Polypropylene is a typical representative of synthetic polymers that, for many applications including adhesive joints, requires an increase in wettability and chemical surface reactivity. Plasma processing offers efficient methods for such surface modifications. A particular disadvantage of the plasma jets can be the small plasma area. Here, we present a cold atmospheric plasma radio-frequency slit jet developed with a width of 150 mm applied to polypropylene plasma treatment in Ar, Ar/O${}_2$ and Ar/N${}_2$ We identified two main parameters influencing the tensile strength of adhesive joints mediated by epoxy adhesive DP 190, nitrogen content, and the amount of low molecular weight oxidized materials (LMWOMs). Nitrogen functional groups promoted adhesion between epoxy adhesive DP 190 and the PP by taking part in the curing process. LMWOMs formed a weak boundary layer, inhibiting adhesion by inducing a cohesive failure of the joint. A trade off between these two parameters determined the optimized conditions at which the strength of the adhesive joint increased 4.5 times. Higher adhesion strength was previously observed when using a translational plasma gliding arc plasma jet with higher plasma gas temperatures, resulting in better cross linking of polymer chains caused by local PP melting.

The field of CCTV surveillance is topical and widely used in many different applications. The fundamental part of the CCTV system is a reliable image evaluation by a human observer, whose effectiveness is influenced by many variables. Optimization of the effectiveness is a multidimensional problem related to both technical and human characteristics. In many applied systems, the overall performance is affected by a real performance of technical system (image compression, channel transmission, etc.). On the other hand these technical systems have different optimization criteria than a typical video system. TNO Defence, Security and Safety (formerly the TNO Physics and Electronics Laboratory) initiated a project in which the influence of several technical variables on the operator's effectiveness was studied. The whole project was carried out in close co-operation with the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU). The paper demonstrates and summarizes selected experimental results and evaluated dependencies.

Plasma discharges under atmospheric pressure are applicable for modifying the electrical properties of dielectric surfaces. The aim of the plasma discharge treatment of such surfaces is to design a procedure so that its characteristic parameters improve the resulting levels of the breakdown electrical strength E_b when tested under pulsed or alternating electrical voltages. In this research, a set of functional experiments performed by using plasma in samples of two types of materials (thermoset, thermoplastic) were processed and evaluated, and the resulting effect of the magnitude of the breakdown electrical voltage, electrical intensity, and electrical conductivity of the surface were compared. A slit plasma chamber, previously described and parameterized, was employed to treat the surface of the dielectric samples. The surface structure was modified via plasma discharge without precursors, and methodologies were developed to evaluate these modifications with respect to the change in the electrical strength parameters of the insulator surface. Subsequently, the surface strength of the affected and unaffected samples was measured and evaluated as a function of exposure time, and the stability of the modification was assessed. The first methodical test showed that plasma discharge without precursors improved the long-term surface electrical strength of the dielectric surface. The test and its parameters were carried out with respect to feasibility in an industrial environment.

Herein, we discuss the modeling and verification of RF sensed signals in a simple plasma channel (plasma jet) at the generator frequency of f = 13.56 MHz, assuming plasma discharge at atmospheric pressure. The actual experiment was preceded by a basic numerical analysis and evaluation of several variants of the geometric/numerical model of a simple plasma channel formed in a glass capillary chamber; this step was performed with different electrode configurations. The analyses also included the impact of the location of the sensing element (i.e., the antenna) on the resulting evaluated electromagnetic signal. Furthermore, a numerical model with concentrated parameters facilitated a comparative analysis centered on the impact of plasma concentration and composition in the monitored electromagnetic RF spectrum of the channel. The theoretical outputs were verified via experiments and compared. This methodology finds use in the radio-frequency evaluation of plasma parameters in both simple capillary nozzles and more complex, slit-designed plasma chambers.

The cold atmospheric plasma jets change their character when interacting with the different surfaces. Since such interaction is the primary area of plasma jet applications, it is essential to monitor the process. The non-linearity of the RF plasma slit jet (PSJ) was analyzed using the VI probes and a novel method, the non-intrusive antenna measurements. Regardless of the experimental setup and gas mixture (Ar, Ar/O₂, Ar/N₂), the PSJ frequency spectrum consisted of the following main features: dominant fundamental frequency peak, relatively strong odd harmonics, and significantly weaker even harmonics. The lowest degree of non-linearity was recorded for the Ar PSJ ignited against a grounded target. Admixing a molecular gas increased the discharge non-linearity. It was attributed to the enhancement of secondary electron emission from the dielectric surfaces. In addition to the non-linearity analysis, the antenna spectra were for the first time used to determine the semi-quantitative values of the PSJ-radiated electric field. The electric fields decreased by a factor of 2 after the admixing of nitrogen and oxygen molecular gases. Out of the studied targets, the highest electric fields were observed when plasma impinged on the grounded targets, followed by the floating target (2× lower) and the PSJ ignited in the open space configuration (4× lower than in the grounded target configuration).

The image/video quality is a key issue in security video systems. Therefore the objective image/video quality criteria are extensively studied. In this paper, the novel full reference objective metric for image quality assessment is proposed. This metric is based on FSIM. The ROI detection is embedded in order to improve the performance. For ROI estimation, the ground truth data together with two different algorithms were used and compared - The security and multimedia images from LIVE database were used for performance evaluation. The correlation between the objective and subjective tests of multimedia images was calculated using Pearson's and Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient. For performance comparison the state-of-the-art full reference objective image quality metrics were used; PSNR, SSIM, MS-SSIM, VIF and FSIM. In our previous paper, the importance of demosaicing technique and ROI has been shown. This paper continues in this topic and implements new full reference objective metrics for the reconstructed image quality evaluation. The results reveal that the ROI controlled by bottom-up mechanism can be used for performance improvement.