Carbon nanofibers as hydrogen adsorbing materials for power sources

Porous carbon nanofibers are synthesized by CVD method from acetylene with use of iron-containing catalysts. Activation of the nanofibers in melted potassium hydroxide results in increasing surface area from initial 300–400 m² g⁻¹ to 1700 m² g⁻¹. As follows from XRD data, activated nanofibers do not contain regular packages of graphene layers, but retain high electric conductivity. Deposition of copper improves electrochemical hydrogen storing characteristics of carbon nanofibers. Carbon nanomaterials obtained can be used as hydrogen storing materials in batteries instead of hydride forming metals.     

Effects of zirconium silicate and chromite addition on the microstructure and bulk density of magnesia–magnesium aluminate spinel-based refractory materials

Six synthesized magnesium aluminate spinel-based refractory compositions used in steel and cement applications, were prepared using a two stage sintering process at 1760 °C, starting with approximately 1:1 wt% ratio of pure magnesia and alumina with additions of zirconium silicate (0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 wt%) and chromite (2.0, 3.0 and 5.0 wt%). These compositions were investigated for effects on densification, chemical and mineralogical phases formed.     

Xylene Isomerization in a ZSM-5/SS Membrane Reactor

A membrane reactor containing different types of ZSM-5/porous SS membranes was used to perform the xylene isomerization reaction. The parent Na-ZSM-5 layer was synthesized by secondary growth on top of porous stainless steel tubes. The xylene isomerization reaction was carried out at different temperatures in the membrane reactor and in a fixed-bed reactor of identical geometry for comparison. Two different kinds of membranes were prepared by ion exchange: a Pt/H-ZSM-5 catalytic membrane and two Ba-ZSM-5 composites with different Ba²⁺ concentration. The p-xylene production using 100% exchanged Ba-membrane was about 28% higher than the fixed-bed reactor at 370 °C, when m-xylene was fed.     

Ultrasonic treatment restores the photoelectric parameters of silicon solar cells degraded under the action of <Superscript>60</Superscript>Co gamma radiation

The photoelectric parameters of silicon solar cells degraded under the action of ⁶⁰Co gamma-radiation can be partly restored using an ultrasonic treatment (UST). The growth of the maximum output power of solar cells after the UST is related to a redistribution of the radiation defects and an increase in the homogeneity of a semiconductor crystal structure.     

Phase states of a two-dimensional non-Heisenberg ferromagnet

The effects of a biquadratic exchange and an external magnetic field on the phase states of a twodimensional non-Heisenberg ferromagnet have been studied with allowance for magnetoelastic and magnetodipolar interactions.     

Lattice structure on some fuzzy algebraic systems

In this paper, we study the lattice structure of some fuzzy algebraic systems such as (G-)fuzzy groups, some fuzzy ordered algebras and fuzzy hyperstructures. We prove that under suitable conditions, these structures form a distributive or modular lattice. This research partially is supported by the “ Fuzzy Systems and its Applications Center of Excelence, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran”.     

Integrating trust into the CyberCraft Initiative via the Trust Vectors model [Application Notes]

This research supports the hypothesis that the Trust Vector model can be modified to fit the CyberCraft Initiative, and that there are limits to the utility of historical data. This research proposed some modifications and expansions to the Trust Model Vector, and identified areas for future research.     

Toward Human Level Machine Intelligence - Is It Achievable? The Need for a Paradigm Shift

Officially, AI was born in 1956. Since then, very impressive progress has been made in many areas - but not in the realm of human level machine intelligence. During much of its early history, AI "was rife "with exaggerated expectations. A headline in an article published in the late forties of last century was headlined, "Electric brain capable of translating foreign languages is being built". Today, more than half a century later, we do have translation software, but nothing that can approach the quality of human translation. Clearly, achievement of human level machine intelligence is a challenge that is hard to meet. A prerequisite to achievement of human level machine intelligence is mechanization of these capabilities and, in particular, mechanization of natural language understanding. To make significant progress toward achievement of human level machine intelligence, a paradigm shift is needed. More specifically, what is needed is an addition to the armamentarium of AI of two methodologies: (a) a nontraditional methodology of computing with words (CW) or more generally, NL-Computation; and (b) a countertraditional methodology "which involves a progression from computing with numbers to computing with words. The centerpiece of these methodologies is the concept of precisiation of meaning. Addition of these methodologies to AI would be an important step toward the achievement of human level machine intelligence and its applications in decision-making, pattern recognition, analysis of evidence, diagnosis, and assessment of causality. Such applications have a position of centrality in our infocentric society.     

Translating a typical business process modelling language to a web services ontology through lightweight mapping

Bridging the gap between enterprise modelling methods and Semantic Web services is an important yet challenging task. For organisations with business goals, the automation of business processes as Web services is increasingly important, especially with many business transactions taking place within the Web today. Taking one approach to address this problem, a lightweight mapping between Fundamental Business Process Modelling Language (FBPML) and the Web Services Ontology (OWL-S) is outlined. The framework entails a data model translation and a process model translation via the use of ontologies and mapping principles. Several working examples of the process model translations are presented together with the implementation of an automated translator. FBPML constructs and process models that could not be translated to OWL-S equivalents highlight the differences between the languages of the two domains. It also implies that evolving Semantic Web technologies, in particular OWL-S, are not adequate for all service modelling needs and could thus benefit from the more traditional and mature BPM methods. On a more interesting note, this is effectively the first step towards enabling a semantic-based business workflow system     

QoS assessment of 3G video-phone calls by tracing watermarking exploiting the new colour space `YST?

Tracing watermarking has been recently proposed as a technique to provide a blind measure of the quality of service of the communication link, focusing on multimedia communication scenarios. 3G communication scenarios, where each customer transmits both voice and MPEG-4 video sequences in real time, have been considered. Typical video-phone call consists of close shots of speakers, framing their face in the foreground. For such particular application, a novel colour space (YST) is adopted to minimise the perceptual distortions on face coding introduced by watermarking. In the YST space, the luminance component (Y) is the same as in conventional YUV space, whereas the vectors S and T lie within the chrominance (UV) plane. The S (skin) component is a linear combination of U and V obtained as the 'average' chrominance estimated from an assorted set human faces to achieve a reasonable generalisation. The third component, T, is defined as orthogonal to the YS plane. The results show the benefits obtained in digital watermarking by the new representation against the conventional approach. In fact, the sensitivity of the YST representation outperforms the conventional one in terms of objective (mean square error, peak signal-to-noise ratio) and subjective (video-quality metrics) indicators.