Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Of Theory and Practice

House of Quality

https://escholarship.org/content/qt4h56k1ch/qt4h56k1ch.pdf

Advanced monitoring of machining operations

The extensive development of electronic systems and telecommunications has lead to major concerns regarding electromagnetic pollution. Motivated by environmental questions and by a wide variety of applications, the quest for materials with high efficiency to mitigate electromagnetic interferences (EMI) pollution has become a mainstream field of research. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art research in the design and characterization of polymer/carbon based composites as EMI shielding materials. After a brief introduction, in Section 1, the electromagnetic theory will be briefly discussed in Section 2 setting the foundations of the strategies to be employed to design efficient EMI shielding materials. These materials will be classified in the next section by the type of carbon fillers, involving carbon black, carbon fiber, carbon nanotubes and graphene. The importance of the dispersion method into the polymer matrix (melt-blending, solution processing, etc.) on the final material properties will be discussed. The combination of carbon fillers with other constituents such as metallic nanoparticles or conductive polymers will be the topic of Section 4. The final section will address advanced complex architectures that are currently studied to improve the performances of EMI materials and, in some cases, to impart additional properties such as thermal management and mechanical resistance. In all these studies, we will discuss the efficiency of the composites/devices to absorb and/or reflect the EMI radiation.

Polymer/carbon based composites as electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials

Light-weight nanocomposites filled with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are developed for their significant potentials in electromagnetic shielding and attenuation for wide applications in electronics, communication devices, and specific parts in aircrafts and vehicles. Specifically, the introduction of a second phase into/onto CNTs for achieving CNT-based heterostructures has been widely pursued due to the enhancement in either dielectric loss or magnetic loss. In this work, ferroferric oxide (Fe(3)O(4)) was selected as the phase in multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-based composites for enhancing magnetic properties to obtain improved electromagnetic attenuation. A direct comparison between the two-phase heterostructures (Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs) and polyaniline (PANI) coated Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs, namely, three-phase heterostructures (PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs), was made to investigate the interface influences of Fe(3)O(4) and PANI on the complex permittivity and permeability separately. Compared to PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs, Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs exhibited enhanced magnetic properties coupled with increased dielectric properties. Interfaces between MWCNTs and heterostructures were found to play a role in the corresponding properties. The evaluation of microwave absorption of their wax composites was carried out, and the comparison between Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs and PANI/Fe(3)O(4)/MWCNTs with respect to highly efficient microwave absorption and effective absorption bandwidth was discussed.

Ferroferric Oxide/Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube vs Polyaniline/Ferroferric Oxide/Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Multiheterostructures for Highly Effective Microwave Absorption

A system and method for direct and/or active detection and monitoring of civil engineering or other infrastructural structures, and in a preferred embodiment, for hydrocarbon leakage in oil and gas pipelines, storage structures, and/or transportation structures Particularly, the system and method relate to various nanocomposite sensor coating and data gathering systems In one embodiment, the apparatus includes a single measurement sensor coating (thin film) sensor Other embodiments relate to multiple measurement sensor coating systems The sensor is comprised of either a discrete conductive filament layer, or a single or multiple mesh of interwoven filaments of conductive material in one direction and nonconductive material in a perpendicular direction, as a substrate coated with sensitive coating materials to form a sensor grid Various embodiments of the sensor coating and their applications are also disclosed

Polymeric nanocomposite based sensor and coating systems and their applications

Glaucoma Discrimination Capability of Macular Inner Retinal Layer Thickness Assessed by Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Feasibility analysis of blending hydrogen into natural gas networks

Methods, systems and apparatus for enhanced oil recovery utilizing enhanced sensitizers with chemical blowing agents (CBAs) includes irradiation of electromagnetically activated sensitizers with electromagnetic (EM) waves The injected enhanced sensitizers absorb the energy from EM waves which increases the temperature The elevated temperature then activates chemical blowing agents to aid in fluidity of heavy oil or bitumen extractions The released gases from CBAs also aid in upgrading by releasing desired gases which in turn reduces long hydrocarbon chains at elevated temperature along with catalysts

Electromagnetic wave concentrated heating and heat-activated chemical reactions of enhanced sensitizers for enhanced oil recovery


 To improve magnetic disturbance rejection and robustness of wellbore survey measurements, an adaptive neuro network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) filter for wellbore position calculation is presented. This technique significantly improves magnetic disturbance rejection and reduces sensor error influence for borehole survey measurements. The new approach for the ANFIS filter is based on two redundant sets of IMUs which are located in different positions in the BHA at a known, constant distance. The distance between these two sets of IMUs will physically fade the effect of the magnetic disturbances. Each IMU set outputs position estimation based on the splines method which is then input into an ANFIS filter. The inputs of the splines calculation are azimuth, inclination angles and measurement depth, and the outputs are moving distance in three directions (Northing, Easting and True Vertical Depth). However, the accuracy of the splines method highly depends on the accuracy of the inputs, which are difficult to obtain during the measurement while drilling process even under pure clean environments (without any magnetic disturbances). Furthermore, the distorted azimuth caused by magnetic interference affects the borehole position accuracy. In order to deal with those problems, the designed ANFIS filter has a two-level structure. First a local level position estimation (splines method or well trained local ANFIS based on the sensor accuracy) for two sensor sets is used. If the sensor measurement accuracy is low, this local ANFIS will correct the position estimation. Then the outputs of the local modules were input into ANFIS for second level filtering (global filter) to remove the error which caused by unknown magnetic disturbances. According to the judgement of the ANFIS, the IMU set with the smaller magnetic disturbance is given greater weight to reduce the interference effect on the borehole position estimation. This two-level filter is compared to the traditional splines method under different tests situations. First, we evaluate this method by comparing with GPS positioning, from this test we know that the ANFIS filter shows a good performance when the magnitude of magnetic disturbance is within the training magnitude range. Even when the magnitude of magnetic disturbance is above the training range, the ANFIS filter shows a higher robustness than the traditional splines method. Also, this method was applied to borehole data with two IMU containing accelerometers and one magnetometer measurements. In order to apply our method, we duplicated one more magnetometer measurement data under magnetic interference for assessment. The results proved its magnetic disturbance robustness in borehole position estimation. Finally, we demonstrate the full potential using a laboratory experimental setup.

Simon S. Park

Papers

Polymeric nanocomposite based sensor and coating systems and their applications

Glaucoma Discrimination Capability of Macular Inner Retinal Layer Thickness Assessed by Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Feasibility analysis of blending hydrogen into natural gas networks

Electromagnetic wave concentrated heating and heat-activated chemical reactions of enhanced sensitizers for enhanced oil recovery

Intelligent Wellbore Path Estimation Using Multiple Integrated MEMS Sensors