An integrated system to remote monitor and control anaerobic wastewater treatment plants through the internet.

The TELEMAC project brings new methodologies from the Information and Science Technologies field to the world of water treatment. TELEMAC offers an advanced remote management system which adapts to most of the anaerobic wastewater treatment plants that do not benefit from a local expert in wastewater treatment. The TELEMAC system takes advantage of new sensors to better monitor the process dynamics and to run automatic controllers that stabilise the treatment plant, meet the depollution requirements and provide a biogas quality suitable for cogeneration. If the automatic system detects a failure which cannot be solved automatically or locally by a technician, then an expert from the TELEMAC Control Centre is contacted via the internet and manages the problem.     

A novel distributed scheduling scheme for OFDMA uplink using channel information and probabilistic transmission

Distributed uplink scheduling in OFDMA systems is considered. In the proposed model, mobile terminals have the responsibility of making their own transmission decisions. The proposed scheme is based on two dimensional reservation in time and frequency. Terminals use channel state information in order to favor transmissions over certain subchannels, and transmission is done in a probabilistic manner. The proposed approach provides more autonomy to mobile devices in making transmission decisions. Furthermore, it allows avoiding collisions during transmission since it leads to collision detection during the resource reservation phase. The proposed approach is compared to other random access methods and shown to be superior in terms of increasing sum-rate, reducing the number of users in outage, and reducing the collision probability in the reservation phase.     

Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic Crisis on Technologies and Cloud Computing Applications

In light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak caused by the novel coronavirus, companies and institutions have instructed their employees to work from home as a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of contagion. Employees, however, have been exposed to different security risks because of working from home. Moreover, the rapid global spread of COVID-19 has increased the volume of data generated from various sources. Working from home depends mainly on cloud computing (CC) applications that help employees to efficiently accomplish their tasks. The cloud computing environment (CCE) is an unsung hero in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It consists of the fast-paced practices for services that reflect the trend of rapidly deployable applications for maintaining data. Despite the increase in the use of CC applications, there is an ongoing research challenge in the domains of CCE concerning data, guaranteeing security, and the availability of CC applications. This paper, to the best of our knowledge, is the first paper that thoroughly explains the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CCE. Additionally, this paper also highlights the security risks of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Cottonseed colour fixed pigments. Part II. Role of hexane isomers on oil quality

The nature of disturbed thinking is explained from two different psychological perspectives and six major types of thought disorder are presented, classified, and discussed. The overlap between these different types of thought disturbance and some possible functions of disturbed thinking are outlined. A heuristic model for detecting thought disorder is presented; and, in addition, some complex conceptual and research issues involved with investigating and systematizing knowledge about disturbed thinking are explained.     

Time optimization of ultraviolet–ozone pretreatment for improving wool fabrics properties

Wool fabrics were exposed to ultraviolet (UV)–ozone treatment for different periods. After exposure, the fabrics were analyzed by Fourior transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Also, the crystallinity and amorphousity regions were followed by an X‐ray diffraction technique. The results were correlated by mechanical properties measurements. After a certain period of exposure, the dyeability and printability were improved because these abilities are strongly related to the percentage ratio of crystallinity regions to amorphousity regions in wool fabrics. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 85: 1469–1476, 2002     

Distributed uplink scheduling and rate control in cdma2000 using adaptive antenna arrays

Distributed uplink scheduling and rate control in CDMA networks are considered in the case of adaptive antenna arrays present at the base station. The system model with omnidirectional antennas is generalized to the case where adaptive antenna arrays are deployed. Rate control in a probabilistic manner is investigated. Long-term control by the base station through token bucket constraints is incorporated in the system. Monte Carlo simulation results show considerable improvement when adaptive antenna arrays are used. Optimization of the rate transition probabilities is treated in the special case of on–off scheduling.     

Effect of γ-Irradiation on the Dielectric Properties of Poly(methyl methacrylate) Doped with Some Luminescent Materials

A systematic dielectric study over the frequency range from 0.1 to 10 MHz has been carried out on pure and doped poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) with tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) as an acceptor and rhodamine-6G (Rh-6G) and rhodamine-B (Rh-B) as donors before and after being exposed to γ-irradiation. The results indicate that the addition of TCNQ to PMMA increases its ability to withstand γ-irradiation and improves its insulation properties.     

Utility of Zinc (Lignin/Silica/Fatty Acids) Complex Driven From Rice Straw as Antioxidant and Activator in Rubber Composites

This article presents a method to precipitate zinc (lignin/silica/fatty acids) complex (Zn LSF complex) from the black liquor of pulped rice straw and studying the efficiency of it as green activator and antioxidant in natural rubber composites. The results obtained revealed that the investigated zinc complex has dual function as activator and antioxidant in natural rubber composites. This evaluation was supported by physico‐mechanical properties of the vulcanizates which showed a considerable improvement of rheometric characteristics, tensile strength, strain at break, hardness, Young's modulus, thermal oxidative aging, and thermal stability of NR composites. The composite loaded with 7 phr of Zn LSF complex as activator exhibited the best mechanical properties in comparison with the same concentrations of control activator zinc stearate. Also, results revealed that Zn LSF complex is efficient as antioxidant in NR vulcanizates compared conventional antioxidants, namely polymerized 2,2,4‐trimethyl‐1,2‐dihydroquinoline. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:E196–E205, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Preparation and characterization of activated carbon from oil sands coke

Several million tonnes of oil sands coke are generated each year in Alberta, Canada as a by-product of bitumen upgrading. Due to its high carbon content, oil sands coke can be a suitable precursor for the preparation of activated carbon. In this study, delayed and fluid oil sands coke were physically activated in a muffle furnace under select conditions of activation time (2–6 h), temperature (800–900 °C), steam rate (0.3–0.5 mL/min), and activation atmosphere (CO₂, CO₂ + steam, and N₂ + steam). The activated products were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption, iodine and methylene blue tests. An increase in activation time and temperature resulted in higher surface areas in both delayed and fluid coke due to an enhanced etching of pores. An increase in steam rate led to the production of the highest specific surface area (577 m²/g) and iodine number (670 mg/g) within delayed coke; whereas, a lower steam rate resulted in the production of the highest specific surface area (533 m²/g) and iodine number (530 mg/g) in activated fluid coke samples.     

A branch and bound algorithm for extracting smallest minimal unsatisfiable subformulas

Explaining the causes of infeasibility of Boolean formulas has practical applications in numerous fields, such as artificial intelligence (repairing inconsistent knowledge bases), formal verification (abstraction refinement and unbounded model checking), and electronic design (diagnosing and correcting infeasibility). Minimal unsatisfiable subformulas (MUSes) provide useful insights into the causes of infeasibility. An unsatisfiable formula often has many MUSes. Based on the application domain, however, MUSes with specific properties might be of interest. In this paper, we tackle the problem of finding a smallest-cardinality MUS (SMUS) of a given formula. An SMUS provides a succinct explanation of infeasibility and is valuable for applications that are heavily affected by the size of the explanation. We present (1) a baseline algorithm for finding an SMUS, founded on earlier work for finding all MUSes, and (2) a new branch-and-bound algorithm called Digger that computes a strong lower bound on the size of an SMUS and splits the problem into more tractable subformulas in a recursive search tree. Using two benchmark suites, we experimentally compare Digger to the baseline algorithm and to an existing incomplete genetic algorithm approach. Digger is shown to be faster in nearly all cases. It is also able to solve far more instances within a given runtime limit than either of the other approaches.