Early-warning performance monitoring system (EPMS) using the business information of a project

An early-warning performance monitoring system (EPMS) is proposed to objectively measure and monitor the performance of a project for early detection of inherent poor performance problems. The EPMS is built based on project progress data and consists of a database of business information, an optimized theoretical model used as a performance measurement baseline, and an index for monitoring and forecasting the performance. By monitoring the performance through an application of the EPMS to the Korean construction project, the quarterly variation of index was found to differ by project type. These results could explain the environmental changes in the project execution. Therefore, the EPMS is expected to be an alternative for objective performance monitoring and forecasting while applying the existing methods is difficult because of the limited available data on performance indicators. The development procedures may also be useful to researchers interested in approaches to quantitatively analyze trends in various industries.     

A web-based 3D ontology navigation system for spinal disease diagnosis

The Journal of Supercomputing - This paper presents a web-based three-dimensional (3D) navigation system for a spinal disease ontology using a 3D virtual human spine. The 3D navigation system...     

A continuous reverse skyline query processing scheme for multimedia data sharing in mobile environments

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Recently, various query processing schemes in mobile environments have been studied. Particularly, a reverse skyline query that is the variation of a skyline...     

The latent learning model to derive semantic relations of words from unstructured text data in social media

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Unstructured text data is very important in many applications because it reflects the thought of the people who create this data. However, it is difficult to...     

Photo-crosslinking: An Emerging Chemical Tool for Investigating Molecular Networks in Live Cells

Studying protein–protein interactions (PPIs) is useful for understanding cellular functions and mechanisms. Evaluating these PPIs under conditions as similar as possible to native conditions can be achieved using photo-crosslinking methods because of their on-demand ability to generate reactive species in situ by irradiation with UV light. Various fusion tag, metabolic incorporation, and amber codon suppression approaches using various crosslinkers containing aryl azide, benzophenone, and diazirines have been applied in live cells. Mass spectrometry and immunological techniques are used to identify crosslinked proteins based on their capture transient and context-dependent interactions. Herein we discuss various incorporation methods and crosslinkers that have been used for interactome mapping in live cells.     

Automatic Transformation of Membrane‐Type Electronic Devices into Complex 3D Structures via Extrusion Shear Printing and Thermal Relaxation of Acrylonitrile–Butadiene–Styrene Frameworks

This work demonstrates a means of automatic transformation from planar electronic devices to desirable 3D forms. The method uses a spatially designed thermoplastic framework created via extrusion shear printing of acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) on a stress‐free ABS film, which can be laminated to a membrane‐type electronic device layer. Thermal annealing above the glass transition temperature allows stress relaxation in the printed polymer chains, resulting in an overall shape transformation of the framework. In addition, the significant reduction in the Young's modulus and the ability of the polymer chains to reflow in the rubbery state release the stress concentration in the electronic device layer, which can be positioned outside the neutral mechanical plane. Electrical analyses and mechanical simulations of a membrane‐type Au electrode and indium gallium zinc oxide transistor arrays before and after transformation confirm the versatility of this method for developing 3D electronic devices based on planar forms.     

Amelioration in physicochemical properties and single cell performance of sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) block copolymer composite membrane using sulfonated carbon nanotubes for intermediate humidity fuel cells

A composite membrane composed of a sulfonated diblock copolymer (SDBC) based on poly(ether ether ketone) blocks copolymerized with partially fluorinated poly(arylene ether sulfone) and sulfonated carbon nanotubes (SCNTs) was fabricated by simple solution casting. Addition of the SCNT filler enhanced the water absorption and proton conductivity of membranes because of the increased per‐cluster volume of sulfonic acid groups, at the same time reinforced the membranes' thermal and mechanical properties. The SDBC/SCNT‐1.5 membrane exhibited the most improved physicochemical properties among all materials. It obtained a proton conductivity of 10.1 mS/cm at 120°C under 20% relative humidity (RH) which was 2.6 times more improved than the pristine membrane (3.9 mS/cm). Moreover, the single cell performance of the SDBC/SCNT‐1.5 membrane at 60°C and 60% RH at ambient pressure exhibited a peak power density of 171 mW/cm² at a load current density of 378 mA/cm², while the pristine membrane exhibited 119 mW/cm² at a load current density of 294 mA/cm². Overall, the composite membrane exhibited very promising characteristics to be used as polymer electrolyte membrane in fuel cells operated at intermediate RH.     

Blockchain Network Based Topic Mining Process for Cognitive Manufacturing

Wireless Personal Communications - Cognitive manufacturing has brought about an innovative change to the 4th industrial revolution based technology in combination with blockchain distributed...     

Multiphase topology optimization with a single variable using the phase-field design method

In this study, a multimaterial topology optimization method using a single variable is proposed by combining the solid isotropic material with penalization method and the reaction-diffusion equation. Unlike ordinary multimaterial optimization, which requires several variables depending on the number of material types, this method intends to represent various materials as one variable. The proposed method combines two special functions in the sensitivity analysis of the objective function to converge the design variable into prespecified density values defined for each of the multimaterials. The composition constraint based on a normal distribution function is also introduced to estimate the distribution of each target density value in a single variable. It enables density exchange between multiple materials by increasing or decreasing the amount of a specific material. The proposed method is applied to structural and electromagnetic problems to verify its effectiveness, and its usefulness is also confirmed from the viewpoint of cost and computation time.     

Textural properties of gelling system of low-methoxy pectins produced by demethoxylating reaction of pectin methyl esterase

ABSTRACT:  After deesterification of commercial pectins with a pectin methyl esterase (PME), their gelling properties were characterized using instrumental texture analysis. The final degree of esterification (DE) of the high- and low-methoxy pectins reached approximately 6% after the PME treatment, while deesterification of low-methoxy amidated pectin stopped at 18% DE. Furthermore, DE of high-methoxy pectin was tailored to be 40%, which is equivalent to the DE of commercial low-methoxy pectin. As a result, significant changes in molecular weight (Mw) distribution were observed in the PME-treated pectins. The texture profile analysis showed that PME modification drastically increased hardness, gumminess, and chewiness, while decreasing cohesiveness and adhesiveness of the pectin gels ( P < 0.05). The pectin gel with relatively high peak molecular weight (Mp, 3.5 × 10⁵) and low DE (6), which was produced from high-methoxy pectin, exhibited the greatest hardness, gumminess, chewiness, and resilience. The hardness of low-methoxy amidated pectin increased over 300% after PME deesterification, suggesting that the effects of amide substitution could be reinforced when DE is even lower. The partial least square regression analysis indicated that the Mw and DE of the pectin molecule are the most crucial factors for hardness, chewiness, gumminess, and resilience of gel matrix.