Revision of ground albedo estimation in Heliosat scheme for deriving solar radiation from SEVIRI HRV channel of Meteosat satellite

Methodologies for computing ground albedo from geostationary satellite images are investigated within the framework of models for deriving solar radiation components from satellite information. A revision of Heliosat-3 approach for determining ground albedo and its implication in the cloud index estimation is done using two close pixels of quite different reflectivity in the Nile delta surroundings in Egypt. The analysis done has revealed that the way in which Heliosat-3 approaches the ground albedo and especially its dependence with the viewing angle is not very precise when dealing with high reflective sites. A simple method for fitting, individually for every pixel, the angular dependence and the ground albedo estimations is proposed here and applied to different points in the Mediterranean area. The results of the revised method show rather good estimations of ground albedo in every kind of terrain in terms of reflectivity. These results are translated to cloud index estimations and finally to surface solar irradiance and they show improvements in solar radiation estimation over high reflective pixels.     

Scheduling unrelated parallel machines with optional machines and jobs selection

In this paper we study two generalizations of the well known unrelated parallel machines scheduling problem under makespan (C_max) minimization. First, a situation in which not every available parallel machine should be used and it is desirable to employ only a subset of the parallel machines. This is referred to as “Not All Machines” or NAM in short. This environment applies frequently in production shops where capacity exceeds demand or when production capacity can be lent to third companies. Also, NAM can be used to increase production capacity and it is not clear how many additional machines should be acquired. The second studied generalization has been referred to as “Not All Jobs” or NAJ. Here, there is no obligation to process all available jobs. We propose Mixed Integer Programming mathematical formulations for both NAM and NAJ, and it is shown that the latter can be effectively solved with modern commercial solvers. We also present three algorithms to solve the NAM problem. These algorithms are compared with the proposed MIP formulation when solved with IBM ILOG CPLEX 12.1. Comprehensive computational and statistical experiments prove that our proposed algorithms significantly improve the results given by the solver.     

Evaluation of the light line displacement location for object shape detection

Abstract

The ability for detecting the location of the displacement of a projected light line with subpixel resolution is examined. This evaluation is carried out for measuring a three-dimensional object shape. The technique for measuring the object shape is based on the light line projection. To determine the height data, displacement of the light line is measured on a reference point and on the object surface. This line displacement is measured by approximating the line intensity to a continuous function by the least-squares method, the Gaussian approximation and the Bezier curves method. The light line position is defined by calculating a maximum from this continuous function. To evaluate these three methods it is necessary to know the best accuracy of the experimental results. To achieve this, the results extracted by these methods are compared with a contact method. This contact method is made with a coordinate-measuring machine. The rms error is calculated using data from these three methods and the data from the contact method to carry out this evaluation. Height data are obtained with great accuracy from the method, which has a better rms value. The time necessary for processing a light line using each of these three methods is also presented. In addition to this information, a correlation coefficient is presented giving the deviation of each function generated by these methods. This line projection technique has a great potential because a very simple experimental set-up is used which is inexpensive. This evaluation is tested with complicated objects and its experimental results are presented.     

A hybrid,auto-adaptive and rule-based multi-agent approach using evolutionary algorithms for improved searching

Selecting the most appropriate heuristic for solving a specific problem is not easy, for many reasons. This article focuses on one of these reasons: traditionally, the solution search process has operated in a given manner regardless of the specific problem being solved, and the process has been the same regardless of the size, complexity and domain of the problem. To cope with this situation, search processes should mould the search into areas of the search space that are meaningful for the problem. This article builds on previous work in the development of a multi-agent paradigm using techniques derived from knowledge discovery (data-mining techniques) on databases of so-far visited solutions. The aim is to improve the search mechanisms, increase computational efficiency and use rules to enrich the formulation of optimization problems, while reducing the search space and catering to realistic problems.     

Hydrophilic antioxidants of virgin olive oil. Part 2: Biosynthesis and biotransformation of phenolic compounds in virgin olive oil as affected by agronomic and processing factors

The biosynthesis of the phenolic fraction of olive fruits during ripening and the transformations occurring in this moiety during virgin olive oil (VOO) extraction are discussed in this paper. The influence of agronomical factors that can significantly affect the phenolic profile of VOO is also discussed. Particularly, it is worth emphasizing the role of genetic factors, cultivation and climatic conditions such as water availability, atmospheric temperature, altitude, health status of the fruits, alternate bearing in the olive, and some processing factors such as crushing, malaxation time and temperature or volume of water added during milling. Among these parameters, special attention has been paid to genetic factors due to the high variability observed among Olea europaea genotypes for all recorded traits. In this context, interesting experimental results have been obtained with cultivated and wild olive trees, and also with segregating populations resulting from olive breeding programs. To the authors' knowledge, reviews evaluating the influence of the main factors that contribute to the profile of hydrophilic phenols have not been previously published. The discussion concerning olive breeding programs is a major and novel aspect to be emphasized considering recent trends to obtain new olive cultivars that confer better organoleptic properties and better quality to VOO.     

GVLiDAR: an interactive web-based visualization framework to support geospatial measures on lidar data

In recent years lidar technology has experienced a noticeable increase in its relevance and usage in a number of scientific fields. Therefore, software capable of handling lidar data becomes a key point in those fields. In this article, we present GPU-based viewer lidar (GVLiDAR), a novel web framework for visualization and geospatial measurement of lidar data point sets. The design of the framework is focused on achieving three key objectives: performance in terms of real-time interaction, functionality, and online availability for the lidar datasets. All lidar files are pre-processed and stored in a lossless data structure, which minimizes transfer requirements and offers an on-demand lidar data web framework.     

Comparison of lactic acid bacteria diversity during the fermentation of Tarhana produced at home and on a commercial scale

Food Science and Biotechnology - In this study, lactic acid bacteria diversity during the fermentation of homemade and commercially prepared Tarhana, a traditional fermented cereal food from...