Characterization of rheological properties of systems containing sugar substitutes and carrageenan

The effects of addition of κ-carrageenan to solutions containing 40% (w/w) sugar substitute on the rheological properties of these systems were investigated at 25 °C using a rotational viscometer at rotational speeds of 6, 12, 30, and 60 rev min⁻¹. The flow behaviour of the solutions was adequately described by the power law model with or without yield stress. The consistency index ( K ) and the flow behaviour index ( n ) were determined from shear stress vs. shear rate data. The flow parameters of the solutions depended on the carrageenan concentration. The apparent viscosities of the systems decreased with increasing shear rate, indicating pseudoplastic behaviour. The final carrageenan concentration was found to be an effective factor controlling the degree of sliminess of the model food systems studied.     

The influence of dietary iron on zinc in rat

Cortical bone remodeling rates for rib samples from three archaeological populations and a modern autopsy sample were determined using an algorithm developed by Frost (Frost [1987a] Calcif. Tissue Res. 3:211-237). When plotted against the relative antiquities for population samples, histomorphometric variables; i.e., activation frequency (mu rc), net bone formation (netVf,r,t), and mean annual bone formation rate (Vf,r,t), exhibit a concordant trend of increased cortical bone remodeling activity levels over time. Two intensive foraging populations, Windover and Gibson, are similar for all bone remodeling parameters and have the lowest remodeling activity levels among the samples. The more recent Ledders sample, which is reported to practice agricultural subsistence, is consistently intermediate between these and a modern autopsy sample. Although there appear to be differences in bone formation rates among the populations it is concluded that these differences cannot be attributed to differences in bone remodeling rates among the populations, but rather are reflecting different effective ages of adult compacta for their ribs. These findings suggest that the earlier populations, particularly Windsor and Gibson, appear to have reached skeletal maturity at an older age than observed for modern.     

THE ORIGIN AND MIGRATION PATHS OF HYDROCARBONS ACCUMULATED IN THE LOWER CRETACEOUS SANDSTONE "GIANT" TAR ACCUMULATIONS OF ALBERTA-II

The first part of this study was published in the last issue, 7 , (4) 381–402, October 1984. The conclusion on p. 103, and references which follow, apply to both papers.     

Synthesis and characterization of poly(N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone) grafted sodium alginate hydrogel beads for the controlled release of indomethacin

Graft copolymers of sodium alginate (NaAlg) with N‐vinyl‐2‐pyrrolidone were prepared using azobisisobutyronitrile as initiator. The graft copolymers (NaAlg‐g‐PVP) were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry. Polymeric hydrogel beads of NaAlg and NaAlg‐g‐PVP were prepared by crosslinking method using glutaraldehyde (GA) as a crosslinker in the hydrochloric acid catalyst (HCl) and these beads were used to deliver anti‐inflammatory drug, indomethacin (IM). Chemical stability of the IM after encapsulation into beads was confirmed by FTIR. Preparation conditions of the NaAlg‐g‐PVP beads were optimized by considering the percentage entrapment efficiency, particle size, swelling capacity and their release data. In vitro release studies were performed in simulated gastric fluid (pH 1.2) for the initial 2 h, followed by simulated intestinal fluid (pH 7.4) for 4 h. Effects of GA concentration, exposure time to GA, drug/polymer (d/p) ratio, and concentration of HCl on the release of IM were discussed. It was observed that IM release from the beads decreased with increasing GA concentration and exposure time. IM release also decreases with increasing d/p ratio and HCl concentration. The highest IM release was obtained to be 77% for beads crosslinked with 0.027M GA. Swelling experiments were also performed to compute molecular mass between crosslinks of the beads. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Methacrylic acid–acrylamide-g-poly(ethyleneterephthalate) fibres for urea hydrolysis

This paper presents the results of urease immobilization onto methacrylic acid–acrylamide grafted poly(ethyleneterephthalate) fibres. The graft yield strongly affected the maximum activity of the immobilized enzyme up to a value of 70·2%. Higher grafting caused a decline in urease activity and led to the degradation of the fibres. The minor changes observed in K_m and V_max demonstrated that the conformational changes existed during immobilization were not extensive. However, 70·2% methacrylic acid–acrylamide-g-fibres containing urease were more stable towards acidic and alkaline pH, high temperature and storage conditions compared with free enzyme. Apart from the increase in stability to heat inactivation, the initial enzymatic activity of the urease–fibre system remained almost unchanged even after 40 repeated assays corresponding to 10 h of operation in 4 months, indicating the excellent durability of the system.     

HihO: accelerating artificial intelligence interpretability for medical imaging in IoT applications using hierarchical occlusion

Neural Computing and Applications - In the medical imaging domain, nonlinear warping has enabled pixel-by-pixel mapping of one image dataset to a reference dataset. This co-registration of data...     

Use of center of gravity with the common vector approach in isolated word recognition

In this paper, the subspace based classifier, common vector approach (CVA), with the center of gravity (COG) method is used for isolated word recognition. Since the CVA classifier is sensitive to shifts through the time axis, endpoint detection becomes extremely important for the recognition of isolated words. The COG method eliminates the need for endpoint detection. The effects of the COG method and a classical endpoint detection algorithm on the recognition rates of isolated words are investigated. The experimental results show that the COG method yields slightly higher recognition rates than the endpoint detection method in the TI-digit database when CVA is used.     

An automatic diabetes diagnosis system based on LDA-Wavelet Support Vector Machine Classifier

In this paper, an automatic diagnosis system for diabetes on Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Morlet Wavelet Support Vector Machine Classifier: LDA–MWSVM is introduced. The structure of this automatic system based on LDA-MWSVM for the diagnosis of diabetes is composed of three stages: The feature extraction and feature reduction stage by using the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) method and the classification stage by using Morlet Wavelet Support Vector Machine (MWSVM) classifier stage. The Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) is used to separate features variables between healthy and patient (diabetes) data in the first stage. The healthy and patient (diabetes) features obtained in the first stage are given to inputs of the MWSVM classifier in the second stage. Finally, in the third stage, the correct diagnosis performance of this automatic system based on LDA–MWSVM for the diagnosis of diabetes is calculated by using sensitivity and specificity analysis, classification accuracy, and confusion matrix, respectively. The classification accuracy of this system was obtained at about 89.74%.     

The modeling of mode choices of intercity freight transportation with the artificial neural networks and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system

Mode choice modeling is probably the most important element of transportation planning. It affects the general efficiency of travel and the allocation of resources. The development of mode choice models has recently witnessed significant advances in many fields, such as passenger and freight transport. A large number of mathematical models have been used to model the traveler’s choice of mode and destination and the shipper’s choice of mode, shipment size and supply market, among others. Such models are not only becoming almost intractable but also data intensive, difficult to calibrate and update, and intransferable. These models cover a wide range of mathematical complexity and accuracy. This paper describes a new approach to mode choice of intercity freight transport modeling using artificial neural networks (ANNs) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models. The new approach combines the learning ability of artificial neural networks and the transparent nature of fuzzy logic. The approach is found to be highly adaptive and efficient in investigating non-linear relationships among different variables. The adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system model is tested on the freight transport market in Turkey, Germany, France and Austria by using information on the freight flows and their attributes. The ANNs and ANFIS models are more successful in the representation of the non-linear behavior of mode choice of intercity freight transport compared to the classical models.     

Mobile multi-view object image search

High user interaction capability of mobile devices can help improve the accuracy of mobile visual search systems. At query time, it is possible to capture multiple views of an object from different viewing angles and at different scales with the mobile device camera to obtain richer information about the object compared to a single view and hence return more accurate results. Motivated by this, we propose a new multi-view visual query model on multi-view object image databases for mobile visual search. Multi-view images of objects acquired by the mobile clients are processed and local features are sent to a server, which combines the query image representations with early/late fusion methods and returns the query results. We performed a comprehensive analysis of early and late fusion approaches using various similarity functions, on an existing single view and a new multi-view object image database. The experimental results show that multi-view search provides significantly better retrieval accuracy compared to traditional single view search.