint strength of sound joints has been assessed by shear tension test.Results point out that tool force control allows for obtaining joints with better quality and strength in a wider range of process parameters.A process window has been determined for tool force conditions to have joints with adequate strength for automotive purposes.

Soil conditioning tests of clay for EPB tunnelling

Tunnelling with earth pressure balance-tunnel boring machine(EPB-TBM)in clayey soil requires a careful conditioning to reduce the effect of clogging and stickiness.In the last decade,many researches have been carried out to understand how to reduce these negative behaviors using conditioning agents,and different laboratory test procedures have been proposed using both powdered clay and clay chips to quantify and assess the effect of conditioning in terms of reduction of clogging and stickiness.In this paper a review of the various proposed tests is presented.Unfortunately,it can be seen that no unified assessment method on the soil conditioning is available and therefore the designers do not have consistent data on which their choices are based.The present research proposes a laboratory test methodology to study clay conditioning taking both the behavior of chips and powdered clay into account.The proposed procedure has been applied on two different clays,and the test results are presented and discussed to show how the proposed methodology could be applied.

Failure mode analysis on compression of lattice structures with internal cooling channels produced by laser powder bed fusion

Conformal cooling coils have been developed during the last decades through the use of additive manufacturing(AM)technologies.The main goal of this study was to analyze how the presence of an internal channel that could act as a conformal cooling coil could affect compressive strength and quasi-elastic gradient of AlSi10Mg lattice structures produced by laser powder bed fusion(LPBF).Three different configurations of samples were tested in compression at 25℃ and 200℃.The reference structures were body centered cubic(BBC)in the core of the samples with vertical struts along Z(BCCZ)lattices in the outer perimeter,labelled as NC samples.The main novelty consisted in inserting a straight elliptical channel and a 45°elliptical channel inside the BCCZ lattice structures,labelled as SC and 45C samples respectively.All the samples were then tested in as-built(AB)condition,and after two post process heat treatments,commonly used for AlSi10Mg LPBF industrial components,a stress relieving(SR)and a T6 treatment.NC lattice structures AB exhibited an overall fragile fracture and therefore the SC and 45C configuration samples were tested only after thermal treatments.The test at 25℃ showed that all types of samples were characterized by negligible variations in their quasi-elastic gradients and yield strength.On the contrary,the general trend of stress-strain curves was influenced by the presence of the channel and its position.The test at 200℃ showed that NC,SC and 45C samples after SR and T6 treatments exhibited a metal-foam like deformation.

Holographic planar lightwave circuit for on-chip spectroscopy

Computer-generated planar holograms are a powerful approach for designing planar lightwave circuits with unique properties.Digital planar holograms in particular can encode any optical transfer function with high customizability and is compatible with semiconductor lithography techniques and nanoimprint lithography.Here,we demonstrate that the integration of multiple holograms on a single device increases the overall spectral range of the spectrometer and offsets any performance decrement resulting from miniaturization.The validation of a high-resolution spectrometer-on-chip based on digital planar holograms shows performance comparable with that of a macrospectrometer.While maintaining the total device footprint below 2 cm2,the newly developed spectrometer achieved a spectral resolution of 0.15 nm in the red and near infrared range,over a 148 nm spectral range and 926 channels.This approach lays the groundwork for future on-chip spectroscopy and lab-on-chip sensing.

Deep convolutional neural network for multi-level non-invasive tunnel lining assessment

In recent years,great attention has focused on the development of automated procedures for infrastructures control.Many efforts have aimed at greater speed and reliability compared to traditional methods of assessing structural conditions.The paper proposes a multi-level strategy,designed and implemented on the basis of periodic structural monitoring oriented to a cost-and time-efficient tunnel control plan.Such strategy leverages the high capacity of convolutional neural networks to identify and classify potential critical situations.In a supervised learning framework,Ground Penetrating Radar(GPR)profiles and the revealed structural phenomena have been used as input and output to train and test such networks.Image-based analysis and integrative investigations involving video-endoscopy,core drilling,jacking and pull-out testing have been exploited to define the structural conditions linked to GPR profiles and to create the database.The degree of detail and accuracy achieved in identifying a structural condition is high.As a result,this strategy appears of value to infrastructure managers who need to reduce the amount and invasiveness of testing,and thus also to reduce the time and costs associated with inspections made by highly specialized technicians.