An automated coding and classification system with supporting database for effective design of manufacturing systems

The philosophy of group technology (GT) is an important concept in the design of flexible manufacturing systems and manufacturing cells. Group technology is a manufacturing philosophy that identifies similar parts and groups them into families. Beside assigning unique codes to these parts, group technology developers intend to take advantage of part similarities during design and manufacturing processes. GT is not the answer to all manufacturing problems, but it is a good management technique with which to standardize efforts and eliminate duplication. Group technology classifies parts by assigning them to different families based on their similarities in: (1) design attributes (physical shape and size), and/or (2) manufacturing attributes (processing sequence). The manufacturing industry today is process focused; departments and sub units are no longer independent but are interdependent. If the product development process is to be optimized, engineering and manufacturing cannot remain independent any more: they must be coordinated. Each sub-system is a critical component within an integrated manufacturing framework. The coding and classification system is the basis of CAPP and the functioning and reliability of CAPP depends on the robustness of the coding system. The proposed coding system is considered superior to the previously proposed coding systems, in that it has the capability to migrate into multiple manufacturing environments. This article presents the design of a coding and classification system and the supporting database for manufacturing processes based on both design and manufacturing attributes of parts. An interface with the spreadsheet will calculate the machine operation costs for various processes. This menu-driven interactive package is implemented using dBASE-IV. Part Family formation is achieved using a KAMCELL package developed in TURBO Pascal.     

Biparietal diameter: a useful measure for determining gestational age of human abortuses

BACKGROUND: The crown-rump length is conventionally used to determine the age of human abortuses. However, it is not reliable as it is dependent on the positioning of the conceptus. We compared this with the biparietal diameter and foot length for determining the gestational age. METHODS: Different measurements, commonly used to assess gestational age, were measured in 146 human abortuses for which an accurate obstetric history could not be elicited. Measurements taken were crown-rump length, biparietal diameter and foot length. These were correlated with the observations at antenatal examinations before finalizing the approximate age. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis of the data indicated that of the three measurements, the biparietal diameter was the most reliable for determining foetal gestational age between 8 and 26 weeks. The age determined with the biparietal diameter correlated well with that of abortuses with an accurate obstetric history. CONCLUSION: The biparietal diameter of a human foetus may be used to determine its age if the obstetric history regarding the period of gestation is vague or not available.     

Iodine-loaded poly(silicic acid) gellan nanocomposite mucoadhesive film for antibacterial application

Iodine-loaded poly(silicic acid) gellan nanocomposite film was fabricated and evaluated for antibacterial properties. Poly(silicic acid) nanoparticles were synthesized by condensation of silicic acid under alkaline conditions in the presence of polyvinyl pyrrolidone, phosphate ions, and molecular iodine. The nanoparticles were incorporated into gellan dispersion to prepare gellan nanocomposite film using the solvent casting method. The nanocomposite films were characterized by Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and X-ray diffraction studies. The results of characterization studies indicated improved thermal stability and an increase in the degree of crystallinity. The scanning electron micrographs and energy dispersive X-ray spectrum confirmed the uniform dispersion of silica and iodine in the nanocomposite films. The analysis of physical and mechanical properties revealed the enhanced tensile strength, moisture resistance, and higher folding endurance of poly(silicic acid) gellan nanocomposite films as compared to gellan film. Further, the iodine-loaded poly(silicic acid) gellan nanocomposite films showed good antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli and effective mucoadhesive strength. The results indicate that iodine-loaded poly(silicic acid) gellan nanocomposite mucoadhesive film can be used for potential antibacterial applications in pharmaceuticals.     

Mirror uncertainty and uniqueness conditions for determining shape and motion from orthographic projection

This paper presents new forms of necessary and sufficient conditions for determining shape and motion to within a mirror uncertainty from monocular orthographic projections of any number of point trajectories over any number of views. The new forms of conditions use image data only and can therefore be employed in any practical algorithms for shape and motion estimation. We prove that the mirror uncertainty for the three view problem also exists for a long sequence: if shapeS is a solution, so is its mirror imageS which is symmetric toS about the image plane. The necessary and sufficient conditions for determining the two sets of solutions are associated with the rank of the measurement matrixW.If the rank ofW is 3, then the original 3D scene points cannot be coplanar and the shape and motion can be determined to within a mirror uncertainty from the image data if and only if there are three distinct views. This condition is different from Ullman's theorem (which states thatthree distinct views of four noncoplanar points suffice to determine the shape and motion up to a reflection) in two aspects: (1) it is expressed in terms of image data; (2) it applies to a long image sequence in a homogeneous way.If the rank ofW is 2 and the image points in at least one view are not colinear in the image plane, then there are two possibilities: either the motion is around the optical axis, or the 3-D points all lie on the same plane. In the first case, the motion can be determined uniquely but the shape is not determined. In the second case, a necessary and sufficient condition is to be satisfied and at least 3 point trajectories over at least 3 distinct views are needed to determine the shape in each view to within a mirror uncertainty, and the number of motion solutions is equal to the combinatorial number of the possible positions of the plane in different views. The necessary and sufficient condition is associated with the rank of a matrixC: ifC has a rank of 1, the plane is undetermined; ifC has a rank of 2 (implying there are exactly 3 distinct views), then a necessary and sufficient condition, whose physical meaning is not completely clear, is to be satisfied to determine the plane to within 2 sets; ifC has a rank of 3 (implying there are 4 or more distinct views), then the plane can always be determined to within two sets.If the rank ofW is 2 or 1 and the image points in each view are colinear in the image plane, then the three dimensional motion problem reduces to a two dimensional motion problem. In this case, the uniqueness condition is associated with the rank of the reduced measurement matrix . If has a rank of 2, then the original 3D points cannot be colinear in the space and the shape and motion can be determined to within two sets if and only if three or more views are distinct. If has a rank of 1, there are two possibilities: if the rows of are identical, then either the original 3D points are not colinear and the motion is zero, or the points are colinear and possibly move between two mirror symmetric positions; if the rows of are not identical, then the motion is not determined.All proofs are constructive and thus define an algorithm for determining the uniqueness of solution as well as for estimating shape and motion from point trajectories.     

Preparation and dielectric properties of La doped NBCCTO ceramics

Journal of Electroceramics - CaCu3Ti4O12 ceramics have great dielectric constant, excellent temperature stability and good frequency stability. However, due to high dielectric loss, its practical...     

The Magnetic Properties of the Mixed Ferrimagnetic Ising System with Random Crystal Field

Using the effective-field theory EFT based on the probability distribution technique, the effect of the random crystal field on the magnetic properties of ferrimagnetic mixed Ising system with both spin-1 and spin-3/2 is investigated. The critical temperature is discussed as function of different strengths of the random crystal field and the exchange interactions. The phase diagrams are calculated numerically for a square lattice and the number of characteristic phenomena, such as the tricritical point are found. Our results are different to that reported in Souza et al. (Physica A 444, 589–600 2016).     

A dynamic attribute-based data filtering and recovery scheme for web information processing

Web data being transmitted over a network channel on the Internet with excessive amount of data causes data processing problems, which include selectively choosing useful information to be retained for various data applications. In this paper, we present an approach for filtering less-informative attribute data from a source Website. A scheme for filtering attributes, instead of tuples (records), from a Website becomes imperative, since filtering a complete tuple would lead to filtering some informative, as well as less-informative, attribute data in the tuple. Since filtered data at the source Website may be of interest to the user at the destination Website, we design a data recovery approach that maintains the minimal amount of information for data recovery purpose while imposing minimal overhead for data recovery at the source Website. Our data filtering and recovery approach (1) handles a wide range of Web data in different application domains (such as weather, stock exchanges, Internet traffic, etc.), (2) is dynamic in nature, since each filtering scheme adjusts the amount of data to be filtered as needed, and (3) is adaptive, which is appealing in an ever-changing Internet environment.     

Mosaic models for textures

This paper deals with a class of image models based on random geometric processes. Theoretical and empirical results on properties of patterns generated using these models are summarized. These properties can be used as aids in fitting the models to images.