Autonomous system for data collection: Location and mapping issues in post-disaster environment

Disaster relief requires many resources. Depending on the circumstances of each event, it is important to rapidly choose the suitable means to respond to the emergency intervention. A brief review of the conditions and means demonstrated the usefulness of an autonomous stand-alone machine for these missions. If many techniques and technologies exist, their relevant combination to achieve such a system presents several challenges. This communication tries to outline the possible achievement of an autonomous vehicle under these particular circumstances. This paper focuses on the specific working conditions and welcomes future contributions from robotics and artificial intelligence.In the necessarily limited scope of this article, the authors focus on a particularly critical aspect: location. Indeed, this machine is intended to evolve in heterogeneous and dangerous environment and without any outside contacts that could last up to several days. This blackout, due to the propagation difficulties of electromagnetic waves in the ground, induces an independence of the localisation process and makes the use of any radio navigation support system (GNSS), most of the time, impossible. The knowledge of the position of the system, both for navigation of the autonomous system (Rover) and location of targets (victims buried under debris) must be able to be estimated without contributions from external systems. Inertial classical techniques, odometer, etc., have to be adapted to these conditions during a long period without external support. These techniques also have to take into account that energy optimisation requests the use of low-power processors. Consequently, only poor computing capacity is available on-board.The article starts with a presentation of the context of a post-disaster situation as well as the main missions of Search and Rescue (SaR). It is followed by the analysis of autonomous navigation located in a post-earthquake situation. We will then discuss means to determine the attitude of the autonomous system and its position. The interest of hybridisation with external systems – whenever possible –, will be evaluated with a view to correcting deviations suffered by the system during its mission. Finally, prospects and future work are presented.     

Synthesis and antimycobacterial activity of purine conjugates with (S)-lysine and (S)-ornithine

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The effects of resource limitation and consensual incentives on cooperation

Exploring the evolution of cooperation has been one of the most challenging topics and attracted increasing attention in various realms. Hereby, we institute an analytic model where the relationship between the common benefits and contributions is the typical saturation nonlinearity. We investigate the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation with and without consensual incentives respectively. The population always evolves to full defection when the incentives are absent. Cooperation, however, can be promoted by consensual incentives when the degree of cooperators' preferences for incentives is great. There exists an intermediate amount of resources at which the positive effect of consensual incentives on cooperation is minimized. Furthermore, there is a U-shape relationship between the degree of cooperators' preference for an incentive and the evolution of cooperation. A greater basin of full cooperation can be induced when the cooperators' preference for reward is more pronounced than that for punishment.     

Norbornene derivatives from a metal‐free,strain‐promoted cycloaddition reaction: New building blocks for ring‐opening metathesis polymerization reactions

The preparation of new ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) monomers using a 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition between aryl azides and norbornadiene is described. Various norbornenetriazolines, obtained through a solvent‐and catalyst‐free reaction, can subsequently be incorporated into polymer backbones through ROMP reactions. Furthermore, thermal decomposition of the triazoline moiety can allow for further polymer functionalization. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2015 , 53, 2357–2362     

Controlled synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles from a Zn(II) coordination polymer: Structural characterization,optical properties and photocatalytic activity

A zinc coordination polymer derived from pyridine-2,6-dicarboxylate (PDC), {[Zn₂(PDC)₂]}_n, was successfully prepared via conventional, sonication and microwave-irradiation methods. The composition and characteristics of the obtained coordination polymers (CPs) were investigated by elemental analysis, TGA/DTA, X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic techniques. The so obtained CPs were heat-treated in the air at 600 °C for 2 h to produce ZnO of nanosized particles (NPs). It is of interest to note that the synthesis approach of the precursor greatly affects both the nanoparticle size and the structure of the resulting ZnO NPs. Moreover, the smallest particle size was associated with the sample derived from the ultrasonically prepared precursor. TEM analysis revealed that all samples have sphere-like morphologies. Structural analysis of the prepared ZnO samples was conducted and compared using Rietveld analysis of their PXRD patterns. Optical band gap calculations based on analysis of the UV–vis spectra of ZnO samples using Tauc's power law were achieved. The highest band gap of 3.63 eV was observed for ZnO sample obtained from the ultrasonically prepared precursor. Furthermore, the photocatalytic activity of ZnO NPs for the removal of Eosin Y color was monitored. The highest removal efficiency was recorded for ZnO originated from the ultrasonically synthesized precursor. Enhancement of removal efficiency that reached 98% was attained in only a period of 8 min. Its recycling test showed that it can be reused without structural changes over four cycling experiments.     

基于DIS数字信息化系统对透光物质透光性能的研究

采用DIS数字信息化系统,对不同浓度的蓝墨水溶液在激光光源照射下的透射平均照度及照度分布图像进行实验研究,得到了平均照度值随溶液浓度变化的规律。对不同颜色塑料膜片对白炽灯光源透过照度值及照度分布图像进行实验研究得到及其相关之规律。     

Studies on metabolism of total glucosides of paeony from Paeoniae Radix Alba in rats by UPLC‐Q‐TOF‐MS/MS

Total glucosides of paeony are the active constituents of Paeoniae Radix Alba. In this study, a novel strategy was proposed to find more metabolites and the differences between paeoniflorin, albiflorin and total glucosides of paeony (TGP). This strategy was characterized as follows: firstly, the animals were divided into three groups (paeoniflorin, albiflorin and TGP) to identify the source of TGP metabolites from paeoniflorin or albiflorin; secondly, a generic information‐dependent acquisition scan for the low‐level metabolites was triggered by the multiple mass defect filter and dynamic background subtraction; thirdly, the metabolites were identified with a combination of data‐processing methods including mass defect filtering, neutral loss filtering and product ion filtering; finally, a comparative study was used in the metabolism of paeoniflorin, albiflorin and TGP. Based on the strategy, 18 metabolites of TGP, 10 metabolites of paeoniflorin and 13 metabolites of albiflorin were identified respectively. The results indicated that the hydrolysis, conjugation reaction and oxidization were the major metabolic pathways, and the metabolic sites were the glycosidic linkage, the ester bond and the benzene ring. This study is first to explore the metabolism of TGP, and these findings enhance our understanding of the metabolism and the interactions of paeoniflrin and albiflorin in TGP. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Potentially Abelian Geometric Representations

The finiteness is proved of the set of isomorphism classes of potentially abelian geometric Galois representations with a given set of data. This is a special case of the finiteness conjecture of Fontaine and Mazur.     

Temperature effects on surface activity and application in oxidation of toluene derivatives of CTAB-SDS with KMnO4

The γ_cmc values of CTAB-SDS decrease from 63.67 mN/m at 10‡C to 36.38 mN/m at 90‡C, slightly lower than those of either CTAB or SDS. Correspondingly, the CMC of CTAB-SDS decreases almost by half. The increase of surface activity of CTAB-SDS can be attributed to the relatively weak electrostatic interaction at high temperature, which is supported by the increase of solubility of CTAB-SDS with rise in temperature. Catalytic effect on oxidation of toluene derivatives with potassium permanganate follows the order CTAB-SDS > SDS > CTAB. This is not caused by the dissociative effect of CTAB-SDS with low surface activity at low temperature, as seen from the fact that almost all oxidative products can be retrieved for different toluene derivatives and surfactants by mimicking the conditions of reaction. In the emulsifications of toluene derivatives at 90‡C, the time that turbid water layers of surfactant solutions take to become clear is the same as that of the catalytic effect on oxidation of toluene derivatives. Thus, it can be inferred that surfactants can improve the oxidation yields of toluene derivatives by increasing the contact between two reacting phases.