Formal models for component connectors

Rutten, J.J.M.M. [Promotor]Arbab, F. [Promotor]Niqui, M. [Copromotor]Clarke, D.G. [Copromotor

Two-band fast Hartley transform

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Efficient algorithms have been developed over the past 30 years for computing the forward and inverse discrete Hartley transforms (DHTs). These are similar to the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms for computing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). Most of these methods seek to minimise the complexity of computations and or the number of operations. A new approach for the computation of the radix-2 fast Hartley transform (FHT) is presented. The proposed algorithm, based on a two-band decomposition of the input data, possesses a very regular structure, avoids the input or out data shuffling, requires slightly less multiplications than the existing approaches, but increases the number of additions

Assessment of stability of a spray dried extract from the medicinal plant Bidens pilosa L.

AbstractSpray drying has been successfully employed for the encapsulation of herbal bioactive compounds resulting in stable phytopharmaceutical preparations. Bidens pilosa L. is a South American medicinal plant with proved antimalaric, hepatoprotector and antioxidant activities, generally linked to their secondary metabolites, flavonoids and polyacetylenes. In this work the physicochemical stability of an optimized spray dried composition from a B. pilosa extract was evaluated at three different stress storage conditions in open containers and in sealed sachets. High performance liquid chromatography was employed to monitor the concentration of three marker compounds over 12months. Color variation of the stored samples was evaluated by using a color spectrophotometer. It was observed that the concentration of the monitored compounds of the plant decreases more drastically in samples stored in open containers. The two flavonoids monitored, rutin and hyperoside, showed lower degradation than the polyacetylene. The concentration of the markers did not change significantly at the lowest temperature. With regard to color, darker hues were observed at higher temperatures and storage times. This study showed that the storage conditions cause significant impact on stability of standardized spray dried B. pilosa extract

Modelling coordination in biological systems

We present an application of the Reo coordination paradigm to provide a compositional formal model for describing and reasoning about the behaviour of biological systems, such as regulatory gene networks. Reo governs the interaction and flow of data between components by allowing the construction of connector circuits which have a precise formal semantics. When applied to systems biology, the result is a graphical model, which is comprehensible, mathematically precise, and flexibl

Suministro De La Demanda De Energía En El Procesamiento De Carne De Pollo Con Biogás

The main use of electrical energy in the chicken meat processing unit is refrigeration. About 70% of the electricity is consumed in the compressors for the refrigeration system. Through this study, the energetic viability of using biogas from poultry litter in supplying the demand for the refrigeration process was found. The meat processing unit studied has the potential to process about a hundred and sixty thousand chickens a day. The potential biogas production from poultry litter is 60,754,298.91 m3.year-1. There will be a surplus of approximately 8,103 MWh per month of electric energy generated from biogas. An economic analysis was performed considering a planning horizon of 20 years and the discount rate of 12% per year. The economic analysis was performed considering scenario 1: sale of all electricity generated by the thermoelectric facility, and scenario 2: sale of the surplus electricity generated after complying with the demands of the refrigeration process and all other electrical energy and thermal energy use. Economic indicators obtained for scenarios 1 and 2 were favorable for the project implementation. © 2016, Revista Ingenieria e Investigacion - Editorial Board. All Rights reserved.36111812

A distributed computational model for Reo.

The work described in this document aims at producing a formal computational model for the Reo coordination language, that can facilitate the implementation of Reo circuits in a distributed computing environment. The model introduced here partially covers what Reo requires - it implements a less strict form of the merge behavior of mixed nodes. While this already allows computing of a large class of useful circuits, it does not properly deal with some synchronous circuits that contain LossySync channels. This work has lead to a new and more powerful approach to computing the behavior of Reo circuits, called Connector Colorin

Reconfiguration of Reo Connectors Triggered by Dataflow

Reo is a language for coordinating autonomous components in distributed environments. Coordination in Reo is performed by circuit-like connectors, which are constructed from primitive, mobile channels with well-defined behaviour. While the structure of a connector can be modeled as a graph, its behaviour is compositionally defined using that of its primitive constituents. In previous work, we showed that graph transformation techniques are well-suited to model reconfigurations of connectors. In this paper, we investigate how the connector colouring semantics can be used to perform dynamic reconfigurations. Dynamic reconfigurations are triggered by dataflow in the connector at runtime, when certain structural patterns enriched with dataflow annotations occur. For instance we are able to elegantly model dynamic Reo circuits, such as just-in-time augmentation of single-b

Uso de aminoácido exógeno na prevenção de injúrias causadas por glyphosate na soja RR

O aumento da área cultivada de soja resistente ao glyphosate (RR) no Brasil é resultado do benefício dessa tecnologia no manejo de plantas daninhas. No entanto, a expansão da área de soja RR aumentou significativamente o uso de glyphosate e consequentemente, em alguns casos, têm sido observados sintomas de injúrias na soja RR conhecidos como yellow flashing ou amarelecimento das folhas superiores. Nesse sentido, dois experimentos, em diferentes anos, foram conduzidos em delineamento inteiramente casualizado, com quatro repetições. O primeiro teve o objetivo de avaliar a influência do glyphosate na soja RR nas variáveis fotossintéticas, nos parâmetros de nodulação e na biomassa seca da parte aérea e raiz, realizando-se a comparação entre os tratamentos BRS 242 RR sem glyphosate, BRS 242 RR + glyphosate e a isolinha parental não-RR cv. Embrapa 58, submetidas a uma dose de glyphosate de 1.200 g e.a. ha-1; aplicada no estádio V4. O segundo experimento foi conduzido visando reavaliar as variáveis fotossintéticas, de produção de biomassa e nodulação afetadas na soja RR pelo glyphosate no primeiro experimento. Entretanto, no segundo experimento foi avaliada a utilização de diversas modalidades de aplicação de aminoácidos (a.a.), sendo os diferentes tratamentos (sem a.a.; tratamento de semente com a.a; tratamento de semente com a.a. + aplicação foliar de a.a.; sem tratamento de sementes com a.a; e com aplicação foliar de a.a) combinados com diferentes doses de glyphosate (1.200 e 2.400 g e.a. ha-1), objetivando uma provável recuperação das plantas de soja com sua utilização exógena. Em ambos os experimentos, as variáveis fotossintéticas, os parâmetros de nodulação e biomassa seca da parte aérea e raiz foram afetados pela aplicação do glyphosate, porém o segundo experimento evidenciou, de modo geral, que o uso de aminoácidos via tratamento de sementes associado com aplicação foliar pode ser uma estratégia para prevenir os efeitos indesejáveis desse herbicida na cultura da soja RR.Cultivation of glyphosate-resistant (GR) soybeans has increased in Brazil as a result of the application of this technology in weed management systems developed for this crop. However, the expansion of GR soybean production has significantly increased the use of glyphosate and, in some cases, resulted in injury symptoms observed in GR soybean, known as "yellow flashing" or yellowing of the upper leaves. Thus, two experiments were conducted in different years. The first experiment aimed to evaluate the influence of glyphosate on GR soybeans regarding the photosynthetic variables, nodule parameters, and shoot and root dry biomass by comparing cultivar BRS 242 GR without glyphosate and BRS 242 RR + glyphosate at 1.200 g ha-1 at V4 growth stage, to the near isogenic non-GR parental line cv. Embrapa 58. The second experiment aimed to reassess the same parameters in GR soybeans at the V4 stage treated with glyphosate, plus the application of various amino acids, to evaluate the expected recovery of soybean growth under the exogenous use of supplemental amino acids. In general, the photosynthetic variables, nodulation parameters and shoot and root dry biomass were affected by glyphosate; however, the use of amino acids may be a strategy to prevent the undesirable effects of this herbicide on GR soybea