Possibilities of the Computer-Controlled Detonation Spraying method: A chemistry viewpoint

This article is aimed to discuss the chemical aspects of detonation spraying of powder materials. In this method of coating deposition, ceramic, metallic or composite powders are injected into the barrel of a detonation gun filled with an explosive gaseous mixture. When the latter is ignited, the powders are heated and accelerated toward the substrate. Subjected to high temperatures, the powders are prone to chemical reactions, the reaction products possibly becoming the major phase constituents of the coatings. What types of reactions are possible? Can these reactions be carried out in a controlled manner? We answer these questions considering the interactions of the sprayed powders with the gaseous environment of the barrel as well as those between the phases of a composite feedstock powder. In Computer-Controlled Detonation Spraying (CCDS), the explosive charge and stoichiometry of the fuel-oxygen mixtures are precisely measured and can be flexibly changed. Our studies demonstrate that with the introduction of a highly flexible process of CCDS, detonation spraying has entered a new development stage, at which it can be considered as a powerful method of composition and microstructure tailoring of thermally sprayed coatings. During CCDS of TiO₂-containing powders, chemical reduction of titanium dioxide can be carried out to different levels to form either oxygen-deficient TiO_2−x or Ti₃O₅ suboxide. CCDS of Ti₃Al can produce titanium oxide coatings when oxidation by the detonation products dominates or titanium nitride-titanium aluminide coatings when oxidation is hindered but the interaction of the powders with nitrogen—a carrier gas component—is favored. During detonation spraying of Ti₃SiC₂–Cu composites, the Ti₃SiC₂ phase is preserved only in cold conditions; otherwise, Si de-intercalates from the Ti₃SiC₂ phase and dissolves in Cu resulting in the formation of the TiC_x–Cu(Si) composite coatings.     

Reversible Cluster Aggregation and Growth Model for Graphene Suspensions

We present a reversible cluster aggregation model for 2‐D macromolecules represented by line segments in 2‐D; and, we use it to describe the aggregation process of functionalized graphene particles in an aqueous SDS surfactant solution. The model produces clusters with similar sizes and structures as a function of SDS concentration in agreement with experiments and predicts the existence of a critical surfactant concentration (C_crit) beyond which thermodynamically stable graphene suspensions form. Around C_crit, particles form dense clusters rapidly and sediment. At C ? C_crit, a contiguous ramified network of graphene gel forms which also densifies, but at a slower rate, and sediments with time. The deaggregation–reaggregation mechanism of our model captures the restructuring of the large aggregates towards a graphite‐like structure for the low SDS concentrations. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 5462–5473, 2017     

The GRAINS thermodynamic and kinetic code for modeling nebular condensation

The GRAINS thermodynamic and kinetic code for modeling condensation and grain growth in the solar nebula is described. The code calculates CWPI-type (Condensation With Partial Isolation) equilibrium partitioning of 33 chemical elements among 242 gaseous and 520 condensed phases, and growth in the nebula of metal and olivine grains by condensation from the nebular gas accompanied by diffusional redistribution of major and trace elements in those grains. Several examples of the GRAINS application to cosmochemical problems are briefly discussed.     

On the Impact of Performance Faults in Modern Microprocessors

Modern microprocessors incorporate a variety of architectural features, such as branch prediction and speculative execution, which are not critical to the correctness of their operation yet are essential towards improving performance. Accordingly, while faults in the corresponding hardware may not necessarily affect functional correctness, they may, nevertheless, adversely impact performance. In this paper, we investigate quantitatively the performance impact of such faults using a superscalar, dynamically-scheduled, out-of-order, Alpha-like microprocessor, on which we execute SPEC2000 integer benchmarks. We provide extensive fault simulation-based experimental results that elucidate the various aspects of performance faults and we discuss how this information may guide the inclusion of additional hardware for performance loss recovery and yield enhancement.     

Empirical mode decomposition on skeletonization pruning

This paper presents a novel skeleton pruning approach based on a 2D empirical mode like decomposition (EMD-like). The EMD algorithm can decompose any nonlinear and non-stationary data into a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). When the object contour is decomposed by empirical mode like decomposition (EMD-like), the IMFs of the object provide a workspace with very good properties for obtaining the object's skeleton. The theoretical properties and the performed experiments demonstrate that the obtained skeletons match to hand-labeled skeletons provided by human subjects. Even in the presence of significant noise and shape variations, cuts and tears, the resulted skeletons have the same topology as the original skeletons. In particular, the proposed approach produces no spurious branches as many existing skeleton pruning methods and moreover, does not displace the skeleton points, which are all centers of maximal disks.     

Wärme-oder Stoffübertragung an einfachen Körpern in einem begrenzten Flüssigkeitsraum

Ohne Zusammenfassung Schlu? des Aufsatzes aus Heft 4 (1966) S. 101/10.     

Supporting exact indexing of arbitrarily rotated shapes and periodic time series under Euclidean and warping distance measures

Shape matching and indexing is important topic in its own right, and is a fundamental subroutine in most shape data mining algorithms. Given the ubiquity of shape, shape matching is an important problem with applications in domains as diverse as biometrics, industry, medicine, zoology and anthropology. The distance/similarity measure for used for shape matching must be invariant to many distortions, including scale, offset, noise, articulation, partial occlusion, etc. Most of these distortions are relatively easy to handle, either in the representation of the data or in the similarity measure used. However, rotation invariance is noted in the literature as being an especially difficult challenge. Current approaches typically try to achieve rotation invariance in the representation of the data, at the expense of discrimination ability, or in the distance measure, at the expense of efficiency. In this work, we show that we can take the slow but accurate approaches and dramatically speed them up. On real world problems our technique can take current approaches and make them four orders of magnitude faster without false dismissals. Moreover, our technique can be used with any of the dozens of existing shape representations and with all the most popular distance measures including Euclidean distance, dynamic time warping and Longest Common Subsequence. We further show that our indexing technique can be used to index star light curves, an important type of astronomical data, without modification. Reproducible Research Statement: All datasets and images used in this work are freely available at .     

Indirect electrochemical synthesis of active oxygen in dilute sulfate solutions

Anodic oxidation of dilute solutions of sodium sulfate was developed to generate oxidants into aqueous solutions with a diaphragm electrolyzer, which consisted of titanium anodes covered with mixed oxides of iridium, ruthenium and tin, a titanium cathode, and Teflon cation-exchange membrane. An electronic device was created for continuous self-purification of cathode surface from hardness salt deposits. The anodic products of electrolysis were molecular oxygen and sodium persulfate. It should be noted that sodium persulfate was the only active oxidant. The synthesized anolyte was tested for its oxidizing activity towards certain metabolites and toxicants. Disinfecting properties of anolyte were detected towards gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The comparison of redox potentials of commercial samples of persulfate and the synthesized anolyte showed that the redox potential value for the anolyte is much higher than for solutions with the same concentration of commercial persulfate.     

A Cost Effective Tracking System for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems

In this work we address the problem of object tracking in a largely unknown dynamic environment under the additional constraint of real-time operation and limited computational power. The main design directives remain that of real time execution and low price, high availability components. It is in a sense an investigation for the minimum required hardware and algorithmic complexity to accomplish the desired tasks. We present a system that is based on simple techniques such as template matching adapted for use in a dynamically changing environment. After development, the system was evaluated as to its suitability in a traffic monitoring application where it demonstrated adequate performance.