3D Hair sketching for real-time dynamic & key frame animations

Physically based simulation of human hair is a well studied and well known problem. But the “pure” physically based representation of hair (and other animation elements) is not the only concern of the animators, who want to “control” the creation and animation phases of the content. This paper describes a sketch-based tool, with which a user can both create hair models with different styling parameters and produce animations of these created hair models using physically and key frame-based techniques. The model creation and animation production tasks are all performed with direct manipulation techniques in real-time.     

Forecasting of Turkey's net electricity energy consumption on sectoral bases

In this study forecast of Turkey's net electricity energy consumption on sectoral basis until 2020 is explored. Artificial neural networks (ANN) is preferred as forecasting tool. The reasons behind choosing ANN are the ability of ANN to forecast future values of more than one variable at the same time and to model the nonlinear relation in the data structure. Founded forecast results by ANN are compared with official forecasts.     

Local heat transfer measurements of plate finned-tube heat exchangers by infrared thermography

An experimental study is performed using an infrared thermovision to monitor temperature distribution over a plate-fin surface inside the plate finned-tube heat exchangers. The differentiation of the temperature function is derived to determine the local convective heat transfer coefficients on the tested fin, using a local element lumped conduction equation included the convective effect on the boundaries with experimental data. It is disclosed that the infrared thermography is capable of rapidly detecting location and extent of transition and separation regions of the boundary layer over the whole surface of the tested models. Through the comparison of the test results on the strategy region of the in-line and staggered arrangements, it is more easy to understand or interpret the detailed dynamic phenomena of flow existed in the heat exchangers. In addition, the experimental results demonstrate that the averaged heat transfer coefficient of staggered configuration is 14-32% higher than that of in-lined configuration     

Steady-state and transient photoconductivity in hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride films

Amorphous SiN_x:H films were prepared by the rf glow-discharge decomposition of ammonia/silane gas mixture with varying nitrogen content. The steady-state photoconductivity and its dependence on light intensity have been investigated in a-SiN_x:H as a function of temperature between 100 and 420 K. The electron drift mobility of a set of SiN_x:H samples has been determined from their steady-state photoconductivity and response time measurements. The results suggest that electron drift mobility of the samples was nearly unchanged for a low nitrogen content. Two samples containing lowest nitrogen showed higher photoconductivity than that of unalloyed sample within a temperature range including the room temperature.     

General solution of one-dimensional,time dependent coupled heat flow systems

A new, powerful method of analysis, involving the combined use of finite integral transform and finite element techniques, is presented for the solution of time dependent heat flow systems composed of many one-dimensional elements connected through the nodes. This method leads to an eigenvalue problem which is not of the conventional Sturm-Liouville type. A procedure for the determination of the eigenvalues is described. The solution obtained is in the form of an infinite series and contains quasi-steady and transient terms. The general solution obtained can be applied in the mathematical modelling of many engineering applications such as the determination of the penetration of the daily temperature cycle into buildings, the analysis of heat transfer in array of extended surfaces in compact heat exchangers, and many others.     

A note on double lacunary statistical $$\sigma$$-convergence of fuzzy numbers

Quite recently, Sava? (Appl Math Lett 21:134–141, 2008), defined the lacunary statistical analogue for double sequence \(X=\{X_{k,l}\}\) of fuzzy numbers as follows: a double sequence \(X=\{X_{k,l}\}\) is said to be lacunary P-statistically convergent to \(X_{0}\) provided that for each \(\epsilon >0\)

$ P-\lim_{r,s}\frac{1}{h_{r,s}}\left | \{(k,l)\in I_{r,s}: d(X_{k,l },X_0)\geq \epsilon\}\right|= 0. $

In this paper we introduce and study double lacunary \(\sigma\)-statistical convergence for sequence of fuzzy numbers and also we get some inclusion theorems.

     

X-ray Fluorescence Uptake Measurement of Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles in Tumor Cell Microsamples

Quantitative cellular in vitro nanoparticle uptake measurements are possible with a large number of different techniques, however, all have their respective restrictions. Here, we demonstrate the application of synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence imaging (XFI) on prostate tumor cells, which have internalized differently functionalized gold nanoparticles. Total nanoparticle uptake on the order of a few hundred picograms could be conveniently observed with microsamples consisting of only a few hundreds of cells. A comparison with mass spectroscopy quantification is provided, experimental results are both supported and sensitivity limits of this XFI approach extrapolated by Monte-Carlo simulations, yielding a minimum detectable nanoparticle mass of just 5 pg. This study demonstrates the high sensitivity level of XFI, allowing non-destructive uptake measurements with very small microsamples within just seconds of irradiation time.     

Decentralized observers with consensus filters for distributed discrete-time linear systems

This paper presents a decentralized observer with a consensus filter for the state observation of discrete-time linear distributed systems. Each agent in the distributed system has an observer with a model of the plant that utilizes the set of locally available measurements, which may not make the full plant state detectable. This lack of detectability is overcome by utilizing a consensus filter that blends the state estimate of each agent with its neighbors’ estimates. It is proven that the state estimates of the proposed observer exponentially converge to the actual plant states under arbitrarily changing, but connected, communication and pseudo-connected sensing graph topologies. Except these connectivity properties, full knowledge of the sensing and communication graphs is not needed at the design time. As a byproduct, we obtained a result on the location of eigenvalues, i.e., the spectrum, of the Laplacian for a family of graphs with self-loops.     

Effect of chromium aging on the structural and thermal properties of chromium polyacrylate

The effects of aging time of Cr(III) solutions on the structural, thermal, magnetic, and morphological properties of chromium polyacrylate complexes were studied. Chromium retention was found to increase with longer aging periods. IR spectra revealed the formation of polychelate structures with noticeable changes on aging. The interaction of multivalent, polynuclear Cr(III) species with the polymer backbone resulted in a decrease in thermal stability for the complexes prepared from olated chromium solutions. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 490–493, 2005     

Synthesis and properties of chitosan-modified poly(vinyl butyrate)

Modification of chitosan by grafting of vinyl butyrate was carried out in homogeneous phase using potassium persulfate as redox initator and 1.5% acetic acid as solvent. The percent grafting and grafting efficiency were analysed and the high grafting efficiency up to 94% was observed. The effects of reaction variables such as monomer concentration, initiator concentration, temperature and reaction time were investigated. It was observed that the solubility of chitosan was markedly reduced after grafting with vinyl butyrate. The grafted product is insoluble in common organic solvents as well in dilute organic and inorganic acids. Characterization of the graft copolymers were carried out by using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) technics. Characteristic signal of carbonyl group was observed at 1,731 cm⁻¹ which belongs to the poly vinyl butyrate segments in the graft copolymer. The melting transition of the chitosan main chain in the copolymer shifted to 124°C from its original value 101°C. In addition to these, we have also studied topology of the graft copolymer and the SEM micrograph showed continuous homogenous matrix which means there is no phase separation.