Thermal Conductivity of Gelatinized Starches

The thermal conductivity (k) of gelatinized high-amylose and high-amylopectin starches was determined, using the heated probe method. The granular starches, mixed with distilled water at 1 to 4 kg water/ kg dry solids, were gelatinized at 120°C. Similar k values which varied from 0.434 to 0.548 W/mK in the temperature range 30 to 70°C were obtained for both starch gels. Experimental data were fitted to six structural models, representing various geometries for mixtures of water and dry starch. The perpendicular model, based on heat conduction in series through layers of dry starch and water, yielded best correlations. The predicted thermal conductivity of dry gelatinized starch (k_s) increased linearly with temperature T (K) according to the equation:      

The role of protein kinase in C ischemic/reperfused preconditioned isolated rat hearts

Protein kinase C (PKC) has been implicated in the preconditioning-induced cardiac protection in ischemic/reperfused myocardium. We studied the effect of PKC inhibition with calphostin C (25, 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 nM), a potent and specific inhibitor of PKC, in isolated working nonpreconditioned and preconditioned ischemic/reperfused hearts. In the nonpreconditioned groups, all hearts underwent 30 min of normothermic global ischemia followed by 30 min of reperfusion. In the preconditioned groups, hearts were subjected to four cycles of ischemic preconditioning by using 5 min of ischemia followed by 10 min reperfusion, before the induction of 30 min ischemia and reperfusion. At low concentrations of calphostin C (25, 50, and 100 nM), the PKC inhibitor had no effect on the incidence or arrhythmias or postischemic cardiac function in the nonpreconditioned ischemic/reperfused groups. With 200 and 400 nM of calphostin C, a significant increase in postischemic function and a reduction in the incidence of arrhythmias were observed in the nonpreconditioned ischemic/reperfused groups. Increasing the concentration of calphostin C to 800 NM, the recovery of postischemic cardiac function was similar to that of the drug-free control group. In preconditioned hearts, lower concentrations (< 100 nM) of calphostin C did not change the response of the myocardium to ischemia and reperfusion in comparison to the preconditioned drug-free myocardium. Two hundred and 400 nM of the PKC inhibitor further reduced the incidence of ventricular fibrillation (VF) from the preconditioned drug-free value of 50% to 0 (p < 0.05) and 0 (p < 0.05), respectively, indicating that the combination of the two, preconditioning and calphostin C, affords significant additional protection. Increasing the concentration of calphostin C to 800 nM blocked the cardioprotective effect of preconditioning (100% incidence of VF). The recovery of cardiac function was similarly improved at calphostin C doses of 200 and 400 nM and was reduced at 800 nM (p < 0.05). With 200 and 400 nM of calphostin C, both cytosolic and particulate PKC activity were reduced by approximately 40 and 60%, respectively, in both preconditioned and preconditioned/ischemic/reperfused hearts. The highest concentration of calphostin C (800 nM) resulted in almost a complete inhibition of cytosolic (100%) and particulate (85%) PKC activity correlated with the abolition of preconditioning-induced cardiac protection. In conclusion, calphostin C protects the ischemic myocardium obtained from intact animals, provides significant additional protection to preconditioning at moderate doses, and blocks the protective effect of preconditioning at high concentrations. The dual effects of calphostin C appear to be strictly dose and "enzyme inhibition" related.     

Simulated annealing based automatic fuzzy clustering combined with ANN classification for analyzing microarray data

Microarray technology has made it possible to monitor the expression levels of many genes simultaneously across a number of experimental conditions. Fuzzy clustering is an important tool for analyzing microarray gene expression data. In this article, a real-coded Simulated Annealing (VSA) based fuzzy clustering method with variable length configuration is developed and combined with popular Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based classifier. The idea is to refine the clustering produced by VSA using ANN classifier to obtain improved clustering performance. The proposed technique is used to cluster three publicly available real life microarray data sets. The superior performance of the proposed technique has been demonstrated by comparing with some widely used existing clustering algorithms. Also statistical significance test has been conducted to establish the statistical significance of the superior performance of the proposed clustering algorithm. Finally biological relevance of the clustering solutions are established.     

眼镜遮挡下的正面人脸识别

针对眼镜遮档对人脸识别影响较大这一问题,提出一种从正面人脸图像中提取并摘除眼镜的方法。首先利用主成分分析和独立成分分析法对输入的戴眼镜人脸进行重建,对比重建人脸和输入人脸,从而提取眼镜遮档区域;然后经过迭代误差补偿合成相应的无眼镜人脸;最后考虑到合成图像的特殊性,使用改进的特征加权方法实现人脸识别。实验结果表明,利用提出的人脸重建和特征加权方法进行戴眼镜人脸识别,正确率可以达到91%,优于传统方法。     

SAFE: An Efficient Feature Extraction Technique

This paper proposes an efficient window-based semi-automatic feature extraction technique which uses simulated annealing for minimizing the energy of an active contour within a specified image region. The energy is computed based on a chamfer image, in which pixel values are a function of distance to image edges. A user places a number of control points close to the feature of interest. B-spline fitted to these points provides an initial approximation of the contour. A window containing both the initial contour and the feature of interest is considered. The contour with minimum energy inside the window provides the final delineation. Comparison of the performance of the proposed algorithm with traditional snake, a popular feature extraction technique based on energy minimization, demonstrates the superiority of the SAFE technique. Received 18 August 1999 / Revised 25 October 2000 / Accepted in revised form 8 December 2000     

HEAT TRANSFER IN MULTIPHASE CONTACTORS

A procedure for the prediction of wall-bed heat transfer coefficient for bubble columns and gas-solid fluidized beds is developed on the basis of hydrodynamic behavior of these contactors. A comparison between the predicted and experimental values of heat transfer coefficient over a wide range of design and operating variables is presented. An attempt is made to analyze the occurrence of maxima in heat transfer coefficient with respect to gas velocity in the case of fluidized beds. A procedure for the calculation of the optimum superficial gas velocity is outlined.     

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF AN OSCILLATING FLOW PAST A CIRCULAR CYLINDER IN THE VICINITY OF A PLANE WALL

Oscillating flow around a circular cylinder in the vicinity of a plane wall was investigated by solving the two-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with a finite element Galarkin residual method. The effect of the gap G/D between the cylinder surface and the wall on the flow behavior was studied. For the case of G/D 〈 0.25, the periodicity in the flow is attributed to both the outer shear layer instability and the oscillating frequency. As G/D 〉 0.25, vortex shedding occurs and the periodicity in the flow is mainly due to the competition of the oscillating frcqucncy and the vortex shedding frequency from an isolated stationary cylinder.     

Metallographic observations during the sintering of BM2 type of high speed steels

Metallographic changes during the sintering of BM2 type of high speed steels have been investigated by scanning electron microscopy, in the range of optimum sintering to oversintering. The primary carbides observed are M₆C and a small quantity of MC; in the oversintered structure an additional carbide with eutectic morphology was seen. It is a chromium and molybdenum rich phase in BM2+ 0 to 4% cobalt (0.9 to 1.2% carbon) alloy, whereas in BM2+ 8% cobalt (0.9% carbon) the eutectic phase is MC. Under certain conditions M₃C was also detected in the post-sintered alloy.     

High-speed target tracking by fuzzy hostility-induced segmentation of optical flow field

A time efficient technique for real-time tracking of high-speed objects in a video sequence is presented in this article. The technique is primarily based on the segmentation of the optical flow field computed between the successive image frames of a video sequence, followed by the tracking of a detected point of interest (POI) within the segmented flow field. In the initial phase of the technique, the optical flow field between the first two successive image frames acquired from a video sequence, is computed. A fuzzy hostility index indicative of the degree of coherence of the moving objects in the image frames, is used to segment the optical flow field. This yields different coherent regions of interest (ROIs) in the segmented flow field. A POI is then detected in the different ROIs obtained. Tracking of the moving object is then carried out by computing the flow fields between predefined ROIs in the neighborhood of the detected POI in the subsequent image frames.Since the selected ROIs are smaller than the image frames, a fair amount of reduction in the time required for the computation of the optical flow field is achieved, thereby facilitating real-time operation. An application of the proposed technique is demonstrated on three video sequences of high-speed flying fighter aircrafts.