Biorrefinería integral para la producción de aceite microbiano a partir de residuos de la industria agroalimentaria

The current environmental predicament requires the search for renewable and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, mainly in the transport sector. Biodiesel may replace diesel fuel using an environmentally friendly and economically efficient process, as long as the raw material employed is low-cost and derived from sustainable sources. Such an alternative feedstock from non-vegetable sources, does not compete with food market or land use sources. Annually, around 1.3 billion tons of food are discarded or wasted. This huge quantity has led researchers to search for new applications for this carbon source. Waste management is one of the most significant challenges of EU policies for the coming decades. Our changing food habits carry an inherent increase in waste nutrients, that are definitely worth recycling. The traditional method of waste management is not adapted to meet future energy and environmental requirements. A food waste-based biorefinery allows new approaches in waste recovery, while improving industrial processes. This PhD thesis is based on a biorefinery concept and takes advantage of each nutrient that composes food waste. Food waste (FW) composition from local catering services was analyzed. The analysis showed a high moisture content, the main components were lipids (25.7-33.2, w/w), starch (16.2-29.4%, w/w) and proteins (18.3- 23.5%, w/w) on a dry basis. Also, a metal profile with Na and Mg as main components was found, followed by trace elements, e.g. Zn or Fe. The variability of samples was studied using various statistical tests, and its relationship with FW typology was elucidated. The combination of both, chemical characterization and statistical study, is revealed as a good decision-making tool for further FW processing and valorization. According to initial characterization analysis, oil included in solid food waste (SFW) was found to be feasible for use to produce biodiesel that meets European biodiesel standard EN 14214. For this purpose, Soxhlet extraction of the lipid fraction of SFW from different restaurants was carried out. Fatty acid composition was analyzed and potential differences concerning the source of SFW were evaluated through principal component analysis. Results showed that fatty acid composition of oils from SFW differs depending on the restaurant, but the range of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) is similar to that found in vegetable oils, showing a high content of oleic acid (C18:1) and linolenic acid (C18:2). Due to high free fatty acid content, acid esterification pre-treatment was conducted, followed by a basic transesterification optimization, by both conventional and ultrasound (US) assisted reactions. Response surface methodology was selected to perform the experimental design; optimal conditions for conventional transesterification resulted in 93.23% w/w fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) conversion. Several chemical and physical properties of SFW oil biodiesel were analyzed. It was found that biodiesel fulfils the European standard EN 14214, with the exception of FAME yield, oxidation stability and glyceride content. It may be concluded, from this field trial, that oil from SFW from different restaurants may be mixed together and used to produce biodiesel. Finally, oleaginous yeasts were evaluated via hospitality food waste fermentation. In light of the starch and protein content of food waste, controlled enzymatic hydrolysis was considered feasible, and required enzymes may be provided through solid state fermentation (SSF) using A. awamori and potato peel as substrate. Crude hydrolysates were subsequently used in shake flask fermentations, with oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides Y-27012, attaining a total dry weight (TDW) of 32.9 g/L and a lipid content within the cells of 36.4 %. Results of R. toruloides fermentations in a fedbath bioreactor showed a TDW of 53.9 g/L and a lipid production of 26.7g/L. Moreover, fatty acid profile of microbial oil from bioreactor samples revealed the presence of palmitoleic acid (C16:0) and oleic acid (C18:1) as main components. The principal component analysis (PCA) performed showed a fatty acid profile similar to soybean or solid food waste oil (SFWO). Finally, recovered microbial oil was transesterified to biodiesel, achieving a yield of 94%, which almost fulfills the European standard normative EN 14212

Dispositiu comunicació vídeo per IP

En un futur no molt llunyà desapareixerà la televisió analògica. Per a molts és un gran avantatge disposar de més canals per veure però per a uns altres és sinònim de pèrdua. Aquells que treballen a una televisió local, com ara la Televisió de Vallirana, es veuran obligats a compartir una llicència de TDT amb altres municipis dins la mateixa comarca. Per això s’ha establert l’estudi per a la formació d’una nova manera d’emetre televisió. La Televisió per IP. En aquest projecte formarem part de l’equip que estudiarà quin és el mètode més efectiu per poder portar a Vallirana la IPTV. Es treballarà per fer l’enllaç radioelèctric principal de la xarxa wireless que arribarà des de la TVV fins a la torre emissora. Es portarà a terme les configuracions dels diferents equips (punts d’accés, VLC, antenes, ...) Es tractarà d’afrontar els problemes durant les proves amb solucions reals. I s’estudiarà la manera de poder fer el desplegament de la xarxa en un futur pròxim. Tot això per poder assegurar que Vallirana continuï gaudint d’una de les seves senyals d’identitat: La Televisió

Proteomic analysis in wild type and cisplatin resistant yeast strain of saccharomyces cerevisiae

Research carried out in oncology has allowed the identification and characterization of molecular markers of resistance to antineoplastic drugs. It supposes a great advance and allows the administration of customized chemotherapies to patients. The aim of this work is to carry out a proteomic analysis in the wild type strain and cisplatin resistant strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in order to look for possible markers of resistance, as well as the mechanisms involved.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

One hundred of cells generations connect the resistance to drugs and the replicative aging mechanisms

There are researchs that reveal a relationship between acquired resistance to antineoplastic drugs and aging. Therefore, the identification of genes involved in senescence could have a potential therapeutic utility for the prediction and/or prevention of resistance to antineoplastic drugs. The aim of this work is to study the relationship between replicative aging and acquired resistance to Cisplatin and Bleomycin in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Neither Chuckwagons, nor Saskatoons, and a Missing Marlboro Man: Postcolonialism, Regionalism and the Ineffable Canadian West

Contemporary transnational and transcontinental trends of theory enable a mandatory analysis of how region and regionalism have been fundamental in the solidification of the Canadian national ethos, making locality and globality go hand in hand. Negotiating the meaning of regional identities is therefore a consequence of the processes of globalisation, which have been affecting how we (de)construct the nation. This paper addresses how a vested representation in fiction from the Canadian west and the prairies helped keep at bay the spectrum of fragmentation that threatened the hermetic body of a national literature and culture. Whereas traditional patterns of history and fiction have constructed the west under a recurrent attention to ossified issues of landscape, the west and the plains were more recently conceptualized in attention to a different tackling of time / space: one that unified the former prairies and the west in just one single experience. Anticipating much of the theoretical approach to the global through locality launched in the early 21st century, while also being inheritors of previous theoretical and fictional attempts at renewing regional myths, Guy Vanderhaege’s The Englishman’s Boy (1996) and Thomas Wharton’s Icefields (1997) make the structuring potential of their times and spaces lose their hegemony, thus favouring the rooting of postmodern myths and ineffability to unmark the borders of region, and destabilize those of the national discourse

Mechanisms of cross resistance between cisplatin and bleomycin in saccharomyces cerevisiae

Tumor cells can simultaneously acquire resistance against a diverse group of drugs. This phenomenon is called pleotropic resistance or multidrug resistance. This mechanism could explain the tumor resistance observed in chemotherapy treatments with multiple agents. The aim of this work is to study possible mechanisms of cross resistance between Cisplatin and Bleomycin in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

New markers of bleomycin resistance

Resistance to chemotherapy is one of the main problems of this type of therapy. Studies carried out determine the usefulness of predictive biomarkers to improve this treatment. The aim of this work is to carry out a proteomic analysis in the wild type strain and bleomycin resistant strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in order to look for possible markers of resistance, as well as the mechanisms involved.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

System Identification for the design of behavioral controllers in crowd evacuations

Behavioral modification using active instructions is a promising interventional method to optimize crowd evacuations. However, existing research efforts have been more focused on eliciting general principles of optimal behavior than providing explicit mechanisms to dynamically induce the desired behaviors, which could be claimed as a significant knowledge gap in crowd evacuation optimization. In particular, we propose using dynamic distancekeeping instructions to regulate pedestrian flows and improve safety and evacuation time. We investigate the viability of using Model Predictive Control (MPC) techniques to develop a behavioral controller that obtains the optimal distance-keeping instructions to modulate the pedestrian density at bottlenecks. System Identification is proposed as a general methodology to model crowd dynamics and build prediction models. Thus, for a testbed evacuation scenario and input?output data generated from designed microscopic simulations, we estimate a linear AutoRegressive eXogenous model (ARX), which is used as the prediction model in the MPC controller. A microscopic simulation framework is used to validate the proposal that embeds the designed MPC controller, tuned and refined in closed-loop using the ARX model as the Plant model. As a significant contribution, the proposed combination of MPC control and System Identification to model crowd dynamics appears ideally suited to develop realistic and practical control systems for controlling crowd motion. The flexibility of MPC control technology to impose constraints on control variables and include different disturbance models in the prediction model has confirmed its suitability in the design of behavioral controllers in crowd evacuations. We found that an adequate selection of output disturbance models in the predictor is critical in the type of responses given by the controller. Interestingly, it is expected that this proposal can be extended to different evacuation scenarios, control variables, control systems, and multiple-input multiple-output control structures.Ministerio de Economía y Competitivida

Modeling and Optimization of Laser Spectroscopy of the Hyperfine Ground State in Muonic Hydrogen

The upcoming HyperMu experiment from the CREMA collaboration aims for a measurement of the ground-state hyperfine splitting (HFS) in muonic hydrogen (μp) by means of pulsed laser spectroscopy as a new route for probing the fine details of proton nuclear structure. In the proposed experimental scheme, the transition from the singlet to the triplet hyperfine state is driven by laser excitation and the excited μp atoms are afterwards quenched back to the singlet state through inelastic collisions with H2 molecules. The kinetic energy increase of the μp atoms after collisional de-excitation greatly increases their probability of detection within the muon’s lifetime, and the population of collisionally quenched μp atoms is therefore used as a model for the probability of a successful detection. In this work a simulation method was developed in order to calculate the combined probability of laser excitation followed by collisional de-excitation of a μp atom under different sets of possible experimental conditions, such as temperature, pressure, laser pulse fluence and time duration and cavity mirror reflectivity and diameter. The implemented simulation allows the calculation of this combined probability from the optical Bloch equations, which were derived for an electric field dependent on the laser and cavity conditions, while also accounting for collisional and Doppler effects. The combined probability was calculated for several sets of different experimental parameters, thus providing a new and alternative method for the optimization of both the temperature and pressure of the H2 gas, where the μp atoms undergo laser excitation, as well as the laser and cavity conditions.O projeto HyperMu, proposto pela colaboração CREMA, tem como objetivo a medição da separação hiperfina (HFS) do estado fundamental em átomos de hidrogénio muónico (μp) através de espectroscopia laser como medida alternativa para a investigação dos detalhes da estrutura nuclear do protão. De acordo com o esquema experimental proposto, a transição entre os estados hiperfinos singleto e tripleto é obtida através de excitação laser, sendo que os átomos de μp excitados regressam depois ao estado singleto por via de colisões inelásticas com moleculas de H2. O acréscimo de energia cinética adquirido pelos átomos de μp após desexcitação aumenta significativamente a probabilidade de deteção durante o tempo de vida do muão. Como tal, a população de átomos de μp que atinge o estado de desexcitação é utilizada como modelo para a probabilidade de deteção no enquadramento desta experiência. Neste trabalho foi desenvolvido um método de simulação para calcular a probabilidade combinada de excitação e subsequente desexcitação de um átomo de μp sob diferentes condições experimentais, tais como, temperatura, pressão, fluência e duração do pulso laser, reflectividade e distância entre espelhos da cavidade laser. A simulação desenvolvida permite o cálculo desta probabilidade através da resolução das equações ópticas de Bloch, que foram derivadas para um campo elétrico dependente das condições do pulso e da cavidade laser, incluíndo também os efeitos dos diferentes tipos de colisão e o efeito de Doppler. A probabilidade combinada de excitação foi calculada para diferentes valores de diversos parâmetros experimentais proporcionando um novo método de optimização das condições de temperatura e pressão do gás de H2, onde os átomos de μp se encontr

Aproximación al concepto de “competencias emprendedoras”: valor social e implicaciones educativas

En el marco del llamado paradigma de enseñanza para el desarrollo de competencias, indagamos acerca del origen y significado actual del término, exponemos sus características y tipología, así como su rápida extensión a distintos ámbitos como el productivo-empresarial, el educativo y el social. Posteriormente, nos centramos en las “competencias emprendedoras” como nueva tipología, que comparte aspectos característicos del tradicional “enfoque por competencias” y de las “competencias clave”. A modo de conclusión, defendemos que la educación, más allá de la formación, es un instrumento privilegiado por cuanto persigue la construcción de un ideal humano mediante estrategias, medios, recursos, etc., con los que generar la adquisición de valores, creencias y conocimientos, necesarios para promover el desarrollo de competencias que den lugar a una necesaria cultura emprendedor