Evaluation of antioxidant level and protein oxidation of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fillets during rigor and post-rigor

In this study, the relationship between stunning techniques and protein oxidation which are accepted as the main cause of food spoilage was investigated. For this purpose, the antioxidant status, in vivo myofibrillary protein (MP) oxidation and sensitivity, and postmortem oxidation (inducted with hydroxyl radical system) of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fillets killed by hitting to head (T1), neck crushing (T2), and convulsion (T3) methods, were investigated. Statistically significant differences (p < .05) were found among all parameters examined and it was observed that the most stressing technique was the convulsion method. It was determined that in protein profiles myosin were influenced too much from stunning technique and in actin observed oxidation-induced reductions. Reductions in S-S and S-H were also found to be increased in carbonyl concentrations, but the most effective values in both processes were determined by the convulsive technique. Our results show that short-term stunning techniques (hitting to head, neck crushing) give better meat quality results in terms of O. mykiss welfare and low MP oxidation rates. In general, we can say that T3 group fillets are more sensitive to oxidative damage, while T1 and T2 groups give better results in maintaining meat quality with low MP oxidation rates.     

High brachial artery bifurcation: a report of 2 cases

High division of the brachial artery was observed in two cadavers, during routine dissection of upper extremities. In the first case, the brachial artery of the right upper extremity was divided into its two terminal branches immediately after passing between the lateral and medial roots of the median nerve and just below the origin of the profunda brachii artery. The lateral branch was the radial artery, located in the space normally occupied by the brachial artery and the medial one was the ulnar artery. In the second case, the brachial artery was divided into its two terminal branches just below the origin of the profunda brachii artery. Accurate knowledge of the relationships and course of these major arterial conduits and particularly of their variational patterns, is of considerable practical importance in the conduct of reperative surgery in the arm, forearm and hand.     

Morphological evolution of edge-hillocks on single-crystal films having anisotropic drift-diffusion under the capillary and electromigration forces

The morphological evolution of hillocks at the unpassivated sidewalls of single-crystal metallic thin film interconnects is investigated via computer simulations using the free-moving boundary value problem. The effect of drift-diffusion anisotropy on the development of surface topographical scenarios is fully explored under the action of electromigration and capillary forces, utilizing numerous combinations of the surface texture, the drift-diffusion anisotropy and the direction of the applied electric field. The simulation studies yield analytical relationships for the velocity of the surface solitary waves and the drift velocity of electromigration-induced internal voids as a function of the applied current densities, which contain intrinsic and structural properties of the single-crystal thin films. The threshold value of the applied current density, above which electromigration-induced internal voids can be formed and may cause the catastrophic failure of interconnects by breaching, also appears explicitly in this relationship.     

Comparison of Two Drying Schedules for European Hophornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia Scop.) Lumber

Two types of conventional kiln-drying schedules (mild and harsh) based on moisture content (MC) were compared with regard to time, drying quality, and energy cost. The results were evaluated according to the classification of the European Drying Group. Proper drying periods of mild and harsh schedules were found to be 550 and 514 h, respectively. Evaluations in terms of drying quality indicated that better results were achieved with the mild schedule, especially when comparing drying defects and final MC. From an energy efficiency point of view, the harsh schedule, by saving 36 h of drying time, reduced electricity by 594 KWh and was therefore found to be $65 more profitable in this trial.     

Unsupervised and simultaneous training of multiple object detectors from unlabeled surveillance video

Object detection is an essential component in automated vision-based surveillance systems. In general, object detectors are constructed using training examples obtained from large annotated data sets. The inevitable limitations of typical training data sets make such supervised methods unsuitable for building generic surveillance systems applicable to a wide variety of scenes and camera setups. In our previous work we proposed an unsupervised method for learning and detecting the dominant object class in a general dynamic scene observed by a static camera. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities to expand the applicability of this method to the problem of multiple dominant object classes. We propose an idea on how to approach this expansion, and perform an evaluation of this idea using two representative surveillance video sequences.     

In Situ Electrical Network Activation and Deactivation in Short Carbon Fiber Composites via 3D Printing

Prior studies on carbon-filler based, conductive polymer composites have mainly investigated how conductive filler morphology and concentration can tailor a material's electrical conductivity and overlooks the effects of filler alignment due to the difficulty to control and quickly quantify the filler alignment. Here, direct ink write 3D printing's unique ability is utilized to control carbon fiber alignment with a single process parameter, velocity ratio, to instantaneously activate or deactivate the electrical network in composites. Maximum electrical conductivity is achieved by randomly aligning carbon fibers that enhances the chance of direct fiber-to-fiber contact and, thus, activating the electrical network. However, aligning the fibers by increasing the velocity ratio disrupts the electrical network by minimizing fiber-to-fiber contact that resulted in a drastic decrease in electrical conductivity by as much as five orders of magnitude in both short and long carbon fiber composites. With this study, this study demonstrates that electrically conductive or insulative composites can be fabricated sequentially with a single ink. This novel ability to instantaneously control the electrical conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced composites allow to directly embed conductive pathways into designs to 3D print multifunctional composites that are capable of localized heating and self-sensing.     

Silver Nanoflower Decorated Graphene Oxide Sponges for Highly Sensitive Variable Stiffness Stress Sensors

Soft conductive materials should enable large deformation while keeping high electrical conductivity and elasticity. The graphene oxide (GO)‐based sponge is a potential candidate to endow large deformation. However, it typically exhibits low conductivity and elasticity. Here, the highly conductive and elastic sponge composed of GO, flower‐shaped silver nanoparticles (AgNFs), and polyimide (GO‐AgNF‐PI sponge) are demonstrated. The average pore size and porosity are 114 µm and 94.7%, respectively. Ag NFs have thin petals (8–20 nm) protruding out of the surface of a spherical bud (300–350 nm) significantly enhancing the specific surface area (2.83 m² g^?1). The electrical conductivity (0.306 S m^?1 at 0% strain) of the GO‐AgNF‐PI sponge is increased by more than an order of magnitude with the addition of Ag NFs. A nearly perfect elasticity is obtained over a wide compressive strain range (0–90%). The strain‐dependent, nonlinear variation of Young's modulus of the sponge provides a unique opportunity as a variable stiffness stress sensor that operates over a wide stress range (0–10 kPa) with a high maximum sensitivity (0.572 kPa^?1). It allows grasping of a soft rose and a hard bottle, with the minimal object deformation, when attached on the finger of a robot gripper.     

Fuzzy axiomatic design extension for managing model selection paradigm in decision science

The model selection paradigm is one of the focused themes within decision science. This paper addresses the consistent solution of model selection issue on the basis of the fuzzy axiomatic design (FAD) methodology. Moreover, the developed FAD–based model selection interface (FAD–MSI) is performed over the critical ship management processes in order to assign suitable (multiple criteria decision-making) MCDM techniques even if commonly utilized hybrid approaches. The outcomes of this study encourage the maritime practitioners for the further researches towards analytical modelling of ship management processes.     

Energy- and reliability-aware task scheduling onto heterogeneous MPSoC architectures

Scheduling periodic tasks onto a multiprocessor architecture under several constraints such as performance, cost, energy, and reliability is a major challenge in embedded systems. In this paper, we present an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) based framework that maps a given task set onto an Heterogeneous Multiprocessor System-on-Chip (HMPSoC) architecture. Our framework can be used with several objective functions; minimizing energy consumption, minimizing cost (i.e., the number of heterogeneous processors), and maximizing reliability of the system under performance constraints. We use Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) for reducing energy consumption while we employ task duplication to maximize reliability. We illustrate the effectiveness of our approach through several experiments, each with a different number of tasks to be scheduled. We also propose two heuristics based on Earliest Deadline First (EDF) algorithm for minimizing energy under performance and cost constraints. Our experiments on generated task sets show that ILP-based method reduces the energy consumption up to 62% percent against a method that does not apply DVS. Heuristic methods obtain promising results when compared to optimal results generated by our ILP-based method.