Evaluation of epifluorescence image analysis of biofilm growth on stainless steel surfaces

Biofilm growth of Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas fragi, Pediococcus inopinatus and Listeria monocytogenes was studied on stainless steel surfaces at room and low temperatures to evaluate the results of traditional hygiene measures. The results were compared with those of image analysis of stainless steel surfaces in an epifluorescence microscope. Statistical analyses were carried out to determine the variations between the conventional cultivation swab method, the glycocalyx amount obtained using swabbing, and the values of the areas of the biofilm, slime and cells. As a general rule, old biofilms showed total counts at approximately the same levels as the young biofilm. The results showed that temperature affected the results for all strains except B. subtilis. The strains of Pe. inopinatus and Ps. fragi showed increased attachment at 6°C and L. monocytogenes at 25°C. The biofilm slime was more easily detached than the cells. The results indicated that the traditional swab method is not reliable for the measurement of biofilm formation on surfaces.     

Limit of detection estimator for second-order bilinear calibration

A new approach is developed for estimating the limit of detection in second-order bilinear calibration with the generalized rank annihilation method (GRAM). The proposed estimator is based on recently derived expressions for prediction variance and bias. It follows the latest IUPAC recommendations in the sense that it concisely accounts for the probabilities of committing both types I and II errors, i.e. false positive and false negative declarations, respectively. The estimator has been extensively validated with simulated data, yielding promising results.     

Multivariate analysis of non-homogeneous peaks in liquid chromatography

Summary The effects of concentration, separation and spectral similarity as factors influencing the accuracy of iterative target testing factor analysis (ITT-FA) are investigated for three component systems by the application of analysis of variance (ANOVAR). ANOVAR is applied over a range of peak separations to map the changing effects of the three factors with increasing overlap. Two error responses were measured and analysed, (a) Relative cluster error (RCE) a measure of the error over all peaks in a cluster and (b) Relative peak error (RPE) the error of an individual peak. Multicomponent analysis (MCA) a method requiringa priori spectral information, is used as a referee method for ITT-FA.     

A study for quality evaluation of Taxilli Herba from different hosts based on fingerprint-activity relationship modeling and multivariate statistical analysis

In this study, a fingerprint-activity relationship modeling between chemical fingerprints and antirheumatic activity was established, and multivariate statistical analysis was used to evaluate the quality of Taxilli Herba (TH) from different hosts. Characteristic fingerprints of 20 batches of TH samples were generated by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole-time of flight tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-Triple TOF-MS/MS), and the similarity analysis was calculated based on thirteen common characteristic peaks by hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA). Subsequently, nine efficacy markers were discovered by combining fingerprints and antirheumatic activity through grey correlation analysis (GCA) and bivariate correlation analysis (BCA). Meanwhile, the content of 5 constituents in 9 markers was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole-linear ion trap tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-QTRAP-MS/MS). The comprehensive quality of TH was assessed using multivariate statistical analysis, including principal components analysis (PCA) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The results showed that a high dose of TH extract could markedly ameliorate arthritis damage compared to other doses, with flavonoids playing an important role in the antirheumatic activity. The comprehensive quality of samples from Morus alba L. (SS) was superior to those from Liquidambar formosana Hance (FXS). The present study will demonstrate the markers associated with efficacy, and provide an applicable strategy for more comprehensive quality control and evaluation of TH.     

Some exact expressions for the mean and higher moments of functions of sample moments

Examples of exact expressions for the moments (mainly of the mean) of functions of sample moments are given. These provide checks on alternative developments such as asymptotic series for n, and simulation processes. Exact expressions are given for the mean of the square of the sample coefficient of variation, particularly in uniform sampling; Frullani integrals studied by G. H. Hardy arise. It should be kept in mind that exact results for (joint) moment generating functions (mgfs) are of interest as they produce a means of obtaining exact results for (cross) moments—including moments with negative indices. Thus an exact expression for the joint mgf of the 1st two noncentral moments can be used to obtain the mean of the (c.v.)² (but not for the mean of the c..). A general expression is given for the moment generating function of the sample variance. The limitations of Fisher's symbolic formula for the characteristic function of sample moments (or more general statistics) are noted.This research was sponsored by the Applied Mathematical Sciences Research program, Office of Energy Research, U. S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC0584OR21400 with the Martin Marietta Energy Systems. Inc.     

大气闪烁对自适应光学校正的影响

 激光在大气湍流中长距离近水平传输时，闪烁加强，限制了常规自适应光学的校正能力。数值研究了大气闪烁对自适应光学校正的影响，拟合得到了在Fresnel数一定时，Strehl比与Rytov方差的表达式，以及Rytov方差一定时，Strehl比与Fresnel数的表达式。结果表明，在Rytov方差较小时，纯相位校正Ｓtrehl比只与Rytov方差有关；随着Rytov方差的增加，Strehl比不仅与Rytov方差有关，还与Fresnel数有关，Fresnel数越大，校正Strehl比越大；大发射和接收孔径有利于提高校正Strehl比；在一定的Rytov方差下，Stregl比随Fresnel数增大而增加，逐步趋于饱和，达到纯相位校正的极限。     

IMPORTANCE MEASURE OF CORRELATED VARIABLES IN POLYNOMIAL OUTPUT

为了解决一般工程问题中输出量为多项式情况下相关正态输入变量的贡献识别问题，以二次不含交叉项的多项输出量为例，利用多维相关正态分布及其条件分布的性质，解析地推导了相关正态输入变量对输出量总方差的独立贡献及相关贡献，采用算例验证了所推导的解析表达式的正确性．文中所推导的相关正态变量独立贡献和相关贡献的表达式可直接用于输出量为二次不含交叉项多项式或一次多项式情况下的输入变量贡献的识别，并且为其他新的算法提供了对照解，另外此方法亦可以推广至含交叉项的高阶多项式，解决更为复杂输出量情况下输入量的贡献识别问题．     

Modelling effects of subgrid-scale mixture fraction variance in LES of a piloted diffusion flame

A posteriori analysis of the statistics of two large-eddy simulation (LES) solutions describing a piloted methane–air (Sandia D) flame is performed on a series of grids with progressively increased resolution reaching about 10.5 million cells. Chemical compositions, density and temperature fields are modelled with a steady flamelet approach and parametrised by the mixture fraction. The difference between the LES solutions arises from a different numerical treatment of the subgrid scale (SGS) mixture fraction variance – an important quantity of interest in non-premixed combustion modelling. In the first case (model I), the variance transport equation is solved directly, while in the second (model II), an equation for the square of the mixture fraction is solved, and the variance is computed from its definition. The comparison of the LES solutions is based on the convergence properties of their statistics with respect to the turbulence resolution length scale. The dependence of the LES statistics is analysed for velocity and the mixture fraction fields, and tested for convergence. For the most part, the statistics converge for the finest grids, but the variance of the mixture fraction shows some residual grid dependence in the high-gradient regions of the jet near field. The SGS variance given by model I exhibits realisability everywhere, whereas in regions of the flame model II is non-realisable, predicting negative variances. Furthermore, the LES statistics of model I exhibit superior convergence behaviour.     

Folded overlapping variance estimators for simulation

We propose and analyze a new class of estimators for the variance parameter of a steady-state simulation output process. The new estimators are computed by averaging individual estimators from “folded” standardized time series based on overlapping batches composed of consecutive observations. The folding transformation on each batch can be applied more than once to produce an entire set of estimators. We establish the limiting distributions of the proposed estimators as the sample size tends to infinity while the ratio of the sample size to the batch size remains constant. We give analytical and Monte Carlo results showing that, compared to their counterparts computed from nonoverlapping batches, the new estimators have roughly the same bias but smaller variance. In addition, these estimators can be computed with order-of-sample-size work.