New type of aerodynamic tilting pad journal bearing was designed and successfully tested in several applications, one of which was power gyroscope support. Bearing design combines advantages of foil bearings, i.e. additional damping achieved by squeezing out gas film and friction of elastic elements on bearing casing surface, with qualities of classical tilting pad bearings, consisting in defined geometry of bearing gap and excellent stability. Theoretical solution of bearing characteristic calculation is shortly described, consisting in numerical solution of gas flow in narrow gap. Some computed data and results of experiments with rotors operated up to 180.000 rpm are presented too. and Obsahuje seznam literatury
This paper presents a hybrid probabilistic neural network (PNN) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) techniques to predict the soil liquefaction. The PSO algorithm is employed in selecting the optimal smoothing parameter of the PNN to improve the forecasting accuracy. Seven parameters such as earthquake magnitude, normalized peak horizontal acceleration at ground surface, standard penetration number, penetration resistance, relative compaction, mean grain diameter and groundwater table are selected as the evaluating indices. The predictions from the PSO-PNN model were compared with those from two models: backpropagation neural network (BPNN) model and support vector machine (SVM) model. The study concluded that the proposed PSO-PNN model can be used as a reliable approach for predicting soil liquefaction.
The scenario forecasting technique for assessing changes of water balance components of the northern river basins due to possible climate change was developed. Three IPCC global emission scenarios corresponding to different possible scenarios for economic, technological, political and demographic development of the human civilization in the 21st century were chosen for generating climate change projections by an ensemble of 16 General Circulation Models with a high spatial resolution. The projections representing increments of monthly values of meteorological characteristics were used for creating 3-hour meteorological time series up to 2063 for the Northern Dvina River basin, which belongs to the pan-Arctic basin and locates at the north of the European part of Russia. The obtained time series were applied as forcing data to drive the land surface model SWAP to simulate possible changes in the water balance components due to different scenarios of climate change for the Northern Dvina River basin.
This paper describes some results of an experiment aimed at monitoring of contact fatigue during the axial bearings tests. The needful of AE set-up for measuring of signal and Axmat stand for testing is presented here. The measuring of some kind of bearings required the creation of new clamping elements (Segment and Bearing bush) to the existing key point of Axmat stand. The results in this paper show records in the time domain mainly for counts and events. These events are filtered by maximal amplitude for better response on signal changes during the lifetime record. For these evaluated records there are shown the final failures of tested bearings and possible causes of failures beginning. and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Tissue engineering is a very promising field of regenerative medicine. Life expectancy has been increasing, and tissue replacement is increasingly needed in patients suffering from various degenerative disorders of the organs. The use of adult mesenchymal stem cells (e.g. from adipose tissue or from bone marrow) in tissue engineering seems to be a promising approach for tissue replacements. Clinical applications can make direct use of the large secretome of these cells, which can have a positive influence on other cells around. Another advantage of adult mesenchymal stem cells is the possibility to differentiate them into various mature cells via appropriate culture conditions (i.e. medium composition, biomaterial properties, and dynamic conditions). This review is focused on current and future ways to carry out tissue replacement of damaged bones and blood vessels, especially with the use of suitable adult mesenchymal stem cells as a potential source of differentiated mature cells that can later be used for tissue replacement. The advantages and disadvantages of different stem cell sources are discussed, with a main focus on adipose-derived stem cells. Patient factors that can influence later clinical applications are taken into account.
The objective of this study was to investigate the relative salt tolerance of four eggplant cultivars (Solanum melongena L.) by studying chlorophyll (Chl) fluorescence parameters during the vegetative growth stage under increasing salinity levels. The plants were grown in pots filled with peat under controlled conditions and were subjected to the salt stress ranging from 0 (control), 20, 40, 80, and 160 mM NaCl for 25 days. The results showed that the increasing NaCl concentration affected hardly the maximum quantum yield of photosystem (PS) II. The quantum yield of PSII (ΦPSII) decreased significantly in ‘Adriatica’ and ‘Black Beauty’ under the salt stress. The photochemical quenching decreased in ‘Black Beauty’ and nonphotochemical quenching increased in ‘Adriatica’ under the salt stress. The Chl fluorescence parameters did not change significantly under the salt stress in ‘Bonica’ and ‘Galine’, revealing their tolerance to salinity. After 25 days of the salt stress, the plant growth was reduced in all cultivars, however, this decline was more pronounced in ‘Adriatica’ and ‘Black Beauty’. Additionally, a significant correlation between the biomass and ΦPSII was observed in ‘Adriatica’ and ‘Black Beauty’. Our results suggest that ΦPSII can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify salt-tolerant egg-plant cultivars., S. Hanachi, M. C. Van Labeke, T. Mehouachi., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Weathering profiles in tropical regions usually present great heterogeneity and anisotropy of geological materials. High structural complexity and great bedrock irregularity are added when these profiles are composed of metamorphic rocks. Therefore, geological-geotechnical research initiatives in these regions imply indirect methods associated with direct methods. In this context, we studied the San Juan dam foundation in the Dominican Republic, geologically composed of young residual schist soil cover (up to 20 m), in which occurs schist layers of low resistance to SPT (2 SPT blows/30 cm) consistent with a massive and stratified marble rock, which tends to concentrate karst cavities. This geological condition, associated with the vast extent of the dam influence area, motivated the adoption of an indirect method by electrical resistivity intending to identify sites with the possibility of occurrence of cavities filled or not under the reservoir foundation and in the dam axis itself. Subsequently, a more rational initiative of mixed drillings was carried out in sites with such possibility, resulting in discarding these hypotheses and demonstrating that these cavities correspond to graphite schists and non-karst marbles, competent materials as dam foundation.
Distribution of the goods from a producer to a customer is one of the most important tasks of transportation. This paper focuses on the usage of genetic algorithms (GA) for optimizing problems in transportation, namely vehicle routing problem (VRP). VRP falls in the field of NP-hard problems, which cannot be solved in polynomial time. The problem was solved using genetic algorithm with two types of crossover, both including and leaving-out elitism, setting variable parameters of crossover and mutation probability, as well as prevention of creating invalid individuals. The algorithm was programmed in Matlab, tested on real world problem of spare parts distribution for garages, while the results were compared with another heuristic method (Clarke-Wright method). Genetic algorithm provided a better solution than the heuristic Clarke-Wright method.
A new way of identification of minerals was suggested. The identification was based on chemometric analysis of measured IR spectra of selected minerals. IR spectra were collected using diffuse reflectance technique. The discriminant analysis and principal component analysis were used as chemometric methods. Five statistical models were created for separation and identification of clay minerals. Up to 60 samples of various mineral standards (clay minerals, feldspars, carbonates, sulphates and quartz) from different localities were selected for the creation of statistical models. The results of this study confirm that the discriminant analysis of IR spectra of minerals could provide a powerful tool for mineral identification. Even differentiation of muscovite from illite and identification of mixed structures of illite-smectite were achieved., Michal Ritz, Lenka Vaculíková and Eva Plevová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Leaf area estimation is an important measurement for comparing plant growth in field and pot experiments. In this study, determination of the leaf area (LA, cm2) in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr] involves measurements of leaf parameters such as maximum terminal leaflet length (L, cm), width (W, cm), product of length and width (LW), green leaf dry matter (GLDM) and the total number of green leaflets per plant (TNLP) as independent variables. A two-year study was carried out during 2009 (three cultivars) and 2010 (four cultivars) under field conditions to build a model for estimation of LA across soybean cultivars. Regression analysis of LA vs. L and W revealed several functions that could be used to estimate the area of individual leaflet (LE), trifoliate (T) and total leaf area (TLA). Results showed that the LW-based models were better (highest R 2 and smallest RMSE) than models based on L or W and models that used GLDM and TNLP as independent variables. The proposed linear models are: LE = 0.754 + 0.655 LW, (R2 = 0.98), T = -4.869 + 1.923 LW, (R2 = 0.97), and TLA = 6.876 + 1.813 ΣLW (summed product of L and W terminal leaflets per plant), (R2 = 0.99). The validation of the models based on LW and developed on cv. DPX showed that the correlation between calculated and measured LA was strong. Therefore, the proposed models can estimate accurately and massively the LA in soybeans without the use of expensive instrumentation. and E. Bakhshandeh, B. Kamkar. J. T. Tsialtas