No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

We use Spitzer Space Telescop and Heinrich Hertz Telescope(HHT) observations to study the earliest stages of low--mass starformation. Using spatially resolved absorption features, termedshadows, we study the cold cloud cores where stars form.We study Barnard 335, a prototypical isolated Bok globule with anembedded Class 0 protostar. We discover an 8 micron shadow in theinner regions of the core; using this feature we measure the densecore structure and mass. Using HHT observations we detect a rotatingstructure, a flattened molecular core, with a diameter~ 10,000 AU. The flattened molecular core is likely to be thesame structure as that generating the 8 micron shadow, and isexpected from theoretical simulations. This structure has not beenrobustly detected in previous observations although there have beensome prior indications of its presence.We study dense starless core structure through longer wavelengthobservations of shadows; we present Spitzer observations of 8 micron,24 micron, and 70 micron\ shadows of 14 cores in total. Combined withHHT observations of 12CO 2--1 and 13CO 2--1, we derive core sizes,masses, study core structure, and investigate the collapse status ofeach core. Our study of starless core CB190 reveals that the core islikely to be stable against collapse if magnetic pressure is presentat a reasonable level in the core. Our study of the 70 micron shadowassociated with the starless core L429 reveals that this object isvery likely to be collapsing. Finally, we study a sample of 12starless cores selected to have prominent 24 micron shadows. We findthat about 2/3 of these sources are likely to be collapsing.Additionally, we find indications that 1/2 of the cores revealed to becollapse candidates show indications of having 70 micron shadows. Weconclude that all cores dense enough to produce 70 micron shadows arecollapse candidates, and that the presence of a shadow at 24 micronis an indicator that the core is likely (60% probability)to be collapsing.

No description available.

Calibration powders were developed using combinations of milk ingredients for the purpose of calibration of infrared milk analyzers. They were shown to be capable of producing calibrations very similar to conventional calibration milks available commercially. A subsequent collaborative study was carried out involving nine laboratories to assess the performance of the preformulated powders in industrial quality control, payment and dairy herd analysis laboratories. The calibration powders were shown to produce consistent calibrations within laboratories and between laboratories and met AOAC specifications in terms of accuracy and repeatability. The reconstituted solutions were shown to be stable for up to 6 h at 40$ sp circ$C and could be stored under refrigerated conditions and used for repeated analyses for up to 21 days without apparent deterioration in calibration performance. It was concluded that the calibration powders perform as well as conventional calibrants, were more consistent overall and suitable for any calibration application. The calibration powders have the stability and performance characteristics to serve as reference standards for monitoring instrument performance and would be a useful tool for accrediting payment and dairy herd analysis laboratories.

The major focus of the research project is to use infrared sensors associated with virtual sensors to measure the temperature of the heated plastic sheet in a thermoforming oven. In this work, we designed a sensor system to correctly and efficiently measure plastic sheet temperature and reduce the cost of instrumentation. The thesis consists of three parts. The first part is to optimally distribute IR sensors and virtual sensors in order to minimize the number of IR sensor and keep an acceptable accuracy on estimation of virtual sensors under the design constrain. Since IR sensor measurements may be inaccurate due to physical faults during the process, the second part is the sensor faults detection and isolation (FDI) to automatically detect and isolate the faulty sensors. In most situations the faulty sensors cannot be fixed immediately during process or production. Therefore, the last part is to use virtual sensors to replace the faulty IR sensors in order to keep production going. / The thesis project continues the work at the Industrial Automation Lab on sheet reheat phase in thermoforming. While the system model was changed into a larger scale, the modeling methodology and linearization assumption are the same as the previous work, which were verified. As a result, the system model and linearized model can be considered as valid. / As the whole project is only based on simulation, the measurement errors may become larger for the practical application.