Enhanced frontier-based exploration for indoor environment with multiple robots

In this paper, the exploration and map-building of unknown environment by a team of mobile robots is intensively investigated. A new exploration technique is proposed to increase the exploration efficiency. In particular, the new technique has two main objectives: firstly, it aims at reducing the exploration time and the traveled distance by reducing the overlap which takes place when a certain area in the environment is explored by more than one robot. To achieve this, a new procedure to assign the next target location for each individual robot is proposed. And secondly, it aims at reducing computations complexity required by target selection and path planning tasks. More importantly, the proposed technique obviates the need for environment segmentation complex procedures which is adopted in some previous important research works. The new technique is intensively tested with different environments. The results showed the effectiveness of the proposed technique.     

A combined device for the joint study of the surface tensions and electron work functions of liquid-metal melts at low temperatures

The design and test data of the combined device, which is intended to simultaneously measure the surface tensions and electron work functions of metals and alloys in static high-vacuum conditions in a temperature range of 60–400 K, are given. The measurements of the electron work function of pure Na, K, Rb, and Cs and near-eutectic alloys of the ternary Na-K-Cs system showed high reliability and accuracy of the obtained data.     

Hydrogenation of p‐Nitrophenol to p‐Aminophenol as a Test Reaction for the Catalytic Activity of Supported Pt Catalysts

Hydrogenation of p‐nitrophenol (PNP) to p‐aminophenol (PAP) using NaBH₄ as a reducing agent was studied as a test reaction for determining the catalytic activity of supported Pt catalysts. The initial reaction rate, which is accessible within less than 10 min via online UV‐vis spectroscopy at room temperature, ambient pressure, and in water as solvent, was applied as measure for catalytic activity. For three Pt catalysts supported on porous SiO₂, porous glass, and Al₂O₃, respectively, significant differences in the catalytic activity by almost one order of magnitude were observed. However, especially in the case of very active catalysts, limitations of the reaction by internal or external mass transfer have to be considered.     

Charge transport mechanism of graphite‐nanosheet‐loaded rubber nanocomposites

Nitrile butadiene rubber loaded with different concentrations of thin graphite nanosheets have been successfully prepared by using a two‐roll mill. The percolation concentration of the nanocomposites was 0.5 phr. The I–V characteristic curves showed that the nanocomposites exhibited ohmic behaviour at a certain voltage and then non‐linear behaviour. The Richardson–Schottky and Poole–Frenkel models were used to investigate the reason for the space charge. The experimental data fit the Schottky model well. The conductivity as a function of temperature was also studied and the data were fitted by using the Mott relation. The Mott relation showed that as the concentration of graphite nanosheets in the rubber composite increases, the hopping distance between the graphite nanosheet layers decreases, which enhances the conductivity of the nanocomposite at low concentrations. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Piezoelectric properties of zinc oxide/iron oxide filled polyvinylidene fluoride nanocomposite fibers

Piezoelectric nanogenerators (PENG) with flexible and simple design have pronounced significance in fabricating sustainable devices for self-powering electronics. This study demonstrates the fabrication of electrospun nanocomposite fibers from polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) filled zinc oxide (ZnO)/iron oxide (FeO) nanomaterials. The nanocomposite fiber based flexible PENG shows piezoelectric output voltage of 5.9 V when 3 wt% of ZnO/FeO hybrid nanomaterial is introduced, which is 29.5 times higher than the neat PVDF. No apparent decline in output voltage is observed for almost 2000 s attributed to the outstanding durability. This higher piezoelectric output performance is correlated with the β-phase transformation studies from the Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy and the crystallinity studies from the differential scanning calorimetry. Both these studies show respective enhancement of 3.79 and 2.16% in the β-phase crystallinity values of PVDF-ZnO/FeO 3 wt% composite. Higher dielectric constant value obtained for the same composite (three times higher than the neat PVDF) confirms the increased energy storage efficiency as well. Thus the proposed soft and flexible PENG is a promising mechanical energy harvester, and its good dielectric properties reveals the ability to use this material as good power sources for wearable and flexible electronic devices.

     

Physicochemical properties of nanopowdered eggshell

This study was carried out to investigate the physicochemical properties of nanopowdered eggshell (NPES). These characteristics were determined based on the particle size, particle morphology, zeta potential, moisture sorption behaviour, purity and crystallinity. Homogeneous, aggregated and spherical crystals of NPES particles were observed through scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope. The average particle sizes of NPES and powdered eggshell (PES) were 202.3 ± 28.9 nm and 113.89 ± 79.37 μm, respectively. Zeta potentials of NPES (?15.41 mV) suggested an incipient instability of the colloidal system. Moisture sorption analysis indicated a higher water adsorption capacity of NPES than that of PES. X‐ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis confirmed the presence of calcite in both NPES and PES. The chemical compositions of the NPES and PES particles were strongly associated with the presence of calcium carbonate, as determined by the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. Therefore, eggshell nanopowder has a great potential to be utilised as a component for biomedical applications.     

Standardization problem of author affiliations in citation indexes

Academic effectiveness of universities is measured with the number of publications and citations. However, accessing all the publications of a university reveals a challenge related to the mistakes and standardization problems in citation indexes. The main aim of this study is to seek a solution for the unstandardized addresses and publication loss of universities with regard to this problem. To achieve this, all Turkey-addressed publications published between 1928 and 2009 were analyzed and evaluated deeply. The results show that the main mistakes are based on character or spelling, indexing and translation errors. Mentioned errors effect international visibility of universities negatively, make bibliometric studies based on affiliations unreliable and reveal incorrect university rankings. To inhibit these negative effects, an algorithm was created with finite state technique by using Nooj Transducer. Frequently used 47 different affiliation variations for Hacettepe University apart from “Hacettepe Univ” and “Univ Hacettepe” were determined by the help of finite state grammar graphs. In conclusion, this study presents some reasons of the inconsistencies for university rankings. It is suggested that, mistakes and standardization issues should be considered by librarians, authors, editors, policy makers and managers to be able to solve these problems.     

Resistance of exterior three-dimensional walls to high velocity projectiles

There have been a number of recent civilian deaths due to ammunition from commonly used firearms penetrating exterior walls of residential, public, and commercial buildings. Experimental research was conducted to study the behavior of three-dimensional (3D) exterior walls when subjected to high velocity projectiles or bullets fired from a variety of firearms of different calibers. Four types of firearms were used, namely, a 9 mm gun, a 0.357 Magnum gun, an M16 machine gun, and a 7.62 Clashin Koff machine gun. The size of chips and the depth of penetrations produced by the fired bullets are documented and discussed. It was found that none of the fired bullets penetrated the two reinforced concrete layers of the exterior wall. In conclusion, 3D exterior walls provide an acceptable level of protection from ammunition fired from commonly used firearms.     

Strictly periodic scheduling in IMA-based architectures

The avionic industry has recently adopted the Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA). Such architectures allow the execution of avionic functions on a shared computing platform while avoiding any interference between them. This is done through hard memory and temporal segregation constraints. Although IMA reduces the weight and the power consumption and shortens the design-cycle times, it gives rise to a complex multiprocessor scheduling problem. One of the key difficulties of this problem is related to the strict periodicity of tasks, which means that the time separating two successive executions of the same task is strictly equal to the associated period. In order to help the system designer in producing a proper schedule, an exact formulation based on Integer Linear Programming and a heuristic inspired from Game Theory are proposed. To enhance the solution quality of the heuristic, a?multi-start method, which gives some probabilistic guarantees on the optimality of the solutions, is also introduced.