Danish initiatives to improve the safety of meat products

During the last two decades the major food safety problems in Denmark, as determined by the number of human patients, has been associated with bacterial infections stemming from meat products and eggs. The bacterial pathogens causing the majority of human infections has been Salmonella and Campylobacter, and to a lesser extent Yersinia, Escherichiacoli O157 and Listeria. Danish initiatives to improve the safety of meat products have focused on the entire production chain from the farm to the consumer, with a special emphasis on the pre-harvest stage of production. The control of bacterial pathogens which are resistant to antibiotics has been a new area of attention in the recent decade, and recently, the increasing globalization of the domestic food supply has called for a complete rethinking of the national food safety strategies. The implementations of a “case-by-case” risk assessment system, as well as increased international collaboration on surveillance, are both elements in this new strategy.     

Analytical pyrolysis and FTIR spectroscopy of fossil Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) wood and MWLs isolated hereof

Recent and fossil woods from the genus of Sequoiadendron, as well as their milled wood lignins were investigated by means of FTIR spectroscopy and pyrolysis GC/MS technique. Though almost same in appearance the differences in band intensities of FTIR-spectra reveals the distinctly increased aromatic character and the oxidation in fossil specimens. More detailed information about the changes in old wood were obtained by analytical pyrolysis, which delivers degradation products with shortened side chains and more saturated units relating to fossil lignin.     

Production process of wood-based materials for SiC Ceramics

The possibility of fabricating SiC ceramics using special wood-based materials has been shown in previous research. To form accurate SiC bodies from wood-based green templates, special shaping techniques are necessary to fulfill the requirements on the finished ceramic products. Due to the fact that wood-based green templates undergo shrinkage during carbonization, no suitable forming processes for the wood-based green templates have been presented so far. In this publication different raw materials and 3D shaping production processes and their influence on green body properties are described. It was possible to produce green bodies with a MOR higher than 15 N/mm² and a density in the range above 0.82 g/cm³. It is shown that reduction of resin content decreases the strength significantly and a reduction to 30 mass % resin content reduces the MOR of flat pressed panels to the defined limit. The extruded samples showed a significantly lower strength (mean 18.1 N/mm², standard deviation 8.6 N/mm²). Injection molding was not applied successfully. The findings show that shape pressing and extrusion were applied successfully, but the green body properties differed significantly from the results achieved by flat pressing.     

Complexity Theoretical Results on Partitioned (Nondeterministic) Binary Decision Diagrams

Ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) have found many applications in the verification of combinational and sequential circuits, protocols, and the synthesis and analysis of systems. The applications are limited, since the expressive power of polynomial-size OBDDs is too restricted. Therefore, several more general BDD models are used. Partitioned OBDDs are OBDD models allowing restricted use of nondeterminism and different variable orderings. They are restricted enough such that the essential operations can be performed efficiently and they allow polynomial-size representations for many more functions than OBDDs. Here the expressive power of polynomial-size partitioned OBDDs is investigated. A tight hierarchy with respect to the number of parts in the partition is proved and partitioned OBDDs are compared with other BDD models. Received April 1998, and in final form September 1998.     

Upper and Lower Bounds for Randomized Search Heuristics in Black-Box Optimization

Randomized search heuristics like local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, or all kinds of evolutionary algorithms have many applications. However, for most problems the best worst-case expected run times are achieved by more problem-specific algorithms. This raises the question about the limits of general randomized search heuristics. Here a framework called black-box optimization is developed. The essential issue is that the problem but not the problem instance is knownto the algorithm which can collect information about the instance only by asking for the value of points in the search space. All known randomized search heuristics fit into this scenario. Lower bounds on the black-box complexity of problems are derived without complexity theoretical assumptions and are compared with upper bounds in this scenario.     

The depolarization near-field scanning optical microscope: comparison of experiment and theory

The depolarization near-field scanning optical microscope allows for sub-wavelength optical resolution with uncoated optical fibre tips. We show by a simple thought experiment, by numerical solution of the Maxwell equations for a realistic geometry, and by direct experiments, that this novel apparatus images gradients of the dielectric function of a sample in the direction of the incident electric field vector. The near-field images obtained from experiment and theory agree well.     

Precision,Local Search and Unimodal Functions

We investigate the effects of precision on the efficiency of various local search algorithms on 1-D unimodal functions. We present a (1+1)-EA with adaptive step size which finds the optimum in O(log n) steps, where n is the number of points used. We then consider binary (base-2) and reflected Gray code representations with single bit mutations. The standard binary method does not guarantee locating the optimum, whereas using the reflected Gray code does so in Θ((log n)²) steps. A(1+1)-EA with a fixed mutation probability distribution is then presented which also runs in O((log n)²). Moreover, a recent result shows that this is optimal (up to some constant scaling factor), in that there exist unimodal functions for which a lower bound of Ω((log n)²) holds regardless of the choice of mutation distribution. For continuous multimodal functions, the algorithm also locates the global optimum in O((log n)²). Finally, we show that it is not possible for a black box algorithm to efficiently optimise unimodal functions for two or more dimensions (in terms of the precision used).     

Mechatronic Systems for Machine Tools

This paper reviews current developments in mechatronic systems for metal cutting and forming machine tools. The integration of mechatronic modules to the machine tool and their interaction with manufacturing processes are presented. Sample mechatronic components for precision positioning and compensation of static, dynamic and thermal errors are presented as examples. The effect of modular integration of mechatronic system on the reconfigurability and reliability of the machine tools is discussed along with intervention strategies during machine tool operation. The performance and functionality aspects are discussed through active and passive intervention methods. A special emphasis was placed on active and passive damping of vibrations through piezo, magnetic and electro-hydraulic actuators. The modular integration of mechatronic components to the machine tool structure, electronic unit and CNC software system is presented. The paper concludes with the current research challenges required to expand the application of mechatronics in machine tools and manufacturing systems.