Mathematical model, validation and analysis of the drying treatment on quality attributes of chicory root cubes considering variable properties and shrinkage

This work presents an exhaustive three dimensional mathematical model to describe chicory root cubes drying process (Cichorium intybus L.) using a Fick's diffusion model considering a variable diffusion path length in three dimensions. Experimental data obtained at laboratory scale is used to validate the proposed model. Experiments are conducted using a forced convection laboratory dryer at temperatures of 60 °C and 80 °C and air velocities of 0.2 and 0.7 m/s to dry chicory root cubes of 1 cm of side. Mathematical modeling is firstly used to represent the performance of the drying process with the temporal variations of the average humidity content, to determine diffusion coefficients, and afterwards, to obtain useful predictions on how the volumetric contraction of the cubes behaves under different operating conditions. The good agreements between experimental and predicted values prove that the proposed model can be applied to the precise description of experimental drying curves for chicory roots in three dimensions (3-D). In the ranges covered, the values of the effective moisture diffusivity were obtained between 5.63 × 10−5 and 8.21 × 10−5 cm2/s. Results from the analysis of rehydration and browning aspects illustrate that drying conditions have effects on the quality attributes of the dried samples.Fil: Balzarini, Maria Florencia. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Reinheimer, Maria Agustina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Ciappini, Maria Cristina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Scenna, Nicolas Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentin

A Framework For TV Logos Learning Using Linear Inverse Diffusion Filters For Noise Removal

Different logotypes represent significant cues for video annotations. A combination of temporal and spatial segmentation methods can be used for logo extraction from various video contents. To achieve this segmentation, pixels with low variation of intensity over time are detected. Static backgrounds can become spurious parts of these logos. This paper offers a new way to use several segmentations of logos to learn new logo models from which noise has been removed. First, we group segmented logos of similar appearances into different clusters. Then, a model is learned for each cluster that has a minimum number of members. This is done by applying a linear inverse diffusion filter to all logos in each cluster. Our experiments demonstrate that this filter removes most of the noise that was added to the logo during segmentation and it successfully copes with misclassified logos that have been wrongly added to a cluster

A risk-based design of ammonia refrigeration systems in food manufacturing plants

This paper presents a risk-based design procedure of ammonia based refrigeration processes taking into account the allocation of the manufacturing plant and the surrounding environment vulnerability at early stages of process design. In addition, the proposed design framework allows the integration of a process simulator with vulnerability assessment packages. As a case study, the design of the refrigeration system for a surimi manufacturing plant is presented.Fil: Biscotti, Paola Silvina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Regional Rosario. Centro de Aplicaciones Informáticas y Modelado en Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Reinheimer, Maria Agustina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Regional Rosario. Centro de Aplicaciones Informáticas y Modelado en Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Scenna, Nicolas Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Regional Rosario. Centro de Aplicaciones Informáticas y Modelado en Ingeniería; Argentin

Tasks Fairness Scheduler for GPU

Nowadays GPU clusters are available in almost every data processing center. Their GPUs are typically shared by different applications that might have different processing needs and/or different levels of priority. As current GPUs do not support hardware-based preemption mechanisms, it is not possible to ensure the required Quality of Service (QoS) when application kernels are offloaded to devices. In this work, we present an efficient software preemption mechanism with low overhead that evicts and relaunches GPU kernels to provide support to different preemptive scheduling policies. We also propose a new fairness-based scheduler named Fair and Responsive Scheduler, (FRS), that takes into account the current value of the kernels slowdown to both select the new kernel to be launched and establish the time interval it is going to run (quantum).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Leucosis Enzoótica Bovina: estudio seroepidemiológico en rebaños de cría de la provincia de La Pampa, Argentina

Bovine leukosis virus (BLV) infection is pandemic in cattle and there are many seroprevalence studies in dairy herds, but not in beef cattle. A National Program of Control and Eradication of bovine leukosis is ready to start in Argentina, therefore it is necessary to know what is the prevalence of infection and what are the risk factors associated with the management and production systems. The presence of the bovine leukosis was analyzed in 1798 serum samples from 30 beef herds, in the Mará-Có department of La Pampa-Argentina. The samples were tested for the presence of BLV antibodies by agar-gel immunodifussion, and the samples coming from the herds, where there was at least on positive cow, were all retested by ELISA. In order to evaluate BLV transmission risk factors associated to local conditions of management and production systems, a questionnaire including aspects on herd's size, breeding, alimentary and sanitary status was carried out in each farm. In 3 of the 30 herds studied, there was one positive cow in each one of them. This means 10% of heard prevalence and 0.17% poblacional prevalence. The positive herds belong to the small ones sampled, with particular characteristics that could become in risk factors of the disease. This work could be a precedent to carry out assays of this kind in other regions of La Pampa and to other provinces of the country, making a special emphasis on the evaluation of small herdsLa infección por el virus de la leucosis bovina (VLB) es pandémica y si bien la seroprevalencia en rebaños lecheros, es tema de innumerables trabajos, ello no ocurre en rebaños productores de carne. Ante la inminente implementación en Argentina del Plan Nacional de Control y Erradicación de la leucosis enzoótica bovina, acompañando a otros planes en vigencia, es necesario conocer sobre que parámetros se trabajará, cual es la prevalencia de infección y cuales los factores de riesgo asociados a nuestras condiciones de manejo y sistemas de producción. Se analizó la presencia y magnitud de la leucosis enzoótica bovina en 1798 muestras de suero de vacas pertenecientes a 30 rebaños de cría, estratificados en categorías de acuerdo al tamaño de los mismos y distribuidos en el departamento Mará-Có, de la provincia de La Pampa *** Argentina. Los sueros fueron evaluados por la presencia de anticuerpos anti-VLB, utilizando la técnica de inmunodifusión en gel de agar (IDGA) y la totalidad de las muestras de sueros de los rebaños, en donde se evidenció al menos un animal positivo, se corroboraron utilizando una prueba ELISA. A efectos de evaluar factores de riesgo asociados con la transmisión del VLB, y teniendo en cuenta las condiciones de manejo y sistemas de producción regionales, se requirió en cada predio contestar un cuestionario referente a tamaño y características del rebaño y variables de manejo, reproductivas, alimenticias y sanitarias. Se detectaron en 3 de los 30 rebaños analizados, un animal positivo en cada uno de ellos, resultando una prevalencia predial del 10% y una poblacional del 0,17%. Los rebaños clasificados como positivos, corresponden a la categoría de pequeños, lo que lleva implícito características de los mismos, que podrían constituirse en factores de riesgo de esta enfermedad. Se sientan las bases para profundizar en estudios de este tipo en otras regiones de la provincia de La Pampa y del resto del país, haciendo especial énfasis en la valoración de rebaños de pequeños productores, por las características particulares en cuanto a la comercialización y constitución de los mismo

Prenatal exposure to organochlorine pesticides and TSH status in newborns from Southern Spain

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Empowerment Evaluation in Spain: The Critical Friend Role in Working with Rural Communities

Rural communities in Cuenca (Spain) are characterized by a great social dislocation, mostly due to the low population density in these areas. In this way, the existence of groups of citizens able to be active agents of their development process is a critical aspect for any community-based development process in this Spanish region. The Institute of Community Development of Cuenca (IDC) has been working with this type of groups for the last 30 years focusing on the organizational empowerment of the rural communities. Main tools in this process have been the empowerment evaluation approach and the critical friend role when helping the groups to achieve their objectives and reinforcing them. This chapter analyses the empowerment process and how the critical friend role is nourished by the facilitator figure

Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Profile Of Some Brazilian Postage Stamps

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)An energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis has been performed on Brazilian postage stamps to understand the elementary profile present in the paper, colored and postmarked areas, of stamps printed between 1850 and 1922. The EDXRF technique offered a fast, simple and nondestructive chemical analysis providing a profile of each postage stamp that provide a valuable data, such as information about raw materials employed in manufacturing process. Furthermore, we extend the methodology to detect counterfeit samples, since that some rare samples can cost fortunes, which naturally leads to cases of forgery in philately.27713051310CAPESFAPESP foundationCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP

CUVLE: Variable-Length Encoding on CUDA

Data compression is the process of representing information in a compact form, in order to reduce the storage requirements and, hence, communication bandwidth. It has been one of the critical enabling technologies for the ongoing digital multimedia revolution for decades. In the variable-length encoding (VLE) compression method, most frequently occurring symbols are replaced by codes with shorter lengths. As it is a common strategy in many compression applications, efficient parallel implementations of VLE are very desirable. In this paper we present CUVLE, a GPU implementation of VLE on CUDA. Our approach is on average more than 20 and 2 times faster than the corresponding CPU serial implementation and the only known state-of-the-art GPU implementation, respectively.Junta de Andalucía, TIC-1692. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec