The Amber-Colored Liquid: A Review on the Color Standards, Methods of Detection, Issues and Recommendations

For most natural or naturally-derived liquid products, their color reflects on their quality and occasionally affects customer preferences. To date, there are a few subjective and objective methods for color measurement which are currently utilized by various industries. Researchers are also improving these methods and inventing new methods, as color is proven to have the ability to provide various information on the condition and quality of the liquid. However, a review on the methods, especially for amber-colored liquid, has not been conducted yet. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the subjective and objective methods for color measurement of amber-colored liquids. The pros and cons of the measurement methods, the effects of the color on customer preferences, and the international industry standards on color measurements are reviewed and discussed. In addition, this study elaborates on the issues and challenges related to the color measurement techniques as well as recommendations for future research. This review demonstrates that the existing color measurement technique can determine the color according to the standards and color scales. However, the efforts toward minimizing the complexity of the hardware while maximizing the signal processing through advanced computation are still lacking. Therefore, through this critical review, this review can hopefully intensify the efforts toward finding an optimized method or technique for color measurement of liquids and thus expedite the development of a portable device that can measure color accurately.

Environmentally Benign Rare Earth Pigments: Effect of Calcium Dopant and Tuning of Bandgaps for Different Color Hues

Environmentally benign rare earth pigments having the general formula Ca0.1 Ln0.9 PO4 ( Ln = Y , Pr , mixed rare rearth oxides, RE and Di ) have been prepared by a traditional solid state route. The samples were characterized by X–ray diffraction diffraction, UV–vis Spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM), particle size distribution, color coordinates determination, acid/alkali test, thermo gravimetric (TG) analysis and CIE–1976 L*a*b* color scales. Among the various lanthanide ions and calcium ion as dopant, the pigment composition shows various hues ranges from green to yellow. The coloring mechanism is based on the tuning of band gap by the dopant like calcium in various rare earth host lattice. The designed pigments consist of non–toxic elements and were further found to possess high thermal and chemical stability. The pigments were also found to be appropriate candidates for the coloration of polymer substrates.Thus, the present environmental friendly pigment powders may find potential alternative to the classical toxic inorganic pigments for various applications.

Neues Cover-Design, fortgesetzte Mindestmengen-Diskussion

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,das vorliegende Heft der Zeitschrift für Geburtshilfe und Neonatologie (ZGN) erscheint im neuen Design, mit einem graphischen Cover-Motiv, das uns übers Jahr in 6 verschiedenen Kolorierungen begleiten wird. Ein unbeabsichtigter Zufall ist es, dass just in diesem Heft eine Originalarbeit mit dem Titel „Skin color may predict intra-abdominal adhesions during repeated caesarean section deliveries“ erscheint. Die in dieser Arbeit benutzten „Fitzpatrick skin color scales“ beziehen sich übrigens, um etwaigen Missverständnissen zuvorzukommen, nicht auf die „Hautfarbe“ im Sinne der Ethnizität, sondern vielmehr auf den „Hauttyp“ und dienen ursprünglich der dermatologischen Einschätzung der UV-Empfindlichkeit (bzw. der – sich umgekehrt proportional zur Bräunungsneigung verhaltenden – Sonnenbrandgefährdung).

The Consistency Testing and Improving of A Hematuria Colorimetric Card

Background: A Hematuria colorimetric card could unify the description of gross hematuria, but the consistency in assessing hematuria samples of a hematuria colorimetric card for gross hematuria is still inconclusive. The consistency testing and improving of hematuria colorimetric card has potential clinical application value.Methods: According to 6 color scales (0~5), 31 hematuria samples were made. One sample was used to explain the use of hematuria colorimetric cards, and then the evaluator was asked to describe the color. After the remaining 30 samples were arranged in a random number table, 30 evaluators independently completed the hematuria sample assessment under the same conditions. Kendall W coordination coefficient was used to test inter-observer consistency. After 1 hour, 30 hematuria samples were rearranged by random digital table method, 15 of which were randomly selected from 30 evaluators, and 30 samples were evaluated independently under the same conditions. Adopt the method of Kappa to test the consistency of the two evaluation results. Results: In the study, the evaluator lacked unity in describing the same hematuria color, including six groups of descriptive words: gross hematuria, light blood, light red, blood, scarlet, carmine. Inter-observer (inter-group) consistency test, Kendall coordination factor was 0.881(F=766.34), P<0.05), the result indicats higher inter-observer agreement. For intra-observer (intra-group) consistency test, the kappa value of nurses was 0.909~1(P<0.05), the value of doctors was 0.818~0.95(P<0.05), and the value of students was 0.863~0.911(P<0.05), the results showed that intra-observer agreement was also high. Consistency results between grade evaluation results of hematuria samples and standard color numbers: the average consistency of evaluation results of standard color numbers 0~5 was 100%, 100%, 94.2%, 65.2%, 38%, 65.8% respectively. The the 4th color block with low discrimination in the primary hematuria colorimetric card was eliminated, and the 5th color block was reassigned to 4th. Thus the modified hematuria colorimetric card was divided into 5 grades.Conclusions: The improved hematuria colorimetric card has good consistency in hematuria evaluation and is an effective tool for evaluating hematuria grade, which is helpful to unify the evaluation standard of gross hematuria grade.

Image processing to identify damage to soybean seeds

ABSTRACT: In Brazil and worldwide, commercialization of soybeans is of great importance to the economy, making their quality considered. The presence of damaged soybean seeds decreases the added value of the product. Businesses need fast and effective techniques to maintain the quality. The present research aimed to identify, through image processing, damage caused to soybean seeds, namely the presence of greenish seeds and wrinkled seeds due to variations of humidity and temperature, where it was possible to identify greenish and wrinkled soybean seeds from images. Results obtained for greenish seeds indicated that the red color scale is the most suitable for selection due to its more significant variation compared to the other color scales. For the separation of wrinkled seeds, it can be stated that it is possible to find a selection parameter with 74.3% accuracy in removing seeds with medium to high degrees of wrinkle damage.

Missing Pixel Reconstruction on Landsat 8 Analysis Ready Data Land Surface Temperature Image Patches Using Source-Augmented Partial Convolution

Missing pixels is a common issue in satellite images. Taking Landsat 8 Analysis Ready Data (ARD) Land Surface Temperature (LST) image as an example, the Source-Augmented Partial Convolution v2 model (SAPC2) is developed to reconstruct missing pixels in the target LST image with the assistance of a collocated complete source image. SAPC2 utilizes the partial convolution enabled U-Net as its framework and accommodates the source into the framework by: (1) performing the shared partial convolution on both the source and the target in encoders; and (2) merging the source and the target by using the partial merge layer to create complete skip connection images for the corresponding decoders. The optimized SAPC2 shows superior performance to four baseline models (i.e., SAPC1, SAPC2-OPC, SAPC2-SC, and STS-CNN) in terms of nine validation metrics. For example, the masked MSE of SAPC2 is 7%, 20%, 44%, and 59% lower than that of the four baseline models. On the six scrutinized cases, the repaired target images generated by SAPC2 have the fewest artifacts near the mask boundary and the best recovery of color scales and fine textures compared with the four baseline models.