Current disposal facilities for coarse-grained waste perform manual sorting of materials with heavy machinery. Large quantities of recyclable materials are lost to coarse waste, so more effective sorting processes must be developed to recover them. Two key aspects to automate the sorting process are object detection with material classification in mixed piles of waste, and autonomous control of hydraulic machinery. Because most objects in those accumulations of waste are damaged or destroyed, object detection alone is not feasible in the majority of cases. To address these challenges, we propose a classification of materials with multispectral images of ultraviolet (UV), visual (VIS), near infrared (NIR), and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectrums. Solution for autonomous control of hydraulic heavy machines for sorting of bulky waste is being investigated using cost-effective cameras and artificial intelligence-based controllers.
We present an open-source benchmark and evaluation framework for assessing emotional boundary handling in Large Language Models (LLMs). Using a dataset of 1156 prompts across six languages, we evaluated three leading LLMs (GPT-4o, Claude-3.5 Sonnet, and Mistral-large) on their ability to maintain appropriate emotional boundaries through pattern-matched response analysis. Our framework quantifies responses across seven key patterns: direct refusal, apology, explanation, deflection, acknowledgment, boundary setting, and emotional awareness. Results demonstrate significant variation in boundary-handling approaches, with Claude-3.5 achieving the highest overall score (8.69/10) and producing longer, more nuanced responses (86.51 words on average). We identified a substantial performance gap between English (average score 25.62) and non-English interactions (< 0.22), with English responses showing markedly higher refusal rates (43.20% vs. < 1% for non-English). Pattern analysis revealed model-specific strategies, such as Mistral's preference for deflection (4.2%) and consistently low empathy scores across all models (< 0.06). Limitations include potential oversimplification through pattern matching, lack of contextual understanding in response analysis, and binary classification of complex emotional responses. Future work should explore more nuanced scoring methods, expand language coverage, and investigate cultural variations in emotional boundary expectations. Our benchmark and methodology provide a foundation for systematic evaluation of LLM emotional intelligence and boundary-setting capabilities.
Dhiraj SM Varanasi, Divij D, Sai Anirudh Karre
et al.
Software Development Waste (SDW) is defined as any resource-consuming activity that does not add value to the client or the organization developing the software. SDW impacts the overall efficiency and productivity of a software project as the scale and size of the project grows. Although engineering leaders usually put in effort to minimize waste, the lack of definitive measures to track and manage SDW is a cause of concern. To address this gap, we propose five measures, namely Stale Forks, Project Diversification Index, PR Rejection Rate, Backlog Inversion Index, and Feature Fulfillment Rate to potentially identify unused artifacts, building the wrong feature/product, mismanagement of backlog types of SDW. We apply these measures on ten open-source projects and share our observations to apply them in practice for managing SDW.
This paper addresses the computation of normalized solid angle measure of polyhedral cones. This is well understood in dimensions two and three. For higher dimensions, assuming that a positive-definite criterion is met, the measure can be computed via a multivariable hypergeometric series. We present two decompositions of full-dimensional simplicial cones into finite families of cones satisfying the positive-definite criterion, enabling the use of the hypergeometric series to compute the solid angle measure of any polyhedral cone. Additionally, our second decomposition method yields cones with a special tridiagonal structure, reducing the number of required coordinates for the hypergeometric series formula. Furthermore, we investigate the convergence of the hypergeometric series for this case. Our findings provide a powerful tool for computing solid angle measures in high-dimensional spaces.
This paper presents a theory describing the dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) process associated with an arbitrary frequency swept microwave pulse. The theory is utilized to explain the integrated solid effect (ISE) as well as the newly discovered stretched solid effect (SSE) and adiabatic solid effect (ASE). It is verified with experiments performed at 9.4 GHz (0.34 T) on single crystals of naphthalene doped with pentacene-d14. It is shown that SSE and ASE can be more efficient than ISE. Furthermore, the theory predicts that the efficiency of the SSE improves at high magnetic fields, where the EPR linewidth is small compared to the nuclear Larmor frequency. In addition, we show that ISE, SSE, and ASE are based on similar physical principles and we suggest definitions to distinguish among them.
The statistical convergence is handled for sequences with the natural density, in general. In a recent paper, the statistical convergence for nets in Riesz spaces has been studied and investigated by developing topology-free techniques in Riesz spaces. In this paper, we introduce the statistically topological convergence for nets on locally solid Riesz spaces with solid topologies. Moreover, we introduce the statistical continuity on locally solid Riesz spaces.
Abstract Municipal solid waste treatment leads to the production of a considerable amount of mixed municipal waste, in case of which material recovery is difficult. Its treatment represents a worldwide challenge since landfilling is still a major treatment method and the respective emissions of greenhouse gases are significant. Approximately 126 Mt of municipal solid waste were landfilled or incinerated within the EU-28 in 2017, while the waste management sector produced 3% of the overall greenhouse gases emissions. Regarding mixed municipal waste, Waste-to-Energy plants seem to be a suitable disposal option as they substitute both landfills and energy production from fossil fuels in combined heat and power plants. However, new treatment facilities of this type need to take into account also the heat and electricity demands in their vicinity to ensure economic stability. This paper therefore analyses the relationship between greenhouse gases emissions and the cost of mixed municipal waste treatment, while considering environmental impact of different treatment options. A reverse logistic (mixed integer programming) model has been developed to optimise future strategies of mixed municipal waste treatment in a large geographical area. The model is nonlinear because of the nonlinear nature of the cost of mixed municipal waste treatment as well as the economic incentive associated with the avoided greenhouse gases emissions. These, in turn, are influenced by plant capacities, locations, and other location-specific parameters (such as the yearly heat demand profile) that must be considered during the integration of a future plant into the existing district heating systems. The results are presented through a case study for the Czech Republic, with 206 micro-regions (waste producers), 148 landfills, 113 potential mechanical-biological treatment plants, 24 potential locations for plants utilising refuse-derived fuels, 4 existing Waste-to-Energy plants, and 32 candidate locations for new Waste-to-Energy plants have been considered. The proposed future concepts involving various processing chains (small Waste-to-Energy plant, large Waste-to-Energy plant with the necessary complex logistics, mechanical biological treatment prior to incineration), are compared with the current (2016) waste treatment strategy, in which 73% of mixed municipal waste is landfilled. The trade-off between economically viable and environmentally acceptable solution is also targeted. The obtained data suggest a possible reduction in greenhouse gases emissions by almost 150% with the cost of waste treatment being increased only by approx. 2.5 EUR/t.
Degradation in performances of air conditioners and refrigerators is caused by a frost formation and adhesion on the surface. In the present study, by means of the classical molecular dynamics simulation, we investigate how and how much the nanotextured surface characteristics, such as surface wettability and geometry, influenced the interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) between the solid wall and the water/ice. The ITR of the interfacial region was comparable in both the water and the ice states. As the nanostructure gaps became narrower, the ITR of the interfacial region decreased. The local ITR had a weak negative correlation with the local H2O molecule density regardless of the phase of the H2O molecules. The local ITR decreased as the local density increased. The greater amount of the thermal energy was transferred through the material interface by means of the intermolecular interaction when more the H2O molecules were located in the proximity area, which was closer to the Pt solid wall than the first adsorption layer peak. When the H2O molecules were in the crystal form on the solid wall, the proximity molecules decreased, and then the local ITR significantly increased.
Due to the gas rich environments of early circumstellar disks, the gravitational collapse of cool, dense regions of the disk form fragments largely composed of gas. During formation, disk fragments may attain increased metallicities as they interact with the surrounding disk material, whether through particle migration to pressure maxima or through mutual gravitational interaction. In this paper, we investigate the ability of fragments to collect and retain a significant solid component through gas-particle interactions in high-resolution 3D self-gravitating shearing box simulations. The formation of axissymmetric perturbations associated with gravitational instabilities allows particles of intermediate sizes to concentrate through aerodynamic drag forces. By the onset of fragmentation, the mass of local particle concentrations within the fragment are comparable to that of the gas component and the sebsequent gravitational collapse results in the formation of a solid core. We find that these cores can be up to several tens of Earth masses, depending on grain size, before the fragment center reaches temperatures which would sublimate solids. The solid fraction and total mass of the fragment also depend on the metallicity of the young parent protoplanetary disk, with higher initial metallicities resulting in larger fragments and larger solid cores. Additionally, the extended atmospheres of these soon-to-be gas giants or brown dwarfs are occasionally enriched above the initial metallicity, provided no solid core forms in the center and are otherwise lacking in heavier elements when a core does form.
Bspline solids are used for solid objects modeling in R3. Mathematica incorporates a several commands to manipulate symbolic and graphically Bspline basis functions and to graphically manipulate Bsplines curves and surfaces; however, it does not incorporate any command to the graphical manipulation of Bspline solids. In this paper, we describe a new Mathematica program to compute and plotting the Bspline solids. The output obtained is consistent with Mathematica's notation. The performance of the commands are discussed by using some illustrative examples.
Macdonald studied a discrete volume measure for a rational polytope $P$, called solid angle sum, that gives a natural discrete volume for $P$. We give a local formula for the codimension two quasi-coefficient of the solid angle sum of $P$. We also show how to recover the classical Ehrhart quasi-polynomial from the solid angle sum and in particular we find a similar local formula for the codimension one and codimension two quasi-coefficients. These local formulas are naturally valid for all positive real dilates of $P$. An interesting open question is to determine necessary and sufficient conditions on a polytope $P$ for which the discrete volume of $P$ given by the solid angle sum equals its continuous volume: $A_P(t) = \mathrm{vol}(P) t^d$. We prove that a sufficient condition is that $P$ tiles $\mathbb R^d$ by translations, together with the Hyperoctahedral group.
Combustible waste fractions of municipal solid waste (MSW) which can not be easily separated or sorted, reused or recycled, may have a high calorifiv value (CV) that can be used in a fuel for energy recovery. The objective of this study was to explore the Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) potential of municipal solid waste from DKI Jakarta to produce electricity and to promote it to be socially and politically acceptable. For this purpose, 24 sampels of RDF were taken from Bantargebang, cabonized, molded and pressed to be briquette. All samples were analized for moisture, ash, and calorific value in the physical and chemistry Laboratory of ITB Bandung. The analysis of calorific value (CV) shows the CV difference of 1815.8 cal/g between the briquettes (8051.25 cal/g) and the RDF (9867.12 cal/g. The total waste DKI which can be used as briquettes 5253 ton / day or equivalent with 49154115 kWh / day. If the efficiency of electricity production from RDF was 25%, then Jakarta is able to generate electricity from RDF of 12288529 kWh / day or as much as energy needed by 573,480 middle-class households with energy needs of 642.84 kWh/month.
A vertex-transitive map $X$ is a map on a surface on which the automorphism group of $X$ acts transitively on the set of vertices of $X$. If the face-cycles at all the vertices in a map are of same type then the map is called a semi-equivelar map. Clearly, a vertex-transitive map is semi-equivelar. Converse of this is not true in general. In particular, there are semi-equivelar maps on the torus, on the Klein bottle and on the surfaces of Euler characteristics $-1$ $\&$ $-2$ which are not vertex-transitive. It is known that the boundaries of Platonic solids, Archimedean solids, regular prisms and antiprisms are vertex-transitive maps on $\mathbb{S}^2$. Here we show that there is exactly one semi-equivelar map on $\mathbb{S}^2$ which is not vertex-transitive. More precisely, we show that a semi-equivelar map on $\mathbb{S}^2$ is the boundary of a Platonic solid, an Archimedean solid, a regular prism, an antiprism or the pseudorhombicuboctahedron. As a consequence, we show that all the semi-equivelar maps on $\mathbb{RP}^2$ are vertex-transitive. Moreover, every semi-equivelar map on $\mathbb{S}^2$ can be geometrized, i.e., every semi-equivelar map on $\mathbb{S}^2$ is isomorphic to a semi-regular tiling of $\mathbb{S}^2$. In the course of the proof of our main result, we present a combinatorial characterization in terms of an inequality of all the types of semi-equivelar maps on $\mathbb{S}^2$. Here, we present self-contained combinatorial proofs of all our results.
We present a complete analysis of the linearised dynamics of active solids with orientational order, taking into account a hitherto overlooked consequence of rotation invariance. Our predictions include the possibility of stable active solids with quasi-long-range order in two dimensions and long-range order in three dimensions, generic instability of the solid for one sign of active forcing, and the instability of the orientationally ordered phase in momentum-conserved systems for large active forcing irrespective of its sign.
Abstract This paper investigates how glass contamination in refuse-derived fuel can be quantitatively detected using near-infrared spectroscopy. Near-infrared spectral data of glass in four different background materials were collected, each material chosen to represent a main component in municipal solid waste; actual refuse-derived fuel was not tested. The resulting spectra were pre-processed and used to develop multi-variate predictive models using partial least squares regression. It was shown that predictive models for coloured glass content are reasonably accurate, while models for mixed glass or clear glass content are not; the validated model for coloured glass content had a coefficient of determination of 0.83 between the predicted and reference data, and a root-mean-square error of validation of 0.64. The methods investigated in this paper show potential in predicting coloured glass content in different types of background material, but a different approach would be needed for predicting mixed type glass contamination in refuse-derived fuel.