A novel approach to speed and parameters estimation in inductionmotor drives

With reference to speed controlled induction motor drives, an algorithm which allows the on-line estimation either of the speed and one motor parameter or, alternatively, of two motor parameters, is presented in the paper. The results obtained by simulation fully confirm the validity of the proposed algorithm. Finally, the problems arising from the implementation of the proposed algorithm on a DSP-based control hardware are analysed     

Films made from polyethylene‐co‐acrylic acid and soluble biopolymers sourced from agricultural and municipal biowaste

Blends were obtained from polyethylene‐co‐acrylic acid (PEAA) with 248 kDa molecular weight and two water soluble biopolymers isolated from the hydrolysate of postharvest tomato plant and urban biowaste compost. The two hydrolysates were constituted respectively from a polysaccharide (SP) with 27 kDa molecular weight and a lignin‐like polymer (LP) with 75 kDa molecular weight containing aliphatic and aromatic C moieties substituted by carboxyl, hydroxyl, and amino groups. Evidence was obtained for reactions occurring between the biopolymers and the synthetic polymer leading to new polymers with 151 to 1243 kDa molecular weights. The thermal and mechanical properties of the blends were studied. Compared with neat PEAA, the PEAA‐LP blends containing 5 to 10% LP exhibited 2 to 5× higher molecular weights, 10 to 50% lower crystallinity, 2 to 6× higher Young's modulus, over 3× higher stress at yield point and somewhat lower strain at break (55–280% vs. over 300%). On the contrary the PEAA‐SP blends exhibited 6 to 13% lower crystallinity and the same mechanical properties as neat PEAA. The results offer scope for investigating biopolymers sourced from other biowastes to understand more the reasons of the observed effects and exploit their full potential to modify or to replace synthetic polymers. Perspectives of economic and environmental benefits are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41909.     

Induced Chiral Chromonics Confined in Micrometric Droplets

Chirality emergence in biological systems is common but the chiral expression from the molecular to macroscopic level in water-based systems is poorly understood. Among water-based systems, chromonic liquid crystals have recently received a lot of attention due to the spontaneous chirality they show when confined in curved geometries. Confinement of chiral-induced chromonics is not trivial since they are three component systems whose time stability is a delicate thermodynamic balance. In this work, a well-defined periodic Frank–Pryce texture, typical of chiral thermotropic liquid crystals, is observed in microspheres of a chiral induced chromonic embedded in a poly(dimethylsiloxane) matrix. This texture slowly degrades in time and a possible mechanism behind the degradation process is suggested via X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy measurements on thin chromonic films. To stabilize this texture and to control the structure periodicity, cations are added to the three components system in an attempt to tune the non-covalent interactions between molecules and supramolecular stacks. The study of the effects of this addition allows for better insight into the molecular interactions that occur in the chiral induced mesophase. This is a crucial point in view of possible biocompatible technological applications.     

Human resource optimisation through semantically enriched data

The industrial domain is experiencing a so-called fourth industrial revolution in which the evergrowing complexity of manufacturing information, the increasing amount of knowledge and the use of web-oriented techniques, represent three crucial factors that are accelerating the growth of complexity of industrial systems. On the other hand, continuous-evolving requirements in industrial environments, due to technology outbreaks and a new global marketplace, have led to an on-going evolution of human resource management through the creation and adoption of alternative business models. In the past decade, semantic models such as ontologies have been proven to be effective for many knowledge-intensive applications, since they provide formal models of domain knowledge that can be exploited in different ways. For all these reasons, an innovative human resource optimisation (HRO) engine is introduced, which employs semantically enhanced information and conditional random field (CRFs) probabilistic models with knowledge derived from industrial shop floor level, and proposes the right person for the right job in real-time shop floor operations towards optimising decisions on how to implement and schedule either repeatedly or non-occurring tasks. Industrial information data flow and semantic enrichment were ensured through the combined use of a common interface data exchange model (CIDEM) and ontologies, after which a feasibility study at a chemical plant presented interesting preliminary results.     

Multi-feature based automatic recognition of ship targets in ISAR

This paper deals with the problem of non-cooperative target recognition. Specifically, the aim is the automatic recognition of ship targets from inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images. For this purpose a new two-step multi-feature based technique is proposed; this technique uses a number of features extracted from the ship radar image and matches these features with those extracted from the images obtained by properly projecting the target models of the classification library. Both cases of a priori known or unknown ship aspect angles are considered: the knowledge of the ship aspect (as available from tracking data) allows the selection of the candidate models on the basis of the matching between the ship and the model length, thus resulting in a performance improvement. Moreover, both single- and multi-frame-based processing techniques are proposed in order to assess the performance improvement achievable when an increasing number of ISAR images are involved in the decision; the fusion strategy adopted for the exploitation of the information from the multiple images is also described. The performance of the overall proposed technique is deeply investigated against simulated data. Results of its application to a set of live ISAR images of a ship target are also provided showing the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

Correlations between abnormalities on brain SPECT scan and interictal EEG-foci in children with 'intractable' partial epilepsy

SPECT scanning with Tc99mHM-PAO was performed on 40 children with 'intractable' partial epilepsy; 27 patients had abnormalities on SPECT images consisting of areas of decreased cerebral blood flow. In 18 of these 27 subjects there was a good correlation between site of the abnormalities on SPECT scan and interictal EEG foci. 12 patients with regionally decreased CBF had also neuroimaging (C.T. and/or R.M.I.) abnormalities. The brain SPECT provides more precise detection of epileptogenic foci, when used to complement EEG, also in childhood-onset epilepsy.     

Structure-based object representation and classification in mobile robotics through a Microsoft Kinect

A new approach enabling a mobile robot to recognize and classify furniture-like objects composed of assembled parts using a Microsoft Kinect is presented. Starting from considerations about the structure of furniture-like objects, i.e., objects which can play a role in the course of a mobile robot mission, the 3D point cloud returned by the Kinect is first segmented into a set of “almost convex” clusters. Objects are then represented by means of a graph expressing mutual relationships between such clusters. Off-line, snapshots of the same object taken from different positions are processed and merged, in order to produce multiple-view models that are used to populate a database. On-line, as soon as a new object is observed, a run-time window of subsequent snapshots is used to search for a correspondence in the database.Experiments validating the approach with a set of objects (i.e., chairs, tables, but also other robots) are reported and discussed in detail.     

Assessing refactorings for usability in e-commerce applications

Refactoring has been reported as a helpful technique to systematically improve non-functional attributes of software. This paper evaluates the relevance of refactoring for improving usability on web applications. We conducted an experiment with two replications at different locations, with subjects of different profiles. Objects chosen for the experiment were two e-commerce applications that exhibit common business processes in today’s web usage. Through the experiment we found that half of the studied refactorings cause a significant improvement in usability. The rest of the refactorings required a post-hoc analysis in which we considered aspects like user expertise in the interaction with web applications or type of application. We conclude that, when improving quality in use, the success of the refactoring process depends on several factors, including the type of software system, context and users. We have analyzed all these aspects, which developers must consider for a better decision support at the time of prioritizing improvements and outweighing effort.     

Antivasoconstrictor and antiaggregatory activities of picotamide unrelated to thromboxane A2 antagonism

Picotamide is a dual thromboxane (Tx) A2 receptor antagonist/Tx synthase inhibitor although some observations suggest an anti-vasoconstrictor effect independent of TxA2 inhibition/antagonism. The aim of our study was to assess whether picotamide antagonises vascular contractions induced by different vasoactive substances in vitro. Picotamide inhibited competitively the contraction of rabbit aortic rings induced by the TxA2 mimetic U46619 (pA2 = 3.59) but also the contractions induced by phenylephrine (pA2 = 3.93) and serotonin (5-HT) (pA2 = 5.81) although in a not competitive way. Picotamide did not inhibit potassium-induced contractions, thus excluding aspecific effects on vascular smooth muscle. Picotamide inhibited 5-HT-induced platelet aggregation in vitro with an IC50 (212 microM) similar to that found when other aggregating stimuli are used, but it did not affect shape change (IC50 > 1 mM) suggesting that the effects of picotamide can not be ascribed to 5-HT2-receptor antagonism; in the same experimental conditions neither a Tx-receptor antagonist (BM13.177) nor a dual Tx-receptor antagonist/synthase inhibitor (ridogrel) affected 5-HT-induced platelet responses. Our studies demonstrate that picotamide exerts antivasoconstrictor and platelet inhibitory effects unrelated to TxA2 antagonism. This activity may contribute to the anti-thrombotic/anti-ischaemic effects of the drug in vivo.