Micro-fabricated thermal flow-rate sensors: the substrate material impact on the device performance and power consumption

Microsystem Technologies - We report on micro-machined flow-rate sensors as part of autonomous multi-parameter sensing devices for water network monitoring. Three different prototypes of the...     

Fast computation of inverse Meixner moments transform using Clenshaw’s formula

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Orthogonal moments are recognized as useful tools for object representation and image analysis. It was shown that they have better image representation...     

Synthesis and polymerization of the bromoacrylated plant oil triglycerides to rigid,flame‐retardant polymers

Simultaneous addition of bromine and acrylate to the double bonds of fatty acids in triglycerides was achieved. In the first part of the study, methyl oleate was bromoacrylated in the presence of acrylic acid and N‐bromosuccinimide as a model compound for the application of the reaction to the triglycerides. Next, soybean oil and high oleic sunflower oil were bromoacrylated by using the same procedure. The products were characterized by GC, IR, ¹H‐NMR, ¹³C‐NMR, and mass spectrometry. The bromoacrylation yields for soybean oil and sunflower oil were 75 and 55%, respectively. A rigid thermoset polymer was prepared from the radical copolymerization of bromoacrylated soybean oil with styrene. The bromoacrylated sunflower oil–styrene copolymer showed semirigid properties. The crosslinked network structure of the copolymers was examined by their swelling behavior in different solvents. Glass‐transition temperatures were also determined and soybean oil–based polymer and sunflower oil–based polymer showed a glass transition at 55–65 and 20–30°C, respectively. The storage moduli of the soybean‐based and sunflower‐based polymers at room temperature were approximately 1.0 × 10¹⁰ and 1.1 × 10⁸ Pa, respectively. Photopolymerization was also carried out by using 2,2‐dimethoxy‐2‐phenyl‐acetophenone as initiator. The response of the cured polymers to the thermal energy produced by a small flame was also tested by the ignition respond index method according to ASTM D 3713‐78 and was found to be 5 B at 2.00 mm. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91:2700–2710, 2004     

Urocortin Role in Ischemia Cardioprotection and the Adverse Cardiac Remodeling

Despite the considerable progress in strategies of myocardial protection, ischemic heart diseases (IHD) and consequent heart failure (HF) remain the main cause of mortality worldwide. Several procedures are used routinely to guarantee the prompt and successful reestablishment of blood flow to preserve the myocardial viability of infarcted hearts from ischemia injuries. However, ischemic heart reperfusion/revascularization triggers additional damages that occur when oxygen-rich blood re-enters the vulnerable myocardial tissue, which is a phenomenon known as ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) syndrome. Complications of I/R injuries provoke the adverse cardiac remodeling, involving inflammation, mishandling of Ca²⁺ homeostasis, apoptotic genes activation, cardiac myocytes loss, etc., which often progress toward HF. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new cardioprotective therapies for IHD and HF. Compelling evidence from animal studies and pilot clinical trials in HF patients suggest that urocortin (Ucn) isoforms, which are peptides associated with stress and belonging to the corticotropin releasing factor family, have promising potential to improve cardiovascular functions by targeting many signaling pathways at different molecular levels. This review highlights the current knowledge on the role of urocortin isoforms in cardioprotection, focusing on its acute and long-term effects.     

Determinants of software piracy under risk aversion: a model with empirical evidence

This paper studies the determinants of software piracy in world economies from a risk avoidance perspective. A risk aversion model for the commercialization of pirated software is developed to account for behavioral elements of risk and uncertainty avoidance among countries’ software pirates (i.e., counterfeiters and suppliers) and test empirically for the effects of country characteristics on piracy levels. Panel regression analysis is conducted to identify the determinants of software piracy using this model on a data set of 87 countries during 2007–2011. The empirical results confirm those obtained in prior research (e.g., the inverted U-shaped relationship between GDP per capita and piracy rates) but divulge that the behavioral-country component capturing the attitudes towards risk of software pirates improves the explanatory power of the statistical regressions after controlling for country performance and institutional factors. We also show that human development and good country governance reduce piracy rates. Besides providing support for our risk aversion-based piracy model and hinting at the need to consider population behavior in policy-making, these findings underline the relevance of human development and country institutions in explaining software piracy rates.     

A new integrated methodology using modified Delphi-fuzzy AHP-PROMETHEE for Geospatial Business Intelligence selection

Geospatial Business Intelligence (Geospatial BI) is a system that combines multidimensional analysis and cartographic visualization. It plays an important role in decision making process for enterprises. Adopting such a comprehensive solution may result in the great investment decision for them, so great deal of attention should be given in the selection of the optimal system. As there are many impacting factors in the selection of Geospatial BI system, the same process is considered as a complex multi-criteria decision making problem. In this paper, we explore the application of an integrated methodology for the evaluation of various Geospatial BI alternatives. The proposed methodology integrates the three well-known decision-making techniques, namely Modified Delphi, fuzzy analytic hierarchical process (fuzzy-AHP), and preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE). In this respect, the modified Delphi is used to select the most impacting factors by a few decision-makers. The fuzzy-AHP is employed to analyze the structure of the problem and to obtain the weights of the qualitative and quantitative criteria, by incorporating the uncertainty values. Then, the PROMETHEE technique is used for optimal ranking of the alternative system choices. A step-by-step, numerical study is illustrated by using the proposed methodology on the decision making problem of a company that is faced to five Geospatial BI solutions. The results demonstrate that the proposed methodology can successfully accomplish our goal of this study.     

Characterization of self-assembled metallodendrimers in solution, in the gas phase, and at air/solid interfaces

It is found that 4,4'-bipyridines functionalized in their 3,3'-positions with Fréchet dendrons of 0th to 3rd generation self-assemble with (dppp)M(II) triflates (dppp: bis-(diphenylphosphino)propane; M = Pd, Pt) into metallo-supramolecular squares. They bear a nanometer-sized cavity inside an unpolar dendritic shell. A total of eight amide groups decorate the rims of the cavity connecting the dendrons to the square. Evidence for their formation up to the third generation comes from ESI-FTICR mass spectrometry and NMR experiments. Based on these results, the presence of significant amounts of other polygons or open-chain oligomers can be excluded. Exchange processes have been studied by variable-temperature NMR spectroscopy and by following the ligand exchanges between different squares by mass spectrometry. The ligand exchange is much slower for the Pt(II) squares as compared to their Pd(II) analogs. Visualization of films of these dendrimers using atomic force microscopy (AFM) provides information on their molecular dimensions. After deposition of a square monolayer on the surface, a slow reorganization within this layer is observed which leads to the formation of "tower-like" aggregates and multi-layer formation. The interplay of interactions between the dendrimers and the surface and interactions between different dendrimers are invoked to rationalize the observations.     

Behaviour of reinforced and concrete-encased composite columns subjected to biaxial bending and axial load

An experimental investigation of the behaviour of reinforced concrete columns and a theoretical procedure for analysis of both short and slender reinforced and composite columns of arbitrarily shaped cross section subjected to biaxial bending and axial load are presented. In the proposed procedure, nonlinear stress–strain relations are assumed for concrete, reinforcing steel and structural steel materials. The compression zone of the concrete section and the entire section of the structural steel are divided into adequate number of segments in order to use various stress–strain models for the analysis. The slenderness effect of the member is taken into account by using the Moment Magnification Method. The proposed procedure was compared with test results of 12 square and three L-shaped reinforced concrete columns subjected to short-term axial load and biaxial bending, and also some experimental results available in the literature for composite columns compared with the theoretical results obtained by the proposed procedure and a good degree of accuracy was obtained.     

Loop-free alternates and not-via addresses: A proper combination for IP fast reroute?

The IETF currently discusses fast reroute mechanisms for IP networks (IP FRR). IP FRR accelerates the recovery in case of network element failures and avoids micro-loops during re-convergence. Several mechanisms are proposed. Loop-free alternates (LFAs) are simple but cannot cover all single link and node failures. Not-via addresses can protect against these failures but are more complex, in particular, they use tunneling techniques to deviate backup traffic. In the IETF it has been proposed to combine both mechanisms to merge their advantages: simplicity and full failure coverage.This work analyzes LFAs and classifies them according to their abilities. We qualitatively compare LFAs and not-via addresses and develop a concept for their combined application to achieve 100% single failure coverage, while using simple LFAs wherever possible. The applicability of existing LFAs depends on the resilience requirements of the network. We study the backup path length and the link utilization for both IP FRR methods and quantify the decapsulation load and the increase of the routing table size caused by not-via addresses. We conclude that the combined usage of both methods has no advantage compared to the application of not-via addresses only.