Experimental dataset supporting the physical and mechanical characterization of industrial base tissue papers.

Tissue paper is defined by its physical and mechanical properties, namely: high softness, low grammage, high bulk and high liquid absorption capacity. It is expected that the production of tissue paper will continue to grow, which increases the importance of better understanding the processes involved in its production as well as its optimization [1]. The experimental data presented in this article, are the physical-mechanical characterization of a group of 13 industrial base tissue papers, which were collected at the end of the tissue paper machine on Portuguese factories. These samples vary in grammage, composition and creping [2], enabling a later evaluation of the crepe type [3] and its relationship with the final properties of the tissue paper.

Assessment of speckle denoising filters for digital holography using subjective and objective evaluation models.

Digital holography is an emerging imaging technique for displaying and sensing three-dimensional objects. The perceived image quality of a hologram is frequently corrupted by speckle noise due to coherent illumination. Although several speckle noise reduction methods have been developed so far, there are scarce quality assessment studies to address their performance, and they typically focus solely on objective metrics. However, these metrics do not reflect the visual quality perceived by a human observer. In this work, the performances of four speckle reduction algorithms, namely, the nonlocal means-the Lee, the Frost, and the block-matching 3D filters, with varying parameterizations-were subjectively evaluated. The results were ranked with respect to the perceived image quality to obtain the mean opinion scores using pairwise comparison. The correlation between the subjective results and 20 different no-reference objective quality metrics was evaluated. The experiment indicates that block-matching 3D and Lee are the preferred filters, depending on hologram characteristics. The best-performing objective metrics were identified for each filter.

Comparative analysis of autofocus functions in digital in-line phase-shifting holography.

Numerical reconstruction of digital holograms relies on a precise knowledge of the original object position. However, there are a number of relevant applications where this parameter is not known in advance and an efficient autofocusing method is required. This paper addresses the problem of finding optimal focusing methods for use in reconstruction of digital holograms of macroscopic amplitude and phase objects, using digital in-line phase-shifting holography in transmission mode. Fifteen autofocus measures, including spatial-, spectral-, and sparsity-based methods, were evaluated for both synthetic and experimental holograms. The Fresnel transform and the angular spectrum reconstruction methods were compared. Evaluation criteria included unimodality, accuracy, resolution, and computational cost. Autofocusing under angular spectrum propagation tends to perform better with respect to accuracy and unimodality criteria. Phase objects are, generally, more difficult to focus than amplitude objects. The normalized variance, the standard correlation, and the Tenenbaum gradient are the most reliable spatial-based metrics, combining computational efficiency with good accuracy and resolution. A good trade-off between focus performance and computational cost was found for the Fresnelet sparsity method.

Effects of operational conditions on the supercritical solvent impregnation of acetazolamide in Balafilcon A commercial contact lenses.

In this work we employed a supercritical solvent impregnation (SSI) process using a scCO(2)+EtOH (5% molar) solvent mixture to impregnate acetazolamide (ACZ) into commercially available silicone-based soft contact lenses (Balafilcon A, Pure Vision, Bausch & Lomb). Contact lenses (SCLs) drug-loading was studied at 40°C and 50°C, and from 15 MPa up to 20 MPa, and using low depressurization rates in order to avoid any harm to SCLs. The effect of impregnation processing time on the loaded ACZ amounts was also studied (1, 2 and 3h). In vitro drug release kinetics studies were performed and the released ACZ was quantified spectrophotometrically. Several analytical techniques were employed in order to characterize the processed and non-processed SCLs in terms of some of their important functional properties. Obtained results demonstrated that ACZ-loaded therapeutic Balafilcon A SCLs can be successfully prepared using the employed SSI process. Furthermore, it was possible to control ACZ loaded amounts and, consequently, to adjust the final ACZ release levels into the desired therapeutic limits, just by changing the employed operational conditions (P, T, processing time and depressurization rate) and without change some of their most important thermomechanical, surface/wettability and optical properties. Obtained soft contact lenses can be potentially employed as combined biomedical devices for simultaneous therapeutic and correction of refractive deficiencies purposes.

Effect of scene dimensionality on colour constancy with real three-dimensional scenes and objects.

The effect of scene dimensionality on colour constancy was tested with real scenes and objects. Observers viewed a three-dimensional (3-D) scene, or its two-dimensional (2-D) planar projection, through a large beam-splitter that projected the virtual image of a real test object (a cube or its 2-D projection) so that it appeared part of the scene. Test object and scene could be illuminated independently with high chromatic precision. In each trial, the illuminance of the scene changed abruptly from 25000 K to 6700 K and the illuminant of the test object changed either consistently or inconsistently with it by a variable quantifiable amount. Observers had to decide whether the test object underwent a change in its materials. The extent of constancy obtained in the experiment was not influenced by scene dimensionality and varied significantly with the colour of the test object. These results suggest that color constancy in the conditions tested here may be determined by local spectral quantities.

Effect of scene complexity on colour constancy with real three-dimensional scenes and objects.

The effect of scene complexity on colour constancy was tested with a novel technique in which a virtual image of a real 3-D test object was projected into a real 3-D scene. Observers made discriminations between illuminant and material changes in simple and complex scenes. The extent of colour constancy achieved varied little with either scene structure or test-object colour, suggesting a dominant role of local cues in determining surface-colour judgments.

Minimum-variance cone-excitation ratios and the limits of relational color constancy.

Relational color constancy refers to the constancy of the perceived relations between the colors of surfaces of a scene under changes in the spectral composition of the illuminant. Spatial ratios of cone excitations provide a natural physical basis for this constancy, as, on average, they are almost invariant under illuminant changes for large collections of natural surfaces and illuminants. The aim of the present work was to determine, computationally, for specific surfaces and illuminants, the constancy limits obtained by the application of a minimum-variance principle to cone-excitation ratios and to investigate its validity in predicting observers' surface-color judgments. Cone excitations and their changes due to variations in the color of the illuminant were estimated for colored surfaces in simulated two-dimensional scenes of colored papers and real three-dimensional scenes of solid colored objects. For various test surfaces, scenes, and illuminants, the estimated levels of relational color constancy mediated by cone-excitation ratios varied significantly with the test surface and only with certain desaturated surfaces corresponded to ideal matches. Observers' experimental matches were compared with predictions expressed in CIE 1976 (u',v') space and were found to be generally consistent with minimum-variance predictions.

Color constancy by asymmetric color matching with real objects in three-dimensional scenes.

Color matching experiments use, in general, stimuli that are poor representations of the natural world. The aim of this work was to compare the degree of color constancy for a range of illuminant pairs using a new matching technique that uses both real objects and three-dimensional (3-D) real scenes. In the experiment, observers viewed a 3-D real scene through a large beamsplitter that projects on the right-hand side of the scene (match scene), the virtual image of a 3-D object (match object) such it appeared part of the scene. On the left-hand side of the scene (test scene), observers viewed a symmetrical scene containing a test object identical to the match object. Test and match objects were both surrounded by the same reflectances with identical spatial arrangement. The illuminant on the test scene had always a correlated color temperature of 25,000 K. The illuminant on the match scene could be any of seven different illuminants with correlated color temperatures in the range 25,000 K-4000 K. In each trial, the observers, who were instructed to perform surface color matches, adjusted the illuminant on the match object. Constancy indices were very high (0.81-0.93), varied with the color of the match object, and increased with the extent of the illuminant change. Observer's mismatches, however, were independent of the extent of the illuminant change.