Multiple assembly strategies for silica aerogel-fiber combinations – a review

Silica aerogels have a unique structure that makes them promising materials for variable applications. However, they are brittle due to weak inter-particle necks, and also expensive. Combining aerogel with fibers can not only enhance the mechanical/insulation properties, but also reduce dust release, and ease practical application. The majority of review articles in this field have been on the aerogel/textile systems' application or on textile impregnation in silica sol utilizing the sol–gel technique, with a few papers also addressing the use of aerogel as filler. This review for the first time highlights all strategies to assemble silica aerogel with textile materials. For sol–gel approaches, the fibers can be impregnated in a silica precursor sol to form the aerogel in situ between the fibers, but the sol itself can also be spun into aerogel fibers. Other strategies employ pre-formed silica aerogel, mixed in polymer or solvent matrices/slurries, to form aerogel injected blankets, aerogel-filled material coated fibers, and aerogel-filled composite fibers. Aerogel particles-filled textile packages have also been proposed. The emerging activities on simulations of aerogel-fiber combinations are reviewed. The advantages/disadvantages of various approaches are evaluated, and the current market situation and an outlook for the future of the field are summarized

Towards quantum 3d imaging devices

We review the advancement of the research toward the design and implementation of quantum plenoptic cameras, radically novel 3D imaging devices that exploit both momentum–position entanglement and photon–number correlations to provide the typical refocusing and ultra-fast, scanning-free, 3D imaging capability of plenoptic devices, along with dramatically enhanced performances, unattainable in standard plenoptic cameras: diffraction-limited resolution, large depth of focus, and ultra-low noise. To further increase the volumetric resolution beyond the Rayleigh diffraction limit, and achieve the quantum limit, we are also developing dedicated protocols based on quantum Fisher information. However, for the quantum advantages of the proposed devices to be effective and appealing to end-users, two main challenges need to be tackled. First, due to the large number of frames required for correlation measurements to provide an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio, quantum plenoptic imaging (QPI) would require, if implemented with commercially available high-resolution cameras, acquisition times ranging from tens of seconds to a few minutes. Second, the elaboration of this large amount of data, in order to retrieve 3D images or refocusing 2D images, requires high-performance and time-consuming computation. To address these challenges, we are developing high-resolution single-photon avalanche photodiode (SPAD) arrays and high-performance low-level programming of ultra-fast electronics, combined with compressive sensing and quantum tomography algorithms, with the aim to reduce both the acquisition and the elaboration time by two orders of magnitude. Routes toward exploitation of the QPI devices will also be discussed

Combining Genomics and Metabolomics for the Discovery of Regulatory Genes and Their Use in Metabolic Engineering to Produce ‘Healthy Foods’

Plants often accumulate their natural products to relatively low levels, so there is a lot of interest in breeding or engineering plants that produce higher levels. It has been shown that the most effective way to increase the accumulation of secondary metabolites is to increase the activity of genes that regulate the activity of the biosynthetic pathways that make different natural products. Regulatory genes of this type encode proteins called transcription factors. The biggest bottleneck in using this strategy to develop plants that accumulate significantly higher levels of important natural products is that not many transcription factors regulating secondary metabolism have yet been identified at the molecular level. Genes encoding transcription factors can be identified from model plants with sequenced genomes. The ability of such genes to regulate metabolism can be assayed by examination of mutants (reverse genetics) and by investigating the metabolic effects of high levels of expression of the genes. The combined techniques of metabolic fingerprinting and metabolite profiling of mutant and transgenic plants are allowing us to identify new genes encoding transcription factors controlling secondary metabolism, that can be used as tools for engineering natural product accumulatio

Effects of Anacetrapib in Patients with Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease

BACKGROUND: Patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease remain at high risk for cardiovascular events despite effective statin-based treatment of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. The inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) by anacetrapib reduces LDL cholesterol levels and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. However, trials of other CETP inhibitors have shown neutral or adverse effects on cardiovascular outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 30,449 adults with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive atorvastatin therapy and who had a mean LDL cholesterol level of 61 mg per deciliter (1.58 mmol per liter), a mean non-HDL cholesterol level of 92 mg per deciliter (2.38 mmol per liter), and a mean HDL cholesterol level of 40 mg per deciliter (1.03 mmol per liter). The patients were assigned to receive either 100 mg of anacetrapib once daily (15,225 patients) or matching placebo (15,224 patients). The primary outcome was the first major coronary event, a composite of coronary death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization. RESULTS: During the median follow-up period of 4.1 years, the primary outcome occurred in significantly fewer patients in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (1640 of 15,225 patients [10.8%] vs. 1803 of 15,224 patients [11.8%]; rate ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.85 to 0.97; P=0.004). The relative difference in risk was similar across multiple prespecified subgroups. At the trial midpoint, the mean level of HDL cholesterol was higher by 43 mg per deciliter (1.12 mmol per liter) in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (a relative difference of 104%), and the mean level of non-HDL cholesterol was lower by 17 mg per deciliter (0.44 mmol per liter), a relative difference of -18%. There were no significant between-group differences in the risk of death, cancer, or other serious adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive statin therapy, the use of anacetrapib resulted in a lower incidence of major coronary events than the use of placebo. (Funded by Merck and others; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN48678192 ; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01252953 ; and EudraCT number, 2010-023467-18 .)

Towards language independent acoustic modelling

We describe procedures and experimental results using speechfrom diverse source languages to build an ASR system for a single target language. This work is intended to improve ASR in languages for which large amounts of training data are not available. We have developed both knowledge based and automatic methods to map phonetic units from the source languages to the target language. We employed HMM adaptation techniques and Discriminative Model Combination to combine acoustic models from the individual source languages for recognition of speech in the target language. Experiments are described in which Czech Broadcast News is transcribed using acoustic models trained from small amounts of Czech read speech augmented by English, Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin acoustic models. 1

Towards language independent acoustic modeling

We describe procedures and experimental results using speech from diverse source languages to build an ASR system for a single target language. This work is intended to improve ASR in languages for which large amounts of training data are not available. We have developed both knowledge based and automatic methods to map phonetic units from the source languages to the target language. We employed HMM adaptation techniques and Discriminative Model Combination to combine acoustic models from the individual source languages for recognition of speech in the target language. Experiments are described in which Czech Broadcast News is transcribed using acoustic models trained from small amounts of Czech read speech augmented by English, Spanish, Russian, and Mandarin acoustic models

Präzisionsfertigung und -montage von Großbauteilen

Complying with tolerance requirements during the industrial production of large components poses a major challenge. Environmental influences, which appear to be controllable for the production of small components, have a significant effect on the production of large components thus requiring strong consideration. To comply with narrow tolerance bands for large components, the areas of manufacturing and assembly follow different approaches. Manufacturing processes are heavily influenced by temperature fluctuations affecting the resulting part geometry, the uncertainty of the employed measurement devices and the achievable tolerances. Assembly processes of large components are influenced by gravity and process forces which results in the distortion of assembly parts and necessitates compensation. The challenge is the identification of positioning errors through the application of tolerance chain analysis of the assembly system. Metrology is one option to shorten these tolerance chains thus reducing the immanent positioning error. The compensation of environmental influences during automated process control requires large amounts of data regarding e.g. process parameters, temperature and part geometry. The accumulated data is used for the development of models which describe the interdependency of components, processes and the production system. Based on these models compensation strategies can be developed and evaluated. Ongoing interconnection of production systems (as an essential element of "Industry 4.0") leads to "cyber physical productions systems" which allow an intensive use of the acquired data and facilitate new machine functionalities as well as a better support of employees in the operation of these novel production systems

Enrichment of tomato fruit with health-promoting anthocyanins by expression of select transcription factors

Dietary consumption of anthocyanins, a class of pigments produced by higher plants, has been associated with protection against a broad range of human diseases. However, anthocyanin levels in the most commonly eaten fruits and vegetables may be inadequate to confer optimal benefits. When we expressed two transcription factors from snapdragon in tomato, the fruit of the plants accumulated anthocyanins at levels substantially higher than previously reported for efforts to engineer anthocyanin accumulation in tomato and at concentrations comparable to the anthocyanin levels found in blackberries and blueberries. Expression of the two transgenes enhanced the hydrophilic antioxidant capacity of tomato fruit threefold and resulted in fruit with intense purple coloration in both peel and flesh. In a pilot test, cancer-susceptible Trp53-/- mice fed a diet supplemented with the high-anthocyanin tomatoes showed a significant extension of life