Constraints in meeting food safety and quality requirements in the Turkish dairy industry: a case study of Izmir province

Recent global developments concerning food quality and food safety have influenced and stimulated food legislation in Turkey in accordance with internal and international trade and agreements. In this study, the way in which the dairy industry conforms to this legislation was analyzed through a case study of Izmir province, which generally has all the structural characteristics of the dairy sector in Turkey. A survey in which dairy plant managers responded to a special questionnaire was used to collect data from 86 dairy plants chosen on the basis of proportional sampling. According to the results of this study, (i) there are many dairy processors in the region, (ii) most managers have a limited education concerning their positions, (iii) most firms handle small volumes of milk and have little control over the raw milk supply, (iv) resources are too limited in these firms, limiting their ability to adopt most regulations, and (v) few processors apply the regulatory practices imposed by governmental agencies. Thus, food legislation is not enough to ensure food safety in the dairy industry in Turkey. Technical and educational support should be given to farmers and the staff of dairy firms by the Ministry of Agriculture to form an appropriate food safety infrastructure in Turkey for the milk and processed dairy products industry.     

Hot Electron Relaxation in Ferromagnetic Metals: Memory Function Approach

Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism - This study leads to the investigation of the non-equilibrium electron relaxation in ferromagnetic metals. Here we consider the relaxation of...     

Sample Elimination for Generating Poisson Disk Sample Sets

In this paper we describe sample elimination for generating Poisson disk sample sets with a desired size. We introduce a greedy sample elimination algorithm that assigns a weight to each sample in a given set and eliminates the ones with greater weights in order to pick a subset of a desired size with Poisson disk property without having to specify a Poisson disk radius. This new algorithm is simple, computationally efficient, and it can work in any sampling domain, producing sample sets with more pronounced blue noise characteristics than dart throwing. Most importantly, it allows unbiased progressive (adaptive) sampling and it scales better to high dimensions than previous methods. However, it cannot guarantee maximal coverage. We provide a statistical analysis of our algorithm in 2D and higher dimensions as well as results from our tests with different example applications.     

Recent progress in microstructural hydrogen mapping in steels: quantification,kinetic analysis,and multi-scale characterisation

ABSTRACT

This paper gives an overview of recent progress in microstructure-specific hydrogen mapping techniques. The challenging nature of mapping hydrogen with high spatial resolution, i.e. at the scale of finest microstructural features, led to the development of various methodologies: thermal desorption spectrometry, silver decoration, the hydrogen microprint technique, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, atom probe tomography, neutron radiography, and the scanning Kelvin probe. These techniques have different characteristics regarding spatial and temporal resolution associated with microstructure-sensitive hydrogen detection. Employing these techniques in a site-specific manner together with other microstructure probing methods enables multi-scale, quantitative, three-dimensional, high spatial, and kinetic resolution hydrogen mapping, depending on the specific multi-probe approaches used. Here, we present a brief overview of the specific characteristics of each method and the progress resulting from their combined application to the field of hydrogen embrittlement.

This paper is part of a thematic issue on Hydrogen in Metallic Alloys     

Fast Fluid Simulations with Sparse Volumes on the GPU

We introduce efficient, large scale fluid simulation on GPU hardware using the fluid‐implicit particle (FLIP) method over a sparse hierarchy of grids represented in NVIDIA^® GVDB Voxels. Our approach handles tens of millions of particles within a virtually unbounded simulation domain. We describe novel techniques for parallel sparse grid hierarchy construction and fast incremental updates on the GPU for moving particles. In addition, our FLIP technique introduces sparse, work efficient parallel data gathering from particle to voxel, and a matrix‐free GPU‐based conjugate gradient solver optimized for sparse grids. Our results show that our method can achieve up to an order of magnitude faster simulations on the GPU as compared to FLIP simulations running on the CPU.     

Nary coded structured light-based range scanners using color invariants

Three dimensional range data provides useful information for various computer vision and computer graphics applications. For these, extracting the range data reliably is of utmost importance. Therefore, various range scanners based on different working principles are proposed in the literature. Among these, coded structured light-based range scanners are popular and used in most industrial applications. Unfortunately, these range scanners cannot scan shiny objects reliably. Either highlights on the shiny object surface or the ambient light in the environment disturb the code word. As the code is changed, the range data extracted from it will also be disturbed. In this study, we focus on developing a system that can scan shiny and matte objects under ambient light. Therefore, we propose color invariant-based binary, ternary, and quaternary coded structured light-based range scanners. We hypothesize that, by using color invariants, we can eliminate the effect of highlights and ambient light in the scanning process. Thus, we can extract the range data of shiny and matte objects in a robust manner. We implemented these scanners using a TI DM6437 EVM board with a flexible system setup such that the user can select the scanning type. Furthermore, we implemented a TI MSP430 microcontroller-based rotating table system that accompanies our scanner. With the help of this system, we can obtain the range data of the target object from different viewpoints. We also implemented a range image registration method to obtain the complete object model from the range data extracted. We tested our scanner system on various objects and provided their range and model data.     

Solver and Shell Element Performances for Curved Bridge Analysis

A study has been undertaken to investigate different solver and shell element performances for curved bridge finite-element analysis. Three sparse solvers were implemented into a bridge finite-element analysis code, and the solution times and memory requirements for typical bridges were compared. In addition, the use of four-node and nine-node shell elements in modeling was investigated for different mesh densities. Based on the comparative studies performed, modeling guidelines for practicing engineers have been developed and are presented herein.     

Concentrations of elements in Lias coals from the eastern Black Sea Region,NE-Turkey

The element contents and organic matter-element relation between Lias-aged coals exposed in four fields in Gümü?hane and Bayburt were investigated. In general, fixed carbon and gross calorific values of the Edire and Balkaynak coals are higher than Güvercinlik and Çerçi coals. The highest ash yields were observed in the Çerçi coals. The concentrations of Mg, P, Ca, Mo, Y, Ni, U, Zn, Ga, Ba, W, Sr, Ta, and Be of the analysed coals are positively correlated with ash yield, indicating an organic affinity. The Lias-aged coals located in Gümü?hane and Bayburt are low-rank coals.     

748 K (475 °C) Embrittlement of Duplex Stainless Steel: Effect on Microstructure and Fracture Behavior

22Cr-5Ni duplex stainless steel (DSS) was aged at 748 K (475 °C) and the microstructure development correlated to changes in mechanical properties and fracture behavior. Tensile testing of aged microstructures confirmed the occurrence of 748 K (475 °C) embrittlement, which was accompanied by an increase of strength and hardness and loss of toughness. Aging caused spinodal decomposition of the ferrite phase, consisting of Cr-enriched α″ and Fe-rich α′ and the formation of a large number of R-phase precipitates, with sizes between 50 and 400 nm. Fracture surface analyses revealed a gradual change of the fracture mode from ductile to brittle delamination fracture, associated with slip incompatibility between ferrite and austenite. Ferrite became highly brittle after 255 hours of aging, mainly due to the presence of precipitates, while austenite was ductile and accommodated most plastic strain. The fracture mechanism as a function of 748 K (475 °C) embrittlement is discussed in light of microstructure development.