The usage of non-wood pulps in furnishes for the production of various paper grades is a real alternative for the substitution of wood pulp in papermaking. In terms of the papermaking process, the main limiting factor for non-wood pulp utilization is poor dewatering. This problem can be partially solved by means of retention aids, and the modern microparticle-based retention aids are very promising for this application. In this study the main aim was to characterize how the microparticle retention systems affect the retention, dewatering, and formation of a non-wood pulp furnish and how these effects and mechanisms differ when compared to normal wood pulp. The performance of several commercially available retention aids was studied by making dynamic sheet forming tests for reference and an organosolv wheat straw furnish. The emphasis in the experiments was on drainage enhancement. The maximum drainage gain obtained with the bentonite-CPAM retention aid system was about 5%. Despite the improved drainage, dewatering of the reference furnish was better than for the non-wood containing furnish.

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Meditation is a practice that aims at self-inducing a state of calmed rest. In this work, we analyze physiological signals collected with wearable sensors to observe if meditation has a noticeable effect on the human body response and if this effect is inversely related to stress and can be detected using the same biosignals and similar features and methods. Our work is based on the extraction of statistical and physiological features and extends the models found in the literature by extracting 30 additional features related to heart rate variability. The results show that using wrist wearable devices, meditation periods can be distinguished from spontaneous rest with an accuracy of up to 86% accuracy. CCS CONCEPTS• Computing methodologies → Machine learning; • Applied computing → Life and medical sciences.

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