Express method for the testing of tribotechnical properties of lubricants

The paper presents the results of experimental study of the tribotechnical properties of lubricants on a unit that simulates the geometric, kinematic and force similarity of well drilling conditions. Bearings with different radial clearances and the same chemical-thermal treatment were investigated. Data registration was carried out on cathode, loop oscilloscopes and electronic recorders. The load on the bearing, the moment of rolling resistance on the journal, and the angular speed of rotation of the outer race were recorded. The temperature was registered using artificial and semiartificial thermocouples. A strobotachometer was used to determine the portable speed of the rolling bodies. The external appearance of all rolling elements was investigated, metallographic analysis of thin surface layers of all rolling elements was carried out, mathematical processing of test results was carried out. It is shown that for the express assessment of the tribotechnical properties of lubricants, the amplitude value of the oscillation of the rolling resistance moment can be used. Keywords: friction; lubrication; tribotechnical Properties; drilling.

Ersatz Rigor

The natural evolution of language that can capture nature’s varied behaviors in effective terms frequently encourages descriptive practices that encode physical data in deviously complex ways. Often this complexity sets in without being overtly noticed by the agents in question. When this happens, “small metaphysics” conundrums frequently arise in the form “what is this bit of language actually telling us about the world beyond?” Historically, many of the familiar systems of grander metaphysics arose from these puzzling seeds, and these same schemes frequently place unacceptable restrictions upon the free development of science. To cast off the oppressive yoke often encouraged by this vein of philosophical musing, Rudolf Carnap and others developed a logicized conception of “theory” that claimed to liberate science (and philosophy) from any concern with “metaphysics” whatsoever. This point of view will be called “theory T thinking” in this book. But Carnap’s proposed remedy represents a diagnostic mistake; the real-life complexities of efficient data registration demand direct examinations of the strategic assumptions that underlie the effective forms of word-to-world alignment. The present book rejects the misleading conceptions of “methodological rigor” that Carnap’s conception of “theory” encourages.

Features of Acoustic Emission in Tensile Testing of Dissimilar Welded Joints of Pearlitic and Austenitic Steels

This paper presents a study of acoustic emission (AE) during the deformation of dissimilar welded joints of austenitic steel to pearlitic steel. One of the specific problems in these welded joints is the presence of decarburized and carbide diffusion interlayers, which intensively increase in width during long-term high-temperature operation. The presence of wide interlayers negatively affects the mechanical properties of welded joints. Moreover, welded defects are difficult to diagnose in welded joints containing interlayers: due to the high structural heterogeneity, interlayers create structural noises that can hinder the detection of defects such as cracks, pores, or a lack of penetration. The AE method may become a complex decision for diagnosing dissimilar welded joints due to applicability to the testing of heterogenic materials with a complex microstructure. Specimens cut from dissimilar welded joints of austenitic steel to pearlitic steel were tested by tension to rupture, with parallel AE data registration. According to the research results, the characteristic features of the AE were revealed for specimens containing defects in the form of lack of penetration as well as for specimens with diffusion interlayers. The results obtained show that the AE method can be used to test both typical welding defects and diffusion interlayers in welded joints of steels of different structural classes.

Multimodal Representation Learning for Place Recognition Using Deep Hebbian Predictive Coding

Recognising familiar places is a competence required in many engineering applications that interact with the real world such as robot navigation. Combining information from different sensory sources promotes robustness and accuracy of place recognition. However, mismatch in data registration, dimensionality, and timing between modalities remain challenging problems in multisensory place recognition. Spurious data generated by sensor drop-out in multisensory environments is particularly problematic and often resolved through adhoc and brittle solutions. An effective approach to these problems is demonstrated by animals as they gracefully move through the world. Therefore, we take a neuro-ethological approach by adopting self-supervised representation learning based on a neuroscientific model of visual cortex known as predictive coding. We demonstrate how this parsimonious network algorithm which is trained using a local learning rule can be extended to combine visual and tactile sensory cues from a biomimetic robot as it naturally explores a visually aliased environment. The place recognition performance obtained using joint latent representations generated by the network is significantly better than contemporary representation learning techniques. Further, we see evidence of improved robustness at place recognition in face of unimodal sensor drop-out. The proposed multimodal deep predictive coding algorithm presented is also linearly extensible to accommodate more than two sensory modalities, thereby providing an intriguing example of the value of neuro-biologically plausible representation learning for multimodal navigation.

Organization of the stationary seismological observations point

The Institute of Geophysics of the NASU organizes and carries out continuous regional and local seismic observations on the territory of Ukraine. The article presents a universal modern model of seismic activity monitoring process, which is used in most international seismological agencies (USGS, EMSC, NEIC) and describes a typical stationary point of seismological observations of the National Seismological Network of the Institute of Geophysics of NAS of Ukraine. Seismological network of observations is a complex of systems consisting of stationary seismological points of registration of seismic waves, the distributed system of transfer and collecting of the seismological information, and also the center of operative processing of the data arriving from data registration points. The process of conducting regime seismological observations of local and remote seismic events on the territory of Ukraine and adjacent regions is described. Some important aspects of the need for comprehensive processing of registered events to identify local earthquakes and assess the current activity of tectonic structures in Ukraine are presented. The seismological network of the National Seismological Center of the Institute of Geophysics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is represented by a small number of stationary observation points: «Kiev-IRIS», «MI02-Poltava», «MI03-Skvyra», «MI04-Dnipro», «MI05-Stepanivka», «MI07-Mykolaiv», «ODS-Odesa», «MIU-Kryvyi Rih», and «MI06-Kremenchug». This number of seismological observation points does not actually provide seismic observation data to the central, eastern and southern parts of the territory of Ukraine and does not allow to reliably determine the level and quantitative characteristics of its seismic hazard. The seismic recorder Guralp CMG-40T manufactured by the British company GURALP SYSTEMS LIMITED is offered as optimal for the conditions and financial realities of Ukraine when organizing a stationary seismic observation point. It is proposed to use the seismological processing package SeisComP, which works on the SeedLink protocol, which is the basis of the data collection system by the Internet. This software product is the de facto world standard in the field of seismological data processing.

Physical functionality of alternative communication resources on people with cerebral palsy: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems are used by people with motor disabilities, such as those with cerebral palsy (CP). The assessment of physical functional skills is crucial for appropriately choosing the computer access tool. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to do a systematic literature review addressing the importance of the analysis of physical functional performance for the construction of specific tools to support communication. METHODS: The review followed PRISMA guidelines. We searched articles from 2009 to 2021 using three databases (PubMed, Lilacs in Portuguese, and SciELO). Three reviewers extracted the data. Registration was made to PROSPERO. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. RESULTS: We found 132 articles in the databases. First, we excluded 31 articles because they did not provide evidence for the use of alternative communication in people with CP and did not use high technology resources. We also excluded 57 duplicated articles. At the end of this first step, 44 articles were left, 38 of them were excluded because they are not clinical trials. We selected 6 articles for the final analysis. CONCLUSIONS: The systematic review had a positive impact on the precise dissemination of knowledge ensuring comparisons of interventions and articles such as assistive technology programs.

Development of novel PCR primer sets for DNA metabarcoding of aquatic insects, and the discovery of some cryptic species

DNA barcoding is a powerful tool that provides rapid, accurate, and automatable species identification by using standardized genetic region(s). It can be a powerful tool in various fields of biology such as for revealing the existence of cryptic species and/or rare species and in environmental science such as when monitoring river biota. Biodiversity reduction in recent times has become one of the most serious environmental issues on a worldwide scale. DNA barcoding techniques require the development of sets of universal PCR primers for DNA metabarcoding. We tried to develop universal primer sets for the DNA barcoding of all insect groups. In this study, we succeeded in designing not only universal primer sets for DNA barcoding regions of almost all insects, which were designed to include a hypervariable site between highly conserved sites, but also primer sets for longer fragment sequences for registration in a database. We confirmed successful amplification for 14 orders, 43 families, and 68 species with DNA barcoding in the mtDNA 16S rRNA region, and for 13 orders, 42 families, and 66 species with DNA barcoding in the mtDNA 12S rRNA region. A key feature is that the DNA fragments of the DNA barcoding regions amplified by these primer sets are both short at about 200-bp, and longer fragment sequences will increase the level of data registration in the DNA database. Such resulting database enhancements will serve as a powerful tool for increasingly accurate assessment of biodiversity and genetic diversity.

FREQUENCY RATE OF BCG VACCINATION AND SELECTED INDICATORS OF CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TUBERCULOSIS IN SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN

Objective of the study: to assess the effect of the frequency of administration of the BCG vaccine on the nature and structure of clinical forms of tuberculosis (TB) in children. Materials and methods of research: a cohort observational retrospective continuous comparative multicenter crosssectional study was carried out. The data (registration form № 089/u-tube) of 3253 children of 7–14 years old with newly revealed changes in the lungs of a specific genesis, registered in 2019–2020 in the institutions of the anti-tuberculosis service of the Russian Federation were analyzed. Two comparison groups were identified: group 1 (observation group) – children who received a double injection of BCG vaccine (vaccination and revaccination) (n=184), group 2 (comparison group) – children who received a single BCG vaccination (n=3358). To achieve this goal, 5 null hypotheses were identified for testing which groups are formed from the received data array with the necessary parameters. The data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analyzes (including confounding factors). Results: it was found that BCG revaccination does not reduce the risk of TB compared with residual changes after, it does not reduce the proportion of generalized forms of TB compared with localized forms (OR=2,4, p=0,08). The frequency of vaccination has not a statistically significant effect on the frequency of bacterial excretion (aOR=1,6, p=0,15) and destruction of lung tissue (OR=1,1, p=1). Revaccination has a statistically significant effect on the ratio of primary and secondary forms of TB, reducing the likelihood of its primary forms (aOR=0,4, p<0,001). In the course of multivariate analysis, it was found that the formation of primary or secondary TB, as well as the frequency of bacterial excretion in the comparison groups, was significantly influenced by confounding factors. Conclusion: this work has demonstrated the absence of a pronounced protective effect of repeated administration of the BCG vaccine on the clinical course of a specific process.

Calibration of Planar Reflectors Reshaping LiDAR’s Field of View

This paper describes the calibration method for calculating parameters (position and orientation) of planar reflectors reshaping LiDAR’s (light detection and ranging) field of view. The calibration method is based on the reflection equation used in the ICP (Iterative Closest Point) optimization. A novel calibration process as the multi-view data registration scheme is proposed; therefore, the poses of the measurement instrument and parameters of planar reflectors are calculated simultaneously. The final metric measurement is more accurate compared with parameters retrieved from the mechanical design. Therefore, it is evident that the calibration process is required for affordable solutions where the mechanical design can differ from the inaccurate assembly. It is shown that the accuracy is less than 20 cm for almost all measurements preserving long-range capabilities. The experiment is performed based on Livox Mid-40 LiDAR augmented with six planar reflectors. The ground-truth data were collected using Z + F IMAGER 5010 3D Terrestrial Laser Scanner. The calibration method is independent of mechanical design and does not require any fiducial markers on the mirrors. This work fulfils the gap between rotating and Solid-State LiDARs since the field of view can be reshaped by planar reflectors, and the proposed method can preserve the metric accuracy. Thus, such discussion concludes the findings. We prepared an open-source project and provided all the necessary data for reproducing the experiments. That includes: Complete open-source code, the mechanical design of reflector assembly and the dataset which was used in this paper.

A Study of Actual Training Time Administration in Bedra Specialized Weightlifting Club

The researcher, through his work as a coach in some Iraqi weightlifting clubs, noticed hesitation in time administration during training sessions of clubs and league. He noticed that so much time is spend on details not related to the training program thus, he aimed at identifying the variables of the research through designing data registration form that includes all these variables (delays like wearing Band-Aids, drinking water, starting time after coach’s whistle, exercises timing and, moving from one exercise to the other). A comparison was made between two different training administrations after the first beginning procedures, after it, and during two different times. The results showed significant differences between the two administrations in time investment in favor of the training procedure.