Subject-based extraction of a latent blog community

In the blogosphere, there exist posts relevant to a particular subject and blogs that show interest in the subject. In this paper, we define a set of such posts and blogs as a blog community and propose a method for extracting the blog community associated with a particular subject. The proposed method is based on the idea that the blogs who have performed actions (e.g., read, comment, trackback, scrap) to the posts of a particular subject are the ones with interest in the subject, and that the posts that have received actions from such blogs are the ones that contain the subject. The proposed method starts with a small number of manually-selected seed posts containing the subject. Then, the method selects the blogs that have performed actions to the seed posts over some threshold and the posts that have received actions over some threshold. Repeating these two steps gradually expands the blog community. This paper presents various techniques to improve the accuracy of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method exhibits a higher level of accuracy than the methods proposed in prior research. This paper also discusses business applications of the extracted community, such as target marketing, market monitoring, improving search results, finding power bloggers, and revitalization of the blogosphere.     

On the effect of shear-thinning rheology on hemodynamic characteristics in basilar tip aneurysms with implication of two distinct flow patterns

Intra-aneurysmal hemodynamics such as wall shear stress and complex flow structures have been implicated as one of the important factors on the growth and risk of rupture of an aneurysm. In this study, the sensitivity of intra-aneurysmal blood flow dynamics to the shear-thinning rheological model is investigated by using the idealized geometries of a basilar tip aneurysm with two representative anterior-posterior (AP) tilting angles (2° and 30°). By choice of different rheological models, time-averaged hemodynamic factors such as wall shear stress, oscillatory shear index and relative residence time exhibited only minor effects. However, highly unstable flow present in idealized aneurysm model with 2° AP tilting angle facilitated an evident change in the instantaneous local flow dynamics with a considerable increase in effective viscosity. Nevertheless, the distinct hemodynamic phenotype, which characterizes the gross intraaneurysmal flow pattern, was independent of the choice of rheological model. This result suggests that the shear thinning viscous effect is of secondary importance in the gross hemodynamics in a basilar tip aneurysm but is appreciably enhanced on the instantaneous hemodynamics with unstable complex flow structures.     

~(27)Al MAS-NMR study of inorganic polymer formation at ambient temperature

Inorganic polymers are a novel class of materials formed by the polymerization of silicon, aluminium and oxygen species to form an amorphous three-dimensional framework structure. The basis of this process is the alkaline solutions to induce a certain amount of Si and Al atoms to dissolve from a feedstock such as aluminosilicate. A study of 27Al MAS-NMR was carried out in an attempt to understand the reaction mechanism of the inorganic polymerization at ambient temperature. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD) were also employed to establish the composition and microstructure of the inorganic polymerization. Specimens were prepared with different Al/Si mole ratios from the starting materials. The higher the Al content, the more sufficient the Al atoms that can combine with SiO4, and the longer the reaction time, the more the bonded Si—O—Al—O polymer structure, and then the higher the Al content, the fewer the octahedral Al with a uniform Si—O—Al—O structure in four directions, because four Al atoms are combined with SiO4, resulting in a uniform Si—O—Al—O structure in four directions. The results show that they have an amorphous microstructure.     

A Subsequence Matching Algorithm that Supports Normalization Transform in Time-Series Databases

In this paper, an algorithm is proposed for subsequence matching that supports normalization transform in time-series databases. Normalization transform enables finding sequences with similar fluctuation patterns even though they are not close to each other before the normalization transform. Simple application of existing subsequence matching algorithms to support normalization transform is not feasible since the algorithms do not have information for normalization transform of subsequences of arbitrary lengths. Application of the existing whole matching algorithm supporting normalization transform to the subsequence matching is feasible, but requires an index for every possible length of the query sequence causing serious overhead on both storage space and update time. The proposed algorithm generates indexes only for a small number of different lengths of query sequences. For subsequence matching it selects the most appropriate index among them. Better search performance can be obtained by using more indexes. In this paper, the approach is called index interpolation. It is formally proved that the proposed algorithm does not cause false dismissal. The search performance can be traded off with storage space by adjusting the number of indexes. For performance evaluation, a series of experiments is conducted using the indexes for only five different lengths out of lengths 256512 of the query sequence. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the sequential scan by up to 2.4 times on the average when the selectivity of the query is 10^–2 and up to 14.6 times when it is 10^–5. Since the proposed algorithm performs better with smaller selectivities, it is suitable for practical situations, where the queries with smaller selectivities are much more frequent.     

Effect of MDA-endcapped CTBN on the cure kinetics of epoxy system by autocatalytic cure rate expression

The cure rate of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)/4,4-methylene dianiline (MDA) system with or without MDA-endcapped carboxyl-terminated butadiene acrylonitrile (CTBN) rubber was studied by autocatalytic cure rate expression. All the cumulative conversion curves for DGEBA/MDA system with or without MDA-endcapped CTBN (20 phr) showed s-shape and this meant that the two systems followed the typical autocatalytic reaction. The cure rate of the system with MDA-endcapped CTBN (20 phr) was faster than that of the system without MDA-endcapped CTBN (20 phr). The activation energies of k ₁ and k ₂ for DGEBA/MDA system were 54.01 kJ/mol and 44.06 kJ/mol, respectively and those of k ₁ and k ₂ for the system with MDA-endcapped CTBN (20 phr) were 47.71 kJ/mol and 40.95 kJ/mol.     

Using multiple indexes for efficient subsequence matching in time-series databases

A time-series database is a set of data sequences, each of which is a list of changing values of an object in a given period of time. Subsequence matching is an operation that searches for such data subsequences whose changing patterns are similar to a query sequence in a time-series database. This paper addresses a performance issue of time-series subsequence matching. First, we quantitatively examine the performance degradation caused by the window size effect, and then show that the performance of subsequence matching with a single index is not satisfactory in real applications. We claim that index interpolation is a fairly effective tool to solve this problem. Index interpolation performs subsequence matching by selecting the most appropriate one from multiple indexes built on windows of their distinct sizes. For index interpolation, we need to decide the sizes of windows for multiple indexes to be built. In this paper, we solve the problem of selecting optimal window sizes from the perspective of physical database design. Given a set of pairs 〈length, frequency〉 of query sequences to be performed in a target application and a set of window sizes for building multiple indexes, we devise a formula that estimates the overall cost of all the subsequence matchings performed in a target application. By using this formula, we propose an algorithm that determines the optimal window sizes for maximizing the performance of entire subsequence matchings. We formally prove the optimality as well as the effectiveness of the algorithm. Finally, we show the superiority of our approach by performing extensive experiments with a real-life stock data set and a large volume of synthetic data sets.     

Esterification of lauric acid with isopropyl alcohol by tricaprylylmethylammonium chloride as a catalyst in a liquid-liquid heterogeneous system

Experiments were performed on the esterification of lauric acid with isopropyl alcohol by tricaprylylmethylammonium chloride in a stirred vessel with a flat liquid-liquid interface. The observed initial rate of reaction was used to analyze the reaction mechanism combined with the catalyst, and to evaluate the several kinds of reaction rate constant, from which equilibrium constants were expressed as a function of reaction temperature. The analysis of reaction kinetics indicated that the reaction was between a very slow and slow reaction regime.     

Breakthrough data analysis of adsorption of volatile organic compounds on granular activated carbon

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) such as methanol, ethanol, methyl ethyl keton, benzene, n-propanol, toluene, and o-xylene were adsorbed in a laboratory-scale packed-bed adsorber using granular activated carbon (GAC) at 101.3 kPa. The adsorber was operated batchwise to obtain the breakthrough curves of VOCs under the adsorption conditions such as adsorption temperatures (298–323 K), flow rates of nitrogen (60×10⁻⁶-150×10⁻⁶m³/min), GAC amount of 0.002 kg, and concentration of VOCs (3,000–6,000 ppmv). The adsorption kinetics was obtained by fitting the experimental breakthrough data to the deactivation model, combining the adsorption of VOCs and the deactivation of GAC. The adsorption isotherm, and adsorbed amount and adsorption heat of VOCs were obtained using the breakthrough curve: the former for comparison with the conventional isotherm models, the latter for correlation with the physical properties of VOCs.     

Chemical absorption of carbon dioxide into phenyl glycidyl ether solution containing THA-CP-MS41 catalyst

Carbon dioxide was absorbed into the phenyl glycidyl ether (PGE) solution within a range of 0–2.0 kmol/m³ in a stirred batch tank with a planar gas-liquid interface at 333–363 K and 101.3 kPa. Trihexylamine-immobilized on chloropropyl-functionalized MCM-41 (THA-CP-MS41) was used as a mesoporous catalyst, dispersed in organic liquid for the reaction between carbon dioxide and PGE. The measured absorption rates were analyzed to obtain the reaction kinetics of the consecutive chemical reactions which consisted of two steps using the mass transfer mechanism based on film theory. The overall reaction kinetics, analyzed with the pseudo-first-order reaction constant in the consecutive reaction model, was equivalent to the consecutive reaction kinetics. Effects of polar solvent, such as N, N-dimethylacetamide, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone, and dimethyl sulfoxide, on the reaction rate constants were observed using the solubility parameter of the solvent.     

Adsorption of carbon dioxide onto BDA-CP-MS41

Carbon dioxide was adsorbed onto mesoporous adsorbent of butylene diamine immobilized CP-MS41 (BDA-CP-MS41), which was synthesized by chloropropyl functionalized MCM-41 (CP-MS41) with butylene diamine in a laboratory-scale packed-bed. The adsorber was operated batchwise with the charge of adsorbent in the range of 1–3 g to obtain the breakthrough curves of CO₂. Experiments were carried out at different adsorption temperatures (20–40 °C) and flow rates of nitrogen (10–20 cm³/min) to investigate the effects of these experimental variables on the breakthrough curves. The deactivation model was tested for these curves by combining the adsorption of CO₂ and the deactivation of adsorbent particles. The observed values of the adsorption rate constant and the deactivation rate constant were evaluated through analysis of the experimental breakthrough data using a nonlinear least squares technique. The experimental breakthrough data fitted very well to the deactivation model than the adsorption isotherm models in the literature.