Efficient cavity control with SNAP gates

Microwave cavities coupled to superconducting qubits have been demonstrated to be a promising platform for quantum information processing. A major challenge in this setup is to realize universal control over the cavity. A promising approach are selective number-dependent arbitrary phase (SNAP) gates combined with cavity displacements. It has been proven that this is a universal gate set, but a central question remained open so far: how can a given target operation be realized efficiently with a sequence of these operations. In this work, we present a practical scheme to address this problem. It involves a hierarchical strategy to insert new gates into a sequence, followed by a co-optimization of the control parameters, which generates short high-fidelity sequences. For a broad range of experimentally relevant applications, we find that they can be implemented with 3 to 4 SNAP gates, compared to up to 50 with previously known techniques

Mini Max Wallpaper

Mini Max company formulated a problem for the automatic calculation of the number of wallpaper rolls necessary for decorating a room with wallpaper. The final goal is the development of a web-based calculator open for use to both Mini Max staff and the general public. We propose an approach for reducing the studied problem to the one-dimensional cutting-stock problem. We show this in details for the case of plain wallpapers as well as for the case of patterned wallpapers with straight match. The one-dimensional cutting-stock problem can be formulated as a linear integer programming problem. We develop an approach for calculating the needed number of wallpapers for relatively small problems, create an algorithm in a suitable graphical interface and make different tests. The tests show the efficiency of the proposed approach compared with the existent (available) wallpapers’ calculators

Economic efficiency of breeding dairy sheep in the mountain and hilly regions of Bulgaria

Sheep breeding is an important means of livelihood for the population living in the mountain and hilly regions of the country. The object of the present study is to analyze the economic efficiency of breeding dairy sheep in the mountain and hilly regions of Bulgaria. Object of the study are 2 models of farms with 100 ewes from the dairy type and the relevant categories lambs and rams. We compare and analyze two levels of milk productivity - 70 l per lactation in the first farm and 100 l per lactation in the second farm. The whole grain and roughage necessary for feeding ewes are calculated while hay is self-provided. The average fertility per ewe is 115%, the average wool yield is 2.2 kg and the repair of the flock is 20%. Incomes and costs are estimated at current prices for the 2013 - 2014. It was found that in the terms of the present study we may draw the conclusion that in case the farmer is not getting subsidy from the State Fund 'Agriculture' will be efficiently to raise only ewes that have milk productivity 100 l per lactation; in support of the farm subsidies by the State Fund 'Agriculture' and the two levels of milk production is appropriate breeding of dairy sheep in the mountainous and hilly regions of the country; in order to improve the economic efficiency farmers should pay attention to increasing the fertility of ewes and protection of the new-born lambs as well as increasing of milk productivity of ewes

Volatile Aromatic Flavor Compounds in Yogurt: A Review

Lactic acid bacteria are of great importance in the production of yogurt worldwide, yet very little is still known about the mechanisms of aroma formation in foods subjected to lactic acid fermentation. However, advances in the Adolfsson development of instrument methods have made it possible to avoid some of the difficulties in extracting flavoring substances from the otherwise complex matrix of lactic acid products. In this chapter, we present recent developments related to the impact of yogurt starter cultures on the production of the aromatic components in yogurts. In addition, we examine and characterize the aromatic compounds based on the chemical structures and discuss modern analytical techniques for yogurt analysis. As described in this chapter, a large number of flavoring substances can be studied, isolated, and identified with the help of advanced instrument analysis such as synthetic fibers for solid-phase extraction (SPME) and gas chromatography combined with mass spectrometry (GC-MS). These techniques can help us reach a more advanced level of understanding of the importance of specific strains for obtaining the desired sensory qualities of fermented, lactic acid products. At a more advanced stage, these analyses could allow scientists to develop rapid methods for determining the quality and authenticity of lactic acid products based on the aromatic-metabolic profile of starter cultures in the final product

Optimality conditions for discrete-time optimal control on infinite horizon

The paper presents first order necessary optimality conditions of Pontrygin's type for a general class of discrete-time optimal control problems on infinite horizon. The main novelty is that the adjoint function, for which the (local) maximum condition in the Pontryagin principle holds, is explicitly defined for any given optimal state-control process. This is done based on ideas from previous papers of the first and the last authors concerning continuous-time problems. In addition, the obtained (local) maximum principle is in a normal form, and the optimality has the general meaning of weakly overtaking optimality (hence unbounded processes are allowed), which is important for many economic applications. Two examples are given, which demonstrate the applicability of the obtained results in cases where the known necessary optimality conditions fail to identify the optimal solutions

Bio-economic models for deriving economic values for cattle: a review

Abstract. Bio-economic models for deriving economic weights in livestock have a significant development in recent years providing integrated assessment of biological and economic parameters of production systems and possibilities for achieving economic sustainability through inclusion in the selection index. Economic weights (EW) of traits have been calculated for different species of farm animals in the years. However, this review focuses on large ruminant aiming to summarize studies on calculation of economic values for dairy, beef and dual-purpose cattle. A method of research selection was used according to the productive direction (for milk, meat and dual-purpose), as well as according to the studied traits. In conclusion, it could be summarized that with regard to breeding objectives, economic weights of breeding traits need to be recalculated at certain time-periods and redefined in order to be relevant to the current market situations. Recently, there has been a tendency for functional traits to have an increasing economic influence and some of them should be included in the breeding goal. Moreover, the increased interest among customers in animal welfare and quality of dairy farm products will probably lead to the incorporation of health traits as clinical mastitis incidence and somatic cells score in the breeding objective. It is possible as well the relative importance of feed efficiency traits to increase in the future due to increasing requirements to mitigate the environmental impact of production systems

Stabilization of a Nonlinear Anaerobic Wastewater Treatment Model ⋆

Abstract. A nonlinear anaerobic digester model of wastewater treatment plants is considered. The stabilizability of the dynamic system is studied and a continuous stabilizing feedback, depending only on an online measurable variable, is proposed. Computer simulations are carried out in Maple to illustrate the theoretical results.

In vitro gas production of different feeds and feed ingredients at ruminants

Abstract. Investigation for determining the amount of in vitro gas production after feeding different groups of forages was performed at the Agricultural Institute- ® Stara Zagora. Forages from different regions were collected and analyzed for in vitro gas production at 24 h and 48 h by Ankom Technology . The following parameters of the tested forages were determinated: Neutral detergent fibre (NDF, %), Acid detergent fibre (ADF, %), Digestibility of dry matter (DDM, %), Dry matter intakе (DMI, %) and Relative Feed Value (RFV, %). RFV was calculated on the base of DDM and DMI in comparison with alfalfa biomass in flowering stage. Collected feeds (46 samples) were divided in 11 groups on the base of their composition and structure - fibre component content. Depending on the amount of gas production forages can be divided in 3 groups: 1) Grain feeds generating the highest amount of gas - average 387.93 ml/g DM; 2) Combined feeds, fresh forages, complete feed mixtures - average 213.87- 245.15 ml/g DM 3) Hay, silage, straw, complete feed mixtures + bioadditives - average 115.06 - 208.34 ml/g DM. Intensity of gas production in grain feeds was higher at 24 h, while on the opposite, was higher at 48 h in roughage feeds due to the different speed of degradation of feeds - concentrated had a very intensive and quick degradation, roughages - slow degradation. Supplementation of combined feeds with bioadditives Rumanol, Biolife, Bibor decreased the amount of gas production by 9.87% - 29.05%