CONTACT DRYIXG OF WOOD VENEER

A model for contact drying of wood veneer is presented and compared with experimental results. The model is and-dimensional and assumes that convective transport of liquid and vapor is dominant for the drying conditions examined. Model results are in good agreement with the experimental data.

A parameter study indicates that total drying time is a strong function of platen temperature and veneer thickness. The model indicates that the spacing of ventilation grooves does not affect drying rate significantly, but has a large effect on pressure buildup in the veneer. Veneer permeability shoved a similar effect--with lover permeabilities resulting in slightly slower drying, but significantly higher internal pressure.     

Accessory soleus presenting as a posterior ankle mass: a case report and literature review

The accessory soleus muscle is a rare anatomic variant that may present as a mass in the posterior-medial aspect of the ankle in young adults. The presence of such a mass may result in pain and difficulty with running. We present a case of accessory soleus muscle in a 21-year-old soldier and review the literature. We present the first magnetic resonance imaging studies in the American literature, to our knowledge, of this unusual anomaly.     

Dystrophic kyphoscoliosis in neurofibromatosis type I: a report of two cases and review of the literature

As the Department of Defense initiates Tricare, its new system of integrated health delivery, outcome assessment will become increasingly important. Traditional outcomes have focused on disease and its more serious consequences, disability and death. Patient satisfaction is only recently emerging as an important measure of the quality of health care delivery. In this paper, we focus on patient satisfaction, exploring its historical roots, its evolution as an outcome measure, and its potential utilities and weaknesses in quality assessment.     

Benchmarking large-scale data management for Internet of Things

The Journal of Supercomputing - In the current era of the Internet of Things (IoT), massive number of sensors are used in our daily lives. Sensors are everywhere around us. They exist in our homes,...     

Seasonality of diffusive exchange of polychlorinated biphenyls and hexachlorobenzene across the air-sea interface of Kaohsiung Harbor, Taiwan

Gaseous and dissolved concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) were measured in the ambient air and water of Kaohsiung Harbor lagoon, Taiwan, from December 2003 to January 2005. During the rainy season (April to September), gaseous PCB and HCB concentrations were low due to both scavenging by precipitation and dilution by prevailing southwesterly winds blown from the atmosphere of the South China Sea. In contrast, trace precipitation and prevailing northeasterly winds during the dry season (October to March) resulted in higher gaseous PCB and HCB concentrations. Instantaneous air-water exchange fluxes of PCB homologues and HCB were calculated from 22 pairs of air and water samples from Kaohsiung Harbor lagoon. All net fluxes of PCB homologues and HCB in this study are from water to air (net volatilization). The highest net volatile flux observed was + 172 ng m^− 2 day^− 1 (dichlorobiphenyls) in December, 2003 due to the high wind speed and high dissolved concentration. The PCB homologues and HCB fluxes were significantly governed by dissolved concentrations in Kaohsiung Harbor lagoon. For low molecular weight PCBs (LMW PCBs), their fluxes were also significantly correlated with wind speed. The net PCB and HCB fluxes suggest that the annual sums of 69 PCBs and HCB measured in this study were mainly volatile (57.4 × 10³ and 28.3 × 10³ ng m^− 2 yr^− 1, respectively) and estimated yearly, 1.5 kg and 0.76 kg of PCBs and HCB were emitted from the harbor lagoon surface waters to the ambient atmosphere. The average tPCB flux in this study was about one-tenth of tPCB fluxes seen in New York Harbor and in the Delaware River, which are reported to be greatly impacted by PCBs.     

3D characterization and localization of anatomical landmarks of the foot by FastSCAN

Anatomical landmarksBiomechanicsCurvature mapsThe landmarks on the body surface are important to shape and motion analysis. It is much better if the landmarks are anatomical ones, which are independent of position and coordinate system. The objective of this method is to present an easy-implemented method for extracting anatomical landmarks on the cylindraceous body surface which could be used in motion analysis or in medical treatment. The surface is scanned by FastSCAN (Polhemus, Colchester, Vermont, USA) and described by scattered three-dimensional surface points. The method provides the estimation of second-order derivatives by way of least-squares surface fitting to calculate the Gaussian curvature and mean curvature. To separate convexity from concavity, the Koenderink shape index maps of foot and leg are given as examples. The landmarks formed by underlying muscles and skeletal structures such as the malleoli distinguish themselves clearly on the Koenderink shape index maps. Minutes after the foot and leg are scanned, the curvature maps of the foot and leg provide the shape information and the loci of landmarks avail the statistical shape analysis as well as foot underside deformation analysis. Furthermore, the anatomical landmarks around the knee and ankle, defining the transcondylar and transmalleolar axis, make it possible to calculate the tibial torsion by this non-invasive way. Generally, this method is fast and accurate. However, it gives some inaccurate results on the patch edge, which should be interpreted with caution, when it is applied on a surface patch in other occasions because of a small number of points unevenly distributed in the operator. Presently, the method is computationally intensive although the time can be reduced to a few seconds at the sacrifice of image resolution. Further efforts will be made to get the real-time information.     

Asymptotic integration of nonoscillatory differential equations: a unified approach

We consider the equation [r(t)x′]′ + f(t)x = 0 as a perturbation of the equation [r(t)y′]′ + g(t)y = 0, where the latter is assumed to be nonoscillatory at infinity. The functions r and g are real-valued, r is positive, and f is complex-valued. The problem of the asymptotic integration of the perturbed equation in comparison with solutions of the unperturbed equation has been studied by many mathematicians, including Hartman and Wintner, Trench, ˇSimˇsa, Chen, and Chernyavskaya and Shuster. Here we apply a unified approach. Working in a matrix setting, we use preliminary and so-called conditioning transformations to bring the system in the form [(z)\vec] = [ L (t) + R(t) ][(z)\vec] \vec{z} = \left[ {\Lambda (t) + R(t)} \right]\vec{z} , where Λ is a certain diagonal matrix and R is an absolutely integrable perturbation. This allows us to use Levinson’s fundamental theorem to find the asymptotic behavior of solutions and, in addition, to estimate the error involved. This method allows us to derive these known results in a more unified setting and to weaken the hypotheses in some instances.