Underwater structures are subjected to hydrostatic pressure during their service life. Sharp V-notched components can be seen as a part of many underwater structures. For example, welded components, machined parts, gears, screws and bolts are among the well-known elements that contain sharp V-notches. The notch tip is a likely zone for initiation of cracks due to high stress/ strain concentration. The reliability analysis of the V-notched components requires a good understanding of stress/ strain distribution near the notch tip. The fracture initiation of the V-notched components can be controlled by the tangential strain field near the notch tip. The tangential strain distribution and fracture initiation conditions are studied in this paper for notched components subjected to hydrostatic pressure. The effect of each tangential strain term on fracture initiation angle as well as tangential strain distribution around the notch tip is investigated using finite element simulation of a V-notched semi-circular specimen. It is shown that not only the singular terms, but also the “constants train field” significantly influence on tangential strain distribution and fracture initiation angle around the notch tip. The results of this paper can be used for standardization of the fracture in underwater structures containing V-notched components.

In this work, a low cost glucose and methanol nonenzymatic sensor was prepared using nickel oxide (NiO) nanofilm electrodeposited on a bare Cu electrode. Electrochemical deposition was assisted with cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a template. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was applied to observe the surface morphology of the modified electrode. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and amperometry techniques were used to study the electrocatalytic behavior of NiO porous film in glucose and methanol detection. For glucose sensing, the electrode showed a linear relationship in the concentration range of 0.01-2.14 mM with a low limit of detection (LOD) 1.7 µM (signal/noise ratio (S/N)=3). Moreover, high sensitivities of 4.02 mA mM?1 cm?2 and 0.38 mA mM?1 cm?2 respectively in glucose and methanol monitoring suggested the modified electrode as an excellent sensor. The NiO-Cu modified electrode was relatively insensitive to common biological interferers. This sensor possessed good poison resistance towards chloride ions, and long term stability and significant selectivity towards glucose and methanol. Finally the proposed sensor was successfully applied for determination of glucose in human blood serum samples.

The improvement in the provision of banking services to customers enhances bank’s performance (profitability and productivity) and the amounts of dividend declared to shareholders as well as bank’s competitiveness. One means of fast tracking the service time for bank customers is through the use of self-servicing machines, such as automated teller machine (ATM). Total service cost, expected waiting time in queue, ATM utilization and percentage of customer loss are some of the performance indices that are used to evaluate the service rendered by a bank’s ATM. This study proposes a framework for evaluating the performance of ATM by integrating queuing model and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodology. Applicability of the framework was tested using practical data obtained from four banks in Nigeria. It was observed that the average ATM usage in the study area was less than 50%. The TOPSIS results identified Bank A as the best ranked bank. In addition, the results obtained revealed that banks with two ATM were ranked higher than banks with more than two ATM.

High performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) are aggregates like cement grout with fine grains and fibers which can be used in many cases like seismic improvement of building components. One of these building components is connecting beam in coupled shear wall which can increase plasticity and energy absorption. In this paper nonlinear finite element model of coupled beam containing HPFRCC is analyzed and the influence diagonal reinforcement is investigated on cracking patterns, stress contours and hysteresis diagrams of shear wall. It was observed that diagonal reinforcements play significant role in shear load bearing capacity of shear wall coupled with HPFRCC beam.

The bulk room-temperature polymerization of styrene initiated by environmentally friendly catalysts Maghnite-Na+ is investigated. The catalyst removed from the reaction mixture simply by filtration could be regenerated and reused. The effect of the Maghnite-Na+ catalyst loading on degree of polymerization had been studied and state their inverse relation. The catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction and FTIR spectroscopy.

This paper addresses the stochastic permutation flow shop problem (SPFSP) in which the stochastic parameters are the processing times. This allows the modeling of setups and machine breakdowns. Likewise, it is proposed a multi-objective greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP) coupled with Monte-Carlo Simulation to obtain expected makespan and expected tardiness. To manage the bi-objective function, a sequential combined method is considered in the construction phase of the meta-heuristic. Moreover, the local Search combines 2-optimal interchanges with a Pareto Archived Evolution Strategy (PAES) to obtain the Pareto front. Also, some Taillard benchmark instances of deterministic permutation flow shop problem were adapted in order to include the variation in processing times. Accordingly, two coefficients of variation (CVs) were tested: one depending on expected processing times values defined as twice the expected processing time of a job, and a fixed value of 0.25. Thus, the computational results on benchmark instances show that the variable CV provided lower values of the expected makespan and tardiness, while the con-stant CV presented higher expected measures. The computational results present insights for further analysis on the behavior of stochastic scheduling problems for a better approach in real-life scenarios at industrial and service systems.

The current development of polyurethane self-healing materials has been evaluated and reviewed. Three main ways of self-healing – microcontainers, microvascular networks and reversible polymers - are described, and recent most prominent examples of self-healing materials applications presented.

In service oriented industry, it is very difficult to set a standard rule to satisfy customers. As customer awareness increases on the service offered by banks, expectation from services quality increases too. Quality of a service in banking industry plays an essential role in measuring the performance of banks. Thus, the present study examines the PAKSERV model to measure customer satisfaction and customer loyalty of Islamic Banks in Palestine. A survey method was adopted where data was collected from 482 respondents through structured questionnaire. Structural equation model (SEM) was applied to check the hypothesis relationship between proposed constructs. Statistical finding revealed that PAKSERV model had significant impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Islamic banks of Palestine. Results also revealed that in cultural context PAKSERV model was the most appropriate scale and had predictive power of service quality in banking industry of Palestine. The findings of this study will be helpful for managers and policy makers to improve the service quality in Islamic banks of Palestine.

This paper provides a method of acoustic emission (AE) technique to detect a train bearing fault of tapered bearing unit (TBU). An approach is to utilize acoustic emission signals which were captured from piezoelectric transducer and processed using Fourier transform. The transformed signals may contain unique characteristic features relating to the various types of bearing faults. The experiments on different operating conditions were investigated and they corresponded to (a) a normal bearing and (b) outer race defect bearing. The result is promising for faulty bearing identification and discrimination between different bearing conditions.

This article aims to examine the influence of top management green commitment and green intellectual capital of Thailand’s thrift and credit cooperatives on sustainable business performance: the mediating role of collaboration. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 400 Thailand’s thrift and credit cooperatives. The measurement and structural models were analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The finding of the study demonstrated that top management green commitment and green intellectual capital have a positive influence on sustainable business performance and collaboration. Moreover, collaboration has a positive influence on sustainable business performance and mediates the relationship between top management green commitment on sustainable business performance, and also green intellectual capital on sustainable business performance. This empirical finding contributes to the body of knowledge in Resource Based View theory.