Search

A select number of scientific communities have been quite successful in evolving the culture within their community to encourage publishing and to provide resources for re-using well-documented data. These data have great potential for analysis and knowledge generation beyond the purposes for which they were collected and intended. However, there are still barriers in this process. To explore this problem, we have developed a prototype tool: the Experiment Dashboard (ED), with the objective of demonstrating the ability and potential of enabling automated data ingestion from typical research laboratories. This innovative prototype was developed to create a novel system and artifact to explore the possibilities of allowing researchers in laboratories across the nation to link their data acquisition systems directly to structured data repositories for data and metadata ingestion. The prototype functions with commonly used data acquisition software at the data source and the HUBzero scientific gateway at the data sink. ED can be set up with minimal effort and expertise. In this paper, we describe the motivation and purposes for the prototype, the architecture we devised and functionality of this tool, and provide a demonstration of the tool for optical measurements in a structural engineering laboratory. The goal of this paper is to articulate and show through our prototype a vision for future cyberinfrastructure for empirical disciplines that rely on the rapid collection, analysis, and dissemination of valuable experimental data. We also discuss lessons learned that may be useful for others seeking to solve similar problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selective catalytic oxidation of ammonia (NH 3 -SCO) is currently the most effective method used to eliminate NH 3. However, one of the major challenges for NH 3 -SCO is the development of catalyst capable of completely converting NH 3 into harmless N 2 and water vapor. In this paper, a high N 2 selective catalyst prepared by the sol-gel method using TiO 2 as the support, Cu as the active species, and Sm as the auxiliary agent is presented. Compared to traditional Cu/TiO 2 catalyst, the 4SmCu/TiO 2 catalyst has higher catalytic activity and N 2 selectivity at low temperatures. The NH 3 conversion can reach 100%, and the selectivity of N 2 can be maintained at 100% at 275 °C. The excellent catalytic activity is attributed to the highly dispersed active species, abundant Lewis acid sites (LASs), and the generation of large amounts of surface-adsorbed oxygen. In addition, doping Sm species will cause TiO 2 lattice distortion, and at the same time load the distorted TiO 2 with more active material. Moreover, in-situ DRIFTS analysis suggests that both the 4SmCu/TiO 2 and Cu/TiO 2 catalysts follow the "internal" selective catalytic reduction (iSCR) mechanism during NH 3 -SCO reactions. The 4SmCu/TiO 2 catalyst generates more amides (-NH 2), which reduces the non-selective oxidation of the catalysts and promotes the formation of N 2. This provides a new idea and method for the selective catalytic oxidation of NH 3 to N 2 and water vapor using Cu-based catalysts. [Display omitted] • 4SmCu/TiO2 catalyst converts all NH3 into N2 and water vapor at 275 ℃. • The lattice distortion of TiO2 can support more active species. • Doping of Sm species increased the content of Lewis acid site and surface-adsorbed oxygen. • The rich amide intermediates reduce the non-selective oxidation of NH3 and O2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengue is a disease transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which also transmits the Zika virus and Chikungunya. Unfortunately, the population of different countries has been suffering from the diseases transmitted by this mosquito. The communities should play an important role in combating and preventing the mosquito-borne diseases. However, due to the limited engagement of the population, new solutions need to be used to strengthen the mosquito surveillance. VazaDengue is one of these solutions, which offers the users a web and mobile platform for preventing and combating mosquito-borne diseases. The system relies on social actions of citizens reporting mosquito breeding sites and dengue cases, in which the reports are made available to the community and health agencies. In order to address the limited population engagement, the system proactively monitors social media network as Twitter to enrich the information provided by the system. It processes the natural language text from the network to classify the tweets according to a set of predefined categories. After the classification, the relevant tweets are provided to the users as reports. In this paper, we describe the VazaDengue features including its ability to harvest and classify tweets. Since the VazaDengue system aims to strengthen the entomological surveillance of the mosquito that transmits Dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya by providing geolocated reports, we present here two studies to evaluate its potential contributions. The first evaluation uses a survey conducted in the Brazilian community of health agents. The goal is to evaluate the relevance of the classified tweets according to the health agents’ perspective. The second study compares the official reports of the 2015–2016 epidemic waves in Brazil with the concentration of mosquito-related tweets found by VazaDengue. The goal is to verify if the concentration of tweets can be used for monitoring the mosquito manifestation in big cities. The results of these two evaluations are encouraging. For instance, we have found that the health agents tend to agree with the relevance of the classified tweets. Moreover, the concentration of tweets is likely to be effective for monitoring big cities. The results of these evaluations are helping us to improve the VazaDengue system further. These improvements will make the VazaDengue system even more useful for combating and preventing the mosquito-borne diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desperate need for tools with features similar to the Content Management Systems (CMS), offering Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and providing flexibility for specific business and user demands, is the key motivation behind the work presented in this paper. A novel Content Management Framework (CMF), called mtCMF, is introduced. It offers user-friendly wizards and state-of-the-art adaptive structure. It does not have any constraints for use in terms of a predefined website structure, data types or database tables. Business objects can be easily defined by using the proposed mtCMF, and database tables are created from these objects automatically. mtCMF has an adaptive scaffolding architecture to allow generating Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) screens, based on the novel on-the-fly approach for all types of database tables. It has a flexible localization option to support multiple languages, and delivers Representational State Transfer (REST) services for mobile clients and remote application development. Its simple structure and novel wizard-based user-friendly interface make it superior to traditional CMS tools and web development frameworks. Performance analysis of mtCMF was carried out by using Blackfire Profiler. The results clearly have proved that mtCMF achieves better performance than its counterparts Laravel, Symfony, WordPress and Joomla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decimal multiplication is a ubiquitous operation which is inherently complex in terms of partial product generation and accumulation. In this paper, the authors propose a generalized design approach and architectural framework for ‘digit-by-digit’ multiplication. Decimal partial products are generated in parallel using fast and area efficient BCD digit multipliers and their reduction is achieved using hybrid multi-operand binary-to-decimal converters. In contrast to most of the previous implementations, which propose changes either in partial product generation or reduction, this work proposes modifications at both partial product generation and reduction stages resulting in an improved performance. A comprehensive analysis of synthesis results (consistent with IEEE-compliant 16-digit decimal multiplier architecture) indicates an improvement in delay of 8–29% and a reduced area-delay product of 4–38% compared to similar work published previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consensual agreement that ground motion record selection plays an important role in the non-linear dynamic structural response has contributed to numerous research studies seeking the definition of accurate ground motion record selection techniques. However, most of the available tools only allow for record selection based on spectral compatibility between the mean response spectrum of a record suite and a target response spectrum. This paper presents SelEQ, a fully integrated framework that implements state-of-the art procedures for ground motion record selection and scaling. In addition to typical record selection procedures, SelEQ allows obtaining the Conditional Mean Spectrum (CMS) for the European territory, the latter making use of the open source platform OpenQuake and the recently proposed SHARE seismic hazard model. This important feature allows state-of-the-art record selection for probabilistic-based assessment and risk analysis. SelEQ incorporates a number of procedures available in the literature that facilitate preliminary record selection (e.g. disaggregation for a specific site) and that allow advanced selection criteria (e.g. control of mismatch of individual ground motion records). The framework makes use of the Adaptive Harmony Search meta-heuristic optimization algorithm in order to significantly minimize computational cost and analysis time, whilst still meeting the imposed selection constraints. Application examples of the framework indicate that it can accurately select suites of ground motion records for code-based and probabilistic-based seismic assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The JSC NIKIET is responsible for the manufacture of the ITER Enhanced Heat Flux (EHF) First Wall (FW) beam, the fingers bodies, the mechanical attachment system and electrical connection system of the FW panel to the shield block (SB). The Electrical strap (ES) is located on the FW rear surface and used for providing current through the FW to the SB and further to the Vacuum Vessel with a goal to reduce the current loops and consequently to decrease the electromagnetic loads acting on the FW during plasma disruption. The NIKIET specialists developed the new design of the electrical strap which has been implemented into the FW design. Electrical discharge machine (EDM) cutting is used for performing the 1.2 mm thickness lamellas in the solid blank. This ES design has been approved by IO. The transient thermal analysis results show that temperature of ES is lower than 300°С for Inductive I operation mode and does not exceed allowable one. The fatigue strength criteria are satisfied for all the considered critical points of ES lamellas. Also the technological validation of ES manufacturing process has been successfully completed and full scale ES mock ups have been manufactured. This paper presents the design description of the EHF FW ES and FW bimetallic pedestal, results of thermal and structural analyses and first experience of mock up manufacturing that were performed by JSC NIKIET specialists in 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel thimble-shape haptic display for multi-mode tactile feedback at fingertips. The device has two special characteristics. Multi-mode feedback, i.e., static pressure, high-frequency vibration, and impact force, can be generated via a single actuator mechanism of a pneumatic chamber controlled by high-speed valves. Additionally, the actuator's softness makes this device a "feel-through" tactile display where the user simultaneously feels responses from a real object and synthetic feedback. This makes the device a fit for haptic augmented reality-based display where real and virtual touch feedback is merged into single feedback that haptically "augments" the real world. A layered combination of flexible and non-flexible silicone membrane surrounds the air- cavity for desired efficiency, and systematic valve control algorithms are developed for rich haptic effects. The experiments confirmed that the system generated a static force up to 7 N, acceleration magnitude up to 1.4 G, and frequency up to 250 Hz. The device exhibits two realistic tactile signals, i.e., virtual textures and button clicks, based on real signals and a physical surface that are augmented with two haptic signals.The user studies revealed that the participants found the virtually overlaid textures and buttons to be perceptually similar to their real counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STA 409 CD – QMS 403/5 Skimmer Coupling Instrument by Netzsch company is a commercially available system combining thermal analysis (TA) with mass spectrometric detection of volatile substances during a sample heating in a Knudsen cell (KC). A specially-adapted type of this instrument including a complete removal of the skimmer part was manufactured by Netzsch company for our purposes to broaden its capabilities to a more complete thermodynamic investigation of materials via Knudsen effusion mass spectrometry. This paper reports on heat of sublimation of Cd, Zn and Sb which were selected for calibration of this instrument with respect to current studies of materials containing these elements. The measured values are in good agreement with available literature data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The use of CO2 (biological/chemical/technological) is the only technology that may contribute to reducing the atmospheric loading while generating a profit. In this paper some options that may find an early industrial application are considered, and barriers that need to be overcome for their full implementation are analyzed. Options that may produce a reduction of the immission into the atmosphere of the order of 1Mt/y of CO2 are considered. The estimate of the atmospheric reduced loading, in case the various options are implemented, ranges at 300Mt/y in the short-medium term, with an upper limit of 700Mt/y in the long term. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]