Mechanical Properties of Wheat Grains at Compression

Hook’s law for evaluation of the modulus of elasticity of wheat grains and its general behaviour under compressive loads were studied. Whole specimens were subjected to compressive loading between metal parallel plates. The mechanical properties of grains were determined in terms of average failure strengths of grain bran and whole grain; deformation; and modulus of elasticity. The mechanical properties of very dry grains of the winter wheat Triticum aestivum L. with the moisture content of 10.3% were studied. The failure strength of grain bran was 4.43 MPa at the deformation of 10.7%, and the failure strength of whole grains was 4.88 MPa at the deformation of 13.5%. The modulus of elasticity of grains was 43.67 MPa. The apparent energy density at bran failure strength was 0.261 MJ·m−3, and 0.470 MJ·m−3 on the level of grain failure strength of the whole grain. The bran border structure of central inner part of grains was studied using microscope digital sections of longitudinal cuts of the grains using the image computer processing method. The area proportion of starch and pericarp of the border parts of grains was studied to describe the border texture of central sections of grains.

Resource Reservation in Sliced Networks: An Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) Approach

The growing complexity of wireless networks has sparked an upsurge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) within the telecommunication industry in recent years. In network slicing, a key component of 5G that enables network operators to lease their resources to third-party tenants, AI models may be employed in complex tasks, such as short-term resource reservation (STRR). When AI is used to make complex resource management decisions with financial and service quality implications, it is important that these decisions be understood by a human-in-the-loop. In this paper, we apply state-of-the art techniques from the field of Explainable AI (XAI) to the problem of STRR. Using real-world data to develop an AI model for STRR, we demonstrate how our XAI methodology can be used to explain the real-time decisions of the model, to reveal trends about the model’s general behaviour, as well as aid in the diagnosis of potential faults during the model’s development. In addition, we quantitatively validate the faithfulness of the explanations across an extensive range of XAI metrics to ensure they remain trustworthy and actionable.

Resource Reservation in Sliced Networks: An Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) Approach

The growing complexity of wireless networks has sparked an upsurge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) within the telecommunication industry in recent years. In network slicing, a key component of 5G that enables network operators to lease their resources to third-party tenants, AI models may be employed in complex tasks, such as short-term resource reservation (STRR). When AI is used to make complex resource management decisions with financial and service quality implications, it is important that these decisions be understood by a human-in-the-loop. In this paper, we apply state-of-the art techniques from the field of Explainable AI (XAI) to the problem of STRR. Using real-world data to develop an AI model for STRR, we demonstrate how our XAI methodology can be used to explain the real-time decisions of the model, to reveal trends about the model’s general behaviour, as well as aid in the diagnosis of potential faults during the model’s development. In addition, we quantitatively validate the faithfulness of the explanations across an extensive range of XAI metrics to ensure they remain trustworthy and actionable.

Occupational health hazards and risk assessments in wastewater treatment plant

Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is considered one of the most dangerous sectors in the industrial field. Many workers still die each year due to poor awareness of workers about occupational health. Safety performance became important for different projects in the industrial field. Safety performance is concerned about the general behaviour of the workers in the worksite, usually, the performance can be evaluated by managing systems and identifying health hazards that can happen in the field. Many researchers tried to summary different methods to rate the safety performance. This paper describes the significant topics in risk assessment and hazard identification that have been done in the field of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The collected investigations have been arranged and sorted in this paper to set up strong basic information for the works in the field. Unlike the other studies, this paper is focused mainly on the safety performance, health hazard and risk assessment in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). This study has found the specific factors that can affect the performance of workers since the workers in general workplaces are facing difficulties in determining the hazards that can be resulted in serious problems such as injuries and death.

Interacting quintessence in light of generalized uncertainty principle: cosmological perturbations and dynamics

We consider a cosmological scenario endowed with an interaction between the universe’s dark components – dark matter and dark energy. Specifically, we assume the dark matter component to be a pressure-less fluid, while the dark energy component is a quintessence scalar field with Lagrangian function modified by the quadratic Generalized Uncertainty Principle. The latter modification introduces new higher-order terms of fourth-derivative due to quantum corrections in the scalar field’s equation of motion. Then, we investigate asymptotic dynamics and general behaviour of solutions of the field equations for some interacting models of special interests in the literature. At the background level, the present interacting model exhibits the matter-dominated and de Sitter solutions which are absent in the corresponding quintessence model. Furthermore, to boost the background analysis, we study cosmological linear perturbations in the Newtonian gauge where we show how perturbations are modified by quantum corrected terms from the quadratic Generalized Uncertainty Principle. Depending on the coupling parameters, scalar perturbations show a wide range of behavior.

Anthocyanin Hybrid Nanopigments from Pomegranate Waste: Colour, Thermomechanical Stability and Environmental Impact of Polyester-Based Bionanocomposites

In the present work, anthocyanin (ACN) hybrid nanopigments were synthetized by using a natural pomegranate dye (PD) and calcined hydrotalcite (HT) and montmorillonite (MMT) nanoclays. A wide colour gamut was obtained with MMT-based nanopigments ranging from reddish to bluish hues caused by structural transformations of ACNs at different pH values. However, a buffer effect was observed with HT obtaining samples a similar final colour regardless of the synthesis conditions. Nanopigments added with a biomordant extracted from pomegranate peels showed a different colour compared to the incorporation of a commercial mordant due to the intrinsic colouring properties of the pomegranate bioadditive. The developed nanopigments were incorporated at 7 wt% loading to produce novel polyester-based bionanocomposites which were characterized in terms of thermal, mechanical and colour properties. The encapsulation of PD into the nanoclays improved its thermal stability, in particular for MMT-based nanopigments. The pH changes observed during the nanofillers synthesis affected the final colour of the MMT-based nanocomposites, inducing a general increase in ∆E* and a decrease in gloss values. Slight improvements were obtained in terms of elastic modulus for MMT-based polymer samples confirming the applicability of the developed bionanocomposites as colouring and reinforcement materials. A very similar environmental profile was obtained for MMT and HT-based nanofillers showing MMT-based nanopigments a slightly better general behaviour. The results of the LCA study evidenced the suitability of the processes used in this work to the circular bioeconomy approach through sustainable food waste management and the production of bioplastics using waste substrates.

The Regulation of Informal Trade Credit (Ograyi) in Afghanistan

This article explores the creation, circulation, and regulation of informal trade credit or “ograyi” in Afghanistan. The practice of ograyi allows businesses to access short-term credit, from either their suppliers or third parties, to acquire specified goods. This paper provides an account of the non-legal practices that regulate ograyi transactions. Ograyi vitally depends on the development of trust between parties. Clientelism helps to maintain stable relationships that can offset market unpredictability. Widespread market norms and practices establish the general behaviour of participants. Parties also renegotiate the terms of the contract if circumstances make it impossible for the creditor to repay the loan in the agreed timeframe. Furthermore, bank credit remains largely unavailable or unappealing to many businesses, and the legal system provides limited recourse in the case of contractual breach. Thus, the non-legal practices regulating ograyi serve as a substitute for legal coercion.

Ballistic Impact and Virtual Testing of Woven FRP Laminates

The aim of the work was to investigate the numerical simulations correlation with the experimental behaviour of steel ball high velocity impact onto a 2 × 2 twill woven carbon composite laminate. The experimental set up consisted of a pressurised gas-gun able to shot steel ball projectiles onto two different composite plate layup configurations of plates made of the same composite material fabric. Subsequently, the experiments were replicated using the LSDYNA explicit finite element analysis software package. Progressive failure numerical models of two different fidelity levels were constructed. The higher fidelity model was simulating each of the plys of the composite panels separately, tied together using cohesive zone modelling properties. The lower fidelity model consisted of a single layer plate with artificial integration points for each ply. The simulation results came out to be in satisfactory agreement with the experimental ones. While the delamination extent was moderately under predicted by the higher fidelity model, the general behaviour was complying with the experimental results. The lower fidelity model was consistent in representing the damage of the panel during the impact and better predicted the impactor residual velocities due to the better matching of the pane stiffness. Despite the competency of the higher fidelity model to capture the damage of the laminate in a more detailed level, the computational cost was 80% higher than the lower fidelity case, which rendered that model impractical against the lower fidelity one, to use in larger models representing more substantial or more complex structures.

Magnetosheath jet evolution as a function of lifetime: global hybrid-Vlasov simulations compared to MMS observations

Magnetosheath jets are regions of high dynamic pressure, which can traverse from the bow shock towards the magnetopause. Recent modelling efforts, limited to a single jet and a single set of upstream conditions, have provided the first estimations about how the jet parameters behave as a function of position within the magnetosheath. Here we expand the earlier results by doing the first statistical investigation of the jet dimensions and parameters as a function of their lifetime within the magnetosheath. To verify the simulation behaviour, we first identify jets from Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft data (6142 in total) and confirm the Vlasiator jet general behaviour using statistics of 924 simulated individual jets. We find that the jets in the simulation are in quantitative agreement with the observations, confirming earlier findings related to jets using Vlasiator. The jet density, dynamic pressure, and magnetic field intensity show a sharp jump at the bow shock, which decreases towards the magnetopause. The jets appear compressive and cooler than the magnetosheath at the bow shock, while during their propagation towards the magnetopause they thermalise. Further, the shape of the jets flatten as they progress through the magnetosheath. They are able to maintain their flow velocity and direction within the magnetosheath flow, and they end up preferentially to the side of the magnetosheath behind the quasi-parallel shock. Finally, we find that Vlasiator jets during low solar wind Alfvén Mach number MA are shorter in duration, smaller in their extent, and weaker in terms of dynamic pressure and magnetic field intensity as compared to the jets during high MA.