1,298 research outputs found
Recent Advances in Flexible Automation
No full textFlexible Automation as a topic of research has been around for at least a half century. In the late 70,s, flexible manufacturing cell/systems (MFC/MFS) started playing pivotal roles in modern industry, in particular automobile industry. However, the journey of going from a theory or vision to an art or reality did not end there and then. In the last two decades, flexible automation has taken on many new concepts, technologies and practices. This evolution process has resulted in numerous new terminology in replacement (or sometimes in favor) of Flexible Automation. Nonetheless, the ultimate goal remains - empowering the modern industry with different "versions" of automation technologies in order to meet the ever-diverse and ever-changing market. It is the time that we went back to the "basics", i.e. Flexible Automation by embracing a raft of new technologies that are evolved from the basic concept of flexible automation
Parameters of Coseismic Reverse- and Oblique-Slip Surface Ruptures of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, Eastern Tibetan Plateau.
No full textDistributed and Collaborative Manufacturing for the 21st Century
No full textTargeting at the emerging issues in recent years, manufacturing research has been focusing on improving flexibility, dynamism, agility and productivity for manufacturing in the 21st century, particularly in distributed and collaborative environments. Various Web-based and AI-based tools have been developed to deal with issues in process simulation, production planning, resource scheduling, and supply chain management. Many research projects have been devoted to improving product quality and manufacturing process efficiency targeting manufacturing uncertainty. This special issue titled "Distributed and Collaborative Manufacturing for the 21st Century" brings to the readers some of the state-of-the-art and new achievements in modern manufacturing research. There are nine papers in this special and their synopses are provided below.http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=198&year=2010&vol=5&issue=
Isolation and Characterization of a Biosurfactant Producing Strain Planococcus sp. XW-1 from the Cold Marine Environment
No full textOne cold-adapted strain, named Planococcus sp. XW-1, was isolated from the Yellow Sea. The strain can produce biosurfactant with petroleum as sole source of carbon at low temperature (4 °C). The biosurfactant was identified as glycolipid-type biosurfactant species by thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). It reduced the surface tension of water to 26.8 mN/m with a critical micelle concentration measurement of 60 mg/L. The produced biosurfactant possesses high surface activity at wide ranges of temperature (−18–105 °C), pH values (2–12), and salt concentrations (1–18%). The biosurfactant exhibited higher surface activity and higher growth rate of cells with hexadecane and diesel as carbon source. The strain Planococcus sp. XW-1 was also effective in degrading crude oil, after 21 days of growth at 4 °C in medium with 1% crude oil and 1% (v/v) bacteria broth, 54% of crude oil was degraded. The results suggest that Planococcus sp. XW-1 is a promising candidate for use in the bioremediation of petroleum-contaminated seawater in the Yellow Sea during winter. This study reported for the first time that Planococcus isolated from the Yellow Sea can produce biosurfactant using petroleum as the sole carbon source at low temperature (4 °C), showing its ecological role in the remediation of marine petroleum pollution
Physical localization of four probes used for cytological characterization of <i>H. murinum</i> chromosomes.
No full text<p><b>Xu</b>, <b>Xv</b> and <b>Xw</b>); Chromosomes (A to G); Arms (S = short; L = long).<sup></sup> Genomes (</p
Mechanical and Physical Properties of Various Types of Dental Floss
No full textTo compare maximum load, percentage of elongation, physical characteristics of 4 types of dental floss: (1) Thai Silk Floss (silk, waxed), (2) Oral B® Essential Floss (nylon, waxed), (3) Experimental Floss Xu (nylon, unwaxed), (4) Experimental Floss Xw (nylon, waxed). Four types of floss were tested (n=30) with a Universal Testing Machine (Instron®). Each sample (30 cm long, 5 cm segment) was fixed, and pulled apart with load cell of 100 N and a test speed of 100 mm/min. Physical characteristics were investigated by digital microscope under 2.5×10 magnification, and scanning electron microscope under 1×100 and 5×100 magnification. The size of the filaments was measured in micron (μm) and the fineness was measured in Denier. For mechanical properties, the maximum load and the percentage of elongation were presented as mean ± SD. The distribution of the data was calculated by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. One-way ANOVA and multiple comparison (Tukey HSD) were used to analyze the differences among the groups with the level of a statistical difference at p < 0.05. The maximum load of Floss Xu, Floss Xw, Oral B and Thai Silk were 47.39, 46.46, 25.38, and 23.70 N, respectively. The percentage of elongation of Oral B, Floss Xw, Floss Xu and Thai Silk were 72.43, 44.62, 31.25, and 16.44%, respectively. All 4 types of dental floss showed statistically differences in both the maximum load and percentage of elongation at p < 0.05, except for maximum load between Floss Xw and Floss Xu that showed no statistically significant difference. Physical characteristics of Thai silk revealed the most disintegrated, the smallest, and the least fine filaments. Floss Xu had the highest maximum load. Oral B had the highest percentage of elongation. Wax coating on Floss X increased the elongation but had no significant effect on the maximum load. The physical characteristics of Thai Silk resulted in the lowest mechanical properties values.</jats:p
Ultraviolet-blue electroluminescence from Gd3Ga5O12 : Ag
No full textUV-blue light was obtained from a thin-film electroluminescence device using Gd3Ga5O12:Ag as a light-emitting layer, which was deposited by using electron-beam evaporation. The crystal composition and structure of Gd3Ga5O12:Ag were studied by x-ray powder diffraction, The Gd3Ga5O12:Ag has a photoluminescence emission which peaked at around 397 and 467 nm, which were attributed to the oxide vacancies and Ag+, respectively. The brightness of 32 cd/m(2) was obtained when an alternating voltage of 130 V at 1 kHz was applied. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)05031-2]
Adaptive Responses to Progressive Drought Stress in Two Populus cathayana Populations
No full textThe young, vegetatively propagated cuttings of Populus cathayana Rehder were exposed to a progressive drought stress for 12 weeks in a greenhouse to characterize the physiological and biochemical basis of drought adaptation in woody plants. Two contrasting populations were employed in our study, which were from the wet and dry climate regions in western China, respectively. The results showed that the adaptive responses of P. cathayana to drought were affected by drought intensity and poplar genotype (population). The progressive drought stress significantly inhibited plant growth, increased carotenoid contents and, at the same time, accumulated soluble sugars and free proline in the plants of both populations tested. On the other hand, the gradually increasing drought also induced antioxidative systems including the increase of the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and guaiacol peroxidase (POD). Moreover, there were different responses to progressive drought stress between the two contrasting populations. Compared with the wet climate population, the dry climate population had lower shoot height and growth rate, higher free proline content, and more efficient photoprotective system (such as higher carotenoid content and Car/Chl) and antioxidant system (such as higher POD activity), as a result of drought stress. These results suggest that the dry climate population possesses better drought tolerance than the wet climate population. The differences in drought tolerance may be closely related with efficient photoprotective system, accumulation of the osmoprotectant proline as well as the increased capacity of the antioxidative system to scavenge reactive oxygen species, and the consequent suppressed level of lipid peroxidation under drought conditions
The D1-triangulation in simplicial variable dimension algorithms for computing solutions of nonlinear equations
Full text linkGetting feasible variable estimates from infeasible ones: MRF local polytope study
No full textWe consider local polytope relaxation of the energy minimization/MAP-inference problem for undirected graphical models. We propose a novel method for constructing feasible relaxed primal estimates for a range of dual and saddle-point algorithms addressing this and similar problems with a separable structure. We provide a theoretical analysis of our method, which suggest its optimality with respect to all other projections. MAP-Inference Problem Given the graph G = (V, E), associated variables xv ∈ Xv, v ∈ V, and potentials θw,xw ∈ R, w ∈ V ∪ E, we consider the energy minimization problem min x∈X E(θ, x) = min x∈X v∈V θv,xv + uv∈E θuv,xuv = minx∈X 〈θ, δ(x) 〉 = minµ∈conv(δ(X)) 〈θ, µ 〉 ≥ minµ∈L⊃conv(δ(X))〈θ, µ〉 LP Relaxation µu(xu) µv(xv) xu µuv(xu, xv) θuv(xu, xv) θv(xv) x
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