Image Restoration

This book represents a sample of recent contributions of researchers all around the world in the field of image restoration. The book consists of 15 chapters organized in three main sections (Theory, Applications, Interdisciplinarity). Topics cover some different aspects of the theory of image restoration, but this book is also an occasion to highlight some new topics of research related to the emergence of some original imaging devices. From this arise some real challenging problems related to image reconstruction/restoration that open the way to some new fundamental scientific questions closely related with the world we interact with

I. Stereochemical Control of Chiral Assembly and Liquid Crystal Phase Formation of Nonamphiphilic Molecules in Water II. Control Bacterial Quorum Sensing and Quorum Sensing-mediated Activities Using Small Unnatural Molecules

The primary goal of this research is to utilize organic synthesis as a tool to prepare small molecules that find potential application in different areas including colloidal and material science, biological chemistry, and medicinal chemistry. Chapter 1 describes the interpretation of the conformation of nonamphiphilic mesogen disodium cromoglycate (5´DSCG) when it exists as part of an assembly in water. The study of thermodynamic incompatibility and miscibility suggest that a previously proposed model for the assembly of 5´DSCG may be applicable to nonamphiphilic organic dyes and other mesogens. Chapter 2 presents a study of stereochemical control on assembly and liquid crystal formation by nonamphiphilic molecules. Three stereoisomers of a disodium chromonyl carboxylate derivative, 5´DSCG-diviol, were designed and synthesized. The chiral stereoisomers formed chiral nematic liquid crystals while the achiral counterpart did not form any kind of liquid crystals. The hydrated assemblies of chiral 5´DSCG-diviol were able to interact with each other across a 6 nm separation in aqueous environment and the chirality information was transmitted through achiral medium. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis and biological studies of a class of bicyclic brominated furanones. These molecules interacted with quorum sensing in an opportunistic pathogen P. aeruginosa. Some representative compounds in this class inhibited quorum sensing-controlled activities such as biofilm formation and virulence factor production, which were key factors in the pathogenicity of the bacteria. These compounds exhibited significant reduction in the toxicity of human neuroblastoma SK-N-SH and did not inhibit bacterial growth. Furthermore, one compound, 6-BBF, significantly improved P. aeruginosa clearance in the lungs of mice in an immunocompromised pneumonia mouse model in vivo. Chapter 4 reports the synthesis of a library of squarylated homoserine lactones (SHLs) as analogues to the natural autoinducers N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHL) in Gram-negative bacteria. These SHLs were shown to have no or minimal impact of the growth of P. aeruginosa and V. fischeri, but maintain the abilities to modulate quorum sensing and inhibit biofilm formation. Primary studies of structural activity relationship revealed that the alkyl chain length was critical to activities of SHLs. These SHLs are promising candidates as modulators of other AHL-mediated QS systems

Microwave NDT&E using open-ended waveguide probe for multilayered structures

Ph. D. Thesis.Microwave NDT&E has been proved to be suitable for inspecting of dielectric structures due to low attenuation in dielectric materials and free-space. However, the microwave responses from multilayered structures are complex as an interrogation of scattering electromagnetic waves among the layers and defects. In many practical applications, electromagnetic analysis based on analytic- and forward structural models cannot be generalised since the defect shape and properties are usually unknown and hidden beneath the surface layer. This research proposes the design and implementation of microwave NDT&E system for inspection of multilayered structures. Standard microwave open-ended rectangular waveguides in X, Ku and K bands (frequency range between 8-26.5 GHz) and vector network analyser (VNA) generating sweep frequency of wideband monochromatic waves have been used to obtain reflection coefficient responses over three types of challenging multilayered samples: (1) corrosion progression under coating, (2) woven carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) with impact damages, and (3) thermal coated glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) pipe with inner flat-bottom holes. The obtained data are analysed by the selected feature extraction method extracting informative features and verify with the sample parameters (defect parameters). In addition, visualisation methods are utilised to improve the presentation of the defects and material structures resulting in a better interpretation for quantitative evaluation. The contributions of this project are summarised as follows: (1) implementation of microwave NDT&E scanning system using open-ended waveguide with the highest resolution of 0.1mm x 0.1 mm, based on the NDT applications for the three aforementioned samples; (2) corrosion stages of steel corrosion under coating have been successfully characterised by the principal component analysis (PCA) method; (3) A frequency selective based PCA feature has been used to visualise the impact damage at different impact energies with elimination of woven texture influences; (4) PCA and SAR (synthetic aperture radar) tomography together with time-offlight extraction, have been used for detection and quantitative evaluation of flat-bottom hole defects (i.e., location, size and depth). The results conclude that the proposed microwave NDT&E system can be used for detection and evaluation of multilayered structures, which its major contributions are follows. (1) The early stages (0-12month) of steel corrosion undercoating has been successfully characterised by mean of spectral responses from microwave opened rectangular waveguide probe and PCA. (2) The detection of low energy impact damages on CFRP as low as 4 Joules has been archived with microwave opened rectangular waveguide probe raster scan together with SAR imaging and PCA for feature extraction methods. (3) The inner flat-bottom holes beneath the thermal coated GFRP up to 11.5 mm depth has been successfully quantitative evaluated by open-ended waveguide raster scan using PCA and 3-D reconstruction based on SAR tomography techniques. The evaluation includes location, sizing and depth. Nevertheless, the major downside of feature quantities extracted from statistically based methods such as PCA, is it intensely relies on the correlation of the input dataset, and thus hardly link them with the physical parameters of the test sample, in particular, the complex composite architectures. Therefore, there are still challenges of feature extraction and quantitative evaluation to accurately determine the essential parameters from the samples. This can be achieved by a future investigation of multiple features fusion and complementary features.Ministry of Science and Technology of Royal Thai Government and Office of Educational Affairs, the Royal Thai Embass

Micro/Nano Manufacturing

Micro manufacturing involves dealing with the fabrication of structures in the size range of 0.1 to 1000 µm. The scope of nano manufacturing extends the size range of manufactured features to even smaller length scales—below 100 nm. A strict borderline between micro and nano manufacturing can hardly be drawn, such that both domains are treated as complementary and mutually beneficial within a closely interconnected scientific community. Both micro and nano manufacturing can be considered as important enablers for high-end products. This Special Issue of Applied Sciences is dedicated to recent advances in research and development within the field of micro and nano manufacturing. The included papers report recent findings and advances in manufacturing technologies for producing products with micro and nano scale features and structures as well as applications underpinned by the advances in these technologies

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 220, June 1981

Approximately 137 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in May 1981 are recorded, covering a variety of topics in aerospace medicine and biology

Microstructure and Corrosion Behavior of Advanced Alloys

In many industrial applications, metallic materials are exposed to harsh operating conditions. Due to a combination of chemical and thermal stresses, the constructional and functional materials are degraded, and their utility properties are lost. These undesirable events are of a physicochemical nature and are commonly known as ‘corrosion’. In this Special Issue Book, 3 reviews and 18 original research papers focused on the complex relationships between the microstructure, phase constitution, and corrosion behavior of metallic materials are collected. Both high temperature and low temperature corrosion studies are included as they investigate the physicochemical processes at the material interfaces. Furthermore, possibilities for increasing the corrosion resistance of metallic materials are studied by means of surface modification and application of protective layers. This Special Issue Book, Microstructure and Corrosion Behavior of Advanced Alloys, displays the diversity and complexity of modern corrosion research. It is hoped that it will become a valuable source of reference for corrosion scientists

Amphiphilic branched block copolymers as responsive materials

The ultimate goal of this project is to understand the fundamental relationships between the architecture and chemical design of highly branched multifunctional block copolymers and their supramolecular organization, physical behavior, and microscopic properties at surfaces and interfaces. The present work is focused on synthesis of linear and branched macromolecules with specific topology, using different types of polymerization methods, such as anionic, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), nitroxide mediated polymerization (NMP) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT). The chemical composition of the macromolecules is confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The physical properties of the polymers are analyzed with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction techniques. The behavior of the amphiphilic macromolecules at the air-water interface and on a solid surface is characterized by X-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy (AFM). As concluded in this research for star block copolymers with low number of arms, increasing the number of PS arms stabilized the circular morphology of the Langmuir monolayer. Introducing of ionic amino or carboxyl terminal groups of arms is found to be effective in creating stable and very fine circular domain morphology. Furthermore, adding ionic blocks containing tertiary amino groups allowed tuning their surface properties by changes in both pH and temperature. On the other hand, different surface morphologies ranging from peculiar stripes and net-like patterns to a highly ordered 2D assembly of fine circular domains and peculiar dendritic superstructures were observed for the multiarm star polymers with high number of arms (16-38). Finally, for the hyperbranched block copolymers, AFM revealed morphology transition from very smooth monolayer to formation of nonuniform bilayer structure followed by second collapse and creation of uniform polymeric multilayers. As an outcome of research, fundamental relationships between architecture/chemical composition and resulting structures are suggested. This research expands a range of potential technologies to improve the control over interfacial behavior of the nanoscale polymeric films