Fine grinding of thermoplastics by high speed friction grinding assisted by guar gum

High speed friction grinding has been used to grind plant and food substances in water but never been explored for grinding of thermoplastics like polylactic acid (PLA), low and high density polyethylene and polypropylene. Such grinding was investigated in this work and was made possible by using 0.5% guar gum solution instead of just water because increasing the viscosity of water reduced their settling and the speed of passing through the grinder. Tensile, flexural, and impact strengths of the plastics were studied and higher grinding efficiency of PLA could be explained by its low elongation-at-break compared to low density polyethylene, high density polyethylene, and polypropylene. The microplastics (2000–45 μm) were studied for mass and particle size distributions and by scanning electron microscopy, ¹³C CP/MAS NMR, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. In addition, viscosity of guar gum and contact angles was measured. This new technology can produce finely ground microplastics (710–45 μm) for a variety of applications.     

Texture and shape information fusion for facial expression and facial action unit recognition

A novel method based on fusion of texture and shape information is proposed for facial expression and Facial Action Unit (FAU) recognition from video sequences. Regarding facial expression recognition, a subspace method based on Discriminant Non-negative Matrix Factorization (DNMF) is applied to the images, thus extracting the texture information. In order to extract the shape information, the system firstly extracts the deformed Candide facial grid that corresponds to the facial expression depicted in the video sequence. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) system designed on an Euclidean space, defined over a novel metric between grids, is used for the classification of the shape information. Regarding FAU recognition, the texture extraction method (DNMF) is applied on the differences images of the video sequence, calculated taking under consideration the neutral and the expressive frame. An SVM system is used for FAU classification from the shape information. This time, the shape information consists of the grid node coordinate displacements between the neutral and the expressed facial expression frame. The fusion of texture and shape information is performed using various approaches, among which are SVMs and Median Radial Basis Functions (MRBFs), in order to detect the facial expression and the set of present FAUs. The accuracy achieved using the Cohn–Kanade database is 92.3% when recognizing the seven basic facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral), and 92.1% when recognizing the 17 FAUs that are responsible for facial expression development.     

A JESS-enabled context elicitation system for providing context-aware Web services

Providing context-aware Web services is an adaptive process of delivering contextually matched Web services to meet service requesters’ needs. We define the term “context” from two perspectives: one from service requesters; and the other from Web services. From the former perspective, context is defined as the surrounding environment affecting requesters’ services discovery and access, such as requesters’ preferences, locations, activities, and accessible network and devices. From the latter perspective, context is defined as the surrounding environment affecting Web services delivery and execution, such as networks and protocols for service binding, devices and platforms for service execution, and so on. This paper presents a Java Expert System Shell (JESS)-enabled context elicitation system featuring an ontology-based context model that formally describes and acquires contextual information pertaining to service requesters and Web services. Based on the context elicitation system, we present a context-aware services-oriented architecture for providing context-aware Web service request, publication, and discovery. Implementation details of the context elicitation system and the evaluation results of context-aware service provision are also reported.     

GLSV: Graphics library stereo vision for OpenGL

This work proposes the development of an auxiliary library for use with OpenGL, to facilitate the creation of graphic applications incorporating stereoscopic representation. This library, christened graphics library stereo vision (GLSV), is designed to remove all calculations involving knowledge of stereo vision theory from the task performed by the programmer without the latter having to change the way he/she has been working with the OpenGL library. The GLSV is distributed under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License agreement.     

New approach for optimizing the interpretation and representation of the degree of historical-archaeological evidence in the virtual reconstructions

Virtual Reality - Virtual reconstruction is defined as the visual recovery of a building or object through the creation of a three-dimensional model of the asset to be reconstructed, in a...     

A CSP model for simple non-reversible and parallel repair plans

This work presents a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) model for the planning and scheduling of disassembly and assembly tasks when repairing or substituting faulty parts. The problem involves not only the ordering of assembly and disassembly tasks, but also the selection of them from a set of alternatives. The goal of the plan is the minimization of the total repairing time, and the model considers, apart from the durations and resources used for the assembly and disassembly tasks, the necessary delays due to the change of configuration in the machines, and to the transportation of intermediate subassemblies between different machines. The problem considers that sub-assemblies that do not contain the faulty part are nor further disassembled, but allows non-reversible and parallel repair plans. The set of all feasible repair plans are represented by an extended And/Or graph. This extended representation embodies all of the constraints of the problem, such as temporal and resource constraints and those related to the selection of tasks for obtaining a correct plan.     

Comparing sensitivities of differently oriented multi-walled carbon nanotubes integrated on silicon wafer for electrochemical biosensors

In this study, we report on multi-walled carbon nanotubes fabricated on silicon substrate with four different orientations via chemical vapor deposition. It is well-known that chemical treatments improve the nanotube electrochemical reactivity by creating edge-like defects on their exposed sidewalls. Before use, we performed an acid treatment on carbon nanotubes. To prove the effect of the treatment on these nanostructured electrodes, contact angles were measured. Then, sensitivities and detection limits were evaluated performing cyclic voltammetry. Two target molecules were used: potassium ferricyanide, an inorganic electroactive molecule, and hydrogen peroxide that is a product of reactions catalyzed by many enzymes, such as oxidases and peroxidases. Carbon nanotubes with tilted tips become hydrophilic after the treatment showing a contact angle of 22° ± 2°. This kind of electrode has shown also the best electrochemical performance. Sensitivity and detection limit values are 110.0 ± 0.5 μA/(mM cm²) and 8 μM for potassium ferricyanide solutions and 16.4 ± 0.1 μA/(mM cm²) and 24 μM using hydrogen peroxide as target compound. Considering the results of wettability and voltammetric measurements, nanotubes with tilted tips-based electrodes are found to be the most promising for future biosensing applications.     

A discontinuous Galerkin solver for Boltzmann–Poisson systems in nano devices

In this paper, we present results of a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) scheme applied to deterministic computations of the transients for the Boltzmann–Poisson system describing electron transport in semiconductor devices. The collisional term models optical-phonon interactions which become dominant under strong energetic conditions corresponding to nano-scale active regions under applied bias. The proposed numerical technique is a finite element method using discontinuous piecewise polynomials as basis functions on unstructured meshes. It is applied to simulate hot electron transport in bulk silicon, in a silicon n⁺–n–n⁺ diode and in a double gated 12 nm MOSFET. Additionally, the obtained results are compared to those of a high order WENO scheme simulation and DSMC (Discrete Simulation Monte Carlo) solvers.