Effects of System’s Limitations on the Accuracy of Measured Ultrasonic Correlated Signal

Within a highly attenuating material, it is often difficult to identify relevant target signals due to the system’s white noise that is elevated by high gains on a conventional ultrasonic system. Ultrasonic pulse compression technique resolves such problem. The ultrasonic pulse compression technique permits an ultrasonic system to operate with long transmitted pulses for an increased detection range, but without sacrificing the depth resolution by signal correlation. Moreover, the time integral involved in the cross-correlation further suppresses the system’s white noise, and hence it produces an improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)

The Complex Topology of Chemical Plants

We show that flowsheets of oil refineries can be associated to complex network topologies that are scale-free, display small-world effect and possess hierarchical organization. The emergence of these properties from such man-made networks is explained as a consequence of the currently used principles for process design, which include heuristics as well as algorithmic techniques. We expect these results to be valid for chemical plants of different types and capacities.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures and 1 tabl

Strong correlations between text quality and complex networks features

Concepts of complex networks have been used to obtain metrics that were correlated to text quality established by scores assigned by human judges. Texts produced by high-school students in Portuguese were represented as scale-free networks (word adjacency model), from which typical network features such as the in/outdegree, clustering coefficient and shortest path were obtained. Another metric was derived from the dynamics of the network growth, based on the variation of the number of connected components. The scores assigned by the human judges according to three text quality criteria (coherence and cohesion, adherence to standard writing conventions and theme adequacy/development) were correlated with the network measurements. Text quality for all three criteria was found to decrease with increasing average values of outdegrees, clustering coefficient and deviation from the dynamics of network growth. Among the criteria employed, cohesion and coherence showed the strongest correlation, which probably indicates that the network measurements are able to capture how the text is developed in terms of the concepts represented by the nodes in the networks. Though based on a particular set of texts and specific language, the results presented here point to potential applications in other instances of text analysis.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Heisenberg-picture approach to the exact quantum motion of a time-dependent forced harmonic oscillator

In the Heisenberg picture, the generalized invariant and exact quantum motions are found for a time-dependent forced harmonic oscillator. We find the eigenstate and the coherent state of the invariant and show that the dispersions of these quantum states do not depend on the external force. Our formalism is applied to several interesting cases.Comment: 15 pages, two eps files, to appear in Phys. Rev. A 53 (6) (1996

Design Rules for Self-Assembly of 2D Nanocrystal/Metal-Organic Framework Superstructures.

We demonstrate the guiding principles behind simple two dimensional self-assembly of MOF nanoparticles (NPs) and oleic acid capped iron oxide (Fe3 O4 ) NCs into a uniform two-dimensional bi-layered superstructure. This self-assembly process can be controlled by the energy of ligand-ligand interactions between surface ligands on Fe3 O4 NCs and Zr6 O4 (OH)4 (fumarate)6 MOF NPs. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM)/energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and TEM tomography confirm the hierarchical co-assembly of Fe3 O4 NCs with MOF NPs as ligand energies are manipulated to promote facile diffusion of the smaller NCs. First-principles calculations and event-driven molecular dynamics simulations indicate that the observed patterns are dictated by combination of ligand-surface and ligand-ligand interactions. This study opens a new avenue for design and self-assembly of MOFs and NCs into high surface area assemblies, mimicking the structure of supported catalyst architectures, and provides a thorough fundamental understanding of the self-assembly process, which could be a guide for designing functional materials with desired structure

Influence of thermal hydrolysis pretreatment on physicochemical properties and anaerobic biodegradability of waste activated sludge with different solids content

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd The influence of thermal hydrolysis pretreatment (THP) on physicochemical properties (pH, total solids, volatile solids, chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen, volatile fatty acids, viscosity, and cell morphology) and anaerobic biodegradability of highly concentrated waste activated sludge (WAS) with TS content ranging from 1 to 7% was evaluated at different temperatures ranging from 100 to 220 °C. The biomethane potential (BMP) of the WAS was systematically analyzed and evaluated. Images of its cellular structure were also analyzed. The results indicated that THP is a useful method for solubilizing volatile solids and enhancing CH 4 production regardless of the TS content of the WAS feed. The ultimate CH 4 production determined from the BMP analysis was 313–348 L CH 4 /kg VS (72.6–74.1% CH 4 ) at the optimum THP temperature of 180 °C. The results showed that THP could improve both the capacity and efficiency of anaerobic digestion, even at a high TS content, and could achieve the dual purpose of sludge reduction and higher energy recovery

Network Landscape from a Brownian Particle's Perspective

Given a complex biological or social network, how many clusters should it be decomposed into? We define the distance $d_{i,j}$ from node $i$ to node $j$ as the average number of steps a Brownian particle takes to reach $j$ from $i$. Node $j$ is a global attractor of $i$ if $d_{i,j}\leq d_{i,k}$ for any $k$ of the graph; it is a local attractor of $i$, if $j\in E_i$ (the set of nearest-neighbors of $i$) and $d_{i,j}\leq d_{i,l}$ for any $l\in E_i$. Based on the intuition that each node should have a high probability to be in the same community as its global (local) attractor on the global (local) scale, we present a simple method to uncover a network's community structure. This method is applied to several real networks and some discussion on its possible extensions is made.Comment: 5 pages, 4 color-figures. REVTeX 4 format. To appear in PR

Recursive weighted treelike networks

We propose a geometric growth model for weighted scale-free networks, which is controlled by two tunable parameters. We derive exactly the main characteristics of the networks, which are partially determined by the parameters. Analytical results indicate that the resulting networks have power-law distributions of degree, strength, weight and betweenness, a scale-free behavior for degree correlations, logarithmic small average path length and diameter with network size. The obtained properties are in agreement with empirical data observed in many real-life networks, which shows that the presented model may provide valuable insight into the real systems

Error and attack tolerance of complex networks

Many complex systems, such as communication networks, display a surprising degree of robustness: while key components regularly malfunction, local failures rarely lead to the loss of the global information-carrying ability of the network. The stability of these complex systems is often attributed to the redundant wiring of the functional web defined by the systems' components. In this paper we demonstrate that error tolerance is not shared by all redundant systems, but it is displayed only by a class of inhomogeneously wired networks, called scale-free networks. We find that scale-free networks, describing a number of systems, such as the World Wide Web, Internet, social networks or a cell, display an unexpected degree of robustness, the ability of their nodes to communicate being unaffected by even unrealistically high failure rates. However, error tolerance comes at a high price: these networks are extremely vulnerable to attacks, i.e. to the selection and removal of a few nodes that play the most important role in assuring the network's connectivity.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, Late