Análisis energético e impactos de uso de agua de la producción de biomasa seca de microalgas en fotobiorreactores

Los problemas ambientales asociados al uso de combustibles fósiles sitúan a los biocombustibles como una importante fuente de energía alternativa. Las microalgas han sido señaladas como la fuente de biomasa óptima para la obtención de biodiesel. No obstante, en algunos estudios ambientales y energéticos, los resultados hallados no confirman su superioridad frente a otras fuentes de biomasa. Este trabajo tiene como objetivos realizar un análisis energético y evaluar los impactos por el uso del agua de la producción de biomasa seca de microalgas cultivadas en un fotobiorreactor piloto, construido en la Universidad Federal de Paraná (Brasil). Los resultados muestran que esta producción genera una pérdida neta de energía, mientras que su impacto por el uso del agua es menor que el asociado a otras fuentes. Por lo tanto, es necesario mejorar el proceso de producción para que el balance energético sea positivo, permitiendo considerar a las microalgas como una fuente real de energía.The environmental problems associated with the use of fossil fuels has wakened up great scientific and technological interest for the potential use of biofuels as an alternative energy source. Several studies have pointed to microalgae as the major biomass source for biodiesel production. However, in some environmental and energetic studies, the results do not confirm microalgae superiority over other biomass sources. The aims of this study are to perform an energetic analysis and to assess the impacts for water use in the production of microalgae dry biomass grown in a pilot photobioreactor, built in the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). The results confirm that this production causes a net energy loss, while its impact for water use is lower than the impact reported for other sources. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the production process to make the energetic balance positive, turning microalgae into a real source of energy.Tema 6: Energía eólica, geotermia, biomasa y otras energías no convencionales.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Análisis energético e impactos de uso de agua de la producción de biomasa seca de microalgas en fotobiorreactores

Los problemas ambientales asociados al uso de combustibles fósiles sitúan a los biocombustibles como una importante fuente de energía alternativa. Las microalgas han sido señaladas como la fuente de biomasa óptima para la obtención de biodiesel. No obstante, en algunos estudios ambientales y energéticos, los resultados hallados no confirman su superioridad frente a otras fuentes de biomasa. Este trabajo tiene como objetivos realizar un análisis energético y evaluar los impactos por el uso del agua de la producción de biomasa seca de microalgas cultivadas en un fotobiorreactor piloto, construido en la Universidad Federal de Paraná (Brasil). Los resultados muestran que esta producción genera una pérdida neta de energía, mientras que su impacto por el uso del agua es menor que el asociado a otras fuentes. Por lo tanto, es necesario mejorar el proceso de producción para que el balance energético sea positivo, permitiendo considerar a las microalgas como una fuente real de energía.The environmental problems associated with the use of fossil fuels has wakened up great scientific and technological interest for the potential use of biofuels as an alternative energy source. Several studies have pointed to microalgae as the major biomass source for biodiesel production. However, in some environmental and energetic studies, the results do not confirm microalgae superiority over other biomass sources. The aims of this study are to perform an energetic analysis and to assess the impacts for water use in the production of microalgae dry biomass grown in a pilot photobioreactor, built in the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). The results confirm that this production causes a net energy loss, while its impact for water use is lower than the impact reported for other sources. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the production process to make the energetic balance positive, turning microalgae into a real source of energy.Tema 6: Energía eólica, geotermia, biomasa y otras energías no convencionales.Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanism

Multidataset Incremental Training for Optic Disc Segmentation

When convolutional neural networks are applied to image segmentation results depend greatly on the data sets used to train the networks. Cloud providers support multi GPU and TPU virtual machines making the idea of cloud-based segmentation as service attractive. In this paper we study the problem of building a segmentation service, where images would come from different acquisition instruments, by training a generalized U-Net with images from a single or several datasets. We also study the possibility of training with a single instrument and perform quick retrains when more data is available. As our example we perform segmentation of Optic Disc in fundus images which is useful for glau coma diagnosis. We use two publicly available data sets (RIM-One V3, DRISHTI) for individual, mixed or incremental training. We show that multidataset or incremental training can produce results that are simi lar to those published by researchers who use the same dataset for both training and validation

The Surface Detector System of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is designed to study cosmic rays with energies greater than 10{sup 19} eV. Two sites are envisaged for the observatory, one in each hemisphere, for complete sky coverage. The southern site of the Auger Observatory, now approaching completion in Mendoza, Argentina, features an array of 1600 water-Cherenkov surface detector stations covering 3000 km{sup 2}, together with 24 fluorescence telescopes to record the air shower cascades produced by these particles. The two complementary detector techniques together with the large collecting area form a powerful instrument for these studies. Although construction is not yet complete, the Auger Observatory has been taking data stably since January 2004 and the first physics results are being published. In this paper we describe the design features and technical characteristics of the surface detector stations of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Building consensus on water use assessment of livestock production systems and supply chains: outcome and recommendations from the FAO LEAP partnership.

The FAO Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership organised a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to develop reference guidelines on water footprinting for livestock production systems and supply chains. The mandate of the TAG was to i) provide recommendations to monitor the environmental performance of feed and livestock supply chains over time so that progress towards improvement targets can be measured, ii) be applicable for feed and water demand of small ruminants, poultry, large ruminants and pig supply chains, iii) build on, and go beyond, the existing FAO LEAP guidelines and iv) pursue alignment with relevant international standards, specifically ISO 14040 (2006)/ISO 14044 (2006), and ISO 14046 (2014). The recommended guidelines on livestock water use address both impact assessment (water scarcity footprint as defined by ISO 14046, 2014) and water productivity (water use efficiency). While most aspects of livestock water use assessment have been proposed or discussed independently elsewhere, the TAG reviewed and connected these concepts and information in relation with each other and made recommendations towards comprehensive assessment of water use in livestock production systems and supply chains. The approaches to assess the quantity of water used for livestock systems are addressed and the specific assessment methods for water productivity and water scarcity are recommended. Water productivity assessment is further advanced by its quantification and reporting with fractions of green and blue water consumed. This allows the assessment of the environmental performance related to water use of a livestock-related system by assessing potential environmental impacts of anthropogenic water consumption (only ?blue water?); as well as the assessment of overall water productivity of the system (including ?green? and ?blue water? consumption). A consistent combination of water productivity and water scarcity footprint metrics provides a complete picture both in terms of potential productivity improvements of the water consumption as well as minimizing potential environmental impacts related to water scarcity. This process resulted for the first time in an international consensus on water use assessment, including both the life-cycle assessment community with the water scarcity footprint and the water management community with water productivity metrics. Despite the main focus on feed and livestock production systems, the outcomes of this LEAP TAG are also applicable to many other agriculture sectors

Collision sellar lesions: experience with eight cases and review of the literature

The concomitant presence of a pituitary adenoma with a second sellar lesion in patients operated upon for pituitary adenoma is an uncommon entity. Although rare, quite a great variety of lesions have been indentified coexisting with pituitary adenomas. In fact, most combinations have been described before, but an overview with information on the frequency of combined pathologies in a large series has not been published. We present a series of eight collision sellar lesions indentified among 548 transsphenoidally resected pituitary adenomas in two Neurosurgical Departments. The histological studies confirmed a case of sarcoidosis within a non-functioning pituitary adenoma, a case of intrasellar schwannoma coexisting with growth hormone (GH) secreting adenoma, two Rathke’s cleft cysts combined with pituitary adenomas, three gangliocytomas associated with GH-secreting adenomas, and a case of a double pituitary adenoma. The pertinent literature is discussed with emphasis on pathogenetic theories of dual sellar lesions. Although there is no direct evidence to confirm the pathogenetic relationship of collision sellar lesions, the number of cases presented in literature makes the theory of an incidental occurrence rather doubtful. Suggested hypotheses about a common embryonic origin or a potential interaction between pituitary adenomas and the immune system are presented

Inventario preliminar de la producción porcina: resultado del curso de Análisis de Ciclo de Vida

Inventario preliminar de la producción porcina: resultado del curso de Análisis de Ciclo de VidaFil: Jozami, Emiliano. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias; Argentin

Efecto del método de maduración, tiempo de maduración, método de cocinado y espesor de la muestra sobre algunas características texturales de la carne de vacuno

The effect of the ageing method (bone-in or boneless), ageing period (7 or 14 days), cooking method (grilling or water bath preparation) and sample thickness (1, 2 or 4 cm) on the meat texture characteristics of the longissimus thoracis muscle of six young, commercial bulls was measured using a texture analyser incorporating compression and Warner-Bratzler devices. The sarcomere length of the raw meat and cooking losses were also recorded. The ageing method and ageing period had more influence on the textural properties studied than either the cooking method or sample thickness. Cooking losses were, however, mainly influenced by the cooking method. Although the cooking method had no significant effect on meat toughness, the meat tended to be tougher when grilled than when prepared in a water bath. Meat tenderness mainly improved during the first week of storage.Se ha estudiado el efecto del método de maduración (con o sin hueso), el tiempo de maduración (7 ó 14 días), el método de cocinado (grill o baño de agua) y el espesor de la muestra (1, 2 ó 4 cm) sobre la textura del Longissimus thoracis de 6 añojos de tipo comercial. El ensayo se llevó a cabo utilizando dos células distintas (compresión y Warner- Bratzler). Asimismo se midieron la longitud de los sarcómeros de la carne cruda y las pérdidas por cocinado. El método y el tiempo de maduración fueron más importantes que el método de cocinado o el espesor de la muestra en las características de textura. El método de cocinado afectó principalmente a las pérdidas por cocinado. Aunque el método de cocinado no afectó significativamente a la dureza, la carne tendió a ser más dura al grill que un baño de agua. La dureza de la carne disminuyó con la maduración, especialmente en la primera semana

Análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de acuerdo entre anotadores en el desarrollo de corpus interpretados lingüísticamente

The main goal of this work is to present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of disagreements among annotators during the syntactic labeling of the Cast3LB corpus. To do so, a one-thousand-sentence corpus has been established and it has been annotated by five annotators. Consecutive evaluations of the results have been done and have led to successive improvements of the guidelines. In the last phase, we present the qualitative analysis and the classification of the differences among annotators.El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar un análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de las discrepancias entre anotadores en el etiquetado sintáctico del corpus Cast3LB. Para ello se ha definido un corpus de prueba de mil oraciones que ha sido etiquetado paralelamente por cinco anotadores. Se han realizado sucesivas evaluaciones de los resultados que han dado lugar a otras tocatas mejoras de la guía de anotación hasta su versión definitiva. En una última fase, se analizan cualitativamente y se clasifican las discrepancias entre anotadores