Video painting with space-time-varying style parameters

Artists use different means of stylization to control the focus on different objects in the scene. This allows them to portray complex meaning and achieve certain artistic effects. Most prior work on painterly rendering of videos, however, uses only a single painting style, with fixed global parameters, irrespective of objects and their layout in the images. This often leads to inadequate artistic control. Moreover, brush stroke orientation is typically assumed to follow an everywhere continuous directional field. In this paper, we propose a video painting system that accounts for the spatial support of objects in the images or videos, and uses this information to specify style parameters and stroke orientation for painterly rendering. Since objects occupy distinct image locations and move relatively smoothly from one video frame to another, our object-based painterly rendering approach is characterized by style parameters that coherently vary in space and time. Space-time-varying style parameters enable more artistic freedom, such as emphasis/de-emphasis, increase or decrease of contrast, exaggeration or abstraction of different objects in the scene in a temporally coherent fashion.     

Composite polyether electrolytes with a poly(styrenesulfonate) lithium salt and Lewis acid type additive

A poly(styrenesulfonate) lithium salt was tested as a single-ion conductor in a poly(ethylene oxide)/poly(ethylene glycol) dimethyl ether matrix. Impedance spectroscopy and voltage step polarization were used to characterize the composite electrolytes. A specific conductivity of about 7×10⁻⁸ S cm⁻¹ was evaluated at 70 °C. The very low conductivity was attributed to the poor solubility of Li⁺ in the polymer matrix. AlCl₃ was added to the polymer electrolyte to increase the salt dissolution. The addition of the Lewis acid strongly increases the conductivity and a specific conductivity of about 4×10⁻⁶ S cm⁻¹ was measured at 20 °C. For temperature lower than 60 °C, the specific conductivity dependence with increasing temperature follows an Arrhenius-type behavior. An activation energy of about 55.6 kJ mol⁻¹ was calculated. A very similar activation energy (60.3 kJ mol⁻¹) was found for the charge transfer resistance. The transport properties of the polymer electrolyte were tested by applying a d.c. voltage step to a symmetrical lithium cell. The current at the applied voltage decreased with time. The decrease was related to an increase in the cell resistance due to the continuous growth of a passivation layer on the lithium surface.     

Voltammetric measurements of aminosalicylate drugs using bismuth film electrode

A bismuth film electrode (BiFE) prepared ex-situ on a supporting glassy carbon electrode exhibited convenient electroanalytical performance for voltammetric measurement of selected aminosalycilate drugs. The reduction behaviour of aminosalycilate drugs was studied in aqueous solutions within the pH range of 4–6. The voltammetric responses were compared with those obtained at the bare glassy carbon electrode under identical conditions. In the square-wave voltammetric operation mode the BiFE showed a linear response in the concentration range of 5 × 10⁻⁶ to 3.5 × 10⁻⁴ and 1 × 10⁻⁶ to 5 × 10⁻⁴ M for sulfasalazine and olsalazine, respectively. Its electrode surface revealed auspiciously high stability and remarkable reproducibility in the rapid analysis of aminosalycilate drugs. Finally, the BiFE was satisfactorily applied for direct quantitation of azo prodrugs in real pharmaceutical samples.     

Unsupervised category modeling, recognition, and segmentation in images

Suppose a set of arbitrary (unlabeled) images contains frequent occurrences of 2D objects from an unknown category. This paper is aimed at simultaneously solving the following related problems: (1) unsupervised identification of photometric, geometric, and topological properties of multiscale regions comprising instances of the 2D category; (2) learning a region-based structural model of the category in terms of these properties; and (3) detection, recognition and segmentation of objects from the category in new images. To this end, each image is represented by a tree that captures a multiscale image segmentation. The trees are matched to extract the maximally matching subtrees across the set, which are taken as instances of the target category. The extracted subtrees are then fused into a tree-union that represents the canonical category model. Detection, recognition, and segmentation of objects from the learned category are achieved simultaneously by finding matches of the category model with the segmentation tree of a new image. Experimental validation on benchmark datasets demonstrates the robustness and high accuracy of the learned category models, when only a few training examples are used for learning without any human supervision.     

Electrochemical synthesis and corrosion behavior of polyaniline-benzoate coating on copper

Electrochemical polymerization of polyaniline (PANI) coating on copper electrode was performed galvanostatically in the current density range between 0.50 and 1.25 mA cm^?2, from aqueous solution of 0.3 mol dm^?3 sodium benzoate and 0.2 mol dm^?3 aniline. The corrosion behavior of PANI coated copper and copper electrode exposed to 0.5 mol dm^?3 sodium chloride solution was investigated by potentiodynamic and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy techniques. It was observed that thin PANI (5 μm) coating had provided efficient protection (～96%) to copper in 0.5 mol dm^?3 sodium chloride solution. Unusual initial impedance behavior to that normally observed with conventional organic coatings was attributed to dedoping of benzoate anions from the polymer coating.     

Air gauges as a part of the dimensional inspection systems

Air gauges for dimensional measurement are known for decades. They have been applied in many technological processes, especially in the systems of in-process control. The air gauges are connected with pneumatic measuring devices able to generate control signals. Nowadays, however, it is not enough to just indicate dimensional bounds of tolerance. The Quality Management Systems require recorded and processed data achieved during the measurement. Investigations led to the development of air gauges integrated with piezoresistive pressure transducers. In those systems the results of measurement are achieved in digital form, they are processed and recorded. Additionally, dynamical properties of integrated air gauges appear much better. Multipoint linearization of the air gauge appears to be advantageous, though some companies offer the adjustment using one setting master only.     

Forecasting of Reference Evapotranspiration by Artificial Neural Networks

In recent years, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been applied to forecasting in many areas of engineering. In this note, a sequentially adaptive radial basis function network is applied to the forecasting of reference evapotranspiration (ETo). The sequential adaptation of parameters and structure is achieved using an extended Kalman filter. The criterion for network growing is obtained from the Kalman filter’s consistency test, while the criteria for neuron/connection pruning are based on the statistical parameter significance test. The weather parameter data (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and sunshine) were available at Nis, Serbia and Montenegro, from January 1977 to December 1996. The monthly reference evapotranspiration data were obtained by the Penman-Monteith method, which is proposed as the sole standard method for the computation of reference evapotranspiration. The network learned to forecast ETo,t+1 based on ETo,t?11 and ETo,t?23. The results show that ANNs can be used for forecasting reference evapotranspiration with high reliability.     

Experimental characterization and modeling of dry clutch wear with emphasis on fading effect

Forschung im Ingenieurwesen - The paper presents results of experimental characterization and modeling of dry clutch material wear, which concerns four input parameters (temperature, slip speed,...