BUILDING USER TASK SPACE BY MINING TEMPORALLY PROXIMATE DESKTOP ACTIONS

Awareness of the user's current context, that is, the task the user resides in, can allow for various ways of supporting their work. In this article we present a novel approach for mining user's regular tasks on the basis of temporal proximity of users’ desktop actions without user intervention in a completely automatic, unobtrusive, and unsupervised manner. The proposed method is based on time-based clustering of a user's desktop actions and, in contrast to previous approaches, it does not enforce fixed time constraints on the mined actions, and typical transition times, when they exist, emerge from the logged activity data for that specific user. The performance of our technique was evaluated on a large data set of 724 days of desktop work by five knowledge workers. The results showed that our approach performed very well and was able to cluster those temporally proximate user actions that commonly used fix time window techniques fail to deal with. Notably, the main improvement is in the recall of the tasks, where our approach recalled 10.18% more actions than the predefined time window technique.     

Selected Papers on Improving Heat Transfer via Electrohydrodynamic Technique

Penetrative convection in a stably stratified fluid has been reproduced in laboratory by employing a tank filled with water and subjected to heating from below. The goal of the experiments is predicting the mixing layer growth as a function of initial and boundary conditions and describing the fate of a tracer dissolved in the fluid phase. The equipment employed is suitable for simultaneously providing temperatures inside the domain through thermocouples and Lagrangian particle trajectories by feature tracking. The field of view is illuminated through a thin light sheet with suitable optical equipment. To fully characterize the transport feature of the phenomenon under investigation, the mixing layer growth is detected employing both temperature data and statistics of the velocity field, i.e., the vertical velocity component standard deviation. The velocity spatial correlation allows the plume horizontal dimension to be determined. This information coupled with the knowledge of the mixing layer height allows the spatial extension of the convective region to be fully described.     

Estimation of stresses in atmospheric ice during aeolian vibration of power transmission lines

Aeolian vibration in bare and iced cable was simulated using the theory of cable vibration. High frequency vibration creates stresses in the cable and consequently in the ice covering that cable, which may result in ice failure and eventually ice shedding. These stresses were estimated in this study. Displacement of the cable during vibration was determined; furthermore, instantaneous wind loads in vertical and transverse directions, additional stresses induced by the motion in the cable and in the atmospheric ice, as well as torque due to cable springback were calculated. In order to simulate the loading conditions of a chunk of atmospheric ice in the middle of a span, a new model was developed using ABAQUS. Results from this model show in spite of high frequency vibration, the resulting level of stress in atmospheric ice is far less than its failure limit. In other words, the atmospheric ice under the condition assumed in this investigation does not shed due to aeolian vibration.     

Influence of surface treatments on fatigue life of Al 7010 alloy

The objective of the present work is to show the influence of machining and anodizing processes on fatigue life of alloy 7010-T7451. Two different cutting conditions were employed to obtain two different initial surface roughnesses. Degreasing, pickling and anodizing were then carried out. In the as machined condition, surface roughness is clearly effective in reducing fatigue life in this material. As the surface roughness increases fatigue life decreases and this effect is found to be more pronounced in high cycle fatigue where major portion of fatigue life is consumed in nucleating the cracks. Effects of pre-treatments, like degreasing and pickling employed prior to anodizing, on fatigue life of the given alloy were also studied. Fatigue curves showed that pickling had negative impact on fatigue life of specimens while degreasing showed no change in fatigue life. The small decrease in fatigue life of anodized specimens as compare to pickled specimens is attributed to brittle nature and micro-cracking of the coating. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) examination revealed multi-site crack initiation for the pickled and anodized specimens. SEM examination also showed that pickling process attacked the grain boundaries and the inclusions present on the surface resulting in pits formation. These pits are of primary concern with respect to accelerated fatigue crack nucleation and subsequent anodized coating formation.     

Palladium nanoparticles as reusable catalyst for the synthesis of N-aryl sulfonamides under mild reaction conditions

An efficient palladium nanoparticles-catalyzed N-arylation of sulfonamides and sulfonyl azides is described. This procedure serves as an active protocol for intermolecular C–N bond formation using Pd(OAc)₂ in PEG-400 under air. Aryl bromides and triflates react at 35°C, while aryl chlorides require heating to 50°C and give the desired products only in low yields. This reaction proceeds smoothly in acceptable yields using low catalyst loading.     

Cadmium adsorption on modified chitosan‐coated bentonite: batch experimental studies

BACKGROUND: Several researchers have investigated the use of chitosan as an adsorbent for removal of heavy metals from aqueous streams. Chitosan flake or powder swells and crumbles making it unsuitable for use in an adsorption column. Chitosan also has a tendency to agglomerate or form a gel in aqueous media. The adsorption capacity can be enhanced by spreading chitosan on physical supports that can increase the accessibility of the metal binding sites. Although several attempts have been made to enhance the adsorption capacity of chitosan, using various chemicals, the sorption capacity for metal ions decreased after cross‐linking of chitosan. RESULTS: Bentonite was coated with chitosan (Chi) and its derivative, 3,4‐dimethoxy‐benzaldehyde (Chi/DMB). The product was then used as adsorbent for the removal of Cd²⁺ from aqueous solutions. The presence of imine groups resulting from chemical modification was confirmed using IR, DRS and SEM. The adsorption followed the Langmuir isotherm and could be described by pseudo‐second order kinetics. CONCLUSION: Chi/DMB coated on bentonite increased the accessibility of metal binding sites. The Chi/DMB/bentonite showed no significant pH dependence in the pH range 2–9, but bentonite coated with chitosan revealed very intensive pH dependence, which had a considerable effect on cadmium removal. As expected adsorption of Cd²⁺ by Chi/bentonite and Chi/DMB/bentonite is dependent on contact time and adsorbent dose. In addition, an EDTA solution is suitable for desorption of cadmium ions, and the reusability of Chi/DMB/bentonite is quite good. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

An optimal algorithm for rectilinear steiner trees for channels with obstacles

The channel rectilinear Steiner tree problem is to construct an optimal rectilinear Steiner tree interconnecting n terminals on the upper shore and the lower shore of a channel without crossing any obstacles inside the channel. However, intersecting boundaries of obstacles is allowed. We present an algorithm that computes an optimal channel rectilinear Steiner tree in O(F₁(k)n + F₂(k)) time, where k is the number of obstacles inside the channel and F₁ and F₂ are exponential functions of k. For any constant k the proposed algorithm runs in O(n) time.     

Intrarenal nitric oxide activity and pressure natriuresis in anesthetized dogs

In the course of an ongoing cohort study on constitutional and occupational risk factors for the development of irritant hand dermatitis in hairdressing apprentices, an increased prevalence of irritant skin changes was noted in a subgroup examined during particularly cold winter months. Prompted by this observation, the importance of several meteorological factors (day means of temperature, relative and absolute humidity) was assessed in extensive statistical analyses based on data of 742 participants, supplemented by meteorological information obtained from the German Meteorological Service (DWD). There were significant associations of existing hand dermatitis with low temperature and low absolute humidity (Mann-Whitney U-test, P < 0.0001), but not with relative humidity (P = 0.38). Logistic regression analysis, including known determinants of irritant hand dermatitis in this setting, showed that low temperature and low relative humidity tended to be risk factors (OR = 1.66 and 1.57, respectively, for the lower quartiles, P = 0.07 in both cases), and confirmed that absolute humidity significantly influenced the occurrence of irritant hand dermatitis (OR = 2.06 for < 4.8 mg/L, P < 0.01). Thus, these environmental factors must be regarded as possible confounders in the analysis of future epidemiological studies on irritant hand dermatitis and should be considered in multifactorial analyses.     

A damage identification method for truss structures using a flexibility-based damage probability index and differential evolution algorithm

An efficient method for the multiple damage detection of truss systems using a flexibility-based damage probability index (FBDPI) and differential evolution algorithm (DEA) is proposed. In the first step, a new FBDPI is introduced to find the potentially damaged elements of truss systems. The proposed FBDPI is based on the changes of elemental strain, due to damage, computed by the flexibility matrix of the structure. The flexibility matrix of the structure is dynamically estimated using modal analysis data. In the second step, the reduced damage problem is transformed into a standard optimization problem having few damage variables. Then, the DEA is employed to solve the optimization problem for determining the actual location and severity of damaged elements. Simulation results considering measurement noise demonstrate the high efficiency of the proposed method for the damage detection of truss structures.