University of Maribor

About: University of Maribor is a education organization based out in Maribor, Slovenia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & KEKB. The organization has 3987 authors who have published 13077 publications receiving 258339 citations. The organization is also known as: Univerza v Mariboru.

Determination of dissociable groups in natural and regenerated cellulose fibers by different titration methods

Abstract: Different titration methods were applied with the purpose to determine the dissociation properties of a natural (cotton) and regenerated (viscose, modal and lyocell) cellulose fibers. Potentiometric and conductometric titration were used to determine the content of acidic groups. pK values were determined by potentiometric titration. Polyelectrolyte adsorption was used for surface and total charge determination, and to obtain information about charge location and accessibility of charged groups. It was found that the average content of acidic groups is higher in cotton fibers than in regenerated fibers. The fiber charge of cotton is due to the dissociation of two type of acidic groups, one with pK ≈3.5 and the other with pK ≈5.5. In regenerated fibers there is only one type of acidic groups (pK ≈3.5). The pK value of the stronger acid is typical for carboxyl group in uronic acids. The polyelectrolyte adsorption indicates that most of the carboxyl groups are located in an inner region of all cellulose samples (cotton and regenerated fibers). It is concluded that titration methods are powerful tools for monitoring the content, strength, and distribution of acidic groups, as well as the total charge of natural and regenerated cellulose fibers. The three methods give similar results on all analyzed samples and show good repeatability. The results of investigation make it quite clear that combination of all titrations yields relevant information about content and strength of acidic groups in both natural and regenerated cellulose fibers used in the manufacture of textiles. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 92: 3186–3195, 2004

A Wearable Device and System for Movement and Biometric Data Acquisition for Sports Applications

Abstract: This paper presents a miniature wearable device and a system for detecting and recording the movement and biometric information of a user during sport activities. The wearable device is designed to be worn on a wrist and can monitor skin temperature and pulse rate. Furthermore, it can monitor arm movement and detect gestures using inertial measurement unit. The device can be used for various professional and amateur sport applications and for health monitoring. Because of its small size and minimum weight, it is especially appropriate for swing-based sports like tennis or golf, where any additional weight on the arms would most likely disturb the player and have some influence on the player’s performance. Basic signal processing is performed directly on the wearable device but for more complex signal analysis, the data can be uploaded via the Internet to a cloud service, where it can be processed by a dedicated application. The device is powered by a lightweight miniature LiPo battery and has about 6 h of autonomy at maximum performance.