Noise Reduction in Spur Gear Systems

This article lists some tips for reducing gear case noise. With this aim, a static analysis was carried out in order to describe how stresses resulting from meshing gears affect the acoustic emissions. Different parameters were taken into account, such as the friction, material, and lubrication, in order to validate ideas from the literature and to make several comparisons. Furthermore, a coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL) analysis was performed, which was an innovative way of evaluating the sound pressure level of the aforementioned gears. Different parameters were considered again, such as the friction, lubrication, material, and rotational speed, in order to make different research comparisons. The analytical results agreed with those in the literature, both for the static analysis and CEL analysis—for example, it was shown that changing the material from steel to ductile iron improved the gear noise, while increasing the rotational speed or the friction increased the acoustic emissions. Regarding the CEL analysis, air was considered a perfect gas, but its viscosity or another state equation could have also been taken into account. Therefore, the above allowed us to state that research into these scientific fields will bring about reliable results.     

Auger electron emission in proton-induced interactions in living matter: A TILDA-V Monte Carlo tracking

The present work focuses on studying the contribution of the Auger electron emission in proton-induced interactions in biological matter. The Monte Carlo track-structure code, TILDA-V, was then used for modeling the protons beams of 10 keV to 100 MeV in biological matter, namely, water vapor and hydrated DNA. The main ionizing processes are described by means of an extensive set of ab initio differential and total cross sections computed within a quantum-mechanical CDW-EIS approximation.     

Heterometallische Clusterkomplexe der Typen Re2(μ-PR2)(CO)8(HgY) und ReMo(μ-PR2)(η5-C5H5)(CO)6(HgY) (R = Ph,Cy; Y = Cl,W(η5-C5H5)(CO)3)

Heterometallic Cluster Complexes of the Types Re₂(μ-PR₂)(CO)₈(HgY) and ReMo(μ-PR₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆(HgY) (R = Ph, Cy; Y = Cl, W(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₃) Dinuclear complexes Re₂(μ-H)(μ-PR₂)(CO)₈ and ReMo(μ-H)(μ-PR₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆ (R = phenyl, cyclohexyl) were deprotonated and reacted as anions with HgCl₂ to compounds of the both types Re₂(μ-PR₂)(CO)₈HgCl) and ReMo(μ-PR₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆(HgCl). The heterometallic three-membered cluster complexes correspond to an isolobal exchange of a proton against a cationic HgCl⁺ group. For one of the products ReMo(μ-PCy₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆(HgCl) has been shown its conversion with NaW(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₃ to ReMo(μ-PCy₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(HgW(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₃) under substitution of the chloro ligand, par example. The newly prepared compounds were characterized by means of IR, UV/VIS and ³¹P NMR data. A complete determination of the molecular structure by single crystal analyses was done in the case of Re₂(μ-PCy₂)(CO)₈(HgCl) and of ReMo(μ-PCy₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆(HgCl) which both are dimer because of the presence of an asymmetric dichloro bridge, and of ReMo(μ-PCy₂)(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₆(HgW(η⁵-C₅H₅)(CO)₃). The structural study illustrates through comparison the influence of various metal types on an interaction between centric and edge-bridged frontier orbitals in three-membered metal rings.     

Nonlinear optical properties of benzofurobenzofurans

The geometric structure, dipole moment, μ, linear polarizability, α and first hyperpolarizability, β, of symmetrically substituted amino-and cyanobenzofurobenzofurans and dihydrobenzofurobenzofurans have been calculated by ab initio coupled perturbed Hartree-Fock methods. Singlet electronic transition energies and excited state dipole moments have been calculated by the AMI program. The benzofurobenzofuran derivatives are planar, while dihydrobenzofurobenzofuran derivatives have a V-shaped form, in agreement with experimental X-ray data. The molecular structure is rather unaffected by substitution. The linear polarizability is weakly sensitive to the substituent and substituent position, while β value changes over about 1 order of magnitude. Although both series of compounds have relatively modest hyperpolarizability, reaching ca. 60% β of para-nitroaniline, they have good properties for second harmonic generation devices: transparency in the visible spectral region, thermal stability and conformational rigidity.     

Energy–Information Coupling From Classical to Quantum Physics

The idea of exploiting a supposedly enhanced information content of superposition states in quantum computation seems to invalidate the classical probabilistic definition of information; but this is not necessarily so.     

On-Road Detection of Driver Fatigue and Drowsiness during Medium-Distance Journeys

Background: The detection of driver fatigue as a cause of sleepiness is a key technology capable of preventing fatal accidents. This research uses a fatigue-related sleepiness detection algorithm based on the analysis of the pulse rate variability generated by the heartbeat and validates the proposed method by comparing it with an objective indicator of sleepiness (PERCLOS). Methods: changes in alert conditions affect the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and therefore heart rate variability (HRV), modulated in the form of a wave and monitored to detect long-term changes in the driver’s condition using real-time control. Results: the performance of the algorithm was evaluated through an experiment carried out in a road vehicle. In this experiment, data was recorded by three participants during different driving sessions and their conditions of fatigue and sleepiness were documented on both a subjective and objective basis. The validation of the results through PERCLOS showed a 63% adherence to the experimental findings. Conclusions: the present study confirms the possibility of continuously monitoring the driver’s status through the detection of the activation/deactivation states of the ANS based on HRV. The proposed method can help prevent accidents caused by drowsiness while driving.     

In vitro infrared thermography assessment of temperature peaks during the intra-oral welding of titanium abutments

Control of heat dissipation and transmission to the peri-implant area during intra-oral welding is very important to limit potential damage to the surrounding tissue. The aim of this in vitro study was to assess, by means of thermal infrared imaging, the tissue temperature peaks associated with the thermal propagation pathway through the implants, the abutments and the walls of the slot of the scaffold, generated during the welding process, in three different implant systems. An in vitro polyurethane mandible model was prepared with a 7.0 mm v-shape slot. Effects on the maximum temperature by a single welding procedure were studied using different power supplies and abutments. A total of 36 welding procedures were tested on three different implant systems. The lowest peak temperature along the walls of the 7.0 mm v-shaped groove (31.6 ± 2 °C) was assessed in the specimens irrigated with sterile saline solution. The highest peak temperature (42.8 ± 2 °C) was assessed in the samples with a contemporaneous power overflow and premature pincers removal. The results of our study suggest that the procedures used until now appear to be effective to avoid thermal bone injuries. The peak tissue temperature of the in vitro model did not surpass the threshold limits above which tissue injury could occur.     

Vibration analysis of a planar multilink manipulator using a reduced-order matrix formulation

The main scope of this paper is both to provide an efficient formulation for deriving natural frequencies and mode shapes of a multilink flexible manipulator in an arbitrary posture and discuss the importance of introducing axial deformations along with transversal ones in the same postures. The free vibration problem is solved through a global transfer matrix formulation, which is obtained by opportunely assembling the transfer matrices of links and joints associated with the desired configuration of the robot. The formulation has been chosen in order to keep the same matrix order of the problem, regardless of the number of links of the manipulator. Manipulator links are treated as Timoshenko beams by accounting for both axial loading capability and mass/inertial effects due to the joint actuators. Numerical comparisons between the solutions derived herein and those obtained through existing formulations highlight the importance of the proposed model within the frame of multilink flexible manipulators. A forced vibration analysis is finally presented for a two-link manipulator.     

Working Memory Decline in Alzheimer’s Disease Is Detected by Complexity Analysis of Multimodal EEG-fNIRS

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by working memory (WM) failures that can be assessed at early stages through administering clinical tests. Ecological neuroimaging, such as Electroencephalography (EEG) and functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), may be employed during these tests to support AD early diagnosis within clinical settings. Multimodal EEG-fNIRS could measure brain activity along with neurovascular coupling (NC) and detect their modifications associated with AD. Data analysis procedures based on signal complexity are suitable to estimate electrical and hemodynamic brain activity or their mutual information (NC) during non-structured experimental paradigms. In this study, sample entropy of whole-head EEG and frontal/prefrontal cortex fNIRS was evaluated to assess brain activity in early AD and healthy controls (HC) during WM tasks (i.e., Rey–Osterrieth complex figure and Raven’s progressive matrices). Moreover, conditional entropy between EEG and fNIRS was evaluated as indicative of NC. The findings demonstrated the capability of complexity analysis of multimodal EEG-fNIRS to detect WM decline in AD. Furthermore, a multivariate data-driven analysis, performed on these entropy metrics and based on the General Linear Model, allowed classifying AD and HC with an AUC up to 0.88. EEG-fNIRS may represent a powerful tool for the clinical evaluation of WM decline in early AD.