EFFECT OF DIETARY SORGHUM DISTILLERY RESIDUE ON HEMATOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURED GREY MULLET (MUGIL CEPHALUS)—AN ANIMAL MODEL FOR PRESCREENING ANTIOXIDANT AND BLOOD THINNING ACTIVITIES

The sorghum distillery residue (SDR) has been an underutilized by‐product with estimated production of 150 ton/day in Kinmen, Taiwan. The objective of this study was to test for any physiological effects of SDR, thus to utilize it as a nutraceutical feed ingredient in diets for cultured fish. Hot air‐dried, wet, and dehulled‐wet sorghum distillery residue showed 63%, 90% and 97% inhibition of the hemoglobin‐catalyzed oxidation of linoleic acid compared to soybean (13%) and rice bran (78%). The feed formulated with 20% wet or dehulled‐wet sorghum distillery residue both showed an antioxidant activity of 68% being higher than the control diet (53%). Feeding these diets to cultured grey mullet for 60 days in summer (temperature ranged 24–30C), resulted in a lower hydroperoxide content in gill tissue, as shown by a chemiluminesence intensity of 1806 or 1409 mV as opposed to 2666 mV for fish fed a control diet. In winter, when the water temperature decreased to 14C, grey mullet fed a diet consisting of 10% dehulled wet sorghum distillery residue had a blood viscosity of 1.9 mPas and a hematocrit value of 33%, in contrast to 3.6 mPas and 41% for control. The blood of the control group started to aggregate in 6 h and showed hemolysis, while the mullet fed dehulled, wet sorghum distillery residue did not show blood aggregation, maintained normal fluidity and erythrocyte membrane integrity. It seems that cultured fish may have the potential as an animal model for prescreening antioxidant and blood thinning effects of food ingredients.     

Constructing confidence intervals of extreme rainfall quantiles using Bayesian,bootstrap, and profile likelihood approaches

Hydrological risk is highly dependent on the occurrence of extreme rainfalls.This fact has led to a wide range of studies on the estimation and uncertainty analysis of the extremes.In most cases,confidence intervals(CIs)are constructed to represent the uncertainty of the estimates.Since the accuracy of CIs depends on the asymptotic normality of the data and is questionable with limited observations in practice,a Bayesian highest posterior density(HPD)interval,bootstrap percentile interval,and profile likelihood(PL)interval have been introduced to analyze the uncertainty that does not depend on the normality assumption.However,comparison studies to investigate their performances in terms of the accuracy and uncertainty of the estimates are scarce.In addition,the strengths,weakness,and conditions necessary for performing each method also must be investigated.Accordingly,in this study,test experiments with simulations from varying parent distributions and different sample sizes were conducted.Then,applications to the annual maximum rainfall(AMR)time series data in South Korea were performed.Five districts with 38-year(1973–2010)AMR observations were fitted by the three aforementioned methods in the application.From both the experimental and application results,the Bayesian method is found to provide the lowest uncertainty of the design level while the PL estimates generally have the highest accuracy but also the largest uncertainty.The bootstrap estimates are usually inferior to the other two methods,but can perform adequately when the distribution model is not heavy-tailed and the sample size is large.The distribution tail behavior and the sample size are clearly found to affect the estimation accuracy and uncertainty.This study presents a comparative result,which can help researchers make decisions in the context of assessing extreme rainfall uncertainties.     

Magnetorefractive Effect for Co/Ru Multilayer Film with Antiferromagnetic Interlayer Exchange Coupling

The spin‐dependent scattering of conduction electron in metallic magnetic multilayers was investigated to reveal the optical properties which corresponded to the magnetization state. From the measurement of magnetorefractive effect in antiferro‐magnetically exchange coupled Co/Ru multilayers, it was found that (1) the transmittance varied around 1% at wavelength of 1550 nm during the parallel/antiparallel spin alignment changes, (2) as a result of number of repetition and Co thickness for the multilayers, transmittance difference between the parallel and antiparallel spin alignment states had trade‐off relationship with the magnitude of transmittance, and (3) asymmetric Co/Ru/Co stacking structure brought different interlayer exchange coupling fields in each layer, which resulted in magnetic field sensitive transmittance.     

Ni诱导SiGe薄膜晶化烧结制备与热电势氢传感器件

在玻璃衬底上采用RF溅射法制备非晶SiGe薄膜的基础上，采用金属Ni诱导法对所制备的薄膜进行晶化烧结，并以Pt催化氢氧化放热反应和SiGe薄膜的热电势效应为原理制备出了小型热电势氢传感器。测试表明：以500℃烧结所得SiGe薄膜材料为敏感基体，在100℃工作温度下所制备的传感器对3％H2灵敏度为0．7mV，检测的浓度范围大约为0．02％-5％，且输出电压随着烧结温度的升高而升高。     

A LOGIC PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO HYBRID KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION

A new hybrid system called Sphinx is presented which combines classification-based reasoning with logic programming technique. It consists of two major components: a terminological component and an assertional one. The former uses a frame-based knowledge representation scheme based on classification and the latter is a theorem prover based on Horn logic. The assertional component can also handle a first-order query language and wh-questions. A new knowledge base maintenance mechanism based on the negation as failure inference rule enables Sphinx to support incremental assertions and retractions. In addition, Sphinx provides explanation capability to help the user in developing and debugging knowledge bases.     

Cloud detection from thermal infrared images using a segmentation technique

In this paper, a fast and accurate method is proposed for two cloud detection tests on thermal infrared (IR) data obtained from satellite images over sea; an IR gross cloud test and a spatial coherence test. The proposed method is based on a regional segmentation technique. After the segmentation of an IR image, small regions were regarded as cloudy due to their high spatial variability in temperature. This technique preserved the spatial resolution of the detected cloud image which would be degraded by the conventional spatial coherence test. It also reduced the computation dramatically, compared to the conventional spatial coherence test. An accurate temperature threshold between clear sea and clouds was determined directly from the segmented image. This post-determined threshold was found to be more accurate than pre-determined temperature thresholds. Since this algorithm does not require any human interaction, it can be combined with other tests in an automatic cloud detection algorithm.     

Efficient and secure source authentication scheme for multicast user authentication

Multicast technology application has been widely utilized in broadband internet. Source authentication is one of the most needs for many multicast applications transferring real-time information such as stream video and online news. Because multicast current services provided to the group members are changed dynamically, data transferring by a group member is not used by the recipient. In order to verify the identity of the sender who sent the packet and to make sure that the data have not been tampered, an optimized source authentication scheme has been proposed to transfer the authentication information not to the next-door packet. The proposed method for multiple packets authenticates the source with a limited number of electronic signatures. The proposed method can reduce overhead compared to the method by adding a digital signature for every packet. In addition, by sending the generated electronic signature to the first packet and the last packet, it prevents the loss of consecutive packets, as well as a source authentication can be provided in real-time services.