In this paper the experimentally obtained conditions for the fusion splicing with photonic crystal fibers (PCF) having large mode areas were reported. The physical mechanism of the splice loss and the microhole collapse property of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) were studied. By controlling the arc-power and the arc-time of a conventional electric arc fusion splicer (FSM-60S), the minimum loss of splicing for fusion two conventional single mode fibers (SMF-28) was (0.00dB), which has similar mode field diameter. For splicing PCF (LMA-10) with a conventional single mode fiber (SMF-28), the loss was increased due to the mode field mismatch.

Mass transfer correlations for iron rotating cylinder electrode in chloride/sulphate solution, under isothermal and
controlled heat transfer conditions, were derived. Limiting current density values for the oxygen reduction reaction from
potentiostatic experiments at different bulk temperatures and various turbulent flow rates, under isothermal and heat
transfer conditions, were used for such derivation. The corelations were analogous to that obtained by Eisenberg et all
and other workers.

Hard-grade asphalt binders like AC20-30 typically exhibit excessive stiffness, reduced penetration, and compromised workability, necessitating modification before use in paving applications. This study evaluates the efficacy of regular polyalphaolefin (PAO), a synthetic olefin-based lubricant, as a performance-enhancing modifying agent for such binders. AC20-30 was blended with PAO at dosages ranging from 2 wt.% to 10 wt.%, and the modified binders were characterized via penetration, ductility, softening point, and rotational viscosity measurements, alongside advanced rheological and chemical-morphological analyses. Incorporating PAO in AC20-30 asphalt progressively reduced the binder stiffness and enhanced its flexibility, with all modifie

Sequence covering array (SCA) generation is an active research area in recent years. Unlike the sequence-less covering arrays (CA), the order of sequence varies in the test case generation process. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of the SCA strategies, earlier works reported that finding a minimal size of a test suite is considered as an NP-Hard problem. In addition, most of the existing strategies for SCA generation have a high order of complexity due to the generation of all combinatorial interactions by adopting one-test-at-a-time fashion. Reducing the complexity by adopting one-parameter- at-a-time for SCA generation is a challenging process. In addition, this reduction facilitates the supporting for a higher strength of cove

—This paper studies the control motion of a single link flexible joint robot by using a hierarchical non-singular terminal sliding mode controller (HNTSMC). In comparison to the conventional sliding mode controller (CSMC), the proposed algorithm (NTSMC) not only can conserve characteristics of the convention CSMC, such as easy implementation, guaranteed stability and good robustness against system uncertainties and external disturbances, but also can ensure a faster convergence rate of the systems states to zero in a finite time and singularity free. The flexible joint robot (FJR) is a two degree of freedom (2DOF) nonlinear and underactuated system. The system here is modeled as a fourth order system by using Lagrangian method. Based on t

Background: Survey of the occlusion in population groups usually include in their objections the academic assessment of occlusal feature, the planning resources for public health treatment programmers, the comparison of different population and the screening of groups for orthodontic treatment. Likewise a thorough investigation of the occurrence of malocclusions among school–students would be of major importance in the planning of orthodontic treatment in the public dental health services. For this purpose it is necessary to have detailed information on the prevalence of individual malocclusion among boys and girls at different ages distributed regionally, and moreover, an analysis of the need for orthodontic treatment in the different sc

Objectives: Small field of view gamma detection and imaging technologies for monitoring in vivo tracer uptake are rapidly expanding and being introduced for bed-side imaging and image guided surgical procedures. The Hybrid Gamma Camera (HGC) has been developed to enhance the localization of targeted radiopharmaceuticals during surgical procedures; for example in sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsies and for bed-side imaging in procedures such as lacrimal drainage imaging and thyroid scanning. In this study, a prototype anthropomorphic head and neck phantom has been designed, constructed, and evaluated using representative modelled medical scenarios to study the capability of the HGC to detect SLNs and image small organs. Methods: An anthropom

A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel‐concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high‐strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents slip of bolts within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes typical construction tolerances issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly, and therefore, can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow, i.e. (i) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (ii) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (iii) steel beams can b