6,375 research outputs found
Influence of zinc on distiller’s yeast:cellular accumulation of zinc and impact on spirit congeners
Accumulation of zinc by a whisky distilling yeast strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was studied during fermentation of malt wort and synthetic defined medium. Zinc uptake by yeast cells was very rapid in malt wort, as zinc (0.32 μg/mL) was completely removed from the fermentation medium within one hour. The type of fermentable carbohydrate had an impact on the kinetics of zinc accumulation, with maltose most effective at enhancing metal uptake at zinc concentrations above 3.2 μg/mL. Enriching yeast cells with zinc by “preconditioning” impacted on the production of flavour congeners in the distillates produced from fermented cultures. Such distillates were characterized by an altered flavour and aroma profile. In particular, the production of some higher alcohols increased when yeast cells were preconditioned with zinc. This phenomenon is yeast strain related. Industrial fermentation processes, including brewing and distilling, may benefit from optimization of zinc bioavailability in yeast cultures resulting in more efficient fermentations and improved product quality
A formal approach to autonomic systems programming: the SCEL Language
The autonomic computing paradigm has been proposed to cope with size, complexity and dynamism of contemporary
software-intensive systems. The challenge for language designers is to devise appropriate abstractions
and linguistic primitives to deal with the large dimension of systems, and with their need to
adapt to the changes of the working environment and to the evolving requirements. We propose a set of
programming abstractions that permit to represent behaviors, knowledge and aggregations according to
specific policies, and to support programming context-awareness, self-awareness and adaptation. Based on
these abstractions, we define SCEL (Software Component Ensemble Language), a kernel language whose
solid semantic foundations lay also the basis for formal reasoning on autonomic systems behavior. To show
expressiveness and effectiveness of SCEL’s design, we present a Java implementation of the proposed abstractions
and show how it can be exploited for programming a robotics scenario that is used as a running
example for describing features and potentials of our approac
An Introduction to Pervasive Interface Automata
Pervasive systems are often context-dependent, component based systems in which components expose interfaces and offer one or more services. These systems may evolve in unpredictable ways, often through component replacement. We present pervasive interface automata as a formalism for modelling components and their composition. Pervasive interface automata are based on the interface automata of Henzinger et al, with several significant differences. We expand their notion of input and output actions to combinations of input, output actions, and callable methods and method calls. Whereas interfaces automata have a refinement relation, we argue the crucial relation in pervasive systems is component replacement, which must include consideration of the services offered by a component and assumptions about the environment. We illustrate pervasive interface autmotata and component replacement with a small case study of a pervasive application for sports predictions
Entropic uncertainty relations for electromagnetic beams
The symplectic tomograms of 2D Hermite--Gauss beams are found and expressed
in terms of the Hermite polynomials squared. It is shown that measurements of
optical-field intensities may be used to determine the tomograms of
electromagnetic-radiation modes. Furthermore, entropic uncertainty relations
associated with these tomograms are found and applied to establish the
compatibility conditions of the the field profile properties with
Hermite--Gauss beam description. Numerical evaluations for some Hermite--Gauss
modes illustrating the corresponding entropic uncertainty relations are finally
given.Comment: Invited talk at the XV Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics
(Belgrade, Serbia, 30 May -- 3 June 2008), to appear in Physica Scripta
Network-aware Evaluation Environment for Reputation Systems
Parties of reputation systems rate each other and use ratings to compute reputation scores that drive their interactions. When deciding which reputation model to deploy in a network environment, it is important to find the
most suitable model and to determine its right initial configuration. This calls for an engineering approach for describing, implementing and evaluating reputation
systems while taking into account specific aspects of both the reputation systems and the networked environment where they will run. We present a software tool (NEVER) for network-aware evaluation of reputation systems and their rapid prototyping through experiments performed according to user-specified parameters. To demonstrate effectiveness of NEVER, we analyse reputation models based on the beta distribution and the maximum likelihood estimation
Non-collinear quasi phase matching and annular profiles in difference frequency generation with focused Gaussian beams.
We present and experimentally test a simple model for difference frequency generation (DFG) in periodically-poled crystals with gaussian pumping beams. Focusing of input beams originates several non-collinear quasi-phase-matching configurations of the interacting wavevectors, which contribute to the idler output field. In this picture, we accurately describe a number of effects, such as the occurrence of annular idler intensity profiles and the asymmetric trend of DFG power vs temperature. Finally, we quantitatively test the model by means of an indirect measurement of the crystal poling period
A Flexible and Modular Framework for Implementing Infrastructures for Global Computing
We present a Java software framework for building infrastructures to support the development of applications for systems where mobility and network awareness are key issues. The framework is particularly useful to develop run-time support for languages oriented towards global computing. It enables platform designers to customize communication protocols and network architectures and guarantees transparency of name management and code mobility in distributed environments. The key features are illustrated by means of a couple of simple case studies
Radius of a Photon Beam with Orbital Angular Momentum
We analyze the transverse structure of the Gouy phase shift in light beams
carrying orbital angular momentum and show that the Gouy radius
characterizing the transverse structure grows as with the
nodal number and photon angular momentum number . The Gouy radius is
shown to be closely related to the root-mean-square radius of the beam, and the
divergence of the radius away from the focal plane is determined. Finally, we
analyze the rotation of the Poynting vector in the context of the Gouy radius.Comment: 11 page
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