Consolidation Methods Research Articles

Analysis of Monitoring in Displacement For Vacuum Combined Stack Preloading about Soft foundation Sluice

Soft soil foundation treatment methods mainly include soil replacement cushion method, dynamic compaction method, drainage consolidation method, etc. Drainage consolidation methods mainly include: vacuum preloading method, stack preloading method and vacuum combined stacking preloading method. Among them, the vacuum preloading method has obvious advantages in treating large areas and deep soft foundations. This paper describes the process of soft soil foundation vacuum combined with stack preloading reinforcement. Through the monitoring of the vacuum preloading process, we mainly analyzed the monitoring results and development trend of horizontal displacement.

Consolidating the layout of rural settlements using system dynamics and the multi-agent system

The Chinese government has emphasized the consolidation of rural settlements because of their extensive use and hollowing-out in the hope that agricultural land losses can be mitigated nationally, the ecological environment can be protected, and improvements can be made to agricultural production and rural livelihoods. Rural settlement consolidation, however, necessitates a complex optimization approach that involves multiple aspects including rural development policies as well as the evaluation and classification of settlement layout, the land-use decision-making behaviors of villagers, and spatial layout optimization models. Current rural settlement consolidation methods lack these respective modules and have therefore led to unsatisfactory results. We therefore coupled a spatial layout evaluation module, system dynamics (SD) models, and the multi-agent system (MAS) to establish the rural settlement consolidation model (RSCM), an approach which can comprehensively consider all these aspects. This model was then applied in Jizhou District, Tianjin, using the three policy scenarios of ecology priority, coordinated ecology and economic development, and economy priority. The results of this analysis show that, in the first place, given an optimized rural settlement layout, the average suitability value and degree of average spatial compactness increased by 3.23% and 96.68% respectively. These outcomes indicate that the model can improve land-use suitability and solve the village hollowing-out issue. Data also show that landscape pattern indices including average plaque density, average patch shape index, and average fractal dimension all decreased by 54.17%, 26.20, and 4.60%, respectively, while average plaque area increased by 117.22%. These outcomes indicate that the use of this model can reduce rural settlement complexity and alleviate the pressure on the landscape matrix. Secondly, results show that the consolidation of rural settlements leads to clear socioeconomic and ecological benefits within the study area as well as improvements in agricultural production and rural livelihoods because of spatial layout adjustments. Third, ecological and economic policy priorities reduce the effectiveness of rural settlement consolidation, hinder economic development, and can even exacerbate the hollowing-out of villages. Rural development policies must therefore strike a balance between environmental protection and economic development.

Karşılıklı İştirak Durumunda Konsolidasyon

The aim of this research is to provide information about the consolidation concept, consolidation methods within the scope of International Accounting Standards/ International Financial Reporting Standards(IAS/IFRS), and present an example of consolidation procedures in the case of cross shareholdings which is specified in the Turkish Commercial Code (TCC). One of the situations that should be taken into consideration in consolidation is the cross shareholdings situation that occurs when the two companies have their own shares. In this case, the necessary regulations are determined in the TCC. In the theoretical part of the study, holding (business group), consolidated financial statements, investment types, consolidation types and cross shareholding status are explained. In the application section, examples regarding the necessary consolidation transactions in cross shareholding cases are given. As a result, it can be said that in the financial statements prepared by using the full consolidation and equity method, the capital is presented correctly by taking into account the cross shareholding relationship within the framework of legal regulations. 

Effect of different reinforcement on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AA2024-based metal matrix nanocomposites

Abstract In this study, AA2024-B4C and AA2024-SiC nanocomposites were successfully produced by hot pressing and consolidation methods. The effects of different SiC and B4C contents on the mechanical properties and microstructure of the nanocomposites were investigated. The bending and tensile strength of AA2024-2 wt.% B4C nanocomposites reached up to 1286.7 MPa and 392.9 MPa, respectively. The bending strength of 676.7 MPa and tensile strength of 377.7 MPa were obtained for AA2024-2 wt.% SiC nanocomposites. The addition of the reinforcement can increase the bending strength of the nanocomposites even if porosity increases. Comparing the experimental results showed that B4C reinforced nanocomposites exhibited better mechanical properties than those of SiC reinforced nanocomposites. The type of Al2Cu phase plays a major role in the improvement of mechanical properties of the composites.

Sand Free Rate Enhancement with Aqueous-based Selfhealing System

Unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs are susceptible to sanding problems. Traditional sand consolidation methods are often not environmental-friendly or ineffectively. This paper proposed a new sand consolidation treatment with aqueous-based self-healing system (ABSH) to maximize the sand free rate. The ABSH performs well with a relative lower dosage in laboratory tests. Sand consolidation performance and chemical resistance property were evaluated using the maximized sand free rate as indicators. After aging for 12 hours, the maximized sand free rate of consolidated sand pack could be prominently increased to 6600mL/h. Re-agglomeration ability between sand particles was illuminated by adhesion force tests. The adhesion force could be almost 90% of the original one after the contacting and separating process proceeded for three times.

Merging the citations received by arXiv-deposited e-prints and their corresponding published journal articles: Problems and perspectives

Merging the citation counts of arXiv-deposited e-prints (arXiv version) with those of their corresponding published journal articles (publisher version) is an important issue in citation analysis. Using examples of arXiv-deposited e-prints, this article adopts a manual approach to investigate the processing methods used by bibliographic repositories such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Astrophysics Data System (ADS), and INSPIRE for the citation merging. Both Google Scholar and ADS consolidate all citations from the two versions into the publisher one, whereas the consolidated citations are accumulated into the arXiv version in the INSPIRE repository. All these methods ignore the categories of the arXiv-deposited versions and the corresponding availability dates. As for Web of Science and Scopus, they count the citations of the two versions separately, which is likely regarding them as two independent articles. Focusing on journal articles that also appeared as arXiv e-prints, we classify them into two categories and identify two public availability dates of articles as the starting point of citation statistics. We present four feasible schemes to consolidate citation counts for the articles with both versions and also propose a universal scheme based on the research output. Furthermore, we investigated 2,662 e-prints in the “Computer Science - Digital Libraries” subject (cs.DL) from 1998 to 2018 in arXiv.org and manually calculated the consolidated citation counts of arXiv-deposited articles with the corresponding citation merging schemes. Furthermore, these citation consolidation methods are applied to the evaluation of articles, authors, and journals. Such empirical testing proves the feasibility of the schemes proposed in this article.

New Opportunities in Refractory Alloys

For decades, the promise of refractory alloys (robust structural materials for use above 1500 K (1200 °C)) has been hampered by concurrent requirements for fabricability via ingot metallurgy and oxidation resistance. These constraints have thus far proven impossible to meet in a single material. The work herein demonstrates that the advent of economical powder feedstocks and consolidation methods, such as additive manufacturing (AM), effectively removes the constraints preventing widespread utilization of high-strength refractory alloys into aerospace, defense, and space access applications. High-purity, spherical refractory-alloy powders (e.g. the Nb-10Hf-1Ti alloy ATI C103™) were made via both atomization and plasma spheroidization and consolidated using a variety of methods. Consolidated material shows comparable and sometimes superior high temperature performance to equivalent wrought material. The availability of cost-effective powder synthesis techniques enables the elimination of critical barriers in fabrication: namely the requirement for hot and cold working. The availability of AM and hot isostatic pressing expands the design space for high-strength refractory alloys and makes the adoption of new paradigms in alloy design, such as refractory complex concentrated alloys, plausible. Going forward, the most difficult challenge, oxidation, can be tackled with the new approaches that are now available.

Chemical Sand Consolidation: From Polymers to Nanoparticles.

The chemical sand consolidation methods involve pumping of chemical materials, like furan resin and silicate non-polymer materials into unconsolidated sandstone formations, in order to minimize sand production with the fluids produced from the hydrocarbon reservoirs. The injected chemical material, predominantly polymer, bonds sand grains together, lead to higher compressive strength of the rock. Hence, less amounts of sand particles are entrained in the produced fluids. However, the effect of this bonding may impose a negative impact on the formation productivity due to the reduction in rock permeability. Therefore, it is always essential to select a chemical material that can provide the highest possible compressive strength with minimum permeability reduction. This review article discusses the chemical materials used for sand consolidation and presents an in-depth evaluation between these materials to serve as a screening tool that can assist in the selection of chemical sand consolidation material, which in turn, helps optimize the sand control performance. The review paper also highlights the progressive improvement in chemical sand consolidation methods, from using different types of polymers to nanoparticles utilization, as well as track the impact of the improvement in sand consolidation efficiency and production performance. Based on this review, the nanoparticle-related martials are highly recommended to be applied as sand consolidation agents, due to their ability to generate acceptable rock strength with insignificant reduction in rock permeability.

Effect of different reinforcement on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AA2024-based metal matrix nanocomposites

Abstract In this study, AA2024-B4C and AA2024-SiC nanocomposites were successfully produced by hot pressing and consolidation methods. The effects of different SiC and B4C contents on the mechanical properties and microstructure of the nanocomposites were investigated. The bending and tensile strength of AA2024-2 wt.% B4C nanocomposites reached up to 1286.7 MPa and 392.9 MPa, respectively. The bending strength of 676.7 MPa and tensile strength of 377.7 MPa were obtained for AA2024-2 wt.% SiC nanocomposites. The addition of the reinforcement can increase the bending strength of the nanocomposites even if porosity increases. Comparing the experimental results showed that B4C reinforced nanocomposites exhibited better mechanical properties than those of SiC reinforced nanocomposites. The type of Al2Cu phase plays a major role in the improvement of mechanical properties of the composites.

TiB2-Coated Graphite As Wettable Cathode for Al Production

A significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from aluminum smelters will only be achieved with the emergence of new technologies. The most effective way to decrease significantly CO2 emissions from this industry is to replace the consumable carbon anodes that are used nowadays with so-called inert anodes that emit O2 instead of CO2 during Al electrolysis [1]. However, the implementation of inert anodes in Al smelters will induce an increase of the cell voltage, which could be compensated by reducing the cell ohmic drop by decreasing the anode-to-cathode distance. For that purpose, the thickness of the molten Al layer presents on the surface of the cathode must be minimized, which requires a high wettability of molten Al on the cathode. To date, the most promising cathode material is TiB2, which has an excellent Al wettability, good electrical conductivity and good chemical stability under Al electrolysis conditions. However, the manufacturing of bulk TiB2 electrodes at the industrial scale poses challenges. Sintering of TiB2 must be performed at high temperature (~2000°C), which induces significant crystal growth that has dramatic consequences on the mechanical properties of the electrode. Faced with these constraints, various consolidation methods operating at lower temperatures have been evaluated (sintering under pressure, spark plasma sintering...), but they are expensive and/or poorly adapted to the production of large electrodes of complex shape as required for Al electrolysis application.In the present study, new avenues based on the elaboration of TiB2 coated graphite cathodes by electrochemical and thermal spray methods are evaluated. The influence of the deposition conditions on the crystalline structure, morphology, mechanical resistance and Al wettability of TiB2 coatings will be presented in this communication.

Evaluation of the environmental security of industrial regions: Evidence from the Kemerovo Oblast

Subject. The article studies the technological footprint of mining enterprises on the region's environmental system, especially in the vicinity of their location. Objectives. The research evaluates the technological footprint of coal mining enterprises on the region's environmental system, substantiates the continuing reporting and statistical monitoring of environmental indicators. We also analyze the ratio of current indicators to thresholds and identify menacing environmental trends. Methods. The research involves the method of environmental security assessment by pollution and water contamination. We also apply methods of statistical observation, consolidation and grouping of statistical materials, absolute and relative statistical values, analytical and synthetic methods. Results. The article describes the environmental specifics of the industrially advanced region with the predominance of the mining industry. We conducted the environmental monitoring by air and water contamination and point out the main environmental challenges and disparity of the region's environmental and economic well-being. We captured the correlation of the industrial development level, use of natural resources, environmental situation, finance of natural protection activities and public health. The article presents our recommendations for improving the environmental situation. Conclusions. The governmental involvement is not enough to eliminate the environmental challenges if there are no effective set of environmental standards in the region. The region's environmental situation cannot be improved if the social and environmental liability of most coal business owners and management is raised. It is necessary to tighten the governmental control and increase the social and environmental liability of industrial enterprises for their operations.

Magnetic and microstructural properties of anisotropic MnBi magnets compacted by spark plasma sintering

In this study, we present that anisotropic MnBi bulk magnets can be obtained using spark-plasma-sintering technique (SPS). Grain misalignment was suppressed by either external field or addition of appropriate polymer binder. Various microstructures were effectively achieved during SPS processing, and lead to distinct magnetic performance. Microstructure analysis reveals that the coercive field of the SPS-compacted magnets declines strongly with increasing grain size. Bi-rich residue clearly plays a role in magnetic decoupling to enhance the coercive field, whereas the exchange coupling mediated by excess Mn reduces it dramatically. In addition, the amount and distribution of Mn and Bi residue has a profound influence on the thermal magnetic stability of sintered MnBi magnets. We suggest that fast consolidation methods like SPS technique enable to tailor the microstructure of bulk magnetic products to meet specific application requirements.

Multi-Tier Workload Consolidations in the Cloud: Profiling, Modeling and Optimization

Reducing tail latency becomes increasingly important to improve the user-perceived service experience. User-facing latency-sensitive cloud applications typically contain multiple interactive tiers (e.g., Web, App, Database) running in different virtual machines (VMs) with complex interaction patterns. However, such interactions between VMs in different tiers are often neglected in previous VM consolidation methods, resulting in poor application performance. In this article, we study the consolidation of multi-tier interactive workloads from a new perspective of user-perceived tail latency. We propose a novel profiling-based consolidation methodology to satisfy tail latency requirements while reducing the number of used physical machines. To achieve such a goal, we first perform large-scale profiling experiments under various consolidation settings in a KVM virtualized private cluster to establish the empirical performance values. We consider two key factors that affect the tail latency of multi-tier workloads: <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">interference</i> with co-located VMs and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">interaction</i> between tiers. We model the consolidation of multi-tier workloads as an optimization problem with different objectives and constraints, and derive the consolidation schedule. We implement and evaluate the proposed models, as well as comparing with other methods (i.e., <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">without</i> profiling or <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">without</i> considering interaction influence). Extensive experimental results show that the proposed method is able to reduce up to <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5X</i> tail latency, compared with the method <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">without</i> profiling and up to <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1.3X</i> tail latency, compared with the method <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">without</i> considering the interaction influence between different tiers.

Scientific services consolidation methods

The article discusses methods of consolidating scientific services of a digital platform for integrating a set of scientific services for various fields of science for conducting interdisciplinary research. Solutions for creating consolidated services can be widely used for multilevel, multiscale modeling in the field of materials science, which provides complex modeling at several levels of the hierarchy. Currently, this problem is being solved by creating multicomponent hierarchical software systems on corporate computing systems. With the advent of high-performance cloud computing platforms, it will be possible to order services for solving particular modeling problems as a scientific service. In this case, the tasks of complex hierarchical modeling will be solved by a consolidated service - a service providing sequential-parallel execution of complex modeling components in the form of specialized scientific services. The description of the processes for the provision of scientific services is based on the research methodology and is a research plan (the work process mapping), which describes a set of operations related to time and includes a list of necessary resources for their implementation. In modern conditions of the development of a microservice approach to the creation of computing systems and the evolution of the Service Oriented Architecture and of the Enterprise Service Bus integration, special attention is paid to the problems of efficient integration of platform services. The paper proposes to supplement the existing description of a scientific service with the possibility of ordering a third-party service based on agile integration. This approach will allow at the present stage of development of service architectures to overcome the shortcomings of centralized systems such as Enterprise Service Bus and take advantage of the elasticity of cloud computing and a microservice approach to creating information and computing systems.

An innovative approach of mixed enzymatic venture for 2G ethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstock

Time is an important factor for bioenergy and bio-product producing industries. Longer process/fermentation times are the major hurdles in making the process more cost effective for any desired product. Integration of different process units were usually carried out to minimize the entire processing time. However, apart from consolidation, microbial adaptation and biomass pretreatment methods plays an important role during product generation. Microorganisms normally take longer time to adapt to the surrounding environment, which certainly affect the entire processing time. Thus, the present work was framed to use mixture of crude and low titre enzymes for lignin degradation and holocellulose hydrolysis followed by fermentation in a single unit to produce second generation ethanol from Kans grass. In the present study, an enzymatic venture was attempted to delignify the recalcitrant lignin molecule and simultaneously hydrolyse the biomass for enhanced sugars generation followed by ethanol production in a common platform. The entire ethanol production process has been optimized through response surface methodology that resulted in 59.96 g/L of ethanol within 24 h. The biomass porosity analysis in terms of surface area, pore size and pore volume of the fermented biomass were found to be decreased that indicates effective action of applied enzymes. Structural characterisation of the fermented biomass showed an extensive surface distortion that revealed the combined action of delignifying and saccharifying enzymes. X-ray diffraction analysis indicates reduced biomass crystallinity after fermentation, which inferred that para-crystalline and crystalline cellulose were utilized maximally for ethanol production. Thus, the results obtained in the present study substantiate the feasibility of the mixed enzymes application in bioprocessing of Kans grass for second generation ethanol production.

High Temperature Mechanical Properties and Microstructures of Thermally Stabilized Fe-Based Alloys Synthesized by Mechanical Alloying Followed by Hot Extrusion

The key requirement to consolidate high-energy mechanically alloyed nanocrystalline powders is to achieve densification and particle bonding without impairment in the mechanical properties. Recent demonstrations of consolidation methods involving high shear, pressure and temperature have shown promising results for bonding high strength particulate materials produced by mechanical alloying. In this study, we report the ability of multi-pass high temperature equal channel angular extrusion to produce bulk ferritic alloys from nanocrystalline Fe–Ni–Zr powders. Subsequent microstructural characterizations indicate limited grain growth as the average grain sizes remain smaller than 100 nm after processing temperatures of 600 °C and 700 °C, above which grains reach micron sizes. The compression test results reveal that the alloys exhibit high mechanical strength at room and moderately high temperatures compared to the pure Fe and Fe–Ni alloys without Zr addition.

ПЕРСПЕКТИВНІ НАПРЯМКИ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ КОНСОЛІДАЦІЇ ІНФОРМАЦІЇ ТА ДОКУМЕНТНИХ ДАНИХ

В статті аналізується історіографічний масив з питань консолідації інформації та документних даних підприємств та установ. На цій основі виявляються перспективні дослідження у цій галузі: термінологічний, управлінський, документознавчий, нормативний, технологічний, комунікативний, соціокультурний та галузевий. Зазначено, що консолідація інформації та документних даних є надскладною міждисциплінарною науково-практичною галуззю. Розширення поля використання технологій та методів консолідації інформації призводить до формування нових поглядів до об’єктів консолідації, насамперед, як до креативних продуктів, що вимагають тісної кооперації фахівців технічного та гуманітарного спрямування, поєднання набутого досвіду з побудови архітектури корпоративних баз даних, впровадження експертних систем, формування ідеології менеджменту знань, гейміфікації та неожурналістики.

Joint data center cooling and workload management: A thermal-aware approach

Information technology (IT) equipment and cooling infrastructure are key contributors to the total energy expenditure in a data center. There is typically significant power wastage due to inefficient cooling control and thermal-oblivious management of workload. Recent thermal-aware data center management techniques have not taken a unified approach in controlling IT and cooling systems. In this paper, we find that considering thermal effects of server workloads, in conjunction with control parameters of the cooling unit saves more power than optimizing each of them separately. We leverage a low complexity holistic data center model that considers thermal interactions between IT and cooling unit entities. This thermal model provides control decisions with fine-grained control variables. We propose joint cooling and workload management (JCWM), which has the potential to save a considerable amount of power by exploring synergies between the workload scheduler and operational parameters of the cooling unit. In addition, we provide a significant caveat for the power efficiency of server consolidation methods when taking into account associated thermal effects.

Energy-efficient and quality-aware VM consolidation method

To improve resource utilization and energy efficiency, cloud data centers use virtual machine (VM) consolidation to consolidate VMs to fewer physical machines (PMs) through live VM migration. However, improper VM placement may cause frequent VM migrations and constant on–off switching of PMs, which results in lower service quality and increased energy consumption. In this paper, we address this problem by proposing an effective and efficient VM consolidation approach called EQ-VMC, which has the goal of optimizing energy efficiency and service quality. In our approach, a discrete differential evolution algorithm is developed to search for the global optimum solution for VM placement. By integrating this solution with a set of algorithms proposed for effective host overload detection, VM selection, and under-loaded host detection, EQ-VMC effectively reduces energy consumption and improves quality of service (QoS). Extensive simulation demonstrates its effectiveness and shows its superiority to previous VM consolidation methods.

Spending reviews as tools in the public sector

Worsening performance of public finance reported by a number of countries as a result of the global financial crisis enhanced interest in advanced and innovative methods of fiscal consolidation and stabilisation. Spending reviews are amongst the most comprehensive and advanced methods of this type. In the post-2008 age, spending reviews have been carried out by countries that had used the tool in earlier periods (the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, the UK or Australia) as well as by those who started using them for the first time (Ireland, Canada and France). Spending reviews are used in countries that are well advanced economically and whose public management systems are sufficiently mature.European Union Member States exhibit diverse interest in applying spending reviews which are not mandatory and have not been formalised in international legislation. The EU legislation contains general recommendations for the application of the rational fiscal policy enshrined first in the Treaty provisions, further developed by in the Stability and Growth Pact and detailed in 2011. The paper analyses the up-to-date experiences in using spending reviews in selected countries and draws conclusions from the process.