A Distribution‐freeCUSUMChart for Monitoring Variability of AutocorrelatedProcesses

We present a distribution‐free tabular cumulative sum chart for monitoring the variability of an autocorrelated process. A quantity known as the asymptotic variance parameter is employed as a measure of the variability, and a distribution‐free tabular cumulative sum chart is applied to variance estimates calculated from batches of nonoverlapping samples. The proposed chart is applicable to a stationary process with a general marginal distribution and a general autocorrelation structure. It also determines control limits analytically without trial‐and‐error simulations. The performance of the proposed chart is tested on stationary processes with both normal and nonnormal marginals with various autocorrelation structures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High-efficiency Silicon Solar Cells: A Review

Over the past few decades, crystalline silicon solar cells have been extensively studied due to their high efficiency, high reliability, and low cost. In addition, these types of cells lead the industry and account for more than half of the market. For the foreseeable future, Si will still be a critical material for photovoltaic devices in the solar cell industry. In this paper, we discuss key issues, cell concepts, and the status of recent high-efficiency crystalline silicon solar cells.     

A study on the flow characteristics of butterfly valve with baffles

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - In the industry, globe valves, which are commonly used to precise control the flow rate along with opening and closing flow in pipes, are technically...     

Visualizing for the Non‐Visual: Enabling the Visually Impaired to Use Visualization

The majority of visualizations on the web are still stored as raster images, making them inaccessible to visually impaired users. We propose a deep‐neural‐network‐based approach that automatically recognizes key elements in a visualization, including a visualization type, graphical elements, labels, legends, and most importantly, the original data conveyed in the visualization. We leverage such extracted information to provide visually impaired people with the reading of the extracted information. Based on interviews with visually impaired users, we built a Google Chrome extension designed to work with screen reader software to automatically decode charts on a webpage using our pipeline. We compared the performance of the back‐end algorithm with existing methods and evaluated the utility using qualitative feedback from visually impaired users.     

Combination of vegetable soup and glucan demonstrates synergistic effects on macrophage-mediated immune responses

Vegetable soup (VS), a plant-based functional food, has been used as a traditional folk medicine and is attracting attention for its ability to enhance the immune response. β-Glucan, a well-established and effective immunomodulator, has synergistic effects when used in combination with some bioactive compounds. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the synergistic immunomodulatory effects of the combination of VS and β-glucan on macrophage-mediated immune responses. β-Glucan was demonstrated to synergistically enhance the VS-stimulated immune response, including the production of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and nitric oxide, mainly through the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in macrophages. In addition, this combination has the potential for further development in functional foods with immune-enhancing activity.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10068-021-00888-x.     

High hydrostatic pressure extract of Siegesbeckia orientalis inhibits adipogenesis through the activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

Food Science and Biotechnology - St. Paul’s Wort (Siegesbeckia orientalis L.) confers anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-infertility, and immunosuppressive properties....     

Small‐Sized High‐Power PIN Diode Switch with Defected Ground Structure for Wireless Broadband Internet

This letter presents a small‐sized, high‐power single‐pole double‐throw (SPDT) switch with defected ground structure (DGS) for wireless broadband Internet application. To reduce the circuit size by using a slow‐wave characteristic, the DGS is used for the quarter‐wave (°/4) transmission line of the switch. To secure a high degree of isolation, the switch with DGS is composed of shunt‐connected PIN diodes. It shows an insertion loss of 0.8 dB, an isolation of 50 dB or more, and power capability of at least 50 W at 2.3 GHz. The switch shows very similar performance to the conventional shunt‐type switch, but the circuit size is reduced by about 50% simply with the use of DGS patterns.