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The distinct properties and affordances of paper provide benefits that enabled paper to maintain an important role in the digital age. This is so much so, that some pen–paper interaction has been imitated in the digital world with touchscreens and stylus pens. Because digital medium also provides several advantages not available to physical paper, there is a clear benefit to merge the two mediums. Despite the plethora of concepts, prototypes and systems to digitise handwritten information on paper, these systems require specially prepared paper, complex setups and software, which can be used solely in combination with paper, and, most importantly, do not support the concurrent precise interaction with both mediums (paper and touchscreen) using one pen only. In this paper, we present the design, fabrication and evaluation of the Hybrid Stylus. The Hybrid Stylus is assembled with the infinity pencil tip (nib) made of graphite and a specially designed shielded tip holder that is attached to an active stylus. The stylus can be used for writing on a physical paper, while it still maintains all the features needed for tablet interaction. Moreover, the stylus also allows simultaneous digitisation of handwritten information on the paper when the paper is placed on the tablet screen. In order to evaluate the concept, we also add a user-friendly manual alignment of paper position on the underlying tablet computer The evaluation demonstrates that the system achieves almost perfect digitisation of strokes (98.6% of strokes were correctly registered with only 1.2% of ghost strokes) whilst maintaining excellent user experience of writing with a pencil on the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portable spectroscopic instruments are an interesting alternative for in-field and on-line measurements. However, the practical implementation of visible-near infrared (VIS-NIR) portable sensors in the forest sector is challenging due to operation in harsh environmental conditions and natural variability of wood itself. The objective of this work was to use spectroscopic methods as an alternative to visual grading of wood quality. Three portable spectrometers covering visible and near infrared range were used for the detection of selected naturally occurring wood defects, such as knots, decay, resin pockets and reaction wood. Measurements were performed on wooden discs collected during the harvesting process, without any conditioning or sample preparation. Two prototype instruments were developed by integrating commercially available micro-electro-mechanical systems with for-purpose selected lenses and light source. The prototype modules of spectrometers were driven by an Arduino controller. Data were transferred to the PC by USB serial port. Performance of all tested instruments was confronted by two discriminant methods. The best performing was the microNIR instrument, even though the performance of custom prototypes was also satisfactory. This work was an essential part of practical implementation of VIS-NIR spectroscopy for automatic grading of logs directly in the forest. Prototype low-cost spectrometers described here formed the basis for development of a prototype hyperspectral imaging solution tested during harvesting of trees within the frame of a practical demonstration in mountain forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of the thermal modification process on wood machinability was investigated with four minor species of low economic importance. A set of representative experimental samples was machined to the form of disks with sharp and dull tools. The resulting surface quality was visually evaluated by a team of experts according to the American standard procedure ASTM D-1666-87. The objective quantification of the surface quality was also done by means of a three dimensions (3D) surface scanner for the whole range of grain orientations. Visual assessment and 3D surface analysis showed a good agreement in terms of conclusions. The best quality of the wood surface was obtained when machining thermally modified samples. The positive effect of the material modification was apparent when cutting deodar cedar, black pine and black poplar in unfavorable conditions (i.e., against the grain). The difference was much smaller for an easy-machinability specie such as Italian alder. The use of dull tools resulted in the worst surface quality. Thermal modification has shown a very positive effect when machining with dull tools, leading to a relevant increment of the final surface smoothness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneity of kraft lignin is one of the main limitations for the development of high-performance applications. Therefore, refining lignin using organic solvents is a promising strategy to obtain homogenous fractions with controlled quality in terms of structure and properties. In this work, one-step refining processes for hardwood kraft lignin using nine organic solvents of different chemical nature and polarity were carried out with the aim of investigating and understanding the effect of the type of organic solvent on the quality of resulting fractions. Structural features of both soluble and insoluble lignin fractions were assessed by GPC, Py-GC-MS, and FTIR linked to PCA analysis. Moreover, functional properties such as physical appearance, hygroscopicity, antioxidant capacity, and thermal properties were evaluated. The results evidenced the relationship between the nature and polarity of the solvents and the properties of the obtained soluble and insoluble fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern wood converting processes consists of several stages and material drying belongs to the most influencing future performances of products. The procedure of drying wood is usually realized between subsequent sawing operations, affecting significantly cutting conditions and general properties of material. An alternative methodology for determination of mechanical properties (fracture toughness and shear yield stress) based on cutting process analysis is presented here. Two wood species (pine and beech) representing soft and hard woods were investigated with respect to four diverse drying methods used in industry. Fracture toughness and shear yield stress were determined directly from the cutting power signal that was recorded while frame sawing. An original procedure for compensation of the wood density variation is proposed to generalize mechanical properties of wood and allow direct comparison between species and drying methods. Noticeable differences of fracture toughness and shear yield stress values were found among all drying techniques and for both species, but only for beech wood the differences were statistically significant. These observations provide a new highlight on the understanding of the effect of thermo-hydro modification of wood on mechanical performance of structures. It can be also highly useful to optimize woodworking machines by properly adjusting cutting power requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]