Foundations in punched trenches at construction projects in chuvashin

Results are presented for tests on 27 foundations in punched (tamped-out) trenches (including some tested under repeated loading and when a long period had elapsed after their construction), which showed high technical-economic indices. Experience with their operation permits recommending wider use of this foundation construction method.Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 2, pp. 18–21, March–April, 1992.     

Dose-Response Functions as Estimates of the Effect of Acid Precipitates on Materials

This paper presents a brief summary of the findings of the 8-year exposure program of the European Economic Commission, United Nations (UN EEC), on estimating the effect of acid precipitates on materials, including historical and cultural monuments. Presented and discussed are dose-response functions for structural metals and alloys (bronze, copper, weathering steel, zinc, aluminum, nickel and tin), stone materials (limestone and sandstone), paint coatings and glasses. The effects of dry and wet precipitates are discriminated and expressed as separate doze-response functions. The corrosion damage to the majority of materials is most of all aggravated by dry precipitates of sulfur dioxide, while copper and tin suffer concurrently from ozone. In the equations the term pertaining to the dry precipitates includes a complex temperature effect. Unlike the correlations obtained upon four years of tests, the new functions include an exposure time parameter which enables one to calculate the corrosion rate at any period of time and to estimate the service life of the object at a given critical rate of corrosion.     

Morphology of melt crystallized polypropylene in the presence of polyimide fibres

Hot stage optical and scanning electron microscopy were used to study isothermal crystallization of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) in the presence of polyimide (Pl) fibres. Under the same crystallization conditions, the occurrence of transcrystallization depends on the type of fibre used. The transcrystalline interphase has a composed structure, with a characteristic layer adjacent to the fibre surface. The layer is about 1 m thick and has a crosshatched lamellar morphology. At the interface between iPP and the Pl fibre which causes transcrystallization, the nuclei from which the transcrystalline zone grows is observed. The nuclei consist of sheaves of closely packed parallel needleshaped lamellae of uniform thickness. The transcrystallization phenomenon can be explained by the epitaxial crystallization of iPP matrix on the surface fragments (domains) formed by extended chains of Pl fibres. Different abilities of Pl fibres to induce transcrystallization are associated with the superficial morphology of the fibres.Presented in part at the 28th Europhysics Conference on Macromolecular Physics, Transitions in Oligomer and Polymer Systems, 27 September–1 October 1993, Ulm, Germany.     

The “smart camera” adaptive optoelectronic complex

The “smart camera” is an adaptive optoelectronic complex applied for detection of car license plates. The complex consists of a digital camera with IR searchlight and IR filter joined with a PC compatible computation module. In the real-time mode, illumination of the license plates is analyzed in the pictures supplied from the camera, after which the camera parameters are changed to achieve optimal illumination of the car license plate. Vehicle number plates are also recognized in the smart camera itself. Video and results of detection are transferred by the network.     

Pattern recognition by indexing

We consider a set-theoretic approach to pattern recognition and introduce the definition of an index for patterns and inverse patterns. Unlike traditional recognition methods, in our approach pattern identification reduces to operations with inverse patterns. We show that these novel notions let us significantly reduce the computational load by replacing pattern comparison operations with a much smaller number of inverse pattern intersection operations.