Similarity Curve Research Articles

Query-Adaptive Late Fusion for Hierarchical Fine-Grained Video-Text Retrieval.

Recently, a hierarchical fine-grained fusion mechanism has been proved effective in cross-modal retrieval between videos and texts. Generally, the hierarchical fine-grained semantic representations (video-text semantic matching is decomposed into three levels including global-event representation matching, action-relation representation matching, and local-entity representation matching) to be fused can work well by themselves for the query. However, in real-world scenarios and applications, existing methods failed to adaptively estimate the effectiveness of multiple levels of the semantic representations for a given query in advance of multilevel fusion, resulting in a worse performance than expected. As a result, it is extremely essential to identify the effectiveness of hierarchical semantic representations in a query-adaptive manner. To this end, this article proposes an effective query-adaptive multilevel fusion (QAMF) model based on manipulating multiple similarity scores between the hierarchical visual and text representations. First, we decompose video-side and text-side representations into hierarchical semantic representations consisting of global-event level, action-relation level, and local-entity level, respectively. Then, the multilevel representation of the video-text pair is aligned to calculate the similarity score for each level. Meanwhile, the sorted similarity score curves of the good semantic representation are different from the inferior ones, which exhibit a "cliff" shape and gradually decline (see Fig. fig1 as an example). Finally, we leverage the Gaussian decay function to fit the tail of the score curve and calculate the area under the normalized sorted similarity curve as the indicator of semantic representation effectiveness, namely, the area of good semantic representation is small, and vice versa. Extensive experiments on three public benchmark video-text datasets have demonstrated that our method consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art (SoTA). A simple demo of QAMF will soon be publicly available on our homepage: https://github.com/Lab-ANT.

INCREASING THE LEVEL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY OF PUMPING UNITS BY ENERGY SAVING DURING REGULATION

The relevance of improving calculation methods for pumping units of hydraulic systems in order to save energy and correspondingly increase their level of environmental safety is substantiated. To speed up hydraulic calculations and increase their accuracy, it is proposed to approximate the existing characteristics of centrifugal pumps, which are usually presented in the equipment passport in graphic form, with a quadratic parabola. The general equations for the analytical determination of the working point parameters, the construction of the pressure characteristics of the pump at a new rotation frequency and the formula for the geometric location of the tops of the pressure characteristics for different rotation frequencies of the impeller were obtained. It has been proven that with frequency control, the pump characteristic shifts equidistantly along the parabola of proportionality. In a similar way, the characteristics of the pump are affected by the casing of the impeller. An equation has been obtained that allows, without resorting to the grapho-analytical method, to calculate the change in the characteristics of the pump with a proportional change in all its dimensions and a constant frequency of rotation and the equation of the curve of similar modes. This curve is proposed to be called the similarity curve. It is shown that the velocity coefficient is a constant value along the polynomial curve. On the basis of the obtained results, a method of comparative analysis of the energy efficiency of the regulation of the pumping unit by changing the rotation frequency and proportionally changing all dimensions of the impeller is proposed. The application of the method is demonstrated on concrete examples. Achieving the highest efficiency of the pumping unit ensures the lowest energy consumption, thus minimizing emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Keywords: environmental safety, efficiency, centrifugal pumps, flow regulation, hydraulic resistances, change of rotation frequency, laws of similarity, laws of proportionality

ClipGen: A Deep Generative Model for Clipart Vectorization and Synthesis.

This article presents a novel deep learning-based approach for automatically vectorizing and synthesizing the clipart of man-made objects. Given a raster clipart image and its corresponding object category (e.g., airplanes), the proposed method sequentially generates new layers, each of which is composed of a new closed path filled with a single color. The final result is obtained by compositing all layers together into a vector clipart image that falls into the target category. The proposed approach is based on an iterative generative model that (i) decides whether to continue synthesizing a new layer and (ii) determines the geometry and appearance of the new layer. We formulated a joint loss function for training our generative model, including the shape similarity, symmetry, and local curve smoothness losses, as well as vector graphics rendering accuracy loss for synthesizing clipart recognizable by humans. We also introduced a collection of man-made object clipart, ClipNet, which is composed of closed-path layers, and two designed preprocessing tasks to clean up and enrich the original raw clipart. To validate the proposed approach, we conducted several experiments and demonstrated its ability to vectorize and synthesize various clipart categories. We envision that our generative model can facilitate efficient and intuitive clipart designs for novice users and graphic designers.

Similarity Calculation Method for Infield and Outfield Low-Temperature Environmental Tests of Aircraft Sealing Rubber Material

This study aims to accurately simulate the outfield low-temperature environment for the key components of aircraft in the parking state, using the infield low-temperature environmental test chamber, when there is a difference between the infield and outfield environments; and, moreover, reveal the similarity between the influences of the infield and outfield low-temperature environments on the elastic properties of the rubber sealing materials for aircraft. Two kinds of rubber materials were examined in the infield and outfield—the tensile springback test and the isobaric elongation test—and the measured data of low-temperature steady-state response (elastic property) were obtained under the typical temperature of −40 to 10 °C, finding that there is difference of elastic property between the infield and outfield environment. Three fitting methods were then used to describe the relationship between elasticity and temperature. In view of the difference of the elastic response of the typical rubber sealing materials to the low-temperature infield and outfield, a similarity calculation method of infield and outfield low-temperature tests was proposed, based on the translation and scaling transformation of the similarity curve. The outfield test data verify that the method proposed has high goodness of fit, and it is feasible and generalizable in the low-temperature performance testing and research of rubber materials and components.

Integrated analysis of circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network identifies potential diagnostic biomarkers in diabetic foot ulcer.

Diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) is a common and serious complication of diabetes mellitus, which influences patients’ quality of life. Recently, circRNA regulated the mRNA levels by functioning as miRNA sponge in various disease, including diabetes mellitus. Nevertheless, the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network involved in DFU remains obscure. The aim of this study is to construct a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network and screen biological indicators as diagnostic factors in DFU.All the differentially expressed circRNAs, miRNAs and mRNAs were derived from Gene Expression Omnibus database. Furthermore, circRNAs identified by cytoHubba analysis and miRNAs obtained by human miRNA-disease database were used to construct DFU-specific ceRNA network with intersection of mRNAs. Functional enrichment analysis displayed the function and pathway of dysregulated mRNAs. Hub genes with high diagnostic value were screened by ClusterONE, GO semantic similarity and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.Here, the ceRNA network consisted of 8 circRNAs, 11 miRNAs and 91 mRNAs. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated diabetic complications-related pathway including TGF-beta, FoxO and Wnt signaling pathway. GO semantic similarity and ROC curve analysis showed 6 hub genes with high diagnostic value (the area under the ROC curve ≥ 0.8) in patients with DFU, including BCL2, CCND1, IRAK4, SMAD4, SP1 and SUFU, which were identified as potential target genes for DFU diagnosis. In conclusion, the present study looked at a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network with DFU and screened the potential function of mRNA, then identified novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for patients with DFU.

Real-Time Intelligent Recognition Method for Horizontal Well Marker Bed

The accurate identification of the horizontal well marker bed is to guarantee the soft landing of the well trajectory. With the intelligent development of the petroleum industry, it is feasible to apply computers to identify the marker bed automatically. In case-based reasoning technology, the data of well logging while drilling (LWD) as characteristic parameters are compared with those of adjacent well. By taking the depth sequence of LWD data as time series and using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) similarity measure algorithm, the similarity index of each drilling depth is calculated corresponding to the marker bed in the adjacent well. The total similarity curve is obtained by giving different weights of different feature parameters. Selecting natural gamma, deep resistivity, and shallow resistivity LWD curves as characteristic parameters, two horizontal wells in JL block of Junggar basin are analysed by this method. The result of similarity curve indicates the location of the marker bed and the total similarity value reaches 78%. The research shows that the method based on case-based reasoning can identify the marker bed of the horizontal well accurately and effectively, assist the geologist to carry out formation correlation of multiple wells at the same time, reduce the cost of human labour force, and improve work efficiency.

Multimodal image registration using histogram of oriented gradient distance and data-driven grey wolf optimizer

Multimodal image registration is becoming increasingly important in remote sensing. However, due to the significant nonlinear intensity differences between multimodal images, conventional registration methods tend to get trapped into local optima. To address this issue, we present a new approach for multimodal image registration using histogram of oriented gradient distance (HOGD) and data-driven grey wolf optimizer (DDGWO). First, we propose a novel similarity measure for area-based registration methods that is HOGD. We investigate the performance of HOGD by analyzing its similarity curve. HOGD has a large range of values, which is helpful to find the global optimum. Second, we use GWO to optimize the transformation parameters. Since it is time-consuming to calculate HOGD, we propose DDGWO to minimize HOGD. In DDGWO, the iterations are divided into two parts: the training and prediction iterations. A support vector machine (SVM) regression model is trained by the historical HOGD computed in the training iterations. The trained SVM model predicts HOGD instead of calculating in the prediction iterations, which can reduce the computational time. Finally, we test the proposed approach that uses HOGD as the similarity measure and DDGWO as the search algorithm on 12 real and four simulated image pairs. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach saves up to 83.35-84.15% of computational time and outperforms the state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of registration accuracy.

A novel computational solution to the health risk assessment of air pollution via joint toxicity prediction: A case study on selected PAH binary mixtures in particulate matters

Regional haze episode has already caused overwhelming public concern. Unraveling the health effects of the representative composition mixtures of atmospheric fine particulate matters (PM2.5) becomes a top priority. In this study, a novel computational solution integrating chemical-induced genomic residual effect prediction with in vitro-based risk assessment is proposed to obtain the cumulative health risk of typical chemical mixtures of particulate matters (PM). The joint toxicity of binary mixtures is estimated by analyzing both genomic similarity and dose-response curve of relevant pollutants for the chemical-induced genomic residual effect. Specifically, the modified relative potency factor (mRPF) of mixtures is introduced for this purpose, and the ratio of activation (RA) value is defined to assess the corresponding health risks of the mixtures. As a methodology demonstration, the health risk of typical binary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) mixtures in PM, containing Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) as a component, is assessed using the proposed solution. Our results indicate that the combined effect of pairwise PAHs of BaP with Benzo[b]fluoranthene (BbF) and Benz[a]anthracene (BaA) is synergistic on p53 pathway, and that the health risk of the such mixtures increases compared to that of the individual ones. Obviously, the cumulative health risk of environmental mixtures will be underestimated when the synergistic effect is wrongly assumed to be additive. To our knowledge, this is the first study ever report on a computational solution to the health risk assessment of environmental pollution via joint toxicity prediction. The novel methodology proposed here makes full use of the open-access in vitro assay data and transcriptomic information in literatures and provides a successful demonstration of the concept of systems biology and translational science.

Model of Image Color Difference and Partial Based On RGB Color Distribution Measuring

According to the color difference fabric dyeing measurement in production, partial color existed bad real-time problems. Color difference and color of RGB fabric images put forward by using the method of color distribution measurement of general, which needed rapid measurement of large area color. According to RGB distribution histogram of the image, the measured color with sample color similarity and distribution curve of characteristic value was calculated, obtained the RGB color model, and gives a method of a partial color judging. The experiment proves the feasibility of this measurement fabric color difference and the judgment method and effectiveness of partial color. Color cast detection method has overcome the limitations of the traditional methods of detecting image color cast. In order to partial color image detection is performed after correction, using a combination of gray world and a perfect reflection of the color correction method, to make up for the shortcomings of traditional method. The experimental results show that, the color deviation correction method of image analysis based on detection improved the reliability of color cast detection. The method uses characteristics of image analysis, it has universal applicability.

2-tier in-plane motion correction and out-of-plane motion filtering for contrast-enhanced ultrasound.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) cines of focal liver lesions (FLLs) can be quantitatively analyzed to measure tumor perfusion on a pixel-by-pixel basis for diagnostic indication. However, CEUS cines acquired freehand and during free breathing cause nonuniform in-plane and out-of-plane motion from frame to frame. These motions create fluctuations in the time-intensity curves (TICs), reducing the accuracy of quantitative measurements. Out-of-plane motion cannot be corrected by image registration in 2-dimensional CEUS and degrades the quality of in-plane motion correction (IPMC). A 2-tier IPMC strategy and adaptive out-of-plane motion filter (OPMF) are proposed to provide a stable correction of nonuniform motion to reduce the impact of motion on quantitative analyses. A total of 22 cines of FLLs were imaged with dual B-mode and contrast specific imaging to acquire a 3-minute TIC. B-mode images were analyzed for motion, and the motion correction was applied to both B-mode and contrast images. For IPMC, the main reference frame was automatically selected for each cine, and subreference frames were selected in each respiratory cycle and sequentially registered toward the main reference frame. All other frames were sequentially registered toward the local subreference frame. Four OPMFs were developed and tested: subsample normalized correlation (NC), subsample sum of absolute differences, mean frame NC, and histogram. The frames that were most dissimilar to the OPMF reference frame using 1 of the 4 above criteria in each respiratory cycle were adaptively removed by thresholding against the low-pass filter of the similarity curve. Out-of-plane motion filter was quantitatively evaluated by an out-of-plane motion metric (OPMM) that measured normalized variance in the high-pass filtered TIC within the tumor region-of-interest with low OPMM being the goal. Results for IPMC and OPMF were qualitatively evaluated by 2 blinded observers who ranked the motion in the cines before and after various combinations of motion correction steps. Quantitative measurements showed that 2-tier IPMC and OPMF improved imaging stability. With IPMC, the NC B-mode metric increased from 0.504 ± 0.149 to 0.585 ± 0.145 over all cines (P < 0.001). Two-tier IPMC also produced better fits on the contrast-specific TIC than industry standard IPMC techniques did (P < 0.02). In-plane motion correction and OPMF were shown to improve goodness of fit for pixel-by-pixel analysis (P < 0.001). Out-of-plane motion filter reduced variance in the contrast-specific signal as shown by a median decrease of 49.8% in the OPMM. Two-tier IPMC and OPMF were also shown to qualitatively reduce motion. Observers consistently ranked cines with IPMC higher than the same cine before IPMC (P < 0.001) as well as ranked cines with OPMF higher than when they were uncorrected. The 2-tier sequential IPMC and adaptive OPMF significantly reduced motion in 3-minute CEUS cines of FLLs, thereby overcoming the challenges of drift and irregular breathing motion in long cines. The 2-tier IPMC strategy provided stable motion correction tolerant of out-of-plane motion throughout the cine by sequentially registering subreference frames that bypassed the motion cycles, thereby overcoming the lack of a nearly stationary reference point in long cines. Out-of-plane motion filter reduced apparent motion by adaptively removing frames imaged off-plane from the automatically selected OPMF reference frame, thereby tolerating nonuniform breathing motion. Selection of the best OPMF by minimizing OPMM effectively reduced motion under a wide variety of motion patterns applicable to clinical CEUS. These semiautomated processes only required user input for region-of-interest selection and can improve the accuracy of quantitative perfusion measurements.

DETERMINATION OF PACLITAXEL BY 3D VIEW LC-DIODE ARRAY UV: ITS APPLICATION TO AN IN SITU CLOSED LOOP RE-CIRCULATING INTESTINE ABSORPTION STUDY IN RATS

Paclitaxel (TAX) amount remaining to be absorbed from the intestine in the in situ closed loop, re-circulating absorption samples were estimated by the 3D view LC-diode array method. The Log ARA versus time graph (r2) of TAX loaded nanoparticles (NP)s explains that there is exponential disappearance of TAX from the intestine, which indicates TAX NPs follows first order absorption kinetic. The calculated Ka and t1/2 of TAX and TAX loaded NPs were 0.9, 1.02, 1.38, and 1.74/min and 46.20, 40.66, 30.09, and 23.88 min, respectively, shows the rapid absorption of TAX NPs from the intestine than the pure drug TAX. The 3D view chromatogram, counter view graph, UV, and IR spectrum of the degradation samples confirms the selectivity and specificity of the developed method. The peak purity curve of all the samples shows that the similarity curve did not intersect the threshold curve and the rectangular ratiograms, in addition, demonstrates the selectivity and specificity nature of the 3D view LC-method. The accuracy of the developed methods was tested by placebo spiking and standard addition method. The LOD and LLOQ of the methods 0.39 µg mL,−1 1.18 µg mL−1 and 2.96 ng mL,−1 8.96 ng mL−1 respectively.

Determination of Amylose Content and Its Relationship with RVA Profile Within Genetically Similar Cultivars of Rice ( Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica)

Anther culture pure lines with antisense Wx gene were generated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated co-transformation followed by anther culture in transgenic rice ( Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica). The antisense Wx transgenic pure lines were used to analyze the differences and the relationship between RVA eigenvalues among the lines with different amylose contents. 77 pure lines of anther culture having antisense Wx gene were studied for the amylose content of its offspring cultivar, Wuyunjing 7. It was found that levels of amylose content were similar to the control in 19 lines (16.0%); 1-5% lower than control in 50 lines, of which, within 11.0-13.9% in 40 lines; and 3.1-4.0% in 8 lines. The effect of the amylose content on RVA eigenvalue was analyzed through the RVA profile graphic comparison and test of significance for RVA eigenvalues. The analysis of RVA profiles with different amylose contents indicated that there were two kinds of RVA profiles within genetically similar cultivars. The lines with 3.1-4.0% of amylose content were distinctly different from other lines and conventional glutinous rice. The comparison of the similarity curve of RVA profile of the lines with different amylose contents showed that the lines with lower amylose content had a distinguished RVA profile with the curve increasing gradually, but not exceeding the first apex. The test of significance for eigenvalues of the RVA profile in the lines with different amylose contents indicated that there were five eigenvalues remarkably different among the lines with 3.1-4.0% of amylose content compared with other two groups. Further, there were three eigenvalues remarkably different among the lines with 11.0-13.5% of amylose content compared with control group. An optimized mathematical model, which characterizes the relationships between the amylose content and RVA eigenvalue, has been established in this study. From this model, it was clearly indicated that the parameters PeT and SBV were more related to amylose content. It was concluded that the differences in amylose content not only affected the eigenvalues of RVA but also caused different RVA profiles within genetically similar cultivars. The introduction of antisense Wx gene could lead to reduce the amylose content and lay theoretical foundation for quality improvement in rice breeding programs.

Key frame extraction based on curvature detection of multi-feature similarity curve

With the development of network multimedia, quick and low-cost management of the massive video information is urgently needed. Key frames can decrease data quantity in video indexing and provide a framework for video retrieval and indexing. A key frame extraction method based on high-curvature points detection was proposed. First, three descriptors of color histogram, edge direction histogram and wavelet statistics were used to describe visual content, and combined to form a frame difference measure. Then the key frames were got by detecting high curvature points. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is rapid and efficient. It can capture precise changes dynamically in the content of video sequences, and can extract the key frames on the fly. Finally, a fidelity evaluation proves the effectiveness of the algorithm.

A STATISTICAL APPROACH TO ROBUST VIDEO TEMPORAL INDEXING AND SEGMENTATION

For video indexing, the problem of video cut detection remains largely an open problem because of the wide nature of transitions that occur in a digital video. This paper describes a shot boundary detection technique, which is an amalgamation of few statistical methods and measures, and robustly detects camera breaks in a full-motion video clip. The proposed algorithm incorporates a weighted histogram, an error-propagation technique for increased robustness, and a curve-fitting technique to extract partitions from the similarity curve for avoiding heuristically chosen threshold value. The algorithm has been validated on many video clips and is shown to give improved results, including for videos with rapid scanning, changes in illumination, fade-ins and fade-outs, and with special effects like dissolve and filters.

A scaling analysis of ozone photochemistry

Abstract. A scaling analysis has been used to capture the integrated behaviour of several photochemical mechanisms for a wide range of precursor concentrations and a variety of environmental conditions. The Buckingham Pi method of dimensional analysis was used to express the relevant variables in terms of dimensionless groups. These grouping show maximum ozone, initial NOx and initial VOC concentrations are made non-dimensional by the average NO2 photolysis rate (jav) and the rate constant for the NO–O3 titration reaction (kNO); temperature by the NO–O3 activation energy (ENO) and Boltzmann constant (k) and total irradiation time by the cumulative javΔt photolysis rate. The analysis shows dimensionless maximum ozone concentration can be described by a product of powers of dimensionless initial NOx concentration, dimensionless temperature, and a similarity curve directly dependent on the ratio of initial VOC to NOx concentration and implicitly dependent on the cumulative NO2 photolysis rate. When Weibull transformed, the similarity relationship shows a scaling break with dimensionless model output clustering onto two straight line segments, parameterized using four variables: two describing the slopes of the line segments and two giving the location of their intersection. A fifth parameter is used to normalize the model output. The scaling analysis, similarity curve and parameterization appear to be independent of the details of the chemical mechanism, hold for a variety of VOC species and mixtures and a wide range of temperatures and actinic fluxes.

Systematic characterization of low-pressure capacitively coupled hydrogen discharges

This paper presents a systematic characterization of pure hydrogen capacitively coupled discharges, produced in a parallel plate cylindrical setup. A two-dimensional, time-dependent fluid model is used to describe the production, transport, and destruction of electrons and positive ions H+, H2+, and H3+, at different frequencies (13.56–60 MHz), pressures (0.2–8 Torr), rf applied voltages (50–450 V) and geometric dimensions (1.6–12.8 cm radii and 1.6–6.4 cm interelectrode distances). A good agreement is found between calculation results and experimental measurements for the coupled electrical power, the plasma potential, and the self-bias potential, at various frequencies and rf applied voltages. However, the model generally underestimates the electron density with respect to its measured values. The paper discusses different space-time events, such as the development of double-ionization structures or the occurrence of field inversion and field reversal phenomena. The dependencies on pressure and frequency of the time-average electric field distribution are analyzed and related to the electron displacement within space-charge sheaths. This study is later used to understand the variations of the hydrogen dissociation rate, with changes in discharge operating conditions. The influence of reactor dimensions on the spatial profiles of the plasma potential, the rf electric field, the electron density, and the electron mean energy are analyzed in terms of discharge symmetry. An investigation of the space-time averaged rf electric field variations, with changes in the applied voltage, pressure, and geometric dimensions is carried out. These variations are shown to follow a universal similarity curve, if an adequate normalization is used when plotting the rf electric field as a function of pressure. This innovative representation of rf discharges allows a univocal definition of a reactor working point, for given operating conditions.

Modeling local infiltration for a two-layered soil under complex rainfall patterns

A general model for local infiltration–redistribution–reinfiltration in a two-layered soil profile is proposed as an extension and generalization of a formulation we developed earlier for infiltration and redistribution in crusted soils. It is of analytical/conceptual type and involves a Runge–Kutta–Verner numerical solution of a system of two ordinary differential equations. Given the basic hydraulic properties of soils, there are practically no parameters to estimate by calibration. The wetting profile during infiltration is represented by a single similarity curve, while in the reinfiltration stage, which occurs for rewetting after a period of redistribution, the profile of soil water content in each horizontal layer may be composed of two similarity profiles which evolve in time. The model is tested by comparison with numerical solution of Richards’ equation, carried out for a variety of synthetic experiments upon the combination of three soil types of contrasting hydraulic characteristics. It simulates particularly well the entire cycle infiltration–redistribution–reinfiltration. In all cases, where either layer may be less permeable, the water content at the surface and the interface as well as the infiltration rates are very accurately estimated. The usefulness of compound profiles of water content in the reinfiltration stage is also shown by comparison with the simple approach, which relies on a single similarity curve.

A unified model for infiltration and redistribution during complex rainfall patterns

A relatively simple conceptual model for infiltration during complex rainfall sequences is presented. It is a reformulation of an analytically derived model developed earlier by Smith et al. (1993) [Water Resour. Res., 29(1): 133–144] and Corradini et al. (1994) [Water Resour. Res., 30(10): 2777–2784] in a more homogeneous version suitable for hydrologic applications. The model relies on a single ordinary differential equation through which successive cycles of infiltration-redistribution can be described. The wetting profile, σ(z), is described by a single similarity curve which is stretched in both z and σ dimensions in accordance with the curve area, I, representing infiltrated water. The actual profile of soil water content after rewetting may be compound, composed two parts, each part represented by a similarity profile shape which evolves in time. The model is calibrated using a silty loam soil and is then tested on a variety of soils, from fine-textured to sandy loam soil types, by comparison with a numerical solution of the Richards equation. Like the earlier formulation, the model simulates infiltration rate particularly well, and the greater simplicity of this model sacrifices very little accuracy of the earlier, more complex model.

Thermal Characteristics for Solidification Process of Latent Heat Storage Unit. A Prediction Method for the Relationship between Similarity Function and Heat Release Fraction using a Similarity Curve.

A method of predicting the relationship between the similarity function and the heat release fraction has been proposed and applied to the solidification process of an annulus-type storage unit. The concept of this method has been derived from analysis under the quasi-steady approximation. The prediction should be performed in two separate stages of the solidification process individually. In the first stage-prior to completion of the freezing of phase change material-the similarity function vs. frozen fraction curve can be transformed in accordance with the fact that the heat release fraction is approximately proportional to the frozen fraction. In the second stage after the completion of freezing, where all heat is released as sensible heat, the heat flow rate maintains a linear relation with the heat release fraction. Thus, the similarity function defined in terms of the heat flow rate can be directly correlated with the heat release fraction. The results predicted are in good agreement with numerical calculations.

Similarity Curve in the Solidification Process of Latent Heat Energy Storage Unit with Straight Fins. 3rd Report, Effect of Fin on the Formation of the Similarity Rule.

The similarity rule states that a similarity curve representing the relationship between a similarity function and frozen fraction is indpendent of the Biot number under four specified conditions, including uniform distribution of heat flux over a heat transfer surface of a latent heat storage unit. A storage unit with straight fins, which has the nature of losing such spatial uniformity of heat flux inherently, has been analyzed numerically. The effects of thickness, thermal conductivity and the number of fins on the formation of the similarity rule have been examined, following the 2nd report describing the effect of the heat transfer tube. The results show that a relative difference between similarity curves for different Biot numbers is reduced with decreases in ( ; that is, the similarity rule becomes more and more applicable with a reduction in the thermal conductance of the fin. thickness and/or thermal conductivity of the fin) The distributions of both temperature inside the storage unit and surface heat flux have been shown for the purpose of discussing the results.