Impact Fracture of Thermally Tempered Glass Helicopter Windshields

In-service fracture of helicopter windshields was studied. Simulated catastrophic fracture tests were conducted by firing alumina and steel spheres onto stationary tempered and as-received glass panels. The results were studied by Hertzian analysis and modified Auerbach's relations. Thermally tempered glass shows much higher impact resistance than that estimated from superposition of residual stresses. Subcritical impact sites exhibit slow crack growth in tempered plates, eventually leading to fracture of the entire plate.     

Development of Anticandidal Delivery Systems: (I) Anticandidal Activities of Antifungal Agents and Synergistic Combination with Other Drugs

Susceptibility testing with antifungal agents, e. g., minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination, is performed to obtain reliable data that permit selection of the most suitable agents for treatment of an infective condition. To determine the drugs that provide maximum effectiveness against oral candidiasis, the MICs of various antifungal agents were determined. Also, synergism between two chosen antifungal agents was evaluated, and the effect of benzocaine, an anesthetic, and hydrocortisone, an antiinflammatory agent, on their MICs was examined. It was observed that among all the drugs tested, clotrimazole was the most promising candidate for use as an oral local antifungal. The combination of clotrimazole and chlorhexidine resulted in a decrease in the MIC. While the addition of hydrocortisone to this combination resulted in a slight increase in the MIC, the inclusion of benzocaine resulted in a substantial decrease in the MIC of the antifungal agent combination.     

Morphologic and morphometric analysis of testis of Pseudis limellum (Cope, 1862) (Anura, Hylidae) during the reproductive cycle in the Pantanal, Brazil

The spermatogenesis of Pseudis limellum, from the Southern Pantanal, Brazil, was studied from July 1995 to May 1996, through histological sections of the testis. The cells could be differentiated as: primary spermatogonia, large cells, generally with bilobed nucleus; secondary spermatogonia, smaller cells, with darker cytoplasm, chromatin of radial form; primary and secondary spermatocytes, differentiated according to the different stages of the nucleus during the successive cells divisions. Furthermore, we observed cells in process of morphologic differentiation: rounded spermatids much smaller, with nucleus containing chromatin in compacting process and cytoplasm reduction; elongated spermatids, generally parallel organized in well defined bundles, with the anterior region directed toward the periphery of the seminiferous tubule and the tail directed toward the lumen. Spermatozoa are free in the lumen of the seminiferous tubule. All the cells are organized as cysts, which are supported by a large amount of Sertoli cells. The spermatogenesis in P. limellum is very similar to that of other anurans, but peculiarities were observed regarding the organization of the germ cells, the great amount of free Sertoli cells in the lumen of testis collected in May, and the long cytoplasmatic extensions of the cells bearing pigments and involving the seminiferous tubule. The diameter of the seminiferous tubule (SD) exhibited an annual mean of 251.79 +/- 37.57 microm. Spermatozoa number by seminiferous tubule (SN) exhibited an annual mean of 306.66 +/- 39.83, also with higher and lower values at each month. Variations in SD and SN were not significantly correlated with climatic variables. In this species, reproduction occurs throughout the year in ponds and flooded areas, despite the seasonal climate of the Pantanal. Although males varied in their annual reproductive activity, they were considered potentially reproductive in all months throughout the year.     

Quantitative estimation of sucrose esters of plamitic acid

Thin layer chromatography was adapted for direct quantitative estimation of sucrose esters of palmitic acid. Urea-phosphoric acid spray was used to detect the sucrose moiety of the various esters. The photometrically metermined density density of each spot on the thin layer plate was found to be proportional to its sucrose content. Ester content was then obtained by multiplying sucrose found by the factor, mol. wt. ester/mol. wt. sucrose. Ester mixtures were prepared by interesterifying sucrose with various proportions of methyl palmitate in dimethylformamide solution. Positional isomers were observed at each level of substitution but could not be adequately separated from each other for quantitative evaluation. Presented at the AOCS Meeting, Minneapolis, October 1969. So. Utiliz. Res. Dev. Div., ARS, USDA.     

Amplitudes distribution over two copies of small quantum subsystems

We propose a new formulation of quantum algorithm which allows to distribute amplitudes over two copies of small quantum subsystems. The new method gives a fixed number of copies and applied to the control of multi-qubit system. The analysis for the amount of error due to the distribution process has been presented for a system of 10 qubits with a small quantum subsystems to be copied. The present scheme provides a new way to distribute amplitudes over small quantum subsystems.     

Recognition of Arabic (Indian) bank check digits using log-gabor filters

In this paper we present a technique for the automatic recognition of Arabic (Indian) bank check digits based on features extracted by using the Log Gabor filters. The digits are classified by using the K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN), Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifiers. An extensive experimentation is conducted on the CENPARMI data, a database consisting of 7390 samples of Arabic (Indian) digits for training and 3035 samples for testing extracted from real bank checks. The data is normalized to a height of 64 pixels, maintaining the aspect ratio. Log Gabor filters with several scales and orientations are used. In addition, the filtered images are segmented into different region sizes for feature extraction. Recognition rates of 98.95%, 98.75%, 98.62%, 97.21% and 94.43% are achieved with SVM, 1-NN, 3-NN, HMM and NM classifiers, respectively. These results significantly outperform published work using the same database. The misclassified digits are evaluated subjectively and results indicate that human subjects misclassified 1/3 of these digits. The experimental results, including the subjective evaluation of misclassified digits, indicate the effectiveness of the selected Log Gabor filters parameters, the implemented image segmentation technique, and extracted features for practical recognition of Arabic (Indian) digits.     

Relaxed constraints support vector machines for noisy data

Real-world data collected for computer-based applications are frequently impure. Differentiation of outliers and noisy data from normal ones is a major task in data mining applications. On the other hand, elimination of noisy and outlier data from training samples of a dataset may lead to over-fitting or information loss. A fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM) provides an effective means to deal with this problem. It reduces the effect of the noisy data and outliers by using a fuzzy membership functions. In this paper, a new formation for SVMs is introduced that considers importance degrees for training samples. The constraints of the SVM are converted to fuzzy inequalities. The proposed method, RSVM, shows better efficiency in the classification of data in different domains. Especially, using the proposed RSVM for multi-class classification of arrhythmia disease is presented at the end of this paper as a practical case study to show the effectiveness of the proposed system.     

An AP structure with Finslerian Flavor: Path equations

The Bazanski approach to deriving paths is applied to Finsler geometry. The approach is generalized and applied to a new developed geometry called “Absolute parallelism with Finslerian Flavor” (FAP). A set of path equations is derived for the FAP. It is a horizontal (h) set. A striking feature in this set is that the coefficient of the torsion term jumps by a step of one-half from one equation to the other. It is tempting to believe that the h-set admits some quantum features. Comparisons with the corresponding sets in other geometries are given. Conditions for reducing the set of path equations obtained to well-known path equations in some geometries are summarized in a schematic diagram.     

Cost efficiency comparison of four video-based techniques for assessing upper arm postures

Many video-based techniques for assessing postures at work have been developed. Choosing the most appropriate technique should be based on an evaluation of different alternatives in terms of their ability to produce posture information at low input costs, i.e. their cost efficiency. This study compared four video-based techniques for assessing upper arm postures, using cost and error data from an investigation on hairdressers. Labour costs associated with the posture assessments from the video recordings were the dominant factor in the cost efficiency comparison. Thus, a work sampling technique associated with relatively large errors appeared, in general, to be the most cost-efficient because it was labour-saving. Measurement bias and other costs than labour cost for posture assessment influenced the ranking and economic evaluation of techniques, as did the applied measurement strategy, i.e. the numbers of video recordings and repeated assessments of them. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: The cost efficiency of four video-based techniques for assessing upper arm postures was compared. Work sampling techniques were in general more cost efficient than continuous observations since they were labour-saving. Whilst a labour cost dominated the comparison, 'hidden costs', bias and measurement strategy also influenced this dominance.