Computer vision based methods for detecting weeds in lawns

In this paper, two methods for detecting weeds in lawns using computer vision techniques are proposed. The first is based on an assumption about the differences in statistical values between the weed and grass areas in edge images and using Bayes classifier to discriminate them. The second also uses the differences in texture between both areas in edge images but instead applies only simple morphology operators. Correct weed detection rates range from 77.70 to 82.60% for the first method and from 89.83 to 91.11% for the second method. From the results, the methods show the robustness against lawn color change. In addition, the proposed methods together with a chemical weeding system as well as a non-chemical weeding system based on pulse high voltage discharge are simulated and the efficiency of the overall systems are evaluated theoretically. With a chemical based system, more than 72% of the weeds can be destroyed with a herbicide reduction rate of 90–94% for both methods. For the latter weeding system, killed weed rate varies from 58 to 85%.     

Use of Double Wash-Coatings of Platinum and Zeolite Catalysts to Improve Selective Reduction of NOx by Hydrocarbons

The selective catalytic reduction by hydrocarbons (HC-SCR) of NO _x under lean conditions has been improved by the use of double-layered catalysts with a lower layer of Pt/SiO₂ and an upper layer of a zeolite such as H-, Ce-, and Cu-ferrierite (-FER). H-FER wash-coated over Pt/SiO₂ (H-FER//Pt/SiO₂) performed best among the samples examined. The promotional effect was attributed to the synergy of the oxidation catalyst (Pt/SiO₂) in converting NO into NO₂, which is more reactive to C₃H₆, and the HC-SCR catalyst (H-FER). Cu-FER//Pt/SiO₂ was also effective at widening the temperature window, but with this combination the performance was attributed to a simple summation of the activity of two HC-SCR catalysts that were active at different temperatures.     

Development of a new pH-swing CO2 mineralization process with a recyclable reaction solution

A new CO₂ mineral sequestration process using the pH swing of a weak base–strong acid solution was proposed. In this process, an alkaline-earth metal was extracted selectively from silicate waste material, such as steelmaking slag or waste concrete, in an acidic condition using a weak base–strong acid solution. The reacted solution containing alkaline-earth metal ions and a weak-base, behaves as a CO₂ absorbent. The acidic extraction solution was regenerated from the basic absorbent solution by precipitating the alkaline-earth metal with CO₂ as the carbonate. The thermodynamic analysis of this process shows that a series of reactions proceeds spontaneously and the overall reaction is exothermic. The feasibility of the proposed process was confirmed using steelmaking slag as a silicate material and ammonium chloride solution as a weak base–strong acid solution. It was confirmed that this series of reaction proceeds successfully under mild conditions. Calcium ions were extracted selectively from steelmaking slag using an ammonium chloride solution, and the reacted solution absorbed CO₂ followed by the precipitation of CaCO₃ at 80 °C. On the basis of these experimental analyses, the energy consumption of the proposed process was roughly estimated as 300 kWh/ton-CO₂.     

Physicochemical Properties of Sweetpotato Starches with Different Gelatinization Temperatures

Physicochemical properties of five sweetpotato starches differing in gelatinization temperature were examined. The gelatinization temperature of Koganesengan starch, an ordinary cultivar of sweetpotato in Japan, was 73.6°C, whereas those of the other starches were measured to be 71.6°C for Kyukei 96162–1, 65.8°C for Kyushu No.127, 63.9°C for Kyukei 240, and 54.9°C for Quick Sweet. Some relationships of the primary structural properties with the gelatinization temperature have been found. As the gelatinization temperature decreased: i) the content of phosphate groups attached to the glucosyl residues decreased, ii) the amylose content, which was determined as difference in long chains of debranched original starch and of its amylopectin, decreased, iii) the proportion of unit chains with DP > 100 in the amylopectin fraction increased, iv) the proportion of unit chains with DP 6 to 10 in the amylopectin fraction increased, whereas that of unit chains with DP 12 to 24 decreased, v) the B‐type crystallinity of the starch granules was enhanced, and vi) the proportion of longer chains constituting each Nägeli amylodextrin increased. Moreover, it was found that thin pastes of the low temperature‐gelatinizing starches retrograded slower during cold storage than the ordinary starch. Among the starches, Quick Sweet starch granules, having the lowest gelatinization temperature, were digested rapidly by pancreatin.     

Preparation and Mechanical Performance of Rare Earth- Containing Composite Elastomer

Ｌａｎｔｈａｎｉｄｅｃｏｍｐｏｕｎｄｓｂｅｇａｎｔｏｂｅｕｓｅｄａｓｐｌａｓｔｉｃｓｔａｂｉｌｉｚｅｒｉｎｔｈｅ 1 980ｓ[1] .Ｓｉｎｃｅｔｈｅｎ ,ｒａｒｅｅａｒｔｈ (ＲＥ)ｃｏｍｐｏｕｎｄｓｈａｖｅｂｅｅｎｌａｒｇｅｌｙａｐｐｌｉｅｄｉｎＲＥ ｃｏｎｔａｉｎｉｎｇｐｏｌｙｍｅｒｂａｓｅｄｃｏｍｐｏｓｉｔｅ .Ａｎｕｍｂｅｒｏｆｐｌａｓｔｉｃａｎｄｒｕｂｂｅｒｉｔｅｍｓｗｉｔｈｂｅｔｔｅｒｍｅｃｈａｎｉｃａｌｐｒｏｐｅｒｔｉｅｓｗｅｒｅｄｅｖｅｌｏｐｅｄ ,ａｓｗｅｌｌａｓｎｅｗｔｙｐｅｓｏｆｐｏｌｙｍ…     

含铝PSBR复合橡胶的制备及其力学性能

利用铝的醇盐与PSBR季铵盐乳液反应,制成含铝有机－无机杂化弹性体胶片,再与天然橡胶进行并用,制得含铝PSBR复合硫化胶,这种复合硫化胶具有优良的力学性能和独特的抗震作用,用IR和NMR以及其它方法分析了其相关结构.     

Speech-to-Lip Movement Synthesis by Maximizing Audio-Visual Joint Probability Based on the EM Algorithm

In this paper, we investigate a Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based method to drive a lip movement sequence with input speech. In a previous study, we have already investigated a mapping method based on the Viterbi decoding algorithm which converts an input speech signal to a lip movement sequence through the most likely HMM state sequence using audio HMMs. However, the method can result in errors due to incorrectly decoded HMM states. This paper proposes a method to re-estimate visual parameters using HMMs of audio-visual joint probability using the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm. In the experiments, the proposed mapping method results in a 26% error reduction when compared to the Viterbi-based algorithm at incorrectly decoded bilabial consonants.     

Selective adsorption of nonionic surfactant on hexagonal mesoporous silicates (HMSs) in the presence of ionic dyes

Selective adsorption of alkylphenol polyethoxylates (APnEOs) from synthetic textile wastewater was investigated using hexagonal mesoporous silicates (HMSs). HMSs are synthetic silicate that have uniform mesopores, large surface areas and uniform surface functional groups. Five different types of HMSs were synthesized by surfactant-templating methods, and three of them were grafted with organic surface functional groups, i.e., n-octyldimethyl-, 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-, and 3-mercaptopropyl-groups. Titanium-substituted HMS was also made in the same way as HMS. Adsorption capacities and selectivities of these HMSs for APnEOs were investigated in batch adsorption experiments either in single-solute APnEO solutions or in mixed solutions with ionic dyes. Triton X-100 was used as a model APnEO and either Basic Yellow 1 or Acid Blue 45 was used as cationic or anionic dyes, respectively. All the HMSs except 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-grafted HMS had higher adsorption capacities of Triton X-100 than powdered activated carbon. HMS and Ti-HMS had the highest BET surface areas and mesopore volumes measured by the nitrogen adsorption method, and thereby the highest adsorption capacities for Triton X-100. Surface charge was the most important attractive force between HMSs and dyes. FT-IR spectra proved that hydrophilic HMSs adsorbed both Basic Yellow 1 and Acid Blue 45 by hydrogen bonding. Acid-base titration experiments revealed that all the HMSs except 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-grafted HMS were negatively charged at neutral pH, whereas PAC and 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-grafted HMS were positively charged. Due to negative surface charge, the anionic dye (Acid Blue 45) was not adsorbed on the four HMSs, which proves high selectivities of these HMSs for Triton X-100 over Acid Blue 45. On the contrary, a small amount of cationic dye (Basic Yellow 1) was adsorbed on all HMSs, but 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-grafted HMS showed the lowest adsorption capacity for Basic Yellow 1 due to positive surface charge. Unlike other silicate adsorbents, no surface solubilization was observed for all HMSs.     

Electrical Properties of a Bismuth Layer-Structured Ba2Bi4Ti5O18 Single Crystal

Ba₂Bi₄Ti₅O₁₈ single crystals were grown, and their dielectric permittivity, conductivity, and ferroelectricity were investigated along the a -(or b -)axis and the c -axis separately. The dielectric permittivity at 1 MHz along the a -(or b -)axis was 2000 at the Curie temperature (360°C); this value was 8 times greater than that along the c -axis. The dc conductivity was greater along the a -(or b -)axis than that along the c -axis, by one order of magnitude. In regard to the ferroelectricity, the saturated remanent polarization was 120 mC/m² and the saturated coercive field was 3 MV/m along the a -(or b -)axis; values of 8.5 mC/m² and 0.81 MV/m, respectively, were observed along the c -axis. The Ba₂Bi₄Ti₅O₁₈ single crystals had large electrical anisotropies, which were due to the layered structure.     

Reflection at transparent V-grooved surface

Reflection at transparent V-grooved surface was studied on the basis of geometrical analysis and ray tracing using Fresnel's formulas. For normally incident light, the reflectivity at the V-grooved surface of tilt angles between 0° and 30° and between 45° and 54° are approximated by the reflectivities and the squared reflectivities, respectively, at a smooth surface. For obliquely incident light, the V-grooved surface is effective to reduce the reflectivity at large angle of incidence by reducing the actual angle of striking the surface. In addition, the V-grooved surface of large tilt angle reduces the reflectivity at a small angle of incidence due to multiple reflections between adjacent opposite surfaces of the groove. The daily average reflectivity monotonically decreases with increasing tilt angle from 30° to its upper limit (59.1° for n=1.5) in the analysis. When normally incident light enters the layer and a part of it reflects at the rear surface, the escape from the upper surface can be prevented by serial total internal reflections at the upper surface of medium tilt angle (30.9°–41.0° for n=1.5).