Maximum independent set in planning freight railway transportation

This work is devoted to the problem of planning of freight railway transportation. We define a special conflict graph on the basis of a set of acceptable train routes. The investigation aims to solve the classical combinatorial optimization problem in relation to the maximum independent set of vertices in undirected graphs. The level representation of the graph and its tree are introduced. With use of these constructions, the lower and upper bounds for the number of vertices in the maximum independent set are obtained.     

Comparison of glass hydration layer thickness measured by transmission electron microscopy and nanoindentation

The thicknesses of the hydration layers on the surfaces of 2 silicate glasses have been assessed using a) a combination of focused ion beam milling and transmission electron microscopy and b) nanoindentation; the two approaches give consistent layer thicknesses. Lighter contrast of the hydrated layers in TEM suggests that the layers have reduced density when compared to the bulk glasses; this is consistent with the reduced near surface modulus and hardness of hydrated glasses observed in nanoindentation.     

Computational Analysis of Molnupiravir

In this work, we report in-depth computational studies of three plausible tautomeric forms, generated through the migration of two acidic protons of the N⁴-hydroxylcytosine fragment, of molnupiravir, which is emerging as an efficient drug to treat COVID-19. The DFT calculations were performed to verify the structure of these tautomers, as well as their electronic and optical properties. Molecular docking was applied to examine the influence of the structures of the keto-oxime, keto-hydroxylamine and hydroxyl-oxime tautomers on a series of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins. These tautomers exhibited the best affinity behavior (−9.90, −7.90, and −9.30 kcal/mol, respectively) towards RdRp-RTR and Nonstructural protein 3 (nsp3_range 207–379-MES).     

Acoustics of a viscoelastic medium with encapsulated bubbles

In this paper,a modified Rayleigh-Lamb equation is derived that takes into account the radial vibrations of a gas bubble coated with a viscoelastic shell and located in an elastic medium.For small oscillations of inclusion,the problem of heat exchange between a gas,a liquid phase,a viscoelastic shell,and an elastic medium is solved.The energy integral is determined.In the case of small disturbances,the dispersion relation is found from the Rayleigh-Lamb equations,energy,and the known wave equation for the bubbly medium.An analytical expression of the equilibrium speed of sound is written out and its dependence on the size of the viscoelastic shell and the disturbance frequency is established.An example of a mixture of polydimethylsiloxane with air bubbles coated with a rubber shell illustrates the influence of the elasticity of the carrier medium and the shell of the bubbles on the dependence of the phase velocity and attenuation coefficient on the perturbation frequency.For a mixture of water with air bubbles coated with a rubber shell,the influence of the dependences of the shear modulus and viscosity of butyl rubber on the frequency of disturbances at different temperature on the dispersion curves is shown.A comparison of the theory with experimental data is given.     

Assessment of the ability of five culture media for the detection of Escherichia coli O157

Cattle are a common reservoir for Escherichia coli O157:H7. Prior to confirming its presence in a sample, proper isolation of E. coli O157 is necessary. Consequently, this study evaluated the ability of five commercial plating media to isolate E. coli O157 from 138 samples of fresh cattle faeces, water from water trough and pond, and surfaces of water trough and hay bunk. For the isolation of E. coli O157, samples were enriched in tryptic soya broth, followed by immunoseparation and then plating on SMAC, CT‐SMAC, CHROMagar^? O157, Tellurite CHROMagar^? O157 and Vancomycin Cefixime Cefsoludin CHROMagar^? O157. Real‐time PCR targeting genes stx₁, stx₂ and wzy_O157 was used to confirm selected isolates. When analysed together, CT‐SMAC and CHROMagar^? O157 were the best combination for isolating E. coli O157, giving 79% true‐positive results and only 0.05% false‐negative results.     

High order level contour reconstruction method

Complex interfacial physics arising from geometric curvature associated with surface tension as well as phase transformation make it a formidable task to design an accurate, reliable, and yet simple method for direct computation of multiphase flows. Hybrid methods mixing conventional, Volume-of-Fluid, Level Set, Phase Field, and Front Tracking methods have recently become popular in an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of each method alone. We developed the Level Contour Reconstruction Method (LCRM) as part of a hybrid method for treating the complex interface geometry associated with general three-dimensional multiphase flows. The main idea in that work focused on a simple and robust algorithm especially suited for dynamic interfaces in the three-dimensional case by combining characteristics of both Front Tracking and Level Set methods. In this article we describe a modification to the LCRM which introduces a high order interpolation kernel during the course of the interface reconstruction along with a new hybrid surface tension formulation. With this we can essentially eliminate any mass redistribution between regions of differing curvature and reconstruct the interface accurately and smoothly. The improvement with high order reconstruction is also noticeable vis a vis spurious currents which are further decreased by two orders of magnitude over the previous linear reconstruction method. Moreover, there is no disturbance concurrent with reconstruction and the solution fidelity is not influenced by the reconstruction time step. This High Order Level Contour Reconstruction Method retains the simplicity of the original LCRM and avoids complicated interface smoothing procedures.     

Characterization of the bearing length curve

The bearing length curves (BLCs) of sets of differently machined surfaces were investigated. A mathematical model was developed to simulate the BLC. Methods for characterizing the BLC and evaluating the roughness parameters were established using this model. A nomogram was constructed to determine the constant in the model from the measurable roughness parameters.     

Nanoscale Selective Passivation of Electrodes Contacting a 2D Semiconductor

2D semiconducting materials have become the central component of various nanoelectronic devices and sensors. For sensors operating in liquid, it is crucial to efficiently block the electron transfer that occurs between the electrodes contacting the 2D material and the interfering redox species. This reduces current leakages and preserves a good signal‐to‐noise ratio. Here, a simple electrochemical method is presented for passivating the electrodes contacting a monolayer of MoS₂, a representative of transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors. The method is based on blocking the electrode surface by a thin and compact layer of electronically nonconductive poly(phenylene oxide), PPO, formed by electrochemical polymerization of phenol. Since the phenol polymerization occurs in the potential window where MoS₂ is electrochemically inactive, the PPO deposition is area‐selective, limited to the electrode surface. The deposited PPO film is characterized by electrochemical, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy techniques. The applicability of this method is demonstrated by coating the electrodes of a MoS₂‐based field‐effect transistor coupled with a nanopore. The highly selective deposition, the simple approach, and the compatibility with MoS₂ makes this method a good strategy for efficient insulation of micro‐ and nanoelectrodes contacting 2D semiconductor‐based devices.     

Visual spatial-context based wildfire smoke sensor

Sensors for early fire detection based on visual analysis have been under constant development and improvement, especially during the last decade. However, there is still a lot of room for advancement to increase the accuracy and reliability of such sensors. In this paper, a novel method for wildfire smoke detection based on spatial context analysis as well as motion detection, chromatic, texture and shape analysis is introduced. Several measures for evaluating quality of smoke detection are used, both on image and pixel scale. Smoke is a semi-transparent and amorphous phenomenon whose boundaries are hard to determine precisely; therefore, fuzzy measures are introduced for assessing the detection error. The proposed method is evaluated using the proposed measures and compared with two existing methods. The results show that the wildfire sensor based on proposed method is capable of detecting fire-smoke accurately and reliably, and in most detection aspects it outperforms the existing methods.     

Improving disturbance rejection of PI controllers by means of the magnitude optimum method

The magnitude optimum (MO) method provides a relatively fast and nonoscillatory closed-loop tracking response for a large class of process models frequently encountered in the process and chemical industries. However, the deficiency of the method is poor disturbance rejection when controlling low-order processes. In this paper, the MO criterion is modified in order to optimize disturbance rejection performance, while the tracking performance has been improved by an integral set-point filtering PI controller structure. The new tuning rules, referred to as the disturbance rejection magnitude optimum (DRMO) method, were applied to several different two-degrees-of-freedom PI controllers. The DRMO method has also been tested on several different representatives of process models. The results of experiments have shown that the proposed tuning method with the integral set-point filtering PI controller is quite efficient in improving disturbance rejection performance, while retaining tracking performance comparable to the original MO method.