Surface and bulk properties of ancient Egyptian mortars. Part I: X-ray diffraction studies

A series of Ancient Egyptian Mortars were extracted from the great Giza Pyramid, the second Giza Pyramid and the Sphinx and its adjoining temple. X-Ray Diffraction studies revealed the presence of gypsum, calcite and silica in most of the samples with a clearcut predominance of gypsum in the samples extracted from the Sphinx. Calcium silicates of different crystallographic modifications seem to be present in a large proportion of the samples. X-Ray studies carried out on heat-treated samples indicated the prevalence of the hemihydrate or γ-CaSO₄ modification until a temperature as high as 400°C.     

Implicit induction in conditional theories

We propose a new procedure for proof by induction in conditional theories where case analysis is simulated by term rewriting. This technique reduces considerably the number of variables of a conjecture to be considered for applying induction schemes. Our procedure is presented as a set of inference rules whose correctness has been formally proved. Moreover, when the axioms are ground convergent and the functions are completely defined, it is possible to apply the system for refuting conjectures. The procedure is even refutationally complete for conditional equations with Boolean preconditions over free constructors. The method is entirely implemented in the proverSPIKE. This system has solved interesting problems in a completely automatic way, that is, without interaction with the user and without ad hoc heuristics. It has also proved the challenging Gilbreath card trick, with only two easy lemmas.Preliminary versions of the results have been presented at the 13th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Chambéry (France), 1993 (Bouhoula and Rusinowith, 1993).     

QRS detection based on wavelet coefficients

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal processing and analysis provide crucial information about functional status of the heart. The QRS complex represents the most important component within the ECG signal. Its detection is the first step of all kinds of automatic feature extraction. QRS detector must be able to detect a large number of different QRS morphologies. This paper examines the use of wavelet detail coefficients for the accurate detection of different QRS morphologies in ECG. Our method is based on the power spectrum of QRS complexes in different energy levels since it differs from normal beats to abnormal ones. This property is used to discriminate between true beats (normal and abnormal) and false beats. Significant performance enhancement is observed when the proposed approach is tested with the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database (MITDB). The obtained results show a sensitivity of 99.64% and a positive predictivity of 99.82%.     

A new scalable multicast routing algorithm for interactive real-time applications

Quality of service (QoS) provisioning generally assumes more than one QoS measure that implies that QoS routing can be categorized as an instance of routing subject to multiple constraints: delay jitter, bandwidth, cost, etc. We study the problem of constructing multicast trees to meet the QoS requirements of real-time interactive applications where it is necessary to provide bounded delays and bounded delay variation among the source and all destinations while keeping overall cost of the multicast tree low. The main contribution of our work is a new strategy for constructing multiconstrained multicast trees. We first derive mathematically a new delay-variation estimation scheme and prove its efficiency. Thereafter, we propose a simple and competitive (in terms of running time) heuristic algorithm, for delay and delay variation constrained routing problem based on the proposed delay-variation estimation scheme and using the Extended Prim-Dijkstra tradeoffs’ algorithm. Our contribution also extends previous works in providing some properties and analyses of delay bounded paths satisfying delay variation constraints. Extensive simulation results show that our algorithm outperforms DVDMR in terms of multicast delay variation with the same time complexity as DVDMR.     

Two-Dimensional Porous PdO/Co3O4 Nanocomposites for Highly Effective Photocatalysts Under Visible-Light Exposure

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - Recently, great efforts have been dedicated to the construct and design of low cost and high-performance photocatalysts for the...     

A flexible air separation process: 1. Design and steady-state optimizations

The flexible operation of energy-intensive processes, such as cryogenic air separation, has economic potential due to increasing fluctuations of the electricity markets. Multiproduct air separation processes with high ratios of liquid product are very promising for flexible operation due to storable products. We present a process design with an integrated liquefication cycle and liquid assist operation, that facilitates a high liquid product ratio and a flexible process operation. We use a mechanistic dynamic process model in steady-state process optimizations covering the wide operational range of the proposed process. The optimization results show that the power demand can be varied in a range from 3.5 to 28 MW without violating operational constraints by changing the nitrogen and oxygen production rates. Thus, the proposed process is a promising air separation candidate for flexible operation with respect to fluctuating electricity markets.     

Automated High Throughput Screening of Fluorescent Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) Assays Using Assay Platform™ Integrated with Activity Base for ‘on the fly’ Compound Reconfirmation

Advances in the field of automation have meant hitherto complex manual cell-based assays can now be automated. These improvements have brought significant enhancements in throughput, data fidelity and consistency, and allowed a reallocation of constrained resources.Building upon these improvements, we have linked our automated cell-based screening system, Assay Platform™, to Activity Base (IDBS), a software package designed to automate the analysis of HTS data. Customisation of this package has resulted in software that can identify ‘active’ compounds and re-pick them ‘on the fly’ from the original compound plates for triplicate re-testing without operator intervention.Based on an operator initially defining ‘normal’ parameters for assay activity in Activity Base, combined with an automated quality control software module that checks data fidelity, wells containing ‘active’ compounds can be re-picked and re-tested at the end of an automated screening run. Automating cell-based assays has significantly improved productivity, and, with the synergism of Activity Base, has given us greater power to complete each screening run and report ‘active’ compounds to Chemistry more rapidly. This article presents our approach to the automation of cell-based Fluorescent Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) screening together with automated active re-test confirmation using Activity Base.     

Hilbert Transform and Statistical Analysis for Channel Selection and Epileptic Seizure Prediction

This paper is concerned with Electroencephalography (EEG) seizure prediction, which means the detection of the pre-ictal state prior to ictal activity occurrence. The basic idea of the proposed approach for EEG seizure prediction is to work on the signals in the Hilbert domain. The operation in the Hilbert domain guarantees working on the low-pass spectra of EEG signal segments to avoid artifacts. Signal attributes in the Hilbert domain including amplitude, derivative, local mean, local variance, and median are analyzed statistically to perform the channel selection and seizure prediction tasks. Pre-defined prediction and false-alarm probabilities are set to select the channels, the attributes, and bins of probability density functions (PDFs) that can be useful for seizure prediction. Due to the multi-channel nature of this process, there is a need for a majority voting strategy to take a decision for each signal segment. Simulation results reveal an average prediction rate of 96.46%, an average false-alarm rate of 0.028077/h and an average prediction time of 60.1595 min for a 90-min prediction horizon.

     

Computational investigation of hydraulic performance variation with geometry in gabion stepped spillways

Over recent years, there has been a clear increase in the frequency of reported flooding events around the world. Gabion structures offer one means of flood mitigation in dam spillways. These types of structures provide an additional challenge to the computational modeller in that flow through the porous gabions must be simulated. We have used a computational model to investigate the flow over gabion stepped spillways. The model was first validated against published experimental results. Then, gabion stepped spillways with four different step geometries were tested under the same conditions in order to facilitate inter-comparisons and to choose the best option in terms of energy dissipation. The results show that normal gabion steps can dissipate more energy than overlap, inclined, and pooled steps. An intensive set of tests with varying slope, stone size, and porosity were undertaken. The location of the inception point and the water depth at this point obtained from this study were compared with those from existing formulae. Two new empirical equations have been derived, on the basis of a regression analysis, to provide improved results for gabion stepped spillways.     

The effect of the external regulator’s absence on children’s speech use, manifested self-regulation, and task performance during learning tasks

The present study was conducted to explore the effect of the absence of the external regulators on children’s use of speech (private/social), task performance, and self-regulation during learning tasks. A novel methodology was employed through a computer-based learning environment that proposed three types/units of encouragement with only two sequences of instructional conditions, Verbal-Gesture-Silent (VGS) versus Silent-Gesture-Verbal (SGV). The Knowledge of response (KR) was applied as: verbal KR feedback with verbal encouragement during the verbal unit, visualization-representation of KR without verbal encouragement during the gesture unit, and no KR feedback without any encouragement during the silent unit. Three measurements were used: speech analysis, novel criteria to measure self-regulation and task performance, and a computer-based friendly chat questionnaire to measure children’s satisfaction. Forty preschool children were divided by their teachers between the two conditions equivalently. It was hypothesized that children in the VGS condition were more speech productive, manifested higher self-regulation, task performance, and satisfaction. The results showed significant differential effect on the speech intensity and manifested self-regulation with no significant differential effect on task performance and satisfaction during learning tasks. However, the results were not confirmed Vygotsky’s view as it were supported (neutralizing, at best) to Piaget’s view of self-regulation development.