Nondestructive quality inspection with terahertz waves has become an emerging technology, especially in the automotive and aviation industries. Depending on the specific application, different ...terahertz systems—either fully electronic or based on optical laser pulses—cover the terahertz frequency region from 0.1 THz up to nearly 10 THz and provide high-speed volume inspections on the one hand and high-resolution thickness determination on the other hand. In this paper, we present different industrial applications, which we have addressed with our terahertz systems within the last couple of years. First, we show three-dimensional imaging of glass fiber–reinforced composites and foam structures, and demonstrate thickness determination of multilayer plastic tube walls. Then, we present the characterization of known and unknown multilayer systems down to some microns and the possibility of measuring the thickness of wet paints. The challenges of system reliability in industrial environments, e.g., under the impact of vibrations, and effective solutions are discussed. This paper gives an overview of state-of-the-art terahertz technology for industrial quality inspection. The presented principles are not limited to the automotive and aviation industries but can also be adapted to many other industrial fields.
The reduced clearance of amyloid-β (Aβ) is thought to contribute to the development of the pathology associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is characterized by the deposition of Aβ plaques. ...Previous studies have shown that Aβ is cleared via the glymphatic system, a brain-wide network of perivascular pathways that supports the exchange between cerebrospinal fluid and interstitial fluid within the brain. Such exchange is dependent upon the water channel aquaporin-4 (AQP4), localized at astrocytic endfeet. While prior studies have shown that both the loss and mislocalization of AQP4 slow Aβ clearance and promote Aβ plaque formation, the relative impact of the loss or mislocalization of AQP4 on Aβ deposition has never been directly compared. In this study, we evaluated how the deposition of Aβ plaques within the 5XFAD mouse line is impacted by either Aqp4 gene deletion or the loss of AQP4 localization in the α-syntrophin (Snta1) knockout mouse. We observed that both the absence (Aqp4 KO) and mislocalization (Snta1 KO) of AQP4 significantly increases the parenchymal Aβ plaque and microvascular Aβ deposition across the brain, when compared with 5XFAD littermate controls. Further, the mislocalization of AQP4 had a more pronounced impact on Aβ plaque deposition than did global Aqp4 gene deletion, perhaps pointing to a key role that mislocalization of perivascular AQP4 plays in AD pathogenesis.
Coastal marsh habitat and its associated vegetation are strongly linked to substrate elevation and local drainage patterns. As such, accurate representations of both the vegetation height and the ...surface elevations are requisite components for systematic analysis and temporal monitoring of the habitat. Topographic Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data can provide high-resolution, high-accuracy elevation measurements of features both aboveground and at the surface. However, because of poor penetration of the laser pulse through the marsh vegetation, bare-earth LIDAR elevations can be markedly less accurate when compared with adjacent upland habitats. Consequently, LIDAR ground-elevation errors (i.e., standard deviation SD and bias) can vary significantly from the standard upland land-cover classes quoted in a typical data provider's quality-assurance report. Custom digital elevation model (DEM) generation techniques and point classification processes can be used to improve estimates of ground elevations in coastal marshes. The simplest of these methods is minimum bin gridding, which extracts the lowest elevation value included within a user-specified search window and assigns that value to the appropriate DEM grid cell. More complex point-to-point classification can be accomplished by enforcing stricter slope limits and increasing the level of smoothing. Despite lowering the spatial resolution of the DEM, the application of these techniques significantly improves the vertical accuracy of the LIDAR-derived bare-earth surfaces. By employing the minimum bin technique to the bare-earth classified LIDAR data, the overall bias in the resultant surface was reduced by 12 cm, and the vertical accuracy was improved by 8 cm when compared with the “as-received” data.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The “treadmill of production” economic system increasingly threatens to undermine the foundations of future human welfare. While urgent action is needed, conceptualisations of “the good life” (TGL) ...as the “imperial mode of living” (IML) of overconsumption are justifications upholding the system and driving forces behind the crises. German trade unions, which, as part of the historic bloc of the growth coalition, have tried to delay climate action in the name of jobs through “praising work”, have supported the hegemonic common sense of IML-TGL. This is an obstacle to environmental union organisation and progressive coalitions for social-ecological transformation. To investigate whether and to what extent divergent good sense counter-hegemonic narratives are present within German trade union discourses, we analyse the narratives of TGL and good work within the three biggest German unions – ver.di, IG Metall, and IG BCE – using Gramsci’s theory of common sense. We find that counter-narratives of TGL are present to different degrees within the unions and amongst interviewees. These can provide entry points for counter-hegemonic narratives of TGL and alliances with societal actors fighting for “solidary modes of living”, or a Good Life for All within planetary boundaries.
In the face of climate and ecological crises, it is vital that car use be reduced, while simultaneously shifting towards different powertrains and reducing the size, weight and energy demand of ...vehicles. This poses a challenge to the global car industry, as its business model historically centres on selling more and larger cars. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social-ecological limits of industrial restructuring in Germany. A narrative literature review through the lens of Marxian political economy sheds light on intertwined system-immanent barriers to achieving social and ecological sustainability at the sectoral level. Consequently, powertrain electrification is structured by technological dynamism, which fuels appropriation in the quest for metals and rare earths, with significant social and ecological disadvantages. This generates an impasse for the industry's transition strategies. Understanding how capitalist tendencies generate interlaced and mutually re-enforcing barriers to achieving social-ecological sustainability is key to understanding why industrial transitions are insufficient from a social-ecological perspective.
While fetal growth is a tightly regulated process, it is sensitive to environmental exposures that occur during pregnancy. Many commonly used consumer products contain chemicals that can disturb ...processes underlying fetal growth. However, mixtures of these chemicals have been minimally examined. We investigated associations between prenatal exposure to 33 consumer product chemicals (nine organophosphate ester flame retardant OPE metabolites, 12 phthalate metabolites, and 12 phenols) and the odds of small- or large-for-gestational age (SGA and LGA) births.
This case-control study was comprised of SGA (N = 31), LGA (N = 28), and appropriate for gestational age control (N = 31) births selected from the larger LIFECODES cohort. Biomarkers of exposure to consumer product chemicals were quantified in maternal urine collected from up to three study visits during pregnancy. In a single-pollutant approach, odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of SGA and LGA associated with an interquartile range (IQR)-increase in exposure biomarkers were estimated using multinomial logistic regression. In a multi-pollutant approach, quantile g-computation was used to jointly estimate the OR (95% CI) of SGA and LGA per simultaneous one quartile-change in all biomarkers belonging to each chemical class.
Among the 33 biomarkers analyzed, 20 were detected in at least 50% of the participants. After adjusting for potential confounders, we observed reduced odds of LGA in association with higher urinary concentrations of several exposure biomarkers. For example, an IQR-increase in the OPE metabolite, diphenyl phosphate, was associated with lower odds of LGA (OR: 0.40 95% CI: 0.18, 0.87). Using quantile g-computation, we estimated lower odds of an LGA birth for higher OPE metabolite concentrations (OR: 0.49 95% CI: 0.27, 0.89) and phthalate metabolite concentrations (OR: 0.23 95% CI: 0.07, 0.73). Associations between consumer product chemicals and SGA were largely null.
Joint exposure to OPEs and phthalates was associated with lower odds of delivering LGA. Associations with LGA could indicate a specific impact of these exposures on the high end of the birth weight spectrum. Future work to understand this nuance in the associations between consumer product chemical mixtures and fetal growth is warranted.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Farmer profit can be increased and air quality improved
Although intentional use of fires to transform land has decreased globally (
1
,
2
), particularly among highly capitalized countries through ...regulatory and market-oriented approaches and moral suasion, regulatory strategies have been less effective in southern and eastern Asia (see table S21). Some densely populated agricultural regions in China and India buck the global trend, showing increases in agricultural fires (
2
). This is particularly true in northwestern India, where rice residue burning makes a substantial contribution to air pollution and short-lived climate pollutants (
3
,
4
). Regulations are in place to reduce agricultural fires, but burning continues because of uncertainty regarding policy implementation and regarding access and returns to alternative technologies. With the field burning season soon upon us, we synthesize emerging evidence on alternatives to burning, clarify the business case for alternative practices, identify remaining uncertainties, and discuss approaches to increase their widespread adoption. Often, there are difficult trade-offs between environmental improvement and profitable economic opportunities. The case of crop residue management in northwestern India does not appear to fit this pattern and provides lessons that may be useful elsewhere.
Dense-array electrocortical and functional hemodynamic measures of human brain activity were collected to assess the relationship between 2 established neural measures of emotional reactivity. ...Recorded in parallel sessions, the slow-wave late positive potential (LPP) and visual cortical blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) signals were both modulated by the rated intensity of picture arousal. The amplitude of the LPP correlated significantly with BOLD intensity in lateral occipital, inferotemporal, and parietal visual areas across picture contents. Estimated strength of modeled regional sources did not correlate significantly with regional BOLD intensity. These data suggest that the enhanced positive slow wave seen over posterior sites during emotional picture processing represents activity in a circuit of visual cortical structures, reflecting a perceptual sensitivity to the motivational relevance of visual scenes.
Sleep loss has detrimental effects on cognitive and emotional functioning. These impairments have been associated with alterations in EEG measures of power spectrum and event-related potentials, ...however the impact of sleep loss on inter trial phase coherence (ITPC), a measure of phase consistency over experimental trials, remains mostly unknown. ITPC is thought to reflect the ability of the neural response to temporally synchronize with relevant events, thus optimizing information processing.
In the current study we investigated the effects of sleep deprivation on information processing by evaluating the phase consistency of steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) as well as amplitude-based measures of ssVEPs, obtained from a group of 18 healthy individuals following 24 h of total sleep deprivation and after a night of habitual sleep. An ssVEP task was utilized, which included the presentation of dots flickering at 7.5 Hz, along with a cognitive-emotional task. Our results show that ITPC is significantly reduced under sleep deprivation relative to habitual sleep. Interestingly, decreased ITPC under sleep deprivation was associated with decreased behavioral performance in the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), a validated measure of reduced vigilance following a lack of sleep.
The results suggest that the capability of the brain to synchronize with rhythmic stimuli is disrupted without sleep. Thus, decreased ITPC may represent an objective and mechanistic measure of sleep loss, allowing future work to study the relation between brain-world synchrony and the specific functional impairments associated with sleep deprivation.
We present a novel intrinsic method for joint reconstruction of both image and motion in positron emission tomography (PET). Intrinsic motion compensation methods exclusively work on the measured ...data, without any external motion measurements. Most of these methods separate image from motion estimation: They use deformable image registration/optical flow techniques in order to estimate the motion from individually reconstructed gates. Then, the image is estimated based on this motion information. With these methods, a main problem lies in the motion estimation step, which is based on the noisy gated frames. The more noise is present, the more inaccurate the image registration becomes. As we show both visually and quantitatively, joint reconstruction using a simple deformation field motion model can compete with state-of-the-art image registration methods which use robust multilevel B-spline motion models.
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