新一代Lyocell纤维

自1992年来,市场上出现一种新型的纤维素纤维Lyocell纤维。它具有改进的性能,并用N-甲基吗琳-N-氧化物(NMMO)作为纤维素的直接溶剂进行生产。Lodz工业大学化学纤维系和天然纤维研究所已开始研究纳米纤维素纤维——新一代Lyocell纤维,生产时也使用NMMO。论述了Lyocell纤维技术范围内研究工作的最新发展,主要是纳米纤维素纤维的研究工作。     

Dynamic Modeling of Pressure Reducing Valves

Models are currently available for representing the dynamical behavior of most water network components. Such models are relatively simple, accurate and can be easily solved. However, there is no generally accepted dynamic model of a pressure reducing valve (PRV). The key contributions of this paper are the development of several dynamic models—two phenomenological, one behavioral, and one linear—to represent the behavior of PRVs. The models vary in complexity but perform similarly. Experimental data is used to assess the accuracy of the models. The phenomenological models are derived from physical laws and provide an excellent but complex representation of a PRV. The behavioral model is simpler and sufficient for most practical purposes. The linear model does not take the needle valve setting (which controls the valve’s speed) into account and therefore has limited use.     

Comparative studies of phosvitin from chicken and salmon egg yolk

1. A method developed for the isolation of phosvitin from chicken egg yolk was successfully applied to the isolation of phosvitin from salmon eggs. 2. Salmon roe phosvitin is smaller in molecular size than chicken egg phosvitin. 3. Circular dichroism spectra of all phosvitins investigated displayed good similarities with spectra showing characteristics of unordered and beta-sheet secondary structure. 4. The main component in the Fourier transform infrared spectra of chicken egg phosvitin is indicative of unordered conformation, whereas the Fourier infrared data of the salmon egg phosvitin are consistent with more of beta-sheet structure compared to the chicken egg phosvitin.     

IS AND AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT

The Americans with Disabilities Act has serious repercussions for most US corporations. IS managers must accomplish two objectives. They must modify their thinking concerning personnel-related activities and, most important, must understand the true implications of this sweeping legislation. This column gives some recommendations for implementing the letter as well as; the spirit of this important law in the IS department.     

Improved Control of Pressure Reducing Valves in Water Distribution Networks

The behavior of transients in water pipe networks is well understood but the influence of modulating control valves on this behavior is less well known. Experimental work on networks supplied through pressure reducing valves (PRVs) has demonstrated that, in certain conditions, undesirable phenomena such as sustained or slowly decaying oscillation and large pressure overshoot can occur. This paper presents results from modeling studies to investigate interaction between PRVs and water network transients. Transient pipe network models incorporating random demand are combined with a behavioral PRV model to demonstrate how the response of the system to changes in demand can produce large or persistent pressure variations, similar to those seen in practical experiments. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control mechanism, to replace the existing PRV hydraulic controller, is proposed and this alternative controller is shown to significantly improve the network response. PID controllers are commonly used in industrial settings and the methods described are easy to implement in practice.     

Extraction of 3D freeform surfaces as visual landmarks for real-time tracking

This work presents a system for the generation of a free-form surface model from video sequences. Although any single centered camera can be applied in the proposed system the approach is demonstrated using fish-eye lenses because of their good properties for tracking. The system is designed to function automatically and to be flexible with respect to size and shape of the reconstructed scene. To minimize geometric assumptions a statistic fusion of dense depth maps is utilized. Special attention is payed to the necessary rectification of the spherical images and the resulting iso-disparity surfaces, which can be exploited in the fusion approach. Before dense depth estimation can be performed the cameras’ pose parameters are extracted by means of a structure-from-motion (SfM) scheme. In this respect automation of the system is achieved by thorough decision model based on robust statistics and error propagation of projective measurement uncertainties. This leads to a scene-independent set of only a few parameters. All system components are formulated in a general way, making it possible to cope with any single centered projection model, in particular with spherical cameras. In using wide field-of-view cameras the presented system is able to reliably retrieve poses and consistently reconstruct large scenes. A textured triangle mesh constructed on basis of the scene’s reconstructed depth, makes the system’s results suitable to function as reference models in a GPU driven analysis-by-synthesis framework for real-time tracking.     

Multivariable closed-loop deadbeat control: a polynomial-matrix approach

The closed-loop deadbeat servo problem (CDSP), considered in this paper, consists of the synthesis of a linear, output feedback controller such that the control signal and tracking error both vanish, after a finite period of time, for every reference sequence from a prespecified class and for every initial state of a plant and the controller. The closed-loop structure is determined by studying necessary and sufficient conditions for deadbeat tracking performance. A new theorem asserts that if an open-loop deadbeat control strategy exists for every initial state of the plant and every reference function from a given class, then CDSP is solvable and all desired control laws are found in an explicit parametric form by solving simple, unilateral, linear equations in polynomial matrices. On the basis of this theorem a design algorithm is developed. Asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system exhibiting deadbeat properties is demonstrated. A numerical example is given to illustrate the usefulness and computational efficiency of the new design algorithm presented.