Correction of color information of a 3D model using a range intensity image

Most active optical range sensors record, simultaneously with the range image, the amount of light reflected at each measured surface location: this information forms what is called a range intensity image, also known as a reflectance image. This paper proposes a method that uses this type of image for the correction of the color information of a textured 3D model. This color information is usually obtained from color images acquired using a digital camera. The lighting condition for the color images are usually not controlled, thus this color information may not be accurate. On the other hand, the illumination condition for the range intensity image is known since it is obtained from a controlled lighting and observation configuration, as required for the purpose of active optical range measurement. The paper describes a method for combining the two sources of information, towards the goal of compensating for a reference range intensity image is first obtained by considering factors such as sensor properties, or distance and relative surface orientation of the measured surface. The color image of the corresponding surface portion is then corrected using this reference range intensity image. A B-spline interpolation technique is applied to reduce the noise of range intensity images. Finally, a method for the estimation of the illumination color is applied to compensate for the light source color. Experiments show the effectiveness of the correction method using range intensity images.     

Net environmental benefit: introducing a new LCA approach on wastewater treatment systems

Life cycle assessment (LCA) allows evaluating the potential environmental impacts of a product or a service in relation to its function and over its life cycle. In past LCAs applied to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), the system function definition has received little attention despite its great importance. This has led to some limitations in LCA results interpretation. A new methodology to perform LCA on WWTPs is proposed to avoid those limitations. It is based on net environmental benefit (NEB) evaluation and requires assessing the potential impact of releasing wastewater without and with treatment besides assessing the impact of the WWTP's life cycle. The NEB allows showing the environmental trade-offs between avoided impact due to wastewater treatment and induced impact by the WWTP's life cycle. NEB is compared with a standard LCA through the case study of a small municipal WWTP consisting of facultative aerated lagoons. The NEB and standard LCA show similar results for impact categories solely related to the WWTP's life cycle but differ in categories where wastewater treatment environmental benefit is accounted for as NEB considers influent wastewater quality whereas standard LCA does not.     

A fast compound algorithm for mining generators,closed itemsets,and computing links between equivalence classes

In pattern mining and association rule mining, there is a variety of algorithms for mining frequent closed itemsets (FCIs) and frequent generators (FGs), whereas a smaller part further involves the precedence relation between FCIs. The interplay of these three constructs and their joint computation have been studied within the formal concept analysis (FCA) field yet none of the proposed algorithms is scalable. In frequent pattern mining, at least one suite of efficient algorithms has been designed that exploits basically the same ideas and follows the same overall computational schema. Based on an in-depth analysis of the aforementioned interplay that is rooted in a fundamental duality from hypergraph theory, we propose a new schema that should enable for a more parsimonious computation. We exemplify the new schema in the design of Snow-Touch, a concrete FCI/FG/precedence miner that reuses an existing algorithm, Charm, for mining FCIs, and completes it with two original methods for mining FGs and precedence, respectively. The performance of Snow-Touch and of its closest competitor, Charm-L, were experimentally compared using a large variety of datasets. The outcome of the experimental study suggests that our method outperforms Charm-L on dense data while on sparse one the trend is reversed. Furthermore, we demonstrate the usefulness of our method and the new schema through an application to the analysis of a genome dataset. The initial results reported here confirm the capacity of the method to focus on significant associations.     

Ethanol-induced gastrointestinal damage. Influence of endogenous antioxidant components and gender

This study compared the effects of undiluted and 8% ethanol administered orally on gastrointestinal antioxidant components of male and female rats. Eight percent ethanol increased the activities of duodenal glutathione peroxide (29% in males, 14% in females) and superoxide dismutase in female gastric (24%) and male duodenal (15%) mucosa. This dose of ethanol also increased the glutathione content of gastric mucosa (12% in males, 13% in females). Undiluted ethanol decreased glutathione levels in gastric mucosa (22% in males, 11% in females) and increased glutathione peroxide activity in gastric mucosa (14% in males, 9% in females). Undiluted alcohol also produced decreases in the activity of glutathione reductase in stomach (14% in males, 9% in females) and duodenum (16% in males, 12% in females). Undiluted ethanol caused mucosal damage in the body of the stomach in both genders, accompanied by an increase in luminal pH and fluid accumulation in the stomach; these changes were absent in rats given 8% ethanol. The increase in gastrointestinal antioxidant capacity associated with the administration of 8% ethanol may be a factor in the reported cytoprotective effect of lower doses of ethanol.     

Numerical electrodynamic analysis of the far-field patterns of the external Sestroretskii cube

Far-field patterns of the external Sestroretskii cube with the edge size of 1 mm for the frequencies of 1, 150, and 300 GHz are presented. The paradox of the external Sestroretskii cube and its relation to the paradox of the external Huygens cube are revealed.     

Preliminary results of storage accelerated aging test on InP/InGaAs DHBT

We report on the reliability of InP HBT technology which has applications in very high-speed ICs. This work presents the storage accelerated aging tests results performed on InP/InGaAs HBT at stress temperatures of 180, 210 and 240 °C up to 3000 h. We have performed aging tests for two generations of InP HBT which differ from the collector doping level and from material used for planarization. From the Gummel plots, we note that the major degradation mechanism is located at the base–emitter junction periphery. Investigations on the physical origin of the observed failure mechanism has been performed using TCAD simulations.