Bitumen fluxing properties of a new class of sustainable solvents: The isosorbide di-alkyl ethers

The performances of new bio-sourced solvents, the short chain mono- and di-alkyl isosorbide ethers, have been determined and compared to benchmark bitumen fluxes. The influences of fluxes and temperature on the Newtonian viscosity have been assessed. The various fluxes appear to impact also on the visco-elastic behaviour of paving bitumen and dimethyl isosorbide ether (DMI) exhibits good fluxing properties. This bio-sourced solvent has also the property to be fully miscible with water. The bitumen hardness recovery can consequently occur from two different phenomena: evaporation and diffusion from the bitumen to water, making this solvent an appropriate bitumen flux for rainy seasons.     

Influence of fiber optic probe geometry on the applicability of inverse models of tissue reflectance spectroscopy: computational models and experimental measurements

Accurate recovery of tissue optical properties from in vivo spectral measurements is crucial for improving the clinical utility of optical spectroscopic techniques. The performance of inversion algorithms can be optimized for the specific fiber optic probe illumination-collection geometry. A diffusion-theory-based inversion method has been developed for the extraction of tissue optical properties from the shape of normalized tissue diffusion reflectance spectra, specifically tuned for a fiber probe that comprises seven hexagonally close-packed fibers. The central fiber of the probe goes to the spectrometer as the detecting fiber, and the surrounding six outer fibers are connected to the white-light source as illumination fibers. The accuracy of the diffusion-based inversion algorithm has been systematically assessed against Monte Carlo (MC) simulation as a function of probe geometry and tissue optical property combinations. By use of this algorithm, the spectral absorption and scattering coefficients of normal and cancerous tissue are efficiently retrieved. Although there are significant differences between the diffusion approximation and the MC simulation at short source-detector (SD) separations, we show that with our algorithm the tissue optical properties are well retrieved within the SD separation of 0.5-3 mm that is compatible with endoscopic specifications. The presented inversion method is computationally efficient for eventual real-time in vivo tissue diagnostics application.     

A test procedure to characterise the heating performance of domestic microwave ovens

A test procedure has been developed and used to characterise the performance of domestic microwave ovens in relation to the heating of chilled ready meals. The procedure uses reproducible test loads, which simulate the heating and weight loss characteristics of a chilled ready meal under consumer use. The temperature distribution after heating from 5 °C to a defined minimum temperature of 70 °C is measured in the food simulant using a purpose designed multipoint thermocouple ‘hedgehog’ probe. The temperature, weight loss and heating time data from the test are entered into a spreadsheet analysis program, which provides a simple oven performance ‘score’ and/or comprehensive heating performance data.     

Evaluation of disintegrants functionality for orodispersible mini tablets

Objective: This work evaluates the functionalities of different superdisintegrants (SD) for manufacturing orodispersible mini tablets (ODMT) by direct compression.

Methods: Twenty-three formulations varying in SD type, concentration, and lubricant were used to manufacture ODMT. The ODMT were then characterized for the following properties: friability, porosity, tensile strength, in vivo and in vitro disintegration time (DT).

Results: The results show that the presence, type, and concentration of SD did not influence friability, porosity, or tablet tensile strength. With regards to in vivo DT, only cross-linked poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) improved DT in all the tested formulations. Results also showed that when using microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) above 20% in the formulation, DT is longer. Cross-linked carboxymethyl cellulose accelerates DT when the MCC content is less than 20%. As for cross-linked carboxymethyl starch and calcium alginate showed no improvement on DT. Results for in vitro DT were all shorter than in vivo results and there was no correlation with the in vivo evaluation.

Conclusions: This study shows that there is a need to develop better in vitro testing that precisely simulates in vivo conditions and that are adapted to ODMT. This standardization of the test methods for ODMTs must be accompanied by an improvement in the comprehension of SD mechanisms.     

Dynamic and Tunable Threshold Voltage in Organic Electrochemical Transistors

In recent years, organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have found applications in chemical and biological sensing and interfacing, neuromorphic computing, digital logic, and printed electronics. However, the incorporation of OECTs in practical electronic circuits is limited by the relative lack of control over their threshold voltage, which is important for controlling the power consumption and noise margin in complementary and unipolar circuits. Here, the threshold voltage of OECTs is precisely tuned over a range of more than 1 V by chemically controlling the electrochemical potential at the gate electrode. This threshold voltage tunability is exploited to prepare inverters and amplifiers with improved noise margin and gain, respectively. By coupling the gate electrode with an electrochemical oscillator, single‐transistor oscillators based on OECTs with dynamic time‐varying threshold voltages are prepared. This work highlights the importance of electrochemistry at the gate electrode in determining the electrical properties of OECTs, and opens a path toward the system‐level design of low‐power OECT‐based electronics.     

On Computing the Prediction Sum of Squares Statistic in Linear Least Squares Problems with Multiple Parameter or Measurement Sets

The prediction sum of squares is a useful statistic for comparing different models. It is based on the principle of leave-one-out or ordinary cross-validation, whereby every measurement is considered in turn as a test set, for the model parameters trained on all but the held out measurement. As for linear least squares problems, there is a simple well-known non-iterative formula to compute the prediction sum of squares without having to refit the model as many times as the number of measurements. We extend this formula to cases where the problem has multiple parameter or measurement sets. We report experimental results on the fitting of a warp between two images, for which the number of deformation centres is automatically selected, based on one of the proposed non-iterative formulae.     

Implicit Blending Revisited

Blending is both the strength and the weakness of functionally based implicit surfaces (such as F‐reps or soft‐objects). While it gives them the unique ability to smoothly merge into a single, arbitrary shape, it makes implicit modelling hard to control since implicit surfaces blend at a distance, in a way that heavily depends on the slope of the field functions that define them. This paper presents a novel, generic solution to blending of functionally‐based implicit surfaces: the insight is that to be intuitive and easy to control, blends should be located where two objects overlap, while enabling other parts of the objects to come as close to each other as desired without being deformed. Our solution relies on automatically defined blending regions around the intersection curves between two objects. Outside of these volumes, a clean union of the objects is computed thanks to a new operator that guarantees the smoothness of the resulting field function; meanwhile, a smooth blend is generated inside the blending regions. Parameters can automatically be tuned in order to prevent small objects from blurring out when blended into larger ones, and to generate a progressive blend when two animated objects come in contact.     

Architecture for the next generation system management tools

To get more results or greater accuracy, computational scientists execute their applications on distributed computing platforms such as clusters, grids, and clouds. These platforms are different in terms of hardware and software resources as well as locality: some span across multiple sites and multiple administrative domains, whereas others are limited to a single site/domain. As a consequence, in order to scale their applications up, the scientists have to manage technical details for each target platform. From our point of view, this complexity should be hidden from the scientists, who, in most cases, would prefer to focus on their research rather than spending time dealing with platform configuration concerns.In this article, we advocate for a system management framework that aims to automatically set up the whole run-time environment according to the applications’ needs. The main difference with regards to usual approaches is that they generally only focus on the software layer whereas we address both the hardware and the software expectations through a unique system. For each application, scientists describe their requirements through the definition of a virtual platform (VP) and a virtual system environment (VSE). Relying on the VP/VSE definitions, the framework is in charge of (i) the configuration of the physical infrastructure to satisfy the VP requirements, (ii) the set-up of the VP, and (iii) the customization of the execution environment (VSE) upon the former VP. We propose a new formalism that the system can rely upon to successfully perform each of these three steps without burdening the user with the specifics of the configuration for the physical resources, and system management tools. This formalism leverages Goldberg’s theory for recursive virtual machines (Goldberg, 1973 [6]) by introducing new concepts based on system virtualization (identity, partitioning, aggregation) and emulation (simple, abstraction). This enables the definition of complex VP/VSE configurations without making assumptions about the hardware and the software resources. For each requirement, the system executes the corresponding operation with the appropriate management tool.As a proof of concept, we implemented a first prototype that currently interacts with several system management tools (e.g., OSCAR, the Grid’5000 toolkit, and XtreemOS) and that can be easily extended to integrate new resource brokers or cloud systems such as Nimbus, OpenNebula, or Eucalyptus, for instance.