Phytoplankton primary production, chlorophyll-a and nutrient concentrations in the water column of mountainous Lake Phewa, Nepal

The seasonal patterns of phytoplankton primary production, chlorophyll‐a concentration, cell number and several other limnological variables in Lake Phewa, located in the active monsoon zone in Central Himalaya, Nepal, were studied for a year beginning in April 2001. During the study period, the gross primary production and chlorophyll‐a concentrations were relatively low during the monsoon season. The phytoplankton cell number, represented by 24 genera, also fluctuated seasonally, but tended to increase in the pre‐ and post‐monsoon period. These results suggest that the monsoon plays a crucial role in the primary production and phytoplankton dynamics for Lake Phewa. Among the phytoplankton species, Microcystis aeruginosa, a representative species for eutrophic lakes, was the dominant phytoplankton. At the same time, however, it is clear that the lake is not yet heavily eutrophic. The present study suggests that the exchange of lake water during the monsoon season contributes to maintaining the health of the lake against further degradation. Nevertheless, the silt carried in the monsoon rain run‐off from the lake's catchment area suggests increasingly serious degradation problems for this small mountainous lake.     

Implementations of a four-level mechanical architecture for fault-tolerant robots

This paper describes a fault tolerant mechanical architecture with four levels devised and implemented in concert with NASA (Tesar, D. & Sreevijayan, D., Four-level fault tolerance in manipulator design for space operations. In First Int. Symp. Measurement and Control in Robotics (ISMCR '90), Houston, Texas, 20–22 June 1990.) Subsequent work has clarified and revised the architecture. The four levels proceed from fault tolerance at the actuator level, to fault tolerance via in-parallel chains, to fault tolerance using serial kinematic redundancy, and finally to the fault tolerance multiple arm systems provide. This is a subsumptive architecture because each successive layer can incorporate the fault tolerance provided by all layers beneath. For instance a serially-redundant robot can incorporate dual fault-tolerant actuators. Redundant systems provide the fault tolerance, but the guiding principle of this architecture is that functional redundancies actively increase the performance of the system. Redundancies do not simply remain dormant until needed. This paper includes specific examples of hardware and/or software implementation at all four levels.     

An alternate method for using a visual discrimination model (VDM) to optimize soft-copy display image quality

Researchers have developed visual discrimination models (VDMs) that can predict a human observer's ability to detect a target object superposed on an image. These models incorporate sophisticated knowledge of the properties of the human visual system. In the predictive approach, termed conventional VDM usage, two input images with and without a target are analyzed by an algorithm that calculates a just-noticeable-difference (JND) index, which is a taken as a measure of the detectability of the target. A new method of using the VDM is described, termed channelized VDM, which involves finding the linear combination of the VDM-generated channels (which are not used in conventional VDM analysis) that has optimal classification ability between normal and abnormal images. The classification ability can be measured using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) or two alternative forced choice (2AFC) experiments, and in special cases they can also be predicted by signal detection theory (SDT) based model-observer methods. In this study simulated background and nodule containing regions were used to validate the new method. It was found that the channelized VDM predictions were in excellent qualitative agreement with human-observer validated SDT predictions. Either VDM method (conventional or channelized) has potential applicability to soft-copy display optimization. An advantage of any VDM-based approach is that complex effects, such as visual masking, are automatically accounted for, which effects are usually not included in SDT-based methods.     

Transporters for cationic amino acids in animal cells: discovery, structure, and function

The structure and function of the four cationic amino acid transporters identified in animal cells are discussed. The systems differ in specificity, cation dependence, and physiological role. One of them, system y+, is selective for cationic amino acids, whereas the others (B[0,+], b[0,+], and y+ L) also accept neutral amino acids. In recent years, cDNA clones related to these activities have been isolated. Thus two families of proteins have been identified: 1) CAT or cationic amino acid transporters and 2) BAT or broad-scope transport proteins. In the CAT family, three genes encode for four different isoforms [CAT-1, CAT-2A, CAT-2(B) and CAT-3]; these are approximately 70-kDa proteins with multiple transmembrane segments (12-14), and despite their structural similarity, they differ in tissue distribution, kinetics, and regulatory properties. System y+ is the expression of the activity of CAT transporters. The BAT family includes two isoforms (rBAT and 4F2hc); these are 59- to 78-kDa proteins with one to four membrane-spanning segments, and it has been proposed that these proteins act as transport regulators. The expression of rBAT and 4F2hc induces system b[0,+] and system y+ L activity in Xenopus laevis oocytes, respectively. The roles of these transporters in nutrition, endocrinology, nitric oxide biology, and immunology, as well as in the genetic diseases cystinuria and lysinuric protein intolerance, are reviewed. Experimental strategies, which can be used in the kinetic characterization of coexpressed transporters, are also discussed.     

Leveraging 802.11n frame aggregation to enhance QoS and power consumption in Wi-Fi networks

The Wi-Fi technology, driven by its tremendous success, is expanding into a wide variety of devices and applications. However, many of these new devices, like handheld devices, pose new challenges in terms of QoS and energy efficiency. In order to address these challenges, in this paper we study how the novel MAC aggregation mechanisms developed in the 802.11n standard can be used to enhance the current 802.11 QoS and power saving protocols. Our contribution is twofold. First, we present a simulation study that illustrates the interactions between 802.11n and the current 802.11 QoS and power saving protocols. This study reveals that the 802.11n MAC aggregation mechanisms perform better when combined with the power save mode included in the original 802.11 standard than with the 802.11e U-APSD protocol. Second, we design CA-DFA, an algorithm that, using only information available at layer two, adapts the amount of 802.11n aggregation used by a Wi-Fi station according to the level of congestion in the network. A detailed performance evaluation demonstrates the benefits of CA-DFA in terms of QoS, energy efficiency and network capacity with respect to state of the art alternatives.     

Young's modulus of porous brittle solids

A new equationE =E ₀ (1 –aP) ⁿ whereE andE ₀ are the Young's moduli at porosity,P, and zero, respectively, a andn are material constants, has been derived semi-empirically for describing the porosity dependence of Young's modulus of brittle solids. The equation satisfies quite well the exact theoretical solution for the values of Young's moduli at different porosities for model systems with ideal and non-ideal packing geometry. The equation shows excellent agreement with the data On- and-alumina over a wide range of porosity. Unlike the existing porosity-elastic modulus equations, the proposed equation satisfies the boundary conditions and is inherently capable of treating isometric closed pores as well as non-isometric interconnected pores. The parameters a and n provide information about the packing geometry and pore structure of the material.     

Effect of process parameters and optimization for photochemical machining of brass and german silver

This article focuses on parametric optimization for photochemical machining (PCM) of brass and german silver. The aim of the study is to analyze the effect of control parameters on response measures, that is, surface roughness, material removal rate, and edge deviation and optimization of parameters considering different weight percentage for each performance measure. The control parameters have been selected as etchant concentration, etching temperature, and etching time. Using full factorial method of design of experiments, PCM has been carried out using ferric chloride as etchant. Surface roughness and edge deviation should be less, while material removal rate is desired high. For satisfying this multi-objective condition, overall evaluation criteria (OEC) have been formulated by assigning different and equal weight percentage to response measures. The optimized condition for particular OEC is obtained, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) has been performed for observing effect of control parameters on response measures. Surface topography study has been performed using scanning electron microscopy, and material composition analysis has been carried out using energy dispersive spectroscopy. The surface roughness is observed lower for brass, while the edge deviation is found lesser for german silver. The material removal rate is observed higher for brass compared to german silver.     

Crawl through Neighbors: A Simple Curve Reconstruction Algorithm

Given a planar point set sampled from an object boundary, the process of approximating the original shape is called curve reconstruction. In this paper, a novel non‐parametric curve reconstruction algorithm based on Delaunay triangulation has been proposed and it has been theoretically proved that the proposed method reconstructs the original curve under ε‐sampling. Starting from an initial Delaunay seed edge, the algorithm proceeds by finding an appropriate neighbouring point and adding an edge between them. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is capable of reconstructing curves with different features like sharp corners, outliers, multiple objects, objects with holes, etc. The proposed method also works for open curves. Based on a study by a few users, the paper also discusses an application of the proposed algorithm for reconstructing hand drawn skip stroke sketches, which will be useful in various sketch based interfaces.     

On the Corrosion Performance of Monel 400 in Molten LiCl-Li2O-Li at 923 K

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The corrosion resistance of a Ni-Cu alloy, Monel 400, in molten LiCl-Li2O-Li at 923 K (650 °C) was investigated. Exposure testing...