Yeasts associated with the production of distilled alcoholic beverages

Distilled alcoholic beverages are produced firstly by fermenting sugars emanating from cereal starches (in the case of whiskies), sucrose-rich plants (in the case of rums), fructooligosaccharide-rich plants (in the case of tequila) or from fruits (in the case of brandies). Traditionally, such fermentations were conducted in a spontaneous fashion, relying on indigenous microbiota, including wild yeasts. In modern practices, selected strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae are employed to produce high levels of ethanol together with numerous secondary metabolites (eg. higher alcohols, esters, carbonyls etc.) which greatly influence the final flavour and aroma characteristics of spirits following distillation of the fermented wash. Therefore, distillers, like winemakers, must carefully choose their yeast strain which will be very important in providing the alcohol content and the sensory profiles of spirit beverages. This Chapter discusses yeast and fermentation aspects associated with the production of selected distilled spirits and highlights similarities and differences with the production of wine

Alignment of the CMS tracker with LHC and cosmic ray data

© CERN 2014 for the benefit of the CMS collaboration, published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License by IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation and DOI.The central component of the CMS detector is the largest silicon tracker ever built. The precise alignment of this complex device is a formidable challenge, and only achievable with a significant extension of the technologies routinely used for tracking detectors in the past. This article describes the full-scale alignment procedure as it is used during LHC operations. Among the specific features of the method are the simultaneous determination of up to 200 000 alignment parameters with tracks, the measurement of individual sensor curvature parameters, the control of systematic misalignment effects, and the implementation of the whole procedure in a multi-processor environment for high execution speed. Overall, the achieved statistical accuracy on the module alignment is found to be significantly better than 10μm

Recomendaciones para la buena práctica de la medicina en anestesiología

At present, the Anesthesiology is recognized as a medical discipline and the activities of the anesthesiologist are wide, since it interferes in all the processes that happen during the anesthetic - surgical act. The most common reason of damages or serious complications they are associated with faults in the suitable ventilation of the patient. The aim of the present work is to generate specific and general recommendations directed to specialists of Anesthesiology, from the analysis of the complaints received in the CONAMED. There were analyzed all the complaints received for the specialty of anesthesiology from June, 1996 to May, 2001. Sociodemographic variables were included, information about institution of health and motive of complaint among others. There was included information of the Medical Integral Valuation, to obtain the type of used anesthesia. For the analysis descriptive statistics was used, for this intention it was used SPSS 10.1. Results: there was analyzed a whole of 97 complaints, 74.2 % of the complaints corresponded to the female sex, average of age 34.3 years, the major proportion of the complaints were to institutions of Social Security (67.0%). The proportion of malpractice for type of institution was of 75 % in the private roads, 57.4 % in Social Security and 52.6% in the Public Services. Problems identified with major frequency in the complaints with malpractice were in order: dural puncture, encephalopathy ischemic and cerebral irreversible damage and injury of nervous roots. Five deaths related with anesthesia were identified. The results obtained in the present work as for the problems in the practice of anesthesiology are very similar to the reported ones in the literature and a proportion of cases they can be prevenibles across a better training and supervision of the procedures that are realized.En la actualidad, la Anestesiología se reconoce como una disciplina médica y las actividades del anestesiólogo son amplias, ya que se involucra en todos los procesos que ocurren durante el acto anestésico-quirúrgico. La causa más común de daños o complicaciones serias están asociadas con fallas en la ventilación adecuada del paciente. El objetivo del presente trabajo es emitir recomendaciones generales y específicas, dirigidas a los especialistas de Anestesiología, a partir del análisis de las quejas recibidas en la CONAMED. Se analizaron todas las quejas recibidas en la CONAMED para la especialidad de anestesiología de junio de 1996 a mayo de 2001. Se incluyeron variables sociodemográficas, de la institución de salud y motivo de queja entre otras. Se incluyó información de la Valoración Médica Integral, para obtener el tipo de anestesia utilizada. Para el análisis se empleó estadística descriptiva, para este propósito se utilizó el paquete estadístico SPSS 10.1. Resultados: se analizaron un total de 97 quejas, 74.2% de las quejas correspondieron al sexo femenino, promedio de edad pacientes 34.3 años, la mayor proporción de las quejas correspondió a instituciones de Seguridad Social (67.0%). La proporción de mala práctica por tipo de institución fue de 75% en las privadas, 57.4% en seguridad social y 52.6% en servicios públicos. Los problemas identificados con mayor frecuencia en las quejas con mala práctica fueron: perforación de duramadre, seguida por la encefalopatía anoxoisquémica, el tercer lugar para daño cerebral irreversible y lesión de raíces nerviosas. Se identificaron 5 defunciones relacionadas con la anestesia. Los resultados obtenidos en el presente trabajo en cuanto a los problemas en la práctica de la anestesiología son muy semejantes a los reportados en la literatura y una proporción de casos pueden ser prevenibles a través de una mejor capacitación y supervisión de los procedimientos anestésicos que se realizan

Weather indices for designing micro-insurance products for small-holder farmers in the tropics

Agriculture is inherently risky. Drought is a particularly troublesome hazard that has a documented adverse impact on agricultural development. A long history of decision-support tools have been developed to try and help farmers or policy makers manage risk. We offer site-specific drought insurance methodology as a significant addition to this process. Drought insurance works by encapsulating the best available scientific estimate of drought probability and severity at a site within a single number- the insurance premium, which is offered by insurers to insurable parties in a transparent risk-sharing agreement. The proposed method is demonstrated in a case study for dry beans in Nicaragua. © 2012 Díaz Nieto et al

Alignment of the CMS tracker with LHC and cosmic ray data

The central component of the CMS detector is the largest silicon tracker ever built. The precise alignment of this complex device is a formidable challenge, and only achievable with a significant extension of the technologies routinely used for tracking detectors in the past. This article describes the full-scale alignment procedure as it is used during LHC operations. Among the specific features of the method are the simultaneous determination of up to 200 000 alignment parameters with tracks, the measurement of individual sensor curvature parameters, the control of systematic misalignment effects, and the implementation of the whole procedure in a multi-processor environment for high execution speed. Overall, the achieved statistical accuracy on the module alignment is found to be significantly better than 10μm.© CERN 2014 for the benefit of the CMS collaboration.

Description and performance of track and primary-vertex reconstruction with the CMS tracker

A description is provided of the software algorithms developed for the CMS tracker both for reconstructing charged-particle trajectories in proton-proton interactions and for using the resulting tracks to estimate the positions of the LHC luminous region and individual primary-interaction vertices. Despite the very hostile environment at the LHC, the performance obtained with these algorithms is found to be excellent. For tbar t events under typical 2011 pileup conditions, the average track-reconstruction efficiency for promptly-produced charged particles with transverse momenta of p(T) > 0.9GeV is 94% for pseudorapidities of |η| < 0.9 and 85% for 0.9 < |η| < 2.5. The inefficiency is caused mainly by hadrons that undergo nuclear interactions in the tracker material. For isolated muons, the corresponding efficiencies are essentially 100%. For isolated muons of p(T) = 100GeV emitted at |η| < 1.4, the resolutions are approximately 2.8% in p(T), and respectively, 10μm and 30μm in the transverse and longitudinal impact parameters. The position resolution achieved for reconstructed primary vertices that correspond to interesting pp collisions is 10–12μm in each of the three spatial dimensions. The tracking and vertexing software is fast and flexible, and easily adaptable to other functions, such as fast tracking for the trigger, or dedicated tracking for electrons that takes into account bremsstrahlung