A new binder in production of water-resistant briquettes from bituminous coals: Co-polymer binder

Briquetting could be a solution to economic and environmental problems regarding fine coals. However, briquettes that are formed using molasses disintegrate in water and create problems. Providing water resistance to briquette, bitumen and asphalt are illegally used, however they generate more air pollution. In order to resolve this negative situation, a new binder with a co-polymer origin, Mowilith-VDM^©, is tested for briquetting of bituminous fine coals. The results of tests have shown that class I type (TSE, 1996) water resistance briquette can be produced using the co-polymer binder percent of 8, a drying temperature of 100°C, a drying time of 15 min, and a pressure load of 29.5 MPa.     

Biodegradable Implantable Sensors: Materials Design,Fabrication, and Applications

The ability to monitor diseases, therapies, and their effects on the body is a critical component of modern care and personalized medicine. Real time monitoring can be achieved by analyzing body fluids or by applying sensors on, or alternatively, inside the body. Implantable sensors, however, must be removed. Second removal procedures lead to further tissue damage, which can be a problem in tissues such as those of the central nervous system. The use of biodegradable sensors alleviates these problems since they do not require removal procedures. Recent advances in material science made it possible for all sensor components to be biodegradable. Small size and power of implants, and the limited selection of materials are the main constraints determining the capabilities of the biodegradable device. Thus, the design will be always a challenge exploring a trade-off among these parameters. Despite of the encouraging results illustrating that biodegradable sensors can be as accurate and reliable as commercially available nondegradable ones, biodegradable implantable sensors are still in their infancy. Significant advances made in this area are critically reviewed in this paper, and future prospects are highlighted.     

HANDS: a multimodal dataset for modeling toward human grasp intent inference in prosthetic hands

Intelligent Service Robotics - Upper limb and hand functionality is critical to many activities of daily living, and the amputation of one can lead to significant functionality loss for...     

Effects of Supercritical Fluid Extraction Parameters on Unsaturated Fatty Acid Yields of Pistacia terebinthus Berries

Utilization of renewable resources and development of new processes aimed at converting these materials into value added bio-products are gaining more emphasis. The scope of this study was to optimize supercritical CO₂ extraction (SFE) parameters such as pressure, temperature and flow rate for the yields of unsaturated fatty acids from Pistacia terebinthus berries by a Box-Behnken statistical design. All samples were analyzed for fatty acids by GC-FID. The most effective variables were pressure (P < 0.005) and flow rate (P ≤ 0.005). Maximizing the evaluative criteria for dependent variables (oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid), optimal conditions were determined to be 240 bar, 60 °C and a flow rate of 16 g/min yielding 51.2% oleic acid, 26.5% linoleic acid and 1.0% linolenic acid. The amounts of unsaturated fatty acids in SFE samples (81.3%) were higher than the hexane (74.3%) and were similar to that of cold press samples (80.1%). High concentrations of unsaturated fatty acids can indicate the utilization of the berries as a major dietary source and demonstrate challenges for industrial application of SFE as a green technology.     

Reaching Turkey's spontaneous settlements: The institutional dimension of infrastructure provision

Spontaneous settlements, known as gecekondus, now constitute half or more of the housing stock in Turkey's major cities. They are often ill provided with infrastructure and urban services, to the detriment of their residents. A recent (1996) research project sought to understand this problem by using the analytical framework of new institutional economics. In theory, rules should create incentives that shape the behavior of infrastructure providers. In fact, the research discovered that formal rules are largely ineffective. Instead, in the absence of credible formal rules, pressures are exerted that shape informal operating procedures. This and other findings of the research work which are of relevance to both practitioners and theorists of urban development are elaborated upon.     

Effectiveness of different surface cleaning methods on the shear bond strength of resin cement to contaminated zirconia: an in vitro study

The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of different surface cleaning methods on the shear bond strength (SBS) of zirconia ceramic surfaces. Seventy polished and cleaned zirconia disk specimens of 8 mm in diameter and 3.4 mm in thickness were immersed in fresh saliva. They were then pressed into a freshly mixed silicone disclosing medium. Six different cleaning methods were applied to the tested groups; they were airborne-particle abraded (AA), covered with a cleaning paste (Ivoclean®) (IV), etched with orthophosphoric acid (PA), immersed in alcohol (AL), rinsed with tap water only (WA), or cleaned with steam (SC). No surface cleaning was done after saliva immersion and silicone disclosing medium contamination to the control group (CC). The specimens were then bonded to an adhesive resin cement using polyethylene tubes. SBS was determined using a universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 1 mm/min. The specimens were also examined with a scanning electron microscope and a stereomicroscope. Group AA yielded the highest SBS value (7.01 ± 1.4 MPa) among the groups, while Group WA had the lowest SBS value (3.03 ± 0.8 MPa). The SBS values of Group AA (7.01 ± 1.4 MPa) and IV (6.2 ± 1.7 MPa) were also significantly higher than those of the remaining four groups (p < 0.05). Within the limitations of this in vitro study, it was concluded that among the various cleaning methods tested, airborne-particle abrasion and Ivoclean® paste were effective in cleaning the zirconia surface.     

Development of constant output–input force ratio in slider–crank mechanisms

In the slider–crank mechanism whereby output piston force is produced against an input force at crank pin centre, the output force varies rapidly when the crank changes its position. For the applications that require a constant piston pushing force as in feeder mechanisms, a method is needed for identifying the parameters to keep output force at a constant value for any crank angle position. Hence in this study, two methods are shown for a slider–crank mechanism operating in horizontal plane. In the first one, a manual control process to generate a constant piston force and the resulting errors are demonstrated. In the second one, identifying the parameters of a mechanical controller for a readily available slider–crank mechanism in an open force control process and the associated error state are shown. Then, an approach to optimize the results of open force control is explained. Finally, the developed methods are generalized for any orientation of the whole slider–crank mechanism. A user friendly interface is developed to transform all the processes into a computer programme. The effectiveness of the methods are numerically illustrated on examples. The results of these examples show that ±4% deviation from the required output force can be obtained pending on the user’s ability while the optimized open force control process provides a maximum error of ±0.4% without any user intervention during operation.     

Personality scale validities increase throughout medical school.

Admissions and personnel decisions rely on stable predictor–criterion relationships. The authors studied the validity of Big Five personality factors and their facets for predicting academic performance in medical school across multiple years, investigating whether criterion-related validities change over time. In this longitudinal investigation, an entire European country’s 1997 cohort of medical students was studied throughout their medical school career (Year 1, N = 627; Year 7, N = 306). Over time, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness factor and facet scale scores showed increases in operational validity for predicting grade point averages. Although there may not be any advantages to being open and extraverted for early academic performance, these traits gain importance for later academic performance when applied practice increasingly plays a part in the curriculum. Conscientiousness, perhaps more than any other personality trait, appears to be an increasing asset for medical students: Operational validities of conscientiousness increased from .18 to .45. In assessing the utility of personality measures, relying on early criteria might underestimate the predictive value of personality variables. Implications for personality measures to predict work performance are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A characterization of uninorms on bounded lattices by means of triangular norms and triangular conorms

ABSTRACT

Uninorms are generalizations of triangular norms and triangular conorms leaving the freedom for the neutral element to be an arbitrary element from a bounded lattice. In this paper, we study uninorms on bounded lattices and investigate their main characteristics. We also introduce the new construction methods for uninorms on bounded lattices with a neutral element based on the fact that the presence of triangular norms and triangular conorms. Furthermore, we assess and exemplify the differences between our constructions and the present approaches.