A quick deviation zone fitting in coordinate metrology of NURBS surfaces using principle component analysis

Evaluation of the tolerance zone using discrete measured points plays a critical role in today’s manufacturing, metrology, and many industrial applications. The deviation zone is typically evaluated using a fitting method that locates an ideal desired geometry corresponding to a set of measured points while a function of the Euclidean distances of the measured points to the ideal surface becomes minimum. This paper presents a quick and reliable algorithm called Dynamic Principle Component Alignment (DPCA) for fitting complex surfaces to the coordinate metrology measured points using the information that is dynamically generated by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the measurement data and the corresponding fitted geometry. The developed algorithm efficiently eliminates the necessity for applying commonly used optimization methods for the fitting (localization) process, which decreases the computational cost and uncertainty of the evaluation process. Moreover, DPCA is very reliable and practical in coordinate metrology with large data sets in processes such as laser scanning and other optical methods. The results show that the proposed methodology more accurately finds fitting parameters in comparison with the other commonly used methods while the computational cost is considerably reduced.     

Aggregate nonparametric safety analysis of traffic zones

Exploring the significant variables related to specific types of crashes is vitally important in the planning stage of a transportation network. This paper aims to identify and examine important variables associated with total crashes and severe crashes per traffic analysis zone (TAZ) in four counties of the state of Florida by applying nonparametric statistical techniques such as data mining and random forest. The intention of investigating these factors in such aggregate level analysis is to incorporate proactive safety measures in transportation planning. Total and severe crashes per TAZ were modeled to provide predictive decision trees. The variables which carried higher weight of importance for total crashes per TAZ were – total number of intersections per TAZ, airport trip productions, light truck productions, and total roadway segment length with 35 mph posted speed limit. The other significant variables identified for total crashes were total roadway length with 15 mph posted speed limit, total roadway length with 65 mph posted speed limit, and non-home based work productions. For severe crashes, total number of intersections per TAZ, light truck productions, total roadway length with 35 mph posted speed limit, and total roadway length with 65 mph posted speed limit were among the significant variables. These variables were further verified and supported by the random forest results.     

Physicochemical property changes in germinated brown rice flour from different storage periods of paddy rice

This study revealed that the storage duration (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months) of paddy rice and pH (3 and 6.8) of steeping water during germination were significantly influenced the physicochemical properties of germinated brown rice flour (GBRF). GBRF obtained at pH 3 vs. 6.8 provided the highest both reducing sugar content and free gamma‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) content (99.8 vs. 54.2 mg per 100 g flour respectively) as the paddy rice was stored for 8 months. The peak viscosity of GBRF obtained at pH 3 and 6.8 exhibited the lower values than that of non‐GBRF throughout the storage. From the principal component analysis, reducing sugar had a positive correlation with α‐amylase activity whereas a negative correlation was found with peak viscosity. GBRF from paddy rice stored for 8 months and germinated at pH 3 possessed the highest free GABA content, 50 times of the non‐GBRF, which can be further utilised in functional and healthy foods.     

大气颗粒物及其组成研究进展(上)

颗粒物是空气中最重要的污染物之一,由于颗粒物表面的吸附作用,其组分非常复杂,其中含有多种有毒有害的化学成分,对大气环境造成不良影响,并危及人体健康。借助大气颗粒物及其组成成分的测定,通过污染源解析分析其来源及影响因素,控制大气颗粒物的排放,对于保证大气环境质量、改善人们的生存环境具有重大意义。本文对此进行综述。着重介绍大气颗粒物及其组成成分、源解析及测量技术的最新进展。     

Image selective restoration using multi-scale variational decomposition

In this paper we propose a multi-scale variational decomposition model for image selective restoration. Firstly, we introduce a single-parameter (BV, G, L²) variational decomposition functional and theoretically analyze the relationship between the parameter and the scale of image features. And then, by replacing the fixed scale parameter with a varying sequence in the single-parameter decomposition functional, we obtain the multi-scale variational decomposition which can decompose the input image into a series of image slices of different scales. Furthermore, we show some properties and prove the convergence of the multi-scale decomposition. Finally, we introduce an alternating and iterative method based on Chambolle’s projection algorithm to numerically solve the multi-scale variational decomposition model. Experiments are conducted on both synthetic and real images to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-scale variational decomposition. In addition, we use the multi-scale variational decomposition to achieve image selective restoration, and compare it with several state-of-the-art models in denoising application. The numerical results show that our model has better performance in terms of PSNR and SSIM indexes.     

Lipid production from sweet sorghum bagasse through yeast fermentation

Cryptococcus curvatus has great potential in fermenting unconditioned hydrolysates of sweet sorghum bagasse. With hydrolysates obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis of the solid pretreated by microwave with lime, the maximal yeast cell dry weight and lipid content were 10.83 g/l and 73.26%, respectively. For hydrolysates obtained in the same way but without lime, these two parameters were 15.50 g/l and 63.98%, respectively. During yeast fermentation, glucose and xylose were consumed simultaneously while cellobiose was released from the residual bagasse. The presence of lime, on one hand, made cellulose more accessible to enzymes as evidenced by higher total reducing sugar release compared to that without during enzymatic hydrolysis step; on the other hand, it caused the degradation of sugars to non-sugar chemicals during pretreatment step. As a result, higher lipid yield of 0.11 g/g bagasse or 0.65 ton/hectare of land was achieved from the pathway of microwave pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis while 0.09 g/g bagasse or 0.51 ton/hectare of land was attained from the process of lime-assisted microwave pretreatment followed by the same enzymatic saccharification.     

Analysis of tunnel displacement accuracy with total station

The remote distance measurement (RDM) method requires only common total stations and not special post-processing software. Moreover, this method is easy to operate and highly accurate results can be obtained. Therefore, RDM is used in the displacement monitoring of tunnel engineering. This study presents the calculation formulas for the crown settlement and wall convergence of tunnel as measured by RDM with total station. The mean error formulas are derived based on error propagation laws. When tunnel displacements measured by using total station with the m_s not more than 2 mm + 2D ppm (D is the measurement distance) and m_α not more than 1″, the horizontal distance between the rear viewpoint and the monitoring section is in the range of 50–150 m, the horizontal distance between the total station and the monitoring section ranges from 40 m to 60 m, and the total station is near the tunnel centerline, the measurement accuracy can reach 1 mm.     

Sugar-Pucker Force-Induced Transition in Single-Stranded DNA

The accurate knowledge of the elastic properties of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) is key to characterize the thermodynamics of molecular reactions that are studied by force spectroscopy methods where DNA is mechanically unfolded. Examples range from DNA hybridization, DNA ligand binding, DNA unwinding by helicases, etc. To date, ssDNA elasticity has been studied with different methods in molecules of varying sequence and contour length. A dispersion of results has been reported and the value of the persistence length has been found to be larger for shorter ssDNA molecules. We carried out pulling experiments with optical tweezers to characterize the elastic response of ssDNA over three orders of magnitude in length (60–14 k bases). By fitting the force-extension curves (FECs) to the Worm-Like Chain model we confirmed the above trend:the persistence length nearly doubles for the shortest molecule (60 b) with respect to the longest one (14 kb). We demonstrate that the observed trend is due to the different force regimes fitted for long and short molecules, which translates into two distinct elastic regimes at low and high forces. We interpret this behavior in terms of a force-induced sugar pucker conformational transition (C3′-endo to C2′-endo) upon pulling ssDNA.     

Enhanced saccharification of corn straw pretreated by alkali combining crude ligninolytic enzymes

BACKGROUND: This work investigated the monokaryogenesis of dikaryon strains of Trametes hirsuta by protoplasts regeneration for extracellular ligninolytic enzyme production. Saccharification of corn straw was enhanced by alkali pretreatment combining crude ligninolytic enzymes. RESULTS: Effectiveness of alkali pretreatment of corn straw on delignification was evaluated under different concentrations. About 45% lignin loss was achieved at the concentration of 1.5% NaOH. In addition, 79.0% sugar yield was obtained after combined pretreatment with NaOH and crude ligninolytic enzyme produced from monokaryotic strains of Trametes hirsuta. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed that the porosity and surface area increased significantly after combined pretreatment. The FTIR spectra indicated that great intensity changes occurred at the 890–900 cm^?1, 1509–1513 cm^?1 and 1595 cm^?1 bands. CONCLUSION: The proposed combined pretreatment removes lignin and enhances saccharification of corn straw effectively. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Effect of temperature and air velocity on drying kinetics, antioxidant capacity, total phenolic content, colour, texture and microstructure of apple (var. Granny Smith) slices

The aim of this work was to study the effect of temperature and air velocity on the drying kinetics and quality attributes of apple (var. Granny Smith) slices during drying. Experiments were conducted at 40, 60 and 80 °C, as well as at air velocities of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 m s⁻¹. Effective moisture diffusivity increased with temperature and air velocity, reaching a value of 15.30 × 10⁻⁹ m² s⁻¹ at maximum temperature and air velocity under study. The rehydration ratio changed with varying both air velocity and temperature indicating tissue damage due to processing. The colour difference, ΔE, showed the best results at 80 °C. The DPPH-radical scavenging activity at 40 °C and 0.5 m s⁻¹ showed the highest antioxidant activity, closest to that of the fresh sample. Although ΔE decreased with temperature, antioxidant activity barely varied and even increased at high air velocities, revealing an antioxidant capacity of the browning products. The total phenolics decreased with temperature, but at high air velocity retardation of thermal degradation was observed. Firmness was also determined and explained using glass transition concept and microstructure analysis.