Interval,ellipsoidal, and super-ellipsoidal calculi for experimental and theoretical treatment of uncertainty: Which one ought to be preferred?

In this study we compare three calculi listed in the title for analysis of structures involving uncertainty. The main idea is based on the consideration that the maximum structural response predicted by the preferred theory ought to be minimal, and the minimum structural response predicted by the preferred theory ought to be maximal, to constitute a lower overestimation. We present analytic results that allow one to calculate the structural response via the interval, ellipsoidal or super-ellipsoidal calculus. We provide several examples of truss structures and illustrate that in different situations, depending on the available data, one of these calculi ought to be preferred. Conclusion is made on the preferable approach to be the super-ellipsoidal calculus.     

A high accuracy flow segmentation method in crowded scenes based on streakline

Flow segmentation based on similar motion patterns in crowded scenes remains an open problem in computer vision due to inherent complexity and vast diversity found in such scenes. To solve this problem, the streakline framework based on Lagrangian fluid dynamics had been proposed recently. However, this framework computed optical flow field using conventional optical flow method (Lucas Kanade method) which has poor anti-interference performance, and serious deviation would be brought to the computation of optical flow field. Moreover, our experimental results show that using the formulation of streak flow similarity in this framework can result in incorrect flow segmentation. Therefore, we combine this framework with a high accurate variational model, and modify the corresponding formulation of streak flow similarity after analyzing the streakline framework in detail. Finally, an improved method is proposed to solve flow segmentation in crowded scenes. Experiments are done to compare these two methods and results verify the validity and accuracy of our method.     

NMR 77Se, 125Te, 31P and Structure of Seleno-and Telluro-Phosphorus Compounds

Spectra of a nuclear magnetic resonance of seleno- and telluro-phosphorus compounds on nuclei ⁷⁷Se, ¹²⁵Te, ³¹P are described. The dependences of spectral parameters on a structure of the substitutes at phosphorus atom in these compounds are discussed.     

Efficient separation of high‐purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata using two‐dimensional preparative chromatography

The separation of high‐purity compounds from traditional Tibetan medicines plays an important role in investigating their bioactivity. Nevertheless, it is often quite difficult to isolate compounds with high purity because of the complexity of traditional Tibetan medicines. In this work, an offline two‐dimensional reversed‐phase preparative method was successfully developed for the separation of high‐purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata . Based on the analysis results, an ODS C18 prep column was used for first‐dimensional preparation, and 14.8 g of the crude sample was separated into five fractions with a recovery of 74.6%. Then, an XAqua C18 prep column was used to isolate high‐purity compounds in the second‐dimensional preparation because its separation selectivity is different with the ODS C18 stationary phase. As a result, eight compounds in the crude sample were isolated in more than 98% purity. This is the first report of trans‐cinnamic acid ( 1 ) and trifolirhizin ( 2 ) from Oxytropis falcata . This method has the potential to be an efficient separation method of high‐purity compounds from Oxytropis falcata and it shows great promise for the separation of high‐purity compounds from complex samples.     

Interval methods as a simulation tool for the dynamics of biological wastewater treatment processes with parameter uncertainties

This paper presents sophisticated interval algorithms for the simulation of discrete-time dynamical systems with bounded uncertainties of both initial conditions and system parameters. Since naive implementations of interval algorithms might lead to guaranteed enclosures of all system states which are too conservative to be practically useful, we present algorithmic extensions of classical approaches which are applicable to the simulation of non-cooperative systems with time-varying uncertain parameters. Overestimation arising in the interval evaluation of dynamical system models due to the wrapping effect is reduced by an exact pseudo-linear transformation of nonlinear state equations and by new heuristics for the subdivision of interval enclosures which especially prefer splitting of unstable intervals. To highlight the typical procedure for parameterization of interval-based simulation routines and to demonstrate their efficiency, a nonlinear model of biological wastewater treatment processes is discussed. For this application, we consider the maximum specific growth rate of substrate consuming bacteria as a time-varying uncertain parameter. Only worst-case bounds are assumed to be available for the range of this parameter while no information is provided about its actual variation rate.     

Delay-dependent exponential stabilization for uncertain linear systems with interval non-differentiable time-varying delays

In this paper, the problem of exponential stabilization for a class of linear systems with time-varying delay is studied. The time delay is a continuous function belonging to a given interval, which means that the lower and upper bounds for the time-varying delay are available, but the delay function is not necessary to be differentiable. Based on the construction of improved Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals combined with Leibniz-Newton’s formula, new delay-dependent sufficient conditions for the exponential stabilization of the systems are first established in terms of LMIs. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate that the derived conditions are much less conservative than those given in the literature.     

Combination of Novozym 435–Catalyzed Hydrolysis and Mitsunobu Reaction for Production of (R)-γ-Lactones

Chiral γ-lactones of both enantiomers were synthesized with more than 90% optical purities. The key step was Novozym 435–catalyzed hydrolysis of racemic N-benzyl-4-acetoxyalkylamides. Additionally, because (R)-γ-lactones are predominant in apricot, mango, peach, passion fruit, and strawberry, synthesis was attempted using only one enantiomer selectively. The (R)-enantimer was synthesized with more than 80% total yield and more than 90% optical purity by a combination of Novozym 435–catalyzed hydrolysis and the Mitsunobu reaction.     

Development and validation of a capillary electrophoresis method for determination of enantiomeric purity and related substances of esomeprazole in raw material and pellets

A capillary electrophoresis method using CDs for quality control of esomeprazole (ESO) in terms of enantiomeric purity and related substances in raw material and pellets was developed. ESO is the S‐enantiomer of omeprazole (OMZ). Several parameters were evaluated, including type and concentration of buffer and CD, concentration of additives and electrolyte pH. Resolution between the enantiomers of OMZ obtained for each parameter tested was calculated and the presence of the main related substance such as OMZ sulfone was carefully monitored. The optimized system consisted of 100 mM Tris‐phosphate buffer pH 2.5 with 20 mM 2‐hydroxypropyl‐β‐CD, 1 mM sodium dithionite, temperature at 15°C, voltage at 28 kV, and UV detection at 301 nm. Once optimized, the electrophoretic system was validated according to ICH guidelines. The limits of detection and quantification for R‐OMZ were 0.6 μg/mL (0.06% w/w of ESO) and 2.0 μg/mL (0.2% w/w of ESO), respectively. A mean concentration of R‐OMZ <0.2% limit established by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) was found in the raw material and six‐pellet samples of ESO. No other impurities were found in the samples under these conditions. Therefore, the developed method was found to be appropriate not only for enantiomeric quality control of ESO but also for the analysis of ESO and the main related substance in raw material and pharmaceutical formulations as well as for stability indicating studies.     

Enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography of aryl-substituted oxazolines as an efficient tool for determination of chiral purity of serine medicinal components

A new approach for the evaluation of chiral purity of serine esterification products bearing long-chain alkyl substituents was developed. The compounds were simply converted to aryl-substituted oxazolines which: (i) facilitates effective chromatographic enantioseparation and (ii) enables direct detection using ultraviolet absorption. The method employs a polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phase and allows enantioseparation of highly stable oxazoline products in less than 6 min using a simple binary mobile phase. As opposed to the previously used normal phase method the developed method was performed in the reversed-phase mode. Aside from the benefits of switching to less hazardous solvents with regard to the principles of Green Chemistry, this has also led to a reduction in the analysis time. In comparison with known serine chromophores, the best enantioseparation of aryloxazoline rigid structure may be achieved only based on non-polar interactions with the chiral stationary phase. In contrast, the substitution of the chromophore moiety with hydroxyl substituent affected intra and intermolecular interactions that caused enantioseparation differences. Concurrently, we found high chirality retention of (R)- and (S)-configuration oxazoline standards (≥99% enantiomeric excess) during the introduction of the ultraviolet label. The method is suitable for rapid injection of the mixture containing the ultraviolet absorption marker without prior purification.     

MD-UNET: Multi-input dilated U-shape neural network for segmentation of bladder cancer

Accurate segmentation of the tumour area is crucial for the treatment and prognosis of patients with bladder cancer. However, the complex information from the MRI image poses an important challenge for us to accurately segment the lesion, for example, the high distinction among people, size of bladder variation and noise interference. Based on the above issues, we propose an MD-Unet network structure, which uses multi-scale images as the input of the network, and combines max-pooling with dilated convolution to increase the receptive field of the convolutional network. The results show that the proposed network can obtain higher precision than the existing models for the bladder cancer dataset. The MD-Unet can achieve state-of-art performance compared with other methods.