Diel Vertical Migration of Round Goby Larvae in the Great Lakes

One hypothesis for the transcontinental and intra-Great Lakes basin transfer of round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) has been that round gobies were pumped into the ballast water of ships. During June 2005 in Lake Erie, we obtained evidence of a vertical migration of round goby larvae, when we collected 167 round goby larvae in surface ichthyoplankton net tows at night and zero during day. These results complemented similar findings from the Muskegon River estuary of Lake Michigan during 2003 and 2004, documenting diel vertical migration for the first time in larval round gobies. We suggest vertical migration behavior may have allowed larval round gobies to be transported to and within the Great Lakes via ballast water and dispersed in the Great Lakes via advection of 6.5–8.5-mm long larvae at the surface. Based on our results, if ballast water was only taken on near the surface during daylight hours from May through September when larval round gobies were present, it would have mitigated the spread of round gobies throughout the Great Lakes.     

知识黑市

在这个以市场经济为主导的世界里,经常会有各种让人跌破眼镜的交易,知识交易便是其中一种。这里所讲的知识交易可不包括传统的教育手段,而是一个全新的概念,全称是“知识和非知识黑市交易”（Blackmarket for useful knowledge and non－konwledge）。     

自制钢珠过山车

有童鞋知道SpaceWarp这个玩具吗？不知道不要紧,反正放狗一搜便知。自从这玩意儿上市的那一天起就火得不得了,而且一烧就整整二十多年。现在咱们在淘X上花100多个现大洋就能买到一套——当然是山寨的（只有原版卖价五分之一）。与其买个山寨货自叹不值,不如让《Geek》来教教大家DIY一个货真价实的钢珠过山车出来!     

An octree-based,cartesian navier–stokes solver for modern cluster architectures

The Journal of Supercomputing - Adaptive Cartesian mesh approaches have proven useful for multi-scale applications where particular features can be finely resolved within a large solution domain....     

Fast and accurate fuzzy C‐means algorithm for MR brain image segmentation

Fuzzy theory based intelligent techniques are widely preferred for medical applications because of high accuracy. Among the fuzzy based techniques, Fuzzy C‐Means (FCM) algorithm is popular than the other approaches due to the availability of expert knowledge. But, one of the hidden facts is that the computational complexity of the FCM algorithm is significantly high. Since medical applications need to be time effective, suitable modifications must be made in this algorithm for practical feasibility. In this study, necessary changes are included in the FCM approach to make the approach time effective without compromising the segmentation efficiency. An additional data reduction approach is performed in the conventional FCM to minimize the computational complexity and the convergence rate. A comparative analysis with the conventional FCM algorithm and the proposed Fast and Accurate FCM (FAFCM) is also given to show the superior nature of the proposed approach. These techniques are analyzed in terms of segmentation efficiency and convergence rate. Experimental results show promising results for the proposed approach. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 26, 188–195, 2016     

Throughput stability and flow fairness enhancement of TCP traffic in multi-hop wireless networks

Wireless Networks - In the multi-hop wireless network, transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput stability and flow fairness performances are worsened due to slower flow convergence in the...     

Hand posture and gesture recognition techniques for virtual reality applications: a survey

Motion recognition is a topic in software engineering and dialect innovation with a goal of interpreting human signals through mathematical algorithm. Hand gesture is a strategy for nonverbal communication for individuals as it expresses more liberally than body parts. Hand gesture acknowledgment has more prominent significance in planning a proficient human computer interaction framework, utilizing signals as a characteristic interface favorable to circumstance of movements. Regardless, the distinguishing proof and acknowledgment of posture, gait, proxemics and human behaviors is furthermore the subject of motion to appreciate human nonverbal communication, thus building a richer bridge between machines and humans than primitive text user interfaces or even graphical user interfaces, which still limits the majority of input to electronics gadget. In this paper, a study on various motion recognition methodologies is given specific accentuation on available motions. A survey on hand posture and gesture is clarified with a detailed comparative analysis of hidden Markov model approach with other classifier techniques. Difficulties and future investigation bearing are also examined.     

Electrochemical behavior of multifunctional graphene–polyimide nanocomposite film in two different electrolyte solutions

The effect of solvent on specific capacitance, bulk resistance, and charge/discharge capacity of graphene/polyimide composite films is studied by electrochemical methods. Composite films are synthesized by in situ condensation polymerization of poly (amic acid) in the presence of 50 wt % partly exfoliated graphene sheets followed by thermal curing at 250°C. Raman spectrum of the exfoliated graphene sheets show an increase in the ratio of I_D to I_G peak intensities from 0.167 to 0.222, suggesting increased defects in graphene basal planes. Electrochemical measurements carried out by using 0.4M potassium hexafluorophosphate (KPF₆) dissolved in propylene carbonate and N‐methylpyrrolidone at 25°C show that the composite system exhibits both pseudocapacitance and supercapacitance behaviors, with an average capacitance of 40 and 36.5 F g^?1, respectively. Bulk resistance of the composite obtained by using KPF₆–propylene carbonate electrolyte solution is 300% lower than that obtained in KPF₆–N‐methylpyrrolidone solution, with a fairly stable specific capacity of 85 μAhr g^?1, with 80% retention observed after 30 charge–discharge cycles. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements show shifts in the cyclic imide carbonyl peak from 1778 to 1774 cm^?1, which suggests that some form of interaction exists between the graphene and polyimide. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42673.     

Relaxation behavior and activation energy of relaxation for polyimide and polyimide–graphene nanocomposite

The relaxation behavior of polyimide and its nanocomposite containing 10 wt % of graphene was studied by using the dynamic mechanical spectrometer. Dynamic mechanical analysis of polyimide and its composite was performed as a function of temperature and frequency in the temperature range of 25–480 °C and frequency range between 0.05 and 100 Hz. The effect of increasing frequency of testing from 0.05 to 100 Hz is a significant shift from the glass transition temperature, T_g, to higher temperature from 360 °C at 0.05 Hz to 420 °C at 100 Hz. The tan δ peak height for both α and β transitions decreased with increasing test frequency from 0.24 at 0.05 Hz to 0.08 at 100 Hz, due to increasing restriction to chain motion. At any given testing frequency, the T_g for the composite was shown to be higher than that for the matrix by about 5–10 °C. The Arrhenius equation was used to calculate the activation energy for both α and β transitions. The activation for α and β transitions for the composite and polyimide matrix were determined to be 688 and 537 kJ/mol and 313 and 309 kJ/mol, respectively, indicating that a significant increase in the energy barrier to chain relaxation occurred as a result of reinforcement of polyimide with low weight fraction of graphene. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43684.     

Corrosion resistance and lifetime of polyimide-b-polyurea novel copolymer coatings

A novel class of polyurea-b-polyimide (PUI) block copolymer coating containing environmentally friendly aromatic polyurea has been successfully synthesized for corrosion protection of aluminum alloy 2024-T3 (Al 2024-T3). The PUI copolymer is able to self-assemble into a supramacromolecule by means of intra and inter-hydrogen bonds (H-bonds). The formation of H-bonds and effect of the later on the crystallinity of the copolymer was studied by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). It was shown that increasing polyurea mole fraction up to 50 mol%, enhanced occurrence of H-bonding induced self-assembly, and resulted in remarkable enhancement in the degree of crystallinity, and corrosion resistance. Corrosion resistance and diffusivity of the copolymer coatings were investigated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), in a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. The coating lifetime determined by using time-based corrosion resistance, was shown to be about 8 years for the optimized PUI copolymer coating. PUI coating synthesized by using 50 mol% of polyurea has a high contact angle (110°) and remarkably low surface energy of about 25.5 mJ/m².