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Variable speed steering system has been used by cars of various brands, including BMW and Toyota, with the purpose of improving the stationarity and controllability of the vehicle. Until now, relevant investigations are focused on the theory and traditional application, while the geometric characteristics and tooth modification for the rack are left untouched upon, hindering the prospect of a wider application. Focusing on this, the paper synthesizes the mathematical model, geometry characteristics, and tooth modification method for the variable pinion–rack drive. The major contributions lie in the contact analysis and the modification methodology for the pinion–rack drive, which combined forms a solid foundation for the application that has never been discussed.

The preparation, approximate composition, degree of hydrolysis (DH), lipase activity and antioxidant capacity (including the ability of scavenging DPPH and ABTS free radicals) were determined for various of aqueous enzymatic extract (AEE) obtained from rice bran (RB) using alcalase (A), trypsin (T), papain (Pn), neutrase (N) and protamex (Px). Peptides and γ-oryzanol are the major functional components of AEE. Generally, the protein yield varied with the type of enzyme used in the order of T>Pn>N>Px>A. Both trypsin and alcalase extracts exhibit a higher level of γ-oryzanol than other enzymes. Lipase activity was measured using the 4-Nitrophenyl Laurate (p-NPL) substrate method, and significantly different (P<0.05) lipase activity values ranging from 0.55 to 2.38 mU/mL were observed from five hydrolysates. Furthermore, two synthetic free radicals were used to evaluate the antioxidant activity of AEE. The alcalase extract (at 4.35±0.15mg protein/mL AEE) shows the greatest scavenging rate (28.42%) of DPPH, but trypsin extract has highest ABTS radical-scavenging activity of 94.05%. Data revealed trypsin was possible the most effective extractant under their optimal conditions. These results demonstrate that the product obtained from rice bran by different enzymatic digestions may contain bioactive components and might potentially be natural antioxidants. Meanwhile, the aqueous enzymatic extraction method can also improve the stability of the hydrolysates.

The responses of photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence, and de-epoxidation state of the xanthophyll cycle pigments (DEPS) of micropropagated apple trees (Malus xdomestica) were investigated under whole-root water stress (WRS) and half-root water stress (HRS) induced by polyethylene glycol 6000 to simulate whole and partial root zone drying. Compared with control plants without water stress, plants under WRS and HRS exhibited reduced leaf net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and stomatal conductance (gs) with a greater reduction in WRS than in HRS plants. However, intercellular C02 concentration (Ci) increased under WRS as water stress was prolonged, signifying a non-stomatal limitation of Pn. Regarding HRS, decreased Pn was mainly the result of a stomatal limitation explained by a relatively low Ci. Changes in photosynthesis and chlorophyll parameters indicate that severe and slight damage occurred to the photosynthetic apparatus of WRS and HRS leaves, respectively, starting at Day 3 after initiating water stress. This damage was not evident on the donor side but was expressed as a reduced capacity of the acceptor side of the photosystem II reaction centers. To prevent damage from excess light, the DEPS of WRS leaf increased. Decreased gs could explain reduced water use under an irrigation strategy of partial root zone drying in fruit trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ticks of the subgenus Indocentorunder the genus Dermacentorfrom China are reviewed with two new records. Besides reviewing Dermacentor auratusand Dermacentor taiwanensis, the anomalies in the distinction of Dermacentor compactusand Dermacentor steini, usually incorrectly identified as D. auratus, are brought out. A key to the identification of these is also provided.

Structural redundancy elimination in case resource pools (CRP) is critical for avoiding performance bottlenecks and maintaining robust decision capabilities in cloud computing services. For these purposes, this paper proposes a novel approach to ensure redundancy elimination of a reasoning system in CRP. By using a entropy and mutual information, functional measures to eliminate redundancy of a system are developed with respect to a set of outputs. These measures help to distinguish both the optimal feature and the relations among the nodes in reasoning networks from the redundant ones with the elimination criterion. Based on the optimal feature and its harmonic weight, a model for knowledge reasoning in CRP (CRPKR) is built to complete the task of query matching, and the missing values are estimated with Bayesian networks. Moreover, the robustness of decisions is verified through parameter analyses. This approach is validated by the simulation with benchmark data sets using cloud SQL. Compared with several state-of-the-art techniques, the results show that the proposed approach has a good performance and boosts the robustness of decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the effect by sodium sulfite on the enzyme activity and stabilization of rice bran. First, enzymes are studied by detecting the activity of lipase and peroxidase. Then the total antioxidant capacity is tested in order to clarify the effect of sodium sulfite on antioxidant substances. Finally, processed rice bran is storaged in constant temperature to observe the change of fatty acid and peroxide value. The optimal condition is 4% sodium sulfite for 150min. The results show that the sodium sulfite can reduce the enzyme activity to improve the stability of rice bran.

In the research of rice bran stabilization, most of the literature only study the lipase which is explained by the changes in free fatty acids in the storage experiment or peroxidase activity. It leads results not comprehensive, extends the experiment time, increases the experimental difficulty and wastes of manpower and material resources. For the first time, the effect of heat treatment on fresh rice bran stability is examined in terms of direct determination of water content, lipase activity, peroxidase activity and total antioxidant capacity. The optimal condition is that 120 degrees for 22 min. The results show that the heat treatment can reduce the enzyme activity of rice bran to improve the stability of rice bran.

Under the conditions of temperature of 20deg C and transmembrane pressure of 0.2MPa, a silicon carbide membrane with a pore size of 0.04um was introduced to treat pure terephthalic acid (PTA) wastewater with the dead end filtration method. The membrane was found to exhibit high flux as 1987L/(m2*h), the solid content decreased from 0.501% to 0.003 %, the COD decreased from 23345.40mg/L to17862.11mg/L. The flux recovery rate was achieved 97.6% and 100% after back flushing and membrane cleaning respectively.