The Causes and Prevention of Smut on Etched AISI 300 Stainless Steels

During the fabrication of stainless steel parts by photochemical machining (PCM), a seemingly random occurrence of a partially-adherent, brown/black deposit, known as smut, can occur. This quality problem has plagued the PCM industry for over 30 years. In the past, the problem has been attributed to “poor etch-quality” stainless steel. However, an extensive investigation by the authors, comprising some 7 person-years of effort, has established that while the metallurgy of the stainless steel has some influence on the formation of smut, by far the most important factor is the condition of the ferric chloride etchant used for etching the parts. The influences of etchant concentration, free hydrochloric acid content, temperature, atmosphere and hydrodynamic flow have now been assessed quantitatively for the first time. The investigation has led to the development of a theory outlining the causes of smut formation, thus providing solutions for its prevention.     

Bright-field scanning confocal electron microscopy using a double aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope

Scanning confocal electron microscopy (SCEM) offers a mechanism for three-dimensional imaging of materials, which makes use of the reduced depth of field in an aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope. The simplest configuration of SCEM is the bright-field mode. In this paper we present experimental data and simulations showing the form of bright-field SCEM images. We show that the depth dependence of the three-dimensional image can be explained in terms of two-dimensional images formed in the detector plane. For a crystalline sample, this so-called probe image is shown to be similar to a conventional diffraction pattern. Experimental results and simulations show how the diffracted probes in this image are elongated in thicker crystals and the use of this elongation to estimate sample thickness is explored.     

Particle filters and occlusion handling for rigid 2D–3D pose tracking

In this paper, we address the problem of 2D–3D pose estimation. Specifically, we propose an approach to jointly track a rigid object in a 2D image sequence and to estimate its pose (position and orientation) in 3D space. We revisit a joint 2D segmentation/3D pose estimation technique, and then extend the framework by incorporating a particle filter to robustly track the object in a challenging environment, and by developing an occlusion detection and handling scheme to continuously track the object in the presence of occlusions. In particular, we focus on partial occlusions that prevent the tracker from extracting an exact region properties of the object, which plays a pivotal role for region-based tracking methods in maintaining the track. To this end, a dynamical choice of how to invoke the objective functional is performed online based on the degree of dependencies between predictions and measurements of the system in accordance with the degree of occlusion and the variation of the object’s pose. This scheme provides the robustness to deal with occlusions of an obstacle with different statistical properties from that of the object of interest. Experimental results demonstrate the practical applicability and robustness of the proposed method in several challenging scenarios.     

Reviews

MARK FRESKO CONSULTANCY. Sources of digital information. British Library R&D Report 6102. London: British Library Research and Development Department, 1994. No ISBN given. No price indicated. 260 pp.

CHRIS CLARE and GORDON STUTELEY. Information systems — strategy to design. London: Chapman and Hall, 1995. ISBN 0 412 576708. £16.99.

POPE, IVAN. Internet UK. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall International, 294 pp. ISBN 013 190950, £19.95. SCHOFIELD, SUE. UK Internet book. Wokingham: Addison‐Wesley, 301 pp. ISBN 0201 42766 4, £19.95.

RIMMER, STEVE. Planet Internet. New York: Windcrest, 1995. ISBN 0 8306 24724. £22.95 (pbk).

JILL H. ELLSWORTH and MATTHEW V. ELLSWORTH. The Internet business book. London: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. $22.95, 376pp. ISBN 0 471058092.

JOHN S. QUARTERMAN and SMOOT CARL‐MITCHELL. The e‐mail companion: communicate effectively via the Internet and other global networks. Addison‐Wesley, 1994. 318 pp. ISBN 0 201 40658 6. $19.95.

McCLURE, C.R., MOEN, W.E. and RYAN, J. Libraries and the Internet/NREN: perspectives, issues and challenges. London: Mecklermedia 1994. $35.00. ISBN 0 89736 824 7. McCLURE, C.R., BERTOT, J.C., and ZWEIZIG, D.L. Public libraries and the Internet: study results, policy issues and recommendations. Washington: National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, 1994. No price or ISBN given.

FRANCES BLOMELEY. Networks and network services: a user's guide. Immediate Publishing, 1994. ISBN 1–89831–00–03. 246 pp. £14.95.

NEIL SMITH (ed) ibraries, networks and Europe: a European networking study. British Library Research and Development Department, 1994. (LIR Series 101) 91 pp. ISBN 0 7123 3295 2. £25. (Distributed by Turpin Distribution Services Ltd, Blackhorse Road, Letchworth, Herts. SG6 1HN).

ALAN BRYANT. Creating successful bulletin board systems. Addison‐Wesley, 1994. ISBN 0–201–62668–3. $39.95.

Directory of electronic journals, newsletters and academic discussion lists. 4th ed. Compiled by Lisabeth A. King and Diane Kovacs, edited by Ann Okerson. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 1994. 575 pp. ISSN 1057–1337. $54 (paperback), $33 (ARL members).

THE BRITISH LIBRARY and ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING SERVICES LTD. Electronic publishing practice in the UK: LIR Report 95. University Press, Cambridge, 1994. 185 pp. ISBN 0 7123 3280 4. £30.00. (Distributed by Turpin Distribution Services, Blackhorse Road, Letchworth S96 1HN).

INTERNET WORLD'S On Internet 94: an international guide to electronic journals, newsletters, texts, discussion lists, and other resources on the Internet. edited by Tony Abbott with a Preface by Daniel P. Dem. Westport, London: Mecklermedia, 1994. £29.50 $45.00. ISBN 0–88736–929–4.

S. BANG. The Internet unleashed. Indianapolis: SAMS Publishing, 1994. $44.95. ISBN 0 672 30466 X.

GAIL K. DICKINSON, Selection and evaluation of electronic resources. Libraries Unlimited, 1994. ISBN 1 56308 098 2. £22.50.     

Thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish eggs from the upper Great Lakes are related to maternal diet

Thiamine deficiency is responsible for reproductive impairment in several species of salmonines in the Great lakes, and is thought to be caused by the consumption of prey containing thiaminase, a thiamine-degrading enzyme. Because thiaminase levels are extremely high in dreissenid mussels, fish that prey on them may be susceptible to thiamine deficiency. We determined thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis eggs from the upper Laurentian Great Lakes to assess the potential for thiamine deficiency and to determine if thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish eggs were related to maternal diet. Mean thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish eggs were highest in Lake Huron, intermediate in Lake Superior, and lowest in Lake Michigan. Some fish had thiamine concentrations below putative thresholds for lethal and sublethal effects in salmonines, suggesting that some larval lake whitefish may currently be at risk of at least sublethal effects of low thiamine concentrations, although thiamine thresholds are unknown for lake whitefish. Egg thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish eggs were statistically significantly related to isotopic carbon signatures, suggesting that egg thiamine levels were related to maternal diet, but low egg thiamine concentrations did not appear to be associated with a diet of dreissenids. Egg thiamine concentrations were not statistically significantly related to multifunction oxidase induction, suggesting that lower egg thiamine concentrations in lake whitefish were not related to contaminant exposure.     

Relationships Between Satellite Observed Lit Area and Water Footprints

Global water resources are vulnerable to depletion due to the increasing demand of an ever-increasing human population. A country’s water footprint is a measure of the total volume of water needed to produce the goods and services consumed by the country, including water originating beyond its own borders. The water footprint can be a critical indicator of global water resource use, but its practical application is hindered by a lack of comparable data across national boundaries. The purpose of this article is to test the applicability of the nighttime imagery products produced by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) for the assessment of the global water footprint. To accomplish this purpose, the average areal extent of nighttime lighting (lit area) is calculated from 1997 to 2001. Next, lit area is regressed on the total water footprint for each country, as indicated by the Water Footprint Network (WFN), to estimate that country’s total water footprint using nighttime imagery. Model residuals are analyzed at the national scale to understand the appropriateness of nighttime imagery for assessing water consumption. Results indicate strong positive correlations between lit area and total water footprint (TWF), domestic water withdrawal (DWW), and industrial water consumption (IWC) at the national scale. Overall, the analyses reveal that the rate of agricultural water consumption to total water footprint (AWCR) and population density can affect the precision of estimates when lit area is selected as a proxy to estimate water footprints.     

Building Illumination Coherent 3D Models of Large-Scale Outdoor Scenes

Systems for the creation of photorealistic models using range scans and digital photographs are becoming increasingly popular in a wide range of fields, from reverse engineering to cultural heritage preservation. These systems employ a range finder to acquire the geometry information and a digital camera to measure color detail. But bringing together a set of range scans and color images to produce an accurate and usable model is still an area of research with many unsolved problems. In this paper we address the problem of how to build illumination coherent integrated texture maps from images that were taken under different illumination conditions. To achieve this we present two different solutions. The first one is to align all the images to the same illumination, for which we have developed a technique that computes a relighting operator over the area of overlap of a pair of images that we then use to relight the entire image. Our proposed method can handle images with shadows and can effectively remove the shadows from the image, if required. The second technique uses the ratio of two images to factor out the diffuse reflectance of an image from its illumination. We do this without any light measuring device. By computing the actual reflectance we remove from the images any effects of the illumination, allowing us to create new renderings under novel illumination conditions.     

Electron beam lithography-assisted fabrication of Au nano-dot array as a substrate of a correlated AFM and confocal Raman spectroscopy

This paper documents a study of an Au nano-dot array that was fabricated by electron beam lithography on a glass wafer. The patterns that had features of 100nm dots in diameter with a 2-mum pitch comprised a total area of 200x200mum(2). The dot-shaped Cr underlayer was open to the air after developing Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). When dipped into the Cr etchant, the exposed Cr layer was eliminated from the glass wafer in a short period of time. In order to ultimately fabricate the Ti/Au dot arrays, Ti and Au were deposited onto the arrays with a thickness of 2 and 40nm, respectively. The lift-off procedure was carried out in the Cr etchant using sonication in order to completely remove the residual Cr/PMMA layer. The fabricated Au nano-dot array was then immersed in an Ag enhancing solution and then into an ethanol solution containing (N-(6-(Biotinamido)hexyl)-3'-(2'-pyridyldithio)-propionamide (Biotin-HPDP). The substrate was analyzed using a correlated atomic force microscopy (AFM) and confocal Raman spectroscopy. Through this procedure, position-dependent surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) signals could be obtained.     

石油生产中的多相流测量

在石油开采和生产过程中,流量测量的准确性比以往任何时候都更加重要了。目前全球的经济形势导致了石油需求的下降,因此石油价格最近开始了回落,不过据预测石油价格还会回升的。因为现在在非传统沉积物中开采石油是相当困难的,多相流的存在导致准确测量流量也变得更加困难。为了能够优化油井的生产并且准确计算出他们开采出的油量和天然气量,经营者开始寻求大量的方法来测量多相流。