Applications Of Industrial Relevance Research Articles

What is holding back cyanobacterial research and applications? A survey of the cyanobacterial research community

Cyanobacteria are a diverse group of prokaryotic organisms that have been the subject of intense basic research, resulting in a wealth of knowledge about fundamental cellular processes such as photosynthesis. However, the translation of that research towards industry-relevant applications is still limited. To understand the reasons for this contradictory situation, we conducted a quantitative survey among researchers in the cyanobacterial community, a set of individual interviews with established researchers, and a literature analysis. Our results show that the community seems to be committed to embracing cyanobacterial diversity and promoting collaboration. Additionally, participants expressed a strong desire to develop standardized protocols for research and establish larger consortia to accelerate progress. The results of the survey highlight the need for a more integrated approach to cyanobacterial research that encompasses both basic and applied aspects. Based on the survey and interview results as well as our literature analysis, we highlight areas for potential improvement, strategies to enhance cyanobacterial research, and open questions that demand further exploration. Addressing these challenges should accelerate the development of industrial applications based on cyanobacterial research.

Uncertainty consideration in CFD-models via response surface modeling: Application on realistic dense and light gas dispersion simulations

Major accidents in the process industry often lead to the release of light or dense gases, which can mean a thread to employees, local residents or to the environment. Possible scenarios are therefore analyzed and evaluated in advance for approval issues. There is a trend, where simple empirical models are being replaced with more complex numerical models. Gaussian dispersion models or models based on dimensional analysis approaches are for example, increasingly replaced by CFD simulations. The main reason for this is the potentially higher accuracy. However, usually scenarios using sharp parameter values are calculated, since comprehensive consideration of parameter distributions via Monte Carlo or Latin Hypercube Sampling fails due to the numerical effort. This includes the risk that the influence of uncertainties on the simulation results is not taken into account. Response surface methods offer an alternative, with which the CFD problem can be mapped onto an algebraic surrogate model. If this is sufficiently precise, parameter sampling can also be carried out with the surrogate as well, as shown in some publications. Previous investigations only demonstrated the basic principle using trivial dispersion models. In this paper two realistic CFD simulations from the plant safety area are considered: VOC emissions from a storage tank and near-ground dense gas emissions. The entire procedure of response surface determination and parameter studies was automated and parallelized for high-performance-computing, and is carried out on the underlying CFD grids. For the CFD simulations as well as for all visualizations, the commercial software ANSYS CFX and the open source software OpenFOAM were used. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the method using industry-relevant applications as well as to show how this can be used in practical engineering applications. The quality of surrogate modeling, the numerical effort and advantages that can result from the procedure are discussed as well as advantages which may result from taking parameter uncertainties into account in safety studies.

Rethinking Object Detection in Retail Stores

The conventional standard for object detection uses a bounding box to represent each individual object instance. However, it is not practical in the industry-relevant applications in the context of warehouses due to severe occlusions among groups of instances of the same categories. In this paper, we propose a new task, i.e., simultaneously object localization and counting, abbreviated as Locount, which requires algorithms to localize groups of objects of interest with the number of instances. However, there does not exist a dataset or benchmark designed for such a task. To this end, we collect a large-scale object localization and counting dataset with rich annotations in retail stores, which consists of 50,394 images with more than 1.9 million object instances in 140 categories. Together with this dataset, we provide a new evaluation protocol and divide the training and testing subsets to fairly evaluate the performance of algorithms for Locount, developing a new benchmark for the Locount task. Moreover, we present a cascaded localization and counting network as a strong baseline, which gradually classifies and regresses the bounding boxes of objects with the predicted numbers of instances enclosed in the bounding boxes, trained in an end-to-end manner. Extensive experiments are conducted on the proposed dataset to demonstrate its significance and the analysis is provided to indicate future directions. Dataset is available at https://isrc.iscas.ac.cn/gitlab/research/locount-dataset.

Mesh sampling and weighting for the hyperreduction of nonlinear Petrov–Galerkin reduced‐order models with local reduced‐order bases

AbstractThe energy‐conserving sampling and weighting (ECSW) method is a hyper‐reduction method originally developed for accelerating the performance of Galerkin projection‐based reduced‐order models (PROMs) associated with large‐scale finite element models, when the underlying projected operators need to be frequently recomputed as in parametric and/or nonlinear problems. In this paper, this hyper‐reduction method is extended to Petrov–Galerkin PROMs where the underlying high‐dimensional models can be associated with arbitrary finite element, finite volume, and finite difference semi‐discretization methods. Its scope is also extended to cover local PROMs based on piecewise‐affine approximation subspaces, such as those designed for mitigating the Kolmogorov n‐width barrier issue associated with convection‐dominated flow problems. The resulting ECSW method is shown in this paper to be robust and accurate. In particular, its offline phase is shown to be fast and parallelizable, and the potential of its online phase for large‐scale applications of industrial relevance is demonstrated for turbulent flow problems with O(107) and O(108) degrees of freedom. For such problems, the online part of the ECSW method proposed in this paper for Petrov–Galerkin PROMs is shown to enable wall‐clock time and CPU time speedup factors of several orders of magnitude while delivering exceptional accuracy.

LiHMDS: Facile, highly efficient and metal-free transesterification under solvent-free condition

Transesterification is one of the important organic reactions employed in numerous industrial as well as laboratory applications for the synthesis of various esters. Herein, we report a rapid, highly efficient, and transition metal-free transesterification reaction in the presence of LiHMDS under solvent-free conditions. The transesterification reaction was carried out with three different benzoate esters and a wide range of primary and secondary alcohols (from C3-C18) in good to excellent yields (45 examples). By considering the commercial role of esters, this method will be promising for the facile synthesis of esters in industry-relevant applications.

Mechanisms of carrot texture alteration induced by pure effect of high pressure processing

Abstract The pure effect of high pressure processing (HPP) (400–1200 MPa/2 min) on carrot (Daucus carota L.) texture was investigated with minor influence of adiabatic heating. For carrot hardness and chewiness, 400 MPa result in respective loss of 71.0%, 73.8%, but no further loss was observed as pressure increased. Cohesiveness and resilience were observed to recover as pressure above 1000 MPa. Mechanisms exploration from cellular microstructure showed that carrot cells evolved from orderliness at atmospheric pressure to corrugation, elongation, collapse but partially compaction at 400, 800 and 1200 MPa, respectively, accompanied with movement of cytoplasmic content to intercellular spaces. Principal component analysis (PCA) highlighted the characteristic biochemical responses of HPP-treated carrots with pronounced ion leakage (>70%), hydrogen peroxide accumulation (>128.0%, 800–1200 MPa) and enhanced pectinmethylesterase (PME) activity (>135.2%, 400–1000 MPa). Moreover, molecular weight analysis of pectin polysaccharides showed that HPP triggered pectin depolymerisation, solubilisation of water insoluble pectin and fraction interconversion. Overall, carrot texture is interactively influenced by pressure-induced modifications on cell morphology, membrane integrity and pectin properties. Industrial relevance Application of HPP in industrial scale is rising. As an essential factor highly linked with freshness, texture alteration during processing is an industrial-concerned issue. This work provides information on textural alteration under a wide pressure range (400–1200 MPa). The reported pressure thresholds triggering different cellular responses of carrot tissue therefore added new theoretical basis for the industrial optimisation of high pressure conditions. The temperature control strategy used could be potentially applied in food industry with the substituted food-friendly pressure transmitting medium, as well as other areas requiring strict temperature control, for instance high pressure extraction.

Effects of preliminary treatment by pulsed electric fields and convective air-drying on characteristics of fried potato

Abstract Effects of pulsed electric fields (PEF) and preliminary convective air (CA) drying on the water loss and oil uptake during frying of potato disks have been investigated. The PEF treatment was done using a monopolar generator with electric field strength of 600 V/cm and pulsed protocol that allows obtaining the high level of electroporation. The different protocols of drying (for td = 500, 1000 and 2000 s, at T = 50 °C) and frying (for tf = 0–600 s at T = 130 °C) were tested. The frying kinetics was described using extended exponential function. A mean frying time τf decreased with increasing of time of preliminary drying td. The PEF treatment also resulted in decreasing of td. For example, with preliminary CA drying during td ≥ 500 s, the oil uptake after frying (tf = 600 s) was significantly smaller in the PEF treated potato (≈0.30 g/g DM) than in untreated potatoes (≈0.47 g/g DM). Combined preliminary PEF-treatments and CA-assisted dehydration significantly affected the frying time, the oil uptake and texture of samples. They can lead to the formation of a denser and less oil penetrable skin on the potato surface during the frying. Industrial relevance Application of PEF allows acceleration of CA drying of potato. The CA drying has positive effect on characteristics of fried products. Combined preliminary PEF-treatments and CA-assisted dehydration have favorable impacts on oil uptake and texture changes. Such processing could decrease process time, improve qualitative characteristics and safety of fried potato.

Impact of ohmic-assisted hydrodistillation on kinetics data, physicochemical and biological properties of Prangos ferulacea Lindle. essential oil: Comparison with conventional hydrodistillation

Abstract The effect of ohmic-assisted hydrodistillation (OAHD) as an emerging technology, on the extraction kinetics and characteristics of the Prangos ferulacea Lindle. essential oil was studied, and the results were compared to hydrodistillation (HD). According to the results, to achieve a similar yield OAHD required half the time required by the HD. GC/MS results indicated considerable differences in the quantity of the main components, and selective extraction of limonene and (E)-β-ocimene was obtained through OAHD (13.32% and 23.60%, respectively). This could be attributed to the rapid increase in temperature as a result of internal heating and electroporation occurrence due to electrical current passing through the material. The Prangos ferulacea essential oils exhibited antibacterial and antioxidant activities. The electrical energy consumption for the OAHD was almost one half of that consumed by the conventional HD extraction. Based on equivalent CO2 emission, OAHD may be considered as a “novel green technology”. Industrial relevance Application of emerging thermal technologies such as ohmic heating has been introduced to essential oil extraction and presented some desirable advantages over the conventional methods, such as effective heating, fast energy transfer, time saving and low operating costs, and no adverse alterations in chemical compositions. In this study, ohmic-assisted hydrodistillation was used to extract the essential oils of Prangos ferulacea. The results of this study showed that not only a selective extraction of some components can achieve via ohmic procedure, but also it is a more economical and environmentally friendly procedure that can be considered as a green technology.

High-pressure-assisted infusion of bioactive compounds in apple slices

Abstract High-pressure treatment was explored as a technique for infusion of bioactive compounds (anthocyanin) into solid foods matrix (apple). The rate of mass transfer of moisture, solid, and anthocyanin content with or without the application of high pressure was studied over a wide range of concentration of osmotic solution (0–50% sucrose). The increase in concentration of osmotic solution resulted in reduced infusion of anthocyanin. However, high-pressure treatment resulted in higher moisture and solid mass transfer due to cell permeabilization (as revealed by microstructure analysis). It was revealed that high-pressure treatment resulted in higher infusion of the bioactive compound as compared to infusion at atmospheric pressure. The present study concluded that the high-pressure treatment of solid foods could be a feasible technology for infusion of bioactive compounds without significantly altering its matrix. This work elucidates important aspects of the science of pressure-enhanced infusion. Industrial relevance Application of high pressure was shown to be a feasible technique to enhance the infusion of bioactive compound (e.g., anthocyanin) in solid food matrix (apple) without significantly altering its natural solid food matrix. The application of high pressure may open up newer avenues for food industries to develop fresh-like and value-added products with improved nutrition.

Understanding Hydrogen Redistribution and Designing a New Hydrogen Extraction Method

Hydrogen redistribution and trapping plays an important role in the embrittlement of some high performance alloys. A correct understanding of hydrogen redistribution would allow the prediction and prevention of this severe type of material degradation.A physical model of interstitial element diffusion is used to study the fluxes of hydrogen during manufacturing of metallic alloys. In particular, the present model contemplates diffusion in its most comprehensive description, i.e., atom diffusion is driven by a reduction of the Gibbs energy of the system (and not only related to composition gradients). The model presented incorporates physical description of thermal agitation and atom mobility of interstitial elements, the influence of temperature gradients, solubility and saturation of the interstitial elements as function of temperature and matrix phases, as well as the kinetics of degassing at high temperature. Finally, it incorporates the role of traps as potential energy pits presenting a characteristic energy barrier to the release of hydrogen atoms. Such a model permits the study of the effect of different microstructure characteristics on the trapping, de-trapping and general redistribution of hydrogen, taking into account the thermal cycle and the separate contribution of microstructure, deformation level, dislocation distribution, grain size, carbide presence and distribution, etc. and their interaction, to finally obtain the degree of saturation at the lattice and each trapping site type during and after a heat treatment.Two industry-relevant applications have been analysed: First, the study of hydrogen redistribution during casting and cooling; and second, a study on the effectiveness of baking. The first study has provided insight on redistribution patterns that lead to supersaturation related to processing parameters, and once that is understood, to the design of a new treatment to reduce hydrogen content in cast components, which has obtained several patents.The second, by studying the effect of storing a metal part in a heated oven for a long period of time, in a process known as baking, it is possible to explain why this standard method presents varying degrees of success. This variability is related to the alloy microstructure and cooling process prior to baking, which in turn influence where in the microstructure hydrogen is stored at the time of the treatment.

Modeling dehydration and rehydration of cooked soybeans subjected to combined microwave–hot-air drying

Abstract Pre-cooked soybeans were subjected to convective hot-air, microwave and combined microwave–hot-air dehydration. Three microwave levels (210, 300, 560 W) and three air temperatures (160, 180, 200 °C) were examined. Drying kinetics, rehydration kinetics and colour change were investigated relative to microwave level and air temperature. Combined microwave–hot-air drying decreased the drying time required when compared to drying with either hot-air or microwave energy alone. Predictive models were developed to describe dehydration and rehydration kinetics. Dehydration rate, rehydration rate and total colour change of rehydrated product generally increased with microwave level and air temperature. Within the studied range, optimal drying occurred for the lowest levels of both microwave and air temperature studied, i.e. microwave power = 210 W, air temperature = 160 °C. Industrial relevance Application of microwave energy simultaneously with convective hot-air drying to pre-cooked soybeans was up to four times faster when compared to convective drying alone, and up to twice as fast when compared to microwave drying alone. Rehydration time for soybeans subjected to combined microwave–hot-air drying was 50–60% less than for legumes subjected to either convective or microwave drying alone. Therefore, application of combined microwave–hot-air drying to pre-cooked soybeans resulted in significant saving in process time, while also producing a dehydrated product with fast rehydration properties.

Regelungstheorie

Control theory is an interdisciplinary field that is located at the crossroads of pure and applied mathematics with systems engineering. It therefore covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from fundamental mathematical aspects to real world engineering applications of industrial relevance. In particular, it has deep connections to different branches of pure and applied mathematics, including e.g. operator theory, real and complex analysis, probability theory, commutative algebra, as well as algebraic and differential geometry. The Oberwolfach workshop “Regelungstheorie” has the traditional goal of bringing active researchers with both a mathematical and an engineering background together in order to stimulate a fruitful interaction between these communities. This diversity of our field was once again nicely reflected in the expertise of the 42 participants of the 2005 workshop from all over the world. A particular effort has been devoted to inviting newcomers from the somewhat younger generation which had the refreshing side-effect of an increase in the number of female participants. The particular mission of the workshop was as well reflected in the various themes that have been addressed in the 29 stimulating presentations. The program has been clustered into rather coherent sessions of three lectures each revolving around In addition to regular session talks of thirty minutes, each day was initialized with a somewhat longer presentation that was followed by a five-minute discussant statement. This novel feature provided an extra stimulus for lively general discussions during the subsequent coffee breaks and beyond. As a particular highlight, Vincent Blondel and Jan Willems organized and chaired a session on open problems in systems and control on Tuesday evening. Eight contributors had the opportunity to present concrete research questions in seven minutes, followed by a brief two minutes discussion with the audience. Six of the corresponding abstracts related to the open problems have been collected at the end of this report and should, in view of the raised challenges, stimulate lots of new research initiatives. In addition to the excellent scientific program most participants could as well enjoy the traditional Wednesday afternoon walk to St. Roman, with beautiful weather and in a wonderful winter landscape. The day was concluded by an impressive musical evening with excerpts from Schubert's “Winterreise” presented by P. Hippe (bariton) and P. Lohmann (piano).

Quality degradation kinetics of pasteurised and high pressure processed fresh Navel orange juice: Nutritional parameters and shelf life

A kinetic study of post processing quality loss was conducted after high pressure processing (600 MPa, 40 °C, 4 min) or thermal pasteurisation (80 °C, 60 s) of fresh Navel orange juice. Selection of processing conditions was mainly based on pectin methylesterase inactivation. Ascorbic acid loss, colour, viscosity and sensory characteristics were measured during storage at different isothermal conditions (0–30 °C). Increased shelf life (based on ascorbic acid retention) was achieved for high pressurised compared to thermally pasteurised juice, ranging from 49% (storage at 15 °C) to 112% (storage at 0 °C). Activation energy values for ascorbic acid loss were 68.5 and 53.1 kJ/mol, respectively, for high pressurised and thermally treated juice. High pressure processing resulted in better retention of flavour of untreated juice and superior sensory characteristics compared to thermal pasteurisation. Colour change was linearly correlated to ascorbic acid loss for both types of processing. Slightly higher apparent viscosity values were determined for high pressurised juice. Industrial relevance Application of high hydrostatic pressure on orange juice industry. Fresh orange juice is a product of high commercial and nutritional value due to its rich vitamin C content and its desired sensory characteristics. High Hydrostatic Pressure (HHP) is an alternative non-thermal technology that has been proposed for application on orange juice. Such a treatment denaturates enzymes and eliminates microorganisms responsible for spoilage of orange juice without detrimental effects on the sensory and nutritional quality of juice. The effect of HHP on the stability of fresh orange juice has been studied by different research groups, while orange juices processed with the new technology have already been commercially available in Japan, U.S.A., Mexico and Europe. However, a systematic kinetic approach of the effect of HHP on different quality indexes (not only microbial spoilage) immediately after processing, as well as during a long term storage of the processed orange juice is needed, in order to achieve an optimal process design and a successful application of the new technology in orange juice industry. Such kinetic data for parameters related to the quality and nutritional value of fresh orange juice were gathered in the present work providing therefore industry with useful information for the HHP stabilization of orange juice and the production of a high quality product. Due to the great benefits of HHP compared to the conventional pasteurization that emerged from this work regarding the quality, shelf life and nutritional characteristics of fresh orange juice, HHP technology is an advantageous alternative process for high valued products like orange juice.

Dynamic simulation of electromechanical systems: from Maxwell's theory to common-rail diesel injection.

This paper describes the state-of-the-art of dynamic simulation of electromechanical systems. Electromechanical systems can be split into electromagnetic and mechanical subsystems, which are described by Maxwell's equations and by Newton's law, respectively. Since such systems contain moving parts, the concepts of Lorentz and Galilean relativity are briefly addressed. The laws of physics are formulated in terms of (partial) differential equations. Numerical methods ultimately aim at linear systems of equations, which can be solved efficiently on digital computers. The various discretization methods for performing this task are discussed. Special emphasis is placed on domain decomposition as a framework for the coupling of different numerical methods such as the finite element method and the boundary element method. The paper concludes with descriptions of some applications of industrial relevance: a high performance injection valve and an electromechanical relay.

1H Magnetic resonance imaging of rigid polymeric solids

Implementation of the 1H magnetic resonance single-point imaging technique has provided new opportunities for the direct imaging of rigid solids, particularly semicrystalline polymers with spin-spin relaxation times, T ∗ 2, of the order of 10 μs and greater. Potential applications of industrial relevance in the following areas are briefly discussed and illustrated: fabricated/processed parts, photochemical degradation, oxidation, and blend characterization.

Ultrasonic birefringence effect—Its application for materials characterisations

The availability of ultrasonic probes to generate linearly polarised shear waves in components on the one hand, and the possibilities to measure ultrasonic time-of-flight with sufficient accuracy on the other hand, render the application of acoustic birefringence possible. The similarity to the better known optical birefringence became obvious by experimental investigations using a solid under applied stress as well as by the theoretical treatments of the acousto-elastic effects. The major applications of the acoustic birefringence effect are the characterisation of stress states in the bulk of components and the characterisation of texture and texture-related properties of rolled parts and semiproducts. Both stress and texture cause an elastic anisotropy of the component. The birefringence of a linearly polarised shear wave, propagating along the thickness direction of the component is used to determine the directions of the two other principal axes. Measurements of the time-of-flight of the shear wave, polarised parallel to each of the two principal axes, respectively, yield quantitative results. The state of the art is illustrated by two applications of industrial relevance. The differences of the principal residual stresses in rims of railroad wheels are evaluated. The texture in rolled sheets is determined by the evaluation of one expansion coefficient of the orientation distribution function and this coefficient is correlated to a parameter characterising the deep drawability of the sheets. Although the birefringence effect does not enable the evaluation of the three individual principal stresses in a component or the complete description of the texture-induced elastic anisotropy of a rolled semiproduct, it is of significance for the non-destructive characterisation of materials' properties.