Yeast, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and acetic acid bacteria (AAB) populations, isolated from cocoa bean heap and box fermentations in West Africa, have been investigated. The fermentation dynamics ...were determined by viable counts, and 106 yeasts, 105 LAB and 82 AAB isolates were identified by means of rep-PCR grouping and sequencing of the rRNA genes. During the box fermentations, the most abundant species were Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida ethanolica, Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus plantarum, Acetobacter pasteurianus and Acetobacter syzygii, while S. cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Hanseniaspora guilliermondii, Pichia manshurica, C. ethanolica, Hanseniaspora uvarum, Lb. fermentum, Lb. plantarum, A. pasteurianus and Acetobacter lovaniensis were identified in the heap fermentations. Furthermore, the most abundant species were molecularly characterized by analyzing the rep-PCR profiles. Strains grouped according to the type of fermentations and their progression during the transformation process were also highlighted. The yeast, LAB and AAB isolates were physiologically characterized to determine their ability to grow at different temperatures, as well as at different pH, and ethanol concentrations, tolerance to osmotic stress, and lactic acid and acetic acid inhibition. Temperatures of 45°C, a pH of 2.5 to 3.5, 12% (v/v) ethanol and high concentrations of lactic and acetic acid have a significant influence on the growth of yeasts, LAB and AAB. Finally, the yeasts were screened for enzymatic activity, and the S. cerevisiae, H. guilliermondii, H. uvarum and C. ethanolica species were shown to possess several enzymes that may impact the quality of the final product.
•Box and heap cocoa bean fermentations were followed in West Africa.•Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Lactobacillus fermentum and Acetobacter pasteurianus were the main species isolated.•Molecular characterization allowed to identify fermentation-specific biotypes of the technological microorganisms.•Through the use of technological tests it was possible to select potential strains as starters for cocoa bean fermentation.
The goal for a virtual reality (VR) training system is to enable trainees to acquire all the knowledge they need to perform effectively in a real environment. Such a system should provide an ...experience so authentic that no further real-world training is necessary, meaning that it is sufficient to train in VR. We evaluate the impact of a haptic thermal stimulus, which is of paramount importance to decision making, on trainees performance and knowledge acquisition. A thermal device was created to deliver the stimulus. As a proof of concept, a procedure from firefighter training is selected, in which sensing the temperature of a door with one's hand is essential. The sample consisted of 48 subjects divided among three experimental scenarios: one in which a virtual thermometer is used (visual stimulus), another in which the temperature is felt with the hand (thermal stimulus) and a third in which both methods are used (visual + thermal stimuli). For the performance evaluation, we measured the total time taken, the numbers of correctly executed procedures and identified neutral planes, the deviation from the target height, and the responses to a knowledge transfer questionnaire. Presence, cybersickness, and usability are measured to evaluate the impact of the haptic thermal stimulus. Considering the thermal stimulus condition as the baseline, we conclude that the significantly different results in the performance among the conditions indicate that the better performance in the visual-only condition is not representative of the real-life performance. Consequently, VR training applications need to deliver the correct stimuli for decision making.
To translate, adapt and validate the Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) in a Brazilian population of young adults.
We employed the translation and back-translation method for the adaptation of the ...Brazilian version SPAI (SPAI-BR). The sample consisted of 415 university students. Data was collected through an electronic questionnaire, which consisted of the SPAI-BR and the Goodman Criteria (gold standard). The retests were carried out 10-15 days after the initial tests with 130 individuals.
The SPAI-BR maintained semantic, idiomatic and conceptual equivalences from the original scale. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed the One-factor model of the SPAI with good fit indexes (x2 = 767.861, CFI = 0.913, TLI = 0.905, RMSE = 0.061, WRMR = 1.465). The Kuder-Richardson Coefficient showed good internal consistency. The analysis of the ROC curve established an area under the curve of 86.38%. The Intraclass-Correlation Coefficient of 0.926 between the test and the retest demonstrated an excellent temporal stability. The high correlation between SPAI-BR and the Goodman Criteria (rs = 0.750) established the convergent validity.
The SPAI-BR is a valid and reliable tool for the detection of Smartphone Addiction in Brazilian university students.
The deployment of large mesh-type wireless networks is a challenge due to the multitude of arising issues. Perpetual operation of a network node is undoubtedly one of the major goals of any ...energy-aware protocol or power-efficient hardware platform. Energy harvesting has emerged as the natural way to keep small stationary hardware platforms running, even when operating continuously as network routing devices. This paper analyses solar radiation, wind and water flow as feasible energy sources that can be explored to meet the energy needs of a wireless sensor network router within the context of precision agriculture, and presents a multi-powered platform solution for wireless devices. Experimental results prove that our prototype, the MPWiNodeX, can manage simultaneously the three energy sources for charging a NiMH battery pack, resulting in an almost perpetual operation of the evaluated ZigBee network router. In addition to this, the energy scavenging techniques double up as sensors, yielding data on the amount of solar radiation, water flow and wind speed, a capability that avoids the use of specific sensors.
Smart home devices are becoming more popular over the years. A diverse range of appliances is being created, and Ambient Intelligence is growing in homes. However, there are various producers of ...these gadgets, different kinds of protocols, and diverse environments. The lack of interoperability reduces comfort of the user and turns into a barrier to smart home adoption. Matter is growing by constructing an open-source application layer protocol that can be compatible with all smart home ecosystems. In this article, a Matter overview is provided (namely, of the Commissioning stage), and a Matter Accessory using ESP32-S3 is developed referring to the manufacturer’s SDKs and is inserted into an existent household ecosystem. Its behavior on the network is briefly analyzed, and interactions with the device are carried out. The simplicity of these tasks demonstrates accessibility for developers to create products, especially when it comes to firmware. Additionally, device commissioning and control are straightforward for the consumer. This capacity of gadget incorporation into diverse ecosystems using Matter is already on the market and might result in higher device production and enhanced smart home adoption.
Surrounded by a plant world that seems to reserve a particular space for change and action, the authors highlight the line element, which seems to play, among others, the role of a bridge between ...different areas of knowledge. Its structuring and transversal nature implies itself in drawing as a means of aesthetic exploration, branching out its presence in concepts of the synthesis of information, the study of movement, and always in the paths of the word “observation.” Combining visual and perceptive acuity with the power of graphic and formal synthesis of the line, through studies of movement of this involving exploratory space, particular attention is given to lines of support and oscillation of movement through the dynamic progression that models formal development. This reflection seeks to contemplate a potential of the study of the dynamic line to signal observation, understanding of the world (namely from the vegetal development), and its implications in animation cinema.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) can be used to acquire environmental variables useful for decision-making, such as agriculture and forestry. Installing a WSN on the forest will allow the acquisition ...of ecological variables of high importance on risk analysis and fire detection. The presented paper addresses two types of WSN developed modules that can be used on the forest to detect fire ignitions using LoRaWAN to establish the communication between the nodes and a central system. The collaboration between these modules generate a heterogeneous WSN; for this reason, both are designed to complement each other. The first module, the HTW, has sensors that acquire data on a wide scale in the target region, such as air temperature and humidity, solar radiation, barometric pressure, among others (can be expanded). The second, the 5FTH, has a set of sensors with point data acquisition, such as flame ignition, humidity, and temperature. To test HTW and 5FTH, a LoRaWAN communication based on the Lorix One gateway is used, demonstrating the acquisition and transmission of forest data (simulation and real cases). Even in internal or external environments, these results allow validating the developed modules. Therefore, they can assist authorities in fighting wildfire and forest surveillance systems in decision-making.
Several structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have investigated the presence of brain abnormalities in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) but have not produced consistent findings. ...This might be partly related to their use of a regions-of-interest approach. We assessed gray matter volumes in 19 OCD subjects and 15 healthy volunteers, using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).
Images were acquired with a 1.5-T MRI scanner, spatially normalized, and segmented with optimized VBM. Statistical comparisons were performed with the general linear model.
Significant findings were detected in regions predicted a priori to be implicated in OCD, including increased gray matter in OCD subjects relative to control subjects in posterior orbitofrontal and parahippocampal regions; decreased gray matter in OCD patients in the left anterior cingulate cortex; and inverse correlations between obsessive-compulsive symptom severity and gray matter in the medial thalamus (
p < .001, uncorrected for multiple comparisons). Also, an unpredicted site of gray matter reduction in OCD patients in the right parietal associative cortex approached significance (
p = .052, corrected for multiple comparisons).
Our findings are consistent with previous studies implicating dysfunction of orbitofrontal, cingulate, thalamic, and temporolimbic regions in OCD and suggest that the involvement of the parietal cortex in the pathophysiology of OCD warrants further investigation.
The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology is often used to check the environmental suitability of hydrogen energy systems, usually involving comparative studies. However, these comparative studies ...are typically affected by inconsistent methodological choices between the case studies under comparison. In this regard, protocols for the harmonisation of methodological choices in LCA of hydrogen are available. The step-by-step application of these protocols to a large number of case studies has already resulted in libraries of harmonised carbon, energy, and acidification footprints of hydrogen. In order to foster the applicability of these harmonisation protocols, a web-based software for the calculation of harmonised life-cycle indicators of hydrogen has recently been developed. This work addresses—for the first time—the validation of such a tool by checking the deviation between the available libraries of harmonised carbon, energy, and acidification footprints of hydrogen and the corresponding tool-based harmonised results. A high correlation (R2 > 0.999) was found between the library- and tool-based harmonised life-cycle indicators of hydrogen, thereby successfully validating the software. Hence, this tool has the potential to effectively promote the use of harmonised life-cycle indicators for robust comparative LCA studies of hydrogen energy systems, significantly mitigating misinterpretation.
Abstract
Most climate change mitigation scenarios restricting global warming to 1.5 °C rely heavily on negative emissions technologies and practices (NETPs). Here we updated previous literature ...reviews and conducted an analysis to identify the most appealing NETPs. We evaluated 36 NETPs configurations considering their technical maturity, economic feasibility, greenhouse gas removal potential, resource use, and environmental impacts. We found multiple trade-offs among these indicators, which suggests that a regionalised portfolio of NETPs exploiting their complementary strengths is the way forward. Although no single NETP is superior to the others in terms of all the indicators simultaneously, we identified 16 Pareto-efficient NETPs. Among them, six are deemed particularly promising: forestation, soil carbon sequestration (SCS), enhanced weathering with olivine and three modalities of direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). While the co-benefits, lower costs and higher maturity levels of forestation and SCS can propel their rapid deployment, these NETPs require continuous monitoring to reduce unintended side-effects—most notably the release of the stored carbon. Enhanced weathering also shows an overall good performance and substantial co-benefits, but its risks—especially those concerning human health—should be further investigated prior to deployment. DACCS presents significantly fewer side-effects, mainly its substantial energy demand; early investments in this NETP could reduce costs and accelerate its scale-up. Our insights can help guide future research and plan for the sustainable scale-up of NETPs, which we must set into motion within this decade.
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