Long-Term Changes in the Course of Ice Phenomena on the Oder River along the Polish–German Border

Ice phenomena are a major component of the hydrological regime of east-central and northern European rivers. However, their occurrence disturbs inland water transportation, particularly affecting the major rivers of the Central European Plain that are part of Europe’s international waterways. The Oder is one of these rivers, and is located on the boundary between the much warmer and the much colder part of the temperate climatic zone. This makes the course of ice phenomena on the river difficult to predict. The main purpose of this work is to document and analyse the dynamic of changes occurring for over 60 years (1956–2015) in the ice phenomena of a river that demonstrates a transitional ice regime. It was found that the duration of all ice phenomena decreased (by up to 0.58 days·year^?1) and so did the duration of ice cover (by up to 0.46 days·year^?1). The rates and trends of the two parameters were, however, different in different parts of the lower stretch of the river. This fact is especially important in the context of climate changes whose characteristics include an increased incidence of extreme weather situations, both meteorological and hydrological. There was also found to be a strong correlation (R² from 0.69 to 0.81) between the duration of ice phenomena and the mean air temperature in winter (December to February) and a much weaker correlation between the duration of ice phenomena and the NAO index (R² from 0.42 to 0.48). Such a little correlation of ice phenomena with NAO is likely to result from the pollution of the Oder River (in particular in the second half of the twentieth century) and icebreaking operations on the river.

     

Improving weld formability by a novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding

A novel dual-rotation bobbin tool friction stir welding (DBT-FSW) was developed, in which the upper shoulder (US) and lower shoulder (LS) have different rotational speeds. This process was tried to weld 3.2 mm thick aluminum-lithium alloy sheets. The metallographic analysis and torque measurement were carried out to characterize the weld formability. Experimental results show that compared to conventional bobbin tool friction stir welding, the DBT-FSW has an excellent process stability, and can produce the defect-free joints in a wider range of welding parameters. These can be attributed to the significant improvement of material flow caused by the formation of a staggered layer structure and the unbalanced force between the US and LS during the DBT-FSW process.     

A Constitutive Equation of Thermoelasticity for Solid Materials

A new constitutive equation of thermoelasticity for crystals is presented based on the interatomic potential and solid mechanics at finite temperature. Using the new constitutive equation, the calculations for crystal copper and graphene are carried out under different loading paths at different temperatures. The calculated results are in good agreement with those of the previous thermoelasticity constitutive equation based on quantum mechanics, which clearly indicates that our new constitutive equation of thermoelasticity is correct. A lot of comparisons also show that the present theory is more concise and efficient than the previous thermal stress theory in the practical application.     

Nutrient digestibility and endogenous protein losses in the foregut and small intestine of weaned dairy calves fed calf starters with conventional or enzyme-treated soybean meal

The aims of this experiment were (1) to compare the effects of a soybean meal with an enzymatic treatment (ESBM) to reduce the concentration of antinutritional factors versus a standard soybean meal (SBM) on foregut and small intestine digestion in weaned dairy calves and (2) to estimate the endogenous losses of crude protein (CP) in the small intestine. Our hypothesis was that a diet containing ESBM instead of SBM would improve ruminal and small intestine digestion and absorption of nutrients. A T-cannula was placed in the duodenum, and a second T-cannula was installed in the distal ileum of 12 Holstein calves at approximately 3 wk of age. Calves were weaned on d 42, and on d 50 they were assigned randomly to a quadruplicated 3 × 3 Latin square with 10-d periods. Digesta samples were collected on d 7 and 8 from the ileum and d 9 and 10 from the duodenum. The diets were fed for ad libitum intake and consisted of a calf starter (CS) of 20% CP with SBM as the main source of protein (CTRL), and an isonitrogenous CS with an ESBM instead of SBM (ENZT). A third diet with a low content of CP (10%) and no soy protein was fed to estimate endogenous N losses and digestibilities of test ingredients. Flows and digestibilities of nutrients were compared between CTRL and ENZT and their test ingredients (SBM vs. ESBM, respectively). Duodenal net flows of CP and total AA as well as ruminal microbial protein synthesis per kilogram of digested CP were greater, and flow of nonprotein N and CP true (corrected by endogenous and microbial flows) foregut digestibility were lower with ENZT than CTRL. The apparent small intestine digestibilities of CP and total AA were greater for ESBM than SBM, but there were no differences between the CTRL and ENZT diets. We observed no differences in digestibilities at the duodenum or ileum of starch or NDF, but true small intestine digestibilities of CP and all AA were greater with ENZT than CTRL. Total endogenous protein losses in the small intestine estimated from calves fed the low-CP with no soy protein diet were 37 ± 1.5 g of CP and 29 ± 1.4 g of AA/kg of DMI. These values may be considered the basal endogenous losses as they are similar to values obtained with the regression method, which estimates N losses when dietary N is null. Our results indicated that the inclusion of an ESBM improved the efficiency of ruminal microbial protein synthesis per digested kilogram of organic matter and CP, and increased CP and AA absorption in the small intestine despite a greater proportion of undigested dietary protein entering the duodenum.     

Food recognition using neural network classifier and multiple hypotheses image segmentation

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes the multiple-hypotheses image segmentation and feed-forward neural network classifier for food recognition to improve the performance. Initially, the food or meal image is given as input. Then, the segmentation is applied to identify the regions, where a particular food item is located using salient region detection, multi-scale segmentation, and fast rejection. Then, the features of every food item are extracted by the global feature and local feature extraction. After the features are obtained, the classification is performed for each segmented region using a feed-forward neural network model. Finally, the calorie value is computed with the aid of (i) food volume and (ii) calorie and nutrition measure based on mass value. The experimental results and performance evaluation are validated. The outcome of the proposed method attains 0.947 for Macro Average Accuracy (MAA) and 0.959 for Standard Accuracy (SA), which provides better classification performance.     

Preparation of Pure Uranium,Thorium, and Yttrium Oxides from El-Garra El-Hamra Sulfate Leach Liquor

Radiochemistry - The study deals with separation of uranium, thorium, and yttrium with highest possible purity from El-Garaa El-Hamara sulfate leach liquor. From the latter, almost complete...