Effect of polysorbates on atenolol release from film-coated tablets

The effects of different concentrations of various polysorbates on the release rate of atenolol from film-coated tablets were evaluated. The release profile of atenolol showed that increasing the concentration of polysorbate resulted in an increase in the release rate of atenolol. The type of polysorbate had less effect on the release rate of atenolol. This study revealed that the release kinetic of atenolol from these film-coated tablets was a function of polysorbate concentration. Correlation coefficients of kinetic models could not solely determine the suitability of the models; the sum of the least square of differences also should be calculated when different kinetic models have similar correlation coefficients.     

Image thresholding based on the EM algorithm and the generalized Gaussian distribution

In this paper, a novel parametric and global image histogram thresholding method is presented. It is based on the estimation of the statistical parameters of “object” and “background” classes by the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, under the assumption that these two classes follow a generalized Gaussian (GG) distribution. The adoption of such a statistical model as an alternative to the more common Gaussian model is motivated by its attractive capability to approximate a broad variety of statistical behaviors with a small number of parameters. Since the quality of the solution provided by the iterative EM algorithm is strongly affected by initial conditions (which, if inappropriately set, may lead to unreliable estimation), a robust initialization strategy based on genetic algorithms (GAs) is proposed. Experimental results obtained on simulated and real images confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Analysis of deformations and stresses in balanced and unbalanced adhesively bonded single-strap joints

Adhesively bonded joints are increasingly being used in joining various structural components. Adequate understanding of the behaviour of adhesively bonded joints is necessary to ensure efficiency, safety and reliability of such joints. While several joint configurations, such as the single- and double-lap joints have received considerable consideration, the single-strap joint configuration has received little attention, partly because earlier studies have shown it to be the least efficient.

One of the objectives of this paper is to demonstrate that strap joints can be as efficient as lap joints, as long as they are properly designed. This will be done through a detailed analytical investigation into influence of the parameters that govern peak stresses in the adhesive. The next objective is to produce simple equations by which the design of strap joint could be facilitated in an effective manner. For this, the developed analytical expressions are simplified and shown to provide accurate results. The derived solutions provide better insight into understanding the parameters that most influence the edge forces.     

Dissolution-Seepage Coupled Analysis through Formations Containing Soluble Materials

Seepage flow can dissolve particulate soluble materials contained in soil layers and rock formations. The above-mentioned dissolution increases the porosity of the formation and hence seepage flow, which in turn progressively increases the dissolution rate. Due to progressive dissolution, several dams around the world have lost functionality or even failed. Dissolution propagation can be modeled as progress of a solution front, with its progression and resulting excess seepage coupled in the analysis. This is made possible in this paper by simultaneously solving the governing differential equation of seepage and the equation expressing progress of the solution front. The outcome (coupled differential equation) is nonlinear and transient, since both porosity and coefficient of permeability vary with the advancement of the solution front through the medium. The finite-element method is used to solve the resulting nonlinear partial differential equation. Using several examples, influence of material properties and geometry characteristics on the solution front progress and the resulting excess seepage loss is evaluated. Furthermore, effectiveness of different countermeasures (e.g., positive cutoffs and their positions) in dam foundations are studied. Contaminant transport can also be easily modeled and analyzed after applying some modifications into the approach.     

Inverse optimality in the class of Hopfield neural networks with input nonlinearity

This paper presents the chaos suppression problem in the class of Hopfield neural networks (HNNs) with input nonlinearity using inverse optimality approach. Using the inverse optimality technique and based on Lyapunov stability theory, a stabilizing control law, which is optimal with respect to meaningful cost functional, is determined to achieve global asymptotically stability in the closed-loop system. Numerical simulation is performed on a four-dimensional hyper-chaotic HNN to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Intelligent facial emotion recognition and semantic-based topic detection for a humanoid robot

Automatic perception of human affective behaviour from facial expressions and recognition of intentions and social goals from dialogue contexts would greatly enhance natural human robot interaction. This research concentrates on intelligent neural network based facial emotion recognition and Latent Semantic Analysis based topic detection for a humanoid robot. The work has first of all incorporated Facial Action Coding System describing physical cues and anatomical knowledge of facial behaviour for the detection of neutral and six basic emotions from real-time posed facial expressions. Feedforward neural networks (NN) are used to respectively implement both upper and lower facial Action Units (AU) analysers to recognise six upper and 11 lower facial actions including Inner and Outer Brow Raiser, Lid Tightener, Lip Corner Puller, Upper Lip Raiser, Nose Wrinkler, Mouth Stretch etc. An artificial neural network based facial emotion recogniser is subsequently used to accept the derived 17 Action Units as inputs to decode neutral and six basic emotions from facial expressions. Moreover, in order to advise the robot to make appropriate responses based on the detected affective facial behaviours, Latent Semantic Analysis is used to focus on underlying semantic structures of the data and go beyond linguistic restrictions to identify topics embedded in the users’ conversations. The overall development is integrated with a modern humanoid robot platform under its Linux C++ SDKs. The work presented here shows great potential in developing personalised intelligent agents/robots with emotion and social intelligence.     

Study of spray cooling of a pressure vessel head of a boiling water reactor

The present paper deals with a theoretical analysis of the spray cooling of a Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) head in a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR). To this end a detailed computational model has been developed. The model predicts the trajectories, diameters and temperatures of subcooled droplets moving in saturated vapor. The model has been validated through comparison with experimental data, in which droplet temperatures were measured as functions of the distance that they cover in saturated vapor from the moment they leave the sprinkler outlet to the moment they impact on the RPV head inner wall. The calculations are in very good agreement with measurements, confirming the model adequacy for the present study. The model has been used for a parametric study to investigate the influence of several parameters on the cooling efficiency of the spray system. Based on the study it has been shown that one of the main parameters that govern the temperature increase in a subcooled droplet is its initial diameter. Comparisons are also made between conclusions from the theoretical model and observations made through flow and temperature measurements in the plant (Forsmark 1 and 2). One of these observations is that the rate at which the RPV head temperature decreases on the way down from hot to cold standby is constant and independent of the sprinkling flow rate as long as the flow rate is above a certain minimum value. Accordingly, the theoretical model shows that if one assumes that the cooling of the RPV head is through a water film built on the inner wall due to sprinkling, the heat removal rate is only very weakly dependent on the sprinkling flow rate.     

Separating reflections from images by use of independent component analysis.

The image of an object can vary dramatically, depending on lighting, specularities, reflections, and shadows. It is often advantageous to separate these incidental variations from the intrinsic aspects of an image. We describe a method for photographing objects behind glass and digitally removing the reflections from the surface of the glass, leaving the image of the objects behind the glass intact. We describe the details of this method, which employs simple optical techniques and independent component analysis and show its efficacy with several examples.     

Blind inverse gamma correction

The luminance nonlinearity introduced by many imaging devices can often be described by a simple point-wise operation (gamma correction). This paper presents a technique for blindly estimating the amount of gamma correction in the absence of any calibration information or knowledge of the imaging device. The basic approach exploits the fact that gamma correction introduces specific higher-order correlations in the frequency domain. These correlations can be detected using tools from polyspectral analysis. The amount of gamma correction is then estimated by minimizing these correlations.