The synthesis of block copolyetherketones based on 4,4′‐dichlorodiphenylketone,phenolphthaleine, and bisphenol A and investigation of their properties

Block structured polyethers based on phenolphthaleine, 4,4′‐dichlorodiphenylketone, and bisphenol A with different degrees condensation (n = 1, 5, 10, and 20) were synthesized by means of acceptor‐catalytic polycondensation. Equaimolar quantities of chloranhydrides of iso‐ and terephthalic acids were used. Higher molecular masses were obtained from longer oligoketones with higher condensation degrees. Better molecular packing, increased thermal and mechanical properties were obtained with higher condensation degrees of oligoketones. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. JAppl Polym Sci, 2008     

Die Abtrennung von Ölsäuremonoglycerid aus einem Glyceridgemisch mit Hilfe eines überkritischen Extraktionsmittels

Separation of Glycerol-monooleate from a Mixture of Glycerides by Means of a Supercritical Extractant The continuous separation of pure monoglycerides out of a mixture of glycerides by means of supercritical fluid extraction was investigated. As supercritical extracting agent carbon dioxide containing propane as an entrainer was used. The phase equilibria concerning the process were measured and are discussed. In an extraction apparatus consisting of an extraction column and two separators the viability of the process was tested. At 40°C and 120 bar a product with 99.5 wt.% monoglycerides was manufactured out of a mixture of glycerides containing 59 wt.% monoglycerides.     

A greedy gradient-simulated annealing selection hyper-heuristic

Educational timetabling problem is a challenging real world problem which has been of interest to many researchers and practitioners. There are many variants of this problem which mainly require scheduling of events and resources under various constraints. In this study, a curriculum based course timetabling problem at Yeditepe University is described and an iterative selection hyper-heuristic is presented as a solution method. A selection hyper-heuristic as a high level methodology operates on the space formed by a fixed set of low level heuristics which operate directly on the space of solutions. The move acceptance and heuristic selection methods are the main components of a selection hyper-heuristic. The proposed hyper-heuristic in this study combines a simulated annealing move acceptance method with a learning heuristic selection method and manages a set of low level constraint oriented heuristics. A key goal in hyper-heuristic research is to build low cost methods which are general and can be reused on unseen problem instances as well as other problem domains desirably with no additional human expert intervention. Hence, the proposed method is additionally applied to a high school timetabling problem, as well as six other problem domains from a hyper-heuristic benchmark to test its level of generality. The empirical results show that our easy-to-implement hyper-heuristic is effective in solving the Yeditepe course timetabling problem. Moreover, being sufficiently general, it delivers a reasonable performance across different problem domains.     

Effects of exogenous porcine somatotropin on the development of fat cells and fatty acid composition in backfat of live finishing pigs

The effects of long-term application of recombinant porcine somatotropin (pST) to Landrace pigs on the development of backfat thickness, fat cells and fatty acid composition were investigated from about the 116th to the 186th day of life. Biopsy samples from the backfat of 56 castrates were taken at the beginning of treatment and after 5 and 10 weeks. The daily injection of 2 or 4 mg of pST induced a considerable decrease in backfat growth compared to untreated controls. This was attributed to a decreased size (about 18–20%) and number (about 13–25%) of fat cells. The higher dose of 4 mg pST/day induced a greater restriction of fat growth. This was obviously based on differences in fat cell number. Furthermore, pST treatment delayed the normal decrease of unsaturated fatty acids (C 18:2; C 18:3) during the period of growth examined. Therefore, the percentages of unsaturated fatty acids increased, indicating changes in fat cell metabolism of pST treated pigs.     

Optimized Machine Learning Algorithms for Investigating the Relationship Between Economic Development and Human Capital

Computational Economics - In Economic Development, human capital was previously seen as production factors but gradually evolved into endogenous growth theories. Most of the previous studies have...     

Combined forecasts in portfolio optimization: A generalized approach

In this paper a general mathematical model for portfolio selection problem is proposed. By considering a forecasting performance according to the distributional properties of residuals, we formulate an extended mean-variance-skewness model with 11 objective functions. Returns and return errors for each asset obtained using different forecasting techniques, are combined in optimal proportions so as to minimize the mean absolute forecast error. These proportions are then used in constructing six criteria related to the mean, variance and skewness of return forecasts of assets in the future and forecasting errors of returns of assets in the past. The obtained multi-objective model is scalarized by using the conic scalarization method which guarantees to find all non-dominated solutions by considering investor preferences in non-convex multi-objective problems. The obtained scalar problem is solved by utilizing F-MSG algorithm. The performance of the proposed approach is tested on a real case problem generated on the data derived from Istanbul Stock Exchange. The comparison is conducted with respect to different levels of investor preferences over return, variance, and skewness and obtained results are summarized.     

Frontal EMG-biofeedback training of athetoid cerebral palsy patients: a report of six cases

108 tendons of the m. extensor hallucis longus were examined with a tensile testing machine within 36 h after death. The specimen were kept at a resting length of 20 mm. After the "steady state" was reached by cyclic loading, the tendons were stretched up to a maximum load of 18 kp, then deloaded to a certain level and after that the elongation was kept constant. At high loading level the tension of the tendon decreases with time (relaxation). At medium and low loading level the tension increases slightly (mechanical recovery). Between that two regions there is a certain load, where the tension will not change with time (isorheological point). The position of the isorheological point depends on the velocity of the elongation. At low velocity (2 mm/min) the isorheological point is situated at 70%, at high velocity (12 mm/min) at 60% of the maximum load. One will find the maximum relaxation, when no deloading occurs. The mechanical recovery, however, has its maximum at 5--25% of the maximum load. But when the tendon is totally deloaded, there seems to occur no recovery. The maximum relaxation is 5 to 6 times larger than the maximum recovery. Supposingly the relaxation- and recovery-processses will happen at the same time but with different intensity depending on the loading level. At least the relaxation-process consists of different relaxation components with different relaxation times. This will explain the phenomenon of a "secondary relaxation": After a long time of registration the recovery will turn into a slight relaxation.     

Reconstructing 3D trajectories of independently moving objects using generic constraints

The 3D reconstruction of scenes containing independently moving objects from uncalibrated monocular sequences still poses serious challenges. Even if the background and the moving objects are rigid, each reconstruction is only known up to a certain scale, which results in a one-parameter family of possible, relative trajectories per moving object with respect to the background. In order to determine a realistic solution from this family of possible trajectories, this paper proposes to exploit the increased linear coupling between camera and object translations that tends to appear at false scales. An independence criterion is formulated in the sense of true object and camera motions being minimally correlated. The increased coupling at false scales can also lead to the destruction of special properties such as planarity, periodicity, etc. of the true object motion. This provides us with a second, ‘non-accidentalness’ criterion for the selection of the correct motion among the one-parameter family.