Most of the important wood properties are highly variable among species and individuals, and even in the same stem. 1 this variation in wood properties is recognised as one of the greatest problems facing the wood industry, where rapid costeffective methods for measuring the properties are required to segregate log and lumber materials for appropriate end products. traditional methods employed to measure wood characteristics are time-consuming, expensive and often destructive. thus, several attempts have been made to quantify the woody materials by non-destructive techniques, such as mechanical, electromagnetic and acoustics, including ultrasonics and vibrational methods. 2 near infrared (nIr) spectroscopy, a fast growing technique for non-destructively evaluating organic materials, has found

Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, coupled with multivariate analysis, has been used to evaluate the wood properties of sawn lumber of Japanese larch (Larix kaempferi), whose diffuse reflection spectra were acquired under static and moving conditions. Prediction models of the dynamic modulus of elasticity (E(fr)), the modulus of elasticity in bending tests (E(b)), the bending strength (F(b)), the wood density (DEN), and the moisture content (MC) were developed using partial least squares (PLS) analysis. For all wood properties, models obtained from data collected under the moving condition as an analogue of on-line measurement were superior to those from the static condition data. The regression coefficients for the PLS models predicting the mechanical properties in both static and moving conditions showed clear peaks at the absorption bands due to the three major polymers of wood, i.e., cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. NIR spectroscopy has high potential for the on-line grading of sawn lumber.

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Controlled navigation promotes full utilization of capsule endoscopy for reliable real-time diagnosis in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, but intermittent natural peristalsis can disturb the navigational control, destabilize the capsule and take it out of levitation. The focus of the present work was to develop an economical and effective real-time magnetic capsule-guiding system that can operate in the presence of naturally existing peristalsis while retaining navigational control. A real-size magnetic navigation system that can handle peristaltic forces of up to 1.5 N was designed utilizing the computer-aided design (CAD) system Maxwell 3D (Ansoft, Pittsburg, PA) and was verified using a small-size physical experimental setup. The proposed system contains a pair of 50 cm diameter, 10 000-turn copper electromagnets with a 10 cm × 10 cm ferrous core driven by currents of up to 300 A and can successfully maintain position control over the levitating capsule during peristalsis. The addition of bismuth diamagnetic casing for stabilizing the levitating capsule was also studied. A modeled magnetic field around the diamagnetically cased permanent magnet was shown to be redistributed aligning its interaction with the external electromagnets, thus stabilizing the levitating capsule. In summary, a custom-designed diamagnetically facilitated capsule navigation system can successfully steer an intraluminal magnet-carrying capsule.