The Size Ellect on the Infrared Spectra of Condensed Media Under Conditions of ID, 2D and 3D Dielectric Confinement

A general expression for the dielectric loss spectrum of an absorbing composite medium was obtained from a Maxwell-Garnett general equation. This expression was simplified for the cases of one, two and three dimensional dielectric confinement in both ordered and disordered thin layers, rods (wires) and spheres of absorbing medium which are considered as mesoparticles or mesoscopic molecules. This theoretical approach was verified experimentally using high purity organic liquids with strong absorption bands in the infrared range. Three organic liquids, namely benzene, chloroform and carbon disulphide, were measured in various dielectric confinement configurations using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with a Grazing Angle attachment GATRTM. A significant shift of the resonant absorption band of liquid mesoparticles was observed for various dielectric confinement geometries which is in good agreement with theoretical predictions. Possible applications of this work include investigations of industrial smoke, toxic aerosols and liquid droplets

Livestock 2.0 – genome editing for fitter, healthier, and more productive farmed animals

Abstract The human population is growing, and as a result we need to produce more food whilst reducing the impact of farming on the environment. Selective breeding and genomic selection have had a transformational impact on livestock productivity, and now transgenic and genome-editing technologies offer exciting opportunities for the production of fitter, healthier and more-productive livestock. Here, we review recent progress in the application of genome editing to farmed animal species and discuss the potential impact on our ability to produce food

A first record of Isistius plutodus in the north-eastern Atlantic

One specimen of the largetooth cookiecutter shark Isistius plutodus was caught in the northeastern Atlantic at 43°58' N; 28°32' W. This is the first record of this rare species in the northeastern Atlantic and the northernmost point of its known distribution

Invariant recognition of traffic signs

A biologically plausible algorithms and model for traffic sign recognition invariantly with respect to variable viewing conditions are presented. They simulate several key mechanisms of biological vision, such as space-variant representation of information (reduction in resolution from the fovea to the retinal periphery), orientation selectivity of the cortical neuron responses, search for the most informative image regions, and context encoding of information. Traffic sign processing procedures include colour segmentation, classification according to sign contour colour and shape, and finding the sign centre for single positioning of a space-variant sensor window. It has been revealed that recognition rate is relatively high for signs under artificial transformations that reproduce possible sign disturbances in real road conditions (up to 50% for noise level, 50 meters for distances to signs, and 5° for perspective disturbances). As compared to others, recognition rate for red triangular signs sharply decreases at these distortion levels. While processing the British real world traffic signs (n=98) obtained under various environmental conditions, the recognition rate is equal to 0.95

Road sign recognition by one fixation of space-variant sensor.

Biologically plausible model approach to solve the task of traffic sign detection and recognition invariantly to variable viewing conditions and results of model testing with British real world traffic signs are presented. The developed model for sign description and recognition by one fixation of a space-variant sensor simulates some mechanisms of the real visual system such as space-variant representation of information from the centre (the fovea) to the periphery of the retina, neuronal orientation selectivity, and context encoding of information. After consequent procedures of colour segmentation of initial real world images, classification according to sign colours and external forms, and determination of the centre of the inner informative sign part, 85% of potential traffic sign images were correctly identified for various weather conditions by one fixation of the developed space-variant sensor