This paper presents an improved artificial bee colony (IABC) optimization method to solving practical economic dispatch taking into account the nonlinear generator characteristics such as valve-point loading effects. In order to exploit the performance of this new variant based ABC method to solving practical economic dispatch, a new local search mechanism (LSM) associated to the original ABC a...

Crack tip deformations and fracture parameters in functionally graded glass-filled epoxy beams are experimentally evaluated under static and dynamic loading conditions. Beams with unidirectional, monotonic elastic gradients and cracks along the gradient are examined. SEN samples with increasing or decreasing Young’s modulus ahead of the crack tip are studied in symmetric four-point bending and ...

Fatigue or stress fractures are an important clinical problem in humans as well as racehorses. An important question in this context is, when a bone experiences fatigue damage during extreme use, how much is it weakened compared to its original state? Since there are very limited data on this question and stress fractures are common in racehorses, we sought to determine the effect of fatigue lo...

Identification of the usefulness of lipid-based formulations (LBFs) for delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs is at date mainly experimentally based. In this work we used a diverse drug data set, and more than 2,000 solubility measurements to develop experimental and computational tools to predict the loading capacity of LBFs. Computational models were developed to enable in silico prediction ...

Increased mechanical loading of bone with the rat tibia four-point bending device stimulates bone formation on periosteal and endocortical surfaces. With long-term loading cell activity diminishes, and it has been reported that early gains in bone size may reverse. This study examined the time course for bone cellular and structural response after 6, 12, and 18 wk of loading at 1,200-1, 700 mic...

Warm mix asphalts (WMA), because of their low production and compact temperatures, may have different behaviors in long term. In the present work, the energy-based criteria along with the 50% reduction in initial stiffness (Nf50%) using four-point bending test under controlled-strain conditions of 1000 microstrain were applied to compare the prepared two warm mix and HMA samples. All these crit...

Drug molecules transformed into nanoparticles or endowed with nanostructures with or without the aid of carrier materials are referred to as "nanomedicines" and can overcome some inherent drawbacks of free drugs, such as poor water solubility, high drug dosage, and short drug half-life in vivo. However, most of the existing nanomedicines possess the drawback of low drug-loading (generally less ...

LMFBRs are considered to have the potentiality of transmuting the TRU nuclides effectively because of their hard neutron spectrum(’TRU’ means eventually minor actinide(MA) in the present study). Since MA Ioadkg considerably affects not only core characteristics but fuel material properties, it is necessary to investigate MA loading method taking into account the influence upon core characterist...

One of the significant advantages of particle methods is their capability of computing large material deformation without the difficulty of mesh distortion. Often the large deformation of a material is caused by shock loading, therefore accurate calculation of shock waves is important for particle methods. In this work we study the numerical properties of four major versions of the material poi...

The aim of the present study is to investigate the stability of crack propagation in cementitious materials. Tests were conducted on bend specimens in three-point and four-point loading conditions.Three-point bend specimens showed stable crack growth for mortar, normal strength and high strength concrete specimens. Alternatively, four-point bend specimens showed catastrophic failure for mortar ...