Development of an Improved Cereal Stripping Harvester

Rosana G. Moreira, Editor-in-Chief; Texas A&M UniversityThis is a paper from International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR, Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) E-Journal Volume 9 (2007): Development of an Improved Cereal Stripping Harvester. Manuscript PM 07 009. Vol. IX. September, 2007

Simulation of valveless micropump and mode analysis

In this work, a 3-D simulation is performed to study for the solid-fluid coupling effect driven by piezoelectric materials and utilizes asymmetric obstacles to control the flow direction. The result of simulation is also verified. For a micropump, it is crucial to find the optimal working frequency which produce maximum net flow rate. The PZT plate vibrates under the first mode, which is symmetric. Adjusting the working frequency, the maximum flow rate can be obtained. For the micrpump we studied, the optimal working frequency is 3.2K Hz. At higher working frequency, say 20K Hz, the fluid-solid membrane may come out a intermediate mode, which is different from the first mode and the second mode. It is observed that the center of the mode drifts. Meanwhile, the result shows that a phase shift lagging when the excitation force exists in the vibration response. Finally, at even higher working frequency, say 30K Hz, a second vibration mode is observed.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Normalizing Weak Boson Pair Production at the Large Hadron Collider

The production of two weak bosons at the Large Hadron Collider will be one of the most important sources of SM backgrounds for final states with multiple leptons. In this paper we consider several quantities that can help normalize the production of weak boson pairs. Ratios of inclusive cross-sections for production of two weak bosons and Drell-Yan are investigated and the corresponding theoretical errors are evaluated. The possibility of predicting the jet veto survival probability of VV production from Drell-Yan data is also considered. Overall, the theoretical errors on all quantities remain less than 5-20%. The dependence of these quantities on the center of mass energy of the proton-proton collision is also studied.Comment: 11 pages; added references, minor text revisions, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Economic Analysis of Insect Control Strategies Using an Integrated Crop Ecosystem Management Model

Rosana G. Moreira, Editor-in-Chief; Texas A&M UniversityThis is a paper from International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR, Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) E-Journal Volume 8 (2006): Economic Analysis of Insect Control Strategies Using an Integrated Crop Ecosystem Management Model. Manuscript IT 06 001. Vol. VIII. September, 2006

Factors associated with physical activity in elderly nursing home residents: a path analysis.

BackgroundPhysical activity (PA) is low among elderly residents in nursing homes in China. We aimed to determine the factors that influence PA among elderly nursing home residents and their direct or indirect effects on PA levels.MethodsThe PA levels of the participants were measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, and their health beliefs were assessed using a self-developed 18-item questionnaire titled the 'Health Beliefs of Nursing Home Residents Regarding Physical Activity' in accordance with Health Belief Model (HBM) constructs. The correlations between HBM constructs and PA levels were analyzed and a regression-based path analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between HBM constructs and PA levels.ResultsA total of 180 residents with a mean age of 82.5 years (standard deviation = 5.76) were recruited. Linear regression analysis revealed that self-efficacy (p ConclusionThe residents' self-efficacy, perceived severity, and cues to action were found to be important factors that can affect the design and implementation of educational programs for PA. A better understanding of such associations may help healthcare providers design informed educational interventions to increase PA levels among nursing home residents

Predicting Future Instance Segmentation by Forecasting Convolutional Features

Anticipating future events is an important prerequisite towards intelligent behavior. Video forecasting has been studied as a proxy task towards this goal. Recent work has shown that to predict semantic segmentation of future frames, forecasting at the semantic level is more effective than forecasting RGB frames and then segmenting these. In this paper we consider the more challenging problem of future instance segmentation, which additionally segments out individual objects. To deal with a varying number of output labels per image, we develop a predictive model in the space of fixed-sized convolutional features of the Mask R-CNN instance segmentation model. We apply the "detection head'" of Mask R-CNN on the predicted features to produce the instance segmentation of future frames. Experiments show that this approach significantly improves over strong baselines based on optical flow and repurposed instance segmentation architectures

Initiation and evolution of interstitial leukocytic infiltration in experimental glomerulonephritis

Initiation and evolution of interstitial leukocytic infiltration in experimental glomerulonephritis. Most forms of glomerulonephritis have a significant interstitial leukocytic infiltrate which is associated with disease progression. However, there is little data concerning the timing, initial location, and development of this interstitial component. Therefore, we have addressed these issues in a study of passive accelerated anti-GBM glomerulonephritis in the rat. In this model, interstitial leukocytic infiltration was an early event in the disease process with a significant infiltrate apparent at 12 hours after administration of nephrotoxic serum (NTS). This initial infiltrate was restricted to a perivascular sheath surrounding the hilar arterioles. The sheath infiltrate then spread to include the whole hilar area by day 1, the entire periglomerular area by day 3, and became widespread throughout the cortical tubulointerstitium by day 7. The early sheath infiltrate was composed of macrophages and T cells. Both cell types continued to increase as the infiltrate expanded, and a significant accumulation of activated cells (IL-2R+) was evident from day 7 onwards. There was a highly significant correlation between interstitial macrophage infiltration and renal function impairment, proteinuria, and histologic damage. Interstitial T cell infiltration correlated with proteinuria and histologic damage, while the appearance of immune-activated mononuclear cells (IL-2R+) exhibited a highly significant correlation with all disease parameters. This study demonstrates the importance of the glomerular hilar arteriolar region as a focus for mononuclear leucocytic migration and accumulation which not only affects the structure and function of the glomerulus but subsequently the entire tubulointerstitium