A gantry crane located in a near-field earthquake-prone area is selected in this paper as an example, and the nonlinear finite element (FE) model is used considering the material nonlinearity including plastic hinges and the second order (P $-\mathsf{\Delta }$ ) effect with a comprehensive consideration of the components including sill beams, support beams, legs, and trolley girders. The local displacement ratio (LDR) and deflection ratio (DR) are proposed as demand measures (DMs) of the gantry crane, which are utilized to construct a probabilistic seismic demand model (PSDM). Then, the capacity limit states for the gantry crane are defined in this study by performing pushover analysis (POA), known as serviceability, damage control, and collapse prevention, respectively. Moreover, the operating capacity of the crane during an earthquake is further investigated and quantified by operating seismic peak ground acceleration, which is defined as the maximum acceleration when the failure probability is 50%. Finally, the fragility curves and the failure probability of the gantry crane are derived by the above definitions, all of which are pioneering in the seismic design of gantry cranes subjected to near-field ground motions. Some major conclusions are drawn that the horizontal component of an earthquake has a more notable effect on the structural damage of the gantry crane compared to the vertical component, and incremental dynamic analysis can take seismic uncertainty into account and quantify the deformation of gantry crane in more detail. Full article

The current study attempted to understand the interaction profiles of phytoconstituents in new and traditionally used fruit cultivars with human serum albumin (HSA) in the context of predicting the biological role under in vivo conditions. Therefore, polyphenols, flavonoids, flavanols, tannins, vitamin C, secondary metabolites and their antioxidant capacities of organic kiwifruit Actinidia (A.) eriantha cv. Bidan (AEB) and A. arguta cv. Cheongsan (AAC), as new cultivars grown in Korea, and widely consumed A. deliciosa cv. Hayward (ADH) and Diospyros kaki Thunb. cv. Fuyu (DKF) were determined and compared. All investigated fruits showed relatively high antioxidant capacities. To complement the bioactivity of these fruits, the binding properties between extracted polyphenols and HSA were determined by 3D-fluorescence spectroscopy and docking studies. The most bioactive was AEB with the highest percentage of binding, following by AAC, ADH and DKF. Our study for the first time unveils the differential binding properties of kiwifruit and persimmon phytoconstituents with HSA. Although cultivars possess virtually the same phytoconstituents, presence of one unique compound significantly alters the binding properties of HSA. The results of fluorescence quenching and molecular docking showed that these fruits possess multiple properties, which have a great potential to be used in industry with emphasis on the formulation of functional foods and medicinal applications. Full article

In recent years, the rapid development of the pharmaceutical industry and the extensive and illicit use of painkillers have led to increased levels of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the environment. In view of the significant impact of NSAIDs on living organisms, including humans, their presence in the environment needs to be continuously monitored at trace levels. For this purpose, a combination of molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) and HPLC-MS analysis is commonly used. MISPE has been utilized in direct, fast, and ecological analysis of drugs using a flowing atmospheric-pressure afterglow ion source for mass spectrometry (FAPA-MS). The new method was applied herein in the determination of naproxen, diclofenac, and ibuprofen. The linear dependence of the intensity of analytical signals on the amount of drugs is in the range of 0.2 μg to 1 g and the method detection limit (MDL) for all drugs is 0.2 μg in environmental samples. The new method also decreased the number of analytical stages, the time and cost of analysis, and the organic solvent consumption, besides being environmentally friendly. Full article

Recent studies have focused on achieving sound osseointegration applying methods of surface reprocessing of dental implants using ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. However, there have been few reports on the effect of UV irradiation on osseointegration in both the short and long term, and experimental studies using the canine model do not exist. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the short- and long-term degree of osseointegration of dental implants according to UV irradiation using a histometric analysis in canine models. Four beagles were used for this study and 24 dental implants were placed. Six implants were inserted with flapless protocols in each mandible. Half of the implants were UV-irradiated prior to implantation. UV-treated and untreated implants were placed one after the other; implant stability was recorded using the implant stability test (IST) immediately after implantation and every seven days thereafter. Two of the beagles were sacrificed after four weeks and the other two after 12 weeks. The implants were removed in block sections and were evaluated histomorphologically and statistically. As a result, we found no statistically significant differences in the mean IST values and in bone-to-implant contact (BIC) in all groups at 4 and 12 weeks. Full article

Structural health monitoring (SHM) techniques are used to assess the behavior of structures during or after construction. The high cost of sensors is the main reason for the limited use of the SHM techniques. The present study investigates the dynamic behavior (dynamic acceleration, semi-static displacement, frequency and damping ratio) of highway steel plate girder bridges using strain measurements. The double filtration and polynomial prediction methods are used to estimate the dynamic behavior of the bridge using real-time strain measurements. To verify the accuracy of the developed method, the field monitoring measurements of the WonHyo bridge is used. The bridge behavior under different truck speeds and weights is observed and evaluated. The displacement and acceleration measurements are used to examine the results of the proposed method. The results of this study demonstrate that the strain measurements can be used to obtain an accurate semi-static displacement and dominant frequency content of the bridge. The accuracy of the developed model for the semi-static and dynamic behaviors is 99% and 69%, respectively. Full article

For its versatility, Python has become one of the most popular programming languages. In spite of its possibility to straightforwardly link native code with powerful libraries for scientific computing, the use of Python for real-time sound applications development is often neglected in favor of alternative programming languages, which are tailored to the digital music domain. This article introduces Python as a real-time software programming tool to interested readers, including Python developers who are new to the real time or, conversely, sound programmers who have not yet taken this language into consideration. Cython and Numba are proposed as libraries supporting agile development of efficient software running at machine level. Moreover, it is shown that refactoring few critical parts of the program under these libraries can dramatically improve the performances of a sound algorithm. Such improvements can be directly benchmarked within Python, thanks to the existence of appropriate code parsing resources. After introducing a simple sound processing example, two algorithms that are known from the literature are coded to show how Python can be effectively employed to program sound software. Finally, issues of efficiency are mainly discussed in terms of latency of the resulting applications. Overall, such issues suggest that the use of real-time Python should be limited to the prototyping phase, where the benefits of language flexibility prevail on low latency requirements, for instance, needed during computer music live performances. Full article

Numerous applications of human–machine interfaces, e.g., dedicated to persons with disabilities, require contactless handling of devices or systems. The purpose of this research is to develop a hands-free head-gesture-controlled interface that can support persons with disabilities to communicate with other people and devices, e.g., the paralyzed to signal messages or the visually impaired to handle travel aids. The hardware of the interface consists of a small stereovision rig with a built-in inertial measurement unit (IMU). The device is to be positioned on a user’s forehead. Two approaches to recognize head movements were considered. In the first approach, for various time window sizes of the signals recorded from a three-axis accelerometer and a three-axis gyroscope, statistical parameters were calculated such as: average, minimum and maximum amplitude, standard deviation, kurtosis, correlation coefficient, and signal energy. For the second approach, the focus was put onto direct analysis of signal samples recorded from the IMU. In both approaches, the accuracies of 16 different data classifiers for distinguishing the head movements: pitch, roll, yaw, and immobility were evaluated. The recordings of head gestures were collected from 65 individuals. The best results for the testing data were obtained for the non-parametric approach, i.e., direct classification of unprocessed samples of IMU signals for Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier (95% correct recognitions). Slightly worse results, in this approach, were obtained for the random forests classifier (93%). The achieved high recognition rates of the head gestures suggest that a person with physical or sensory disability can efficiently communicate with other people or manage applications using simple head gesture sequences. Full article

Blown powder additive manufacturing technologies are not restricted to the use of a process chamber. This feature allows to build larger components with respect to conventional powder bed processes. This peculiarity is mostly promising for manufacturing large components or repairing/rebuilding parts of large systems. The main downside of using an open environment, even if a protective shielding gas system is adopted, is the lack of control of process atmosphere. This is particularly critical for titanium alloys which are very sensitive to oxygen/nitrogen pick-up; they have a detrimental effect on ductility, by causing embrittlement and possibly leading to the formation of cracks. It is then important to address how environmental factors, such as process atmosphere and platform temperature, impact not only on the processability but also on the final component properties, both from a compositional and mechanical point of view. The correlations between these environmental factors and microstructure, interstitials content, grain size, and hardness were investigated. Moreover, the Hall–Petch equation was then adopted to additive manufacturing microstructures, characterized by a columnar grain morphology, and used to further investigate the relationship intercurring between grains and hardness and how different microstructures might influence this correlation. Full article

Low salinity waterflooding is an effective technique to accelerate and boost oil recovery. The impact of this technique has been investigated widely in laboratories for various scales and rock typing, most of which have demonstrated a potential improvement in oil recovery. This improvement has been attributed to several chemical and physical interactions that led to a change in the wettability to become more water-wet, as well as a reduction in the residual oil saturation. Meanwhile, it is rare to find a discussion in the literature about the efficiency of low salinity flooding in naturally fractured reservoirs. Therefore, in this work, we investigate the potential advantages of this method in fractured reservoirs using numerical simulations. A new approach to estimate the weighting factor using a tracer model has been proposed to determine the brine salinity and, hence, its properties in the mixing region. We have also used the relative permeability curves as a proxy for any physical and chemical mechanisms which are not represented explicitly in the model. The simulation outcomes highlighted the advantage of low salinity waterflooding in fractured reservoirs. An increment in oil recovery by 10.7% to 13% of Stock Tank Oil Initially In Place (STOIIP) was obtained using the dual- and single-porosity model, respectively. Therefore, the low salinity waterflooding technique represents a promising low-cost, effective method in fractured reservoirs. Full article

Nanotechnology has been used in many biosensing and medical applications, in the form of noble metal (gold and silver) nanoparticles and nanostructured substrates. However, the translational clinical and industrial applications still need improvements of the efficiency, selectivity, cost, toxicity, reproducibility, and morphological control at the nanoscale level. In this review, we highlight the recent progress that has been made in the replacement of expensive gold and silver metals with the less expensive aluminum. In addition to low cost, other advantages of the aluminum plasmonic nanostructures include a broad spectral range from deep UV to near IR, providing additional signal enhancement and treatment mechanisms. New synergistic treatments of bacterial infections, cancer, and coronaviruses are envisioned. Coupling with gain media and quantum optical effects improve the performance of the aluminum nanostructures beyond gold and silver. Full article

The dynamic monitoring and analysis of wetland vegetation play important roles in revealing the change, restoration and reconstruction of the ecosystem environment. The increasing availability of high spatial-temporal resolution remote sensing data provides an unprecedented opportunity for wetland dynamic monitoring and change detection. Using the reconstructed dense monthly Landsat time series, this study focuses on the continuous monitoring of vegetation dynamics in Dongting Lake wetland, south China, in the last two decades (2000–2019) by using the Bayesian estimator of abrupt change, seasonal change, and trend (BEAST) method. Firstly, the flexible spatiotemporal data fusion (FSDAF) model is applied to blend Landsat and moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) images on the basis of the input image pair selection strategy named “cross-fusion” to generate the monthly time-series normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) with the spatial resolution of 30 m. Then, the abrupt changes, trend, and seasonality of the vegetation in the study area as well as the uncertainties of change detection are estimated by the BEAST method. Results show that there is a close relationship between the ground true data and the estimated changepoints. A high overall accuracy (OA) of 87.37% and Kappa coefficient of 0.85 were achieved by the proposed framework. Additionally, the temporal validation got the interval intersection of 86.57% and the absolute difference of mean interval length of 6.8 days. All of the results demonstrate that the vegetation changes in the Dongting Lake wetland varied spatially and temporally in the last two decades, because of extreme weathers and anthropogenic factors. The presented approach can accurately identify the vegetation changes and time of disturbance in both the spatial and temporal domains, and also can retrieve the evolution process of wetland vegetation under the influence of climate changes and human activities. Therefore, it can be used to reveal potential causes of the degradation and recovery of wetland vegetation in subtropical areas. Full article

Innovative hip implants should be designed in accordance with biomechanical models of the proximal femur and take into account both body weight and muscle action in order to improve usability and biomimetic performance. This article proposes a finite element analysis of the proximal femur using both cortical and trabecular regions and employing transverse isotropic properties with standardized loads taken from active and young patients. Maximum principal stresses are plotted to show the mechanical behavior of the femur and grouped to evaluate stress shielding. Tsai–Wu and the maximum principal stress fields are useful for finding the areas more prone to failure and analyzing the influence of the stems on femoral mechanics. Other parameters, such as the stem material, absence of neck and osteotomy level, are explained. This paper is expected to provide a guide for designers and surgeons of femoral stems for assessing qualitatively and quantitatively the risks of stress shielding. Full article

Historical maps classification has become an important application in today’s scenario of everchanging land boundaries. Historical map changes include the change in boundaries of cities/states, vegetation regions, water bodies and so forth. Change detection in these regions are mainly carried out via satellite images. Hence, an extensive knowledge on satellite image processing is necessary for historical map classification applications. An exhaustive analysis on the merits and demerits of many satellite image processing methods are discussed in this paper. Though several computational methods are available, different methods perform differently for the various satellite image processing applications. Wrong selection of methods will lead to inferior results for a specific application. This work highlights the methods and the suitable satellite imaging methods associated with these applications. Several comparative analyses are also performed in this work to show the suitability of several methods. This work will help support the selection of innovative solutions for the different problems associated with satellite image processing applications. Full article

With the increasing demand for intelligent traffic management and road network intelligent information services, the vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) combined with information of air, space and ground have outstanding advantages in coverage, reliable transmission, and resource richness. Due to the characteristics of heterogeneous, numerous nodes, and frequent cross-network flow, the space–air–ground integrated network (SAGIN) puts forward higher requirements for security. This paper proposes a cross-regional node identity management architecture based on the hash chain, combined with radio frequency (RF) fingerprint theory, to guarantee node identity security with a non-duplicated physical information identity authentication mechanism. At the same time, the blockchain consensus mechanism is simplified to achieve block recording and verification. OMNet ++, SUMO, and Veins co-simulation platforms are used to generate transactions for cross-regional traffic flow. Based on the Hyperledger–Fabric architecture, Kafka and PBFT consensus algorithms are simulated. The simulation results show that the average delay of a single transaction generated block is about 0.9 ms, which achieves efficient and low-latency authentication. Full article

Acoustic comfort is becoming an increasingly important dimension for practitioners in the context of design of care facilities for older adults, namely nursing homes. Defining the quality of these spaces based on room acoustics criteria alone might be challenging if aspects related to their functioning (e.g., speech-based activities) are not taken into account. The acoustical capacity concept has been previously proposed for eating establishments as a way to provide a quality assessment based on both physical characteristics of the space and the perceived quality of verbal communication. In this study, a revised version of a prediction model for ambient noise levels based on occupancy and an estimation of acoustical capacity are proposed for nursing homes hosting people with dementia, and the corresponding parameters of slope, group size and absorption per person are optimized for the specific application, using a Nursing Home in Flanders (Belgium) participating to the AcustiCare project as case study. Results show that, compared to normal eating establishments, lower absorption per person values and higher group size values should be used in nursing homes to reduce errors in ambient noise levels prediction. Furthermore, using a retrofit intervention carried out in the living room of the Nursing Home, the enhanced acoustical capacity of the space was analysed. Results, in this case, show that, prior to the retrofit intervention, the acoustical capacity was already exceeded with average occupancy (i.e., saturated in normal functioning conditions), while the reduction in reverberation time achieved with the retrofit increased considerably the acoustical capacity of the space, shifting the quality of verbal communication in the living room from insufficient to satisfactory. Full article