Prestress strengthens the shell of Norwalk virus nanoparticles

We investigated the influence of the protruding domain of Norwalk virus-like particles (NVLP) on its overall structural and mechanical stability. Deletion of the protruding domain yields smooth mutant particles and our AFM nanoindentation measurements show a surprisingly altered indentation response of these particles. Notably, the brittle behavior of the NVLP as compared to the plastic behavior of the mutant reveals that the protruding domain drastically changes the capsid's material properties. We conclude that the protruding domain introduces prestress, thereby increasing the stiffness of the NVLP and effectively stabilizing the viral nanoparticles. Our results exemplify the variety of methods that nature has explored to improve the mechanical properties of viral capsids, which in turn provides new insights for developing rationally designed, self-assembled nanodevices.     

Models of the behaviour of (thermally stressed) microbial spores in foods: tools to study mechanisms of damage and repair

The ‘Omics’ revolution has brought a wealth of new mechanistic insights in many fields of biology. It offers options to base predictions of microbial behaviour on mechanistic insight. As the cellular mechanisms involved often turn out to be highly intertwined it is crucial that model development aims at identifying the level of complexity that is relevant to work at. For the prediction of microbiologically stable foods insight in the behaviour of bacterial spore formers is crucial. Their chances of germination and likelihood of outgrowth are major food stability indicators, as well as the transition from outgrowth to first cell division and vegetative growth. Current available technology to assess these parameters in a time-resolved manner at the single spore level will be discussed. Tools to study molecular processes operative in heat induced damage will be highlighted.     

Optical properties of apple skin and flesh in the wavelength range from 350 to 2200 nm

Optical measurement of fruit quality is challenging due to the presence of a skin around the fruit flesh and the multiple scattering by the structured tissues. To gain insight in the light-tissue interaction, the optical properties of apple skin and flesh tissue are estimated in the 350-2200 nm range for three cultivars. For this purpose, single integrating sphere measurements are combined with inverse adding-doubling. The observed absorption coefficient spectra are dominated by water in the near infrared and by pigments and chlorophyll in the visible region, whose concentrations are much higher in skin tissue. The scattering coefficient spectra show the monotonic decrease with increasing wavelength typical for biological tissues with skin tissue being approximately three times more scattering than flesh tissue. Comparison to the values from time-resolved spectroscopy reported in literature showed comparable profiles for the optical properties, but overestimation of the absorption coefficient values, due to light losses.     

Real‐time density‐based crowd simulation

Virtual characters in games and simulations often need to plan visually convincing paths through a crowded environment. This paper describes how crowd density information can be used to guide a large number of characters through a crowded environment. Crowd density information helps characters avoid congested routes that could lead to traffic jams. It also encourages characters to use a wide variety of routes to reach their destination. Our technique measures the desirability of a route by combining distance information with crowd density information. We start by building a navigation mesh for the walkable regions in a polygonal two‐dimensional (2‐D) or multilayered three‐dimensional (3‐D) environment. The skeleton of this navigation mesh is the medial axis. Each walkable region in the navigation mesh maintains an up‐to‐date density value. This density value is equal to the area occupied by all the characters inside a given region divided by the total area of this region. These density values are mapped onto the medial axis to form a weighted graph. An A^* search on this graph yields a backbone path for each character, and forces are used to guide the characters through the weighted environment. The characters periodically replan their routes as the density values are updated. Our experiments show that we can compute congestion‐avoiding paths for tens of thousands of characters in real‐time. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Make No Big Plans

In the face of ‘derivative architecture’, artificial commercial speculation that was a feature of the previous economic boom, Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout of Crimson Architectural Historians call for a new understanding of the real city and its actual needs, basing interventions on observations rooted in society and spatial structures.     

Succinctness of regular expressions with interleaving,intersection and counting

In this paper, we study the succinctness of regular expressions (REs) extended with interleaving, intersection and counting operators. We show that in a translation from REs with interleaving to standard regular expressions a double exponential size increase cannot be avoided. We also consider the complexity of translations to finite automata. We give a tight exponential lower bound on the translation of REs with intersection to NFAs, and, for each of the three classes of REs, we show that in a translation to a DFA a double exponential size increase cannot be avoided. Together with known results, this gives a complete picture of the complexity of translating REs extended with interleaving, intersection or counting into (standard) regular expressions, NFAs, and DFAs.     

Solving the mobile mapping van problem: A hybrid metaheuristic for capacitated arc routing with soft time windows

Creating digital maps often requires driving around the streets in a so-called “mapping van”. Tele Atlas, the world leading supplier of maps and map data, uses a fleet of such vehicles to take pictures of streets and road signs. Minimising the number of days that a vehicle needs to traverse all streets in a given region gives rise to a capacitated arc routing problem. A specific characteristic of this problem, however, is the fact that taking pictures in the direction of the sun should be avoided as much as possible. This requirement adds soft time windows to the problem.In this paper we solve the mobile mapping van problem by transforming it into a vehicle routing problem with soft time windows. We then apply a hybrid metaheuristic, consisting of a local search phase to decrease the number of days and an iterated local search phase to minimise the time window violations. An exact linear programming solver is embedded to calculate the ideal starting time of the vehicle in each street.Our method is tested on academic and real-life problem instances and shown to be effective.     

Converter-connected distributed generation units with integrated harmonic voltage damping and harmonic current compensation function

The steadily growing share of converter-connected distributed generators, combined with a large amount of nonlinear and unbalanced loads connected to the electric power system, has led to a degraded power quality. Both harmonic voltage and harmonic current distortion may cause many unfavourable effects on the power system. However, the converter-connected distributed generators can be redesigned to have a positive effect on the distortion of the grid voltage. Two different approaches can be discerned. At the one hand, distributed generation units can be controlled to synthesize a resistive load for harmonic voltage components. This approach is called harmonic voltage damping. At the other hand, if the polluting current of an adjacent nonlinear load is measured and added to the control loop, the converter-connected distributed generator is able to compensate all harmonic current components of the nonlinear load. This approach is referred to as harmonic current compensation. In this paper, a control strategy for a converter-connected distributed generator is extended with a harmonic voltage damping function and a harmonic current compensation function. Experimental tests show that the voltage distortion of the grid voltage can be significantly improved.