A study on bioglass ceramics in the Na2O-CaO-SiO2-P2O5 system

A new bioglass ceramic with composition of Na₂O 12%, CaO 28%, P₂O₅ 10% and SiO₂ 50% with a high bending strength (120–140 MPa) and compressive strength (600–750 MPa) was studied. The crystallized phases of-Ca₂P₂P₇ and Na₂Ca₃Si₆O₁₆ were determined by X-ray diffraction. Optical microscopy of the material revealed that a very uniform crystal size of about 30 m was obtained with high nucleation frequency. The nucleation and crystallization processes were also investigated. The rat shoulder test showed that the material formed a tight chemical bond with biological texture and had good biocompatibility.     

The optical properties of hot-pressed magnesium fluoride and single-crystal magnesium fluoride in the 0.1 to 9.0 μm range

A polycrystalline high-density magnesium fluoride, fabricated into plates or shapes by hot-pressing, exhibits high in-line transmittance from 2.5 to 6.0 m, and single-crystal magnesium fluoride extends from 0.1 to 6.0 m. The ultimate and practical transmittance of hot-pressed magnesium fluoride using intrinsic and extrinsic reflectance, absorptance and scattering mechanisms, are investigated. The intrinsic scattering mechanism due to the polycrystalline structure is basically responsible for the tremendous difference in transmittance in the short wavelength region of the spectrum. The in-line transmittance of polycrystalline and singlecrystal MgF₂ is discussed in terms of sample thickness.     

Dual-wavelength cascaded Raman fibre laser

Dual-wavelength lasing at 1480 and 1500 nm has been demonstrated from a cascaded Raman fibre laser with a WDM coupler and two pairs of Bragg gratings. Intensity-adjustable, wavelength-tunable laser operation was achieved by tensile stress wavelength tuning of the gratings     

Describing function for servomechanism with backlash and multiple non-linearities †

The paper presents a new describing function for a servomechanism which employs a motor driving an inertia load subject to combined Coulomb and viscous frictions, through gearing having backlash. It is shown that describing functions for various types of backlash phenomena reported in the literature can be considered as special cases of the describing function obtained in this paper.     

A no-tension elastic–plastic model and optimized back-analysis technique for modeling nonlinear mechanical behavior of rock mass in tunneling

In this paper, we present a no-tension elastic–plastic model and an optimized back-analysis technique for stability analysis of underground tunnels. A set of constitutive equations is presented to simulate the no-tension behavior and plastic yielding of jointed rock masses which yield according to the Drucker–Prager yield criterion and permits no-tension. A nonlinear 2-D finite element model is consequently formulated for the prediction of the behavior of the excavated rock mass. As for the model parameters, the genetic algorithm technique is employed to find the optimal rock mass properties by minimizing the discrepancy between the predicted results and field measurement. The nonlinear finite element model coupling with the genetic algorithm optimized back-analysis technique is then applied to a synthetic example of a deep tunnel in yielding rock. The results show that the forward and back-analysis system is capable of estimating the model parameters with stable and good convergence and give reasonable predictions. Numerical experiments are also carried out to check the influences of position and numbers of measurements to the reliability of the back-analysis results. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis of the genetic algorithms optimization procedure is discussed in terms of identification of geo-material properties.     

Physical-Chemical Characteristics of Partially Clarified Guava Juice and Concentrate

Partially clarified guava juice concentrate was prepared from single strength guava puree (5.5°Brix) by treatment with pectinase (2 hr at 50°C), extraction of juice with a rack-and-cloth press, and vacuum concentration to 23°Brix. The concentrate had the following characteristics: density, 1.10; pH, 3.16; total acids, 4.67%; ash, 1.51%; moisture, 72.4%; ascorbic acid, 867 mg%; viscosity, 4.4 cp; and CIE L* 39.2, CIE a* 10.33, CIE b* 27.11.     

Nonlinear adaptive IIR digital filter for linear system modeling

The structure and adaptive algorithm of a nonlinear adaptive IIR digital filter is presented. It does not need stability monitoring in the adaptive process, which has always been a computational burden and disturbs the adaptive process in linear adaptive IIR filtering. The individual parameter adaptation scheme is incorporated into the adaptive algorithm to optimally adjust each parameter at every iteration to improve convergence speed. Simulation results are conducted for linear IIR system modeling     

Multirate-based fast parallel algorithms for 2-D DHT-based real-valued discrete Gabor transform

Novel algorithms for the multirate and fast parallel implementation of the 2-D discrete Hartley transform (DHT)-based real-valued discrete Gabor transform (RDGT) and its inverse transform are presented in this paper. A 2-D multirate-based analysis convolver bank is designed for the 2-D RDGT, and a 2-D multirate-based synthesis convolver bank is designed for the 2-D inverse RDGT. The parallel channels in each of the two convolver banks have a unified structure and can apply the 2-D fast DHT algorithm to speed up their computations. The computational complexity of each parallel channel is low and is independent of the Gabor oversampling rate. All the 2-D RDGT coefficients of an image are computed in parallel during the analysis process and can be reconstructed in parallel during the synthesis process. The computational complexity and time of the proposed parallel algorithms are analyzed and compared with those of the existing fastest algorithms for 2-D discrete Gabor transforms. The results indicate that the proposed algorithms are the fastest, which make them attractive for real-time image processing.     

Theoretical and computational aspects of 2-D inverse profiling

The authors discuss two techniques for solving two-dimensional (2D) inverse scattering problems by parameterizing the scattering configuration, and determining the optimum value of the parameters by minimizing a cost function involving the known scattered-field data. The computation of the fields in each estimated configuration is considered as an auxiliary problem. To improve the efficiency of these computations, the CGFFT iterative scheme is combined with a special extrapolation procedure that is valid for problems with a varying physical parameter such as frequency, angle of incidence, or contrast. Further, they analyze the dynamic range and the resolution of linearized schemes. To obtain an acceptable resolution for an object with a large contrast with respect to the surrounding medium, multiple-frequency information is used. Finally, the availability of a fast-forward solver was an incentive to consider nonlinear optimization. In particular, the authors use a quasi-Newton algorithm at only twice the computational cost of the distorted-wave Born iterative scheme