in this study, an intelligent system for sorting closed shell and open shell pistachio nuts, was designed and developed based on combined acoustic and artificial neural network (ann) techniques. the system included a microphone, pc, material handling equipment and an air reject pneumatic mechanism. the microphone, placed under the steel plate, received sound signals generated by the pistachio n...

In contrast to the diets of other cottid fishes and most teleosts, the diet of Asemichthys taylori is dominated by gastropod mollusks. Access to this underused prey appears to be made possible by morphological speializations of the neurocanium that allow Asemichthys to puncture the shells of its prey during mastication. Unpunched, the shell and operculum act as a barrier to digestion; more than...

Molluscan shells may display a variety of colors, which formation, inheritance, and evolutionary significance are not well understood. Here we report a new variant of the Pacific abaloneHaliotis discus hannai that displays a novel orange shell coloration (O-type) that is clearly distinguishable from the wild green-shelled abalone (G-type). Controlled mating experiments between Oand G-type abalo...

Contrast agents are utilized in virtually every imaging modality to enhance diagnostic capabilities. We introduce a novel class of optical contrast agent, namely, encapsulating microspheres, that are based not on fluorescence but on scattering nanoparticles within the shell or core. The agents are suitable for reflection- or scattering-based techniques such as optical coherence tomography, ligh...

A quasi-sd4 hybridization state for group VIIIB and IB face-centered cubic (FCC) transition metals in low-dimensional nanostructures is identified, in contrast to the sd5 hybridization state in bulk. For Au, a novel three-shelled nanowire is designed with a hexagonal close-packed core in the sd5 hybridization, wrapped by FCC-(111) shell that adopts the quasi-sd4 hybridization. This new nanostru...

In this study, the authors use the finite element method to model and analyse a cylindrical copper shelled SLA electrode for EDM operations, which is investigated experimentally in literature. A uniform silver paint thickness and copper shell thickness is assumed around the SLA epoxy core. In the experiment, 2-D analysis was used due to the axissymmetric shape, and steady state and transient di...

A simplified three-dimensional (3-D) zero-thickness shell model was developed to recover the non-spherical response of thick-shelled encapsulated microbubbles subjected to ultrasound excitation. The model was validated by comparison with previously developed models and was then used to study the mechanism of bubble break-up during non-spherical deformations resulting from the presence of a near...