An efficient Neuro-Fuzzy approach to nuclear power plant transient identification

Transient identification in nuclear power plants (NPP) is often a computational very hard task and may involve a great amount of human cognition. The early identification of unexpected departures from steady state behavior is an essential step for the operation, control and accident management in NPPs. The bases for the transient identification relay on the evidence that different system faults and anomalies lead to different pattern evolution in the involved process variables. During an abnormal event, the operator must monitor a great amount of information from the instruments that represents a specific type of event. Recently, several works have been developed for transient identification. These works frequently present a non reliable response, using the “don´t know” as the system output. In this work, we investigate the possibility of using a Neuro-Fuzzy modeling tool for efficient transient identification, aiming to helping the operator crew to take decisions relative to the procedure to be followed in situations of accidents/transients at NPPs. The proposed system uses artificial neural networks (ANN) as first level transient diagnostic. After the ANN has done the preliminary transient type identification, a fuzzy-logic system analyzes the results emitting reliability degree of it. A validation of this identification system was made at the three loops Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) simulator of the Human-System Interface Laboratory (LABIHS) of the Nuclear Engineering Institute (IEN/CNEN/Brazil). The obtained results show the potential of this new transient identification system to be used in an operational NPP in order to assist the operators to take decisions during transients/accidents.     

Paper‐Derived Bioactive Glass Tape

Porous bioactive glass (BaG) structures were manufactured applying novel preceramic paper process. Preceramic papers were produced for aqueous suspensions loaded with different contents of pulp fiber and BaG filler. Pressure loading was applied in order to increase the packing density in the paper sheets. The paper sheets were sintered at 630 °C for 1 h. The porous glass–ceramic specimens were characterized for density, porosity, composition, microstructure, and mechanical properties. A pronounced volumetric shrinkage was observed, but no surface flaws or inhomogeneous areas were detected. The mechanical strength using the ball on three balls test and elastic modulus of sintered specimens vary between 21 and 33 MPa and 0.30–0.85 GPa, respectively.     

ASSESSING THE POSSIBILITY OF MACHINING OF THE SELF-REINFORCED BIORESORBABLE POLYMER P(L/DL)LA 70:30

This new study has sought to assess the machining possibility of the self-reinforced bioresorbable polymer P(L/DL)LA 70:30, used in healthcare. To verify the viability of machining of the components and, consequently, the influence of the cutting parameters on the surface quality of the machined samples, experiments were performed with different values for speed, feed, applications of cutting fluid, material and tool geometry. After machining, the roughness was measured and the generated surfaces were analyzed qualitatively. The interaction of the machining parameters and the surface quality were particularly analyzed on the search for surfaces with the characteristics used in the area of implants that interact with bone tissue, to decide on the viability of machining. With these results, it was determined that the material properties have played a decisive role in the resoluteness of the surface quality of the machined samples. To achieve the necessary characteristics for an implant, the machining parameters should be selected based on the material properties, such as glass transition temperature, molecular mobility and mechanical strength. This work has shown that it is possible to establish parameters for an appropriate machining of the material.     

In vivo assessment of the corrosion of nickel–titanium orthodontic archwires by using scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy

This study was undertaken to assess in vivo the corrosion in two commercial nickel–titanium (NiTi) orthodontic archwires removed from the oral cavity of patients using fluoride mouthwashes. Five volunteers took part in this study on the corrosion behavior of two brands of NiTi archwires (3M and AO (brand of archwire)) during use of two mouthwashes with neutral sodium fluoride 1.1%, one with acidulated fluoride 1.1%, and one with placebo and a control group. Each patient used one mouthwash in three different periods of time for 1 min a day for 30 days. The archwires were assessed with scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The values obtained with atomic force microscopy (AFM) were submitted to normality test, two‐way analysis of variance, and Tukey's test at a significance level of 5%. The AFM images showed a gradual qualitative increase in the roughness of both types of wire between the treatments: control < placebo < neutral fluoride < acidulated fluoride. The arithmetic average of the roughness and root mean square of the roughness were similar. As for 3M archwires, only the acidulated fluoride group differed statistically from the others. As for AO archwires, the control and placebo groups did not differ from each other, but differed from the other fluoride treatments. The group using neutral fluoride also differed significantly from the acidulated fluoride group. 3M archwires were not affected by daily oral challenges. AO archwires were not affected by daily oral challenges either; their association with fluoride, either neutral or acidulated, increased their roughness.     

New insights into the morphology of Trypanosoma cruzi reservosome

Reservosomes are late endosomes present only in members of the Schizotrypanum subgenus of the Trypanosoma genus and are defined as the site of storage of endocytosed macromolecules and lysosomal enzymes. They have been extensively described in Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote: are bounded by a membrane unit, present an electron-dense protein matrix with electron-lucent lipid inclusions, being devoid of inner membranes. Here we performed a detailed ultrastructural analysis of these organelles using a variety of electron microscopy techniques, including ultrathin sectioning, uranyl acetate stained preparations, and freeze fracture, either in intact epimastigotes or in isolated reservosomes. New informations were obtained. First, both isolated and in situ reservosomes presented small profiles of inner membranes that are morphologically similar to the membrane surrounding the organelle. In uranyl acetate stained preparations, internal membrane profiles turned out to be longer than they appeared in ultrathin section images and traversed the organelle diameter. Internal vesicles were also found. Second, endocytosed cargo are not associated with internal vesicles and reach reservosomes on board of vesicles that fuse with the boundary membrane, delivering cargo directly into reservosome lumen. Third, electron-lucent bodies with saturated lipid core surrounded by a membrane monolayer and with unusual rectangular shape were also observed. Fourth, it was possible to demonstrate the presence of intramembranous particles on the E face of both internal vesicles and the surrounding membrane. Collectively, these results indicate that reservosomes have a complex internal structure, which may correlate with their multiple functions.     

Boolean query optimization and the 0-1 hyperbolic sum problem

An intelligent front-end or logic assistant is an interactive program devised to assist the users of an information retrieval system in the formulation of their queries. In order to provide knowledge usable in such a program, we study a problem of query optimization with an average efficiency criterion. We formulate it as a new combinatorial optimization problem, which we call 0-1 hyperbolic sum, and provide an exact branch-and-bound algorithm and two heuristics (of simulated annealing and tabu search type) to solve it. Computational experience illustrating the effectiveness of the tabu search technique is reported.This research was done in part during a visit of the first author to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in July and August 1987, sponsored by CNPq. It was also supported in part by grants 0271 and 0066 of AFOSR to Rutgers University.     

REUSE: A combined routing and link scheduling mechanism for wireless mesh networks

Increasing the capacity of wireless mesh networks has motivated numerous studies. In this context, the cross-layer optimization techniques involving joint use of routing and link scheduling are able to provide better capacity improvements. Most works in the literature propose linear programming models to combine both mechanisms. However, this approach has high computational complexity and cannot be extended to large-scale networks. Alternatively, algorithmic solutions are less complex and can obtain capacity values close to the optimal. Thus, we propose the REUSE algorithm, which combines routing and link scheduling and aims to increase throughput capacity in wireless mesh networks. Through simulations, the performance of the proposal is compared to a developed linear programming model, which provides optimal results, and to other proposed mechanisms in the literature that also deal with the problem algorithmically. We observed higher values of capacity in favor of our proposal when compared to the benchmark algorithms.