Search results for: Luiz Daniel Garay Trindade

Authors: Daniel Nelson, Valeria La Saponara

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Material extrusion is an additive manufacturing modality that continues to show great promise in the ability to create low-cost, highly intricate, and exceedingly useful structural elements. As more capable and versatile filament materials are devised, and the resolution of manufacturing systems continues to increase, the need to understand and predict manufacturing-induced warping will gain ever greater importance. The following study presents an in situ remote sensing and data analysis construct that allows for the in situ mapping and quantification of surface displacements induced by residual stresses on a specified test structure. This proof-of-concept experimental process shows that it is possible to provide designers and manufacturers with insight into the manufacturing parameters that lead to the manifestation of these deformations and a greater understanding of the behavior of these warping events over the course of the manufacturing process.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, deformation, digital image correlation, fused filament fabrication, residual stress, warping

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Authors: Daniel Pastor, Hyo-Sang Shin

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This paper presents a novel method to use optical flow navigation for long-term navigation. Unlike standard SLAM approaches for augmented reality, OFLAAM is designed for Micro Air Vehicles (MAV). It uses an optical flow camera pointing downwards, an IMU and a monocular camera pointing frontwards. That configuration avoids the expensive mapping and tracking of the 3D features. It only maps these features in a vocabulary list by a localization module to tackle the loss of the navigation estimation. That module, based on the well-established algorithm DBoW2, will be also used to close the loop and allow long-term navigation in confined areas. That combination of high-speed optical flow navigation with a low rate localization algorithm allows fully autonomous navigation for MAV, at the same time it reduces the overall computational load. This framework is implemented in ROS (Robot Operating System) and tested attached to a laptop. A representative scenarios is used to analyse the performance of the system.

Keywords: vision, UAV, navigation, SLAM

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Authors: Jorge A. Ruiz-Vanoye, Ocotlán Díaz-Parra, Alejandro Fuentes-Penna, Daniel Vélez-Díaz, Edith Olaco García

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In this paper, we present the use of the discriminant analysis to select evolutionary algorithms that better solve instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows. We use indicators as independent variables to obtain the classification criteria, and the best algorithm from the generic genetic algorithm (GA), random search (RS), steady-state genetic algorithm (SSGA), and sexual genetic algorithm (SXGA) as the dependent variable for the classification. The discriminant classification was trained with classic instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows obtained from the Solomon benchmark. We obtained a classification of the discriminant analysis of 66.7%.

Keywords: Intelligent Transportation Systems, data-mining techniques, evolutionary algorithms, discriminant analysis, machine learning

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Authors: Fabio R. Pires, Paulo R. C. C. Ribeiro, Douglas G. Viana, Robson Bonomo, Fernando B. Egreja Filho, Alberto Cargnelutti Filho, Luiz F. Martins, Leila B. S. Cruz, Mauro C. P. Nascimento

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The use of barite (BaSO₄) as a weighting agent in drilling fluids for oil and gas activities makes barium a potential contaminant in the case of spills onto flooded soils, where barium sulfate solubility is increased due to low redox conditions. In order to select plants able to remove barium in such scenarios, seven plant species were evaluated on barium phytoextraction capacity: Brachiaria arrecta; Cyperus cf. papyrus; Eleocharis acutangula; Eleocharis interstincta; Nephrolepsis cf. rivularis; Paspalum conspersum and Typha domingensis. Plants were grown in pots with 13 kg of soil each, and exposed to six barium concentrations (established with BaCl₂): 0; 2.5; 5.0; 10.0; 30.0; 65.0 mg kg-1. To simulate flooding conditions, every pot was manteined with a thin irrigation water depth over soil surface (~1.0 cm). Treatments were carried out in triplicate, and pots were distributed randomly inside the greenhouse. Biometric and chemical analyses were performed throughout the experiment, including Ba²⁺ accumulation in shoots and roots. The highest amount of barium was observed in T. domingensis biomass, followed by C. cf. papyrus. However, the latter exported most of the barium to shoot, especially in higher BaCl₂ doses, while the former accumulated barium preferentially in roots. Thus, barium removal with C. cf. papyrus could be achieved by simply harvesting aerial biomass. The amount of barium in C. cf. papyrus was a consequence of high biomass production rather than barium concentration in plant tissues, whereas T. domingensis showed high barium concentration in plant tissues and high biomass production as well. These results make T. domingensis and C. cf. papyrus potential candidates to be applied in phytoremediation schemes to remove barium from flooded soils.

Keywords: barium sulfate, cyperus, drilling fluids, phytoextraction, Typha

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Authors: Daniel Klimovský

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Slovakia belongs to the most fragmented countries if one looks at its local government structure. The Slovak central governments implemented both broad devolution and fiscal decentralization some decades ago. However, neither territorial consolidation nor size categorization of local competences and powers has been implemented yet. Taking this fact into account, it is clear that the local governments are challenged not only by their citizens as customers but also by effectiveness as well as efficiency of delivered services. The paper is focused on behavior of the local governments in Slovakia and their approaches towards other local partners, including other local governments. Analysis of set of interviews shows that inter-municipal cooperation is the most common local partnership in Slovakia, but due to diversity of the local governments, this kind of cooperation leads to both intended and unintended outcomes. While in many cases the local governments are more efficient as well as effective in delivery of local services thanks to inter-municipal cooperation, there are many cases where inter-municipal cooperation fails, and it brings rather questionable or even negative outcomes.

Keywords: local governments, local partnerships, inter-municipal cooperation, delivery of local services

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Authors: Ana Maria Girotti Sperandio, Jussara Conceição Guarnieri, Lauro Luiz Francisco Filho, Ana Claudia Martins Alves, Adriana Aparecida Carneiro Rosa

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The urban planning of a city should contemplate the construction of healthy spaces to provide quality of life for people. In a Brazilian municipality located 180 km from the capital of São Paulo with around 27,000 thousand inhabitants, the federal government made possible a program that allows the improvement of the quality of life of the inhabitants through the practice of physical activity. To describe health promotion strategies in the city that collaborate in the reduction of chronic non-communicable diseases (CDNT) and the improvement the quality of its residents. Considering the CDNT as a fundamental public health concern in different countries, the methodology of this work considered the different actions of health promotion that occurred in the city for the implementation of the Polo Health Academy with the objective of increasing the population's access to places that could develop targeted physical activities. As an instrument, it used records of participants of this academy such as: assessment sheets, evolution, photos, filming and daily reports of physical activities. Results: The implantation and implementation process of the Polo Health Academy in the city of Conchal / SP / Brazil was in accordance with the principles and values of the National Health Promotion Policy (PNaPS) in Brazil and with the city statute, that provides improvement in the quality of life of the Brazilian population. An increase was observed in the number of participants in different hours practicing physical activities in the territory linked to one of the five Health Units, showing the program provides that happiness and well-being to the students. The Brazilian health promotion policy, combined with the city’s development policy, provides the population with access to programs that stimulate the reduction of CDNTs, confirming the urban planning of a healthy city.

Keywords: health city, health promotion, physical activity, urban planning

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Authors: Liliane Samara Ferreira Leite, Francys Kley Vieira Moreira, Luiz Henrique Capparelli Mattoso

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The increasing environmental concern regarding the plastic pollution worldwide has stimulated the development of low-cost biodegradable materials. Proteins are renewable feedstocks that could be used to produce biodegradable plastics. Gelatin, for example, is a cheap film-forming protein extracted from animal skin and connective tissues of Brazilian Livestock residues; thus it has a good potential in low-cost biodegradable plastic production. However, gelatin plastics are limited in terms of mechanical and barrier properties. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) are efficient nanofillers that have been used to extend physical properties of polymers. This work was aimed at evaluating the reinforcing efficiency of CNC on gelatin films. Specifically, we have employed the continuous casting as the processing method for obtaining the gelatin/CNC bionanocomposites. This required a first rheological study for assessing the effect of gelatin-CNC and CNC-CNC interactions on the colloidal state of the aqueous bionanocomposite formulations. CNC were isolated from eucalyptus pulp by sulfuric acid hydrolysis (65 wt%) at 55 °C for 30 min. Gelatin was solubilized in ultra-pure water at 85°C for 20 min and then mixed with glycerol at 20 wt.% and CNC at 0.5 wt%, 1.0 wt% and 2.5 wt%. Rotational measurements were performed to determine linear viscosity (η) of bionanocomposite solutions, which increased with increasing CNC content. At 2.5 wt% CNC, η increased by 118% regarding the neat gelatin solution, which was ascribed to percolation CNC network formation. Storage modulus (G’) and loss modulus (G″) further determined by oscillatory tests revealed that a gel-like behavior was dominant in the bionanocomposite solutions (G’ > G’’) over a broad range of temperature (20 – 85 °C), particularly at 2.5 wt% CNC. These results confirm effective interactions in the aqueous gelatin-CNC bionanocomposites that could substantially increase the physical properties of the gelatin plastics. Tensile tests are underway to confirm this hypothesis. The authors would like to thank the Fapesp (process n 2016/03080-3) for support.

Keywords: bionanocomposites, cellulose nanocrystals, gelatin, viscoelastic characterization

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Authors: Daniel Martinez, Tim de Leeuw, Stefan Haefliger

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The challenges of managing a large and geographically dispersed R&D organization have been further increasing during the past years, concentrating on the leverage of a geo-graphically dispersed body of knowledge in an efficient and effective manner. In order to reduce complexity and improve performance, firms introduce product modularity as one key element for global R&D network teams to develop their products and projects in collaboration. However, empirical studies on the effects of product modularity on innovation performance are really scant. Furthermore, some researchers have suggested that product modularity promotes innovation performance, while others argue that it inhibits innovation performance. This research fills this gap by investigating the impact of product modularity on various dimensions of innovation performance, i.e. effectiveness and efficiency. By constructing the theoretical framework, this study suggests that that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between product modularity and innovation performance. Moreover, this research work suggests that the optimum of innovation performance efficiency will be at a higher level than innovation performance effectiveness at a given product modularity level.

Keywords: modularity, innovation performance, networks, R&D, collaboration

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Authors: Fulya Gokalp Yavuz, Mark Daniel Ward

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This study focuses on a contemporary and inevitable topic of Data Science and its exemplary application for early career building: Big Data and Leaving Learning Community (LLC). ‘Academia’ and ‘Industry’ have a common sense on the importance of Big Data. However, both of them are in a threat of missing the training on this interdisciplinary area. Some traditional teaching doctrines are far away being effective on Data Science. Practitioners needs some intuition and real-life examples how to apply new methods to data in size of terabytes. We simply explain the scope of Data Science training and exemplified its early stage application with LLC, which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) founded project under the supervision of Prof. Ward since 2014. Essentially, we aim to give some intuition for professors, researchers and practitioners to combine data science tools for comprehensive real-life examples with the guides of mentees’ feedback. As a result of discussing mentoring methods and computational challenges of Big Data, we intend to underline its potential with some more realization.

Keywords: Big Data, computation, mentoring, training

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Authors: Daniel Azizyan, Marina Vardanyan, Astghik Dallakyan

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The objective of this literature review is to bring valuable and much-needed insight into Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among military personnel. As the issues regarding war veterans who suffer from PTSD become more and more widespread, the task of finding possible solutions that would provide alternative approaches to existing methods being used today becomes more relevant than ever. By analyzing the previous applications of VRET, this literature review covers the state of the research done currently on the topic, reviews the known information while identifying the main problems, and aims to use missed opportunities and find potential solutions. It provides the answers to the most relevant questions concerning VRET and leads to important conclusions in the hope of making the technology more practical, widespread, and effective.

Keywords: military PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, prolonged exposure, virtual reality exposure therapy, VRE

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Authors: Eduardo Padilla, Luis Daniel Rodriguez, Ivan Sanchez, Angelica Sofia Go

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The synthesis and application of metallic nanoparticles have increased in recent years. Biological methods go beyond the chemical and physical synthesis that is expensive and not friendly to the environment. Therefore, in this study, silver nanoparticles were synthesized biologically in an environmentally friendly way by Handroanthus chrysanthus flower aqueous extract (AgNPs) that contains phytochemicals capable of reducing silver nitrate. AgNPs were characterized visually by UV-visible spectroscopy and TEM. The antimicrobial activity of the AgNPs was tested by determining the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and minimal bactericidal concentration (MBC) in Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus strains AgNPs showed potent antimicrobial activity against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. MIC and MBC values were as low as 41.6, and 83.2 ug/mL using AgNPs biosynthesized by H. chrysanthus flower extract. This nanoparticle could be the basis for the formulation of disinfectants for use in the food and pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: antimicrobial, silver nanoparticles, flower extract, Handroanthus

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Authors: Rema Daher, Theodor Chakhachiro, Daniel Asmar

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In the era of autonomous robot mapping, assessing the goodness of the generated maps is important, and is usually performed by aligning them to ground truth. Map alignment is difficult for two reasons: first, the query maps can be significantly distorted from ground truth, and second, establishing what constitutes ground truth for different settings is challenging. Most map alignment techniques to this date have addressed the first problem, while paying too little importance to the second. In this paper, we propose a benchmark dataset, which consists of synthetically transformed maps with their corresponding displacement fields. Furthermore, we propose a new system for comparison, where the displacement field of any map alignment technique can be computed and compared to the ground truth using statistical measures. The local information in displacement fields renders the evaluation system applicable to any alignment technique, whether it is linear or not. In our experiments, the proposed method was applied to different alignment methods from the literature, allowing for a comparative assessment between them all.

Keywords: assessment methods, benchmark, image deformation, map alignment, robot mapping, robot motion

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Authors: Khen Cohen, Daniel Yankelevich, David Mendlovic, Dan Raviv

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We present a 3D stereo system for high-resolution sensing in both the spatial and the temporal domains by combining a frame-based camera and an event-based camera. We establish a method to merge both devices into one unite system and introduce a calibration process, followed by a correspondence technique and interpolation algorithm for 3D reconstruction. We further provide quantitative analysis about our system in terms of depth resolution and additional parameter analysis. We show experimentally how our system performs temporal super-resolution up to effectively 1ms and can detect fast-moving objects and human micro-movements that can be used for micro-expression analysis. We also demonstrate how our method can extract colored events for an event-based camera without any degradation in the spatial resolution, compared to a colored filter array.

Keywords: DVS-CIS stereo vision, micro-movements, temporal super-resolution, 3D reconstruction

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Authors: Kehinde K. Agbele, Kehinde Daniel Aruleba, Eniafe F. Ayetiran

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When using Information Retrieval Systems (IRS), users often present search queries made of ad-hoc keywords. It is then up to the IRS to obtain a precise representation of the user’s information need and the context of the information. This paper investigates optimization of IRS to individual information needs in order of relevance. The study addressed development of algorithms that optimize the ranking of documents retrieved from IRS. This study discusses and describes a Document Ranking Optimization (DROPT) algorithm for information retrieval (IR) in an Internet-based or designated databases environment. Conversely, as the volume of information available online and in designated databases is growing continuously, ranking algorithms can play a major role in the context of search results. In this paper, a DROPT technique for documents retrieved from a corpus is developed with respect to document index keywords and the query vectors. This is based on calculating the weight (

Keywords: information retrieval, document relevance, performance measures, personalization

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Authors: Henry Lee, Daniel Shiu

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Educational organizations are currently exploring ways to increase equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and this is now evident within the K-12 school system, universities, and teacher unions. These organizations have been creating and implementing new EDI specific policies. Their goal is to provide the framework and supports needed to establish EDI into the organizational culture. However, the implementation of EDI policies does not always lead to the intended outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore some factors regarding why the implementation of EDI policies within educational organizations can be problematic. This includes how Whiteness is replicated, promoted, and celebrated in educational leadership. How Whiteness and White supremacy are operationalized by BIPOC leaders within educational spaces, and how EDI specific training fails to understand the different training needed for both IBPOC (Indigenous, Black, People of Colour) and non-IBPOC leaders. This paper also addresses the model minority myth and how this informs and guides IBPOC identity and leadership within a predominately White dominant leadership in education.

Keywords: critical race theory, equity & diversity & inclusion, educational leadership, intersectionality

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Authors: F. L. Bernardo, R. A. S. Zacarias

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The ways to translate are manifold since textual genres undergoing translations are diverse. In this essay, our goal is to give special attention to the literary genre and to the online translation tool Google Translate (GT), widely used either by nonprofessionals or by scholars, in order to show evidence of the indispensability of human wit in a good translation. Our study has its basis on a literary review of prominent authors, with emphasis on translation categories. Also highlighting the issue of polysemous literary translation, we aim to shed light on the translator’s craft and the fallible nature of online translation. To better illustrate these principles, the methodology consisted on performing a comparative analysis involving the original text Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe in English to its online translation given by GT and to a translation into Brazilian Portuguese performed by a human. We proceeded to identifying and analyzing the degrees of textual equivalence according to the following categories: volume, levels and order. The results have attested the unsuitability in a translation done by a computer connected to the World Wide Web.

Keywords: Google Translator, human translation, literary translation, Moll Flanders

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Authors: Daniel C. S. Lim, W. Y. Tan

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The world is facing a growing food crisis. The concerns of food nutritional value, food safety and food security are becoming increasingly real. There is also a direct relationship to the risk of diseases, particularly chronic diseases, to the food we consume. So, there are increasing concerns about the modern day food ecosystem creating foods that can provide the nutritional components for organ function sustenance, as well as, taking a serious view on diet-related diseases. This paper addresses some of the above concerns and gives an overview of the current global situation relating to food nutrition and safety. The paper reviews nutritional aspects of food today compared to those of the last century, compares whole foods found in supermarkets versus those organically grown, as well as population behaviour towards food choices. It provides scientific insights into the effects of some of the global trends such as climate change and other changes environmental changes, and presents what individuals and corporations are doing to use the latest nutritional technologies as strategic assets. Finally, it briefly highlights some of the innovative solutions that are being applied to address several of the above concerns.

Keywords: food crisis, food safety, global trends, nutritional aspects

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Authors: Jeferson Brito Fernades, Breno Padovezi Rocha, Roger Augusto Rodrigues, Heraldo Luiz Giacheti

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The geotechnical projects demand the appropriate knowledge of soil characteristics and parameters. The determination of geotechnical soil parameters can be done by means of laboratory or in situ tests. In countries with tropical weather, like Brazil, unsaturated soils are very usual. In these soils, the soil suction has been recognized as an important stress state variable, which commands the geo-mechanical behavior. Triaxial and direct shear tests on saturated soils samples allow determine only the minimal soil shear strength, in other words, no suction contribution. This paper briefly describes the triaxial test with controlled suction as well as discusses the influence of suction on the shear strength parameters of a lateritic tropical sandy soil from a Brazilian research site. In this site, a sample pit was excavated to retrieve disturbed and undisturbed soil blocks. The samples extracted from these blocks were tested in laboratory to represent the soil from 1.5, 3.0 and 5.0 m depth. The stress curves and shear strength envelopes determined by triaxial tests varying suction and confining pressure are presented and discussed. The water retention characteristics on this soil complement this analysis. In situ CPT tests were also carried out at this site in different seasons of the year. In this case, the soil suction profile was determined by means of the soil water retention. This extra information allowed assessing how soil suction also affected the CPT data and the shear strength parameters estimative via correlation. The major conclusions of this paper are: the undisturbed soil samples contracted before shearing and the soil shear strength increased hyperbolically with suction; and it was possible to assess how soil suction also influenced CPT test data based on the water content soil profile as well as the water retention curve. This study contributed with a better understanding of the shear strength parameters and the soil variability of a typical unsaturated tropical soil.

Keywords: site characterization, triaxial test, CPT, suction, variability

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Authors: Daniel Benson, Yundan Gong, Hannah Kirk

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Advancement in national language processing techniques has led to increased data processing speeds, and reduced the need for cumbersome, manual data processing that is often required when processing data from multilateral organizations for specific purposes. As such, using named entity recognition (NER) modeling and the Organisation of Economically Developed Countries (OECD) Creditor Reporting System database, we present the first geotagged dataset of OECD donor Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects on a global, subnational basis. Our resulting data contains 52,086 ODA projects geocoded to subnational locations across 115 countries, worth a combined $87.9bn. This represents the first global, OECD donor ODA project database with geocoded projects. We use this new data to revisit old questions of how ‘well’ donors allocate ODA to the developing world. This understanding is imperative for policymakers seeking to improve ODA effectiveness.

Keywords: international aid, geocoding, subnational data, natural language processing, machine learning

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Authors: Corazon Virtudazo-Ligaray, Mark Daniel G. de Luna, Meng-Wei Wan, Ming-Chun Lu

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A series of ternary compound catalyst with nanocomposites of ceria, tungsten trioxide and titania (CeO2-WOx-TiO2) with different WOx mole fraction (10, 20, 30, 40) have been synthesized by sol-gel method. These nanocomposite catalysts were used for oxidative extractive desulfurization of model fuel oil, which were composed of dibenzothiophene (DBT) dissolved in toluene. The 30% hydrogen peroxide, H2O2 was used as oxidant and acetonitrile as extractant. These catalysts were characterized by SEM-EDS to determine the morphology. Catalytic oxidation results show that the catalysts have high selectivity in refractory fuel oil with organo sulfur contents. The oxidative removal of DBT increases as the HPW content increases. The nanocomposites CeO2-WOx-TiO2 also shows high selectivity for DBT oxidation in the DBT–toluene acetonitrile system. The catalytic oxidative desulfurization ratio of model fuel reached to 100% with nanocomposites CeO2-WOx-TiO2 (35-30-35) mol percent catalyst nanocomposition under 333 K in 30 minutes.

Keywords: ceria, oxidative desulfurization, titania, phosphotungstic acid

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Authors: Daniel Ecler

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The aim of this paper was to find out how Chinese university students perceive distance learning compared to full-time teaching, to reveal its advantages and disadvantages, and to try to find what elements could be implemented in regular full-time teaching in order to make it more effective. Recent events have shown that online teaching has a significant role to play in the field of education and needs to be given increased attention and scrutiny. For this purpose, a research survey was conducted using semi-structured questionnaires, which aimed to determine the attitudes of Chinese university students to the phenomenon of distance learning. The results of this survey revealed that most students prefer distance learning to full-time teaching, mainly because it gives them more freedom to participate in teaching, regardless of the environment in which they are currently located. In conclusion, it is necessary to mention that the possibility to participate virtually in teaching from anywhere is a huge advantage that could become part of regular teaching in the future. However, further research into this issue will be necessary.

Keywords: distance learning, full-time teaching, Chinese college students, cultural background

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Authors: Michael Leontiev, Danil Zhilikov, Dmitry Lobanov, Lenar Klimov, Vyacheslav Chertan, Daniel Bobrov, Vladislav Maslov, Vasilii Vologdin, Ksenia Balabaeva

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Pharmaceutical manufacturing is a complex process, where each stage requires a high level of safety and sterility. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is used for this purpose. Despite all the measures of control, the human factor (improper PPE wearing) causes numerous losses to human health and material property. This research proposes a solid computer vision system for ensuring safety in pharmaceutical laboratories. For this, we have tested a wide range of state-of-the-art object detection methods. Composing previously obtained results in this sphere with our own approach to this problem, we have reached a high accuracy ([email protected]) ranging from 0.77 up to 0.98 in detecting all the elements of a common set of PPE used in pharmaceutical laboratories. Our system is a step towards safe medicine production.

Keywords: sterility and safety in pharmaceutical development, personal protective equipment, computer vision, object detection, monitoring in pharmaceutical development, PPE

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Authors: Sergio Pérez-López, Daniel Tarrazó-Serrano, José M. Fuster, Pilar Candelas, Constanza Rubio

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Fresnel Zone Plates (FZPs) are widely used in many areas, such as optics, microwaves or acoustics. On the design of FZPs, plane wave incidence is typically considered, but that is not usually the case in ultrasounds, especially in applications where a piston emitter is placed at a certain distance from the lens. In these cases, having control of the focal distance is very important, and with the usual Fresnel equation a focal displacement from the theoretical distance is observed due to the plane wave supposition. In this work, a comparison between FZP with plane wave incidence design and FZP with point source design in the case of piston emitter is presented. Influence of the main parameters of the piston in the final focalization profile has been studied. Numerical models and experimental results are shown, and they prove that when spherical wave incidence is considered for the piston case, it is possible to have a fine control of the focal distance in comparison with the classical design method.

Keywords: focusing, Fresnel zone plates, FZP, ultrasound

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Authors: Luiza Melo De Lima, Tito Trindade, Jose M. Oliveira

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The development of thermoplastic-based graphene nanocomposites has been of great interest not only to the scientific community but also to different industrial sectors. Due to the possible improvement of performance and weight reduction, thermoplastic nanocomposites are a great promise as a new class of materials. These nanocomposites are of relevance for the automotive industry, namely because the emission limits of CO2 emissions imposed by the European Commission (EC) regulations can be fulfilled without compromising the car’s performance but by reducing its weight. Thermoplastic polymers have some advantages over thermosetting polymers such as higher productivity, lower density, and recyclability. In the automotive industry, for example, poly(propylene) (PP) is a common thermoplastic polymer, which represents more than half of the polymeric raw material used in automotive parts. Graphene-based materials (GBM) are potential nanofillers that can improve the properties of polymer matrices at very low loading. In comparison to other composites, such as fiber-based composites, weight reduction can positively affect their processing and future applications. However, the properties and performance of GBM/polymer nanocomposites depend on the type of GBM and polymer matrix, the degree of dispersion, and especially the type of interactions between the fillers and the polymer matrix. In order to take advantage of the superior mechanical strength of GBM, strong interfacial strength between GBM and the polymer matrix is required for efficient stress transfer from GBM to the polymer. Thus, chemical compatibilizers and physicochemical modifications have been reported as important tools during the processing of these nanocomposites. In this study, PP-based nanocomposites were obtained by a simple melt blending technique, using a Brabender type mixer machine. Graphene nanoplatelets (GnPs) were applied as structural reinforcement. Two compatibilizers were used to improve the interaction between PP matrix and GnPs: PP graft maleic anhydride (PPgMA) and PPgMA modified with tertiary amine alcohol (PPgDM). The samples for tensile and Charpy impact tests were obtained by injection molding. The results suggested the GnPs presence can increase the mechanical strength of the polymer. However, it was verified that the GnPs presence can promote a decrease of impact resistance, turning the nanocomposites more fragile than neat PP. The compatibilizers’ incorporation increases the impact resistance, suggesting that the compatibilizers can enhance the adhesion between PP and GnPs. Compared to neat PP, Young’s modulus of non-compatibilized nanocomposite increase demonstrated that GnPs incorporation can promote a stiffness improvement of the polymer. This trend can be related to the several physical crosslinking points between the PP matrix and the GnPs. Furthermore, the decrease of strain at a yield of PP/GnPs, together with the enhancement of Young’s modulus, confirms that the GnPs incorporation led to an increase in stiffness but to a decrease in toughness. Moreover, the results demonstrated that incorporation of compatibilizers did not affect Young’s modulus and strain at yield results compared to non-compatibilized nanocomposite. The incorporation of these compatibilizers showed an improvement of nanocomposites’ mechanical properties compared both to those the non-compatibilized nanocomposite and to a PP sample used as reference.

Keywords: graphene nanoplatelets, mechanical properties, melt blending processing, poly(propylene)-based nanocomposites

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Authors: M. M. Ali, Ahmed Al- Ani, Derek Eamus, Daniel K. Y. Tan

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In this glasshouse study, we developed the new image-based non-destructive technique for detecting leaf P status of different crops such as cotton, tomato and lettuce. Plants were allowed to grow on nutrient media containing different P concentrations, i.e. 0%, 50% and 100% of recommended P concentration (P0 = no P, L; P1 = 2.5 mL 10 L-1 of P and P2 = 5 mL 10 L-1 of P as NaH2PO4). After 10 weeks of growth, plants were harvested and data on leaf P contents were collected using the standard destructive laboratory method and at the same time leaf images were collected by a handheld crop image sensor. We calculated leaf area, leaf perimeter and RGB (red, green and blue) values of these images. This data was further used in the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to estimate leaf P contents, which successfully classified these plants on the basis of leaf P contents. The data indicated that P deficiency in crop plants can be predicted using the image and morphological data. Our proposed non-destructive imaging method is precise in estimating P requirements of different crop species.

Keywords: image-based techniques, leaf area, leaf P contents, linear discriminant analysis

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Authors: Elisa K. Schoenell, Cristiano De Oliveira, Luiz R. H. Dos Santos, Alexandre Giacobbo, Andréa M. Bernardes, Marco A. S. Rodrigues

Abstract:

Water is an indispensable natural resource, which must be preserved to human activities as well the ecosystems. However, the sewage discharge has been contaminating water resources. Conventional treatment, such as physicochemical treatment followed by biological processes, has not been efficient to the complete degradation of persistent organic compounds, such as medicines and hormones. Therefore, the use of advanced technologies to sewage treatment has become urgent and necessary. The aim of this study was to apply Reverse Osmosis (RO) on sewage tertiary treatment from a Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) in south Brazil. It was collected 200 L of sewage pre-treated by wetland with aquatic macrophytes. The sewage was treated in a RO pilot plant, using a polyamide membrane BW30-4040 model (DOW FILMTEC), with 7.2 m² membrane area. In order to avoid damage to the equipment, this system contains a pleated polyester filter with 5 µm pore size. It was applied 8 bar until achieve 5 times of concentration, obtaining 80% of recovery of permeate, with 10 L.min-1 of concentrate flow rate. Samples of sewage pre-treated on WWTP, permeate and concentrate generated on RO was analyzed for physicochemical parameters and by gas chromatography (GC) to qualitative analysis of organic compounds. The results proved that the sewage treated on WWTP does not comply with the limit of phosphorus and nitrogen of Brazilian legislation. Besides this, it was found many organic compounds in this sewage, such as benzene, which is carcinogenic. Analyzing permeate results, it was verified that the RO as sewage tertiary treatment was efficient to remove of physicochemical parameters, achieving 100% of iron, copper, zinc and phosphorus removal, 98% of color removal, 91% of BOD and 62% of ammoniacal nitrogen. RO was capable of removing organic compounds, however, it was verified the presence of some organic compounds on de RO permeate, showing that RO did not have the capacity of removal all organic compounds of sewage. It has to be considered that permeate showed lower intensity of peaks in chromatogram in comparison to the sewage of WWTP. It is important to note that the concentrate generate on RO needs a treatment before its disposal in environment.

Keywords: organic compounds, reverse osmosis, sewage treatment, tertiary treatment

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Authors: Mirian Graciella Dalla Porta, Humberto Jorge José, Danielle de Bem Luiz, Regina de F. P. M.Moreira

Abstract:

Similar to most processing industries, fish processing produces large volumes of wastewater, which contains especially organic contaminants, salts and oils dispersed therein. Different processes have been used for the treatment of fishery wastewaters, but the most commonly used are chemical coagulation and flotation. These techniques are well known but sometimes the characteristics of the treated effluent do not comply with legal standards for discharge. Electrocoagulation (EC) is an electrochemical process that can be used to treat wastewaters in terms of both organic matter and nutrient removal. The process is based on the use of sacrificial electrodes such as aluminum, iron or zinc, that are oxidized to produce metal ions that can be used to coagulate and react with organic matter and nutrients in the wastewater. While EC processes are effective to treatment of several types of wastewaters, applications have been limited due to the high energy demands and high current densities. Generally, the for EC process can be performed without additional chemicals or pre-treatment, but the costs should be reduced for EC processes to become more applicable. In this work, we studied the treatment of a real wastewater from fishmeal industry by electrocoagulation process. Removal efficiencies for chemical oxygen demand (COD), total organic carbon (TOC) turbidity, phosphorous and nitrogen concentration were determined as a function of the operating conditions, such as pH, current density and operating time. The optimum operating conditions were determined to be operating time of 10 minutes, current density 100 A.m-2, and initial pH 4.0. COD, TOC, phosphorous concentration, and turbidity removal efficiencies at the optimum operating conditions were higher than 90% for aluminum electrode. Operating costs at the optimum conditions were calculated as US$ 0.37/m3 (US$ 0.038/kg COD) for Al electrode. These results demonstrate that the EC process is a promising technology to remove nutrients from fishery wastewaters, as the process has both a high efficiency of nutrient removal, and low energy requirements.

Keywords: electrocoagulation, fish, food industry, wastewater

Procedia PDF Downloads 214

Authors: Maria Lucia G. Lourenco, Viviane Y. Hibaru, Keylla H. N. P. Pereira, Fabiana F. Souza, Joao C. P. Ferreira, Simone B. Chiacchio, Luiz H. A. Machado

Abstract:

Isosporiasis is an affliction caused by coccidial protozoa belonging to genera Isospora spp. or Cystoisospora spp., which may parasitize the small and large intestines of dogs, of which neonates and young animals present higher risk of infection. This study aims at reporting a case of isosporiasis in neonate Pitbull dogs, as well as the diagnosis and treatment. Seven Pitbull puppies were admitted to the São Paulo State University (UNESP) Veterinary Hospital, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil, with history of yellowish diarrhea without mucus or blood for the past two days. The animals were five days old. The history of the mother, a primiparous two-year-old, revealed that she was properly vaccinated, not de-wormed and did not present diarrhea. The clinical examination revealed that the neonates weighted between 308 and 360 grams, and presented normal reflexes, moderate dehydration, body temperatures between 36.8 and 37.2 ºC, blood sugar between 103 and 124 mg/dL and normal appetite. A full blood count and a parasitology assay were performed to aid in the diagnosis. The full blood count detected eosinophilia, without any other relevant alterations. The parasitology assay (Willis-Molly & Faust) revealed the presence of Cystoisospora spp. The treatment was instituted with heated fluid therapy with Ringer’s Lactate (4 mL/100 g, subcutaneous) and antibiotic therapy with sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (15 mg/kg, orally) every 12 hours for ten days. The mother and other dogs that came in contact with the newborns were also treated. The environment was disinfected for 10 minutes with 1.6% quaternary ammonium. After 10 days, the newborns presented normal clinical signs and no alterations in the full blood count. Isosporiasis is an affliction with high mortality rates in litters that should be diagnosed and treated as soon as possible to increase the survival rates in these patients.

Keywords: Cystoisospora spp., neonatal infection, puppies, diarrhea,

Procedia PDF Downloads 99

Authors: I. M. L. Nadeesha Jayaweera, Adao Alex Trindade

Abstract:

In choosing a candidate model in likelihood-based modeling via an information criterion, the practitioner is often faced with the difficult task of deciding just how far up the ranked list to look. Motivated by this pragmatic necessity, we construct an uncertainty band for a generalized (model selection) information criterion (GIC), defined as a criterion for which the limit in probability is identical to that of the normalized log-likelihood. This includes common special cases such as AIC & BIC. The method starts from the asymptotic normality of the GIC for the joint distribution of the candidate models in an independent and identically distributed (IID) data framework and proceeds by deriving the (asymptotically) exact distribution of the minimum. The calculation of an upper quantile for its distribution then involves the computation of multivariate Gaussian integrals, which is amenable to efficient implementation via the R package "mvtnorm". The performance of the methodology is tested on simulated data by checking the coverage probability of nominal upper quantiles and compared to the bootstrap. Both methods give coverages close to nominal for large samples, but the bootstrap is two orders of magnitude slower. The methodology is subsequently extended to two other commonly used model structures: regression and time series. In the regression case, we derive the corresponding asymptotically exact distribution of the minimum GIC invoking Lindeberg-Feller type conditions for triangular arrays and are thus able to similarly calculate upper quantiles for its distribution via multivariate Gaussian integration. The bootstrap once again provides a default competing procedure, and we find that similar comparison performance metrics hold as for the IID case. The time series case is complicated by far more intricate asymptotic regime for the joint distribution of the model GIC statistics. Under a Gaussian likelihood, the default in most packages, one needs to derive the limiting distribution of a normalized quadratic form for a realization from a stationary series. Under conditions on the process satisfied by ARMA models, a multivariate normal limit is once again achieved. The bootstrap can, however, be employed for its computation, whence we are once again in the multivariate Gaussian integration paradigm for upper quantile evaluation. Comparisons of this bootstrap-aided semi-exact method with the full-blown bootstrap once again reveal a similar performance but faster computation speeds. One of the most difficult problems in contemporary statistical methodological research is to be able to account for the extra variability introduced by model selection uncertainty, the so-called post-model selection inference (PMSI). We explore ways in which the GIC uncertainty band can be inverted to make inferences on the parameters. This is being attempted in the IID case by pivoting the CDF of the asymptotically exact distribution of the minimum GIC. For inference one parameter at a time and a small number of candidate models, this works well, whence the attained PMSI confidence intervals are wider than the MLE-based Wald, as expected.

Keywords: model selection inference, generalized information criteria, post model selection, Asymptotic Theory

Procedia PDF Downloads 59

Authors: Maria L. G. Lourenço, Keylla H. N. P. Pereira, Viviane Y. Hibaru, Fabiana F. Souza, Joao C. P. Ferreira, Simone B. Chiacchio, Luiz H. A. Machado

Abstract:

In veterinary medicine, the standard procedure during a caesarian section is clamping the umbilical cord immediately after birth. In human neonates, when the umbilical cord is kept intact after birth, blood continues to flow from the cord to the newborn, but this procedure may prove to be difficult in dogs due to the shorter umbilical cord and the number of newborns in the litter. However, a possible detachment of the placenta while keeping the umbilical cord intact may make the residual blood to flow to the neonate. This study compared the effects on neonatal vitality between clamping and no clamping the umbilical cord of dogs born through cesarean section, assessing them through Apgar and reflex scores. Fifty puppies delivered from 16 bitches were randomly allocated to receive clamping of the umbilical cord immediately (n=25) or to not receive the clamping until breathing (n=25). The neonates were assessed during the first five min of life and once again 10 min after the first assessment. The differences observed between the two moments were significant (p < 0.01) for both the Apgar and reflex scores. The differences observed between the groups (clamped vs. not clamped) were not significant for the Apgar score in the 1st moment (p=0.1), but the 2nd moment was significantly (p < 0.01) in the group not clamped, as well as significant (p < 0.05) for the reflex score in the 1st moment and 2nd moment (p < 0.05), revealing higher neonatal vitality in the not clamped group. The differences observed between the moments (1st vs. 2nd) of each group as significant (p < 0.01), revealing higher neonatal vitality in the 2nd moments. In the no clamping group, after removing the neonates together with the umbilical cord and the placenta, we observed that the umbilical cords were full of blood at the time of birth and later became whitish and collapsed, demonstrating the blood transfer. The results suggest that keeping the umbilical cord intact for at least three minutes after the onset breathing is not detrimental and may contribute to increase neonate vitality in puppies delivered by cesarean section.

Keywords: puppy vitality, newborn dog, cesarean section, Apgar score

Procedia PDF Downloads 118