Formation of phase structure and crystallization behavior in blends containing polystyrene–polyethylene block copolymers

The microphase separation structure in the molten state and the structure formation in crystallization from such ordered melt were investigated for the blends of polystyrene–polyethylene block copolymers (SE) with polystyrene homopolymer (PS) and polyethylene homopolymer (PE) and for the blends consisting of two kinds of SE with different copolymer compositions from each other, using synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering techniques (SAXS). The copolymer compositions of SE block copolymers employed were 0.34, 0.58 and 0.73 wt. fraction of PE, and their melt morphologies were cylindrical, lamellar and lamellar, respectively. Macrophase separation or the morphology change in the melt occurred depending on the molecular weight and the blend composition, as reported so far. In crystallization from such macrophase-separated and microphase-separated melts, the melt morphology was completely kept for all the blends. Crystallization behavior was also investigated for the blends. The crystallization within the spherical and cylindrical domains surrounded by glassy PS was not observed for SE/PS blends. In the crystallization from the macrophase-separated melt, two exothermal peaks were observed in the DSC measurements, while a single peak was observed for other blends. For the blends with PS, the degree of crystallinity was depressed and the apparent activation energy of crystallization was high, compared to those for the corresponding neat SE. For SE/PE and SE/SE blends, those were changed depending on the blend composition.     

Efficiency of mineral admixtures in mortars: Quantification of the physical and chemical effects of fine admixtures in relation with compressive strength

This work is the fourth part of an overall project the aim of which was the development of general mix design rules for concrete containing different kinds of mineral admixtures. The two first parts presented the separation and quantification, by means of an empirical model based on semi-adiabatic calorimetry measurements, of the different physical effects responsible for changes in cement hydration (short terms) when chemically inert quartz powders were used in mortars. Part three dealt with an intensive experimental program, presenting and commenting more than 2000 compressive strength measurements. This program concerned 1 day to 6 months old mortars containing up to 75% of inert and pozzolanic admixtures. All these compressive strength results are analyzed in this fourth part and the influence of three effects, namely dilution, heterogeneous nucleation and the pozzolanic effect, are discriminated and quantitatively evaluated. An efficiency concept is proposed in order to take into account the effect of mineral admixture in mortars from both the physical and chemical points of view. It uses an efficiency function ξ(p) that has notable properties: it is independent of time, independent of fineness and independent of the type of mineral admixture.     

Object Recognition in X-ray Testing Using Adaptive Sparse Representations

In recent years, X-ray screening systems have been used to safeguard environments in which access control is of paramount importance. Security checkpoints have been placed at the entrances to many public places to detect prohibited items such as handguns and explosives. Human operators complete these tasks because automated recognition in baggage inspection is far from perfect. Research and development on X-ray testing is, however, ongoing into new approaches that can be used to aid human operators. This paper attempts to make a contribution to the field of object recognition by proposing a new approach called Adaptive Sparse Representation (XASR+). It consists of two stages: learning and testing. In the learning stage, for each object of training dataset, several patches are extracted from its X-ray images in order to construct representative dictionaries. A stop-list is used to remove very common words of the dictionaries. In the testing stage, test patches of the test image are extracted, and for each test patch a dictionary is built concatenating the ‘best’ representative dictionary of each object. Using this adapted dictionary, each test patch is classified following the Sparse Representation Classification methodology. Finally, the test image is classified by patch voting. Thus, our approach is able to deal with less constrained conditions including some contrast variability, pose, intra-class variability, size of the image and focal distance. We tested the effectiveness of our method for the detection of four different objects. In our experiments, the recognition rate was more than 97 % in each class, and more than 94 % if the object is occluded less than 15 %. Results show that XASR+ deals well with unconstrained conditions, outperforming various representative methods in the literature.     

A critical discussion on rebar electrical continuity and usual interpretation thresholds in the field of half-cell potential measurements in steel reinforced concrete

Corrosion of steel in reinforced concrete structures is a recurrent problem affecting civil engineering structures and costing the world billions of dollars per year. This physical phenomenon mainly results from chloride ingress or concrete carbonation. Corrosion can be diagnosed through a nondestructive method such as half-cell potential measurements. The present paper studies this method on a reinforced concrete wall containing eighteen unconnected steel bars and subjected to chloride-induced macrocell corrosion. Three corrosion systems with different configurations of connections between the steel bars are generated, involving three different anode-to-cathode surface ratios. Then, half-cell potential variations are observed versus macrocell corrosion current. The results lead to a critical discussion regarding the physical relevance of the usual potential threshold method to detect corroding rebars in reinforced concrete structures. In addition, the experiments demonstrate that electrical continuity between reinforcing steel bars is not necessary to get meaningful information about the macrocell corrosion system. At last, the paper show that the electric field (potential gradient) relative to a macrocell corrosion system may be measured by connecting the measurement system (reference electrode?+?voltmeter) to any electrochemical system in electrolytic contact with the concrete.     

Diagnosis of lung nodule using Moran’s index and Geary’s coefficient in computerized tomography images

This paper analyzes the application of Moran’s index and Geary’s coefficient to the characterization of lung nodules as malignant or benign in computerized tomography images. The characterization method is based on a process that verifies which combination of measures, from the proposed measures, has been best able to discriminate between the benign and malignant nodules using stepwise discriminant analysis. Then, a linear discriminant analysis procedure was performed using the selected features to evaluate the ability of these in predicting the classification for each nodule. In order to verify this application we also describe tests that were carried out using a sample of 36 nodules: 29 benign and 7 malignant. A leave-one-out procedure was used to provide a less biased estimate of the linear discriminator’s performance. The two analyzed functions and its combinations have provided above 90% of accuracy and a value area under receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curve above 0.85, that indicates a promising potential to be used as nodules signature measures. The preliminary results of this approach are very encouraging in characterizing nodules using the two functions presented.

Making Beliefs Coherentl. The Subtraction and Addition Strategies.

The notion of epistemic coherence is interpreted as involving not only consistency but also stability. The problem how to consolidate a belief system, i.e., revise it so that it becomes coherent, is studied axiomatically as well as in terms of set-theoretical constructions. Representation theorems are given for subtractive consolidation (where coherence is obtained by deleting beliefs) and additive consolidation (where coherence is obtained by adding beliefs).     

A comparative study of the purification of betanin

Betanin is a natural pigment with antioxidant properties used as a food colourant. This work describes the spectrophotometric and chromatographic quantification of betanin (2S/15S) and its epimer isobetanin (2S/15R) in fresh beetroot juice, food-grade beetroot powder and betanin standard diluted in dextrin. Absorption spectra of all three samples were deconvoluted using a mixed three-function model. Food-grade beetroot powder has the largest amount of violet-red impurities, probably formed during processing. The purification of betanin from these complex matrices was carried out by seven different methods. Ion exchange chromatography was the most efficient method for the purification of betanin from all samples; however, fractions contain high amounts of salt. Reversed-phase HPLC as well as reversed-phase column chromatography also produced good results at a much faster rate. The longer retention time of isobetanin when compared to betanin in reversed-phase conditions has been investigated by means of quantum-mechanical methods.     

Active application of primer acid on acid‐treated enamel: Influence on the bond effectiveness of self‐etch adhesives systems

Aim: Evaluate the composite‐to‐enamel bond after passive or active application of self‐etching primer systems on polished or pre‐etched enamel with phosphoric acid. Materials and Methods: Two self‐etch adhesives systems (SEAS) were used: Clearfil SE Bond and Easy Bond. Third human molars were divided into 8 groups (N = 10). The crown of each tooth was sectioned into halves and the mesial/distal surfaces were used. The adhesives were actively or passively applied on enamel with or without prior phosphoric‐acid etching. Resin composite cylinders were built after adhesive application. After stored in relative humidity for 24 hr/37°C the specimens were subjected to microshear test in universal testing a machine at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/minute. The results were analyzed with three‐way ANOVA and the Tukey test. The enamel‐etching pattern was evaluated under SEM. Results: The 2‐step SEAS system presented significantly higher adhesive bond strength means (47.37 MPa) than the 1‐step (36.87 MPa). A poor enamel‐ etching pattern was observed in active mode showing irregular and short resin tags, however there was not compromised the bond strength. Conclusion: Active or passive application produced similar values of bond strength to enamel regardless of enamel pretreatment and type of SEAS.     

Radiation absorption and rate constants for carbaryl photocatalytic degradation in a solar collector

We discuss an analytical model for the evaluation of radiation absorption in a tubular photocatalytic reactor. The model has no adjustable parameters and takes into account scattering in all directions. We compare the results of this model with those of Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and of a Lambert–Beer (LB) approximation, for a reactor illuminated by a parabolic solar concentrator. A good correspondence is found with the MC simulations. In particular, the model displays the correct saturation behavior of absorption for large catalyst particle concentrations, which is not obtained with the LB approximation. We have carried out experiments for the degradation of carbaryl in a solar parabolic collector (PC). The model is used to calculate the rate constant for this degradation from the experimental data. The theoretical model predictions reproduce well, the trends observed in the experiments.     

Mineral admixtures in mortars: Quantification of the physical effects of inert materials on short-term hydration

This work is the second part of an overall project, the aim of which is the development of general mix design rules for concrete containing different kinds of mineral admixtures. The first part presented the separation of the different physical effects responsible for changes in cement hydration when chemically inert quartz powders are used in mortars. This second part describes the development of an empirical model, based on semiadiabatic calorimetry measurements, which leads to the quantification of the enhancement of cement hydration due to the heterogeneous nucleation effect at short hydration times. Experimental results show that not all the admixture particles participate in the heterogeneous nucleation process. Consequently, the concept of efficient surface S_eff is introduced in the model. S_eff is the total admixture surface S (m² of mineral admixture/kg of cement) weighted by a function ξ(p). The efficiency function ξ(p) depends only on the replacement rate p and is independent of time, fineness and type of mineral admixture used. It decreases from 1 to 0: Low replacement rates give an efficiency value near 1, which means that all admixture particles enhance the hydration process. An efficiency value near 0 is obtained for high replacement rates, which indicates that, from the hydration point of view, an excess of inert powder does not lead to an increase in the amount of hydrates compared with the reference mortar without mineral admixture. The empirical model, which is mainly related to the specific surface area of the admixtures, quantifies the variation of the degree of hydration induced by the use of inert mineral admixtures. One application of the model, coupled with Powers' law, is the prediction of the short-term compressive strength of mortars.