Emulsions stabilization by lactoferrin nano-particles under in vitro digestion conditions

In recent years there has been a spur of interest in the utilization of nano and micro-particles to fabricate novel food-grade Pickering emulsions. Aligned with increased interest and efforts to promote health through food, this study aimed to extend the understanding of Pickering emulsions stabilized by lactoferrin (LF) nano-particles in respect to their stability and responsiveness to physiological conditions of the human mouth and stomach. Analytical centrifugation revealed that LF nano-particles did not alter mean droplet size of coarse emulsions but significantly (p < 0.05) reduced creaming rates by an order of magnitude. In fine emulsions produced through high pressure homogenization, the use of nano-particles increased mean droplet sizes. This resulted in noted (p < 0.05) differences in stability with emulsions stabilized by LF nano-particles and alginate showing poorest stability. Concomitantly, the use of i-carrageenan and LF nano-particles yielded emulsions with the most reduced creaming (<1 μm/s), even compared to emulsions stabilized by native LF. Interestingly, the use of alginate and i-carrageenan with LF nano-particles also altered emulsion stability to artificial saliva and modulated emulsion behavior under gastric conditions, which was linked to reduced rate of LF gastric proteolysis. Overall, this work establishes a new possibility to incorporate LF in emulsions and demonstrates how LF nano-particles could be harnessed to modulate emulsion destabilization and breakdown in the mouth and stomach.     

Hardware Implementation of Successive-Cancellation Decoders for Polar Codes

The recently-discovered polar codes are seen as a major breakthrough in coding theory; they provably achieve the theoretical capacity of discrete memoryless channels using the low-complexity successive cancellation decoding algorithm. Motivated by recent developments in polar coding theory, we propose a family of efficient hardware implementations for successive cancellation (SC) polar decoders. We show that such decoders can be implemented with O(N) processing elements and O(N) memory elements. Furthermore, we show that SC decoding can be implemented in the logarithmic domain, thereby eliminating costly multiplication and division operations, and reducing the complexity of each processing element greatly. We also present a detailed architecture for an SC decoder and provide logic synthesis results confirming the linear complexity growth of the decoder as the code length increases.     

Photoluminescence properties of cadmium-selenide quantum dots embedded in a liquid-crystal polymer matrix

The photoluminescence properties of cadmium-selenide (CdSe) quantum dots with an average size of ～3 nm, embedded in a liquid-crystal polymer matrix are studied. It was found that an increase in the quantum-dot concentration results in modification of the intrinsic (exciton) photoluminescence spectrum in the range 500–600 nm and a nonmonotonic change in its intensity. Time-resolved measurements show the biexponential decay of the photoluminescence intensity with various ratios of fast and slow components depending on the quantum-dot concentration. In this case, the characteristic lifetimes of exciton photoluminescence are 5–10 and 35–50 ns for the fast and slow components, respectively, which is much shorter than the times for colloidal CdSe quantum dots of the same size. The observed features of the photoluminescence spectra and kinetics are explained by the effects of light reabsorption, energy transfer from quantum dots to the liquid-crystal polymer matrix, and the effect of the electronic states at the CdSe/(liquid crystal) interface.     

Age, skill, and hazard perception in driving

This study examined the effects of age and driving experience on the ability to detect hazards while driving; namely, hazard perception. Studies have shown that young-inexperienced drivers are more likely than experienced drivers to suffer from hazard perception deficiencies. However, it remains to be determined if this skill deteriorates with advancing age. Twenty-one young-inexperienced, 19 experienced, and 16 elderly drivers viewed six hazard perception movies while connected to an eye tracking system and were requested to identify hazardous situations. Four movies embedded planned, highly hazardous, situations and the rest were used as control. Generally, experienced and older-experienced drivers were equally proficient at hazard detection and detected potentially hazardous events (e.g., approaching an intersection, pedestrians on curb) continuously whereas young-inexperienced drivers stopped reporting on hazards that followed planned, highly hazardous situations. Moreover, while approaching T intersections older and experienced drivers fixated more towards the merging road on the right while young-inexperienced drivers fixated straight ahead, paying less attention to potential vehicles on the merging road. The study suggests that driving experience improves drivers’ awareness of potential hazards and guides drivers’ eye movements to locations that might embed potential risks. Furthermore, advanced age hardly affects older drivers’ ability to perceive hazards, and older drivers are at least partially aware of their age-related limitations.     

深化体制改革必须加强企业管理

针对目前有些企业在深化体制改革, 转换经营机制后仍存在以改代管, 以转代管, 忽视企业管理的片面做法, 指出转换经营机制, 建立现代企业制度是增强企业活力的必要条件, 实施科学管理则是企业生存和发展的基础。企业管理必须随着体制改革的深入发展而不断创新, 加强管理必须从更新观念, 完善法人治理结构, 大力培养管理人才, 建立以人为本的激励制度, 建立目标成本管理制度, 吸收和引进现代科学管理方法, 以及改革投资管理制度等方面着手。     

Control and component selection for incremental motion systems

The main problem in the design of an incremental motion system is the heating of the motor which results from the start/stop type of operation. The question answered in this paper is how to select the components for this system and how to use them in order to minimize the operating temperature of the motor. In the analysis of the control selection, the optimal control was determined which minimizes the energy dissipation. It is shown how a triangular velocity profile, obtained using Bang-Bang control, corresponds to an efficiency of 0.75, whereas a slight change to trapezoidal velocity, increases the efficiency to 0.89 when compared with the optimal control. The optimal gear ratio will differ from the “inertial match” due to the presence of constant load torque. For a capstan drive, the inertia of the capstan must be much smaller than that of the motor, and not “inertially matched”.     

DISSOCIATION-RECOMBINATION IN NON-STATIC SYSTEMS: AN APPROXIMATE THEORY

An approximate theory for thermodynamically coupled heat and mass transfer in dissipative reacting flow systems (including a possible coupling between reaction rates), is applied here for the combined problems of Couette flow, channel flow and temperature difference between two parallel plates, wherein dissociation-recombination reactions take place. The analysis compares favorably with known solutions for reacting flow systems when the coupling is neglected. The influence of thermodynamic couplings on the temperature profile and on the reaction rate is then explained.