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The printing process of box packaging paper can generate volatile organic compounds, resulting in odors that impact product quality and health. An efficient, objective, and cost-effective detection method is urgently needed. We utilized a self-developed electronic nose system to test four different cigarette packaging paper samples. Employing multivariate statistical methods like Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Statistical Quality Control (SQC), and Similarity-based Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA), we analyzed and processed the collected data. Comprehensive evaluation and quality control models were constructed to assess sample stability and distinguish odors. Results indicate that our electronic nose system rapidly detects odors and effectively performs quality control. By establishing models for quality stability control, we successfully identified samples with acceptable quality and those with odors. To further validate the system's performance and extend its applications, we collected two types of cigarette packaging paper samples with odor data. Using data augmentation techniques, we expanded the dataset and achieved an accuracy rate of 0.9938 through classification and discrimination. This highlights the significant potential of our self-developed electronic nose system in recognizing cigarette packaging paper odors and odorous samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, an object of uncertain status made its way into the collection of the Archives of American Art as an addition to the Howard Wise Gallery Records. Mixed amongst a notebook and some loose papers in a box was a half-inch Royal-Memorex video reel labeled "HANNAH WILKE NOH FILM APR 1974." The tape includes sixty-two minutes of footage starting with Wilke enacting a (possible) performance, moving to playful banter between Wilke and an unknown male partner, and ending with what seems to be a sexual encounter between the two, mostly out of the camera's view. Contextualizing Noh within the discourse of 1970s feminist politics and debates around pornography brings the (possible) artwork into contemporary debates around women's sexuality and bodily autonomy and expands our understanding of Wilke's use of sex as fundamental to her artistic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fossil record of gladius-bearing coleoids is scarce and based only on a few localities with geological horizons particularly favourable to their preservation (the so-called Konservat-Lagerstätten), which naturally leads to strongly limited data on geographical distributions. This emphasizes the importance of every new locality providing gladius-bearing coleoids. Here, we assess for the first time the gladius-bearing coleoid taxonomic diversity within the lower Toarcian "Schistes Cartons" of the Causses Basin (southeastern France). The material includes two fragmentary gladii, identified as Paraplesioteuthis sagittata and "Loligosepia sp. indet. Just with these two specimens, two (Prototeuthina and Loligosepiina) of the three (Prototeuthina, Loligosepiina and Teudopseina) suborders of Mesozoic gladius-bearing coleoids are represented. Thus, our results hint at a rich early Toarcian gladius-bearing coleoid diversity in the Causses Basin and point out the need for further field investigations in the lower Toarcian "Schistes Cartons" in this area. This new record of Paraplesioteuthis sagittata is only the second one in Europe and the third in the world (western Canada, Germany and now France). Based on these occurrences, we tentatively suggest that P. sagittata originated in the Mediterranean domain and moved to the Arctic realm through the Viking Corridor to eventually move even farther to North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted during two consecutive seasons 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 to investigate the effect of some types of packaging on the storage capacity and quality of Saidy dates during the refrigerated storage period. Types of packing were packaged with cartons and plastic bags perforated or not perforated. The fruits were stored in cool conditions at 5 ± 10 °C and 85-90%RH. All transactions were randomly sampled every two months for a period of 10 months. The obtained data showed a significant increase in the percentage of loss of fruit decay %, fruit weight, sugar contents, as well as % of total soluble solids with the extension of the storage period. On the other hand, the advanced storage period led to a significant gradual decrease in the weight of the fruits. All packaging treatments with carton bags led to a significant decrease % of damaged fruits and the weight of fruits, as well as compared to the use of other types of packaging. The use of non-perforated plastic resulted in a loss of fruit weight and a lower % of damaged fruits compared to the use of other types of packaging. Packaging whole or seedless fruits in non-perforated plastic bags improved fruit quality during the refrigerated storage period compared to packing whole or seedless fruits in perforated plastic or cans. It can be concluded that packing the whole fruits in non-perforated plastic bags maintains the freshness of the fruits without any negative effects on the quality of the fruits and it seems that it is the appropriate and ideal type of packaging to prolong the refrigerated storage of Saidy dates without a significant depletion in the quality of the fruits.

In order to solve the problems of low efficiency of manual cartoning and large area of production line in the winery, a continuous vertical cartoner was designed. Vertical ring layout was adopted in the machine, wine bottles and wine boxes can be directly packed without dumping after sorting equidistant; the tower multi-station layout was adopted in cartoning module, and the 8-head cartoning actuator was independent of each other for non-stop cartoning; the mode of grabbing can reduce the impact of the cartoning process to realize the smooth cartooning of wine bottles. On this basis, the contour line of the cylindrical cam was designed according to the cartoning process, and the cylindrical cam was optimized by curve fitting method, and the simulation analysis of the cartoning mechanism was carried out. The results show that the acceleration curve of the boxing actuator is relatively smooth and the structure is reasonable, which meets the cartoning requirements. The proposed cartoner effectively improves the production efficiency and provides a new idea for wine bottle boxing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carton board packages with different creases have been manufactured and loaded with point loads to see if there is a difference in point load behavior depending on crease. A carton board was creased in four different ways. The differences of the creases were judged according to appearance and residual moment. Three of the four creases showed divergent appearances. The residual moment was as expected lowest for the hardest creased sample and vice versa. The packages with the different creases were loaded with a point load. The registered force – displacement curves were analyzed according to stiffness and collapse load. No statistically significant difference could be seen in the collapse load of the package or in the stiffness measured, indicating that with a standard point load measurement it was hard to distinguish a difference in packaging behavior due to creasing. In future work it might be interesting to further study the average stiffness, since a trend of higher average stiffness for lower matrix channel depth exists in the measurements, however not statistically ensured. One possibility to discern possibly existing differences in the resistance of packaging to point load due to crease differences could be to study the interaction in more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the express delivery industry, how to increase the recycling rate of waste cartons has become a problem that needs to be solved. Recycling enterprises began to provide the new recycling mode, door-to-door recycling services, to residents with waste cartons. In this article, we constructed a site selection model for a carton recycling site with the aim of maximizing total profits. Considering the residents' recycling willingness and the government subsidy earned through the contribution to carbon emission reduction, this model achieves the task of site selection and unit price fixation for carton recycling. We used the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to solve the model and compared it with the genetic algorithm (GA) for validity testing. PSO algorithm was also used to carry out sensitivity analysis in this model. The proposed model and the results of the sensitivity analysis can be used for decision-making in recycling enterprises as well as for further research on waste recycling and reverse logistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Producing tissue paper is an energy-demanding process; a significant amount of energy is expended when removing water by vacuum, mechanical pressing, and thermal drying. Because the water is most energy-demanding to remove in drying, making the preceding step of vacuum dewatering more efficient would benefit the whole process. This article focuses on developing a laboratory-scale method for verifying the nature of diminishing returns of water removal and investigating efficiency strategies of the vacuum dewatering. The theoretical concept of successive vacuum suction boxes with progressing vacuum levels was tested at the laboratory scale in order to show quantifiable results of the previously solely theoretical concept. The results confirmed that vacuum dewatering can be improved by adding progressively higher vacuum levels and that such a practice can benefit both outgoing dryness levels and expended vacuum pump energy. To truly examine the power of progression of vacuum levels, rewetting can be included in the calculations, by using an approximate value collected from pilot or fullscale measurements. For any new fiber mix, pulp type, vacuum level setup, basis weight, etc. the vacuum levels, rewetting, and dwell times need to be tuned to that specific case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the tensile properties and thermal behavior of virgin and hot press molded HDPE composites filled with different particle size and content of used beverage cartons which were the Tetra Pak® cartons. The mechanical properties of the composites were positively influenced by particle size of the used beverage carton, such that the smallest particle size gave the highest tensile strength and tensile modulus. The tensile strength of the specimens decreased with increasing filler content (40 to 70 wt%), while the tensile modulus rose. Furthermore, the filler size and its content affected the thermal behavior of the specimens. Calorimetry analysis of composite specimens showed that melting temperature and enthalpy values of virgin HDPE and recycled-HDPE decreased with increasing Tetra Pak® content. In all composite groups produced by adding Tetra Pak®, the degree of crystallinity decreased as a function of Tetra Pak® addition compared to the pure HDPE. Increasing particle size adversely affected the crystallization degree, which decreased with increasing particle size while the HDPE maintained its crystalline form. As for the recycled-HDPE composites, the degree of crystallization was reduced by increasing the Tetra Pak® content, but this was still noticeably higher than that of the HDPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

7-The work aims to study the influence of the slant edge length, slant edge angle, length-width ratio and height-width ratio on the compressive strength of an octagonal box, with the length, height, width and slant edge angle set around 225 mm, 150 mm, 150 mm and 135° respectively. First, the single factor analysis method was used to analyze the influence of each factor on the compressive strength. Second, the parameters of each structure in the orthogonal experiment were set to conduct the proofing test. Through single factor analysis, it is found that when the variable is the slant edge angle, the compressive strength reaches the maximum when the angle is 135°. When the variable is length-width ratio, the compressive strength reaches the maximum with the ratio of 1.3:1. When other parameters are fixed, the compressive strength increases with the increase of the slant edge length and decreases with the increase of height -width ratio. According to the orthogonal experiment, when the slant edge length, angle, length-width ratio and height-width ratio of the octagonal box are 35 mm, 150°, 1.2:1 and 0.6:1, respectively, the compressive strength is the maximum. Furthermore, there is a synergy between these four structural parameters; slant edge length has the greatest influence on the compressive strength of octagon box, followed by height-width ratio, slant edge angle, and length-width ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the deepening of green and sustainable development and the rapid development of the social economy, the modern logistics industry has also developed to an unprecedented level. In the logistics supply chain, due to the high value of the items inside the arrival carton, appearance inspection must be carried out before warehousing. However, manual inspection is slow and ineffective, resulting in the waste of manpower and packaging carton resources, which is not conducive to sustainable development. To address the above problems, this paper designs a logistics supply chain carton packaging quality defect detection system based on improved Single Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD) in the context of green sustainable development. The Implicit Feature Pyramid Network (IFPN) is introduced into SSD to improve the feature extraction ability of the model; the multiscale attention mechanism is introduced to collect more feature information. The experiment shows that the mAP and FPS of the system on the self-built data set reach 0.9662 and 36 respectively, which can realise the detection of the appearance defects of logistics cartons and help promote green sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency of truck loading-and-unloading tasks has become one of the major problems in logistics transportation, and intelligent loading-and-unloading robots are considered as effective solutions to this problem. Recently, carton detection with deep learning is widely used for those robots; however, lack of large annotated datasets is one of major impediments for rapidly deploying carton detection models. We currently have presented the Sacked Carton Dataset (SCD) that contains carton images from four logistics scenarios, such as Comprehensive Pharmaceutical Logistics Company (CPLC), E-commerce Logistics Company (ECLC), Fruit Market (FM), and Large Furniture Market (LFM). However, due to the domain shift, the carton detection model trained with source domain (which are annotated) has poor generalization ability when applied to the target domain (which are not annotated and from new logistics scenarios). To solve this problem, a novel image synthesis method is proposed to quickly acquire a labeled dataset, which replace the foreground texture of the source datasets with the texture of the target datasets. In this paper, a Local Surfaces Segmentation Algorithm is proposed to extract the carton stacking skeleton and an Invisible Contour Reconstruction Algorithm is proposed to complete the contour of the carton. Our method can keep the context relationship of foreground objects and backgrounds unchanged, and it also can greatly augment the target datasets. Code is available here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciência da Informação is the property of Revista Ibero-Americana de Ciencia da Informacao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In view of the deformation of corrugated cartons used in the packaging of steel bottles by traditional packers, a packer with carton shaping function was designed. The equipment was mainly composed of push mechanism, upper cover mechanism, upper spray mechanism, upper capping mechanism and carton shaping mechanism. The control system of the equipment was designed based on Keyence PLC and photoelectric sensor. The sealing machine could correct the shape of the paper box deformed in the process of sealing and improve the quality of packaging. At the same time, the forward pushing mechanism of the box packer used photoelectric sensors and transverse and longitudinal cylinders to push the carton, so as to avoid the accumulation of the box in a certain station in the transportation process and ensure the orderliness of the sealing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Load‐carrying capability of corrugated cartons packaging fresh agriproducts must be significant enough. Collapse of the carton stacked on the pallet in an environment‐controlled container is commonly observed during the shipping trip. A homogenization approach of the corrugated paperboard is adopted to dramatically reduce the computational time in the present study. A creep model is further implemented into the numerical analysis to describe the stiffness decay of the carton over the relatively long period. A finite element analysis is conducted to investigate the mechanical performance of the carton locating at bottom of the stacked pile. Simulation results show that the carton performs local buckling deformations similar to the experimental observations. The vented carton based on the modified design exhibits rather smaller deformations after the transportation journey. Moreover, the modified design provides better uniformity of ventilation based on the computational fluid dynamics analysis. Current procedure is promising for the selection of liner and fluting that compose the corrugated paperboard and the assessment of the ventilation of cartons in the early design stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the feasibility of extracting the characteristics of sealed paper boxes based on range profiles using a millimeter-wave automotive FMCW radar. Radar is one of the key basic sensors for driving assistance and collision avoidance. Target classification using radar has been studied extensively, yet the detection of sealed material requires further investigation to improve situational awareness for better judgment. We suggest the classification of sealed paper boxes with different materials based on range-profile plots, which capture wave reflection from the box and wave attenuation when traveling through a lossy material. We measure the range profiles of sealed boxes encompassing paper in five different quantities using a millimeter-wave FMCW radar. A theoretical approach is used as a proof of concept, which supports the results of the range-profile measurements. The range profiles of the box with several other materials are also obtained and their characteristics are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Food delivery boxes are tested for aerobic disintegration and anaerobic degradation. • Boxes made of paper only or with coatings (including polylactic acid) are analysed. • Paper is highly suitable for biological treatments behaving similarly to food waste. • Aerobic disintegration of coated boxes is much slower than that of paper only boxes. • Undigested polylactic acid coating is found in anaerobic semi-continuous tests. This study evaluated the fate of food delivery boxes when subjected to biological treatments, reproducing at the lab-scale the conditions of full-scale plants. Four paper-based boxes were composted: two made of paper only, one coupled with polylactic acid (PLA), and one with a barrier coating. One paper only box and the box with PLA were also investigated for their anaerobic degradability with biochemical methane potential (BMP) and semi-continuous tests. During composting, the boxes were not recognisable inside the compost after four (paper only boxes), eight (box with PLA), and twelve (box with barrier coating) weeks. In BMP tests, the paper only box showed a degradability similar to that of food waste (92 %), while the box with PLA degraded only at 76 %. Furthermore, undigested pieces of PLA were found in semi-continuous tests. Accordingly, paper resulted suitable for biological treatments, while the presence of PLA or other barrier coatings can be critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reproducibility is widely acknowledged as a fundamental principle in scientific research. Currently, the scientific community grapples with numerous challenges associated with reproducibility, often referred to as the "reproducibility crisis". This crisis permeated numerous scientific disciplines. In this study, we examined the factors in scientific practices that might contribute to this lack of reproducibility. Significant focus is placed on the prevalent integration of computation in research, which can sometimes operates as a black box in published papers. Our study primarily focuses on high-performance computing (HPC), which presents unique reproducibility challenges. This paper provides a comprehensive review of these concerns and potential solutions. Furthermore, we discuss the critical role of reproducible research in advancing science and identifying persisting issues within the field of HPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research delves into an upscale, personalised packaging paradigm employing 3D printing and a bio-composite derived from esteemed rosewood. The study incorporates a design for additive manufacturing, enhancing designers’ flexibility, and fostering innovation. To address global sustainability imperatives, including efficiency, energy conservation, a low carbon footprint and ecological compatibility, a premium and sustainable rosewood/polyethersulfone (PES) composite is developed. Laser sintering (LS), renowned for its processing flexibility, is applied for crafting intricate packages. A weight ratio of 1:4 of rosewood to PES is highly suitable for LS processing. The resultant custom carton, embodying natural rosewood aesthetics and fragrance, exhibits commendable mechanical robustness and precision. Tensile and bending strengths reach peaks of 4.880 MPa and 7.870 MPa, respectively, under a 9-W laser power. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis confirms the favourable dispersion of rosewood fibres in LS specimens, providing insights into the microstructure of the composite powder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large quantities of fresh produce are exported every year to international markets across the world using refrigerated freight containers (RFCs). However, many packaging systems are legacy designs for older shipping technologies. For fruit, more than 10% of the RFC floor area is unused by current packaging systems, and designs often do not facilitate adequate cooling conditions. This study showed that novel packaging designs could improve packing density by up to 19%. Two new packaging systems were investigated using CFD to emulate conditions similar to forced-air cooling (FAC) and a RFC, respectively. The proposed packaging increased floor area utilisation to about 98%. The FAC energy efficiency was improved by 29%. An analysis of the results indicates considerable cooling improvements are possible by modifying vent hole designs and using taller cartons. The study thus demonstrated substantial merits to implementing new fruit packaging systems. • Packaging systems were assessed using a multiparameter evaluation approach. • Design of novel packaging systems that utilise 98% of container floor area. • Cooling efficiency of forced-air cooling improved by 29% with new carton design. • Improved container cooling efficiency feasible by designing taller cartons. • New design is ergonomic, backwards compatible and improves cooling and density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Packaging & Food Machinery is the property of Packaging & Food Machinery Magazine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The objects in remote sensing images have large-scale variations, arbitrary directions, and are usually densely arranged, and small objects are easily submerged by background noises. They all hinder accurate object detection. To address the above problems, this paper proposes an object detection method combining feature enhancement and hybrid attention. Firstly, a feature enhancement fusion network (FEFN) is designed, which carries out dilated convolution with different dilation rates acting on the multi-layer features, and thus fuses multi-scale, multi-receptive field feature maps to enhance the original features. FEFN obtains more robust and discriminative features, which adapt to various objects with different scales. Then, a hybrid attention mechanism (HAM) module composed of pixel attention and channel attention is proposed. Through context dependence and channel correlation, introduced by pixel attention and channel attention respectively, HAM can make the network focus on object features and suppress background noises. Finally, this paper uses box boundary-aware vectors to determine the locations of objects and detect the arbitrary direction objects accurately, even if they are densely arranged. Experiments on public dataset DOTA show that the proposed method achieves 75.02% mAP, showing an improvement of 2.7% mAP compared with BBAVectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beverage carton waste is a poorly characterized waste stream in Thailand. In this paper, we present a 2013 beverage carton waste flows in Thailand which may serve as a baseline for future stocks, recycling initiatives, and policy recommendations. It was estimated that 250,214 (±8.2%) tons of beverage carton waste was generated in 2013 in Thailand. Almost 98.14% of waste was the post‐consumption used beverage carton from the municipal solid waste stream and the remaining 1.86% from the industrial sector. 72.28% was disposed of in the open environment and only 3.63% was recycled. Beverage carton collection in Thailand is a voluntary commitment by the private sector as there are no mandatory recycling regulations and programs for packaging waste management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carton detection is an important technique in the automatic logistics system and can be applied to many applications such as the stacking and unstacking of cartons and the unloading of cartons in the containers. However, there is no public large-scale carton dataset for the research community to train and evaluate the carton detection models up to now, which hinders the development of carton detection. In this article, we present a large-scale carton dataset named Stacked Carton Dataset (SCD) with the goal of advancing the state-of-the-art in carton detection. Images were collected from the Internet and several warehouses, and objects were labeled for precise localization using instance mask annotation. There were a total of 250,000 instance masks from 16,136 images. Naturally, a suite of benchmarks was established with several popular detectors and instance segmentation models. In addition, we designed a carton detector based on RetinaNet by embedding our proposed Offset Prediction between the Classification and Localization module (OPCL) and the Boundary Guided Supervision module (BGS). OPCL alleviates the imbalance problem between classification and localization quality, which boosts AP by 3.1 ∼ 4.7 % on SCD at the model level, while BGS guides the detector to pay more attention to the boundary information of cartons and decouple repeated carton textures at the task level. To demonstrate the generalization of OPCL for other datasets, we conducted extensive experiments on MS COCO and PASCAL VOC. The improvements in AP on MS COCO and PASCAL VOC were 1.8 ∼ 2.2 % and 3.4 ∼ 4.3 % , respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision-cut liver slices (PCLS) are tissue explants extensively used as an ex vivo model for metabolism and toxicity studies. When in vitro assays are conducted, it is imperative to perform a histomorphological evaluation as part of the viability analyses throughout the assay time. It is considered that good quality PCLS histological sections are difficult to obtain because they are hard to manipulate, and may shrink or fold during processing. Moreover, bibliography is not detailed on the embedding processes used. In this article, we propose an adjusted and rapid method for paraffin embedding of PCLS from crossbreed steers. Each PCLS was covered with a piece of gauze and placed into a histological cassette. These cassettes were submitted to a series of baths: 80 % ethanol for 10 min; 3 baths of 96 % ethanol for 10 min; 3 baths of butanol for 10 min; 1 bath of butanol-paraffin (1:1) for 20 min in a 60 °C laboratory oven; and 3 baths of paraffin for 20 min in a 60 °C laboratory oven. Folded paper boxes were used to produce paraffin blocks. It was possible to obtain complete sections with preserved cell morphology and no artifacts, and tissue appearance was similar to previous PCLS processed through the routine protocol, demonstrating the adequacy of the method implemented. [Display omitted] • We propose a 2 ½ hours method for paraffin embedding of precision-cut liver slices from steers. • Good quality PCLS sections for histological assessment were obtained. • This method reduces processing issues (artifacts, folding, loss, etc.) and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some members of Chaetothyriales, an order containing potential agents of opportunistic infections in humans, have a natural habitat in nests of tropical arboreal ants. In these black fungi, two types of ant symbiosis are known, i.e. occurrence in domatia inside living plants, or as components of carton constructions made of ant-chewed plant tissue. In order to explain differences between strains from these types of association, we sequenced and annotated genomes of two newly described carton species, Incumbomyces lentus and Incumbomyces delicatus, and compared these with genomes of four domatia species and related Chaetothyriales. General genomic characteristics, CYP genes, carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), secondary metabolism, and sex-related genes were included in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composites in 25 kg batches were compounded of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and thermomechanical pulp (TMP) and shaped into caps at industrial facilities on a pilot‐plant scale. Some of the material was also injection molded into plaques to compare the effect of laboratory‐scale and pilot‐scale compounding of poly(ethylene‐co‐acrylic acid) (EAA7) and poly(caprolactone) composites reinforced with 10 wt% CNC and TMP. The materials compounded under laboratory‐scale conditions showed a different morphology, improved mechanical properties, and a higher viscosity, than the materials compounded on a pilot‐scale. In some cases, the rheological properties of the melts indicated the presence of a relatively strong percolating cellulosic network, and the interphase region between the cellulose and the matrix appears to be important for the mechanical performance of the composites. After the compounding on a pilot scale, both the length and width of the pulp fibers was reduced. The TMP provided better reinforcement than the CNC possibly due to the higher aspect ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scanning experimental design that uses Taguchi methodology allowed to apply an orthogonal type model L12 to determine the optimal formulation and process variables—in two levels—to obtain extruded polyethylene (PE) composites with Tetra Pak multilayer cartons. The variables of the first type were the following: types of PE and mixtures of ethylenic copolymer processing aids; particle size; content of milled Tetra Pak containers, zinc oxide lubricant, mixtures of ethylenic copolymer processing aids, calcium carbonate, stearic acid, and titanate coupling agent. The variables of the second type were the speed and temperature profile of the extruder. This methodology applied two criteria for the evaluation of results, the separate analysis and the evaluation of multiple criteria of response parameters. The results showed the most important independent variables that affected the response parameters, being the extrusion speed with 49.8%, the type of PE with 18.4%, and the mixture of ethylenic copolymer processing aids with 8.1%. The optimal run showed the expected favorable results, such as plasticity with 89.6 cm/cm, mass flow with 0.80 kg/h, density with 1.11 kg/m3, torque with 574 mg, molten mass pressure of 111 lbf/in2, temperature of fusion of 149°C, impact resistance of 32 J/m, tensile strength of 11 MPa, and flexural modulus of 314 MPa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In evaluating the quality of seed lots, vigor tests are complementary to the germination test, identifying differences in their degree of deterioration. However, for safflower seeds (Carthamus tinctorius L.) there is little information regarding these tests. Thus, the objective was to adapt the cold test methodology to evaluate the vigor of safflower seeds. For that, twelve lots were initially characterized by moisture content, mass of one thousand seeds, germination and seedling emergence in the field. After characterization the samples were conditioned in transparent plastic boxes on paper moistened with water and kept at 10 °C for the periods of 0, 3, 5 and 7 days. After the conditioning periods the samples were transferred to a germination chamber at 25 °C, with evaluation of normal seedlings on the 3rd day. The obtained data was subjected to variation analysis and when significant, compared by the Scott-Knott method at 5% probability. To verify the efficiency of the methodologies, the principal component analysis was performed. The cold testing at 10 °C for 7 days is recommended for evaluating the physiological quality of safflower seeds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Chinese Journal of Liquid Crystal & Displays is the property of Chinese Journal of Liquid Crystal & Displays and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)