On the conflict between inducing confusion and attaining payoff in adversarial decision making

Adversarial decision making is aimed at determining optimal strategies against an adversarial and adaptive opponent. One defense against this intrusion into our cognitive process is to make decisions that are intended to confuse the observer, although our rewards can be diminished.In this work, we propose a mathematical framework that allows studying the balance between inducing confusion and attaining payoff in adversarial decision making.Computational experiments are performed to evaluate how the payoff and the number of correct predictions are affected by the strategies selected for each participant and by the number of decisions available.     

c-axis oriented ZnO formed in a rotating magnetic field with various rotation speeds

A rotating magnetic field was used to fabricate c-axis oriented zinc oxide. The influence of rotating speed on orientation structure was also examined. The aligned axes had the largest diamagnetic susceptibility, which axis was difficult to align with a static magnetic field. In c-axis oriented ZnO, the degree of orientation (Lotgering factor) in the green compact ranged from 0.2 to 0.5 along c-axis. The Lotgering factor increased with rotating speed. For all samples with the rotating magnetic field, the degrees of orientation increased up to above 0.9 after sintering at 1573 K.     

A video-based door monitoring system using local appearance-based face models

In this paper, we present a real-time video-based face recognition system. The developed system identifies subjects while they are entering a room. This application scenario poses many challenges. Continuous, uncontrolled variations of facial appearance due to illumination, pose, expression, and occlusion of non-cooperative subjects need to be handled to allow for successful recognition. In order to achieve this, the system first detects and tracks the eyes for proper registration. The registered faces are then individually classified by a local appearance-based face recognition algorithm. The obtained confidence scores from each classification are progressively combined to provide the identity estimate of the entire sequence. We introduce three different measures to weight the contribution of each individual frame to the overall classification decision. They are distance-to-model (DTM), distance-to-second-closest (DT2ND), and their combination. We have conducted closed-set and open-set identification experiments on a database of 41 subjects. The experimental results show that the proposed system is able to reach high correct recognition rates. Besides, it is able to perform facial feature and face detection, tracking, and recognition in real-time.     

Effect of various activators on the course of alcoholic fermentation

The aim of the paper was to study the effect of various activators, i.e. vitamins, mineral compounds as well as products of vegetable and microbiological origin, on the efficiency, dynamics and other biotechnological indices of rye mash fermentation and on the quality of the high wines obtained. Studies were carried out on the sweet rye mash (density 19.5 °Blg) brought from the agricultural distillery.It was found that the addition of calcium pentothenate to the rye mash resulted in the improvement of the high wines quality by limiting the amount of the formed aldehydes and higher alcohols and simultaneously, it had no effect on the fermentation process. Soybean flour turned out to be a good activator of fermentation and it improved the majority of biotechnological indices of the process. The only negative aspect while applying that activator was the formation of higher amounts of higher alcohols in high wines. A comparative analysis of all the variants allowed us to state that, although some activators limited the level of higher alcohols, they did not contribute to the reduction of the formed aldehydes and even caused that their amount permissible by Polish Standard was exceeded; it was observed when biotin, biotin with thiamine, magnesium sulphate and higher amounts of thiamine (above 0.1 g/dm³ of mash) were applied.     

Spark Plasma Sintering of fine alpha-silicon nitride ceramics with LAS for spatial applications

Many space systems such as satellite mirrors and their supporting structures require to be made from very low-thermal expansion materials combining both high hydrostability and relatively high mechanical properties. In this study, we have applied the “composite concept” in order to explore the possibility of fabricating near zero thermal expansion silicon nitride based ceramics. Consequently, a negative thermal expansion material belonged to the lithium aluminosilicate family (LAS powder crystallized under de β-eucryptite structure) was introduced in an alpha-silicon nitride fine powder (5 and 20 vol% of LAS) and the resulting composite system was sintered by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) at 1400 and 1500 °C. In the case of 20 vol% LAS compositions, relatively well-densified ceramics (94.4% of the theoretical density) were produced without adding any further sintering additive. The addition of yttria and alumina oxides allowed enhancing the densification level up to 98.2% (20 vol% LAS compositions) or from 62.3% up to 96.7% of the theoretical density in 5 vol% LAS materials. Nevertheless, it was impossible to full consolidate silicon nitride/LAS composite ceramics at temperatures lower than the temperature at which β-eucryptite melts, even by using SPS technology. Moreover, because of the relatively low temperatures involved in SPS, the α to β-Si₃N₄ transformation was avoided, resulting in microstructures composed of fine equiaxed α-Si₃N₄ grains (<200 nm) and of a glassy phase. Even if the effect of having a very large negative thermal expansion material was lost during the sintering step (because of the β-eucryptite melting), ceramics containing only 20 vol% of LAS-based phase exhibited very interesting values as regards of mechanical properties (strength, hardness, toughness, and Young's modulus), thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient. We discuss in this work why we are so interested in developing dense silicon nitride/LAS ceramics sintered without any further additive addition, even though β-eucryptite is melted during the process and the transformation to the β phase is avoided.     

A semi-analytical approach for linear and non-linear analysis of unstiffened laminated composite cylinders and cones under axial,torsion and pressure loads

A semi-analytical model for the non-linear analysis of simply supported, unstiffened laminated composite cylinders and cones using the Ritz method and the Classical Laminated Plate Theory is proposed. A matrix notation is used to formulate the problem using Donnell׳s and Sanders׳ non-linear equations. The approximation functions proposed are capable to simulate the elephant׳s foot effect, a common phenomenon and a common failure mode for cylindrical and conical structures under axial compression. Axial, torsion and pressure loads can be applied individually or combined, and solutions for linear static, linear buckling and non-linear buckling analyses are presented and verified using a commercial finite element software. The presented non-linear buckling analyses used perturbation loads to create the initial geometric imperfections, showing the capability of the method for arbitrary imperfection patterns. The linear stiffness matrices are integrated analytically and for the conical structures an approximation is proposed to overcome the non-integrable expressions.     

A kinetic study of the thermally induced isomerization reactions of 9c,12c linoleic acid triacylglycerol using gas chromatography

In this study, the kinetics of the thermally induced isomerization of 9c,12c linoleic acid was studied in order to better understand the geometric and positional isomerization of triacylglycerol and the various factors controlling isomeric ratios. Trilinolein was placed in glass ampoules and sealed in the absence or presence of air (O₂) and then subjected to thermal treatment at 180, 200, 220, 230 or 240 °C for regular time intervals. The glass ampoules were removed and the contents were analyzed using gas chromatography. The results indicate that the consumption of trilinolein is a second-order reaction. The formation reactions of cis,trans, trans,cis and trans,trans isomers are zero-order and dependent on both temperature and time. The presence of O₂ does not change the order of the reaction. In addition, the rate constants and activation energies involved in the isomerization reaction of linoleic acid with or without O₂ are presented.     

Preliminary study on the tribology of an organic-molecule-coated touch panel display surface

The use of touch panel displays has been increasing due to the popularity of tablet PCs and smart phones. In order to protect the touch panel surface from scratches, contaminants from fingerprints and skin oils and so on, anti-contamination coating is necessary.One of the ways to protect the surface is to cover it with a thin and dense organic molecular layer. At the present time, the primary requirement for the coating is fingerprint-resistance or easy removal of contaminants. An adsorbed molecular layer of PFPE-derivatives is currently used for this purpose, in order to reduce the surface energy of the surface. Since the current major concern of panel makers is anti-fingerprint performance, degradation of the molecular layer by both tribological and environmental conditions is a major issue for the development of the coatings.Given the current priorities, however, tribological research into such subjects as the touch feeling of the panel and the friction characteristic has not been conducted. The touch feeling and its relation to the operation are very important but very difficult to study because it is very hard to express the touch feeling numerically. As a preliminary study, several different coated surfaces were prepared and their friction coefficients were measured by rubbing with a finger or a steel or glass ball to clarify the tribological characteristics of the surface.An Si wafer and a glass plate were used in this study as models of the solid substrate of a display. They were coated with an adsorbed organic molecular layer of two PFPE-derivatives with different molecular structures named Type-F and Type-D or several reference molecular layers, such as OTS-SAM and FDTE-SAM. In addition to the tribological data, degradation by UV irradiation was also examined to compare the performance. The results are discussed from the tribological and chemical points of view.     

Molecular dynamics simulation studies on some topics of water molecules on hydrophobic surfaces

———————————— 1 Introduction Molecular dynamics simulations have been rec- ognized as one of the most popular tools in the study of the behavior of systems at the nanoscale. Why wa- ter is so special and recognized as life matrix [1] has long been discussed. And it is well known that hydro- phobic force is one of the most important interactions in biological systems.[2] This article will focus on two of the most often discussed problems: the nanobubbles and the water molecules perme…     

Analysis of ring launching scheme using hollow optical fibre mode converter for 10 Gbps multimode fibre communication

A ring launching scheme using a mode converter based on hollow optical fibre (HOF) is theoretically investigated for the purpose of increasing bandwidth for multimode Gigabit Ethernet communication. The mode converter based on HOF transforms the fundamental mode of a single-mode fibre (SMF) to a ring-shaped mode. It has the characteristic to improve the bandwidth by exciting higher-order modes of the multimode fibre (MMF) selectively. The HOF launch is studied under various aspects such as induced coupling efficiency, mode power distribution, and bandwidth-length product and is compared to centre and offset launching schemes. It is shown that the ring launching scheme is expected to support 10-Gb Ethernet applications using conventional multimode fibres.