Selective Disassembly Sequencing: A Methodology for the Disassembly of End-of-Life Products

Disassembly planning has become an important strategic issue in order to reduce the environmental impact and increase the value of end-of-life (EOL) products. However, in order to make the recovery of EOL products viable, optimal disassembly sequencing has to be determined for each reusable component. In this paper, a selective disassembly methodology for EOL products is presented, which was developed by reversing and modifying the methodology developed by Nevins and Whitney (1989) for assembly. In the new methodology, the disassembly sequence generation and selective part recovery are largely performed by a special computer software. A number of product case studies were used to prove the concept and demonstrate the efficiency of the methodology.     

In situ analysis of adhesion molecule expression in kidneys infected with murine malaria

Two toluene-sensitive mutants were generated from Pseudomonas putida IH-2000, the first known toluene-tolerant isolate, by Tn5 transposon mutagenesis. These mutants were unable to grow in the presence of toluene (log P(ow) 2.8) but they could grow in medium overlaid with organic solvents having a log P(ow) value higher than that of toluene such as p-xylene (log P(ow) 3.1), cyclohexane (log P(ow) 3.4) and n-hexane (log P(ow) 3.9). The Tn5 transposable element knocked out a cyoB-like gene in one mutant and a cyoC-like gene in the other mutant. Seven open reading frames were found in a 5.5-kb region containing the cyoB- and cyoC-like genes of strain IH-2000. ORFs 3.7 showed significant identity to the cyoABCDE gene products of Escherichia coli, but ORFs 1 and 2 showed no significant homology to any protein reported so far. The growth patterns of the Tn5 mutants with the inactivated cyo-like gene were similar to that of the wild-type strain in the absence of organic solvents, although the doubling times were slightly longer than that of the wild-type strain. Our findings indicate that cyo is an important gene for toluene tolerance, although its role is still unclear.     

Phase transitions of κ‐carrageenan gels in various types of salts

Sol–gel and gel–sol phase transitions of κ‐carrageenan in various types of salts were studied using photon transmission technique. Here, LiCl, NaCl, KCl, MgCl₂, CaCl₂, and SrCl₂ were chosen as the proper salts for the κ‐carrageenan–water system. Photon transmission intensity, I_tr was monitored against temperature to determine the sol–gel and gel–sol temperatures (T_sg and T_gs) and activation energies (ΔE_sg and ΔE_gs). It was observed that T_gs temperatures were notably higher than T_sg due to the hysteresis on the phase transition loops. It was observed that stronger carrageenan gels are formed in the presence of KCl compared to the others. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 3008–3016, 2006     

Electrophysiological analysis of context effects in Alzheimer's disease.

Event-related potentials elicited by semantically associated and unassociated word pairs embedded in congruous and semantically anomalous spoken sentences were recorded from patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and healthy older and young controls as a means of examining the nature, time course, and relation between word and sentence context effects. All groups demonstrated lexical priming in nonsensical sentences, but it was earlier in the young (200-600 ms) than in the older controls (600-800 ms), and even later in the probable AD patients (800-1,000 ms). Moreover, processing in both the elderly and AD groups benefited disproportionately from a meaningful sentence context. The results do not accord well with either a strictly structural or a strictly functional account of the semantic impairments in AD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Swelling of acrylamide gels made at various onset temperatures: an optical transmission study

Optical transmission experiments were performed using a UV–visible spectrometer during the swelling of polyacrylamide (PAAm) gels. These gels were prepared from acrylamide with N,N′‐methylenebisacrylamide at various onset temperatures (T_on) by free radical crosslinking copolymerization in water and dried before use for swelling experiments. Transmitted light intensity (I_tr) from the gels increased during early stages when PAAm gels were immersed in water at room temperature and then decreased continuously as swelling time was increased. Decrease in I_tr was attributed to the increase in the scattered light intensity which may originate from the contrast between ‘frozen blob clusters’ and holes in the swelling gel. Decrease in I_tr was modelled using the Li–Tanaka equation from which time constants (τ₁) and collective diffusion coefficients (D₀) were determined for the PAAm gels prepared at different onset temperatures. τ₁ and D₀ were found to be dependent on T_on. The correlation between T_on and τ₁ and D₀ was explained in terms of the size of microgels formed during gelation. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Predicting community integration following traumatic brain injury with health and cognitive status measures.

Objective: To examine measurement properties of the Community Integration Questionnaire (CIQ) and the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) and assets the contributions of cognitive functioning and health to community integration. Design: Rating scale analyses and regression analysis data on basic cognitive functioning and health collected from 289 individuals with traumatic brain injury. Results: Person reliabilities indicated substantial measurement error. Ceiling effects weakened the model (adjusted R2 = .143) specifying the contributions of age, gender, cognitive functioning, and health to community integration. Conclusions: Poor measurement properties and definitional problems associated with community integration weakened the results. The extent to which potential familial and environmental characteristics contributing to role fulfillment change across time requires further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operation and simulation of city of Gaziantep water supply system in Turkey

Water supply systems are becoming more important, since there are increasing requirements to improve operation whilst improving the environment so that their behaviour can be fully understood and the total process is optimised. This paper presents simulation and control of water supply system of Gaziantep city in Turkey for management purposes. The main objectives are to ensure the behaviour of a water supply system and to regulate the water flow and heads by manipulating the water pumps. The system consists of a sequence of pumping stations that deliver water through pipelines to intermediate storage reservoirs. The model used is obtained using dominant system variables that represent active and passive dynamical elements. The hydraulic models also include the nonlinear coupling between flows and reservoir heads. The polynomial H_∞ optimisation method is used to design a level controller that regulates water flow and heads through the system. The whole system is simulated, and the results are presented and compared with the real-time measured data.     

Impairing Forgetting by Preventing New Learning and Memory.

Two causes of forgetting have been promulgated: memory trace decay and retroactive interference. The authors show that forgetting is an active process requiring both new learning and memory. In the present 1Lymnaea model system, prevention of new learning of a conflicting association, inhibition of memory consolidation, or Right Pedal Dorsal 1 soma ablation, which blocks LTM formation, are all potent means to prevent forgetting. Thus procedures that alter the ability to learn or form memory of a new conflicting aerial respiratory association prevent forgetting of a learned associative behavior. These results are the 1st demonstration in any model system that forgetting requires the soma of a single neuron. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perturbations induites par une onde de foudre sur un réseau de câbles blindés aériens

In this work we study the coupling of a lightning wave with an overhead shielded cables network. The study is led directly in the time domain with hold in account of the loads nonlinear character, and the effect of a finite conductivity of the shield and soil. After discretization by the method so-called FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) of the lines equations excited by a lightning wave and the application in every node of the network of the Kirchhoff’s laws in current and voltage, we deduct a equations system linear or no, of which the resolution permits us to deduct the induced electric quantities in every node of the network. In this study we propose a concept for the coupling analysis of a lightning wave with a shielded cable without use of the least FFT; the shielded cables are treated in a single stage. In this work we also put in evidence the disadvantages of the coupling analysis in the frequency domain.     

Higher order feature selection for text classification

In this paper. we present the MIFS-C variant of the mutual information feature-selection algorithms. We present an algorithm to find the optimal value of the redundancy parameter, which is a key parameter in the MIFS-type algorithms. Furthermore, we present an algorithm that speeds up the execution time of all the MIFS variants. Overall, the presented MIFS-C has comparable classification accuracy (in some cases even better) compared with other MIFS algorithms, while its running time is faster. We compared this feature selector with other feature selectors, and found that it performs better in most cases. The MIFS-C performed especially well for the breakeven and F-measure because the algorithm can be tuned to optimise these evaluation measures. Jan Bakus received the B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in systems design engineering in 2005. He is currently working at Maplesoft, Waterloo, ON, Canada as an applications engineer, where he is responsible for the development of application specific toolboxes for the Maple scientific computing software. His research interests are in the area of feature selection for text classification, text classification, text clustering, and information retrieval. He is the recipient of the Carl Pollock Fellowship award from the University of Waterloo and the Datatel Scholars Foundation scholarship from Datatel. Mohamed S. Kamel holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Toronto, Canada. He is at present Professor and Director of the Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Laboratory in the Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada. Professor Kamel holds a Canada Research Chair in Cooperative Intelligent Systems. Dr. Kamel's research interests are in machine intelligence, neural networks and pattern recognition with applications in robotics and manufacturing. He has authored and coauthored over 200 papers in journals and conference proceedings, 2 patents and numerous technical and industrial project reports. Under his supervision, 53 Ph.D. and M.A.Sc. students have completed their degrees. Dr. Kamel is a member of ACM, AAAI, CIPS and APEO and has been named s Fellow of IEEE (2005). He is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Robotics and Automation, Associate Editor of the IEEE SMC, Part A, the International Journal of Image and Graphics, Pattern Recognition Letters and is a member of the editorial board of the Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing. He has served as a consultant to many Companies, including NCR, IBM, Nortel, VRP and CSA. He is a member of the board of directors and cofounder of Virtek Vision International in Waterloo.