Synthesis and NMR studies of the polymer membranes based on poly(4-vinylbenzylboronic acid) and phosphoric acid

Proton conduction in novel anhydrous membranes based on host polymer, poly(4-vinylbenzylboronic acid), (P4VBBA) and phosphoric acid, (H₃PO₄) as proton solvent was studied. The materials were prepared by the insertion of the proton solvent into P4VBBA at different stoichiometric ratios to get P4VBBA·xH₃PO₄ composite electrolytes. Homopolymer and the composite materials were characterized by FT-IR, ¹¹B MAS NMR and ³¹P MAS NMR. ¹¹B MAS NMR results suggested that acid doping favors or leads to a four-coordinated boron arrangement. ³¹P MAS NMR results illustrated the immobilization of phosphoric acid to the polymer through condensation with boron functional groups (B-O-P and/or B-O-P-O-B). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that the condensation of composite materials starts approximately at 140 °C. An exponential weight loss above this temperature was attributed to intermolecular condensation of acidic units forming cross-linked polymer. The insertion of phosphoric acid into the matrix softened the materials shifting T_g to lower temperatures. The temperature dependence of the proton conductivity was modeled with Arrhenius relation. P4VBBA·2H₃PO₄ has a maximum proton conductivity of 0.0013 S/cm at RT and 0.005 S/cm at 80 °C.     

Variation of sludge volume index with activated sludge characteristics

Activated sludge samples from 2 laboratory units and 12 sewage treatment plants were examined to determine the effect of filamentous microorganisms, floc size and suspended solids concentration on SVI. An attempt was also made to correlate SVI to zone settling velocity. At a suspended solids concentration range of 700–4800 mg 1⁻¹ there was no effect of filamentous microorganisms at filament length concentrations below 10⁷μm (mg SS)⁻¹. However, when it was over 10⁷ μm (mg SS)⁻¹ SVI increased sharply with increasing concentrations of filamentous microorganisms.At all suspended solids concentrations examined SVI varied with floc size at filament length concentrations below 10 μm (mg SS)⁻¹. But, at filament length concentrations higher than this level, no effect of floc size on SVI was observed.The effect of suspended solids concentration on SVI was examined at different levels of filament lengths. It was found that the shape of SVI-suspended solids concentration curve varied with the level of filament lengths. A well defined relationship was found between SVI and zone settling velocity at all suspended solids concentrations examined.     

The use of novel photobleachable phthalocyanines to image DNA

The interaction of cationic photobleachable cobalt 1 and palladium 2 phthalocyanines (pcs) with calf thymus (CT) DNA was investigated by UV/vis spectrophotometric methods and gel electrophoresis. With the addition of pcs, the change in the thermal denaturation profile of DNA was observed. The results indicated that these molecules exhibit efficient DNA binding activity. The new cationic cobalt derivative 1 was characterized by elemental analysis, UV, IR and mass spectrophotometry.     

Sketched symbol recognition with auto-completion

Sketching is a natural mode of communication that can be used to support communication among humans. Recently there has been a growing interest in sketch recognition technologies for facilitating human–computer interaction in a variety of settings, including design, art, and teaching. Automatic sketch recognition is a challenging problem due to the variability in hand drawings, the variation in the order of strokes, and the similarity of symbol classes. In this paper, we focus on a more difficult task, namely the task of classifying sketched symbols before they are fully completed. There are two main challenges in recognizing partially drawn symbols. The first is deciding when a partial drawing contains sufficient information for recognizing it unambiguously among other visually similar classes in the domain. The second challenge is classifying the partial drawings correctly with this partial information. We describe a sketch auto-completion framework that addresses these challenges by learning visual appearances of partial drawings through semi-supervised clustering, followed by a supervised classification step that determines object classes. Our evaluation results show that, despite the inherent ambiguity in classifying partially drawn symbols, we achieve promising auto-completion accuracies for partial drawings. Furthermore, our results for full symbols match/surpass existing methods on full object recognition accuracies reported in the literature. Finally, our design allows real-time symbol classification, making our system applicable in real world applications.     

Design and implementation of a Secure Bandwidth Broker Discovery Protocol

Differentiated Services architecture definition lacks control level functionalities. One of the solutions proposed to fill this gap is Bandwidth Brokers (BB). Bandwidth Brokers are autonomous entities inside a network which is responsible for bandwidth management of the network along with other tasks. There is a lack of protocol for Bandwidth Brokers to discover other Bandwidth Brokers automatically. This study introduces a new Secure Bandwidth Broker Discovery Protocol (BBDP), which allows Bandwidth Brokers to automatically discover other Bandwidth Brokers. In this paper design principles, protocol details, working scenarios and implementation details of the BBDP protocol are presented.     

Approximate solutions for nonlinear oscillation of a mass attached to a stretched elastic wire

In this paper, the approximate solutions of the mathematical model of a mass attached to a stretched elastic wire are presented. At the beginning of the study, the equation of motion is derived in a detailed way. He’s max–min approach, He’s frequency–amplitude method and the parameter-expansion method are implemented to solve the established model. The numerical results are further compared with the approximate analytical solutions for both a small and large amplitude of oscillations, and a very good agreement is observed. The relative errors are computed to illustrate the strength of agreement between the numerical and approximate analytical results.     

Soft substructures of rings,fields and modules

Soft set theory, proposed by Molodtsov, has been regarded as an effective mathematical tool to deal with uncertainties. In this paper, we introduce and study soft subrings and soft ideals of a ring by using Molodtsov’s definition of the soft sets. Moreover, we introduce soft subfields of a field and soft submodule of a left $R$-module. Some related properties about soft substructures of rings, fields and modules are investigated and illustrated by many examples.     

Scalar Field Cosmology in <Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>,<Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis>) Gravity with Λ

We study the behavior of cosmological parameters, massive and massless scalar fields (normal or phantom) with a scalar potential in f(R, T) theory of gravity for a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe. To get exact solutions to the modified field equations, we use the f(R, T) = R + 2f(T) model by Harko et al. (T. Harko et al., Phys. Rev. D 84, 024020 (2011)), where R is the Ricci scalar and T is the trace of the energy momentum tensor. Our cosmological parameter solutions agree with the recent observational data. Finally, we discuss our results with various graphics.     

Quality of decision making and group norms.

Two studies investigated the impact of group norms for maintaining consensus versus norms for critical thought on group decisions in a modification of the biased sampling paradigm (G. Stasser & W. Titus, 1985). Both studies showed that critical norms improved the quality of decisions, whereas consensus norms did not. This effect appeared to be mediated by the perceived value of shared and unshared information: Consensus norm groups valued shared information more highly than critical groups did, and valence was a good predictor of decision outcome. In addition, the 2nd study showed that the group norm manipulation has no impact on individual decisions, consistent with the assumption that this is a group effect. Results suggest that the content of group norms is an important factor influencing the quality of group decision-making processes and that the content of group norms may be related to the group's proneness for groupthink. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in concentration of aflatoxin M1 during manufacture and storage of skim milk powder

In this study, skim milk powder was produced from cow's milk contaminated artificially with aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) at two different levels, 1.5 and 3.5 microg/liter (ppb), and the effects of process stages on the AFM1 contents were investigated. Pasteurization, concentration, and spray drying caused losses of about 16, 40, and 68%, respectively, in AFM1 content of the milk contaminated with 1.5 microg/liter AFM1, and losses of 12, 35, and 59%, respectively, in the milk contaminated with 3.5 microg/liter AFM1. These losses were found to be statisticially significant at the level of P < 0.01. After 3- and 6-month storage periods, AFM1 content of the skim milk powder produced from milk with 1.5 microg/liter AFM1 decreased by 2 and 5%, respectively, whereas these rates were 2 and 4%, respectively, for the skim milk powders made from milk with 3.5 microg/liter AFM1 (after adjustment for sample weight). Changes in AFM1 content of milk powder samples were found statistically insignificant (P > 0.05 and P > 0.01) for 3- and 6-month storage periods.