Superabsorbent hydrogel based on modified polysaccharide for removal of Pb2+ and Cu2+ from water with excellent performance

This contribution describes the absorption percentage of Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ from water by a superabsorbent hydrogel matrix (SH) made from an anionic polysaccharide copolymerized with acrylic acid (AAc) and acrylamide (AAm). Metal‐absorption tests, upon sequential pH variation, indicated that the SH has pH‐sensitivity for the absorption of both metals from solution, attributed to the functional ionic groups (? COOH) present in the AAc and arabic gum (AG) segments. At the pH 5.0, the SH exhibited good absorption capacity: 73.10% for Pb²⁺, 81.99% for Cu²⁺ in water and 63.64% for Pb²⁺, and 76.67% for Cu²⁺ in saline water with 0.1 mol kg^?1 ionic strength. A replicated 2² full factorial design with a central point was built to evaluate the maximum absorption capacity of the metals into the SH. It was found that both the interaction and main effects of the pH and the initial concentration of metal solution on absorption percentage of the metals were statistically significant. Surface response plots indicated that the absorption capacity of both metals into the SH may be appreciably improved by using the solutions with lower initial concentration of metal and with higher pH values. Metal‐absorption results demonstrated that the SH is a convenient material for absorption of Pb²⁺ and Cu²⁺ from pure aqueous and saline aqueous environments. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

Pervaporation of 50 wt % ethanol–water mixtures with poly(1‐trimethylsilyl‐1‐propyne) membranes at high temperatures

Poly(1‐trimethylsilyl‐1‐propyne) (PTMSP) membranes have been used to separate ethanol–water mixtures by pervaporation. This polyacetylene is known to present high affinity toward ethanol, showing high selectivity and ethanol permeation flux. The performance of this polymer in the separation of alcohol–water solutions has been evaluated over long periods (572 h) at a high temperature (75°C) to examine the deterioration of the transport properties in the separation of 50 wt % ethanol–water solutions. Although PTMSP membranes present good characteristics for the separation of gases and liquid mixtures, their organic selectivity decrease with the operating time because of the relaxation processes of the polymeric chains, which affect the free volume of the polymer, the deterioration being more evident for concentrated solutions. The effects of the operation temperature on the characteristic parameters of pervaporation have also been studied to establish how this variable affects the performance of PTMSP membranes. The selectivity increases slightly with the operation temperature, but the effect of the temperature on the separation factor decreases as membranes are degraded with the operation time. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 2843–2848, 2007     

BiOSS: A system for biomedical ontology selection

In biomedical informatics, ontologies are considered a key technology for annotating, retrieving and sharing the huge volume of publicly available data. Due to the increasing amount, complexity and variety of existing biomedical ontologies, choosing the ones to be used in a semantic annotation problem or to design a specific application is a difficult task. As a consequence, the design of approaches and tools addressed to facilitate the selection of biomedical ontologies is becoming a priority. In this paper we present BiOSS, a novel system for the selection of biomedical ontologies. BiOSS evaluates the adequacy of an ontology to a given domain according to three different criteria: (1) the extent to which the ontology covers the domain; (2) the semantic richness of the ontology in the domain; (3) the popularity of the ontology in the biomedical community. BiOSS has been applied to 5 representative problems of ontology selection. It also has been compared to existing methods and tools. Results are promising and show the usefulness of BiOSS to solve real-world ontology selection problems. BiOSS is openly available both as a web tool and a web service.     

Change detection by probabilistic segmentation from monocular view

We present a method for foreground/background video segmentation (change detection) in real-time that can be used, in applications such as background subtraction or analysis of surveillance cameras. Our approach implements a probabilistic segmentation based on the Quadratic Markov Measure Field models. This framework regularizes the likelihood of each pixel belonging to each one of the classes (background or foreground). We propose a new likelihood that takes into account two cases: the first one is when the background is static and the foreground might be static or moving (Static Background Subtraction), the second one is when the background is unstable and the foreground is moving (Unstable Background Subtraction). Moreover, our likelihood is robust to illumination changes, cast shadows and camouflage situations. We implement a parallel version of our algorithm in CUDA using a NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit in order to fulfill real-time execution requirements.     

Size exclusion behavior of polymers in amide solvents

Summary The size exclusion chromatography of neutral polymers and polymers containing ionic groups was investigated using N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMA) as mobile phase. As reported previously for N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF), acrylonitrile polymers containing charges, even those at terminal end groups, showed markedly small retention volumes and multimodal peaks by refractive index and 280 nm UV detectors. In DMA containing small amounts of LiBr the peaks of the ionic polymers were shifted to small retention volumes while neutral polymers with analogous chemical structures did not show the same behavior. As in the case of DMF the peculiarities observed in DMA were attributed to the formation of supramolecular structures by the interaction of the ionic groups in the polymer and the ionic species from DMA decomposition.     

Incremental inconsistency detection with low memory overhead

Ensuring models’ consistency is a key concern when using a model‐based development approach. Therefore, model inconsistency detection has received significant attention over the last years. To be useful, inconsistency detection has to be sound, efficient, and scalable. Incremental detection is one way to achieve efficiency in the presence of large models. In most of the existing approaches, incrementalization is carried out at the expense of the memory consumption that becomes proportional to the model size and the number of consistency rules. In this paper, we propose a new incremental inconsistency detection approach that only consumes a small and model size‐independent amount of memory. It will therefore scale better to projects using large models and many consistency rules. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Controlling the phase stability of polymer blends through the introduction of impenetrable interfaces

In this work, the effect of the introduction of modified solid surfaces into polymer blends on the phase‐separation process was investigated. Glass fibers with surfaces having different chemistries were introduced into polystyrene–poly(methyl methacrylate) blends. The glass fibers used either had fully hydrated surfaces or had surfaces covered with a random copolymer, poly(styrene‐co‐methyl methacrylate). The copolymer was synthesized by free‐radical polymerization of styrene and methyl methacrylate in the presence of previously vinyl silane‐treated glass fibers. The copolymerization and grafting procedures were investigated by FTIR and thermal analysis. Blends containing the fibers were studied using FTIR microscopy and optical microscopy. FTIR microscopy results showed that the composition of the phases in the blends was shifted by using fibers with different surface chemistries. Fibers with grafted copolymers were capable of narrowing the immiscibility region in the phase diagram, while fully hydrated fibers were able to expand the gap. It was proposed that interfacial interactions regulated by a hydrophilic–hydrophobic type of forces were responsible for guiding the described phase‐separation process. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 1619–1627, 2003     

HumanTop: a multi-object tracking tabletop

In this paper, a computer vision based interactive multi-touch tabletop system called HumanTop is introduced. HumanTop implements a stereo camera vision subsystem which allows not only an accurate fingertip tracking algorithm but also a precise touch-over-the-working surface detection method. Based on a pair of visible spectra cameras, a novel synchronization circuit makes the camera caption and the image projection independent from each other, providing the minimum basis for the development of computer vision analysis based on visible spectrum cameras without any interference coming from the projector. The assembly of both cameras and the synchronization circuit is not only capable of performing an ad-hoc version of a depth camera, but it also introduces the recognition and tracking of textured planar objects, even when contents are projected over them. On the other hand HumanTop supports the tracking of sheets of paper and ID-code markers. This set of features makes the HumanTop a comprehensive, intuitive and versatile augmented tabletop that provides multitouch interaction with projective augmented reality on any flat surface. As an example to exploit all the capabilities of HumanTop, an educational application has been developed using an augmented book as a launcher to different didactic contents. A pilot study in which 28 fifth graders participated is presented. Results about efficiency, usability/satisfaction and motivation are provided. These results suggest that HumanTop is an interesting platform for the development of educational contents.     

Morphology and thermomechanical properties of recycled PET–organoclay nanocomposites

Recycled PET/organoclay nanocomposites were prepared by melt intercalation process with several amounts (1, 3, and 5 wt %) of clay modified with quaternary ammonium salt (DELLITE 67G) dispersed in a recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) (rPET) matrix. The resultant mechanical properties (modulus and yield strength) of the nanocomposites were found to be different from those of rPET. Wide angle X‐ray scattering (WAXS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) measurements have shown that although complete exfoliation was not achieved, delaminated clay platelets could be observed. Thermal analysis did not show significant changes in the thermal properties from those of recycled PET. Mechanical testing showed that nanocomposite properties were superior to the recycled PET in terms of strength and elasticity modulus. This improvement was attributed to nanoscale effects and strong interaction between the rPET matrix and the clay interface, as revealed by WAXS and TEM. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 1839–1844, 2007     

Comparative study of homogeneous and heterogeneous styrene polymerizations with Ni(acac)2/MAO catalytic system

Styrene polymerization was carried out with Ni(acac)₂/MAO and Ni(acac)₂/SiO₂/MAO. The influence of reaction parameters (Al/Ni mole ratio, catalyst concentration, temperature and time polymerization) on styrene polymerization was evaluated. It was observed that both catalytic systems were affected by reaction parameters and that the heterogeneous catalyst presented higher activity than the homogeneous one. Polystyrenes with different molecular weight, stereoregularity and polydispersity were obtained. These results suggest that different active catalyst species could have been present. In addition, two types of methylaluminoxane (MAO) with different molecular weights were also evaluated as cocatalyst. As a result, the catalyst activity and stereospecificity were strongly affected by the MAO type.