Phenotypic Correlations Between Juvenile-Mature Wood Density and Growth in Black Spruce

Phenotypic correlations between juvenile-mature wood density and growth were examined based on increment core samples from two plantations, a provenance test and a commercial plantation, of black spruce [Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.]. The ring density components are significantly correlated to their respective ring width components: earlywood and ring densities are negatively correlated to ring and earlywood widths, respectively, while ring and latewood densities are positively correlated to latewood width. These hold true in both juvenile and mature wood. However, the correlation between ring width and ring density decreases with increasing age. This suggests that the correlation between wood density and growth rate tends to lessen as the tree ages. For each character, the correlation between juvenile and mature wood is significant but moderate. Thus, juvenile wood characters are only indicative of mature wood ones. On the other hand, trees with 12 growth rings from the pith were good predictors of wood density and radial growth of the whole tree. Individual growth rings from the juvenile-mature wood transition zone can be used to predict to some extent the wood density of either mature wood or the whole tree

Binderless Fiberboard Made from Primary and Secondary Pulp and Paper Sludge

Pulp and paper sludge is valuable in fiberboard manufacturing because primary sludge (PS) contains fibers and secondary sludge (SS) has adhesive properties. We evaluated properties of binderless fiberboard made from conventional pulp and paper mill sludge sources using a factorial design in which the factors were SS:PS ratio (1:9, 2:8, and 3:7) and pulping process (thermomechanical [TMP], chemical-thermomechanical [CTMP], and kraft). Sludge was collected, refined, dried, and characterized for chemical composition and fiber length. Internal bond strength of CTMP panels increased 90% and thickness swell of TMP panels improved 92% with increasing SS content from 10-30%. IR Fourier transform and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses were conducted to better understand these results. Increased bonding was attributed to presence of proteins and lignin on the sludge fiber surface, which enhanced adhesion during hot pressing, whereas surface contamination decreased bonding efficiency. The TMP formulation at SS:PS ratio 3:7 met the ANSI requirement for basic hardboard. All other formulations were not dimensionally stable enough to meet the standard. The CTMP source resulted in the highest mechanical properties, and thickness swell was similar for the TMP and CTMP pulping processes. The kraft source produced low-integrity and dimensionally unstable panels

Medium-Density Fiberboard Produced Using Pulp and Paper Sludge from Different Pulping Processes

Pulp and paper sludge can be recycled in the manufacture of medium-density fiberboard (MDF) because it contains wood fibers. A comparative study was conducted to evaluate the properties of MDF made from virgin fibers mixed with different pulp and paper sludge sources. A factorial design was used in which factors were mill pulping processes, thermal-mechanical pulping (TMP), chemical-thermal-mechanical pulping (CTMP), and kraft pulping, and percentage of sludge mixed with virgin fibers (0, 25, 50, and 75%). Virgin fibers were obtained from paper birch wood, an underutilized species. Chemical composition, physical characteristics, pH, and buffer capacity of sludge were measured. MDF properties decreased mostly linearly with sludge content. Panel properties negatively correlated with the proportion of nonfibrous material such as ash and extractives. TMP and CTMP sludge sources produced panels of similar quality, and kraft sludge produced the lowest quality. It was concluded that the amount of sludge that can be incorporated into MDF without excessive decrease in panel quality depends on the pulping process. At 25% sludge content, all panels met ANSI quality requirements for MDF used for interior applications

Adaptive fuzzy model-free control for 3D trajectory tracking of quadrotor

This paper presents a novel adaptive control strategy with rejection ability for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), namely fuzzy model-free control (FMFC). It is based on the model-free control (MFC) concept, where the control parameters are tuned online using fuzzy logic. The controller assumes an ultra-local model that can compensate unknown/unmodelled dynamics, uncertainties and external disturbances, ensuring a good robustness level. Moreover, the fuzzy logic system is used to tune online the proportional-derivative terms due to its heuristic aspect. These compensation and adaptation mechanisms allow ensuring good compromise robustness-performance even in the presence of disturbances. Several experiments, using RotorS Gazebo micro aerial vehicle (MAV) simulator, are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller compared with other techniques. The fuzzy model-free controller shows superior performance without the time-consuming and tedious tuning task

Analytical tools used to distinguish chemical profiles of plants widely consumed as infusions and dietary supplements: artichoke, milk thistle and borututu

Artichoke, borututu and milk thistle are three medicinal plants widely consumed as infusions or included in dietary supplements (e.g., pills and syrups). Despite their high consumption, studies on nutritional value and primary metabolites are scarce, being only reported the composition in secondary metabolites such as phenolic compounds. Therefore, their nutritional value was assessed and analytical tools (liquid and gas chromatography coupled to different detectors) were used to distinguish the chemical profiles namely in hydrophilic (sugars and organic acids) and lipophilic (fatty acids and tocopherols) compounds. Chromatographic techniques are important analytical tools used in the identification and quantification of several molecules, also being a standard requirement to distinguish different profiles. Borututu gave the highest energetic value with the highest content of carbohydrates and fat, sucrose and total sugars, shikimic and citric acids, α-, β-, δ- and total tocopherols. Artichoke had the highest ash and protein contents, oxalic acid, SFA (mainly palmitic acid acid), and γ-tocopherol, as also the best n6/n3 ratio. Milk thistle showed the highest levels of fructose and glucose, quinic acid and total organic acids, PUFA, mainly linoleic acid, and the best PUFA/SFA ratio. The hydrophilic compounds identified in the studied plants, mostly sugars, are the responsible for the energetic contribution of their widely consumed infusions. Otherwise, the bioactivity of lipophilic compounds namely, unsaturated fatty acids and tocopherols, is lost in those preparations but can be recovered in dietary supplements based on the plants. As far as we know this is the first report on detailed composition of molecules with nutritional features.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support to the research centre CIMO (PEst-OE/AGR/UI0690/2011)

Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)

Role and task allocation framework for Multi-Robot Collaboration with latent knowledge estimation

In this work a novel framework for modeling role and task allocation in Cooperative Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems (CHMRSs) is presented. This framework encodes a CHMRS as a set of multidimensional relational structures (MDRSs). This set of structure defines collaborative tasks through both temporal and spatial relations between processes of heterogeneous robots. These relations are enriched with tensors which allow for geometrical reasoning about collaborative tasks. A learning schema is also proposed in order to derive the components of each MDRS. According to this schema, the components are learnt from data reporting the situated history of the processes executed by the team of robots. Data are organized as a multirobot collaboration treebank (MRCT) in order to support learning. Moreover, a generative approach, based on a probabilistic model, is combined together with nonnegative tensor decomposition (NTD) for both building the tensors and estimating latent knowledge. Preliminary evaluation of the performance of this framework is performed in simulation with three heterogeneous robots, namely, two Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and one Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

How Global are Global Brands? An Empirical Brand Equity Analysis

The term 'global brand' has become widely used by the media and by consumers. Business week publishes annually its widely known ranking of the 'Best Global Brands' (with Coca-Cola as number 1 in the past years) and consumers on summer vacations purchase brands such as Heineken or Marlboro they are familiar with from their home country. Although media and consumers call these brands 'global' and centralized marketing departments manage these brands globally - are these 'global brands' really global? Are they really perceived everywhere in the same way by the customers? Can we talk about truly global brand equity? And if there were brand image differences between countries, which factors causes them? The authors conducted an empirical research during May and June 2009 with similarly aged University students (bachelor students at business school) in Germany (n=426) and Mexico (n=296). The goal was to identify if brand awareness rates differ between Germans and Mexicans, if the brand image of Apple iPod is perceived in the same way in Germany and in Mexico and what influencing factors might have an impact on any brand image discrepancy between the countries. Results prove that brand recall rates differ between the two countries (with higher rates in Mexico) as well as brand image attributes vary significantly (28 out of 34 brand image attributes are significantly different between Germany and Mexico), with Mexico showing higher levels of favorable brand image attributes. Key influencing factors on the different brand image perceptions are perceived quality, satisfaction and the influence of reference groups (such as friends and family). The results suggest that so-called 'global brands' are not perceived the same way in Germany and Mexico. As a consequence, brand management using standardized marketing instruments for its presumable 'global brands' might be better off with a more differentiated approach that takes account a specific local brand image

Application of Feedforward Neural Network for Induction Machine Rotor Faults Diagnostics using Stator Current

Faults and failures of induction machines can lead to excessive downtimes and generate large losses in terms of maintenance and lost revenues. This motivates motor monitoring, incipient fault detection and diagnosis. Non-invasive, inexpensive, and reliable fault detection techniques are often preferred by many engineers. In this paper, a feedforward neural network based fault detection system is developed for performing induction motors rotor faults detection and severity evaluation using stator current. From the motor current spectrum analysis and the broken rotor bar specific frequency components knowledge, the rotor fault signature is extracted and monitored by neural network for fault detection and classification. The proposed methodology has been experimentally tested on a 5.5Kw/3000rpm induction motor. The obtained results provide a satisfactory level of accuracy