Anthocyanin composition of the red wine Babić affected by maceration treatment

Identification of anthocyanins in the wine made of the Croatian autochthonous grape variety of Babić (Vitis vinifera L.) was carried out and their profile was determined by means of high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array and mass spectrometric detection. Dependence of anthocyanins content and profile on maceration treatment conditions was investigated. Statistically significant differences of anthocyanins concentration in wines Babić produced by various maceration treatments were confirmed by the use of multivariate analysis of variances. The investigation results indicated that the maceration temperature exerts higher influence on anthocyanins concentration than the duration of maceration. In addition, on the basis of anthocyanin composition and using different multivariate statistical analyses, differentiation of wines Babić according to maceration treatments was procured.     

Support vector regression for determining the minimum zone sphericity

Several methods have been investigated to determine the deviation of manufactured spherical parts from ideal geometry. One of the most popular is the least squares technique, which is still widely employed in coordinate measuring machines used by industries. The least squares algorithm is optimal under the assumption that the data set is very large and has the inherent disadvantage of overestimating the minimum tolerance zone, resulting sometimes in the rejection of good parts. In addition, it requires that the data be distributed normally. The support vector regression approach alleviates the necessity for these assumptions. While most fitting algorithms in practice today require that the sampled data accurately represent the surface being inspected, support vector regression provides a generalization over the surface. We describe how the concepts of support vector regression can be applied to the determination of tolerance zones of nonlinear surfaces; to demonstrate the unique potential of support vector machine algorithms in the area of coordinate metrology. In specific, we address part quality inspection of spherical geometries.     

Run-to-run failure detection and diagnosis using neural networks and Dempster-Shafer theory: an application to excimer laser ablation

The formation of microvias in multilayer substrates is a critical factor in microelectronic packaging manufacturing. Such microstructures can be produced efficiently by excimer laser ablation. Thus, laser ablation systems are evolving to a level where the need to offset high capital equipment investment and lower equipment downtime are imminent. This paper presents a methodology for inline failure detection and diagnosis of the excimer laser ablation process. The methodology employs response data originating directly from the equipment and characterization of microvias formed by the ablation process. Neural network (NN) models are trained and validated based on this data to generate evidential belief for potential sources of deviations in the responses. Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory is adopted for evidential reasoning. Successful failure detection is achieved in 100% of 19 possible failure scenarios. Moreover, successful failure diagnosis is also achieved with only a single false alarm occurring in the 19 failure scenarios.     

Managing obesity through mobile phone applications: a state-of-the-art review from a user-centred design perspective

Evidence has shown that the trend of increasing obesity rates has continued in the last decade. Mobile phone applications, benefiting from their ubiquity, have been increasingly used to address this issue. In order to increase the applications’ acceptance and success, a design and development process that focuses on users, such as user-centred design, is necessary. This paper reviews reported studies that concern the design and development of mobile phone applications to prevent obesity, and analyses them from a user-centred design perspective. Based on the review results, strengths and weaknesses of the existing studies were identified. Identified strengths included: evidence of the inclusion of multidisciplinary skills and perspectives; user involvement in studies; and the adoption of iterative design practices. Weaknesses included the lack of specificity in the selection of end-users and inconsistent evaluation protocols. The review was concluded by outlining issues and research areas that need to be addressed in the future, including: greater understanding of the effectiveness of sharing data between peers, privacy, and guidelines for designing for behavioural change through mobile phone applications.     

Suction-based Grasp Point Estimation in Cluttered Environment for Robotic Manipulator Using Deep Learning-based Affordance Map

Machine Intelligence Research - Perception and manipulation tasks for robotic manipulators involving highly-cluttered objects have become increasingly in-demand for achieving a more efficient...     

Fuzzy geographically weighted clustering using artificial bee colony: An efficient geo-demographic analysis algorithm and applications to the analysis of crime behavior in population

Geo-demographic analysis is an essential part of a geographical information system (GIS) for predicting people’s behavior based on statistical models and their residential location. Fuzzy Geographically Weighted Clustering (FGWC) serves as one of the most efficient algorithms in geo-demographic analysis. Despite being an effective algorithm, FGWC is sensitive to initialize when the random selection of cluster centers makes the iterative process falling into the local optimal solution easily. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), one of the most popular meta-heuristic algorithms, can be regarded as the tool to achieve global optimization solutions. This research aims to propose a novel geo-demographic analysis algorithm that integrates FGWC to the optimization scheme of ABC for improving geo-demographic clustering accuracy. Experimental results on various datasets show that the clustering quality of the proposed algorithm called FGWC-ABC is better than those of other relevant methods. The proposed algorithm is also applied to a decision-making application for analyzing crime behavior problem in the population using the US communities and crime dataset. It provides fuzzy rules to determine the violent crime rate in terms of linguistic labels from socioeconomic variables. These results are significant to make predictions of further US violent crime rate and to facilitate appropriate decisions on prevention such the situations in the future.     

The influence of calcination temperature on catalytic activities in a Co based catalyst for CO2 dry reforming

The carbon dioxide dry reforming of methane (CDR) reaction could be thermodynamically favored in the range of 800 to 1,000 °C. However, the catalyst in this reaction should be avoided at the calcination temperature over 800 °C since strong metal support interaction (SMSI) in this temperature range can decrease activity due to loss of active sites. Therefore, we focused on optimizing the temperature of pretreatment and a comparison of surface characterization results for CDR. Results related to metal sintering over support, re-dispersion by changing of particle size of metal-support, and strong metal support interaction were observed and confirmed in this work. In our conclusion, optimum calcination temperature for a preparation of catalyst was proposed that 400 °C showed a higher and more stable catalytic activity without changing of support characteristics.     

The nature of polymer grafts and substrate shape on the surface degradation of poly(l‐lactide)

Surface grafting of functional polymers is an effective method to alter material properties and degradation behavior. Two different substrate shapes of poly(l ‐lactide) (PLLA), i.e., films and microparticles, were surface‐grafted with hydrophilic monomers, and their surface degradation was monitored. Surface grafting with a hydrophilic and acidic polymer graft [acrylic acid (AA)] induced large alterations in the surface morphology and topography of the films. In contrast, hydrophilic and neutral polymer grafts [acrylamide (AAm)] had no significant effect on the surface degradation behavior, while the PLLA reference and co‐monomeric (AA/AAm) polymer‐grafted samples exhibited intermediate surface degradation rates. The grafted PAA chains induced a local acidic environment on the surface of the substrates, which in turn catalyzed the surface degradation process. This effect was more pronounced in the films than in the microparticles. Thus, the nature of the grafted chains and substrate geometry were shown to affect the surface degradation behavior of PLLA substrates. © 2015 The Authors Journal of Applied Polymer Science Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42736.     

Periodical Literature in Urban Studies and Planning

Geographic information systems have the potential to aid planning functions in both data processing and decision making. Because the incorporation of GIS technology into local government is at an early stage, knowledge about GIS implementation and its impact on planning activities is scarce. Using a survey of local governments in four southeastern states, this paper explores how the new technology affects planning and whether it meets the expectations of the planning agencies using it. Most of the agencies surveyed report improvements in communication of information, data accessibility, and data accuracy. They report that more current data are available, and they have confidence in analyses performed with GIS technology. Political support, staffing, length of experience with GIS technology, system sharing, data-base contents, and number and type of GIS applications all exert some influence on either planning operations or decision making. While experience with GIS emerged as the most significant factor in achieving operational benefits, using GIS technology for analytical tasks positively affected improvements in decision making.