Effects of Planting Density of Rubber Tree Clone(RRIM 2020 Clone and RRIM 2025 Clone)Wood to Particleboard Properties

The depletion of log resources encourages research into alternative ways to sustain the wood supply.Therefore,the 4-year-old Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia(RRIM)clones series,RRIM 2020 and RRIM 2025,were chosen as potential raw materials for particleboard in this study.The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of planting density and rubber tree clones on the mechanical and physical properties of single-layer particleboard.The planting densities used were low,moderate-low,moderate-high,and high,representing 500,1000,1500,and 2000 trees/ha,respectively.Prior to manufacturing,the RRIM 2000 series clone trees were harvested,cut,chipped,flaked,and screened.The mechanical and physical properties were evaluated in accordance with the Japanese Industrial Standard(JIS A 5908-2003).The findings revealed that both planting density and clone had a significant impact on the mechanical and physical properties of particleboard with a thickness of 10 mm and a density of 700 kg/m3.RRIM 2020 specimens with low planting density had superior modulus of elasticity(MOE),modulus of rupture(MOR),and internal bonding(IB)values of 2415,19,and 1.7 MPa,respectively.Furthermore,moderate-low planting density demonstrated the lowest thickness swelling(TS)and water absorption(WA)values and was comparable to control particleboard from commercial clone Prang Besar(PB),PB260.In terms of rubber clones,RRIM 2020 particleboard met the minimum requirements of the JIS standard for mechanical properties and outperformed RRIM 2025.This study recommended a low planting density of 500 trees/ha and the RRIM 2020 clone as a suitable raw material for particleboard manufacturing with a ten percent urea formaldehyde resin content.

Resource Potentials of Composting the Organic Wastes Stream from Municipal Solid Wastes Compositions Arising in Nigerian Cities

The paper presented an assessment of the resource potentials of composting organic waste materials arising from the municipal solid waste stream from cities in Nigeria. Through a review of quantitative data, the composition of municipal solid waste arising within cities in Nigeria was examined in order to identify the potentials for composting organic materials from the waste stream composition. The data showed that the average majority of the waste stream was organic materials which implied high potentials for composting organic waste materials from Nigerian cities. The review also identified further potentials for composting was associated with the large population and the majority of them engaged in agriculture, as a high potential market for compost manure in Nigeria. There were more potentials derivable from the current policies of importing and supplying chemical fertilizer with huge subsidies for domestic agriculture in the country. The need to substitute these policies of chemical fertilizer with the use of compost manure implied high potentials for composting in the country. The paper also identified numerous benefits of composting in general and with particular reference to the Nigerian situation which includes, among others a reduction of the vast quantity of solid waste for final disposal, reducing air pollution and ground water leachate and also employment generation and increased income. Therefore, the paper recommended a deliberate government policy to promote composting of organic solid wastes material and marketing of compost manure to substitute the current policies of importing chemical fertilizer with subsidy for domestic agriculture as a strategy to achieve sustainable waste management in Nigeria.

Development of color density concept with color difference formulas in respect to human vision system

The aims of this study are to develop the color density concept and to propose the color density based color difference formulas.The color density is defined using the metric coefficients that are based on the discrimination ellipses and the locations of the colors in the color space.The ellipse sets are the MacAdam ellipses in the CIE 1931 xy-chromaticity diagram and the chromaticity-discrimination ellipses in the CIELAB space.The latter set was originally used to develop the CIEDE2000 color difference formula.The color difference can be calculated from the color density for the two colors under consideration.As a result,the color density represents the perceived color difference more accurately,and it could be used to characterize a color by a quantity attribute matching better to the perceived color difference from this color.Resulting from this,the color density concept provides simply a correction term for the estimation of the color differences.In the experiments,the line element formula and the CIEDE2000 color difference formula performed better than the color density based difference measures.The reason behind this is in the current modeling of the color density concept.The discrimination ellipses are typically described with three-dimensional data consisting of two axes,the major and the minor,and the inclination angle.The proposed color density is only a one-dimensional corrector for color differences;thus,it cannot capture all the details of the ellipse information.Still,the color density gives clearly more correct estimations to perceived color differences than Euclidean distances using directly the coordinates of the color space.

Thresholding-based detection of fine and sparse details

Fine and sparse details appear in many quality inspection applications requiring machine vision.Especially on flat surfaces,such as paper or board,the details can be made detectable by oblique illumination.In this study,a general definition of such details is given by defining sufficient statistical properties from histograms.The statistical model allows simulation of data and comparison of methods designed for detail detection.Based on the definition,utilization of the existing thresholding methods is shown to be well motivated.The comparison shows that minimum error thresholding outperforms the other standard methods.Finally,the results are successfully applied to a paper printability inspection application,and the IGT picking assessment,in which small surface defects must be detected.The provided method and measurement system prototype provide automated assessment with results comparable to manual expert evaluations in this laborious task.