14,136 research outputs found
Heterotrophy as a tool to overcome the long and costly autotrophic scale-up process for large scale production of microalgae
Industrial scale-up of microalgal cultures is often a protracted step prone to culture collapse and the occurrence of unwanted contaminants. To solve this problem, a two-stage scale-up process was developed - heterotrophically Chlorella vulgaris cells grown in fermenters (1st stage) were used to directly inoculate an outdoor industrial autotrophic microalgal production unit (2nd stage). A preliminary pilot-scale trial revealed that C. vulgaris cells grown heterotrophically adapted readily to outdoor autotrophic growth conditions (1-m3 photobioreactors) without any measurable difference as compared to conventional autotrophic inocula. Biomass concentration of 174.5 g L-1, the highest value ever reported for this microalga, was achieved in a 5-L fermenter during scale-up using the heterotrophic route. Inocula grown in 0.2- and 5-m3 industrial fermenters with mean productivity of 27.54 ± 5.07 and 31.86 ± 2.87 g L-1 d-1, respectively, were later used to seed several outdoor 100-m3 tubular photobioreactors. Overall, all photobioreactor cultures seeded from the heterotrophic route reached standard protein and chlorophyll contents of 52.18 ± 1.30% of DW and 23.98 ± 1.57 mg g-1 DW, respectively. In addition to providing reproducible, high-quality inocula, this two-stage approach led to a 5-fold and 12-fold decrease in scale-up time and occupancy area used for industrial scale-up, respectively.Agência financiadora
project FERMALG
017608
Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT)
UID/Multi/04326/2019
project FERMALG (AVISO)
32/SI/2015info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Gravitomagnetic time delay and the Lense-Thirring effect in Brans-Dicke theory of gravity
We discuss the gravitomagnetic time delay and the Lense-Thirring effect in
the context of Brans-Dicke theory of gravity. We compare the theoretical
results obtained with those predicted by general relativity. We show that
within the accuracy of experiments designed to measure these effects both
theories predict essentially the same result.Comment: 10 pages Typeset using REVTE
Experience with the Open Source based implementation for ATLAS Conditions Data Management System
Conditions Data in high energy physics experiments is frequently seen as
every data needed for reconstruction besides the event data itself. This
includes all sorts of slowly evolving data like detector alignment, calibration
and robustness, and data from detector control system. Also, every Conditions
Data Object is associated with a time interval of validity and a version.
Besides that, quite often is useful to tag collections of Conditions Data
Objects altogether. These issues have already been investigated and a data
model has been proposed and used for different implementations based in
commercial DBMSs, both at CERN and for the BaBar experiment. The special case
of the ATLAS complex trigger that requires online access to calibration and
alignment data poses new challenges that have to be met using a flexible and
customizable solution more in the line of Open Source components. Motivated by
the ATLAS challenges we have developed an alternative implementation, based in
an Open Source RDBMS. Several issues were investigated land will be described
in this paper:
-The best way to map the conditions data model into the relational database
concept considering what are foreseen as the most frequent queries.
-The clustering model best suited to address the scalability problem.
-Extensive tests were performed and will be described.
The very promising results from these tests are attracting the attention from
the HEP community and driving further developments.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, conferenc
New Trends in Medicalization
Objectives: To analyze the impact of promotional strategies aimed at the consumption of medicines within the practices of both health professionals and consumers
Models for the 3-D axisymmetric gravitational potential of the Milky Way Galaxy - A detailed modelling of the Galactic disk
Aims. Galaxy mass models based on simple and analytical functions for the
density and potential pairs have been widely proposed in the literature. Disk
models constrained by kinematic data alone give information on the global disk
structure only very near the Galactic plane. We attempt to circumvent this
issue by constructing disk mass models whose three-dimensional structures are
constrained by a recent Galactic star counts model in the near-infrared and
also by observations of the hydrogen distribution in the disk. Our main aim is
to provide models for the gravitational potential of the Galaxy that are fully
analytical but also with a more realistic description of the density
distribution in the disk component. Methods. From the disk model directly based
on the observations (here divided into the thin and thick stellar disks and the
HI and H disks subcomponents), we produce fitted mass models by combining
three Miyamoto-Nagai disk profiles of any "model order" (1, 2, or 3) for each
disk subcomponent. The Miyamoto-Nagai disks are combined with models for the
bulge and "dark halo" components and the total set of parameters is adjusted by
observational kinematic constraints. A model which includes a ring density
structure in the disk, beyond the solar Galactic radius, is also investigated.
Results. The Galactic mass models return very good matches to the imposed
observational constraints. In particular, the model with the ring density
structure provides a greater contribution of the disk to the rotational support
inside the solar circle. The gravitational potential models and their
associated force-fields are described in analytically closed forms, and in
addition, they are also compatible with our best knowledge of the stellar and
gas distributions in the disk component. The gravitational potential models are
suited for investigations of orbits in the Galactic disk.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures, 11 tables, accepted for publication in A&
Comments on the Quantum Potential Approach to a Class of Quantum Cosmological Models
In this comment we bring attention to the fact that when we apply the
ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics, we must be sure to use it in
the coordinate representation. This is particularly important when canonical
tranformations that mix momenta and coordinates are present. This implies that
some of the results obtained by A. B\l aut and J. Kowalski-Glikman are
incorrect.Comment: 7 pages, LaTe
Seismic strengthening of beam-column joints with multidirectional CFRP laminates
An experimental program was carried out to analyse the potentialities of a technique based on the use of multidirectional CFRP laminates (MDL-CFRP) for the seismic repair and strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beam-column joints. This experimental program comprises cyclic tests on three full-scale RC joints, representative of interior beam-column connections in buildings. The joints were initially submitted to a cyclic test inducing a
damage pattern representative of a seismic event. Subsequently, they were repaired and
strengthened with MDL-CFRP. The strengthened joints were then tested for the same loading
history of the original ones up to their failure. The adopted strengthening technique uses the MDL-CFRP that are simultaneously glued and anchored to the concrete surfaces. This technique is called Mechanically Fastened and Externally Bonded Reinforcement (MF-EBR).
In the present study, the effectiveness of two different strengthening configurations was investigated. The tests are described and the main results are presented and analyzed
Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking and Decoherence in Chaotic Dirac Billiards
In this work, we perform a statistical study on Dirac Billiards in the
extreme quantum limit (a single open channel on the leads). Our numerical
analysis uses a large ensemble of random matrices and demonstrates the
preponderant role of dephasing mechanisms in such chaotic billiards. Physical
implementations of these billiards range from quantum dots of graphene to
topological insulators structures. We show, in particular, that the role of
finite crossover fields between the universal symmetries quickly leaves the
conductance to the asymptotic limit of unitary ensembles. Furthermore, we show
that the dephasing mechanisms strikingly lead Dirac billiards from the extreme
quantum regime to the semiclassical Gaussian regime
A new model for gravitational potential perturbations in disks of spiral galaxies. An application to our Galaxy
We propose a new, more realistic, description of the perturbed gravitational
potential of spiral galaxies, with spiral arms having Gaussian-shaped groove
profiles. We investigate the stable stellar orbits in galactic disks, using the
new perturbed potential. The influence of the bulge mass on the stellar orbits
in the inner regions of a disk is also investigated. The new description offers
the advantage of easy control of the parameters of the Gaussian profile of its
potential. We find a range of values for the perturbation amplitude from 400 to
800 km^2 s^{-2} kpc^{-1} which implies a maximum ratio of the tangential force
to the axisymmetric force between 3% and 6%, approximately. Good
self-consistency of arm shapes is obtained between the Inner Lindblad resonance
(ILR) and the 4:1 resonance. Near the 4:1 resonance the response density starts
to deviate from the imposed logarithmic spiral form. This creates bifurcations
that appear as short arms. Therefore the deviation from a perfect logarithmic
spiral in galaxies can be understood as a natural effect of the 4:1 resonance.
Beyond the 4:1 resonance we find closed orbits which have similarities with the
arms observed in our Galaxy. In regions near the center, in the presence of a
massive bulge, elongated stellar orbits appear naturally, without imposing any
bar-shaped potential, but only extending the spiral perturbation a little
inward of the ILR. This suggests that a bar is formed with a half-size around 3
kpc by a mechanism similar to that of the spiral arms. The potential energy
perturbation that we adopted represents an important step in the direction of
self-consistency, compared to previous sine function descriptions of the
potential. Our model produces a realistic description of the spiral structure,
able to explain several details that were not yet understood.Comment: 12 pag., 11 fig. Accepted for publication in A&A, 2012 December 1
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