Artificial in-plane ordering of textured YBa2Cu3O7?x films deposited on polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia substrates

Anisotropie surface texturing of the polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia substrates, prior to YBa₂Cu₃O_7–x film deposition, is shown to promote in-plane (basal plane) ordering of the film growth in addition to thec-axis texturing. TheJ _c 's of the films in the weak-link-dominated low-field regime are enhanced considerably, and this result is attributed to the reduction of weak links resulting from a reduction in the number of in-plane large-angle grain boundaries.The authors acknowledge the support and encouragement of V. G. Keramidas and P. L. Key. This work was supported by the Electric Power Research Institute (Contract No. RP 7911-13).     

Optimal Track Access Rights Allocation for Agent Negotiation in an Open Railway Market

In open railway access markets, a train service provider (TSP) negotiates with an infrastructure provider (IP) for track access rights. This negotiation has been modeled by a multiagent system in which the IP and the TSP are represented by separate software agents. One of the tasks of the IP agent is to generate feasible (and preferably optimal) track access rights, subject to the constraints submitted by the TSP agent. This paper formulates an IP-TSP transaction and proposes a branch-and-bound algorithm for the IP agent to identify the optimal track access rights. Empirical simulation results show that the model is able to emulate rational agent behaviors. The simulation results also show good consistency between the timetables that were attained from the proposed methods and those that were derived by the scheduling principles adopted in practice.     

A polyampholyte triblock copolymer synthesized for using as the surfactant of miniemulsion polymerization and production of highly uniform microspheres

Miniemulsions based on styrene/azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) in the presence of polyampholyte triblock copolymers as a surfactant and hexadecane (HD) as a cosurfactant were developed. The polyampholyte was prepared by using methyl methacrylate (MMA), methacrylic acid (MAA), and 2‐(dimethylamino) ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) as monomers. For the sake of comparison, a miniemulsion polymerization with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was carried out using the same procedure as the above series. The monomer droplet sizes and their shelf life tests revealed that the polyampholyte could stabilize miniemulsion and lead nucleation mechanisms to droplet nucleation. Miniemulsion polymerization using SDS as the surfactant possess a higher polymerization rate than that of polyampholyte, probably due to the smaller droplet size. Production of uniform microspheres was also carried out in this work. Highly uniform microspheres prepared using polyampholyte as the surfactant in the presence of acetone could be obtained. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 2230–2237, 2003     

Conformational changes after foaming in a protein‐based thermoplastic

Novatein is a biopolymer produced from blood meal and can be foamed for use as a packaging material. The effect of foaming on protein ordered structures such as α‐helices and β‐sheets was investigated using synchrotron Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). Foaming caused a reduction in ordered structures due to an increase in random coils. FTIR also revealed a higher proportion of plasticizer (triethylene glycol, TEG) and β‐sheets toward the surface of enclosed bubbles. Increased TEG will assist foaming with greater plasticization aiding nucleation, while β‐sheets contribute to bubble stabilization. These structural changes occur as foaming takes place close to the degradation temperature of Novatein, and coincide with melting of α‐helices and/or β‐sheets. A more amorphous polymer is therefore produced which is subsequently easier to foam due to its increased elasticity. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46005.     

Approximations and reducts with covering generalized rough sets

The covering generalized rough sets are an improvement of traditional rough set model to deal with more complex practical problems which the traditional one cannot handle. It is well known that any generalization of traditional rough set theory should first have practical applied background and two important theoretical issues must be addressed. The first one is to present reasonable definitions of set approximations, and the second one is to develop reasonable algorithms for attributes reduct. The existing covering generalized rough sets, however, mainly pay attention to constructing approximation operators. The ideas of constructing lower approximations are similar but the ideas of constructing upper approximations are different and they all seem to be unreasonable. Furthermore, less effort has been put on the discussion of the applied background and the attributes reduct of covering generalized rough sets. In this paper we concentrate our discussion on the above two issues. We first discuss the applied background of covering generalized rough sets by proposing three kinds of datasets which the traditional rough sets cannot handle and improve the definition of upper approximation for covering generalized rough sets to make it more reasonable than the existing ones. Then we study the attributes reduct with covering generalized rough sets and present an algorithm by using discernibility matrix to compute all the attributes reducts with covering generalized rough sets. With these discussions we can set up a basic foundation of the covering generalized rough set theory and broaden its applications.     

Cascade of genetic algorithm and decision tree for cancer classification on gene expression data

Abstract: Cancer classification, through gene expression data analysis, has produced remarkable results, and has indicated that gene expression assays could significantly aid in the development of efficient cancer diagnosis and classification platforms. However, cancer classification, based on DNA array data, remains a difficult problem. The main challenge is the overwhelming number of genes relative to the number of training samples, which implies that there are a large number of irrelevant genes to be dealt with. Another challenge is from the presence of noise inherent in the data set. It makes accurate classification of data more difficult when the sample size is small. We apply genetic algorithms (GAs) with an initial solution provided by t statistics, called t‐GA, for selecting a group of relevant genes from cancer microarray data. The decision‐tree‐based cancer classifier is built on the basis of these selected genes. The performance of this approach is evaluated by comparing it to other gene selection methods using publicly available gene expression data sets. Experimental results indicate that t‐GA has the best performance among the different gene selection methods. The Z‐score figure also shows that some genes are consistently preferentially chosen by t‐GA in each data set.     

Automatic 3D model reconstruction of cutting tools from a single camera

Collision detection by machining simulation requires the 3D models of rotating cutters. However, the 3D models of a cutter and holder are not always available. In this paper, a new method is proposed to design an automatic vision-based 3D modeling system, which is able to quickly reconstruct the 3D model of a cutter and holder when they are installed onto the spindle. Only a single camera is mounted on the machine tool to capture the image of the rotating cutter and holder. By viewing the rotating cutter and holder as an object of surface of revolution, the contour of the imaged cutter and holder can be used to reconstruct the 3D model as a stack of circular cross-sections. Then the complete generating function of the cutter and holder can be recovered from the cross-sections. Finally, the 3D model of the cutter is built by rotating the generating function around the spindle axis. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method are verified by experiments on-machine using 12 kinds of cutters and holders, which can satisfy the requirement of collision detection.     

Preference for newspaper size

The past few years has seen a change in the size of newspapers, with publishers moving to a smaller size format. Five ‘standard’ newspaper sizes are used in different countries: Broadsheet, Rhensch, Tabloid, Tall Tabloid and Berliner. These papers vary in both width and height of pages and hence there are implications for human reading comfort, which may be dependent on reading location such as on a lounge chair or on a train. Experiments were carried out to determine preferences for the different sizes and to relate these preferences to the geometric characteristics of the newspapers. For both comfortable and cramped/uncomfortable reading conditions, the rank order of preference for paper types was, from least to most-preferred, Broadsheet, Rhensch, Berliner, Tall Tabloid and Tabloid. Preferences were much stronger when determined in cramped/uncomfortable reading conditions, where most comparisons were significantly different. There was good correlation between participant ratings on several scales and preference, where most factors were related to comfort of holding and controlling the paper.