Intermediate Processing Stages Research Articles

Role of Non-Metallic Inclusions in the Fracture Behavior of Cold Drawn Pearlitic Steel

In this paper an exhaustive scientific work is performed, by means of metallographic and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques, of the microstructural defects exhibited by pearlitic steels and their evolution with the manufacturing process by cold drawing, analyzing the consequences of such defects on the isotropic/anisotropic fracture behavior of the different steels. Thus, the objective is the establishment of a relation between the microstructural damage and the fracture behavior of the different steels. To this end, samples were taken from all the intermediate stages of the real cold drawing process, from the initial hot rolled bar (not cold drawn at all) to the heavily drawn final commercial product (prestressing steel wire). Results show the very relevant role of non-metallic inclusions in the fracture behavior of cold drawn pearlitic steels.

Surface Engineering of Ambient-Air-Processed Cesium Lead Triiodide Layers for Efficient Solar Cells

<h2>Summary</h2> Cesium lead triiodide (CsPbI₃) presents a desirable band gap, does not require the use of mixed halides for Si tandem solar cells, and possesses relatively high thermal stability owing to its inorganic components. However, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of CsPbI₃ is lower than that of organic cation-based halide perovskites with identical band gaps. The main factors that govern the PCE of CsPbI₃ are the surface morphology and defect passivation of its thin films on substrates. In this study, we used the sequential dripping of a methylammonium chloride (MACl) solution (SDMS) to obtain highly uniform and pinhole-minimized thin films by controlling the intermediate stages of the crystallization process, followed by surface passivation using octylammonium iodides in ambient air. SDMS accelerated the crystallization process of the CsPbI₃ perovskite layer, resulting in the formation of a uniform and dense surface with few pinholes. Consequently, we fabricated CsPbI₃ solar cells with excellent PCE (20.37%).

SP-CIDS: Secure and Private Collaborative IDS for VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs) serve as the backbone of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), providing passengers with safety and comfort. However, VANETs are vulnerable to major threats that affect data privacy and network services either from an individual or distributed attacker. In this paper, a Secure and Private-Collaborative Intrusion Detection System (SP-CIDS) is proposed to detect network attacks and to mitigate security concerns. In SP-CIDS, a Distributed Machine Learning (DML) model based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is used, which leverages the potential of vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration in the learning process to improve the storage efficiency, accuracy, and scalability of the IDS. However, there are significant data privacy concerns possible in such collaboration, where a CIDS can act as a malicious system that has access to the intermediate stages of the learning process. Additionally, the SP-CIDS system uses Differential Privacy (DP) technique to address the aforementioned data privacy risk associated with the DML-based CIDS. The SP-CIDS system is evaluated with logistic regression, naïve bayes, and ensemble classifiers. Simulation results substantiate that a private ensemble classifier secures the training data with DP and also achieves 96.94% accuracy.

Deep neural networks capture texture sensitivity in V2.

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained on visual objects have shown intriguing ability to predict some response properties of visual cortical neurons. However, the factors (e.g., if the model is trained or not, receptive field size) and computations (e.g., convolution, rectification, pooling, normalization) that give rise to such ability, at what level, and the role of intermediate processing stages in explaining changes that develop across areas of the cortical hierarchy are poorly understood. We focused on the sensitivity to textures as a paradigmatic example, since recent neurophysiology experiments provide rich data pointing to texture sensitivity in secondary (but not primary) visual cortex (V2). We initially explored the CNN without any fitting to the neural data and found that the first two layers of the CNN showed qualitative correspondence to the first two cortical areas in terms of texture sensitivity. We therefore developed a quantitative approach to select a population of CNN model neurons that best fits the brain neural recordings. We found that the CNN could develop compatibility to secondary cortex in the second layer following rectification and that this was improved following pooling but only mildly influenced by the local normalization operation. Higher layers of the CNN could further, though modestly, improve the compatibility with the V2 data. The compatibility was reduced when incorporating random rather than learned weights. Our results show that the CNN class of model is effective for capturing changes that develop across early areas of cortex, and has the potential to help identify the computations that give rise to hierarchical processing in the brain (code is available in GitHub).

Development and use of indirect liquid-phase ELISA test system for detection of PRRS virus antigen during in-process control of raw materials intended for vaccine production

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) being endemic and reported in the most countries in the world remains one of the most challenging diseases in pig industry. The main disease control measures include preventive vaccination and animal movement control within and outside the country as well as diagnostic testing of pigs in the population. Live and inactivated vaccines are used for specific prevention of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome. Complete and irreversible infectious agent inactivation with maximum epitope preservation and protective immunity in immunized animals are the main requirements for inactivated vaccines. Therefore, continuous improvement of methods for vaccine quality control at various vaccine production stages is of current importance. Results of development of the test system based on indirect liquid-phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for PRRS virus antigen detection and activity testing in infectious and inactivated virus-containing cell cultures at intermediate stages of the vaccine production process are described in the paper. The test-system development process included purified and concentrated virus antigen as well as hyperimmune rabbit sera preparation. Specificity of purified and concentrated virus antigen was confirmed with real-time polymerase chain reaction. The developed test-system was shown to detect the virus antigen at initial infectivity titre of 4.87–7.21 lg TCID50/cm3 corresponding to ELISA titre (dilution) of 1:4 up to 1:64. Methodical Guidelines for detection of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus antigen with indirect liquid-phase enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (2019) were developed based on the work results, commissioned and approved by the FGBI “ARRIAH” Scientific Board.

Robust Rate-Place Coding of Resolved Components in Harmonic and Inharmonic Complex Tones in Auditory Midbrain.

Harmonic complex tones (HCTs) commonly occurring in speech and music evoke a strong pitch at their fundamental frequency (F0), especially when they contain harmonics individually resolved by the cochlea. When all frequency components of an HCT are shifted by the same amount, the pitch of the resulting inharmonic tone (IHCT) can also shift, although the envelope repetition rate is unchanged. A rate-place code, whereby resolved harmonics are represented by local maxima in firing rates along the tonotopic axis, has been characterized in the auditory nerve and primary auditory cortex, but little is known about intermediate processing stages. We recorded single-neuron responses to HCT and IHCT with varying F0 and sound level in the inferior colliculus (IC) of unanesthetized rabbits of both sexes. Many neurons showed peaks in firing rate when a low-numbered harmonic aligned with the neuron's characteristic frequency, demonstrating "rate-place" coding. The IC rate-place code was most prevalent for F0 > 800 Hz, was only moderately dependent on sound level over a 40 dB range, and was not sensitive to stimulus harmonicity. A spectral receptive-field model incorporating broadband inhibition better predicted the neural responses than a purely excitatory model, suggesting an enhancement of the rate-place representation by inhibition. Some IC neurons showed facilitation in response to HCT relative to pure tones, similar to cortical "harmonic template neurons" (Feng and Wang, 2017), but to a lesser degree. Our findings shed light on the transformation of rate-place coding of resolved harmonics along the auditory pathway.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Harmonic complex tones are ubiquitous in speech and music and produce strong pitch percepts when they contain frequency components that are individually resolved by the cochlea. Here, we characterize a "rate-place" code for resolved harmonics in the auditory midbrain that is more robust across sound levels than the peripheral rate-place code and insensitive to the harmonic relationships among frequency components. We use a computational model to show that inhibition may play an important role in shaping the rate-place code. Our study fills a major gap in understanding the transformations in neural representations of resolved harmonics along the auditory pathway.

Similarity judgments and cortical visual responses reflect different properties of object and scene categories in naturalistic images

Numerous factors have been reported to underlie the representation of complex images in high-level human visual cortex, including categories (e.g. faces, objects, scenes), animacy, and real-world size, but the extent to which this organization reflects behavioral judgments of real-world stimuli is unclear. Here, we compared representations derived from explicit behavioral similarity judgments and ultra-high field (7T) fMRI of human visual cortex for multiple exemplars of a diverse set of naturalistic images from 48 object and scene categories. While there was a significant correlation between similarity judgments and fMRI responses, there were striking differences between the two representational spaces. Behavioral judgements primarily revealed a coarse division between man-made (including humans) and natural (including animals) images, with clear groupings of conceptually-related categories (e.g. transportation, animals), while these conceptual groupings were largely absent in the fMRI representations. Instead, fMRI responses primarily seemed to reflect a separation of both human and non-human faces/bodies from all other categories. Further, comparison of the behavioral and fMRI representational spaces with those derived from the layers of a deep neural network (DNN) showed a strong correspondence with behavior in the top-most layer and with fMRI in the mid-level layers. These results suggest a complex relationship between localized responses in high-level visual cortex and behavioral similarity judgments – each domain reflects different properties of the images, and responses in high-level visual cortex may correspond to intermediate stages of processing between basic visual features and the conceptual categories that dominate the behavioral response.

Revisiting the functional significance of binocular cues for perceiving motion-in-depth

Binocular differencing of spatial cues required for perceiving depth relationships is associated with decreased sensitivity to the corresponding retinal image displacements. However, binocular summation of contrast signals increases sensitivity. Here, we investigated this divergence in sensitivity by making direct neural measurements of responses to suprathreshold motion in human adults and 5-month-old infants using steady-state visually evoked potentials. Interocular differences in retinal image motion generated suppressed response functions and correspondingly elevated perceptual thresholds compared to motion matched between the two eyes. This suppression was of equal strength for horizontal and vertical motion and therefore not specific to the perception of motion-in-depth. Suppression is strongly dependent on the presence of spatial references in the image and highly immature in infants. Suppression appears to be the manifestation of a succession of spatial and interocular opponency operations that occur at an intermediate processing stage either before or in parallel with the extraction of motion-in-depth.

Software-defined radio technology for GNSS scintillation analysis: bring Antarctica to the lab

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) are widely used to support logistics, scientific operations, and to monitor the polar ionosphere indirectly, which is a region characterized by strong phase scintillation events that severely affect the quality and reliability of received signals. Professional commercial GNSS receivers are widely used for scintillation monitoring; on the contrary, custom-designed solutions based on data grabbers and software receivers constitute novelty. The latter enables a higher level of flexibility and configurability, which is important when working in remote and severe environments. We describe the scientific, technological, and logistical challenges of installing an ionospheric monitoring station in Antarctica, based on a multi-constellation and multi-frequency GNSS data grabber and a software-defined radio receiver. Having access to the full receiver chain and to intermediate signal processing stages allows a deep analysis of the impact of scintillation and, in turn, a better understanding of the physical phenomenon. The possibility to process high-resolution raw intermediate frequency samples of the signal enables not only the computation of scintillation indexes with the same quality as professional devices but also the design and test of innovative receiver architectures and algorithms. Furthermore, the record and replay approach offers the possibility to process in the lab the signals captured on site, with high fidelity level. It is like being in Antarctica again, but with an unlimited set of receivers and higher computational, storage, and bandwidth resources. The main advantages and disadvantages of this approach are analyzed. Examples of monitoring results are reported, confirming the monitoring capabilities, showing the good agreement with commercial receiver outputs and confirming the validity of post-processing and re-play operations.

Changes in Phenolic Acid Content in Maize during Food Product Processing.

The notion that many nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals in maize are lost due to food product processing is common, but this has not been studied in detail for the phenolic acids. Information regarding changes in phenolic acid content throughout processing is highly valuable because some phenolic acids are chemopreventive agents of aging-related diseases. It is unknown when and why these changes in phenolic acid content might occur during processing, whether some maize genotypes might be more resistant to processing induced changes in phenolic acid content than other genotypes, or if processing affects the bioavailability of phenolic acids in maize-based food products. For this study, a laboratory-scale processing protocol was developed and used to process whole maize kernels into toasted cornflakes. High-throughput microscale wet-lab analyses were applied to determine the concentrations of soluble and insoluble-bound phenolic acids in samples of grain, three intermediate processing stages, and toasted cornflakes obtained from 12 ex-PVP maize inbreds and seven hybrids. In the grain, insoluble-bound ferulic acid was the most common phenolic acid, followed by insoluble-bound p-coumaric acid and soluble cinnamic acid, a precursor to the phenolic acids. Notably, the ferulic acid content was approximately 1950 μg/g, more than ten-times the concentration of many fruits and vegetables. Processing reduced the content of the phenolic acids regardless of the genotype. Most changes occurred during dry milling due to the removal of the bran. The concentration of bioavailable soluble ferulic and p-coumaric acid increased negligibly due to thermal stresses. Therefore, the current dry milling based processing techniques used to manufacture many maize-based foods, including breakfast cereals, are not conducive for increasing the content of bioavailable phenolics in processed maize food products. This suggests that while maize is an excellent source of phenolics, alternative or complementary processing methods must be developed before this nutritional resource can be utilized.

Capital as in capitalism, or capital as in capital goods, or both?

Austrian economists employ two different concepts of capital. Sometimes they treat capital as a universal phenomenon of human action as such. Capital is then understood as a combination of heterogeneous capital goods that appear on the intermediate stages of the production process. In other instances, they understand capital as a homogeneous value magnitude expressed in money terms that is employed in business accounting. This paper argues that this practice not only creates terminological confusion, but leads to substantial misunderstandings when it comes to important theories held by the Austrian school. The point is exemplified by the Austrian theory of the business cycle.

단순가공 어류 수산물 제조 공정 중의 식품학적 위해요소 분석

This study analyzed the food safety in processing process of simple-processed fishery products. A total of 88 samples analyzed for the presence of pathogenic bacteria and physicochemical hazards. No major foodborne pathogenic bacteria, such as Salmonella sp., Listeria monocytogenes and Escherichia coli O157:H7, were detected in any of the samples. However, Bacillus cereus (12 samples, 13.6%) and Staphylococcus aureus (15 samples, 17.0%) were frequently detected in both the intermediate processing stages and the final products, although cell populations were not high. Very small amounts of heavy metals and histamine were detected in some samples, in quantities that did not exceed the safe guidelines according to Korean Government regulations. Similarly, no other physical hazards such as foreign material were observed in any of the samples. We concluded that there are no significant pathogenic bacteria or physicochemical food hazards in simply processed fish products from Korea. The present study strongly suggests that increased food sanitation measures should be implemented to decrease the prevalence of S. aureus in simple-processed fishery products.

Discrete Event Simulation Approach for Energy Efficient Resource Management in Paper & Pulp Industry

To improve energy efficiency of a Paper & Pulp industry, full capacity utilization of the processing equipment and diverse energy source utilities are promoted, while same time processing of diverse raw materials, meeting of strict processing time requirements, seamless material flow and obtaining required product quality are important concerns to be fulfilled. This is similar to a resources management problem while energy is considered as one of the measurable resources, wherein estimation of energy consumptions is crucial/complicated aspect. Discretized form of energy consumption (approximate energy consumed by unit amount of intermediate products at different intermediate processing stages) concept is utilized here with discrete event simulation for consumed energy estimation/analysis. The research deals with a real time working Paper & Pulp industry resource management problem, wherein overall energy consumption rate and production rate were analyzed for some commonly occurring situation of efficiency reduction of the processing station(s). Energy efficient solutions are evaluated with varying production flow (varying the percentage of raw material) and resources management options (turning on/off paper machines). Energy efficient solution which ensures minimum loss in production rate and minimizes disturbances in material flow is suggested for implementation.

Development of a method for the accelerated two-stage search for an optimal control trajectory in periodical processes

Optimization of manufacturing processes is the main tool that can provide access to the maximum financial efficiency of the enterprise. At the same time, this important tool for maximizing the resource efficiency is practically not used by enterprises due to the complexity and imperfection of the theory of optimal control, which manifests itself by its contradictory nature. The way out can be found by applying the method of practical determination of the optimal trajectory which was developed in the framework of this study. The advantage of the method is that it ensures determination of the optimal trajectory for those production processes which show intermediate results incomparable with each other both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, to evaluate effectiveness of the operational processes associated with heating fluids, melting steel, crushing iron ore, etc. the costs and time alter nonlinearly at the intermediate stages. At the same time, qualitative parameters of the output product change which makes it impossible to use a direct method for estimating quantitative parameters of the output product at intermediate stages of the conversion process. The proposed method provides a two-stage process of optimization. In this case, completion of the first stage of optimization quickly transfers control to a zone close to the optimum in an automatic mode. The further search process just corrects the control trajectory if external conditions permit it. Thus, the proposed practical method of searching for the optimal control trajectory is essentially robust

Predictive feature remapping before saccadic eye movements.

Saccadic eye movements cause rapid and dramatic displacements of the retinal image of the visual world, yet our conscious perception of the world remains stable and continuous. A popular explanation for this remarkable ability of our visual system to compensate for the displacements is the predictive feature remapping theory. The theory proposes that, before saccades, the representation of a visual stimulus can be predictively transferred from neurons that initially encode the stimulus to neurons whose receptive fields will encompass the stimulus location after the saccade. Visual adaptation aftereffect experiments performed by Melcher (2007) provided psychophysical evidence for this theory. However, it was argued that the visual aftereffects were not measured at the "appropriate" remapped location (Rolfs, Jonikaitis, Deubel, & Cavanagh, 2011). Therefore, whether the remapped representation contains feature information (e.g., orientation, motion direction, or contrast) is still a subject of intense debate. Here, to explore the nature of the predictive transfer during trans-saccadic perception, we measured visual aftereffects (tilt aftereffect, motion aftereffect, and threshold elevation aftereffect) at the appropriate remapped location of adapting stimuli before saccades. We observed a significant tilt aftereffect and motion aftereffect, but little threshold elevation aftereffect. Furthermore, the tilt aftereffect and motion aftereffect exhibited spatial specificity. These findings provide strong evidence for the predictive feature remapping theory and suggest that intermediate visual processing stages (i.e., extrastriate visual cortex) might be critical for feature remapping. Finally, we propose that the feature remapping process might also contribute to the spatiotopic representation of visual features.

English

This study focuses on the polysemy of the Amharic fit “face”, its body–part term and grammaticalized meanings. The data has been collected from the wide range of written sources and from the internet due to absence of corpus data. By considering the functional-grammaticalization theoretical model, the grammaticalization of fit “face” is identified to be between the intermediate and advanced stages of the change process where it acquires secondary meanings, forms paradigms, becomes obligatory in the constructions, and acquires a fixed order of occurrence. By organizing the extended meanings of the body-part term fit of Amharic into similar meaning clusters, the study shows that fit “face” provides seven spatial and temporal grammatical meaning extensions; front, side, parallel (opposite), future, past (before), temporal relations and negative past. Moreover, the Amharic spatial reference is also identified as having a single-file or object-deictic oriented model. Key words: Grammaticalization, Amharic, body-part, face, spatial, temporal.

Measuring the Environmental Footprint of Leather Processing Technologies

SummaryThe selection of materials and manufacturing processes often determines most of the environmental impact that a product will have during its life cycle. In directing consumption toward products with the least impact on the environment, measuring and comparing material alternatives with site‐specific data is a fundamental prerequisite. Within the apparel and footwear industry, some famous brands have recently been basing their advertising on the claim that vegetable‐tanned leather is more environmentally friendly than chromium‐tanned leather. However, there is a lack of scientific research assessing and comparing vegetable‐ and chromium‐tanned leather in a wider context than the toxicity of chromium. To fill this gap, this study measured and compared the carbon, water, and energy footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processing technology and intermediate processing stages in 12 selected tanneries in seven different countries worldwide. Each tannery proved to be very individual, and therefore attempting to perform this type of analysis without simply producing meaningless generalities is a challenge for companies, researchers, and regulators. The variability in results demonstrates that secondary data for the tanning phase should be utilized with caution in a decision‐making context. The use of primary data would be advisable for life cycle assessment studies of leather goods. No significant differences were found in the footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processes, but these are only indicative findings and need confirmation in further studies. An important area needing investigation is then how a fair comparison can be made between renewable natural materials and nonrenewable materials used in both leather‐processing technologies.

Neurons in Macaque Area V4 Are Tuned for Complex Spatio-Temporal Patterns

To deepen our understanding of object recognition, it is critical to understand the nature of transformations that occur in intermediate stages of processing in the ventral visual pathway, such as area V4. Neurons in V4 are selective to local features of global shape, such as extended contours. Previously, we found that V4 neurons selective for curved elements exhibit a high degree of spatial variation in their preference. If spatial variation in curvature selectivity was also marked by distinct temporal response patterns at different spatial locations, then it might be possible to untangle this information in subsequent processing based on temporal responses. Indeed, we find that V4 neurons whose receptive fields exhibit intricate selectivity also show variation in their temporal responses across locations. A computational model that decodes stimulus identity based on population responses benefits from using this temporal information, suggesting that it could provide a multiplexed code for spatio-temporal features.

Visualizing the Impact of Art: An Update and Comparison of Current Psychological Models of Art Experience.

The last decade has witnessed a renaissance of empirical and psychological approaches to art study, especially regarding cognitive models of art processing experience. This new emphasis on modeling has often become the basis for our theoretical understanding of human interaction with art. Models also often define areas of focus and hypotheses for new empirical research, and are increasingly important for connecting psychological theory to discussions of the brain. However, models are often made by different researchers, with quite different emphases or visual styles. Inputs and psychological outcomes may be differently considered, or can be under-reported with regards to key functional components. Thus, we may lose the major theoretical improvements and ability for comparison that can be had with models. To begin addressing this, this paper presents a theoretical assessment, comparison, and new articulation of a selection of key contemporary cognitive or information-processing-based approaches detailing the mechanisms underlying the viewing of art. We review six major models in contemporary psychological aesthetics. We in turn present redesigns of these models using a unified visual form, in some cases making additions or creating new models where none had previously existed. We also frame these approaches in respect to their targeted outputs (e.g., emotion, appraisal, physiological reaction) and their strengths within a more general framework of early, intermediate, and later processing stages. This is used as a basis for general comparison and discussion of implications and future directions for modeling, and for theoretically understanding our engagement with visual art.

Typicality sharpens category representations in object-selective cortex

The purpose of categorization is to identify generalizable classes of objects whose members can be treated equivalently. Within a category, however, some exemplars are more representative of that concept than others. Despite long-standing behavioral effects, little is known about how typicality influences the neural representation of real-world objects from the same category. Using fMRI, we showed participants 64 subordinate object categories (exemplars) grouped into 8 basic categories. Typicality for each exemplar was assessed behaviorally and we used several multi-voxel pattern analyses to characterize how typicality affects the pattern of responses elicited in early visual and object-selective areas: V1, V2, V3v, hV4, LOC. We found that in LOC, but not in early areas, typical exemplars elicited activity more similar to the central category tendency and created sharper category boundaries than less typical exemplars, suggesting that typicality enhances within-category similarity and between-category dissimilarity. Additionally, we uncovered a brain region (cIPL) where category boundaries favor less typical categories. Our results suggest that typicality may constitute a previously unexplored principle of organization for intra-category neural structure and, furthermore, that this representation is not directly reflected in image features describing natural input, but rather built by the visual system at an intermediate processing stage.