A Visual Inspection System for Rail Detection and Tracking in Real Time Railway Maintenance

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Fuzzy FMECA analysis of radioactive gas recovery system in the SPES experimental facility

Selective Production of Exotic Species is an innovative plant for advanced nuclear physic studies. A radioactive beam, generated by using an UCx target-ion source system, is ionized, selected and accelerated for experimental objects. Very high vacuum conditions and appropriate safety systems to storage exhaust gases are required to avoid radiological risk for operators and people. In this paper, Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis of a preliminary design of high activity gas recovery system is performed by using a modified Fuzzy Risk Priority Number to rank the most critical components in terms of failures and human errors. Comparisons between fuzzy approach and classic application allow to show that Fuzzy Risk Priority Number is able to enhance the focus of risk assessments and to improve the safety of complex and innovative systems such as those under consideration

Reversible switch from hemoglobin A to C in sheep and recovery from anemia following experimental infection with Anaplasma ovis

Anemia causes a change in the type of circulating hemoglobin (Hb) in sheep carrying the βA-globin haplotype, where the Hb A is replaced with Hb C, unlike Hb B. The effect of the substitution of Hb A with Hb C on the recovery from anemia was investigated by comparing the hematological picture of sheep, following experimental infection with Anaplasma ovis. The blood values were obtained from 3 AB and 3 BB Hb sheep after the development of the disease where anemia is a pathognomonic symptom. The expression of the silent gene encoding for Hb C was detected by isoelectric focusing and quantified by high performance liquid chromatography. Both Hb AB genotype and Hb C occurrence were involved in the lower recovery from anemia in the trial

Laboratory implementation of edge illumination X-ray phase-contrast imaging with energy-resolved detectors

Edge illumination (EI) X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) has potential for applications in different fields of research, including materials science, non-destructive industrial testing, small-animal imaging, and medical imaging. One of its main advantages is the compatibility with laboratory equipment, in particular with conventional non-microfocal sources, which makes its exploitation in normal research laboratories possible. In this work, we demonstrate that the signal in laboratory implementations of EI can be correctly described with the use of the simplified geometrical optics. Besides enabling the derivation of simple expressions for the sensitivity and spatial resolution of a given EI setup, this model also highlights the EI’s achromaticity. With the aim of improving image quality, as well as to take advantage of the fact that all energies in the spectrum contribute to the image contrast, we carried out EI acquisitions using a photon-counting energy-resolved detector. The obtained results demonstrate that this approach has great potential for future laboratory implementations of EI. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only