Farmers' preferences for adopting on-farm concentration of raw milk: Results from a discrete choice experiment in Germany

Milk concentrates are used in the manufacturing of dairy products such as yogurt and cheese or are processed into milk powder. Processes for the nonthermal separation of water and valuable milk ingredients are becoming increasingly widespread at farm level. The technical barriers to using farm-manufactured milk concentrate in dairies are minimal, hence the suspicion that the practice of on-farm raw milk concentration is still fairly uncommon for economic reasons. This study, therefore, set out to investigate farmers' potential willingness to adopt a raw milk concentration plant. The empirical analysis was based on discrete choice experiments with 75 German dairy farmers to identify preferences and the possible adoption of on-farm raw milk concentration. The results showed that, in particular, farmers who deemed the current milk price to be insufficient viewed on-farm concentration using membrane technology as an option for diversifying their milk sales. We found no indication that adoption would be impeded by a lack of trustworthy information on milk processing technologies or capital.     

Flow distribution and mass removal in floating treatment wetlands arranged in series and spanning the channel width

Floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) use plants’ roots for water quality improvement. The plants are supported by a buoyant structure deployed at the water surface. The roots form a porous zone beneath the structure and remove pollutants carried in suspension through filtering, absorption and uptake. This paper used CFD simulation to model FTWs arranged in series and spanning the channel width and to study the effects of root length and spacing between FTWs on flow distribution and mass removal. The root zone was modelled as a porous media, and removal was computed using first-order decay, for which a range of removal constants was tested. Longer roots increased the reactive volume of the root zone, which increased the fraction of pollutant inflow entering the FTWs. Increasing the distance between FTWs allowed greater mixing between water that went through and beneath the upstream FTW. This increased the concentration entering each FTW, which enhanced mass removal per FTW. However, a larger distance between FTWs reduced the number of FTWs in the channel, reducing the reactive volume. In the tradeoff between mixing and reactive volume, the reactive volume was more important, such that total removal in the channel increased with longer roots and more units of FTW (shorter gap distance). However, removing the gap entirely was detrimental, as FTWs in series removed more mass than a continuous FTW of same volume. This study points to two design recommendations for FTWs in series. First, if resources for building FTWs are not limiting, but the channel length is, it is preferable to prioritize higher reactive volume (shorter gap distance) to achieve maximum removal per channel length. Second, if resources for FTWs are limiting, but channel length is not, it is better to place the FTWs with a longer gap distance, preferably along enough to allow mixing over the full depth between FTWs, as this will achieve maximum removal per FTW.     

No-Reference Video Quality Assessment using novel hybrid features and two-stage hybrid regression for score level fusion

This paper presents a novel No-Reference Video Quality Assessment (NR-VQA) model that utilizes proposed 3D steerable wavelet transform-based Natural Video Statistics (NVS) features as well as human perceptual features. Additionally, we proposed a novel two-stage regression scheme that significantly improves the overall performance of quality estimation. In the first stage, transform-based NVS and human perceptual features are separately passed through the proposed hybrid regression scheme: Support Vector Regression (SVR) followed by Polynomial curve fitting. The two visual quality scores predicted from the first stage are then used as features for the similar second stage. This predicts the final quality scores of distorted videos by achieving score level fusion. Extensive experiments were conducted using five authentic and four synthetic distortion databases. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other published state-of-the-art benchmark methods on synthetic distortion databases and is among the top performers on authentic distortion databases. The source code is available at https://github.com/anishVNIT/two-stage-vqa.     

Concentration dependence of physical properties of low temperature processed ZnO quantum dots thin films on polyethylene terephthalate as potential electron transport material for perovskite solar cell

Colloidal Zinc oxide quantum dots (ZnO QDs) prepared with varying concentrations through precipitation method were deposited on flexible ITO/PET substrates using spin-coating technique. Various characterization tools were utilized to investigate the morphological, structural, electrical and optical properties of the films. The crystallinity of the films was found to improve with increasing ZnO QD concentration (ZQ_C) as evident from the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) studies. Crystallographic and optical parameters were evaluated and explained in depth. The average nanograin size and bandgap were increased and decreased respectively, from ～5 nm to ～8 nm and 3.29 eV–3.24 eV with an increase in ZQ_C from 10 mg/mL to 70 mg/mL. Columnar structure growth of the films is revealed by AFM results. The films showed decent optical transparency up to 81%. All the ZnO films exhibited n-type semiconducting property as indicated by the electrical measurements with carrier mobility and low resistivity of 12.21–26.63 cm²/Vs and 11.84 × 10^?3 to 13.16 × 10^?3 Ω cm respectively. Based on the experimental findings, ZnO QD nanostructure film grown at 50 mg/mL is envisaged to be a potential candidate for flexible perovskite photovoltaic application.     

提升管内颗粒浓度梯度力的特性

由于Kutta-Joukowski横向力与浓度梯度力的共同作用，提升管内颗粒沿径向在边壁大量聚集并形成稳定的环?核结构。根据实验数据，分析了颗粒浓度梯度的径向分布特征，考察了不同操作条件下浓度梯度力系数K的分布特性。由Kutta-Joukowski横向力与浓度梯度的关系，提出了浓度梯度力的表达式Fρ=K(dρ/dr)A及浓度梯度力系数K的表达式K=[?ρg(νg?νp)(?v/?r)r]/?dρ/dr+(d2ρ/dr2)r?。提升管内颗粒群受到的浓度梯度力与浓度梯度力系数K有关。浓度梯度力系数K在提升管中心处为0，沿提升管径向呈“N”型分布，随表观气速增加而增加；提升管内充分发展段K的数值明显大于提升管加速区和出口约束区，总结了浓度梯度力系数K的经验关联式。     

从Pentawards奖看扁平化视觉元素在包装设计中的应用

探讨扁平化视觉元素在包装设计中的运用方法及影响,丰富食品包装应用设计的创作理念和风格样式。以Pentawards获奖作品为研究对象,综合分析图形、文字、色彩和版面等核心视觉要素呈现的扁平化特征与原则。结果表明,扁平化视觉元素在包装设计中的运用方法:图形简洁矢量化、颜色稚拙块状化、文字扁平模块化、版面简约秩序化,产生了品牌形象个性化、信息传达效率高、多媒体适用性强等影响,验证了扁平化设计理念在包装设计的可行性与有效性。     

基于边缘和局部熵融合的视觉安全性评估方法

针对基于局部熵进行加密图像视觉安全性评估存在块效应的局限性，引入图像的边缘特征，通过共有边缘来衡量加密图像与原始图像的边缘相似度，消除了块效应。由于局部熵对加密等级低的图像不敏感，边缘相似度对加密等级高的图像不敏感，将两个评估方法进行自适应融合，提出[SLEES]（Local Entropy and Edge Similarity，[SLEES]）指标。通过改变图像像素位置和图像像素值的加密方式处理图像和视频帧进行测试，实验结果表明，[SLEES]指标相比传统评估指标有更好的鲁棒性，评估范围更广。     

安徽省铜陵市铁山头铜矿床地质特征及找矿潜力

铁山头铜矿床处于铜陵矿集区的中东部，属于扬子陆块下扬子凹陷中的铜陵隆起。矿床位于凤凰山矿田北侧，成矿潜力较大。综合研究分析认为：①接触交代作用使得岩体接触带及附近变质形成矽卡岩矿化带；②区内凤凰山岩体（花岗闪长岩）系成矿母岩；③矿体主要赋存于花岗闪长岩与三叠系下统南陵湖组石灰岩接触带上；④矿床成因类型为高—中温热液交代矽卡岩型矿床。     

铅锌多金属矿分段浓缩选别技术的研究与应用

通过多碎细磨、原矿分级溢流优先浓缩脱水,进行了高浓度选铅银、选锌,锌尾矿再浓缩脱水选硫、选锰,同时匹配合理的选矿药剂,原矿浓缩水回用于磨矿分级和选铅,锌尾浓缩水回用于选锌,尾矿浓缩水回用于选硫、选锰,剩余各种废水经适度处理回用于选铅和磨矿分级等,使一段磨矿细度-74μm从70%提高到80%,铅、锌、硫入选初始浓度分别提高到50%、40%、50%,选矿废水全部分质回用。铅锌硫银回收率分别提高了1.5、2.83、13.57、1.01个百分点,硫精矿主品位从38.9%提高到46.5%,设备减少40%、能耗降低25%,节约了选矿药剂消耗和废水处理费用,实现了铅锌多金属矿产资源的高效回收和节能环保。