SMARTINT: using mined attribute dependencies to integrate fragmented web databases

Many web databases can be seen as providing partial and overlapping information about entities in the world. To answer queries effectively, we need to integrate the information about the individual entities that are fragmented over multiple sources. At first blush this is just the inverse of traditional database normalization problem—rather than go from a universal relation to normalized tables, we want to reconstruct the universal relation given the tables (sources). The standard way of reconstructing the entities will involve joining the tables. Unfortunately, because of the autonomous and decentralized way in which the sources are populated, they often do not have Primary Key–Foreign Key relations. While tables may share attributes, naive joins over these shared attributes can result in reconstruction of many spurious entities thus seriously compromising precision. Our system, SmartInt is aimed at addressing the problem of data integration in such scenarios. Given a query, our system uses the Approximate Functional Dependencies (AFDs) to piece together a tree of relevant tables to answer it. The result tuples produced by our system are able to strike a favorable balance between precision and recall.     

A platform for the development of patient applications in the domain of personalized health

Personalized health (p-health) systems can contribute significantly to the sustainability of healthcare systems, though their feasibility is yet to be proven. One of the problems related to their development is the lack of well-established development tools for this domain. As the p-health paradigm is focused on patient self-management, big challenges arise around the design and implementation of patient systems. This paper presents a reference platform created for the development of these applications, and shows the advantages of its adoption in a complex project dealing with cardio-vascular diseases.     

Anodic behaviour of carbon materials in NaCl saturated NaAlCl4 fused electrolyte at low temperatures: A cyclic voltammetric study

The anodic behaviour of compacted graphite, graphite powder, glassy carbon and reticulated vitreous carbon electrodes in basic sodium chloroaluminate melt in the temperature range 428–573 K was studied using cyclic voltammetry. Chlorine evolution (> + 2.1 V vs Al) alone was the predominant reaction on the compact glassy carbon and fresh RVC electrodes. On compacted graphite, chlorine-assisted chloroaluminate intercalation was found to be a competitive process to the chlorine evolution. At high sweep rates, intercalation/deintercalation near the graphite lattice edges occur faster than chlorine evolution. Subsequent intercalation, however, is a slow process. Chlorine evolution predominates at higher temperatures and at higher anodic potentials. On graphite powders, a more reversible free radical chlorine adsorption/desorption process also occurs in the potential region below chlorine evolution. The process occurs at the grain boundaries, edges and defects of the graphite powder material. Intercalation/deintercalation processes are mainly responsible for the disintegration of graphitic materials in low-temperature chloroaluminate melts. Repeated intercalation/deintercalation cycles result in the irreversible transformation of the electrode surface and electrode characteristics. The surface area of the electrode is increased substantially on cycling. Electrode materials and operating conditions suitable for chlorine generation, intercalation/deintercalation and chlorine adsorption/desorption and power sources based on these processes are identified in this work.     

Long-term mapping and localization using feature stability histograms

This work proposes a system for long-term mapping and localization based on the Feature Stability Histogram (FSH) model which is an innovative feature management approach able to cope with changing environments. FSH is built using a voting schema, where re-observed features are promoted; otherwise the feature progressively decreases its corresponding FSH value. FSH is inspired by the human memory model. This model introduces concepts of Short-Term Memory (STM), which retains information long enough to use it, and Long-Term Memory (LTM), which retains information for longer periods of time. If the entries in STM are continuously rehearsed, they become part of LTM. However, this work proposes a change in the pipeline of this model, allowing any feature to be part of STM or LTM depending on the feature strength. FSH stores the stability values of local features, stable features are only used for localization and mapping. Experimental validation of the FSH model was conducted using the FastSLAM framework and a long-term dataset collected during a period of one year at different environmental conditions. The experiments carried out include qualitative and quantitative results such as: filtering out dynamic objects, increasing map accuracy, scalability, and reducing the data association effort in long-term runs.     

Structural and optical properties of Zn3P2 thin films

Conditions have been developed for the deposition of a stoichiometric thin film of zinc phosphide (Zn₃P₂) using electron beam evaporation. Structural properties of as-deposited and annealed thin films of zinc phosphide have been studied using electron and X-ray diffraction. The as-deposited film is non-crystalline, structural ordering starts on annealing at 200° C and the film becomes crystalline at 300° C with the structure matching that of the bulk material. Optical absorption has been investigated over the range 1 to 3 eV with emphasis on the region of interband absorption. The thin film absorption edge is found to be exponential for lower values of absorption coefficient. Analysis of thin film data showed that Zn₃P₂ is a direct-band-gap material. On annealing there is a shift in the band edge towards higher energy. NCL Communication No. 3571.     

Influence of Exposure Time,Shear Stress,and Surfactants on Detachment of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Escherichia coli</Emphasis> O157:H7 from Fresh Lettuce Leaf Surfaces During Washing Process

Washing and sanitation of fresh produce are critical for detachment and inactivation of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms. The overall goal of this study was to evaluate the influence of processing conditions such as washing time, shear stress, and a food grade surfactant on the detachment of Escherichia coli O157:H7 from lettuce leaf surfaces during a simulated washing process. A benchtop scale rotating disk washing device was designed to simulate the processing conditions used in commercial washing systems. Numerical simulations were carried out to calculate the flow profile and shear stress near the leaf surface. Removal of E. coli O157:H7 as a function of processing conditions in the rotating disk washing device was evaluated by enumeration of bacterial population using plate counting and changes in bioluminescence intensity and further confirmed by bioluminescence imaging. The results showed that shear stress was necessary to remove attached bacteria from inoculated leaf samples and simple incubation of inoculated leaves with wash water was not effective. Furthermore, detachment of bacteria from inoculated leaf samples increased with increasing shear stress and incubation time. Shear stress values in the range of 0 – 300 mPa were adequate to induce removal of approximately 1.5 log CFU/cm² of bacteria from inoculated samples. The addition of a surfactant increased the removal of bacteria from inoculated leaf samples by 0.5 log CFU/cm². Overall, these results may guide the design of new produce wash systems as well as current industrial practice related to flow conditions and use of surfactants during washing of fresh produce.     

Split Hopkinson pressure bar testing of 3D woven composites

Results from a series of split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) tests on 3D woven tetxile composites (3DWC) are presented. These tests were done to determine the rate dependent compression response of 3DWC. Three different configurations of the 3DWC, corresponding to compression response in the plane of the material and through-the-thickness direction (out-of-plane) were studied. The rate dependent responses were compared against quasi-static test results and it was found that 3DWC showed an increase in strength in all three directions studied, however, accompanied by a transition in the failure mechanism. The in-plane orientations showed the largest increase in (about 100%) strength at the elevated rates of loading. A follow-on paper provides finite element based results that correspond to the experimental results presented here.