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Gray balance is one of the key issues of color balance and color appearance adjustment during printing. It takes into account the overlap of two or more colorants to achieve a visually neutral tone. It works in parallel with the adjustment of the main color channels. In electrophotography, the setting of color channels separately is usually carried out using tone reproduction curves. However, this traditional approach does not take into account the effect of changes in shades caused by their overlapping, We previously suggested using gradation trajectories (an analogue of tone reproduction curves in CIE Lab space) as an alternative paradigm for color channel adjustment. Further, we expanded the idea to the gradation surfaces as an expression of binary overlays. We proposed both analytic and discrete approaches to the computation of gradation trajectories and surfaces. The computations use the mathematical apparatus of differential geometry of spatial curves and surfaces. Discretization uses color quantization in digital printing devices and means that color coordinates are considered as continuous functions of filling a discrete raster cell with dyes. The color space metric is determined by the value of the CIE dE color difference. As gradation trajectories, we apply the discrete type of geodesic lines on the gradation surfaces of the corresponding binaries. In this work, we suggest using gradation surfaces in discrete form as a mathematical model of double dye overlays to adjust the gray balance in electrophotography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the correlation between the level of C-reactive protein (CRP) and the severity of pain in the post-operative period with primary total knee arthroplasty and to conduct a comparative assessment of these indicators with various methods of pain relief. The primary hypothesis of the investigation was that post-operative CRP level is likely to be correlated with the severity of post-operative pain after total knee arthroplasty. The secondary points were the evaluation of CRP and pain syndrome in the groups, as well as the identification of the correlation between the level of CRP and the method of analgesia.Materials and Methods: Peri-operative levels of CRP and pain syndrome (10-point visual analogue scale) studied 160 patients with grade III gonarthrosis who have underwent primary total knee arthroplasty under conditions of subarachnoid anaesthesia in the period from years 2017 to 2019. Depending on the method of post-operative analgesia, patients were divided into five groups: group 1 had only systemic multimodal analgesia (SMA, n = 56), group 2 were treated with the epidural analgesia (EDA, n = 20), group 3 had local high-volume infiltration anaesthesia (LHVIA, n = 20), group 4 were getting LHVIA with a wound catheter (LHVIAc, n = 48), and group 5 had a single blockade of the femoral nerve (FNB, n = 16).Results: A direct strong correlation was obtained between the level of CRP and the severity of pain syndrome in the knee joint during movement in four to six hours after surgery (n = 160, Kendall coefficient τ = 0.230, p = 0,000) and on the first post-operative day (n = 160, τ = 0.21, p = 0.001). The increase in CRP (the difference between pre-operative and post-operative CRP levels) also was positively correlated with the severity of pain in the post-operative period (n = 160, τ = 0.257, p = 0.000 and τ = 0.187, p = 0.001, respectively). CRP level significantly has increased in the post-operative period (p = 0,000). The lowest CRP indicators in the first post-operative day were recorded during the infiltrative anaesthesia (3rd and 4th groups);, the highest were during the administration of SMA group (1st group).Conclusion: The results confirm the correlation between the level of CRP and the severity of pain syndrome in the early post-operative period after total knee arthroplasty, its dependence on the method of analgesia, and allow to use it as a criterion for evaluating of the effectiveness of analgesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autohydrolysis is a widely used technology for extracting hemicelluloses from wood chips. In addition to hemicelluloses, hydrolysates produced in this process contain lignin. Hemicelluloses and lignin could be isolated from hydrolysates and used for generating value-added products. In this study, hydrolysates were produced via autohydrolysis of spruce wood chips. Then, acidification and ethanol precipitation were employed to isolate lignocelluloses from hydrolysates. Generally, acidification and ethanol treatment led to the precipitation of lignin–carbohydrate complexes, but their removals depended on the hydrolysis conditions. The heat capacity (Cp) of the dried hydrolysates was in the range of 0.41–0.45 J/g °C, while the precipitates of acidification and ethanol treatment had the Cp of 1.18 J/g °C and 1.38 J/g °C, respectively. This increment could be related to their higher lignin content and thus their molecular mobility as these segments had a higher amount of methoxyl groups and more Hα and Hβ inter-linkages. The results of this study suggested that the lignocellulosic materials obtained after acid or ethanol treatment of hydrolysates could be considered as additives for heat-resistant biopolymers or hemicellulose-based films, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autohydrolysis technology is widely used for extracting lignocellulose from wood chips. In this study, the flow through autohydrolysis of spruce wood chips was studied fundamentally. In addition to rising temperature to 185 °C and prolonging time of hydrolysis to 75 min, a flow rate of 2 L/min led to significant lignocellulose removal from wood chips. However, the lower temperature of 170 °C, 15 min and flow rate of 6 L/min led to lignocellulose with larger molecular weight in the hydrolysis liquor. Gel permeation chromatography analysis confirmed the existence of lignin–carbohydrate complexes (LCC) in the hydrolysis liquors. The compositions of lignin, hemicelluloses and LCC in hydrolysis liquors were related to autohydrolysis conditions. Nineteen percent of lignin moieties were in LCC form in the hydrolysis liquor produced under the conditions of liquid/solid (L/S) ratio of 10 (wt/wt), 180 °C and 15 min. Furthermore, the hydrolysis liquor produced under the conditions of L/S ratio of 5/1, 190 °C and 15 min contained 89% of lignin in LCC forms. Moreover, the efficiencies of membrane dialysis, acidification and ethanol extraction in extracting lignocellulose were different for different hydrolysis liquors implying that the properties of hydrolysis liquors (and thus the hydrolysis conditions) would significantly affect the performance of downstream processes for isolating lignocellulose from hydrolysis liquors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]