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Although satisfiability checking is known to be an effective approach in classical planning, it has scarcely been investigated in the field of temporal planning. Most notably, the usage of ∃-step semantics for encoding the problem into a SAT formula, while being demonstrably quite efficient for decreasing the size of the encodings in classical planning, has not yet been employed to tackle temporal planning problems. In this paper, we define temporal versions of classical ∀-step and ∃-step plans. We show that when the casual and temporal reasoning phases of a SAT-based temporal planner are separated, these semantics can be used to translate a given temporal planning problem into a SAT... 

Since that heuristic state space planners have been very successful in classical planning, this approach is currently the most popular strategy in dealing with temporal planning, too. However, all current state-space temporal planners use a search method known as decision epoch planning, which is not complete for problems with required concurrency. In theory, this flaw can be overcome by employing another search method, called temporally lifted progression planning. In this paper, we show that there are two major problems which, if not tackled properly, can cause the latter method to be very inefficient in practice. The first problem is dealing with the remarkably large state space of... 

Planning as satisfiability is known as an efficient approach to deal with many types of planning problems. However, this approach has not been competitive with the state-space based methods in temporal planning. This paper describes ITSAT as an efficient SAT-based (satisfiability based) temporal planner capable of temporally expressive planning. The novelty of ITSAT lies in the way it handles temporal constraints of given problems without getting involved in the difficulties of introducing continuous variables into the corresponding satisfiability problems. We also show how, as in SAT-based classical planning, carefully devised preprocessing and encoding schemata can considerably improve the... 

AI planning is one of the research fields that has benefited from employing satisfiability checking methods. These methods have been proved to be very effective in finding optimal plans for both classical and temporal planning. It is also known that by using planning-based heuristic information in solving SAT formulae, one can develop SAT-based planners that are competitive with state-of-the-art non-optimal planners in classical planning domains. However, using satisfiability for non-optimal temporal planning has not been investigated so far. The main difficulty in using satisfiability in temporal planning is the representation of time, which is a continuous concept. Previously introduced... 

A highly efficient and simple procedure for the synthesis of quinazolin-4(3H)-ones from the condensation of 2-aminobenzamide with triethylorthoesters in presence of a catalytic amounts of heteropolyacids in various solvents is reported  

Introduction: Research evidence indicates that maladaptive reorganization of the brain plays a critical role in amplifying pain experiences and pain chronification; however, no clear evidence of change exists in brain wave activity among patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP). The objective of this study was to assess brain wave activity in patients with CLBP, compared to healthy controls. Methods: Twenty-five patients with CLBP and twenty-four healthy controls participated in the study. A quantitative electroencephalography device was used to assess brain wave activity in eyes-open and eyes-closed (EO and EC) conditions. The regional absolute and relative power of brain waves were... 

An accurate examination of deformability of rock samples in response to any change in stresses is deeply dependent on the reliable determination of properties of the rock as analysis inputs. Although Young’s modulus (E) can provide valuable characteristics of the rock material deformation, the direct determination of E is considered a time-consuming and complicated analysis. The present study is aimed to introduce a new hybrid intelligent model to predict the E of granitic rock samples. Hence, a series of granitic block samples were collected from the face of a water transfer tunnel excavated in Malaysia and transferred to laboratory to conduct rock index tests for E prediction. Rock index... 

An accurate examination of deformability of rock samples in response to any change in stresses is deeply dependent on the reliable determination of properties of the rock as analysis inputs. Although Young’s modulus (E) can provide valuable characteristics of the rock material deformation, the direct determination of E is considered a time-consuming and complicated analysis. The present study is aimed to introduce a new hybrid intelligent model to predict the E of granitic rock samples. Hence, a series of granitic block samples were collected from the face of a water transfer tunnel excavated in Malaysia and transferred to laboratory to conduct rock index tests for E prediction. Rock index... 

The transfer of pyridinium ion across the water/nitrobenzene interface has been studied by the methods of cyclic voltammetry and ac-impedance measurements. The diffusion coefficients of these species in both media, Dw,pyH+ = 4.4 × 10-5 and DNB,pyH+ = 2.16 × 10-5 cm2 s-1, as well as the diffusion coefficient of pyridine in the organic phase, DNB,py, 3.05 × 10-7 cm2 s-1, have been calculated. The standard potential of pyridinium ion transfer, and the corresponding free energy change and its distribution coefficient between the two phases, have been reported by means of cyclic voltammetry. Impedance measurements resulted in an arc in Nyquist diagrams representing the transfer of pyridinium ion... 

Over recent years, frequent involvements in claims have been inevitable due to unpredictable economic changes and increasing complexities in construction industry. Therefore, even appropriately made contracts are not exempted from claims. On the other hand, construction contract claims are time-consuming, expense-involving and most likely leading to unsatisfactory results. However, there may be some positive outcomes, such as time extension or compensation of damages. To launch investigations, a list of important and frequent claims in oil and gas industry projects of Iran was extracted after a succinct documents review. Further, the most important claim causes were identified through... 

Signed graphs are graphs whose edges get signs ±1 and, as for unsigned graphs, they can be studied by means of graph matrices. Here we focus our attention to the largest eigenvalue, also known as the index of the adjacency matrix of signed graphs. Firstly we give some general results on the index variation when the corresponding signed graph is perturbed. Also, we determine signed graphs achieving the minimal or the maximal index in the class of unbalanced unicyclic graphs of order n≥3. © 2019  

Using a parallel mechanism in the wear test simulators of prosthetic knees provides an easy access to the femoral and tibial components during tests. Moreover, because of its higher accuracy and load capacity, in comparison with serial mechanisms, it allows simulation of heavier tasks, such as climbing stairs, to be performed. This paper describes a new 3 Degree of freedom (DoF) spatial 2T1R (T: Translational DoF; R: Rotational DoF) parallel mechanism, for reproducing the force and motion of the tibial component of the knee prostheses in a wear test simulator. Kinematics and dynamics analysis of the mechanism indicated that it can satisfy the required DoFs, workspace and load capacity... 

Fluxgate magnetometers with different design and core materials have been made. The sensors have been characterized and the frequency responses of the sensors have been measured. The fluxgate magnetometer based on orthogonal design and amorphous wire core working in fundamental mode reaches 30pT/Hz noise level and 40μV/nT sensitivity. Finally an active magnetic shield constructed based on the amorphous core fluxgate magnetometer reaches more than 60dB field attenuation for DC field and has a good response for frequencies below 100Hz  

Nickel-copper alloy modified glassy carbon electrodes (GC/NiCu) prepared by galvanostatic deposition were examined for their redox process and electrocatalytic activities towards the oxidation of methanol and glucose in alkaline solutions. The methods of cyclic voltammetery (CV), chronoamperometry (CA) and impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed. The cyclic voltammogram of NiCu alloy demonstrates the formation of β/β crystallographic forms of the nickel oxyhydroxide under prolonged repetitive potential cycling in alkaline solution. In CV studies, in the presence of methanol NiCu alloy modified electrode shows a significantly higher response in oxidation reaction. The peak current of the... 

The electro-oxidation of methanol on nickel and nickel-copper alloy modified glassy carbon electrodes (GC/Ni and GC/NiCu) in a 1 M NaOH solution at different concentrations of methanol was studied by the method of ac-impedance spectroscopy. Two semicircles in the first quadrant of a Nyquist diagram were observed for electro-oxidation of methanol on GC/Ni corresponding to charge transfer resistance and adsorption of intermediates. Electro-oxidation of methanol on GC/NiCu shows negative resistance in impedance plots as signified by semi-circles terminating in the second quadrant. The impedance behavior shows different patterns at different applied anodic potential. The influence of the... 

In the present study, the behavior of fin pile under lateral loading was investigated by ABAQUS software. First, the generated model was verified against an available experimental small-scale test in the literature. Having conducted verification, a study was carried out on the fin pile dimensions under lateral loading. Different parameters, such as pile diameter, fin’s length, and width, were studied. Moreover, a study on the fin’s aspect ratio by setting fin’s area constant was conducted, and then, optimum fin’s ratio was obtained. The results indicated that both fin’s length and width could improve pile efficiency under lateral loading, yet fin’s length had a more critical impact, and... 

Herniation in the lumbar area is one of the most common diseases which results in lower back pain (LBP) causing discomfort and inconvenience in the patients' daily lives. A computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system can be of immense benefit as it generates diagnostic results within a short time while increasing precision of diagnosis and eliminating human errors. We have proposed a new method for automatic diagnosis of lumbar disc herniation based on clinical MRI data. We use T2-W sagittal and myelograph images. The presented method has been applied on 30 clinical cases, each containing 7 discs (210 lumbar discs) for the herniation diagnosis. We employ Otsu thresholding method to extract the... 

Nickel and nickel-copper alloy modified glassy carbon electrodes (GC/Ni and GC/NiCu) prepared by galvanostatic deposition were examined for their redox process and electrocatalytic activities towards the oxidation of methanol in alkaline solutions. The methods of cyclic voltammetery (CV) and chronoamperometry (CA) were employed. The cyclic voltammogram of NiCu alloy demonstrates the formation of β/β crystallographic forms of the nickel oxyhydroxide under prolonged repetitive potential cycling in alkaline solution. In CV studies, in the presence of methanol NiCu alloy modified electrode shows a significantly higher response for methanol oxidation. The peak current of the oxidation of nickel... 

Nickel - copper alloy modified glassy carbon electrodes (GC/NiCu) prepared by galvanostatic deposition were used for the electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose in alkaline solutions. The electro-oxidation of glucose in a 1 M NaOH solution at different concentration of glucose was studied by the method of ac-impedance spectroscopy. The impedance behavior show different patterns, capacitive, and inductive loops and negative resistances, at different applied anodic potential. The influence of the electrode potential on the impedance pattern is studied and a quantitative explanation for the impedance behavior of glucose oxidation is put forward by a proposed mathematical model. At potentials... 

This paper studies detecting matrices in random dense and sparse Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems. Detecting matrices were originally introduced in the coin weighing problem. Such matrices can be used in CDMA systems in over-loaded scheme where the number of users is greater than the number of chips. We drive some conditions in the large system limit for binary and bipolar random CDMA systems to ensure that any random matrix is a detecting matrix. Furthermore, we extend our results to sparse random ternary matrices that have been using in the sparse CDMA literature. Finally, a construction method for the sparse detecting matrices is introduced