Bigger Weight Research Articles

Principle of correlation coefficient-based classification of hydrological trend and its verification

Under the great influence of climate change and human activities during the recent decades, climatic and hydrological processes in many basins and regions worldwide are changing significantly. Analyzing the variability of hydroclimatic variables, including temperature, evaporation, precipitation and runoff, is an important topic in the hydrology studies, which contributes to understanding the changes in hydrological regime, water resources management, water disasters control and many other issues. Trend is one of those important forms of hydrological variability, and thus has received much attention over the last several decades. Many techniques and methods have been developed for trend detection, such as the least squares linear regression, Sen’s robust slope estimator, Mann-endall non-parametric test, Spearman rank correlation, Student’s t -test and others. Present studies about the issue of trend mainly focused on the improvement, comparison and applicability of trend identification methods. However, there lacks effective approach for the classification of significance degree of trends in hydrological time series. In this article, by employing the index of correlation coefficient, we mainly proposed a method for the trend identification and classification of its significance degree. Its basic idea is to calculate the correlation coefficient between the hydrological time series analyzed and its time order, based on which the significance degree of trend can be classified as five ranks: no, weak, mid, strong and very strong. By deducing the relationship between the correlation coefficient and the trend’s slope, their positive correlation is mathematically formulated. Results of the statistical tests verified the effectiveness of the method, and also clarified the influences of mean values and variance of a time series on the classification practice. Trend variability of water level series over different time scales and measured at the Gaoyao hydrological station was analyzed by the proposed method, and the index of weight was used to investigate the relationship among the significance degrees of trends on different time scales, which were evaluated by the proposed approach. Results indicated that the trends of all water level series presented downward trends, but they showed different significance degrees at multi-time scales. Those trends with bigger weights at certain time scales had bigger influence on the total variability of trends. By considering the physical formation mechanisms of the variability of runoff regimes in the basin, reasonability of the results and effectiveness of the proposed method were verified, which would be helpful for the evaluation of the influence of climate change and human activities on the changes in hydrological process.

Hydrogen-Bonded Polymer Complex Thin Film of Poly(2-oxazoline) and Poly(acrylic acid).

The hydrogen-bonded polymer complex thin film of poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOX) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) was fabricated with layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly. The film shows exponential growth at early stage and transfers to linear growth after 10 assembling cycles, and the stable thickness increment per assembling cycle in the linear region could be higher than 100 nm. The film growth should be related with polymer chain diffusion during LbL assembly. The effects of assembling time, rinsing time, temperature, pH value, concentration and molecular weight on the thin film growth were investigated. Increasing the assembly time, the temperature and the concentration is favorable to produce the thick film. Prolonging rinsing time is good for preparing smooth film. The film can be constructed below pH 4.5 while the prepared film will not completely dissolve until pH value elevates to 7.0. Molecular weight has a subtle effect on the PEOX/PAA film growth. The PEOX-PAA pair that has a big molecular weight contrast shows fast film growth in the linear region.

Expected hesitant VaR for tail decision making under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment

Generally, to reasonably make decision, all evaluation information should be aggregated, and thus, the ranking and the optimal alternative can be obtained. However, in some extreme cases, the decision maker (DM) can only focus on the tail information such as the big-loss or big-gain values and wants to ask the simple question “How bad can a thing become?” or “How good can a thing become?” To address this type of decision-making issue, this paper introduces the definition of value at risk (VaR), which is a famous term in the financial field, and the probabilistic hesitant fuzzy element (PHFE), which is a general hesitant fuzzy element (HFE) and has recently become a popular topic. Then, the hesitant VaR (HVaR) is defined, and its mathematical presentation is provided to measure the tail information of the PHFEs. It is found that the tail information calculated by the HVaR is segmentary, and only the boundary value is used. Therefore, this paper further develops the expected HVaR (EHVaR) to improve the HVaR, which can describe the entire tail information. Two simple examples are provided to show and compare the proposed HVaR and EHVaR. To apply the EHVaR into a group decision making that focuses on the tail information, this paper proposes a dynamic programming model to calculate the weights of the DMs based on the principle that the more accurate PHFE should be given a bigger weight. Then, the tail group decision making steps based on the EHVaR are presented. Finally, this paper provides an example of selecting the optimal stock for four newly listed stocks in China to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.

Ultrasonic-Impregnation for Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastic Prepreg Production

Fiber-reinforced thermoplastics have a high potential for big scale light weight process applications due to low processing times and recyclability. Further advantages are the low emissions during the manufacturing process and beneficial handling and storing properties of the semi finished materials. Thermoplastic composites are made of reinforcement fibers and a thermoplastic polymer matrix by applying two essential sub processes: (1) melting of the matrix-material and (2) impregnating the textile component with molten matrix-material. At present state of art both sub-processes are applied by using double-belt-presses, characterized by high processing temperatures and high processing forces. Therefore, a large amount of energy is needed to create the necessarily high compaction forces and temperatures with hydraulic cylinders and electric heating. Convection, infrared-radiation and the cooling (dynamic) of tempered machine parts leads to a significant dissipation of energy. Especially the process for generating the hydraulic pressure has a low level of efficiency. Therefore, in respect to economic and ecologic reasons, novel energy-efficient impregnation processes need to be investigated and developed. The represented novel impregnation process is based on ultrasonic technology. A stack of polymer film (outer layers) and a textile ply (inner layer) is formed and the energy is applied with an ultrasonic sonotrode. The efficient, fast and strongly concentrated energy application into the thermoplastic films allows the development of novel and highly flexible machine concepts. These can be used for development of small scale up to large scale production processes. The ultrasonic-technology allows a continuous impregnation of the textile component with molten matrix-material. A custom-designed prototype was developed. First material samples were produced and the technological parameters studied. A characterization of the experimental results, material samples, prototype machine and process is the focus of this paper.

Scalable shared-memory architecture to solve the Knapsack 0/1 problem

Dynamic Programming (DP) is used to solve combinatorial optimization problems and constitutes one of the 13 High Performance Computing (HPC) patterns. DP suffers from irregular, data-dependent memory accesses that deteriorates performance. The Knapsack 0/1 belongs to the simplest DP algorithms which is called Serial Monadic and has been treated in software with cache-efficient algorithms as well as parallel threads, OpenMP or MPI.In this paper we propose a shared memory, parametrizable architecture to compute the DP matrix for the Knapsack 0/1. Our system has a parallel runtime of Θ(mC/q) for a knapsack of capacity C with m items and q operators. Using additional off-chip space and DMA transfers it can solve knapsacks of any size. The architecture is implemented on the ZYNQ-7020 System On Chip (SoC) that contains a dual-core ARM plus Artix FPGA fabric. Under such architecture we make use of 64-bit High Performance ports for off-chip transfers and asymmetric 32-bit write/64-bit read BRAMs to minimize data exchange times. We also exploit computation synchronization to minimize BRAM address propagation and reduce routing congestion. We present results for a base system with 70 Processing Elements (PEs) capable of solving problems with a maximum item weight ωmax=1024. For more complex instances we configure the architecture with 58 PEs and ωmax=6144, where a single BRAM is shared among 13 computing units. We thus solve problems with 6 × bigger weights than previous works, attain a 16 × speed-up versus an optimized software on an Intel Xeon E5 and get the highest efficiency per core versus other architectures. We achieve between 2.4−3.3× acceleration versus previous FPGA solutions.

Leader Selection and Clusterization Algorithms in a Static Robot Swarm

The paper presents the problem of clustering and leader selection in a group of robots, using a static swarm model - fixed network at some point in time, consisting of the robots connected to one another via the communication channels. Robots use only local interaction, the topology of the swarm and the number of the robots is not known beforehand. It is proposed to take into account the relative positions of the robots and their neighbors, i.e., their local topology, which is known to them, and allows them, in the long run, to choose their leader out of the robots located close enough to the topological center of the whole group. It is known that the group has peripheral robots - those which have not all the communication channels occupied. They initiate the leader selection procedure by transmitting its weight to the center of the group. This allows to create there a subgroup of robots, with the biggest weights, one of which becomes the leader. It is considered as an option, when the static topology of the swarm changes, i.e. some robots are eliminated in the process of voting. It is demonstrated that in all these cases the leader selection algorithm succeeds. In addition, a clustering algorithm is proposed to solve the problem of the functional differentiation of robots, which will quickly produce their integration into subgroups. The conducted computing experiments prove the efficiency of the algorithms.

Differentiate the biomarkers between preterm and term newborns with the application of tandem mass spectrometry

Objective To determine the difference in metabolomics profiles between the preterm and the term newborns, and to search for special biomarker by the application of tandem chromatograph-mass spectrometry and metabolomics. Methods The heel peripheral blood samples were collected from 46 preterm newborns and 55 term newborns(term newborns group) in the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University from January to December 2014.The Tandem Mass Spectometry(MS/MS) was used to generate the metabolic fingerprints of amino acid and acyl-carnitine from the heel peripheral blood.The data collected were subjected to the metabolomics analysis by using the orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis to search for the considerable biomarkers. Results Heel peripheral plasma from the preterm newborns group and the term newborns group displayed a clearly differentiated metabolic profiles.Twelve metabolites were identified which possessed the biggest weight discriminating the preterm from the term newborns group in the pattern of recognizing process combined with the metabolites score plot with variable importance plot.The preterm newborns group had the lower levels of free carnitine, succinyl carnitine, tetradecanoyl carnitine; palmitoyl carnitine, hexedecenoyl carnitine, stearyl carnitine, oleyl carnitine, glycine, histidine, and glutamic acid than the term newborns group, while plasma levels of isovaleryl carnitine, arginine were higher in the preterm newborns. Conclusions There was a significant difference in metabolomics profiles between the preterm newborns group and the term newborns group.The analysis of MS/MS combined with metabolomics could be essential for evaluating neonatal metabolic status.Besides, the identified biomarkers were of great value in the further study about correcting metabolic disorders and supplying reasonable nutrition in the early life. Key words: Metabonomics; Tandem mass spectrometry; Peripheral blood; Preterm newborn; Term newborn

Zerotree wavelet image compression with weighted sub-block-trees and adaptive coding order

Information distortion in regions of image edge is more perceptible for people than those in other regions. To improve the performance on the edge, we present an improved embedded zero-tree wavelet image compression algorithm with weighted sub-block-trees and adaptive coding order. First, we assign bigger weights to the sub-block-trees around image edge. The weights assigned to the sub-blocks in the same spatial location and the same orientation at different scales are equal so that the zero-tree structure of wavelet coefficients is maintained and only a little extra storage is needed. Then we prefer scanning the coefficients on the neighbor of previous significant coefficients and all of them are refined even they are not significant. Adaptive arithmetic coding is applied to the symbols of these coefficients and others respectively. The proposed method pays more attention to the edge and its neighborhood so that the decoded image on the edge is clearer. Compared with similar algorithms, experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the PSNR and SSIM, as well as the subjective visual experience. The proposed method is applicable to any genre of embedded wavelet image codec.

Yeast Cells Encapsulating Polymer Nanoparticles as Trojan Particles via in Situ Polymerization inside Cells

Yeast cell envelopes including the cell membranes and cell walls are intriguing single bag-shaped structures and can stimulate macrophages activity throughout the body. In this work, we report on the formation of hierarchical particles of yeast cells encapsulating polymer nanoparticles via in situ free radical polymerization of vinyl monomers inside cells. Proper degree of cell autolysis is important for achieving high yields of polymer nanoparticles inside cells. When styrene is used as the model monomer, the nature of polymerization initiating systems affects the morphologies of obtained particles. Pomegranate-like yeast cellular particles carrying PS nanoparticles are obtained by a BPO-initiated free radical polymerization of styrene inside yeast cells. The in vitro tests showed that the macrophage cells could selectively take up the yeast particles bearing PS nanoparticles. These yeast microparticles carrying polymer nanoparticles can act as Trojan particles to carry and release polymer nanoparticles in a certain circumstance. Because of the controlled permeability of yeast membrane, the methodology developed in this work can be extended to produce cells bearing water-soluble polymers with big molecular weights. The yeast Trojan particles may find a broad scope of applications, not only as the Trojan particles for drug delivery but also as arterial embolic agents of tumors, as bioadsorption and separation materials, etc.

The Evolution of Anthropometric and Physiometric Parameters, and of Anthropometric Indices Based on Age and Gender in a Group Of Pupils.

ABSTRACT: For the human body as a whole, the pace of physical development decreases with age, this very decrease not being uniform. For both sexes, the development is genetically determined, the girls having a much earlier osseous development in all development stages, whereas boys always present a bigger height and weight than girls, except the prepubertal stage. A mixed-gender group of pupils, with ages ranging from 11 to 18 years, was assesed through anthropometric measurements, for which some anthropometric and physiometric parameters were measured, and also some anthropometric indices of the skull and trunk. Analysing the obtained data, we found out that there are no major differences between the two genders, except the predictable ones, but, regarding the middle school and high school pupils, the former have smaller dimensions.

The evaluation of environmental capacity: Evidence in Hunan province of China

Environmental capacity paves the foundation for sustainable economic development. As the vital growth pole in the Rise Strategy of Central China, the environmental and economic construction of Hunan province proves to have enormous demonstration effect. In order to better understand the environmental condition in Hunan province, this study combines the information entropy theory and ecological comprehensive index to measure the environmental capacity of 14 administration divisions in Hunan province and 30 provinces across China in 2013. The results indicate that, first of all, the average environmental capacity of 14 administration divisions in Hunan province is relatively lower, i.e., 0.39. Second, Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster in Hunan province exerts limited radiative and guiding effect on its surroundings; in particular, Xiangtan possesses a notably lower environmental capacity than other two cities, which hampers the integration process. Third, among the four types of environmental capacities concerned, i.e., population capacity, land capacity, resource capacity and waste assimilative capacity, waste assimilative capacity takes up the biggest weight, i.e., 0.31, indicating the most important role in environmental improvement. Finally, the environmental capacity of Hunan province ranks the 24th among the 30 provinces in China and the last in central China. Hunan should pay special attention to the expansion of waste assimilate capacity, so as to promote the overall environmental capacity.

Establishment of Magnetic Microparticles-Assisted Time-Resolved Fluoroimmunoassay for Determinating Biomarker Models in Human Serum.

In order to early screen and detect suspected biomarkers from pathogens and the human body itself, tracers or reaction strategies that can act as signal enhancers have been proposed forth at purpose. In this paper, we discussed the applicability of magnetic microparticles-assisted time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay (MMPs-TRFIA) for sensitive determination of potential analytes. Hepatitis B e antigen, antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen and free triiodothyronine were used as biomarker models to explore the reliability of the method. By coupling with bioprobes, MMPs were used as immunoassay carriers to capture target molecules. Under optimal condition, assay performance, including accuracy, precision and specificity, was outstanding and demonstrated satisfactory. To further evaluate the performance of the MMPs-TRFIA in patients, a total of 728 serum samples from hospital were analyzed for three biomarkers in parallel with the proposed method and chemiluminescence immunoassay kit commercially available. Fairly good agreements are obtained between the two methods via data analysis. Not only that but the reliability of MMPs-TRFIA has also been illustrated by three different reaction models. It is confirmed that the novel method modified with MMPs has been established and showed great potential applications in both biological detection and clinical diagnosis, including big molecule protein and low molecular weight haptens.

Auto-adaptive Air Distribution and Structure Optimization of Ejector Burner for Biomass Alcohol Fuels

A plenty of studies on the utilization of biomass alcohol fuels have been conducted, but combustion efficiency and stability of this fuels still need to be improved. Based on biomass alcohol fuels (bio-methanol and bio-ethanol), this paper studied auto-adaptive air distribution characteristics and optimum structure parameters of an ejector burner by numerical simulation method. Also, an experiment was conducted to verify the numerical results. The results show that the mole air entrainment ratio (MAER) keeps almost constant when the ejector fuel nozzle exit locates at the segment between the ejector throat and the suction chamber entrance, but a bigger ratio α would lead to a higher MAER till the α is bigger than 8.5 for bio-methanol and 11.5 for bio-ethanol. The bio-ethanol fuel is more beneficial for air carrying role because of its big molecular weight. Operation pressure (Pw) has a little impact on MAER of the two fuels, but the rise of back pressure (Pb) would lead to rapid decrease of MAER for the two fuels. For the optimum structure burners, the MAER can be maintained at the value of theoretical complete combustion. Its changing rate is less than 2.3% for bio-methanol and 2.5% for bio-ethanol when the burner load changes from 30% to 120%, which is highly consistent with the experimental results. The optimum burner can distribute air supply automatically with the changing of burner load.

ANALYSIS AND USE OF Mn ORE FINES

This article deals with the analysis and use of Mn ore fines in the production of ferroalloys. The paper focuses on the evaluation of Mn ores in terms of their chemical and phase composition. Mn ore fines are formed in the process of mining, transport and processing of Mn ores in factories. These small particles cannot be directly put into the furnace; they should be edit before they are used. The most appropriate treatment method of Mn ore fines is sintering. Laboratory experiments were done with Mn ore from Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. Analyses of the Mn ores were performed in order to determine their various properties, according to which conditions were adapted for laboratory experiments to produce the best quality Mn sinter. Chemical and phase composition and thermal analysis have been performed on the ores. The phase analysis showed that the ore from Turkey and Bulgaria are in the carbonate form and the ore from Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the oxide form. DTG analysis showed that, by the thermally heating the biggest weight loss happened in the Mn ore from Bulgaria. For the best quality ore can be considered the Mn ore from Turkey because it containsthe highest % of Mn, lowest content of SiO2 and the ore has the lowest % of P. The sizing of Mn ore fines was carried out in laboratory conditions on a laboratory sintering pan. Produced Mn sinters were subjected to analysis of their chemical and phase composition. Produced Mn sinters have higher content of Mntot compared to Mn ores. As a result of Mn ore sintering the form of majority compounds changed - silicates, carbonates and hydrates of manganese in the starting Mn ores were in the produced Mn sinters analysed majority compounds based on the higher oxides of Mn and Fe, which is in the process for production of Mn ferroalloys positive.

Binary code reranking method with weighted hamming distance

Due to its compact binary codes and efficient search scheme, image hashing method is suitable for large-scale image retrieval. In image hashing methods, Hamming distance is used to measure similarity between two points. For K-bit binary codes, the Hamming distance is an int and bounded by K. Therefore, there are many returned images sharing the same Hamming distances with the query. In this paper, we propose two efficient image ranking methods, which are distance weights based reranking method (DWR) and bit importance based reranking method (BIR). DWR method aim to rerank PCA hash codes. DWR averages Euclidean distance of equal hash bits to these bits with different values, so as to obtain the weights of hash codes. BIR method is suitable for all type of binary codes. Firstly, feedback technology is adopted to detect the importance of each binary bit, and then big weights are assigned to important bits and small weights are assigned to minor bits. The advantage of this proposed method is calculation efficiency. Evaluations on two large-scale image data sets demonstrate the efficacy of our methods.

Advanced in solubilization methods of water-insoluble natural drugs

With the development of natural products, the research activities on the solubilization methods of water-insoluble natural products have been carried out worldwide. Big molecular weight and poor solubility of most natural active ingredients lead to a very poor oral absorption and low bioavailability, which has extremely limited their development in pharmaceutical fields and clinical application. As a result, it is necessary to find out a suitable technique to improve the solubility and enhance the oral bioavailability of insoluble natural drugs. Based on the related references published in these years, this review introduced some new techniques to improve the solubility and bioavailability of natural drugs, including prodrugs, inclusion complex, solid dispersion, cocrystals, osmotic pump, liquisolid compacts, micronization, self-microemulsifying, nanosuspensions, lipsomes, polymeric micelles and so on, and summarized the theory, characteristics, application range, application examples, problems and development direction of each technique.

Large Motor Rotor Machining with Static Pressure Center Frame Design

With the recent development of domestic hydropower industry, length, weight, size, material and structure of the rotor machining of large motors and generators manufactured workpiece special processing equipment and process methods have become increasingly demanding, aiming at market high precision, good quality, technical indicators have a good guarantee of the large rotor machining center with plenty of needs static frame, developed a long piece, big weight, material and structural special processing equipment. This equipment has proven high accuracy, good quality, technical indicators have a good guarantee to solve practical problems that exist in the above production. The large hydrostatic rotor machining center frame, not only to solve the large generators, turbine rotor shaft heavy machining of technical problems, but also to ensure the accuracy and stability of the product processing.

Comparative fruit quality parameters of ‘Ninfa’ apricot (Prunus armeniacaL.) grafted on two different rootstocks in a newly established organic orchard

The fruit quality parameters of Prunus armeniaca L. cv ‘Ninfa’ grafted on ‘Myrobalan 29C’ (Prunus cerasifera Ehrh.) and ‘Real Fino’ apricot seedling (Prunus armeniaca L.) were analysed in an experimental orchard under organic management. The study was performed between 2010 and 2012 in the province of Seville (SW Spain). Colour, fruit and stone weights, firmness, soluble solid concentration, and acidity were measured for fruit quality evaluation. Trunk cross-sectional area, main branches, and fruit yield were also determined. In general, ‘Myrobalan 29C’ rootstock produced fruit slightly larger in size and with a bigger weight. By contrast, apricots on ‘Myrobalan 29C’ had less firmness and a lower solid soluble concentration than on ‘Real Fino’. There was little difference in the colour, acidity, and stone dry weights. Trees on ‘Real Fino’ had larger areas of trunk and branches but no significant differences were obtained in relation to fruit yields.

Actuation Torque Reduction in Parallel Robots Using Joint Compliance

This work studies in detail how the judicial application of compliance in parallel manipulators can produce manipulators that require significantly lower actuator effort within a range of desired operating conditions. We propose a framework that uses the Jacobian matrices of redundant parallel manipulators to consider the influence of compliance both in parallel with the actuated joints as well as the passive joints, greatly simplifying previous approaches. We also propose a simple optimization procedure to maximize the motor force reduction for desired regions of the workspace and range of external forces. We then apply the method to a Stewart-Gough platform and to a 3-URS (universal rotational and spherical joint) manipulator. Our results show that parallel manipulators with tasks that involve a preferred external force direction, as for instance, big weights in the platform, can see large reductions in actuator effort through the judicial use of compliant joints without significantly losing rigidity.

Low-Cost Preparation of High-k Expanded Graphite/Carbon Nanotube/Cyanate Ester Composites with Low Dielectric Loss and Low Percolation Threshold

Expanded graphites (EGs) or modified EGs (eEGs) were blended with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in a big weight ratio to prepare low-cost composites, coded as (EG-MWCNT)/cyanate ester (CE) or (eEG-MWCNT)/CE. The structures and properties of the composites are closely related to the loading of total conductors (f). When f < 0.75 wt %, EGs are beneficial for preparing high-k composites with low dielectric loss; however, when f ≥ 1.05 wt %, eEGs have superior advantages. When f = 1.5 wt %, the dielectric constant and loss of (eEG-MWCNT)1.5/CE composite are about 1.6 and 0.6 times that of the (EG-MWCNT)1.5/CE composite, respectively. The origin behind these interesting results was intensively discussed. Attractively, (EG-MWCNT)/CE and (eEG-MWCNT)/CE composites have similar percolation thresholds, so the surface modification of EGs does not increase the percolation threshold; moreover, ternary composites prepared herein have much better dielectric properties than both traditional EG/CE and MWCNT/CE com...