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Applied Sciences, Volume 10, Issue 5

2020 March-1 - 347 articles

Cover Story: Soft actuators based on the Nafion–polypropylene–polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/graphite multilayer membranes have an excellent reversible response to optical/thermal and humidity stimulation, which can reach a 224.56 bending angle in a relative humidity of 95% within 5 s and has a faster response (<0.5 s) to optical stimuli. Some applications such as flexible grippers and switches to carry items or control circuits, and bionic flytraps to capture and release “prey” have also been developed and studied. These provide potential applications in the fields of soft sensors, artificial skin, and flexible robots. View this paper
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Articles (347)

  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
4,926 Views
8 Pages

Self-Expandable Retainer for Endoscopic Visualization in the External Auditory Canal: Proof of Concept in Human Cadavers

  • Yehree Kim,
  • Jeon Min Kang,
  • Ho-Young Song,
  • Woo Seok Kang,
  • Jung-Hoon Park and
  • Jong Woo Chung

10 March 2020

This study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of a self-expandable retainer (SER) for endoscopic visualization of the external auditory canal (EAC). Tympanomeatal flap (TMF) elevation was performed in six cadaveric heads. Two different types o...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Materials for Medical Applications)
  • Review
  • Open Access
135 Citations
13,217 Views
16 Pages

Review on Computer Aided Weld Defect Detection from Radiography Images

  • Wenhui Hou,
  • Dashan Zhang,
  • Ye Wei,
  • Jie Guo and
  • Xiaolong Zhang

10 March 2020

The weld defects inspection from radiography films is critical for assuring the serviceability and safety of weld joints. The various limitations of human interpretation made the development of innovative computer-aided techniques for automatic detec...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Processing on Image and Optical Information)
  • Article
  • Open Access
22 Citations
5,059 Views
14 Pages

Non-Energy Valorization of Residual Biomasses via HTC: CO2 Capture onto Activated Hydrochars

  • Katia Gallucci,
  • Luca Taglieri,
  • Alessandro Antonio Papa,
  • Francesco Di Lauro,
  • Zaheer Ahmad and
  • Alberto Gallifuoco

10 March 2020

This study aims to investigate the CO2 sorption capacity of hydrochar, obtained via hydrothermal carbonization (HTC). Silver fir sawdust was used as a model material. The batch runs went at 200 °C and up to 120 min. The hydrochar was activated wi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Thermochemical Conversion Processes for Solid Fuels and Renewable Energies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
19 Citations
4,291 Views
18 Pages

Numerical-Experimental Investigation into the Tensile Behavior of a Hybrid Metallic–CFRP Stiffened Aeronautical Panel

  • Andrea Sellitto,
  • Salvatore Saputo,
  • Angela Russo,
  • Vincenzo Innaro,
  • Aniello Riccio,
  • Francesco Acerra and
  • Salvatore Russo

10 March 2020

In this work, the tensile behavior of a hybrid metallic–composite stiffened panel is investigated. The analyzed structure consists of an omega-reinforced composite fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) panel joined with a Z-reinforced aluminum plate...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Progress of Fiber-Reinforced Composites: Design and Applications)
  • Article
  • Open Access
45 Citations
6,788 Views
13 Pages

10 March 2020

Preservation of spectral and spatial information is an important requirement for most quantitative remote sensing applications. In this study, we use image quality metrics to evaluate the performance of several image fusion techniques to assess the s...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Image Processing, Analysis and Recognition Technology)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
4,535 Views
17 Pages

Control System Applied to the Microinjection of Artificial Tears for Severe Dry Eye Treatment

  • Narcisse Meni-Babakidi,
  • Gonzalo Viramontes-Gamboa,
  • Laura Alicia Ibarra-Bracamontes and
  • Israel Luna-Reyes

10 March 2020

This paper presents a portable automated teardrop microinjection system as a practical solution for patients suffering from severe dry eye. The electronic device for the controlled and continuous injection of artificial tears is designed, assembled,...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering)
  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
24 Citations
4,562 Views
17 Pages

10 March 2020

Karst aquifer recharge areas are usually difficult to identify because of the complexity of these aquifers’ characteristics. On the other hand, their identification is very important in the aim of protecting the groundwater resources that these...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Geohydrology: Methods and Applications)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
3,237 Views
20 Pages

10 March 2020

Renewable generation brings both new energies and significant challenges to the evolving power system. To cope with the loss of inertia caused by inertialess power electronic interfaces (PEIs), the concept of the virtual synchronous generator (VSG) h...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancing Grid-Connected Renewable Generation Systems 2019)
  • Article
  • Open Access
79 Citations
5,218 Views
16 Pages

10 March 2020

In energy-constrained wireless sensor networks, low energy utilization and unbalanced energy distribution are seriously affecting the operation of the network. Therefore, efficient and reasonable routing algorithms are needed to achieve higher Qualit...

  • Feature Paper
  • Review
  • Open Access
115 Citations
14,571 Views
16 Pages

Microalgae Water Bioremediation: Trends and Hot Topics

  • Diana Pacheco,
  • Ana Cristina Rocha,
  • Leonel Pereira and
  • Tiago Verdelhos

10 March 2020

The need to reduce costs associated with the production of microalgae biomass has encouraged the coupling of process with wastewater treatment. Emerging pollutants in municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters, ranging from pharmaceuticals t...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physiology and Biotechnology of Microalgae)
  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
18 Citations
5,423 Views
12 Pages

New Hybrid Tomato Cultivars: An NMR-Based Chemical Characterization

  • Cinzia Ingallina,
  • Anatoly P. Sobolev,
  • Simone Circi,
  • Mattia Spano,
  • Anna Maria Giusti and
  • Luisa Mannina

10 March 2020

Bamano, King Creole, Sugarland, and DulceMiel hybrid tomato cultivars have been recently introduced in the Lazio area (Central Italy) to expand and valorize the regional/national market. Tomatoes from these cultivars, together with tomatoes from the...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy in Food Science and Processing)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,098 Views
14 Pages

10 March 2020

In the global village era, several competitions require pre-checkups for the participants who are qualified to participate that must be passed before the competition, so the accuracy of the checkup data must be confirmed and must not be leaked or tam...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Big Data Analytics in Healthcare)
  • Article
  • Open Access
28 Citations
4,841 Views
19 Pages

10 March 2020

The high-speed railway (HSR) has been a long-term hotspot in both scientific and engineering societies to enhance the long-term high quality HSR service. This study aims to investigate the WJ-7B type small resistance fastener rubber pad applied in HS...

(This article belongs to the Section Acoustics and Vibrations)
  • Article
  • Open Access
28 Citations
15,095 Views
11 Pages

10 March 2020

Burnout is known to negatively impact healthcare providers both physically and mentally and is assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). Many versions of this tool have been developed for different parts of the wor...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering)
  • Article
  • Open Access
40 Citations
4,693 Views
20 Pages

An Ensemble of Locally Reliable Cluster Solutions

  • Huan Niu,
  • Nasim Khozouie,
  • Hamid Parvin,
  • Hamid Alinejad-Rokny,
  • Amin Beheshti and
  • Mohammad Reza Mahmoudi

10 March 2020

Clustering ensemble indicates to an approach in which a number of (usually weak) base clusterings are performed and their consensus clustering is used as the final clustering. Knowing democratic decisions are better than dictatorial decisions, it see...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Preprocessing in Pattern Recognition: Recent Progress, Trends and Applications)
  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
4,239 Views
16 Pages

10 March 2020

Power law describes a common behavior in which a few factors play decisive roles in one thing. Most software defects occur in very few instances. In this study, we proposed a novel approach that adopts power law function characteristics for software...

  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
5,911 Views
12 Pages

Multi-Segmental Motion in Foot during Counter-Movement Jump with Toe Manipulation

  • Liangliang Xiang,
  • Qichang Mei,
  • Datao Xu,
  • Justin Fernandez and
  • Yaodong Gu

10 March 2020

Human toes are crucial for vertical jumping performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the acute effect of hallux abduction manipulation on foot inter-segment kinematic alterations and plantar loading redistribution during the countermo...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering)
  • Review
  • Open Access
58 Citations
11,595 Views
52 Pages

10 March 2020

Computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) systems use machine learning methods that provide a synergistic effect between the neuroradiologist and the computer, enabling an efficient and rapid diagnosis of the patient’s condition. As part of the early dia...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Computer-aided Biomedical Imaging 2020: Advances and Prospects)
  • Editorial
  • Open Access
1 Citations
2,967 Views
4 Pages

10 March 2020

This special issue collects the latest results on differential/difference equations, the mathematics of networks, and their applications to engineering, and physical phenomena [...]

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mathematical Modeling using Differential Equations, and Network Theory)
  • Article
  • Open Access
38 Citations
5,808 Views
16 Pages

10 March 2020

This paper deals with the state of charge (SoC) estimation of a lithium-ion battery pack (LiBP) connected by some cells in series and parallel. The voltage noise, noise and current bias of current through the LiBP are taken into account in the SoC es...

  • Article
  • Open Access
305 Citations
21,081 Views
20 Pages

10 March 2020

The convolutional neural network (CNN) has been widely used in image recognition field due to its good performance. This paper proposes a facial expression recognition method based on the CNN model. Regarding the complexity of the hierarchic structur...

  • Editorial
  • Open Access
4 Citations
3,632 Views
5 Pages

10 March 2020

Several parameters can influence our health capital today and can have a negative impact on our performance, whether physiological or mechanical. Indeed, our health and wellbeing are influenced by a range of social, cultural, economic, psychological,...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomechanical Spectrum of Human Sport Performance)
  • Article
  • Open Access
15 Citations
6,487 Views
15 Pages

10 March 2020

Whether to bid on construction work is a traditional question that is often challenged in different economic situations. What will the decision factors be when contractors have to struggle to achieve growth in economic downturns? Since previous studi...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Industrial Engineering and Management: Current Issues and Trends)
  • Article
  • Open Access
6 Citations
5,794 Views
24 Pages

Agustín de Betancourt’s Optical Telegraph: Geometric Modeling and Virtual Reconstruction

  • José Ignacio Rojas-Sola and
  • Eduardo De la Morena-De la Fuente

9 March 2020

This article shows the geometric modeling and virtual reconstruction of the optical telegraph by Agustín de Betancourt and Abraham Louis Breguet developed at the end of the 18th century. Autodesk Inventor Professional software has been used to...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Sciences to the Study of Technical Historical Heritage and/or Industrial Heritage)
  • Article
  • Open Access
10 Citations
3,728 Views
11 Pages

9 March 2020

This study aims to evaluate the fitness, surface microhardness, and trueness of crowns fabricated from three types of dental ceramic blocks (HASS Rosetta, IPS e.max CAD, and VITA Suprinity) and analyze the correlations between them. A crown was first...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applied Sciences in Dentistry)
  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
3,396 Views
18 Pages

9 March 2020

The present paper deals with the problem of modeling liquid slosh occurring in the packaging process of containers filled with liquid. Sloshing effects are induced by one-dimensional intermittent motions and are undesired due to the necessity of qual...

(This article belongs to the Section Mechanical Engineering)
  • Article
  • Open Access
7 Citations
5,928 Views
16 Pages

9 March 2020

The comfort level of the human occupant inside a dynamic vehicle is dependent on the level of vibration generated inside the different segments of the human body. Some technologies have been developed to provide the final level of vibration inside an...

(This article belongs to the Section Mechanical Engineering)
  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
5,705 Views
18 Pages

9 March 2020

The shipbuilding industry is very important for many countries. As an essential process in the shipbuilding industry, surface preparation (or coating removal) is gaining more and more attention. The traditional process used for ship hull coating remo...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Industrial Technologies)
  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
4,650 Views
13 Pages

Phonon Scattering and Thermal Conductivity of Actinide Oxides with Defects

  • Katherine Mitchell,
  • Jungkyu Park,
  • Alex Resnick,
  • Hunter Horner and
  • Eduardo B. Farfan

9 March 2020

In the present study, we examine the effect of point defects and fission gases on thermal transport in representative actinide oxides used in modern reactors. In particular, oxygen interstitials and Kr/Xe fission gas bubbles are of primary focus. Rev...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Experimental and Theoretical Studies on the Physical Properties of Actinides and Their Oxides)
  • Article
  • Open Access
2 Citations
3,483 Views
13 Pages

iPatient Privacy Copyright Cloud Management

  • Yu-Jie (Jessica) Kuo and
  • Jiann-Cherng Shieh

9 March 2020

The advent and rapid rise of network technology and cloud computing have led to new opportunities for ushering in a new era in telehealth. Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and advances in 5G communication, telehealth is expanding and shows no s...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Big Data Analytics in Healthcare)
  • Article
  • Open Access
4 Citations
3,658 Views
15 Pages

Comprehensive Document Summarization with Refined Self-Matching Mechanism

  • Biqing Zeng,
  • Ruyang Xu,
  • Heng Yang,
  • Zibang Gan and
  • Wu Zhou

9 March 2020

Under the constraint of memory capacity of the neural network and the document length, it is difficult to generate summaries with adequate salient information. In this work, the self-matching mechanism is incorporated into the extractive summarizatio...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
3,841 Views
21 Pages

Image Magnification Based on Bicubic Approximation with Edge as Constraint

  • Linlin Ji,
  • Rui Zhang,
  • Huijian Han and
  • Ahmad Chaddad

9 March 2020

Image magnification can be reduced to construct an approximation surface with data points in the image while keeping image details and edge features. In this paper, a new image magnification method is proposed by constructing piecewise bicubic polyno...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Artificial Intelligence for Personalised Medicine)
  • Article
  • Open Access
8 Citations
4,131 Views
19 Pages

Pedestrian Detection Based on Two-Stream UDN

  • Wentong Wang,
  • Lichun Wang,
  • Xufei Ge,
  • Jinghua Li and
  • Baocai Yin

9 March 2020

Pedestrian detection is the core of the driver assistance system, which collects the road conditions through the radars or cameras on the vehicle, judges whether there is a pedestrian in front of the vehicle, supports decisions such as raising the al...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligence Systems and Sensors)
  • Article
  • Open Access
29 Citations
6,792 Views
19 Pages

Effect of Local Gas Flow in Full Penetration Laser Beam Welding with High Welding Speeds

  • Leander Schmidt,
  • Klaus Schricker,
  • Jean Pierre Bergmann and
  • Christina Junger

9 March 2020

Spatter formation is a major issue in deep penetration welding with solid-state lasers at high welding speeds above 8 m/min. In order to limit spatter formation, the use of local gas flows represents a technically feasible solution. By using the gas...

(This article belongs to the Section Optics and Lasers)
  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
4,450 Views
12 Pages

Detection Performance Regarding Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Episodes with Fuzzy Logic Fusion on Single-Channel Airflow Indexes

  • Ming-Feng Wu,
  • Wei-Chang Huang,
  • Kai-Ming Chang,
  • Po-Chun Lin,
  • Chi-Hsuan Kuo,
  • Cheng-Wei Hsu and
  • Tsu-Wang Shen

9 March 2020

Obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) affects more than 936 million people worldwide and is the most common sleep-related breathing disorder; almost 80% of potential patients remain undiagnosed. To treat moderate to severe OSAHS as early...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Big Data Analytics in Healthcare)
  • Article
  • Open Access
36 Citations
4,993 Views
17 Pages

9 March 2020

Dense stereo matching has been widely used in photogrammetry and computer vision applications. Even though it has a long research history, dense stereo matching is still challenging for occluded, textureless and discontinuous regions. This paper prop...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Intelligent Processing on Image and Optical Information, Volume II)
  • Article
  • Open Access
3 Citations
4,422 Views
18 Pages

9 March 2020

This work focuses on flow past a circular cylinder at a subcritical Reynolds number. Although this classical study has been a concern for many years, it is still a challenging task due to the complexity of flow characteristics. In this paper, a high-...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Physics General)
  • Article
  • Open Access
7 Citations
4,455 Views
14 Pages

9 March 2020

We discuss the implementation of a computer program for accurate calculation of the kinetics of chemical reactions integrated in the user-friendly, multi-purpose Virtual Multifrequency Spectrometer tool. The program is based on the ab initio modeling...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Application of Quantum Mechanics in Reactivity of Molecules)
  • Article
  • Open Access
124 Citations
11,332 Views
21 Pages

Prediction of Pile Axial Bearing Capacity Using Artificial Neural Network and Random Forest

  • Tuan Anh Pham,
  • Hai-Bang Ly,
  • Van Quan Tran,
  • Loi Van Giap,
  • Huong-Lan Thi Vu and
  • Hong-Anh Thi Duong

9 March 2020

Axial bearing capacity of piles is the most important parameter in pile foundation design. In this paper, artificial neural network (ANN) and random forest (RF) algorithms were utilized to predict the ultimate axial bearing capacity of driven piles....

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soft Computing Techniques in Structural Engineering and Materials)
  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
3,213 Views
17 Pages

9 March 2020

This paper proposes a performance-based resistance deterioration model that reflects the site environment and inspection data for highway bridges. Traffic characteristics and corrosive environment are considered as the site environment. The corrosive...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Short-Term Forecasting in Civil Engineering with Multidisciplinary Approaches: Combined Numerical, Experimental and Statistical Methods)
  • Article
  • Open Access
4 Citations
3,732 Views
17 Pages

9 March 2020

The terrestrial Arctic is warming rapidly, causing changes in the degree of freezing of the upper sediments, which the mechanical properties of unconsolidated sediments strongly depend upon. This study investigates the potential of using time-lapse s...

(This article belongs to the Section Acoustics and Vibrations)
  • Article
  • Open Access
20 Citations
4,310 Views
19 Pages

9 March 2020

This work pursues two objectives: defining a new concept of risk probability associated with suffering early-stage keratoconus, classifying disease severity according to the RETICS (Thematic Network for Co-Operative Research in Health) scale. It recr...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Real-Time Diagnosis Algorithms in Biomedical Applications and Decision Support Tools)
  • Article
  • Open Access
12 Citations
5,127 Views
14 Pages

Monte Carlo Optimization for Sliding Window Size in Dixon Quality Control of Environmental Monitoring Time Series Data

  • Zhongya Fan,
  • Huiyun Feng,
  • Jingang Jiang,
  • Changjin Zhao,
  • Ni Jiang,
  • Wencai Wang and
  • Fantang Zeng

9 March 2020

Outliers are often present in large datasets of water quality monitoring time series data. A method of combining the sliding window technique with Dixon detection criterion for the automatic detection of outliers in time series data is limited by the...

  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
4,523 Views
22 Pages

Deadbeat Predictive Current Control for Circulating Currents Reduction in a Modular Multilevel Converter Based Rail Power Conditioner

  • Mohamed Tanta,
  • J. G. Pinto,
  • Vitor Monteiro,
  • Antonio P. Martins,
  • Adriano S. Carvalho and
  • Joao L. Afonso

8 March 2020

This paper presents a deadbeat predictive current control methodology to reduce the circulating currents in a modular multilevel converter (MMC) when it operates as a rail power conditioner (RPC) in a conventional railway system-based V/V connection....

(This article belongs to the Section Energy Science and Technology)
  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
7 Citations
4,502 Views
13 Pages

8 March 2020

Conducting polymers are often used as sensor electrodes due to their conjugated chain structure, which leads to high sensitivity and rapid response at room temperature. Numerous studies have been conducted on the structures of conducting polymer nano...

(This article belongs to the Section Nanotechnology and Applied Nanosciences)
  • Review
  • Open Access
26 Citations
10,269 Views
12 Pages

Mindfulness for Preventing Psychosocial Risks in the Workplace: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

  • María del Carmen Pérez-Fuentes,
  • María del Mar Molero Jurado,
  • Isabel Mercader Rubio,
  • José Gabriel Soriano Sánchez and
  • José Jesús Gázquez Linares

8 March 2020

Organizations today are implementing psychological interventions to promote the job performance and wellbeing of their employees. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can contribute to providing workers with competencies and skills and develop thei...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New and Emerging Risks in Occupational Health)
  • Article
  • Open Access
17 Citations
4,124 Views
30 Pages

8 March 2020

The hydro-pneumatic suspension, as a widely used suspension for heavy vehicles, has been taken seriously by researchers for a long time because it is crucial in terms of handling stability, riding comfort, and driving safety of these vehicles. Most p...

(This article belongs to the Section Mechanical Engineering)
  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
4,295 Views
16 Pages

8 March 2020

We present a finite-difference integration algorithm for solution of a system of differential equations containing a diffusion equation with nonlinear terms. The approach is based on Crank–Nicolson method with predictor–corrector algorith...

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Physics General)
  • Article
  • Open Access
176 Citations
17,324 Views
16 Pages

Real-Time Remote Maintenance Support Based on Augmented Reality (AR)

  • Dimitris Mourtzis,
  • Vasileios Siatras and
  • John Angelopoulos

8 March 2020

In the realm of the current industrial revolution, interesting innovations as well as new techniques are constantly being introduced by offering fertile ground for further investigation and improvement in the industrial engineering domain. More speci...

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Industry 4.0 Technologies and Applications)
  • Article
  • Open Access
5 Citations
4,787 Views
26 Pages

8 March 2020

This article studies a composite solar wall with latent storage (TES) designed to heat rooms inside buildings during the cold season. No numerical model of the composite solar wall is currently available in the Dymola/Modelica software library. The f...

(This article belongs to the Section Materials Science and Engineering)

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Appl. Sci. - ISSN 2076-3417