This paper presents the design and modeling of a flexible tactile SENSOR, capable of detecting the 2D surface texture image, contact-force estimation and STIFFNESS of the sensed object. The SENSOR is made of polymer materials. It consists of a cylindrical chamber for pneumatic actuation and a membrane with a mesa structure. The inner radius of the cylindrical chamber is 2cm and its outer radius is 3cm. The sensing mechanism of the SENSOR is based on the contact deformation of the membrane. Determination of the contact force and STIFFNESS of sensed object is based on the amount and variations of out of plane deflections at the center of a circular membrane. The amount of deflection depends on the force or pressure applied. Furthermore, the size and shape can be easily tailored to the applications' requirements. This versatility facilitates the use of the SENSOR in smart applications where tactile information is used to create system intelligence. The proposed SENSOR with the potential for further miniaturization is suitable for using in medical applications, especially in minimally invasive surgery (MIS).

Use of adhesively bonded joints in structures has been increased in recent years because of their advantages. In structural applications, fatigue is generally considered to be the most important form of loading in respect to long-term service life. In this paper, experimental tests have been performed in order to examine the fatigue damage process of double lap adhesive joints, composed of E-glass laminates and epoxy adhesive with TiO2 P25 particles, under fatigue loading and then a method was proposed for fatigue life prediction based on initial STIFFNESS. The scatter in results shows that the fatigue life is mostly dependent on initial STIFFNESS. According to this, an exponential equation based on the initial STIFFNESS has been proposed to have an initial estimation of fatigue life of the adhesive joints. In addition to the initial STIFFNESS, STIFFNESS degradation of the joints under fatigue loading influences on their final performance and therefore the initial estimation of fatigue life based on the initial STIFFNESS could be modified. Also to have an online control of the fatigue damage process during the fatigue loading, a damage index using STIFFNESS degradation was introduced.

In this research, in order to investigate the effect of the piezoelectric patch which is used as a SENSOR or actuator in rotating flexible structures such as a helicopter blade, the free vibrations of the rotating rectangular sheet with and without the piezoelectric patch have been presented. First-order shear deformation theory is considered for plate displacement and piezoelectric field. Considering the effect of Coriolis acceleration, centrifugal acceleration and centrifugal in-plane forces, the equations of motion are derived from Hamilton's principle and the electromechanical couple equation is obtained from Maxwell's equation. For piezoelectric, two electrical conditions, open circuit and closed circuit, which are used in SENSORs and actuators, respectively, have been considered. The equations are discretized with the help of the numerical method of generalized differential squares and the matrices of inertia mass, eccentricity, Coriolis and STIFFNESS matrix are obtained. Natural frequency values for beam and rotating plate have been compared in Abaqus software. Also, the values obtained from the numerical solution in MATLAB have been verified with articles and ABAQUS, which have high accuracy. The effect of parameters such as hub radius, rotation speed, sheet thickness, aspect ratio, piezoelectric patch thickness and applied voltage on the natural frequency of the system has also been investigated.

Pipeline systems under thermal loads are frequently used in different industries, such as the power plants and petrochemicals. Unlike the analytical method of elastic center, which is capable to analyze only one branch of pipeline with pipe members parallel to the coordinate system, the method of STIFFNESS removes these limitations. In this article the STIFFNESS method is introduced for the analysis of pipeline systems. Based on this method, the piping system may include any number of piping braches. The straight pipe elements in the branch may have any general orientation and the bend elements may have any arbitrary angle. The computer program designed based on this method may compute the nodal displacements at the ends of the straight or bend elements and present three components for loads and three components for moments. Once the free-body diagram of each piping elements with nodal forces and moments are drawn, then the engineering codes are employed to design the piping system for safe operation.

The purpose of this review study is to review the studies that have assessed the interaction between surface STIFFNESS and lower limb STIFFNESS. There is a general hypothesis that with the increase of surface STIFFNESS, the lower limb STIFFNESS decreases or vice versa. These interactions take place with the aim of maintaining the dynamics of the center of mass and reducing the energy consumption during movement. One of the mechanisms for these interactions is the change in joint STIFFNESS and leg geometry. Some studies suggested that the stretch reflex has no role in changing the lower limb STIFFNESS. Although interactions between lower limb STIFFNESS and surface STIFFNESS has been recognized, there is little evidence about neuromuscular mechanism of these interactions. More studies is needed in this filed.

Efficient waste paper recycling has a significant role in the sustainable environment. Recyclable waste paper as a fundamental ingredient of municipal solid wastes (MSWs) is indeed an “urban ore”. Waste papers are considered as the solid recovered fuel which is recovered from MSW. Recyclable waste papers are segregated into various grades to produce high-quality products. Moreover, sorted paper streams save energy, chemicals, and water, as well as reduce sludge and rejects. Information technology is widely integrated with the waste management industry into its operations such as recycling, reuse, segregating based on categories and so on. This review article focuses on the life cycle of waste paper and existing waste paper sorting techniques. In the paper industry, many types of SENSORs are used in different mechanical and optical waste paper sorting systems. Such SENSORs include lignin, gloss, STIFFNESS, mid-infrared, infrared, and color SENSORs. In this review, also described the effectiveness of different waste paper sorting systems, and finally, recommended appropriate waste paper sorting techniques based on effectiveness and low-cost implementation.

In this paper, a SENSOR network is used to estimate the dynamic states of a system. At each time step, one (or multiple) SENSORs are available that can send its measured data to a central node, in which all of processing is done. We want to provide an optimal algorithm for scheduling SENSOR selection at every time step. Our goal is to select the appropriate SENSOR to reduce computations, optimize the energy consumption and enhance the network lifetime. To achieve this goal, we must reduce the error covariance. Three algorithms are used in this work: sliding window, thresholding and randomly chosen algorithms. Moreover, we will offer a new algorithm based on circular selection. Finally, a novel algorithm for selecting multiple SENSORs is proposed. Performance of the proposed algorithms is illustrated with numerical examples.