Visual scoring of clots in foremilk

The necessary unequivocal and generally accepted definitions of normal and abnormal milk are not available. A precise definition is needed in order for companies to develop sensors to detect and sort abnormal milk at the time of milking. Experts at a workshop defined abnormal milk to be that from cows whose foremilk had changed in homogeneity or was coloured by blood. The objectives of this paper were: firstly, to explore how different groups of people scored the appearance of foremilk; and secondly, to develop a method suitable as an objective reference for testing of manual and automatic detection systems. Consumers, farmers and advisors did not agree on the visual appearance of normal, watery, clotty milk, or milk with blood, and experience is needed to score the visual appearance of foremilk correctly. It seems reasonable to expect a sensitivity of at least 70% for detection of abnormal milk during foremilking. Filter sizes 0.05, 0.07, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mm were used to filter milk from cows with visually abnormal foremilk. If clots appeared in the foremilk, clots appeared on all size filters, but the filter with pore size 0.1 mm was the easiest to read and work with. The filter method is not reliable in identifying quarters with watery, yellowish, or bloody milk, whereas the method seems consistent, and at least as good as scoring of visual appearance in finding clots in the milk. Clots should show clearly on the filter to be counted as abnormal milk. All clinical cases with clots in the foremilk can be found on the filter and such cases have high somatic cell count (SCC). Both trained and untrained persons using the filter method can score normal and abnormal foremilk with a high specificity (>90%) and a high sensitivity (>80%). The filter method is recommended as a reference for scoring the homogeneity of foremilk.     

Liquidus Temperature of SrO-Al2O3-SiO2 Glass-Forming Compositions

Despite the important role of strontium aluminosilicate glasses in various technologies, there is no available phase diagram for this ternary system in the ACerS-NIST Phase Equilibria Diagrams Database. Establishing the liquidus surface (liquidus temperature T_liq and primary devitrification phase) is crucial for glass composition design, because the liquidus temperature is intimately connected with the glass-forming ability of the melt. In this work, we have determined the liquidus surface by X-ray diffraction phase analyses of isothermally reacted samples from powder mixtures of 24 compositions. In the composition range of interest for industrial glasses, T_liq tends to decrease with increasing strontium-to-alumina ratio. We find that cristobalite, mullite, and slawsonite are the dominant devitrification phases for the compositions with high SiO₂, SiO₂+Al₂O₃, and SrO contents, respectively. By comparison with the phase diagrams for CaO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ and MgO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ systems, we have found that for the highest [RO]/[Al₂O₃] ratios, T_liq exhibits a minimum value for R = Ca. Based on the phase diagram established here, the composition of glass materials, for example, for liquid crystal display substrates, belonging to the SrO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ family may be designed with a more exact control of the glass-forming ability by avoiding the regions of high liquidus temperature.     

Distributed Learning Automata-based S-learning scheme for classification

Pattern Analysis and Applications - This paper proposes a novel classifier based on the theory of Learning Automata (LA), reckoned to as PolyLA. The essence of our scheme is to search for a...     

Information‐driven robotic sampling in the coastal ocean

Efficient sampling of coastal ocean processes, especially mechanisms such as upwelling and internal waves and their influence on primary production, is critical for understanding our changing oceans. Coupling robotic sampling with ocean models provides an effective approach to adaptively sample such features. We present methods that capitalize on information from ocean models and in situ measurements, using Gaussian process modeling and objective functions, allowing sampling efforts to be concentrated to regions with high scientific interest. We demonstrate how to combine and correlate marine data from autonomous underwater vehicles, model forecasts, remote sensing satellite, buoy, and ship‐based measurements, as a means to cross‐validate and improve ocean model accuracy, in addition to resolving upper water‐column interactions. Our work is focused on the west coast of Mid‐Norway where significant influx of Atlantic Water produces a rich and complex physical–biological coupling, which is hard to measure and characterize due to the harsh environmental conditions. Results from both simulation and full‐scale sea trials are presented.     

Performance Comparison of Controllers with Fault-Dependent Control Allocation for UAVs

This paper combines fault-dependent control allocation with three different control schemes to obtain fault tolerance in the longitudinal control of unmanned aerial vehicles. The paper shows that fault-dependent control allocation is able to accommodate actuator faults that would otherwise be critical and it makes a performance assessment for the different control algorithms: an \(\mathcal {L}_{1}\) adaptive backstepping controller; a robust sliding mode controller; and a standard PID controller. The actuator faults considered are the partial to total loss of the elevator, which is a critical component for the safe operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. During nominal operation, only the main actuator, namely the elevator, is active for pitch control. In the event of a partial or total loss of the elevator, fault-dependent control allocation is used to redistribute control to available healthy actuators. Using simulations of a Cessna 182 aircraft model, controller performance and robustness are evaluated by metrics that assess control accuracy and energy use. System uncertainties are investigated over an envelope of pertinent variation, showing that sliding mode and \(\mathcal {L}_{1}\) adaptive backstepping provide robustness, where PID control falls short. Additionally, a key finding is that the fault-dependent control allocation is instrumental when handling actuator faults.     

Modeling of nonlinear responses for reciprocal transducers involving polarization switching

Nonlinearities and hysteresis effects in a reciprocal PZT transducer are examined by use of a dynamical mathematical model on the basis of phase-transition theory. In particular, we consider the perovskite piezoelectric ceramic in which the polarization process in the material can be modeled by Landau theory for the first-order phase transformation, in which each polarization state is associated with a minimum of the Landau free-energy function. Nonlinear constitutive laws are obtained by using thermodynamical equilibrium conditions, and hysteretic behavior of the material can be modeled intrinsically. The time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau theory is used in the parameter identification involving hysteresis effects. We use the Chebyshev collocation method in the numerical simulations. The elastic field is assumed to be coupled linearly with other fields, and the nonlinearity is in the E-D coupling. We present numerical results for the reciprocal-transducer system and identify the influence of nonlinearities on the system dynamics at high and low frequency as well as electrical impedance effects due to tuning by a series inductance. It is found that nonlinear effects are not important at high frequencies (1 MHz) subject to high-input voltages, but they become important under high-voltage and off-resonance conditions.     

Error estimation based on Superconvergent Patch Recovery using statically admissible stress fields

In this paper we investigate an approach for a posteriori error estimation based on recovery of an improved stress field. The qualitative properties of the recovered stress field necessary to obtain a conservative error estimator, i.e. an upper bound on the true error, are given. A specific procedure for recovery of an improved stress field is then developed. The procedure can be classified as Superconvergent Patch Recovery (SPR) enhanced with approximate satisfaction of the interior equilibrium and the natural boundary conditions. Herein the interior equilibrium is satisfied a priori within each nodal patch. Compared to the original SPR-method, which usually underestimates the true error, the present approach gives a more conservative estimate. The performance of the developed error estimator is illustrated by investigating two plane strain problems with known closed-form solutions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

利用现代智能电池技术延长电池寿命

锂离子电池因其能量密度高而在便携应用中倍受青睐。但其电池管理系统并不尽如人意。结果不是电池比预期提前结束寿命就是造成剩余电量的浪费。针对对这种情况,智能电源管理系统应运而生,能够准确地对电池剩余电量进行估计,令电池的使用达到最佳化。     

A method for spatial interpolation of wind climatologies

The local wind climate is described by probability distributions for the wind direction and for the wind speed given a certain direction. As an alternative to the latter, the wind speed may be described by its statistical moments which are easily integrated over all directions. This allows representation of the wind climatology as a set of directionally independent statistics and the corresponding normalized directional distributions often called wind roses. The methodology is to spatially interpolate wind climatologies in an irregular mesh by two‐dimensioanl third‐order Bézier polynomials for the directionally independent statistics and linear interpolation for the wind roses. Local Bézier surfaces are set up in a patchwork of triangles and adjusted for approximate first‐order geometric continuity (GC¹) and minimal surface curvature. The wind rose interpolation is calculated relative to a typical local wind direction by means of Fourier transformation. A complementary surface extrapolation method is suggested which retains continuity on the grid boundary and asymptotically linear variation away from this. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conscious and anaesthetised Göttingen mini-pigs as an in-vivo model for buccal absorption – pH-dependent absorption of metoprolol from bioadhesive tablets

The potential of buccal mucosa as a site for systemic absorption has attracted increased attention in recent years creating a need for new predictive in-vivo models. The aim of this study was to evaluate anaesthetised and conscious Göttingen mini-pigs as a model for buccal drug absorption by testing pH-dependent absorption of metoprolol from a solid dosage form. Buccal tablets buffered to pH 6.2 and pH 8.9, oral liquid and intravenous injection were tested in four conscious and anaesthetised Göttingen mini-pigs in a non-randomised cross-over study. Blood samples were collected and processed before analysis by ultra-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry detection. An ex-vivo flow retention model was applied to study release and retention of the bioadhesive buccal tablets. The T_max obtained from the two buccal conscious groups (55?±?5 and 35?±?5?min) were significantly different to the buccal anaesthetised groups (120?±?0 and 165?±?15?min) for buccal tablet pH 6.2 and pH 8.9, respectively. Also, the absolute bioavailability from the anaesthetised buccal tablet pH 8.9 (20.7?±?4.0%) had a significant increase compared to all other buccal tablet groups. In conclusion, this study showed a pH-dependent absolute bioavailability of metoprolol when administrated as bioadhesive buccal tablets to anaesthetised mini-pigs. The anaesthesia was found to delay the time to reach maximal plasma concentration of metoprolol as compared to the conscious pig model when administrated as buccal tablets.