Control of Penicillium expansum and Botrytis cinerea on apples and pears with the combination of Candida sake and Pantoea agglomerans.

The effectiveness of Candida sake (CPA-1) in combination with Pantoea agglomerans (CPA-2) for controlling Penicillium expansum and Botrytis cinerea on pears and apples was determined. The concentrations tested were 2 x 10(6) and 2 x 10(7) CFU/ml for C. sake and 2 x 10(7) and 8 x 10(7) CFU/ml for P. agglomerans. At room temperature, the two antagonists were combined in proportions of 0 to 100% in 25% increments. At the proportion of 50:50, no rot development was observed in pears, and the greatest control of blue mold in apples was observed at this proportion for all the tested concentrations. Under cold temperature on pears, the highest effectiveness of the mixture was observed when C. sake at 2 x 10(7) CFU/ml was combined with P. agglomerans at 2 x 10(7) or at 8 x 10(7) CFU/ml at the proportion 50:50. Under these conditions, no rot development of blue mold was reported, and gray mold lesion size was reduced by more than 95%. On apples, the mixture of C. sake at 2 x 10(7) CFU/ml and P. agglomerans at 8 x 10(7) CFU/ml at the proportion 50:50 reduced blue and gray mold incidence by 90%. Populations of the two antagonists had the same growth pattern at 20 degrees C when they were applied individually or in combination, but the population level was always higher when they grew alone. In contrast, at 1 degrees C, the population of both antagonists in combination formed a stable community with the same levels as individual application during the first 30 days; after that, C. sake dominated, and P. agglomerans decreased on apples and pears. At both temperatures, the maximum population level of C. sake was observed in apples, and themaximum population level of P. agglomerans was observed in pears.     

Some Comments on Fullerene Terminology, Nomenclature, and Aromaticity

The sys ternatic IUPAC nomenclature of fullerenes and fullerones derivatives is discussed. Comments are made on terminology questions and on the chemical non-aromaticity of fullerenes.     

Perceptual strategies in the estimation of physical quantities by orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).

The perceptual strategies used by 4 orangutans (2 subadults, 2 adults) when choosing the larger of 2 volumes in a Piagetian conservation task were investigated. Three possible perceptual strategies were investigated: (a) direct perceptual estimation of the container's content independent of its shape, (b) use of the spatial and temporal cues provided by the pouring of liquid from one container to another, and (c) ability to initially identify the larger volume and track it across transformations disregarding misleading perceptual cues. Results indicated that the direct perceptual estimation strategy was the best candidate to explain the orangutan's systematic choice of the larger of 2 quantities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A kinetic model for pretreated wheat straw saccharification by cellulase

A kinetic model for enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated wheat straw able to describe the reaction process considering only macroscopic properties of enzyme and substrate would be useful in reactor design and scale-up. In this study Michaelis-Menten equations were used for different reaction schemes to fit experimental results obtained, working with enzyme loads between 5 and 44 i.u. g^?1 pretreated straw. Kinetic parameters were obtained by means of an optimization computer program.     

Diagnostic analysis of inventory systems: A Statistical Approach

In this paper we introduce a statistical approach to estimate the performance of inventory systems. We briefly survey the existing methods, present a stratified sampling methodology, and describe a new technique to estimate seasonal factors and safety stocks. The paper concludes with an example based on real life data.     

Beyond document object detection: instance-level segmentation of complex layouts

Information extraction is a fundamental task of many business intelligence services that entail massive document processing. Understanding a document page structure in terms of its layout provides contextual support which is helpful in the semantic interpretation of the document terms. In this paper, inspired by the progress of deep learning methodologies applied to the task of object recognition, we transfer these models to the specific case of document object detection, reformulating the traditional problem of document layout analysis. Moreover, we importantly contribute to prior arts by defining the task of instance segmentation on the document image domain. An instance segmentation paradigm is especially important in complex layouts whose contents should interact for the proper rendering of the page, i.e., the proper text wrapping around an image. Finally, we provide an extensive evaluation, both qualitative and quantitative, that demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed methodology over the current state of the art.

     

Trajectory tracking with a 6R serial industrial robot with ordinary and non-ordinary singularities

This work presents a trajectory control for non-redundant serial-link manipulators that is valid for trajectories with ordinary singularities of codimension one and non-ordinary singularities of any codimension. For this purpose, several singularity classifications are considered and a procedure is developed in order to solve the indeterminate motion of non-ordinary singularities. The proposed trajectory control is validated by simulation and by experiments with the six-revolute (6R) industrial robot KUKA KR 15/2. Recommended by Editor Jae-Bok Song. This work was supported by the Spanish Government: Research Project BIA2005-09377-C03-02. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their time and valuable comments that helped us to improve the quality of this paper. Luis Gracia received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Control Systems Engineering, from the Technical University of Valencia (UPV), Spain, in 1998, 2000, and 2006, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor at Department of Systems Engineering and Control (DISA) of the UPV. His research interests include wheeled mobile robots, robotic manipulators, system modeling and control. Javier Andres received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the UPV in 2003 and 2006, respectively. He is currently working on his Ph.D. His research interests include CAD/CAM/Robotics integration and robot post-processing. Josep Tornero received the M.S. Degree in Systems and Control from the University of Manchester in 1982, and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the UPV in 1985. He is currently a Professor at the DISA of the UPV and responsible for the ‘Automation in Manufacture and Mobile Robotics’ Group and the ‘Design Institute for the Manufacture and Automated Production’, both at the UPV. He is interested in modeling, control and simulation of auto-guided vehicles, robot arms, and multirate sampled data systems.     

An Interactive Case-Based Reasoning Approach for Generating Expressive Music

In this paper we present an extension of an existing system, called SaxEx, capable of generating expressive musical performances based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) techniques. The previous version of SaxEx used pre-fixed criteria within the different CBR steps and, therefore, there was no room for user interaction. This paper discusses the necessity of user interaction during the CBR process and how this decision enhances the capabilities and the usability of the system. The set of evaluation experiments conducted show the advantages of SaxEx's new interactive functionality, particularly for future educational applications of the system.