An Analytical Approach to the Concept of Counter-UA Operations (CUAOPS)

Unmanned Aircraft (UA) have become an integral part of the present-day joint air operations. UA have potential to be employed across the full spectrum of Air Force functions. On the other hand, UA technology could be a subject of an asymmetric use by state actors in high or low density conflict, and/or by non-state actors in many ways including terrorism, drug smuggling, and limited attack with unconventional payloads i.e. biological or chemical agents. Therefore countering the threat associated with the hostile UA use could be necessary in the future. First part of the research revealed that UA can be a threat in the future. In the second part of the research, the SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis supplemented with the Tree analysis (SWOT+Tree) provided a broader look for investigating the factors related to hostile UA use analytically. In literature, there is little information about the concepts for CUAOPS. The final goal of the paper is to find possible solutions and means for a better understanding of the nature of CUAOPS.     

Improving literacy and metacognition with electronic portfolios: Teaching and learning with ePEARL

Can an electronic portfolio that is both a multimedia container for student work and a tool to support key learning processes have a positive impact on the literacy practices and self-regulated learning skills of students? This article presents the findings of a yearlong study conducted in three Canadian provinces during the 2007–2008 school year initially involving 32 teachers and 388 students. Due to varying levels of implementation our final data set included 14 teachers and 296 students. Using a non-equivalent pre-test/post-test design, we found that grade 4–6 students who were in classrooms where the teacher provided regular and appropriate use of the electronic portfolio tool ePEARL (i.e., medium–high implementation condition, n = 7 classrooms and 121 students), compared to control students (n = 7 classrooms and 175 students) who did not use ePEARL, showed significant improvements (p < .05) in their writing skills on a standardized literacy measure (i.e., the constructed response subtest of the Canadian Achievement Test-4th ed.) and certain metacognitive skills measured via student self-report. The results of this study indicate that teaching with ePEARL has positive impacts on students’ literacy and self-regulated learning skills when the tool is used regularly and integrated into classroom instruction.     

Multi‐level reranking approach for bug localization

Bug fixing has a key role in software quality evaluation. Bug fixing starts with the bug localization step, in which developers use textual bug information to find location of source codes which have the bug. Bug localization is a tedious and time consuming process. Information retrieval requires understanding the programme's goal, coding structure, programming logic and the relevant attributes of bug. Information retrieval (IR) based bug localization is a retrieval task, where bug reports and source files represent the queries and documents, respectively. In this paper, we propose BugCatcher, a newly developed bug localization method based on multi‐level re‐ranking IR technique. We evaluate BugCatcher on three open source projects with approximately 3400 bugs. Our experiments show that multi‐level reranking approach to bug localization is promising. Retrieval performance and accuracy of BugCatcher are better than current bug localization tools, and BugCatcher has the best Top N, Mean Average Precision (MAP) and Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) values for all datasets.     

Carpal tunnel syndrome: comparison of intraoperative structural changes with clinical and electrodiagnostic severity

The aim of this study is to grade the intraoperative findings seen in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) based on severity, and compare it with clinical and electrodiagnostic severity.Thirty-one hands surgically treated for CTS were graded according to the severity of clinical signs, and electrodiagnostic tests. Oedema, vascularisation, and fibrosis were graded on a scale of 1–3. Pseudoneuroma or ‘hour-glass’ formation were graded as either 0 or 1. The hands were allocated by an observer into an assumptive severity group, from grade 1 to 3. Clinical severity and electrodiagnostic severity were statistically compared with each other, and with each intraoperative severity criteria.A high statistical correlation (p<0.01) was found between clinical severity and vascularisation, fibrosis, and the assumptive intraoperative severity. No correlation could be demonstrated between electrodiagnostic severity and the intraoperative criteria.Intraoperative grading should be regarded as a supportive measure to the clinical evaluation in order to obtain a sound base for surgical intervention and internal neurolysis.     

Tracker-aware adaptive detection: An efficient closed-form solution for the Neyman–Pearson case

A promising line of research for radar systems attempts to optimize the detector thresholds so as to maximize the overall performance of a radar detector–tracker pair. In the present work, we attempt to move in a direction to fulfill this promise by considering a particular dynamic optimization scheme which relies on a non-simulation performance prediction (NSPP) methodology for the probabilistic data association filter (PDAF), namely, the modified Riccati equation (MRE). By using a suitable functional approximation, we propose a closed-form solution for the special case of a Neyman–Pearson (NP) detector. The proposed solution replaces previously proposed iterative solution formulations and results in dramatic improvement in computational complexity without sacrificed system performance. Moreover, it provides a theoretical lower bound on the detection signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) concerning when the whole tracking system should be switched to the track before detect (TBD) mode.     

An experimental study on motion error of hexarot parallel manipulator

In this paper, a novel 6-DOF parallel manipulator with coaxial actuated arms is introduced and investigated. This mechanism has six rotating arms, and by rotation of arms about the base, positioning and desired movement of the mechanism is achieved. Sine parallel mechanisms have a nonlinear motion while moving from an initial position to a desired position, investigation of nonlinear error in such mechanisms is of paramount importance. In this paper, inverse and forward kinematics of the mechanism are studied. Nonlinear error of the mechanism’s motion in its workspace is extracted using mid-oscillating circle and kinematic relations as well. Moreover, effective parameters on nonlinear motion error of mechanism are determined. The results obtained by theoretical method are further verified through image processing experimental tests. It is found that the results of the theoretical analysis and experimental test are in good consistency.     

Effect of root canal sealers on the push-out bond strengths of tooth-colored posts to root dentine

Objectives: This study evaluated the effect of different root canal sealers on the push-out bond strength of tooth-colored posts to root dentin. Material and methods: Eighty human mandibular premolar teeth with single roots were decoronated and randomly divided into two groups according to post material: G1–G5: Cytec blanco; G6–G10: Cosmopost. In each group, the specimens were further subgrouped according to the filling material plus sealer (n = 8): G1, G6: Gutta-percha + AH Plus; G2, G7: Resilon + Epiphany SE; G3, G8: Gutta-percha + Sealite; G4, G9: Gutta-percha + iRoot SP; and G5, G10: control (unobturated). Cytec blanco and Cosmopost of 1.4 mm diameter were adhesively luted to samples using Variolink II. Push-out test was performed in a universal testing machine, and failure modes were examined under stereomicroscope. Data were analyzed with the two-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey’s tests. Statistical significance was set to 0.05. Results: Roots obturated with AH Plus (3.48 ± 1.41 MPa), Sealite (3.47 ± 0.65 MPa), and Resilon (3.36 ± 1.23 MPa) had the lowest bond strength (p < 0.005). iRoot SP and control group samples showed the highest bond strength values (7.38 ± 0.89 MPa and 6.43 ± 1.16 MPa, respectively) (p < 0.05). Significant differences were observed among tooth-colored posts and sealers (p < 0.05). Adhesive failures were predominant in all groups (48%). Conclusions: When the resin cement Variolink II was used, the types of root canal filling materials and sealers could affect the retentions of the fiber/zirconium posts; the fiber post revealed the higher bond values than the zirconium post; and the calcium silicate-based sealer (iRoot SP) revealed the highest bond strengths.     

Atom transfer radical polymerization of methylmethacrylate and styrene initiated by 3,5‐bis(perfluorobenzyloxy)benzyl 2‐bromopropanoate

The synthesis of polymethylmethacrylate (pMMA) and polystyrene (pSt) were realized with newly synthesized initiator, 3,5‐bis(perfluorobenzyloxy)benzyl 2‐bromopropanoate (FBr) in the presence of copper bromide (CuBr) and N,N,N′,N″,N″‐pentamethyl‐diethylenetriamine (PMDETA) by using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The perfluorinated aromatic group containing initiator was prepared by esterification of the (3,5‐bis[(perfluorobenzyl)oxy]‐phenyl alcohol. Both initiator and polymers were characterized by ¹H‐NMR spectroscopy, gel permeation chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. The ATRP was supported by an increase in the molecular weight of the forming polymers and also by their monomodal molecular weight distribution. Contact angle measurements of water and ethylene glycol on films of synthesized polymers indicated higher degree of hydrophobicity than that of pure pMMA and pure pSt. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012