To understand and optimise downstream processing of ores, reliable information about mineral abundance, association, liberation textural characteristics is needed. Such can be obtained by using Optical Image Analysis (OIA) in reflected light, which achieve good discrimination for the majority minerals. However, automated segmentation non-opaque minerals, such as quartz, have reflectivity close ...

This thesis reports research into the specification and implementation of an Information Technology (IT) Route Map. The purpose of the Route Map is to enable rapid design and deployment of IT solutions capable of semi-automating business processes in a manufacturing enterprise. The Map helps structure transition processes involved in “identification of key business strategies and design of busi...

In the knowledge management field, knowledge map created under the client-server architecture has been widely used to direct the knowledge sharing process. Peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture has been practicable for file sharing, distributed computing, instant messaging, etc. by virtue of the increases of Internet bandwidth and personal computer capability. P2P architecture attracts researchers an...

Ricotta fresca cheese is the product of Sardinian dairy industry most exposed to microbial post-process contamination. Due to its technological characteristics, intrinsic parameters, pH (6.10-6.80) and water activity (0.974-0.991), it represents an excellent substrate for the growth of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms, which are usually resident in cheese-making plants environments. Gener...

The prebiotic significance of laboratory experiments that study the interactions between oligomeric RNA and mineral species is difficult to know. Natural exemplars of specific minerals can differ widely depending on their provenance. While laboratory-generated samples of synthetic minerals can have controlled compositions, they are often viewed as "unnatural". Here, we show how trends in the in...

The application presented in this paper is to augment uncalibrated images of factories with industrial drawings. Industrial drawings are among the most important documents used during the lifetime of industrial environments. They are the only common documents used during design, installation, monitoring and control, maintenance, update and finally dismantling of industrial units. Leading tradit...

While indoor localization has become a highly growing application domain in the last few years, it is hardly investigated in industrial environments. Interferences of magnetic fields, shadowing, and multipath propagation discourage positioning system vendors from porting their techniques to these harsh environments. However, the actual influence of these interferences on the positioning accurac...

More than half of the >5000 approved mineral species are known from five or fewer localities and thus are rare. Mineralogical rarity arises from different circumstances, but all rare mineral species conform to one or more of four criteria: (1) P-T-X range: minerals that form only under highly restricted conditions in pressure-temperature-composition space; (2) Planetary constraints: minerals th...

The Food and Agriculture Organization statistics for 2001 (http://apps.fao.org/page/collections? subset agriculture) show that 274 million metric tons of grain legumes were produced across the world, of which 177 million were soybeans (Glycine max; one-half of which were produced in the U.S.) compared with 2 trillion metric tons of cereals. Legume seeds are put to a myriad of uses, both nutriti...