Simple route for the preparation of graphene/poly(styrene‐b‐butadiene‐b‐styrene) nanocomposite films with enhanced electrical conductivity and hydrophobicity

This paper reports a simple route for the preparation of graphene/poly(styrene‐b‐butadiene‐b‐styrene) (SBS) nanocomposite films employing a vacuum filtration method. Graphene is exfoliated well by an electrochemical procedure and homogeneously dispersed in the polymer matrix. The prepared nanocomposite films were characterized by XRD, Fourier transform IR (FTIR) spectroscopy, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, AFM and SEM. Morphological studies showed that graphene formed a smooth coating over the surface of SBS. The increase in graphene concentration induces the wrinkling of graphene sheets at the composite surface which causes a further increase in surface roughness. The FTIR, Raman and XPS spectra of graphene/SBS nanocomposite films indicate the strong interactions between graphene and the polymer matrix. According to the XRD patterns, introducing SBS into graphene did not modify the graphene structure additionally, i.e. the crystal lattice parameters do not depend on SBS content in graphene/SBS nanocomposite films. The graphene/SBS nanocomposite films also exhibited better hydrophobicity due to the increased surface roughness and lower sheet resistivity (reduced 10 times) compared to exfoliated graphene. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry     

Wavelet packets approach to blind separation of statistically dependent sources

Sub-band decomposition independent component analysis (SDICA) assumes that wide-band source signals can be dependent but some of their sub-components are independent. Thus, it extends applicability of standard independent component analysis (ICA) through the relaxation of the independence assumption. In this paper, firstly, we introduce novel wavelet packets (WPs) based approach to SDICA obtaining adaptive sub-band decomposition of the wideband signals. Secondly, we introduce small cumulant based approximation of the mutual information (MI) as a criterion for the selection of the sub-band with the least-dependent components. Although MI is estimated for measured signals only, we have provided a proof that shows that index of the sub-band with least dependent components of the measured signals will correspond with the index of the sub-band with least dependent components of the sources. Unlike in the case of the competing methods, we demonstrate consistent performance in terms of accuracy and robustness as well as computational efficiency of WP SDICA algorithm.     

Properties of organo‐clay/natural rubber nanocomposites: Effects of organophilic modifiers

The effect of various modifiers on the structure and properties of clay/natural rubber nanocomposites are investigated with the aim to evaluate the effect of size and structure of the modifier. Nanocomposites are prepared by melt intercalation method. Mechanical properties of the cured rubber containing nanoclay are compared with the reference compound without the filler. No improvement of mechanical properties is observed for small organic cations; however, stress and strain at break of clay/rubber nanocomposites increase with rising number of octyl chains in the interlayer spaces of organo‐clays. Concerning organo‐cations with the same number of carbon atoms, more effective are the modifiers with several shorter carbon chains compared to those with one long chain. The composites exhibit hybrid structure of nanocomposite and microcomposite as revealed by X‐ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The details of the structure are supported by DMTA and hysteresis measurements. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Improving the scaffolds of a mobile-assisted Chinese character forming game via a design-based research cycle

This paper reports on one cycle of a design-based research (DBR) study in which mCSCL was explored through an iterative process of (re)designing and testing the collaboration and learning approach with students. A unique characteristic of our mCSCL approach is the student-led emergent formation of groups. The mCSCL application assigns each student a component of a Chinese character and requires them to form groups that can assemble a Chinese character using the components held by the group members. The enactment of the learning design in two modes (with and without the digital technology) was observed, and the actual process of students being scaffolded technologically or socially to accomplish their task was analyzed. Students were found to favor the card mode over the phone mode due to the emergent game strategy (social scaffold) of “trial and error” that they found it comfortable in applying. That triggered us to examine the scaffolding strategies by conducting another round of literature review. We explored domain-oriented theories (i.e. in Chinese character learning) to inform and guide them in deciding how they should further accommodate or rectify the students’ use of the strategy. This cycle of DBR in Chinese-PP project has effectively reshaped the overall learning model design. This paper brings to the fore the value of the interplay and iterations of theories, implementations and reflections, in no fixed order, as advocated by DBR.     

Particulate basalt–polymer composites characteristics investigation

Basalt has remarkable physical and mechanical characteristics. However, its use and further processing is limited due to mechanical characteristics, e.g., density, hardness, fraying resistance, etc. The basalt–polymer composite enable maintains of physical and mechanical characteristics, further processing, and broader basalt application in various industries. Consequently, composites characterization, and production process technological parameters influence on the composites properties need to be appraised.     

Approach to blind image deconvolution by multiscale subband decomposition and independent component analysis

A single-frame multichannel blind image deconvolution technique has been formulated recently as a blind source separation problem solved by independent component analysis (ICA). The attractive feature of this approach is that neither origin nor size of the spatially invariant blurring kernel has to be known. To enhance the statistical independence among the hidden variables, we employ multiscale analysis implemented by wavelet packets and use mutual information to locate a subband with the least dependent components, where the basis matrix is learned by means of standard ICA. We show that the proposed algorithm is capable of performing blind deconvolution of nonstationary signals that are not independent and identically distributed processes. The image poses these properties. The algorithm is tested on experimental data and compared with state-of-the-art single-frame blind image deconvolution algorithms. Our good experimental results demonstrate the viability of the proposed concept.     

A systematic review of software architecture evolution research

Context

Software evolvability describes a software system’s ability to easily accommodate future changes. It is a fundamental characteristic for making strategic decisions, and increasing economic value of software. For long-lived systems, there is a need to address evolvability explicitly during the entire software lifecycle in order to prolong the productive lifetime of software systems. For this reason, many research studies have been proposed in this area both by researchers and industry practitioners. These studies comprise a spectrum of particular techniques and practices, covering various activities in software lifecycle. However, no systematic review has been conducted previously to provide an extensive overview of software architecture evolvability research.

Objective

In this work, we present such a systematic review of architecting for software evolvability. The objective of this review is to obtain an overview of the existing approaches in analyzing and improving software evolvability at architectural level, and investigate impacts on research and practice.

Method

The identification of the primary studies in this review was based on a pre-defined search strategy and a multi-step selection process.

Results

Based on research topics in these studies, we have identified five main categories of themes: (i) techniques supporting quality consideration during software architecture design, (ii) architectural quality evaluation, (iii) economic valuation, (iv) architectural knowledge management, and (v) modeling techniques. A comprehensive overview of these categories and related studies is presented.

Conclusion

The findings of this review also reveal suggestions for further research and practice, such as (i) it is necessary to establish a theoretical foundation for software evolution research due to the fact that the expertise in this area is still built on the basis of case studies instead of generalized knowledge; (ii) it is necessary to combine appropriate techniques to address the multifaceted perspectives of software evolvability due to the fact that each technique has its specific focus and context for which it is appropriate in the entire software lifecycle.