Bengal

www.biogeosciences.net/11/3819/2014

Local flow measurements in a turbocharger compressor inlet

[EN] This paper describes an experimental study carried out with the objective of characterizing flow instabilities in turbocharger compressors, specially the distribution of the high-temperature compressed back flow that appears upstream of the impeller at marginal surge conditions. The inlet of a test compressor was fitted with linear and circumferential thermocouple arrays in order to measure the temperature distribution caused by this backflow, whose independence of duct wall temperature was validated through thermographic imaging. Miniaturized pressure probes at the inducer and diffuser showed how pressure spectra varied during the different operating conditions. In-duct acoustic intensity was measured in both the inlet and the outlet to investigate the correlation between a known super synchronous broadband issue known as whoosh noise and the backflow behaviour as characterized by local pressure and temperature. Analysis of the results points to inlet whoosh noise being boosted by this reversed flow but not caused by it, the source probably being located at or downstream of the compressor impeller.This work has been partially supported by Jaguar Land Rover Limited, Abbey Road, Whitley, Coventry CV3 4LF, UK. The equipment used in this work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad through the grant no DPI2015-70464-R and by FEDER project funds “Dotaciön de infraestructuras científico técnicas para el Centro Integral de Mejora Energética y Medioambiental de Sistemas de Transporte (CiMeT), (FEDER-ICTS-2012-06)” framed in the operational program of unique scientific and technical infrastructure of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. J. García-Tíscar is partially supported through contract FPI-S2-2015-1530 of the Programa de Apoyo para la Investigación y Desarrollo (PAID) of Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia.Torregrosa, AJ.; Broatch, A.; Margot, XM.; García Tíscar, J.; Narvekar, Y.; Cheung, R. (2017). Local flow measurements in a turbocharger compressor inlet. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science. 88:542-553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2017.07.007S5425538

Rapid Screening of Ellagitannins in Natural Sources via Targeted Reporter Ion Triggered Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Complex biomolecules present in their natural sources have been difficult to analyze using traditional analytical approaches. Ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC-MS/MS) methods have the potential to enhance the discovery of a less well characterized and challenging class of biomolecules in plants, the ellagitannins. We present an approach that allows for the screening of ellagitannins by employing higher energy collision dissociation (HCD) to generate reporter ions for classification and collision-induced dissociation (CID) to generate unique fragmentation spectra for isomeric variants of previously unreported species. Ellagitannin anions efficiently form three characteristic reporter ions after HCD fragmentation that allows for the classification of unknown precursors that we call targeted reporter ion triggering (TRT). We demonstrate how a tandem HCD-CID experiment might be used to screen natural sources using UHPLC-MS/MS by application of 22 method conditions from which an optimized data-dependent acquisition (DDA) emerged. The method was verified not to yield false-positive results in complex plant matrices. We were able to identify 154 non-isomeric ellagitannins from strawberry leaves, which is 17 times higher than previously reported in the same matrix. The systematic inclusion of CID spectra for isomers of each species classified as an ellagitannin has never been possible before the development of this approach

Case report: intra-tendinous ganglion of the anterior cruciate ligament in a young footballer

A 20-year-old male medical student and keen rugby player presented with a 12-month history of progressively worsening right knee pain and stiffness with no history of trauma. Clinical examination revealed effusion and posterior knee pain exacerbated by end range movement and an extension lag of 15 degrees. Physiotherapy to improve the range of motion proved unsuccessful. Magnetic resonance imaging showed that the ACL was grossly thickened and displaced by material reported as mucoid in nature. There were also areas of focally high signal in relation to its tibial attachment and intra osseous small cysts. Arthroscopic examination revealed a ganglion related to the tibial attachment of the ACL and gross thickening and discoloration of the ACL. Biopsies were taken showing foci of mucoid degeneration in the ACL. A large intra-ACL mass of brownish coloured tissue was excised arthroscopically. Already at 2 weeks follow up the patient had greatly improved range of movement and was pain free. However, upon returning to rugby, joint instability was noticed and a tear of the ACL was confirmed. This rare clinical condition can be diagnosed with MRI and arthroscopic debridement effectively relieves symptoms. This case report illustrates that augmentation or reconstruction may end up being the definitive treatment for athletes. It may also offer some support to the argument that mucoid degeneration and ganglion cyst formation share a similar pathogenesis to intra-osseous cyst formation

Terahertz Security Image Quality Assessment by No-reference Model Observers

To provide the possibility of developing objective image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms for THz security images, we constructed the THz security image database (THSID) including a total of 181 THz security images with the resolution of 127*380. The main distortion types in THz security images were first analyzed for the design of subjective evaluation criteria to acquire the mean opinion scores. Subsequently, the existing no-reference IQA algorithms, which were 5 opinion-aware approaches viz., NFERM, GMLF, DIIVINE, BRISQUE and BLIINDS2, and 8 opinion-unaware approaches viz., QAC, SISBLIM, NIQE, FISBLIM, CPBD, S3 and Fish_bb, were executed for the evaluation of the THz security image quality. The statistical results demonstrated the superiority of Fish_bb over the other testing IQA approaches for assessing the THz image quality with PLCC (SROCC) values of 0.8925 (-0.8706), and with RMSE value of 0.3993. The linear regression analysis and Bland-Altman plot further verified that the Fish__bb could substitute for the subjective IQA. Nonetheless, for the classification of THz security images, we tended to use S3 as a criterion for ranking THz security image grades because of the relatively low false positive rate in classifying bad THz image quality into acceptable category (24.69%). Interestingly, due to the specific property of THz image, the average pixel intensity gave the best performance than the above complicated IQA algorithms, with the PLCC, SROCC and RMSE of 0.9001, -0.8800 and 0.3857, respectively. This study will help the users such as researchers or security staffs to obtain the THz security images of good quality. Currently, our research group is attempting to make this research more comprehensive.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 4 table

Curriculum Learning for Reinforcement Learning Domains: A Framework and Survey

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a popular paradigm for addressing sequential decision tasks in which the agent has only limited environmental feedback. Despite many advances over the past three decades, learning in many domains still requires a large amount of interaction with the environment, which can be prohibitively expensive in realistic scenarios. To address this problem, transfer learning has been applied to reinforcement learning such that experience gained in one task can be leveraged when starting to learn the next, harder task. More recently, several lines of research have explored how tasks, or data samples themselves, can be sequenced into a curriculum for the purpose of learning a problem that may otherwise be too difficult to learn from scratch. In this article, we present a framework for curriculum learning (CL) in reinforcement learning, and use it to survey and classify existing CL methods in terms of their assumptions, capabilities, and goals. Finally, we use our framework to find open problems and suggest directions for future RL curriculum learning research

Organische Überzüge auf Eisenoxiden und Chloriten

Die Adsorption von organischer Substanz an Bodenminerale kann die Eigenschaften der Mineraloberfläche und damit deren Reaktivität vollständig verändern. In welchem Ausmaß Mineraloberflächen im Boden mit organischer Substanz bedeckt sind und woraus diese neuen organischen Oberflächen zusammengesetzt sind ist Gegenstand unserer Untersuchungen. Das Vorhandensein und die Zusammensetzung organischer Überzüge auf Fe-Oxiden (und falls vorhanden Tonmineralen) wurde mit Rasterkraftmikroskopie (AFM) und räumlich aufgelöster Röntgenabsorptionsspektroskopie (STXM mit NEXAFS an der C K-Kante und der Fe L-Kante) analysiert. Die untersuchten Fe-Oxide stammten aus drei Systemen mit unterschiedlichem organischem Ausgangsmaterial: (1) synthetische Goethite, die mit Biofilmen in Kontakt gebracht wurden, (2) natürliche Fe-Oxide, die in einem Quellaustritt, vermutlich unter starker mikrobieller Beteiligung, ausgefällt wurden und (3) Goethit-dominierte natürliche Fe-Oxide aus dem Go-Horizont eines Brauneisengleys. Unsere Auswertung ist noch nicht abgeschlossen. Erste Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das mit den Fe-Oxiden assoziierte organische Material aus den drei Milieus sehr unterschiedlich zusammengesetzt ist: Überzüge auf den Oxiden aus Biofilmen werden von Proteinen und Alkyl C dominiert. Die Überzüge auf den Fe-Oxiden aus der Quelle sind im Vergleich dazu wesentlich reicher an Aryl C und O-Alkyl C, jedoch ärmer an Alkyl C. Die Überzüge der Fe-Oxide aus dem Brauneisengley sind dagegen reich an Alkyl C und Carbonyl C. Im Brauneisengley sind zusätzlich zu den Fe-Oxiden auch Chlorite vorhanden. Auf diesen ist das NEXAFS-C-Signal wesentlich schwächer als auf den Oxiden. Gleichzeitig detektiert das AFM auf den Chloriten eine deutlich höhere Adhäsion zwischen Spitze und Mineral als auf den Fe-Oxiden. Wir nehmen daher an, dass die Chlorite weniger organisches Material binden als die Fe-Oxide. In den kommenden Monaten werden wir uns der räumlichen Homogenität bzw. Heterogenität der Überzüge widmen und die räumliche Verteilung von C, N, P und S in den Überzügen per NanoSIMS beschreiben

The Arabian Sea as a high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll region during the late Southwest Monsoon

© The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. The definitive version was published in Biogeosciences 7 (2010): 2091-2100, doi:10.5194/bg-7-2091-2010.Extensive observations were made during the late Southwest Monsoon of 2004 over the Indian and Omani shelves, and along a transect that extended from the southern coast of Oman to the central west coast of India, tracking the southern leg of the US JGOFS expedition (1994–1995) in the west. The data are used, in conjunction with satellite-derived data, to investigate long-term trends in chlorophyll and sea surface temperature, indicators of upwelling intensity, and to understand factors that control primary production (PP) in the Arabian Sea, focussing on the role of iron. Our results do not support an intensification of upwelling in the western Arabian Sea, reported to have been caused by the decline in the winter/spring Eurasian snow cover since 1997. We also noticed, for the first time, an unexpected development of high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll condition off the southern Omani coast. This feature, coupled with other characteristics of the system, such as a narrow shelf and relatively low iron concentrations in surface waters, suggest a close similarity between the Omani upwelling system and the Peruvian and California upwelling systems, where PP is limited by iron. Iron limitation of PP may complicate simple relationship between upwelling and PP assumed by previous workers, and contribute to the anomalous offshore occurrence of the most severe oxygen (O2) depletion in the region. Over the much wider Indian shelf, which experiences large-scale bottom water O2-depletion in summer, adequate iron supply from reducing bottom-waters and sediments seems to support moderately high PP; however, such production is restricted to the thin, oxygenated surface layer, probably because of the unsuitability of the O2-depleted environment for the growth of oxygenic photosynthesizers.Financial support was provided by CSIR through the Network Project CMM0009 to SWAN and by NSF through OCE-0327227S to JWM

A Deep Learning based Pipeline for Efficient Oral Cancer Screening on Whole Slide Images

Oral cancer incidence is rapidly increasing worldwide. The most important determinant factor in cancer survival is early diagnosis. To facilitate large scale screening, we propose a fully automated pipeline for oral cancer detection on whole slide cytology images. The pipeline consists of fully convolutional regression-based nucleus detection, followed by per-cell focus selection, and CNN based classification. Our novel focus selection step provides fast per-cell focus decisions at human-level accuracy. We demonstrate that the pipeline provides efficient cancer classification of whole slide cytology images, improving over previous results both in terms of accuracy and feasibility. The complete source code is available at https://github.com/MIDA-group/OralScreen.Comment: Accepted to ICIAR 202