Classification Method of Rape Root Swelling Disease Based on Convolution Neural Network

Both the seedling stage and the adult plant stage of rape can be infected with root edema, and the damaged roots swell to form tumors of different sizes and shapes. The incidence of rape root swelling at the seedling stage reached 17%, and the average incidence at the adult plant stage was 15%, resulting in a 10.2% reduction in rape production. The average plant height, number of siliques, number of kernels per horn, 1000-seed weight and yield per plant of healthy plants were significantly higher than those of diseased plants. Grading root lesions can help trace the root causes of root lesions. However, the method of grading is often performed manually by professionals at present, which has the problems of low speed and low efficiency. In order to solve this problem, a method for grading rape root swelling based on deep convolutional neural network is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a rape root swelling model based on convolutional neural network and regional candidate network was established, and then implement it on the deep learning Tensorflow framework Model, and finally compare and analyze the results. The rape root swelling model uses the VGG16 network to extract the characteristics of the rape root swelling image. The regional candidate network generates the preliminary position candidate frame of the rape root swelling, and Fast-RCNN realizes the classification and positioning of the candidate frame. The results show that this method can achieve rapid and accurate detection of healthy, first-level tumors, second-level tumors, and third-level tumors of four-level rape root swelling, with an average accuracy rate of 84.12%. The experimental results show that the accuracy rate can reach more than 90%.

Comparative performance analysis of different swelling kinetic models for the evaluation of shale swelling

Swelling of shale potentially occurs when it is exposed to water-based drilling fluid. The migration of hydrogen ions (H+) in the nano-interlayered platelets of the shale rock is utterly responsible for the swelling behavior in the shale. Conventionally, swelling behavior of any shale formation can be experimentally determined by linear dynamic swell meter. However, it is extremely important to validate these experimental results; hence, this research study aims in conducting a comparative performance analysis for different kinetic models, namely Peleg’s model, first-order exponential association equation and pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and a newly developed scaling swelling model in estimating the experimental results of three different shale samples, namely Talhar, Ranikot and Murree, obtained from different regions of Pakistan. It was found that the performance of the scaling swelling model was the most accurate in predicting the experimental swelling results with accuracy greater than 95% in all the three samples. Peleg’s model is found to be the most inaccurate with $$p \mathrm{values}< \alpha (0.05)$$ p values < α ( 0.05 ) in all the three formations. The equilibrium state in all the three samples was unable to attain by the use of this model. This clearly shows that the transient states continue throughout the course of experimentation, thus demonstrating a higher water activity in the shale samples. Moreover, when comparison was made between the two remaining kinetic adsorption models, it was perceived that pseudo-second-order kinetic was far superior to first-order exponential association equation with $${\mathrm{mean}}_{\mathrm{model}}\simeq {\mathrm{mean}}_{\mathrm{experiment}}$$ mean model ≃ mean experiment and less dispersion in the dataset. Nevertheless, the performance of this model also suffers with the increase in clay content. Furthermore, all these analyses were further validated by different statistical error analysis that includes MAE, APRE% and ANOVA.

Increasing Density and Cement Content in Expansive Soils Stabilization:Conflicting or Complementary Procedures for Reducing Swelling?

Present study makes three contributions to the literature of expansive soils: (i) it proposes equations to predict soil swelling based on dry density and cement content, (ii) it checks the developed general equation by predicting the swelling of different expansive soils from literature and (iii) it designs experiments that investigate factors that have a significant influence on swelling. An experimental programme was carried out to analyse the expansion of bentonite-kaolin-cement blends. Different proportions of bentonite-kaolin, cement content, dry density and moisture content were evaluated. A unique relation of the cement/porosity index was obtained for cement stabilized expansive soils swelling; this index has been used before to portray strength, stiffness and loss of mass of stabilized soils and is now shown to be applicable to describe swelling of expansive soils treated with Portland cement. In the present research, cement content and dry density are seen as conflicting parameters regarding the swelling of expansive soils, since increasing Portland cement amount reduces swelling and increasing density (through compaction) causes higher expansion. A general swelling model was proposed and successfully checked with data from the literature, being able to predict the swelling of expansive soils with different densities, expansive mineral, moisture and cement contents.

Photo-tunable hydrogel mechanical heterogeneity informed by predictive transport kinetics model

Photo-tunable hydrogel mechanical heterogeneity using a single resin is presented here, informed by a predictive transport kinetics and swelling model.

Development of a Reproducible Upper Limb Swelling Model

Background: The purpose of this study was to develop a reproducible upper limb swelling model and quantify the efficacy of changing elevation posture in swelling reduction using this model. Methods: A manual sphygmomanometer was applied to healthy volunteers’ upper arms while in a dependent position for 25 minutes to create venous congestion and swelling. Seven different levels of pressure (250, 120, 100, 80, 50, 40 and 30 mmHg) were tested. Every 5 minutes, the level of swelling was measured using the volumetric method. Any complications were recorded. We then compared the swelling reduction potential among 3 limb postures (arm on head, elevation brace, and simple sling). The significance level was set at p < .05. Results: Thirty to forty milliliters of swelling was created for all pressure levels except the 250 and 30 mmHg. All complications including transient nerve palsy, pain and petechiae were severe at 250 and 120 mmHg, less severe at 100 mmHg, mild at 80 mmHg, and absent below 40 mmHg. Both the on head and elevated brace limb postures markedly and significantly decreased swelling greater than the simple sling posture. Conclusions: We found that 20 ml or greater swelling can be reliably created with a blood pressure cuff inflated to 40 mmHg on the upper limb. The on head and elevated brace postures demonstrated a greater degree of swelling reduction than the simple sling posture.

Gellan Gum/Laponite Beads for the Modified Release of Drugs: Experimental and Modeling Study of Gastrointestinal Release

In this study, gellan gum (GG), a natural polysaccharide, was used to fabricate spherical porous beads suitable as sustained drug delivery systems for oral administration. GG was cross-linked with calcium ions to prepare polymeric beads. Rheological studies and preliminary experiments of beads preparation allowed to identify the GG and the CaCl2 concentrations suitable for obtaining stable and spherical particles. GG beads were formed, through ionotropic gelation technique, with and without the presence of the synthetic clay laponite. The resultant beads were analyzed for dimensions (before and after freeze-drying), morphological aspects and ability to swell in different media miming biological fluids, namely SGF (Simulated Gastric Fluid, HCl 0.1 M) and SIF (Simulated Intestinal Fluid, phosphate buffer, 0.044 M, pH 7.4). The swelling degree was lower in SGF than in SIF and further reduced in the presence of laponite. The GG and GG-layered silicate composite beads were loaded with two model drugs having different molecular weight, namely theophylline and cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12) and subjected to in-vitro release studies in SGF and SIF. The presence of laponite in the bead formulation increased the drug entrapment efficiency and slowed-down the release kinetics of both drugs in the gastric environment. A moving-boundary swelling model with “diffuse” glassy-rubbery interface was proposed in order to describe the swelling behavior of porous freeze-dried beads. Consistently with the swelling model adopted, two moving-boundary drug release models were developed to interpret release data from highly porous beads of different drugs: drug molecules, e.g., theophylline, that exhibit a typical Fickian behavior of release curves and drugs, such as vitamin B12, whose release curves are affected by the physical/chemical interaction of the drug with the polymer/clay complex. Theoretical results support the experimental observations, thus confirming that laponite may be an effective additive for fabricating sustained drug delivery systems.