Carotenoids are a group of isoprenoid pigments naturally synthesized by plants and microorganisms, which are applied industrially in food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical product formulations. In ...addition to their use as coloring agents, carotenoids have been proposed as health additives, being able to prevent cancer, macular degradation, and cataracts. Moreover, carotenoids may also protect cells against oxidative damage, acting as an antioxidant agent. Considering the interest in greener and sustainable industrial processing, the search for natural carotenoids has increased over the last few decades. In particular, it has been suggested that the use of bioprocessing technologies can improve carotenoid production yields or, as a minimum, increase the efficiency of currently used production processes. Thus, this review provides a short but comprehensive overview of the recent biotechnological developments in carotenoid production using microorganisms. The hot topics in the field are properly addressed, from carotenoid biosynthesis to the current technologies involved in their extraction, and even highlighting the recent advances in the marketing and application of “microbial” carotenoids. It is expected that this review will improve the knowledge and understanding of the most appropriate and economic strategies for a biotechnological production of carotenoids.
Qubit allocation Siraichi, Marcos Yukio; Santos, Vinícius Fernandes dos; Collange, Caroline ...
Proceedings of the 2018 International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization,
02/2018
Conference Proceeding
Odprti dostop
In May of 2016, IBM Research has made a quantum processor available in the cloud to the general public. The possibility of programming an actual quantum device has elicited much enthusiasm. Yet, ...quantum programming still lacks the compiler support that modern programming languages enjoy today. To use universal quantum computers like IBM's, programmers must design low-level circuits. In particular, they must map logical qubits into physical qubits that need to obey connectivity constraints. This task resembles the early days of programming, in which software was built in machine languages. In this paper, we formally introduce the qubit allocation problem and provide an exact solution to it. This optimal algorithm deals with the simple quantum machinery available today; however, it cannot scale up to the more complex architectures scheduled to appear. Thus, we also provide a heuristic solution to qubit allocation, which is faster than the current solutions already implemented to deal with this problem.
Environmental issues urge for the substitution of petrochemical-based raw materials with more environmentally friendly sources. The biggest advantages of PLA over non-biodegradable plastics are that ...it can be produced from natural sources (e.g., corn or sugarcane), and at the end of its lifetime it can be returned to the soil by being composted with microorganisms. PLA can easily substitute petroleum-based plastics in a wide range of applications in many commodity products, such as disposable tableware, packaging, films, and agricultural twines, partially contributing to limiting plastic waste accumulation. Unfortunately, the complete replacement of fossil fuel-based plastics such as polyethylene (PE) or poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) by PLA is hindered by its higher cost, and, more importantly, slower degradation as compared to other degradable polymers. Thus, to make PLA more commercially attractive, ways to accelerate its degradation are actively sought. Many good reviews deal with PLA production, applications, and degradation but only in the medical or pharmaceutical field. In this respect, the present review will focus on controlled PLA degradation and biodegradation in technical applications. The work will include the main degradation mechanisms of PLA, such as its biodegradation in water, soil, and compost, in addition to thermal- and photo-degradation. The topic is of particular interest to academia and industry, mainly because the wider application of PLA is mostly dependent on discovering effective ways of accelerating its biodegradation rate at the end of its service life without compromising its properties.
This paper proposes a performance-based design validation approach to study EnergyPlus for daylight harvesting capabilities. It considers EnergyPlus as a possible analytical tool to assist in design ...decisions, because it enables the rapid calculation of multicriteria analysis. The study has two main sections: first, it presents a sensitivity analysis of input parameters, such as wall reflectance, window size and position, visible transmittance of glazing, and room width. It uses useful daylighting illuminance (UDI) as the output parameter for analysis. Second, it presents a comparison of a hypothetical scenario for the design of a shading device to establish a comparison between a validated simulation tool and EnergyPlus considering a performance-based design process. The validation was performed against the Radiance simulation engine using direct and relative validation approaches. The geometric model for analysis consisted of an egg crate shading device with variations in the horizontal and vertical components. The output index, which was used as a decision-making parameter, was the occurrence frequency of hours within the UDI. The results showed that EnergyPlus classified solutions similarly to Radiance. The errors were within a 20% margin, and it was considered satisfactory for assisting in the search for low complexity facade design solutions.
∙The use of EnergyPlus for daylighting analysis in early design stages.∙Validation models for simplified architectural analysis tools in the context of performance-based-design∙Sensitivity analysis and comparative testing.∙Key limitations and guidelines to use EnergyPlus in less pragmatic daylighting analysis.
Discriminative learning methods for classification perform well when training and test data are drawn from the same distribution. Often, however, we have plentiful labeled training data from a
source
...domain but wish to learn a classifier which performs well on a
target
domain with a different distribution and little or no labeled training data. In this work we investigate two questions. First, under what conditions can a classifier trained from source data be expected to perform well on target data? Second, given a small amount of labeled target data, how should we combine it during training with the large amount of labeled source data to achieve the lowest target error at test time?
We address the first question by bounding a classifier’s target error in terms of its source error and the divergence between the two domains. We give a classifier-induced divergence measure that can be estimated from finite,
unlabeled
samples from the domains. Under the assumption that there exists some hypothesis that performs well in both domains, we show that this quantity together with the empirical source error characterize the target error of a source-trained classifier.
We answer the second question by bounding the target error of a model which minimizes a convex combination of the empirical source and target errors. Previous theoretical work has considered minimizing just the source error, just the target error, or weighting instances from the two domains equally. We show how to choose the optimal combination of source and target error as a function of the divergence, the sample sizes of both domains, and the complexity of the hypothesis class. The resulting bound generalizes the previously studied cases and is always at least as tight as a bound which considers minimizing only the target error or an equal weighting of source and target errors.
The changes in the chemical structure, surface morphology and crystallinity are reported for three different polymers (LDPE, PET and uPVC) in microplastic form, after being artificially exposed to ...different aging agents that can affect microplastics in urban environments: ozone, UV-C, and solar radiation. In parallel to the laboratory experiments, the microplastics were exposed to real weathering conditions for three-months in a building rooftop located in the city of Porto (Portugal). By analysing the (virgin and aged) microplastic samples periodically through ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and estimating the Carbonyl Index, it was possible to sketch the aging degree evolution through time and identify the most aggressive agents for each polymer regarding the changes in their chemical structure. SEM and XRD measurements allowed to complement the ATR-FTIR results, giving a more complete picture of the effects of each treatment on each polymer and suggesting that ATR-FTIR measurements are not sufficient to correctly evaluate the aging degree of microplastics. The changes observed in the microplastic particles studied support the theory that microplastics in the environment undergo aging and change their characteristics through time, potentially affecting their behavior and intensifying their impacts.
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•The three polymers studied were affected by the aging treatments applied.•Ozone and UV-C were confirmed to be relevant urban environment stressors for MPP.•Substantial aging occurred when MPP were exposed to urban weathering (3 months).•The Carbonyl Index was used as a metric to assess LDPE and uPVC aging through time.•XRD and SEM gave valuable complementary information to ATR-FTIR spectroscopy.
Existing research on visual comfort conducted with children has focused on the impacts of lighting on their academic performance and not specifically on preferences. The aim of this study is to ...present a multimethod approach to identify children's preferences for luminous environments and window views in preschool classrooms. The study was conducted in six classrooms in Florianópolis (Brazil) in 2016, with approximately 84 children. More than 240 preference votes for luminous environment and 83 preference votes for window views were obtained, and 253 drawings of preferred elements of the views were produced. The reasons for the preferences of the children were investigated by reviewing the content of the surveys and drawings. The association of age, gender and physical environment with the preferences was investigated. The results indicated that young children can differentiate lighting needs according to the activity performed. Visual contact with the view seen through the classroom window was important to the children, with a higher preference for natural views. Of the relationships tested, “age” was the personal variable that was neither associated with the preference for the use of curtains, nor artificial lighting. Although a tendency between gender and the type of preferred window view was identified, such relationship was not statistically significant. Based on the methodological approach used for data collection methodological recommendations are presented for future research. This work underlines the need to involve young children in studies of visual comfort, as they can provide valuable information from their own experiences of built spaces.
•Field study on visual preferences of young children performed in kindergartens.•Young children can differentiate lighting needs according to the activity performed.•The children expressed preference for the classroom when the curtains were open.•Visual contact with the landscape was important to the children.
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► pH affects the adsorbent surface charge and the degree of anionic dye dissociation. ► CaAl-LDH-NO3 is an effective adsorbent for the removal of Sunset Yellow FCF food dye from ...aqueous solutions. ► Lower pH potentially causes dissolution of the CaAl-LDH-NO3.
Effluents that are discarded by food industries are important sources of water pollution because they can contain large concentrations of organic matter and have intense color. The “batch” method for evaluating the adsorption of Sunset Yellow FCF food dye into a CaAl-LDH-NO3 layered double hydroxide (LDH) system was investigated. The CaAl-LDH-NO3 was coprecipitated at variable pH and characterized by X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and scan electron microscopy. Adsorption experiments were carried out as a function of pH, contact time and dye concentration. The results showed that pH affects the adsorbent surface charge and the degree of anionic dye dissociation. The effective pH range for dye removal was between 4.0 and 10. Lower pH potentially causes dissolution of CaAl-LDH-NO3. The Langmuir equation adequately describes the equilibrium data. The best-fits showed a maximum adsorption of 398.41mg/g or 0.88mmol/g.
In this article, we investigate a time-optimal state-constrained bilevel optimal control problem whose lower-level dynamics feature a sweeping control process involving a
truncated normal cone
. By ...bilevel, it is meant that the optimization of the upper level problem is carried out over the solution set of the lower level problem.This problem instance arises in structured crowd motion control problems in a confined space. We establish the corresponding necessary optimality conditions in the Gamkrelidze’s form. The analysis relies on the
smooth approximation
of the lower level sweeping control system, thereby dealing with the resulting lack of Lipschitzianity with respect to the state variable inherent to the sweeping process, and on the
flattening
of the bilevel structure via an exact penalization technique. Necessary conditions of optimality in the Gamkrelidze’s form are applied to the resulting standard approximating penalized state-constrained single-level problem, and the main result of this article is obtained by passing to the limit.
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