Coating of carbon-fiber surface by silicon carbide via sol-gel mixtures of tetraethyl orthosilicate and phenolic resin

The preparation of a SiC coating on a carbon fiber surface using a sol-gel mixture of tetraethyl orthosilicat (TEOS) and phenolic resin was studied. FTIR and SEM investigations indicated that the SiC coating can be formed by carbothermal reduction of the sol-gel mixture at 1420°C for 15–20 min in an argon atmosphere. TGA of the coated fiber was also performed, showing that the SiC coating improves the thermooxidative stability of the carbon fiber. With the thickness of the obtained coating of 0.47 μm using a C/Si ratio of 4, this treatment does not affect the carbon fiber strength.     

Metabolic impact of adenovirus-mediated overexpression of the glucose-6-phosphatase catalytic subunit in hepatocytes

Glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) catalyzes the hydrolysis of glucose 6-phosphate (Glu-6-P) to free glucose and, as the last step in gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis in liver, is thought to play an important role in glucose homeostasis. G6Pase activity appears to be conferred by a set of proteins localized to the endoplasmic reticulum, including a glucose-6-phosphate translocase, a G6Pase phosphohydrolase or catalytic subunit, and glucose and inorganic phosphate transporters in the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. In the current study, we used a recombinant adenovirus containing the cDNA encoding the G6Pase catalytic subunit (AdCMV-G6Pase) to evaluate the metabolic impact of overexpression of the enzyme in primary hepatocytes. We found that AdCMV-G6Pase-treated liver cells contain significantly less glycogen and Glu-6-P, but unchanged UDP-glucose levels, relative to control cells. Further, the glycogen synthase activity state was closely correlated with Glu-6-P levels over a wide range of glucose concentrations in both G6Pase-overexpressing and control cells. The reduction in glycogen synthesis in AdCMV-G6Pase-treated hepatocytes is therefore not a function of decreased substrate availability but rather occurs because of the regulatory effects of Glu-6-P on glycogen synthase activity. We also found that AdCMV-G6Pase-treated-cells had significantly lower rates of lactate production and [3-3H]glucose usage, coupled with enhanced rates of gluconeogenesis and Glu-6-P hydrolysis. We conclude that overexpression of the G6Pase catalytic subunit alone is sufficient to activate flux through the G6Pase system in liver cells. Further, hepatocytes treated with AdCMV-G6Pase exhibit a metabolic profile resembling that of liver cells from patients or animals with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, suggesting that dysregulation of the catalytic subunit of G6Pase could contribute to the etiology of the disease.     

Thermal properties and crystalline structure of liquid crystalline poly(ethylene terephthalate‐co‐2(3)‐chloro‐1,4‐phenylene terephthalate)

Thermal properties and crystalline structure of liquid crystalline (LC) poly(ethylene terephthalate‐co‐2(3)‐chloro‐1,4‐phenylene terephthalate) [copoly(ET/CPT)] were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetry (TGA), limiting oxygen index (LOI) measurement, electron dispersive X‐ray analysis (EDX), X‐ray diffractometry, and infrared spectrometry (IR). The thermal transition temperatures of copoly(ET/CPT) were changed with the composition. Copoly(ET/CPT) showed two thermal decomposition steps and the residues at 700°C and LOI values of copoly(ET/CPT) were almost proportional to its chlorine content. The activation energy of thermal decomposition of LC units was very low compared to that of poly(ethylene terephthalate)(PET) units. Crystal structure of copoly(ET/CPT) (20/80) was of triclinic system with the lattice constants of a = 9.98 A?, b = 8.78 A?, c = 12.93 A?, α = 97.4°, β = 96.1°, and γ = 90.8°, which is very close to that of poly(chloro‐p‐phenylene terephthlate) (PCPT) with the lattice constants of a = 9.51 A?, b = 8.61 A?, c = 12.73 A?, α = 96.8°, β = 95.4°, and γ = 90.8°. When copoly(ET/CPT)(50/50) was annealed at 220°C in vacuum, crystallization induced sequential reordering (CISR) was not observed but the heat of fusion was slightly increased due to the increase of the trans isomer content in PET units. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 1286–1294, 2002; DOI 10.1002/app.10451     

Rate-distortion optimized tree-structured compression algorithms for piecewise polynomial images.

This paper presents novel coding algorithms based on tree-structured segmentation, which achieve the correct asymptotic rate-distortion (R-D) behavior for a simple class of signals, known as piecewise polynomials, by using an R-D based prune and join scheme. For the one-dimensional case, our scheme is based on binary-tree segmentation of the signal. This scheme approximates the signal segments using polynomial models and utilizes an R-D optimal bit allocation strategy among the different signal segments. The scheme further encodes similar neighbors jointly to achieve the correct exponentially decaying R-D behavior (D(R) - c(o)2(-c1R)), thus improving over classic wavelet schemes. We also prove that the computational complexity of the scheme is of O(N log N). We then show the extension of this scheme to the two-dimensional case using a quadtree. This quadtree-coding scheme also achieves an exponentially decaying R-D behavior, for the polygonal image model composed of a white polygon-shaped object against a uniform black background, with low computational cost of O(N log N). Again, the key is an R-D optimized prune and join strategy. Finally, we conclude with numerical results, which show that the proposed quadtree-coding scheme outperforms JPEG2000 by about 1 dB for real images, like cameraman, at low rates of around 0.15 bpp.     

Lipid peroxides, glutathione, gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase and gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase activities in several tissues of rats following water-immersion stress

The effects of water-immersion restraint (WIR) stress on lipid peroxide, glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase (gamma-GCS) and gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase (gamma-GT) activities in several tissues of rats were investigated. Hepatic and intestinal lipid peroxide levels were increased significantly in the WIR stress group. In both tissues, GSH levels were significantly decreased and gamma-GCS activity was significantly increased. In addition, gamma-GT activities remained unchanged in both tissues following WIR stress. However, lipid peroxide and GSH levels did not change in the stomach and brain in the WIR stress group compared to the control group. These results suggest that lipid peroxidation, but not the depression of GSH synthesis and/or the increase of GSH breakdown may be a factor in hepatic and intestinal GSH reduction following WIR stress.     

A Video Server cost/performance Estimator tool

The Video Server Estimator (VSE) is an analytical tool which allows a user to perform a cost/performance analysis of video servers with hierarchical storage. The underlying model comprises multiple systems, main memory, expanded storage, disks and a tape library. The main objective of the tool is to optimally allocate the video files to different storage media based on the system parameters and the video file request probability distribution. The cost and the size of the video server that can accommodate a customer profile are determined. Furthermore, the impact of design parameters on the cost and performance are examined through a parametric analysis.     

Deep neural network-based fusion model for emotion recognition using visual data

The Journal of Supercomputing - In this study, we present a fusion model for emotion recognition based on visual data. The proposed model uses video information as its input and generates emotion...     

Noise-adaptive synthetic oversampling technique

Applied Intelligence - In the field of supervised learning, the problem of class imbalance is one of the most difficult problems, and has attracted a great deal of research attention in recent...     

A new ECG beat clustering method based on kernelized fuzzy c-means and hybrid ant colony optimization for continuous domains

The kernelized fuzzy c-means algorithm uses kernel methods to improve the clustering performance of the well known fuzzy c-means algorithm by mapping a given dataset into a higher dimensional space non-linearly. Thus, the newly obtained dataset is more likely to be linearly seprable. However, to further improve the clustering performance, an optimization method is required to overcome the drawbacks of the traditional algorithms such as, sensitivity to initialization, trapping into local minima and lack of prior knowledge for optimum paramaters of the kernel functions. In this paper, to overcome these drawbacks, a new clustering method based on kernelized fuzzy c-means algorithm and a recently proposed ant based optimization algorithm, hybrid ant colony optimization for continuous domains, is proposed. The proposed method is applied to a dataset which is obtained from MIT–BIH arrhythmia database. The dataset consists of six types of ECG beats including, Normal Beat (N), Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC), Fusion of Ventricular and Normal Beat (F), Artrial Premature Beat (A), Right Bundle Branch Block Beat (R) and Fusion of Paced and Normal Beat (f). Four time domain features are extracted for each beat type and training and test sets are formed. After several experiments it is observed that the proposed method outperforms the traditional fuzzy c-means and kernelized fuzzy c-means algorithms.     

Modal logic as metalogic

The goal of this paper is to show how modal logic may be conceived as recording the derived rules of a logical system in the system itself. This conception of modal logic was propounded by Dana Scott in the early seventies. Here, similar ideas are pursued in a context less classical than Scott's.First a family of propositional logical systems is considered, which is obtained by gradually adding structural rules to a variant of the nonassociative Lambek calculus. In this family one finds systems that correspond to the associative Lambek calculus, linear logic, relevant logics, BCK logic and intuitionistic logic. Above these basic systems, sequent systems parallel to the basic systems are constructed, which formalize various notions of derived rules for the basic systems. The deduction theorem is provable for the basic systems if, and only if, they are at least as strong as systems corresponding to linear logic, or BCK logic, depending on the language, and their deductive metalogic is not stronger than they are.However, though we do not always have the deduction theorem, we may always obtain a modal analogue of the deduction theorem for conservative modal extensions of the basic systems. Modal postulates which are necessary and sufficient for that are postulates of S4 plus modal postulates which mimic structural rules. For example, the modal postulates which Girard has recently considered in linear logic are necessary and sufficient for the modal analogue of the deduction theorem.All this may lead towards results about functional completeness in categories. When functional completeness, which is analogous to the deduction theorem, fails, we may perhaps envisage a modal analogue of functional completeness in a modal category, of which our original category is a full subcategory.