Suggesting Cooking Recipes Through Simulation and Bayesian Optimization

Cooking typically involves a plethora of decisions about ingredients and tools that need to be chosen in order to write a good cooking recipe. Cooking can be modelled in an optimization framework, as it involves a search space of ingredients, kitchen tools, cooking times or temperatures. If we model as an objective function the quality of the recipe, several problems arise. No analytical expression can model all the recipes, so no gradients are available. The objective function is subjective, in other words, it contains noise. Moreover, evaluations are expensive both in time and human resources. Bayesian Optimization (BO) emerges as an ideal methodology to tackle problems with these characteristics. In this paper, we propose a methodology to suggest recipe recommendations based on a Machine Learning (ML) model that fits real and simulated data and BO. We provide empirical evidence with two experiments that support the adequacy of the methodology

Influence of a transverse static magnetic field on the magnetic hyperthermia properties and high-frequency hysteresis loops of ferromagnetic FeCo nanoparticles

The influence of a transverse static magnetic field on the magnetic hyperthermia properties is studied on a system of large-losses ferromagnetic FeCo nanoparticles. The simultaneous measurement of the high-frequency hysteresis loops and of the temperature rise provides an interesting insight into the losses and heating mechanisms. A static magnetic field of only 40 mT is enough to cancel the heating properties of the nanoparticles, a result reproduced using numerical simulations of hysteresis loops. These results cast doubt on the possibility to perform someday magnetic hyperthermia inside a magnetic resonance imaging setup.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Conservation Tillage, Pesticide Use, and Biotech Crops in the U.S.A.

This paper presents the first part of an ongoing project whose objective is to present a long term relationship between conservation tillage, adoption of GE crops and pesticide use for major crops in the United States. In addition, the project aims to provide some innovative tests on causality using a panel data set. This paper presents preliminary results for soybeans.conservation tillage, biotechnology, genetically engineered crops, soybeans, herbicides, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Production Economics,

Impact of GE Crop Adoption on Quality-Adjusted Herbicide Use in U.S. Corn Production

This paper presents findings on the use of HT corn and quality-adjusted herbicide use for 12 key corn producing states using a panel data set for 1986-2008. Our preliminary findings indicate an insignificant impact of HT corn on herbicide use, conditioning or accounting for HT corn with other important drivers of corn herbicide use: HT soy, corn output price, glyphoste price, nonherbicide glyponsate price, and percentage of continuous corn and low-till corn. However, we find a positive and significant impact of HT corn on herbicide use in selected states, using regional interaction terms. We use econometric techniques to avoid spurious regression results. Other preliminary runs indicated that the results hold when running the US and regional interactions on 1986-2006 and 1986-2007 data.HT-corn, herbicides, weed resistance, glyphosate, corn, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Production Economics,

Comportamiento del herbicida fluometurón en un suelo de olivar enmendado con organoarcilla bajo condiciones de campo

7 páginas, 6 figuras, 3 tablas, 19 referencias.-- Publicado en el capítulo Tema 2 – Propriedades e processos do solo.-- Congreso celebrado en septiembre de 2012, en Islas Azores, Portugal.Las arcillas modificadas con cationes orgánicos u organoarcillas suelen presentar buenas propiedades adsorbentes para muchos plaguicidas y se han propuesto en diferentes aplicaciones dirigidas a reducir la movilidad de estos compuestos tras su aplicación a los suelos agrícolas. En trabajos previos realizados en condiciones de laboratorio, observamos que la modificación de una montmorillonita de Wyoming (SWy- 2) con el catión orgánico de origen natural espermina (SPERM) daba lugar a una organoarcilla (SW- SPERM) con una afinidad muy elevada por el herbicida fluometurón y que la adición de SW-SPERM a suelos aumentaba el poder de retención de éstos y reducía la lixiviación del herbicida. El objetivo del presente trabajo ha sido evaluar el efecto de la adición de SW-SPERM a un suelo de olivar mediterráneo en la persistencia, lixiviación y escorrentía del herbicida fluometurón bajo condiciones reales de campo. Se utilizaron dos parcelas de 4 x 1 m, una sin enmendar y otra enmendada con SW-SPERM a 0.2 kg/m2, a las que se aplicó fluometurón a 3 kg/ha. Se tomaron muestras de suelo a diferentes tiempos y profundidades (0-5, 5-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm) y se determinó la cantidad de herbicida en las mismas así como en las aguas de escorrentía procedentes de cada parcela. En la parcela enmendada con SW-SPERM, el herbicida persistió durante más tiempo en los primeros 0-5 cm de suelo, presentando una menor lixiviación en comparación con la parcela sin enmendar. Las concentraciones de herbicida en las aguas de escorrentía de la parcela enmendada con SW-SPERM fueron superiores que en las aguas procedentes de la parcela sin enmendar, probablemente por la mayor persistencia del herbicida en el horizonte más superficial y el posible arrastre de herbicida asociado a partículas de arcilla. Los resultados apuntan a que SW-SPERM podría ser útil como enmienda de suelos para aumentar el tiempo de residencia de fluometurón en la zona radicular, controlando el posible riesgo por escorrentía del herbicida o aplicando la organoarcilla a una cierta profundidad en el suelo para protegerla de la escorrentía.Este trabajo ha sido financiado por la Junta de Andalucía a través del proyecto P07-AGR-03077, cofinanciado con fondos FEDER-FSE a través del programa Operativo de Andalucía 2007-2013. Beatriz Gámiz agradece a la Junta de Andalucía la concesión de una beca de Formación de Personal Investigador, cofinanciada con fondos FSE.Peer Reviewe

Enantioselective behavior of metalaxyl in soil under repeated applications

10 páginas.-- 5 imágenes.-- 2 tablas.-- 52 referenciasBACKGROUND: Soil incubation and column leaching experiments were conducted to address the question of whether the type of formulation (unsupported versus clay supported) and repeated applications of the chiral fungicide (RS)-metalaxyl affected the enantioselectivity of its dissipation and leaching in a slightly alkaline, loamy sand agricultural soil. RESULTS: Regardless of the type of formulation and the number of fungicide applications, the R-enantiomer of metalaxyl was degraded faster than the S-enantiomer, but the individual degradation rates of R- and S-metalaxyl were highly affected by the different application regimes assayed (t1/2 = 2-104 days). Repeated applications accelerated the degradation of the biologically active R-metalaxyl enantiomer, whereas they led to slower degradation of the non-active S-metalaxyl enantiomer. The type of formulation had less influence on the dissipation rates of the enantiomers. For all formulations tested, soil column leachates became increasingly enriched in S-enantiomer as the number of fungicide applications was increased, and application of metalaxyl to soil columns as clay-based formulations reduced the leaching of both enantiomers. CONCLUSION: Pesticide application conditions can greatly influence the enantioselective dissipation of chiral pesticides in soil, and hence are expected to exert a great impact on both the biological efficacy and the environmental chiral signatures of pesticides applied as mixtures of enantiomers or racemates to agricultural soils. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO Project AGL2011-23779) and Junta de Andalucía (Research Group AGR-264), cofinanced by European FEDER-FSE funds (Operative Programme 2007-2013). Beatriz Gámiz thanks the Junta de Andalucía for a post-doctoral contract linked to the project P07-AGR-03077. María Adelino thanks MINECO for a predoctoral FPI fellowship. The authors also thank MJ Calderón (IRNAS, CSIC),MI Cardo (IRNAS, CSIC) and P Franco (Chiral Technologies Europe) for technical assistance, and Dr. S Redondo and Dr. E Mateos (University of Seville) for their help with the statistical treatment of the data.Peer reviewe

Peruvian Subduction Surface Model for Seismic Hazard Assessments

Throughout the years seismic hazard calculations in Peru have been developed using area sources models, having to date a great variety of models, however, since they are discretized planar models, they cannot adequately represent the continuity and subduction characteristics of the Nazca Plate. The main objective of this work is the developing of a surface subduction model (SSM), useful for seismic hazard assessments as well as the revision and control of previous models used in this sort of assessments. In this study a spatial interpolation was performed employing the Local Polynomial Interpolation method to capture short-range variation in addition to long-range trends. The data base is based on the compilation of seismic catalogs from Peruvian and international institutions such as the IGP, the USGS, the ISC and others, subsequently, in order to have independent events the elimination of duplicate events, aftershocks and foreshocks was carried out. Then, by interpolation of the focal depths of the independent events, a subduction surface model (SSM) was generated as well as a Standard Error Surface which supports a good correlation of the model. Furthermore, 14 transversal sections of the SSM was employed to compare with the hypocenter’s distributions, evidencing a good correlation with the spatial distribution of the events, in addition to adequately capturing the subduction characteristics of the Nazca Plate. Finally, a comparison was made between 2 Peruvian area models for seismic hazard and SSM developed in the present research, evidencing that seismic source models of the area type have deficiencies mainly in the depths they consider, thus is recommended the use of the present model for future seismic hazard assessments

Fatigue behaviour of Glass-Fiber-Reinforced Polymers Numerical versus experimental characterisation

Presentation delivered by Bàrbara Alcayde from CIMNE during the 17th International Conference on Computational Plasticity, Fundamentals and Applications (COMPLAS) taking place from 5 – 7 of September in Barcelona, Spain.The Fatigue4Light project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 10100684

Nanohybrids of Mg/Al layered double hydroxide and long-chain (C18) unsaturated fatty acid anions: Structure and sorptive properties

10 páginas.-- 8 figuras.-- 1 tabla. 59 referencias.-- Appendix A. Supplementary data con 6 páginas (3 tablas y 2 figuras.-- Número espeical: Clay Science & Technology (XV International Clay Conference)Long-chain (C18) unsaturated fatty acid anions, elaidate (ELA), oleate (OLE), linoleate (LINO), and linolenate (LINOLEN), were intercalated into Mg/Al (3:1) layered double hydroxide (LDH) and the resultant organo-LDH nanohybrid materials were characterized and subsequently evaluated as sorbents of six pesticides (clopyralid, imazethapyr, diuron, atrazine, alachlor, and terbuthylazine). The effect of the degree (18:1, 18:2, 18:3) and type (cis/trans) of unsaturation in the fatty acid alkyl chain on both the structure and sorptive properties of the LDH-unsaturated fatty acid nanohybrids was determined. All fatty acid anions were readily intercalated into the LDH, yielding structures with basal spacing values ranging between 32 Å (LDH-LINOLEN) and 40 Å (LDHELA). The bend imposed by the cis geometry of the double bonds present in OLE, LINO and LINOLEN was identified as a major factor determining the arrangement of these anions in the LDH interlayer space. Intercalation of cis-unsaturated fatty acid anions led to less densely packed structures and reduced the interlayer distance of the resultant nanohybrid compared to the structures resulting from intercalation of the linear, trans-unsaturated elaidate anion. All organo-LDHs displayed higher affinity to uncharged pesticides as compared to unmodified LDH, but double bonds in the fatty acid alkyl chain, particularly when present in cis configuration, reduced the affinity of the organo-LDHs to all pesticides, presumably because they led to structures with reduced hydrophobicity as compared to those resulting from the incorporation of linear organic anions.This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO Project AGL2011-23779) and Junta de Andalucía (JA Projects P07-AGR-03077 and P11-AGR-7400 and Research Group AGR-264), cofinanced with European FEDER-FSE funds (Operative Program 2007–2013). B. Gámiz thanks JA for a post-doctoral contract linked to the project P07-AGR-03077. M.A. Adelino thanks MINECO for her pre-doctoral FPI fellowship.Peer reviewe