Reusable Polyacrylonitrile-Sulfur Extractor of Heavy Metal Ions from Wastewater

Mercury, lead, and cadmium are among the most toxic and carcinogenic heavy metal ions (HMIs), posing serious threats to the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems and public health. There is an urgent need to remove these ions from water by a cheap but green process. Traditional methods have insufficient removal efficiency and reusability. Structurally robust, large surface-area adsorbents functionalized with high-selectivity affinity to HMIs are attractive filter materials. Here, an adsorbent prepared by vulcanization of polyacrylonitrile (PAN), a nitrogen-rich polymer, is reported, giving rise to PAN-S nanoparticles with cyclic π-conjugated backbone and electronic conductivity. PAN-S can be coated on ultra-robust melamine (ML) foam by simple dipping and drying. In agreement with hard/soft acid/base theory, N- and S-containing soft Lewis bases have strong binding to Hg²⁺, Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺, and Cd²⁺, with extraordinary capture efficiency and performance stability. Furthermore, the used filters, when collected and electrochemically biased in a recycling bath, can release the HMIs into the bath and electrodeposit on the counter-electrode as metallic Hg⁰, Pb⁰, Cu⁰, and Cd⁰, and the PAN-S@ML filter can then be reused at least 6 times as new. The electronically conductive PAN-S@ML filter can be fabricated cheaply and holds promise for scale-up applications.     

Acrylonitrile-based copolymers: Synthesis,characterization, and formation of ultrafiltration membranes utilized for the immobilization of proteins

Various high molecular weight copolymers of acrylonitrile and a vinyl comonomer containing an aryl amine, a pyridine, or an aliphatic hydroxyl group were synthesized via slurry polymerization techniques so as to contain from 1 to 15 mol % functional comonomer. The comonomer content was quantitated by ultraviolet absorbance, base titration of acid polymer salts, and/or relative chemical reactivity with trichloro-s-triazine. Thin films were cast from copolymer solutions, coagulated into unsupported ultrafiltration membrances, and characterized with respect to both water permeability and pore size distribution. Analysis by size exclusion chromatography of the membrane permeate of a pool of dextran fractions yielded a continuous distribution curve for membrane pore size over the range 1.5 to 70 nm. The ultrafiltration membranes were used for protein immobilization after appropriate chemical activation. The three distinct types of functional copolymers gave comparable results for α-chymotrypsin, with protein weight loadings of 6–12% and 40–65% retention of enzymatic specific activity.     

An approach to reduce energy consumption and performance losses on heterogeneous servers using power capping

Journal of Scheduling - Rapid growth of demand for remote computational power, along with high energy costs and infrastructure limits, has led to treating power usage as a primary constraint in...     

The educational electronic book as a tool for supporting children’s emergent literacy in low versus middle SES groups

The effects of an educational electronic book (e-book) on 149 five- to six-year-old kindergarteners’ emergent literacy levels were researched in two SES groups: low (LSES) (79 children) vs. middle (MSES) (70 children). In each SES group, children were randomly assigned to four groups. Three groups were assigned to work individually in one of three e-book activity modes: “Read story only”, “Read with dictionary”, or “Read and play” during three similar activity sessions and the fourth group served as a control which received the regular program of the kindergarten. Pre- and post-intervention emergent literacy measures included word meaning, word recognition, and phonological awareness. Results show that word meaning of children from both middle and low SES improved following the educational e-book activity, regardless of mode. Second, LSES children’s emergent literacy levels showed relatively greater improvement rates than did those of the MSES children. Third, children in the “Read with dictionary” and “Read and play” activity modes showed more improvement in their emergent literacy levels than did those in the “Read story only” mode. Implications for future research and for education are discussed.     

Evaluation of Face Datasets as Tools for Assessing the Performance of Face Recognition Methods

Face datasets are considered a primary tool for evaluating the efficacy of face recognition methods. Here we show that in many of the commonly used face datasets, face images can be recognized accurately at a rate significantly higher than random even when no face, hair or clothes features appear in the image. The experiments were done by cutting a small background area from each face image, so that each face dataset provided a new image dataset which included only seemingly blank images. Then, an image classification method was used in order to check the classification accuracy. Experimental results show that the classification accuracy ranged between 13.5% (color FERET) to 99% (YaleB). These results indicate that the performance of face recognition methods measured using face image datasets may be biased. Compilable source code used for this experiment is freely available for download via the Internet.     

Gossip-based aggregation of trust in decentralized reputation systems

Decentralized Reputation Systems have recently emerged as a prominent method of establishing trust among self-interested agents in online environments. A key issue is the efficient aggregation of data in the system; several approaches have been proposed, but they are plagued by major shortcomings. We put forward a novel, decentralized data management scheme grounded in gossip-based algorithms. Rumor mongering is known to possess algorithmic advantages, and indeed, our framework inherits many of their salient features: scalability, robustness, a global perspective, and simplicity. We demonstrate that our scheme motivates agents to maintain a very high reputation, by showing that the higher an agent’s reputation is above the threshold set by its peers, the more transactions it would be able to complete within a certain time unit. We analyze the relation between the amount by which an agent’s average reputation exceeds the threshold and the time required to close a deal. This analysis is carried out both theoretically, and empirically through a simulation system called GossipTrustSim. Finally, we show that our approach is inherently impervious to certain kinds of attacks. A preliminary version of this article appeared in the proceedings of IJCAI 2007.     

A structural linearization principle for processes

In [11], an induction principle for processes was given which allows one to apply model-checking techniques to parameterized families of processes. A limitation of the induction principle is that it does not apply to the case in which one process depends directly upon a parameterized number of processes, which grows without bound. This would seem to preclude its application to families ofN processes interconnected in a star topology. Nonetheless, we show that if the dependency can be computed incrementally, then the direct dependency upon the parameterized number of processes may be re-expressed recursively in terms of a linear cascade of processes, yielding in effect a linearization of the inter-process dependencies and allowing the induction principle to apply.A previous version of this paper appears in the Proceedings of CAV 1993 (LNCS 697).     

Adaptive pattern recognition with rotation, scale, and shift invariance

Mutually orthogonal pattern distortions are handled by an adaptive optical recognition system. A double-channel system is presented that implements pattern recognition with rotation, scale, and shift invariance. The recognition process is based on a two-stage operation: An object-independent determination of one distortion parameter (the scale, in the example presented here) is performed, and then the recognition is completed by a shift- and rotation-invariant optical correlator that is adapted to the measured parameter. Thus, complete invariance to three distortion parameters is achieved by the combination of two channels. The overall process is performed efficiently and can be executed in real time.