Virtual Garment Sewing

Introduction3D garment CAD tools are increasingly required byclothing industries to assist the cloth design andmanufacturing process for quick response when faced withrapidly changing in style and fabrics with variable materialproperties. In the context of virtual prototyping, modelingand simulation of garment fitting to mannequin areattracting more and more people from both research andindustrial communities.Different approaches and techniques can be used…     

Robustness of alternative non‐linearity tests for SETAR models

In recent years there has been a growing interest in exploiting potential forecast gains from the non‐linear structure of self‐exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) models. Statistical tests have been proposed in the literature to help analysts check for the presence of SETAR‐type non‐linearities in an observed time series. It is important to study the power and robustness properties of these tests since erroneous test results might lead to misspecified prediction problems. In this paper we investigate the robustness properties of several commonly used non‐linearity tests. Both the robustness with respect to outlying observations and the robustness with respect to model specification are considered. The power comparison of these testing procedures is carried out using Monte Carlo simulation. The results indicate that all of the existing tests are not robust to outliers and model misspecification. Finally, an empirical application applies the statistical tests to stock market returns of the four little dragons (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan) in East Asia. The non‐linearity tests fail to provide consistent conclusions most of the time. The results in this article stress the need for a more robust test for SETAR‐type non‐linearity in time series analysis and forecasting. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of vitamin B12 on plasma melatonin rhythm in humans: increased light sensitivity phase-advances the circadian clock?

Vitamin B12 (methylcobalamin) was administered orally (3 mg/day) to 9 healthy subjects for 4 weeks. Nocturnal melatonin levels after exposure to bright light (ca. 2500 lx) were determined, as well as the levels of plasma melatonin over 24 h. The timing of sleep was also recorded. Vitamin B12 was given blind to the subjects and crossed over with placebo. We found that the 24-h melatonin rhythm was significantly phase-advanced (1.1 h) in the vitamin B12 trial as compared with that in the placebo trial. In addition, the 24-h mean of plasma melatonin level was much lower in the vitamin B12 trial than with the placebo. Furthermore, the nocturnal melatonin levels during bright light exposure were significantly lower in the vitamin B12 trial than with the placebo. On the other hand, vitamin B12 did not affect the timing of sleep. These findings raise the possibility that vitamin B12 phase-advances the human circadian rhythm by increasing the light sensitivity of the circadian clock.     

Retrograde transport of endocytosed Shiga toxin to the endoplasmic reticulum.

Shiga toxin and some other protein toxins that act on targets in the cytosol have previously been shown to enter the trans-Golgi network. Transport by this route may be necessary for translocation of the toxin to the cytosol and for intoxication, but it is not known whether the enzymatically active part of the toxins actually enters the cytosol from the trans-Golgi network. It has been suggested that such toxins are transported in a retrograde manner to the endoplasmic reticulum and that translocation occurs in this organelle, but retrograde transport of endocytosed material beyond the trans-Golgi network has never been demonstrated. Here we show that in butyric acid-treated A431 cells endocytosed Shiga toxin is not only transported to the trans-Golgi network, but also to all Golgi stacks, to the endoplasmic reticulum and to the nuclear envelope. Furthermore, butyric acid sensitizes the cells to Shiga toxin, which is consistent with the possibility that retrograde transport is required for translocation of the toxin to the cytosol.     

DETERMINATION OF KRAFT LIGNIN CONCENTRATIONS BY FTIR

A fast and accurate method based on FTIR is developed for determining the lignin content and its characteristic bands in alkali solutions. The work consisted of two main parts: 1) establishing a predictive model and 2) determination of the accuracy of the model. The model was derived by applying the partial least squares algorithm for multivariate analyses to a set of spectrum data obtained from selected IR absorption regions in the range of 1600 - 900 cm-1. The model was tested with spent liquors obtained from commercial pulp mills.The accuracy of the predictive model is extremely high suitable for commercial applications,particularly for monitoring the dynamic response of modern kraft pulping processes.