Predicting the dilution of plasma transferred arc hardfacing of stellite on carbon steel using response surface methodology

Control of dilution is important in hardfacing, where low dilution is typically desirable. At present, most fabrication industries use shielded metal are welding, gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding and submerged are welding processes for hardfacing purposes. In these processes, the percentage of the dilution level is higher, ranging between 10% and 30%. In Plasma Transferred Arc (PTA) hardfacing, a solidified metallurgical bond between the deposit and the substrate is obtained with minimum dilution (less than 10%). This paper highlights the application of response surface methodology to predict and optimize the percentage of the dilution of a cobalt-based hardfaced surface produced by the PTA process. Experiments were conducted based on a fully replicable five-factor, five-level central composite rotatable design and a mathematical model was developed using response surface methodology. Furthermore, the response surface methodology was used to optimize the process parameters that yield the lowest percentage of dilution.     

Every team deserves a second chance: an extended study on predicting team performance

Voting among different agents is a powerful tool in problem solving, and it has been widely applied to improve the performance in finding the correct answer to complex problems. We present a novel benefit of voting, that has not been observed before: we can use the voting patterns to assess the performance of a team and predict their final outcome. This prediction can be executed at any moment during problem-solving and it is completely domain independent. Hence, it can be used to identify when a team is failing, allowing an operator to take remedial procedures (such as changing team members, the voting rule, or increasing the allocation of resources). We present three main theoretical results: (1) we show a theoretical explanation of why our prediction method works; (2) contrary to what would be expected based on a simpler explanation using classical voting models, we show that we can make accurate predictions irrespective of the strength (i.e., performance) of the teams, and that in fact, the prediction can work better for diverse teams composed of different agents than uniform teams made of copies of the best agent; (3) we show that the quality of our prediction increases with the size of the action space. We perform extensive experimentation in two different domains: Computer Go and Ensemble Learning. In Computer Go, we obtain high quality predictions about the final outcome of games. We analyze the prediction accuracy for three different teams with different levels of diversity and strength, and show that the prediction works significantly better for a diverse team. Additionally, we show that our method still works well when trained with games against one adversary, but tested with games against another, showing the generality of the learned functions. Moreover, we evaluate four different board sizes, and experimentally confirm better predictions in larger board sizes. We analyze in detail the learned prediction functions, and how they change according to each team and action space size. In order to show that our method is domain independent, we also present results in Ensemble Learning, where we make online predictions about the performance of a team of classifiers, while they are voting to classify sets of items. We study a set of classical classification algorithms from machine learning, in a data-set of hand-written digits, and we are able to make high-quality predictions about the final performance of two different teams. Since our approach is domain independent, it can be easily applied to a variety of other domains.     

Immune and Anticancer Responses Elicited by Fully Synthetic Aberrantly Glycosylated MUC1 Tripartite Vaccines Modified by a TLR2 or TLR9 Agonist

The mucin MUC1 is overexpressed and aberrantly glycosylated by many epithelial cancer cells manifested by truncated O‐linked saccharides. Although tumor‐associated MUC1 has generated considerable attention because of its potential for the development of a therapeutic cancer vaccine, it has been difficult to design constructs that consistently induce cytotoxic T‐lymphocytes (CTLs) and ADCC‐mediating antibodies specific for the tumor form of MUC1. We have designed, chemically synthesized, and immunologically examined vaccine candidates each composed of a glycopeptide derived from MUC1, a promiscuous T_helper peptide, and a TLR2 (Pam₃CysSK₄) or TLR9 (CpG‐ODN 1826) agonist. It was found that the Pam₃CysSK₄‐containing compound elicits more potent antigenic and cellular immune responses, resulting in a therapeutic effect in a mouse model of mammary cancer. It is thus shown, for the first time, that the nature of an inbuilt adjuvant of a tripartite vaccine can significantly impact the quality of immune responses elicited against a tumor‐associated glycopeptide. The unique adjuvant properties of Pam₃CysSK₄, which can reduce the suppressive function of regulatory T cells and enhance the cytotoxicity of tumor‐specific CTLs, are likely responsible for the superior properties of the vaccine candidate 1 .     

The codeposition of alumina and titania with copper

The codeposition of Al₂O₃ and TiO₂ from the acid copper electrolyte was investigated with respect to solution pH, particle concentration in the electrolyte, addition agents and the nature of the crystalline phase of the oxide particles. The incorporation of oxides was found possible without the need of addition agents, provided the oxide particles are of the favorable crystalline form as α-Al₂O₃ and rutile TiO₂. A technique is reported whereby the γ-Al₂O₃ particles are partially transformed to the α-form making the oxide suitable for codeposition.     

Psychophysical estimation of speed discrimination. II. Aging effects

We studied the effects of aging on a speed discrimination task using a pair of first-order drifting luminance gratings. Two reference speeds of 2 and 8 deg/s were presented at stimulus durations of 500 ms and 1000 ms. The choice of stimulus parameters, etc., was determined in preliminary experiments and described in Part I. Thresholds were estimated using a two-alternative-forced-choice staircase methodology. Data were collected from 16 younger subjects (mean age 24 years) and 17 older subjects (mean age 71 years). Results showed that thresholds for speed discrimination were higher for the older age group. This was especially true at stimulus duration of 500 ms for both slower and faster speeds. This could be attributed to differences in temporal integration of speed with age. Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were not statistically observed to mediate age differences in the speed discrimination thresholds. Gender differences were observed in the older age group, with older women having higher thresholds.     

The fate and intermediary metabolism of stearic acid

Coming from the Greek for “hard fat”, stearic acid represents one of the most abundant FA in the Western diet. Otherwise known as n-octadecanoic acid (18∶0), stearate is either obtained in the diet or synthesized by the elongation of palmitate, the principal product of the FA synthase system in animal cells. Stearic acid has been shown to be a very poor substrate for TG synthesis, even as compared with other saturated fats such as myristate and palmitate, and in human studies stearic acid has been shown to generate a lower lipemic response than medium-chain saturated FA. Although it has been proposed that this may be due to less efficient absorption of stearic acid in the gut, such findings have not been consistent. Along with palmitate, stearate is the major substrate for the enzyme stearoyl-CoA desaturase, which catalyzes the conversion of stearate to oleate, the preferred substrate for the synthesis of TG and other complex lipids. In mice, targeted disruption of the stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1 (SCD1) gene results in the generation of a lean mouse that is resistant to diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance. SCD1 also has been shown to be a key target of the anorexigenic hormone leptin, thus underscoring the importance of this enzyme, and consequently the cellular stearate-to-oleate ratio, in lipid metabolism and potentially in the treatment of obesity and related disorders.     

An agent-based information architecture for shop-floor control

The principal aim of this paper is to develop a highly flexible shop-floor control system architecture using software agents which communicate with one another using the peer-to-peer paradigm. A shop-floor control system is responsible for the coordination of material and information flow in the manufacturing system as well as for communicating with the suppliers and the distributors or customers. It has to make several dynamic decisions like release of parts into the system, scheduling and routing of parts and transportation, machine selection, rerouting in case of failures etc. In our proposed control system such decisions are made bysoftware agents which are equipped with local databases and independent computing power and a reliable communication interface. The different agencies and agents that make up the control system are discussed in this paper. In this proposed system, a part agent (as part of the part agency) enters the factory floor with process requirements, contacts the task assignment agent for the process plan, the monitoring agent for the status of the system, the scheduling agent for the detailed schedule, and the router agent for transportation before finally proceeding to get served. Mechanisms for handling issues like scheduling, routing, and failures have been discussed. Java and its underlying programming concepts form the backbone of our agent architecture. Agents use KQML (knowledge query and manipulative language) constructs for sending queries and KIF (knowledge interchange format) constructs for representing knowledge and exchanging information. Our system has several advantages over other control architectures and it is highly likely that future factory floor control systems will follow similar paradigms.     

Effect of External Viscous Load on Head Movement

Quantitative measurements of horizontal head rotation were obtained from normal human subjects intending to make "time optimal" trajectories between targets. By mounting large, lightweight vanes on the head, viscous damping B, up to 15 times normal could be added to the usual mechanical load of the head.     

Directed Nanoscale Self‐Assembly of Low Molecular Weight Hydrogelators Using Catalytic Nanoparticles

The work presented here shows that the growth of supramolecular hydrogel fibers can be spatially directed at the nanoscale by catalytic negatively charged nanoparticles (NCNPs). The NCNPs with surfaces grafted with negatively charged polymer chains create a local proton gradient that facilitates an acid‐catalyzed formation of hydrogelators in the vicinity of NCNPs, ultimately leading to the selective formation of gel fibers around NCNPs. The presence of NCNPs has a dominant effect on the properties of the resulting gels, including gelation time, mechanical properties, and network morphology. Interestingly, local fiber formation can selectively entrap and precipitate out NCNPs from a mixture of different nanoparticles. These findings show a new possibility to use directed molecular self‐assembly to selectively trap target nano‐objects, which may find applications in therapy, such as virus infection prevention, or engineering applications, like water treatment and nanoparticle separation.