Study and modeling of bromelian extraction process by reversed micelles in a pulsed cap column

Orientador: Elias Basile TambourgiTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia QuimicaResumo: Bromelina é um conjunto de enzimas proteolíticas encontradas nos vegetais da família Bromeliaceae, da qual o abacaxi é o mais conhecido. A bromelina tem diversos usos, todos baseados em sua atividade proteolítica. Com a necessidade de desenvolver novos processos de purificação e concentração desses compostos a extração líquido-líquido por micela reversa mostra-se como uma técnica atrativa, pois possui a capacidade de solubilizar biomoléculas específicas de uma solução aquosa, como o extrato bruto do abacaxi. Dentre os equipamentos disponíveis para a extração líquido-líquido foi usada uma micro-coluna de campânulas pulsantes, visando a separação e purificação de biomoléculas em operação contínua. A melhor condição de extração da bromelina com micelas reversas em operação batelada foi aplicada na coluna de extração. Com o objetivo de encontrar as condições ótimas de operação da coluna foi utilizada a técnica de planejamento de experimentos do tipo estrela, de forma a abranger toda região de operação. Para isto variouse a razão Vazão Fase Leve/Vazão Total e o intervalo entre os pulsos na entrada para determinar as variações na saída do rendimento de proteína total e o fator de purificação. Os valores dos pontos ótimos para as variáveis respostas encontrados foram: fator de purificação de 5 vezes e produtividade de 1,28 mg/min. E as condições operacionais que levam ao ótimo das respostas foram: Vazão Fase Leve/Vazão Total de 0,67 e intervalo entre os pulsos de 1 s. Para representar a dinâmica de operação da coluna de extração usouse uma simples aproximação baseada nas redes neurais, pois este modelo de conexão tem a habilidade de aprender procedimentos complexos do sistema físico. As entradas foram representadas pelos passados e presentes valores da razão vazão fase leve/vazão total e no intervalo entre os pulsos, e as saídas o valor presente do rendimento de proteína total e o fator de purificação. Com o objetivo de encontrar a melhor topologia, treinou-se a rede com o algoritmo Regularização Bayesiana, variando-se o número de neurônios da camada intermediária para encontrar o melhor modelo. A topologia final da rede neural foi 16-9-2, com funções de ativação sigmoidal. Observou-se o bom desempenho da rede neural com respeito à Proteína Total e o Fator de Purificação em toda a faixa de valores desejadaAbstract: Bromelain is a set of proteolitics enzymes found in vegetables of the Bromeliaceae family, from which pineapple is known more. Bromelain has several uses, ali based on its proteolitics activity. There is the necessity to develop new processes for purification and concentration of these composites, the liquid-liquid extraction for reversed micelles reveals as one attractive technique, therefore it has had the specific capacity of getting soluble biomolecules of an aqueous solution, as the crude extract of the pineapple. Amongst equipment for the liquid-liquid extraction available it was developed a microcolumn of pulsed caps, with the purpose to get an equipment for the accomplishment of extraction processes liquid-liquid, appropriate for the separation and purification of biomolecules in continuous operation. The best condition of bromelain extraction with reversed micelles in batch operation was applied in the extraction column. To find the best operation conditions of the column, the star design of experiments was used, covering ali region of operation. For this it had been varied the ratio between low density phase to total flow and the range of time between pulses on the input to determine the variations of the total protein yield and purification factor on output each three minutes. The best values found were: 5 for purification factor and 1.28 mg/min for productivity. And operational conditions that lead to results were: 0.67 for the ratio between low-density phase to total flow and 1 s for range of time between pulses. To represent the dynamics of operation of the extraction column a simple approach based on the neural networks was used, therefore this model of connection has the ability to leam complex procedures of the physical system. The input had been represented by the pasts and presents values of the ratio between low density phase to total flow and the range of time between pulses, and the outputs the present value of the total protein yield and purification factor. To find the best topology, the network was trained with Bayesian Regularization algorithm, varying the number of neurons on hidden layer to find the best model. The final topology of the neural network was 16-9-2, with sigmoid activation functions. It was observed that the performance of the neural network is good with respect to the total protein yield and purification factor in ali range of values desired.DoutoradoSistemas de Processos Quimicos e InformaticaDoutor em Engenharia Químic

Neural modeling of bromelain extraction by reversed micelles

A pulsed-cap microcolumn was used for bromelain extraction from pineapple juice by reversed micelles. The cationic micellar solution used BDBAC as the surfactant, isooctane as the solvent and hexanol as the co-solvent. In order to capture the dynamic behavior and the nonlinearities of the column, the operating conditions were modified in accordance with the central composite design for the experiment, using the ratio between the light phase flow rate and the total flow rate, and the time interval between pulses. The effects on the purification factor and on total protein yield were modeled via neural networks. The best topology was defined as 16-9-2, and the input layer was a moving window of the independent variables. The neural model successfully predicted both the purification factor and the total protein yield from historical data. At the optimal operating point, a purification factor of 4.96 and a productivity of 1.29 mL/min were obtained.Uma micro-coluna com campânulas pulsantes foi utilizada para a extração de bromelina a partir de suco de abacaxi, usando micelas reversas. A solução catiônica micelar foi composta do surfactante BDBAC, do solvente iso-octano e do co-solvente hexanol. Seguindo um planejamento experimental, perturbações foram impostas à coluna de extração com o objetivo de capturar seu comportamento dinâmico e suas não-linearidades, usando a razão entre a vazão da fase leve e vazão total, e o intervalo de tempo entre os pulsos. Os efeitos das variáveis independentes sobre o fator de purificação e sobre o rendimento em proteínas totais foram modelados via redes neurais artificiais. A melhor topologia de rede obtida foi definida como 16-9-2, usando um esquema de janela móvel no tempo das variáveis independentes. O modelo neural obtido do histórico do processo se mostrou adequado para predizer simultaneamente o fator de purificação e o rendimento do processo em proteínas totais. No ponto ótimo de operação, foi encontrado um fator de purificação de 4.96, com produtividade de 1.29 mL/min.455463Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Penilaian Kinerja Keuangan Koperasi di Kabupaten Pelalawan

This paper describe development and financial performance of cooperative in District Pelalawan among 2007 - 2008. Studies on primary and secondary cooperative in 12 sub-districts. Method in this stady use performance measuring of productivity, efficiency, growth, liquidity, and solvability of cooperative. Productivity of cooperative in Pelalawan was highly but efficiency still low. Profit and income were highly, even liquidity of cooperative very high, and solvability was good

Juxtaposing BTE and ATE – on the role of the European insurance industry in funding civil litigation

One of the ways in which legal services are financed, and indeed shaped, is through private insurance arrangement. Two contrasting types of legal expenses insurance contracts (LEI) seem to dominate in Europe: before the event (BTE) and after the event (ATE) legal expenses insurance. Notwithstanding institutional differences between different legal systems, BTE and ATE insurance arrangements may be instrumental if government policy is geared towards strengthening a market-oriented system of financing access to justice for individuals and business. At the same time, emphasizing the role of a private industry as a keeper of the gates to justice raises issues of accountability and transparency, not readily reconcilable with demands of competition. Moreover, multiple actors (clients, lawyers, courts, insurers) are involved, causing behavioural dynamics which are not easily predicted or influenced. Against this background, this paper looks into BTE and ATE arrangements by analysing the particularities of BTE and ATE arrangements currently available in some European jurisdictions and by painting a picture of their respective markets and legal contexts. This allows for some reflection on the performance of BTE and ATE providers as both financiers and keepers. Two issues emerge from the analysis that are worthy of some further reflection. Firstly, there is the problematic long-term sustainability of some ATE products. Secondly, the challenges faced by policymakers that would like to nudge consumers into voluntarily taking out BTE LEI

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Search for stop and higgsino production using diphoton Higgs boson decays

Results are presented of a search for a "natural" supersymmetry scenario with gauge mediated symmetry breaking. It is assumed that only the supersymmetric partners of the top-quark (stop) and the Higgs boson (higgsino) are accessible. Events are examined in which there are two photons forming a Higgs boson candidate, and at least two b-quark jets. In 19.7 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV, recorded in the CMS experiment, no evidence of a signal is found and lower limits at the 95% confidence level are set, excluding the stop mass below 360 to 410 GeV, depending on the higgsino mass

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia